Chapter 10
JETT
I wasn’t going to go.
Obviously.
Mostly because I wasn’t Julia Roberts, and this wasn’t Hollywood. I was a highly respected intelligence officer. My unclaimed accomplishments had been on the front pages of news sites and on the lips of world leaders.
I’d helped dismantle a human-trafficking ring in Venezuela by locating the foothills compound in which they were being held. My work in Germany three years ago had foiled an eco-terrorist attack on the canal locks in Brunsbüttel. I was good at what I did.
And I wasn’t about to fuck it up by playing happy hooker to a billionaire.
“Did you have a nice night?” Trevi asked as I hugged my coffee cup at the conference table the next morning.
“Mpfh.”
He took the seat next to mine and snickered. “Too many G&Ts?”
Before I could answer, Rocky came striding in. “Where are Rita and CJ? We have a situation brewing in Germany.”
The mood in the room immediately shifted. As soon as everyone was present, Rocky began debriefing us about suspicious activity near the Kiel Canal, the vital waterway that allowed an average of ninety vessels a day to take a shortcut from the Baltic to the North Sea.
The canal was critical to the movement of goods in Northern Europe, something I’d seen firsthand three years ago when I’d been on one end of it in Brunsbüttel. It was being used more and more to smuggle goods into and out of Russia, so it was no surprise that it was involved in something.
“We intercepted a shipment of drones, but there’s chatter about possible munitions and hazardous chemicals coming on other vessels or by rail. Drakovi? weaponry travels by rail in that region. And so do international aid supplies, all things various groups are eager to get their hands on.”
While my gut filled with the usual nervous excitement I experienced at the start of a new mission, it also dropped in extreme disappointment that the decision to go to Italy was now irrevocably made.
Not that I’d been seriously considering going.
The opposite. Obviously.
But if I had, that idea was well and truly nixed now that there was a serious mission in a place I had the most practical knowledge of. I wasn’t even sure anyone else on the team was fluent in German.
Rocky turned to CJ, one of the newer recruits. “You’re heading out in the morning. You’ll be working with one of the inspectors in Brunsbüttel as a gopher of sorts. The inspector is an asset who knows what’s going on and will give you access to as many vessels as possible.”
I kept my eyes on my boss, waiting for an assignment.
She turned to Rita next. “And you’ll be in Kiel.
The best cover we can get for you is working at a lunch cart on the docks.
We need you to make friends with as many dock workers as possible and keep your ears open.
At Kiel, we’re looking for anyone who is falsifying records, cherry-picking which vessels get inspected, et cetera. ”
Next, she turned to Trevi. “I need you in constant communication with them. We can’t have a repeat of three years ago.
” Her eyes flicked over to me before landing back on our comms specialist. “Jett should never have been in the dark so long in Hamburg. That’s on me. But I don’t want a repeat, okay?”
I felt a flush of heat in my face. “I did fine,” I clipped, feeling stung, even though I was clear that wasn’t her intention.
She glared at me. “Of course you did. You also lost twenty pounds and fucked up your bloodwork because you didn’t have adequate nutrition.”
“I got the job done.”
She took in a slow breath and let it out, clearly trying to keep her cool.
“Would you like to revisit the op debrief from three years ago? Because we can do that. But not right now. Right now, we’re going to make sure that our agents don’t go into the field thinking it’s okay to stay dark for that long or starve themselves in the process.
” She directed her gaze to the others around the table.
“Also, I need everyone to be clear that danger to your personal safety on an op doesn’t just come from bad guys with guns, okay? ”
After the op in Hamburg, she’d ripped me a new one, but Rocky had also taken responsibility for it, claiming she’d sent me out too soon before I’d completed some of the advanced training.
This was somewhat true, but the experience I’d gained on that op had been invaluable. And it had led to my quick ascent in the ranks.
“Where do you need me on this?” I prodded, trying to refocus on the current op.
Rocky pinned me with a look. “On vacation.”
I blinked at her. “No, I mean where do you need me in Germany? I’m fluent in German and familiar with Brunsbüttel.”
In fact, I was one of the people on the team with the most fluency in European languages. It was part of what had gotten me recruited out of college in the first place.
She tilted her head and looked at me with an expression of disbelief. “I know you are. Which is why you’re not on this op.”
“That’s why I should be on this op,” I insisted.
“So someone can recognize you as the eco-activist Jonas Vogel, the kid who was literally arrested for loitering on the docks with nefarious intent? Not on your life.”
She had a point.
“I can provide support from here, then. I’m an experienced operative. I have information that might help,” I said, turning to CJ and Rita. But before I could give them suggestions about being undercover in Germany, Rocky cut me off.
“Except that you’re going on mandated leave, and that’s final. Listen, Jett. I’ve tried asking you nicely to take some time off—”
“I just went to my cousin’s wedding!”
Trevi snickered, and the edge of Rocky’s lip curved up. “Yes, you did. You took an entire week off… six months ago.”
“That wasn’t six months ago,” I insisted, doing the math in my head and realizing I was wrong and she was right. “Shit.”
“Yeah, shit. So you’re taking some time off. No arguments, Jett,” she added, when it was clear I was going to. “As an experienced operative, you know that pushing yourself’s the easiest way to get sloppy. Come back refreshed, and I’ll toss you into an op again.”
So, really… it was Rocky’s fault I was on a Dassault Falcon dressed in clothes that cost more than my monthly salary at ESP.
“You’re fidgeting,” Locke said, without looking up from his laptop in the seat across the table from me.
I swallowed and lied. “I’ve just never been on a private plane before. Isn’t it more likely to crash?”
He nodded, still not lifting his head from his work. “Statistically speaking, yes. But not this one.”
“Explain,” I said, and then took the opportunity to study him while he spouted a bunch of stuff I already knew about how student pilots, single-pilot flights, riskier weather decisions, and lower maintenance standards negatively impacted the statistics for private plane safety records.
He was so fucking sexy. His button-down shirtsleeves were folded up his arms, revealing straight-up forearm porn.
I was close enough now to see that his forearm tattoo was a combination of his company’s anchor and compass logo.
His tie had been yanked off and tossed onto the leather seat beside him the minute we’d boarded, and watching his thick fingers pluck at the tiny button of his shirt collar had made me want to take over the chore.
Now, a tuft of chest hair was visible in the open collar, above the white cotton undershirt he wore. Every time he shifted in his seat, those little hairs were either hidden or revealed.
“We have three pilots, and one of the flight attendants is also licensed to fly, although her experience is limited to her father’s crop duster.”
“Arial applicator,” the flight attendant said with a soft chuckle as she set a coffee down in front of him and a bottle of water in front of me. “Your lunch will be ready shortly. Is there anything else I can get you in the meantime?”
I smiled at the attractive woman and shook my head. Locke finally looked up and met her eye, giving her a warm look that made me want to claw her eyes out. “Thank you, Kayla. We’re all set.”
She made her way forward and disappeared behind the galley wall. I shot Locke a look.
“What?” he asked.
I tilted my chin in the flight attendant’s direction, then toward him, before lifting my eyebrows in question. You and her?
His forehead crinkled in confusion before smoothing. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“What? Why is that ridiculous?” I lowered my voice. “She’s beautiful.”
He nodded and responded in the same lowered voice. “Yes. She is. She’s also married to one of my pilots. And even if she wasn’t, I don’t fuck around with my employees.”
I lifted my eyebrow again and grinned. “Aren’t I one of your employees?”
He narrowed his eyes at me and gave me a slow up-down, which made his eyes darken. Then he turned back to the laptop, muttering, “Regrettably.”
I snorted a laugh and glanced out the window at the ocean visible below us.
The sun sparkled off the water in a blurry haze, making it look warmer than it was.
We’d left the city on a beautiful, clear day, but it had still been cold as fuck.
Thankfully, the forecast for Maiori was sun-warm and clear. Exactly what I needed.
“Surely you can find a way to occupy yourself,” Locke said.
“Was I complaining?”
“You’re fidgeting.”
I studied him, unreasonably entertained by the fact that he was so aware of me. “Maybe I’m pent-up.”
His eyes lifted from his screen again to pin me in place. “Maybe you need to go take care of that in private.”
I grinned. “Maybe I could help you while helping myself.”
The stern look on his face didn’t change, but the skin above his collar turned pink. Bingo.
His voice was slow and deliberate. “Maybe you need to stop distracting me and let me work.”
I shrugged and stood up, making a production of stretching so that my shirt rode up right at his eye level. He tried not to look.
He failed.
“Okay, then,” I said cheerfully before heading back to the rear lavatory.