Chapter 31
31
“Looks like everyone’s busy next door. Guess the weekend is over.”
Logan followed Vivian’s gaze toward the Zamans’ house as they drove into the driveway. He heard her sigh and matched it with one of his own. The weekend had been more than he could have hoped for, including room service breakfast in bed—along with other activities in bed—before having to leave. He knew they’d turned a corner in the relationship over the weekend. Her doubts seemed to melt away, hopefully realizing that, while their marriage might be a cover, his feelings for her were not. Meeting up with Iggie and Sally for the uneventful flight back home had been the perfect end to a perfect weekend.
Now, parking behind Vivian’s little car in the driveway, his mind jumped to the inevitable—stepping up the mission and getting his hands on what was cooking in their neighbors’ makeshift lab.
Moving inside, he could barely walk with Sakari protesting loudly at having been left alone overnight. There was still food and water in her dishes, so he knew she was fine, but scooped her up to pet. As Vivian came up behind him, he transferred the cat to her arms and picked up the bags again before he walked to the bedroom and dumped them onto the floor.
As he came back into the living room, he saw her already firing up the laptops. Her eyes met his, and she nodded, saying, “I know. We’ve got to get back to work.”
He walked over and kissed the top of her head. “I need you to give me as much as you can, Viv, ’cause I have to get inside to find out what they’re working on. We have to have hard evidence that what they’re working on is illegal and dangerous and needs to be taken out.”
“Can’t they just be arrested on suspicion alone, and then we can search the area?”
Shaking his head, he said, “That’s not how it works. We need to know specifically what they’re working on. For all we know, this might not be their first batch of substances, and they might have tried them out somewhere.”
At that, Vivian gasped, her eyes widening in fear. “I never thought of that. They would have to test it out, wouldn’t they?”
“That’s why my people and DHS are searching their correspondence and emails, monitoring their phone calls, studying their talks in the house, and checking on their visitors. You name it, we’re on it. Until we know for sure what they’re working on, going in could set off a firestorm if we’re not right.”
“Okay.” She nodded, a look of determination settling on her face. “I realize my inexperience gives me no idea what all you need to do. So I’ll figure out what you can take from their lab the instant I can do so safely. And then, I’ll pray I can analyze it before the Zamans decide to test it on humans somewhere.”
Logan knew Vivian was at her wit’s end after a couple of long days sitting in the house, staring at the screen on one laptop, researching on another, and all the while agonizing over making a mistake.
Logan walked into the house after keeping up his cover by going to the airfield. When he’d accepted the assignment, he’d hoped it would last a couple of weeks at most. They were now almost into their third week with no end in sight. He’d talked to his Keepers that day, telling them he was going to stop the cover so he could spend more time helping Viv go over the camera views. He knew it might be overkill but hated her worrying over the cameras. He wanted to get the mission done so that he could get back to his life in Montana and figure out how to convince Viv to come with him.
He observed Vivian hunched over the kitchen table, her hair pulled up into a messy bun, two pencils somehow holding it in place, and her fingers tapping on her keyboard. It was the same position she had maintained for days, so he was stunned when she twisted around, her eyes bright as they landed on his.
Her smile illuminated her face as she pronounced, “I have it.”
Hurrying over, he gripped her shoulders as he peered over them, staring at the screen. She took a pen and pointed at Nafisa sitting at a table. “She’s the one. She’s the key. Malik and Rashad are there, but for the most part, they seem to be creating different solutions for her to actually do the experimenting. Everything, over here”—she pointed to one area of the room—“is just what they are working on. Basic solutions, basic compounds. There is nothing of interest there. But here,” she said, pointing at where Nafisa was sitting in the back corner, “is where the real work is going on. These vials contain different solutions, but they also hold whatever she’s working on. She is now taking what they have created and is using it. When she’s done, she sets everything here.”
He watched as she pointed one last time to the area of interest. He nodded slowly, memorizing the room and her explanation. “So when I get in, this is what I need to get.”
She sucked in a deep breath, letting it out slowly before she spoke. “Logan, we need to talk.”
He looked down at her, his eyes narrowing at her tone. “About what?”
She moved her chair slightly, indicating her intention, and he stepped back, his hands staying on her shoulders as she stood. She turned in his arms and said, “Can we sit down? Get comfortable first?”
After allowing her what she needed, he moved to the refrigerator and grabbed two beers before following her into the living room. He sat on one end of the sofa, but she was facing him with her legs tucked up underneath her.
“Okay, Viv, you’re making me nervous. What is this about?”
She played with the beer bottle label for a moment before she lifted her gaze to him. “Were you ever on missions where you had to change your perfect plans because things didn’t play out exactly the way you thought?”
Her question caught him off guard, and he stared at her for a moment, recognizing her nervous fiddling and the pleading for understanding in her eyes. Nodding, he said, “Yeah. Lots of times. Sometimes there were things we hadn’t planned on, other people around that we hadn’t anticipated, and incomplete or even inaccurate intel.”
She seemed to take this in as she thought for a moment before asking, “What about with personnel? Did you ever have to change up duties or responsibilities in the middle of a mission?”
Now, he was quiet as understanding dawned, and it hurt like a bitch. She was trying to tell him that she wasn’t able to handle the stress and needed to get out of the mission. The only thing he wondered about was if she also wanted away from him.
Sucking in a deep breath, he knew he owed her honesty. “Yes. Sometimes we had to change up personnel mid-mission for many different reasons. If someone became incapacitated and unable to complete their part of the task, others would step in to take over.”
He watched as she mulled over his answer, his heart pounding in a way he hadn’t felt in...well, he couldn’t think of a time he felt this way. Other than his family, his team, and now his Keepers, no one had ever meant something to him—not like this. “What are you thinking, Viv? You want out?”
He watched as she blinked twice—slowly—before scrunching her face in surprise. “Out? Out of what?”
Now, it was his turn to be surprised. Lifting his chin, he said, “I thought you were asking about new personnel because you wanted out.”
Shaking her head quickly, she threw her hands up and barked, “No! Why on earth would I want out?”
“I don’t know,” he responded in defense. “I know this isn’t exactly what you signed up for. I know Alaska’s not your favorite place to be. I know things have moved fast with us, and I know for a while that flipped you out. I know this is far more dangerous than you ever expected?—”
“Good grief, Logan. Stop with all the excuses for why you think I want out,” she argued, huffing before taking a long swig of her beer. “Geez, I can’t believe you thought that.”
Uncertain how to proceed given her obvious pique, he scrubbed his hand over his face before joining her, downing half his beer. Setting the bottle on the coffee table, he twisted his body back toward her. “Okay, babe, you’ve got to spell this out for me. Why the questions about changing missions midstream and changing personnel?”
Her face softened as her shoulders slumped. “Oh. Okay, wow. Hearing you put it that way, I can see why you thought I might want out. I’m sorry.” Heaving a huge sigh, she said, “The reason I wondered those things is because I want to present something to you… a change in how we make our next move. And I have compelling reasons, but I’m afraid you’ll shut me down before you even hear me out. So I wanted to know if you had any experiences you could fall back on.”
He almost laughed but kept his face neutral. If she only knew how SEALs were trained to change in an instant. Alter plans. Rethink missions. Step in when someone else is better suited or in proximity to do something. Hence, the reason the LSI branches almost always hired former special forces. Clearing his throat, he said, “Okay, good. I can work with this.”
“Promise you’ll listen to everything?”
“Viv.”
“I suppose that one utterance of my name is to indicate that you will,” she quipped, pursing her lips. “Okay, here it goes in a nutshell. I need to be the one to go inside the Zamans’ house?—”
“Abso-fucking-lutely not!”
“Logan! You promised!”
“Viv, if you think for one minute?—”
“You promised to hear me out! You owe me that,” she pleaded, plunking her bottle on the table next to his.
Not one to renege on a promise, he dropped his chin to his chest, silent for a moment as he tried to tamp down the irritation. Lifting his gaze, he saw her staring at him, her focus not wavering. “You’re right. I promised. It won’t change my mind, but go ahead. I’m listening.”
“Listen and absorb what I’m saying, okay?”
“Okay,” he agreed, but he already knew his answer would not change.
“In order to create the samples I need, I have to have a certain amount of the solutions in certain combinations. I need them to be marked carefully, or I won’t be able to tell anything about what I’m looking at, or it will take a lot longer to determine what they are. By studying the cameras of them working in their lab, I understand what they’re working on and how their space is utilized. They have codes on the labels that won’t mean anything to you but will to me.”
Vivian eyed him warily, but he was listening. His expression might be all hard lines, stormy eyes, and frowns, but he was listening.
Continuing, she said, “If I send you in, I will have to give explicit, step-by-step instructions, and since biochemistry isn’t your thing, it will be much harder for you to know what you’re looking at instinctively. Yes, I could be watching, and I’m assuming you’ll have some kind of camera on you and an ear thingy so I can talk to you, but that’ll take time. Precious time.”
Leaning forward, she placed her hand on his leg. “And honey, you can’t make a mistake. That’s what scares me… there is no room for error. If they come back before we expect them, and you’re still inside, you can’t just rush out, jiggling the samples. Too much is at stake. And I sure as hell don’t know how to create a diversion…unless I set the grill on fire.”
His lips twinged, but he fought to remain stoic.
“You, on the other hand, would make a much better outside person.” Seeing him about to speak, she said, “I’m not finished. You’ve got to give me this.” When he settled back on the sofa, his eyes still on her, she continued, “You could get me in, then stay on watch outside. I go in, quickly and efficiently get what I need and label in a scientific shorthand, while leaving enough solution that they don’t suspect anything… hopefully. Then I come back out to you. You do your super-spy lock up, and they’ll never know. Or, God forbid, they come back early, you’d know what to do to give me time to get out.”
Sitting on the worn sofa in a little, somewhat shitty house in the middle of nowhere Alaska, Logan stared at Vivian, his heart filled with everything she was. Smart. Funny. Daring. Beautiful. Resourceful. And he hated like hell to admit it, but she had a point. A really fuckin’ good point.
Logan sat with his arms crossed, filled with the fear that comes from the unknown. He’d agreed to present Vivian’s plan to his Keepers and now wondered if he’d lost his damn mind. Vivian sat next to him in front of the laptop screen, where they used the secure connection to the Keepers at the compound. The screen just held the LSIMT logo so she couldn’t see anyone, but they would be able to see him and Viv.
She had been nervous at first, but her voice was steady as she laid out her plans to them, just as she had for him. When she was finished, he turned the laptop and nodded. Their faces around the compound table appeared. He cast off a hard stare. “So? Comments? Ideas? Discussions?”
“She sounds badass to have come up with the plan,” Sadie said, lifting a brow as though to dare Logan to disagree.
Dalton’s lips curved. “She’s made it this far and managed to get the necessary information. She knows what’s at stake.”
“She’s right about working faster than you being able to on this plan,” Cory said. “The time it would take to instruct you as you go?—”
“And the possibility that you don’t get one of the right chemicals,” Sisco interjected.
Cory nodded, then continued. “You’re more likely to make an error.”
“She would be safe with you on the outside,” Tim added.
Logan’s jaw tightened as he listened, but then slowly eased. He trusted these people. He’d made them Keepers and worked to instill how they needed to rely on each other. What would it say if I didn’t do that now? Blowing out a breath, he moved his gaze to Landon and lifted a brow.
Landon nodded. “Her reasons are solid, boss. Her plan is sound. They’ll be in the mosque in Fairbanks on Friday, giving you and her the most time to do what needs to be done. And it gives you tomorrow to practice. I think it has the most chance of success.”
With that, he ignored the off-screen fist pump from Viv sitting close to him and simply nodded. “Okay. But I want every scrap of intel you can give me from when they leave, following the tracer on their vehicle, and eyes on the other three.”
Murmurings of agreements sounded out. Disconnecting the video conference, he turned to Viv. Her eyes were on him, guarded but bright. “Looks like we’ve got a lot to get ready for because the day after tomorrow, you’ll be in the middle of the mission.”
He’d said the words but wished they could have made the ache in his gut ease.