Chapter 19
NICK
Pasco and Lang, along with Lang’s tactical team partner, Kyle Rogers, and his tactical team ops, Ryan Wheeler and Ben Hayes, climbed onto the military cargo plane and loaded up their gear. Cara and I climbed on next and the hatch closed behind us.
“The ride won’t be very comfortable,” Wheeler, a grinning blond guy wearing aviators, told her, “but it’ll be quick.”
I sat beside her on a bench attached to the plane wall and wrapped us both in a thermal blanket.
She hadn’t stopped shaking since the snipers had converged on us.
Lang was anxious to brief me about the weapon now that we were face-to-face, but I’d refused to do anything until we had Cara safely on the ground in Maryland.
I hoped by then the shock would wear off.
“You’re safe now,” I whispered.
When I stroked her hair to soothe her, she laid her head on my shoulder.
Pasco sat down near us.
I frowned at him. “What happened? How did we get breached?”
“An unfortunate...” he shrugged, “freak accident of a sort.”
“The hell does that mean?” I growled. I tightened my grip on Cara.
She was beginning to relax, which was good, but she still wasn’t supporting her own weight and I worried she would slide out of my arms.
“It was geo-location data,” Pasco said. “From Cara’s account.”
“You mentioned a geo-tag earlier.” I furrowed my brow. “But a few days ago, you said you turned off that option on her posts and you were planting dummy codes so it looked like we were in LA.” My volume increased with each word.
“It wasn’t Pasco’s fault,” Lang said quietly. He gave me a sharp look, reminding me he had Pasco’s back as much as he had mine.
“Sorry Pasco,” I said. “I’m just confused.”
“Last night, Cara posted a teaser about her art project coming to socials on the 26th,” Pasco said. “Cool project, by the way,” he told her. “Anyway, my program worked its magic and faked her location. But then the post went viral.”
“My post went viral?” Cara asked. “My following is barely big enough to monetize it.”
“It’s exploding now,” Pasco said. “But that wouldn’t have mattered, either, except apparently there’s a town full of excited people who tagged your post to tell the world they were there with you yesterday while you worked.”
“Shit,” I said slowly. “And they were traceable, so someone put the puzzle pieces together and led the snipers to right tous.” I rubbed Cara’s back. “I’m sorry I put you in danger. You know it’s the last thing I ever wanted to do.”
“Can I talk to you?” Cara asked. “Privately.”
I glanced at Pasco and Lang, who both moved away from us and closer to the rest of the team.
“Okay, we’re alone, Care. What is it?”
“I can’t do this.”
“What, the plane ride?” I didn’t know what I could do to fix that for her, but at least I could try to understand what was upsetting her.
“I don’t mean the plane.”
My heart sank. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“It was my fault.”
“It wasn’t,” I assured her. “You heard Pasco. It was like a freak accident.”
“That accident put you—put us—in life-threatening danger. Whatever this mission is, whatever work you do with these people, isn’t safe. Being an artist trying to reach people online doesn’t mix well with...” She glanced around the empty, echoing space.
Not just anyone could walk onto a military plane and hitch a ride across multiple states. By this point, she had to be thinking I was involved with the spy world, or at least some kind of limited covert ops mission. She wasn’t wrong.
“I’m a subcontractor,” I said. “I do very little work with this agency. They only call me in when they need my specialized expertise.” Even I could hear how not reassuring that sounded.
She pulled away from me. “Nick, it doesn’t matter. You’re mixed up in something that’s dangerous and I’m only making it worse. I can’t be part of it.”
The cold, hard truth was sinking into me. Now I was shivering, too. “Cara, I don’t want to lose you.”
“I don’t want that, either.” She sat up straight and pulled away from me.
She glanced around the plane at the men in full-on tactical gear, then shook her head.
“But an online influencer and some kind of super-spy? We both know it’ll never work.
And we need to end it now, before we break each other’s hearts. ”