Chapter Three
A full day had slipped by, and Sawyer remained clueless about the previous day’s assault.
It didn’t require a genius to figure out the motive for the attempt on Angela’s life.
Tran Pham didn’t want her on the witness stand.
Looming threats were why Angela had been tucked away in Abu Dhabi.
But after years in hiding, how had Angela’s location been compromised?
With each passing moment of silence and a lack of answers, Sawyer grew restless.
Jared Westin had promised Sawyer an intelligence briefing that morning.
Then nothing happened. His boss had gone dark—not a word from Jared about their missed briefing and not a word to Angela, keeper of the schedule and wrangler of their team.
If she didn’t know where Jared was… Sawyer’s stomach churned. Something was wrong.
His heel bounced. Sawyer repositioned on the couch. An undercurrent of tension knotted through his muscles as he scoured the luxurious lobby that covertly housed Titan’s Middle East headquarters. He wished he were near Angela. But she didn’t require a protective detail on their property.
Titan had eyes all over the building. Cameras covered every square inch of public space and the gated private offices with NSA-level security protocols.
Half of the hotel staff had backgrounds that should have made Sawyer feel comfortable when Angela was in meetings on her own.
Bellhops with black belts, a retired Green Beret for a concierge, and a head chef with a former life as a CIA asset were within fifty meters of his position.
They could be called upon if there were a problem anywhere in the hotel.
The farthest elevator door opened. Liam and Hagan walked out and, seeing him posted like a sentry, walked over.
Sawyer strode forward and met them. “Any word on Boss Man?”
They shook their heads. Liam crossed his arms over his chest. “Strange, huh?”
“Yeah.” Sawyer dragged his hands across his weary face. The night before hadn’t given him enough sleep to confront an absence of answers.
“Where’s Angela?” Hagan asked.
“Upstairs, acting as though no one tried to put a bullet in her face.”
Hagan glanced around the lobby and nodded to a surreptitiously hidden camera. “It’s the safest place Angela could be.” His wife, Amanda, and her associate, Shah, managed the hotel’s security and surveillance nerve center. “You know that as well as I do.”
“He already knows that.” Liam eyed Sawyer. “What do you want Angela to do? Sit in her suite and stay put until we figure everything out?”
Sawyer shrugged. “That doesn’t sound like an awful plan.”
The guys chuckled as if they had an inside joke. Sawyer wasn’t in the mood to suss it out.
“Look, man. The offices are safer than the suites,” Hagan said. “But she could be anywhere in either of the towers and be fine.”
“I don’t think ‘fine’ is the level of security I’m comfortable with.”
Hagan and Liam exchanged looks. Hagan continued, “Amanda would know if a militant mosquito farted on the premises. No one can get to Angela while she’s on site.”
He was probably right. The problem was that Amanda and Shah couldn’t prepare for every possible situation. There would always be a risk. He had planned for a thousand scenarios, and yet an assassin had walked into a secure location and nearly blew Angela’s brains out.
As if Hagan had called in for reinforcements, his wife exited an elevator. Amanda didn’t look worried for Angela or concerned about security problems, but she did look paler than usual.
Hagan greeted Amanda with a hand around her waist and a quick peck on the cheek. “I didn’t expect to see you.” He gave her a quick once-over and maybe saw what Sawyer did. “You feel okay?”
“I have a headache. That’s all.” She rubbed the back of her neck.
Hagan shifted closer to his wife. “Do you want a bottle of water?”
Amanda’s color was definitely off. Sawyer motioned for them to give him a minute. He asked the front desk for water stashed in the mini fridge behind the counter and then returned and handed the bottle to a protesting Amanda.
“Really, I’m fine.” Amanda inhaled deeply through her nose and exhaled through her mouth before taking a sip.
“Better?” Hagan asked, far more concerned about his wife’s headache than threats that might loom over the hotel.
“Yeah.” She recapped the water. “But I’m going to lie down.”
“I’ll go with you—”
Amanda cut Hagan off with a flick of her hand. “I can manage a headache.” She eyeballed Sawyer. “Stay with him. He’s not looking so good.”
“Me?” Sawyer shirked from her scrutiny. “I’m just a guy with unanswered questions and a missing boss. Not to mention a laundry list of security uncertainties.”
She narrowed her eyes. “My head hurts, Sawyer. Don’t make me shake you.”
“Fine,” he relented. “Not uncertainties. But…” Sawyer shrugged. Amanda had this place on lockdown. There was no question about Titan’s security.
Amanda squeezed Hagan’s hand and turned. “If anyone needs me, find Shah. I’m off to nap.”
“And don’t forget,” Hagan said, watching his wife leave, “Angela agreed with Amanda and Boss Man. If she’s off-site, she’ll wear Kevlar.”
“Yeah, as much as she won’t like it.” Sawyer rubbed the back of his neck. Angela liked clothes and fashion. She wasn’t trendy, though. Her skirts and blouses conjured images of timeless models and classic beauties.
“Well, she likes it more than being dead,” Liam said. “She seemed levelheaded enough last night.”
“More than you,” Hagan added under his breath.
Sawyer glared. His phone pinged, and he jumped as though someone had shouted from behind.
Hagan and Liam exchanged yet another glance that Sawyer didn’t like. He ignored them and checked his phone. “Not Jared.”
“Where the hell is that guy?” Liam asked the question Sawyer had wondered about a thousand times.
“He’ll turn up,” Hagan muttered.
Sawyer opened Angela’s message.
Are you downstairs? I’ll be there in one minute.
Hagan shrugged, as relaxed as if they were discussing weekend plans. “Five bucks and a beer says Boss Man’s helping interrogate the shooter.”
Liam snorted. “I’d take that bet.”
Sawyer’s jaw clenched. He wanted in on the interrogation but had more pressing concerns. Angela asked if he was downstairs, and she hadn’t waited for his reply. For all she knew, he was off-site. Angela had decided to head to the lobby without a plan. He responded quickly.
I’m with Liam and Hagan in the lobby. Southwest corner from the elevators.
He checked his watch. Fifty-nine seconds. If Angela said she’d arrive in one minute, that was when she would arrive. “She’s on the move.”
“She’s changing floors, not being handed off between protective details,” Hagan pointed out.
“Bite me,” Sawyer muttered.
Liam slapped Sawyer’s back. “You’ll feel better once you have eyes on her.”
“Again, a reminder—we’re in a fortress.” Hagan’s eyebrows cocked as if he had more to say.
Sawyer shrugged from the backslap. “I know Amanda has this place on lockdown.”
“She does.”
“But she and Shah can’t mitigate every risk.
They can’t account for everyone’s actions.
” No one understood how Angela walked around Titan headquarters like she could control the whole damn world with a well-planned schedule and a succinctly worded agenda.
“All I’m saying is…” Sawyer shook his head.
He didn’t know what he was saying. He ran his hand along the nape of his neck.
“Maybe she should stay put in her suite until we know where Boss Man is and have some answers.”
Liam frowned. “You know yesterday wasn’t your fault?”
“I know we have plans upon plans, and yesterday, we proved we didn’t have enough.”
“We didn’t know of an imminent threat.”
“She has been living in hiding for years.” Tension climbed up Sawyer’s spine. “There’s a known threat.”
“Maybe you want to be assigned to her on the grounds too?” Hagan asked.
Angela had been under his watchful gaze since Jared brought her into the fold. Sure, his role was officially with the ACES team, but he treated both duties equally.
“Give him a break,” Liam said.
Sawyer didn’t know who Liam was directing that toward. Hagan’s wife had a nightmare of a history with protective details, while Liam’s wife, Chelsea, had had a taste of Tran Pham and the hell Angela had gone through.
“I didn’t mean—” Hagan tossed up his hands. “I meant Angela’s safe in this building. I’m not trying to beat a dead horse, but come on, man. You don’t need to worry.”
Sawyer dropped his head back and drank in a long breath. “I know. I’m just…” He didn’t know what. Instead, he kept tabs on his mental countdown. Thirty seconds until she should be in the lobby.
“Distracted,” Hagan offered.
Liam elbowed Hagan. “Maybe Angela has an update.”
“Maybe,” Sawyer hoped.
The group pivoted toward the elevators. His gaze worked across the lobby, registering every person, their baggage and body language. He hunted for threats and searched for out-of-place minutiae, for anything like what he’d almost missed a day ago.
The elevator that serviced only their office floors opened, and Angela strode into the gilded hotel lobby.
“She doesn’t look like she has answers,” Hagan said.
“No, she doesn’t.” She wasn’t wearing Kevlar either. Sawyer studied her tight-lipped frown and the tension in her jaw. Her bright eyes didn’t hold their regular happy glimmer, and her high ponytail of dark raven hair didn’t swing with each step.
But she did look like she was trying to control every aspect of her life completely. The relentless bite of her black high heels clicked across the gold-flecked marble floor in a manner that dared anyone to get in her way.