CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
A booming knock pounded on the door.
Camden jerked up on the couch and checked the time: five in the morning.
He quickly gathered his wits and threw off the blanket.
He might not trust a CIA safe house, but this was Titan’s.
He would stake his life on their resources as long as he didn’t have contact with Beth or Esme.
Camden checked the peephole and groaned.
Nothing good was about to happen.
Then he let his boss inside.
“Morning, Boss Man.”
Jared strode into the room.
His eyes were tired.
Dark circles promised he hadn’t had a lot of sleep.
Camden checked outside for anyone else then shut the door.
“Sit down,” Boss Man ordered.
Dread curled in the pit of his stomach.
Fuck. Why would Boss Man be here?
They’d found Amelia.
Amelia was dead—no other reason for Jared motherfuckin’ Westin to make a house call.
Everything about his world crashed.
“You’re going to keep it together,” Jared demanded.
“Not making that promise, Boss Man.”
Jared’s nostrils flared, but he lifted his chin in understanding.
“I have to show you something bad, but it comes with good news.” He didn’t waste time and held up his phone.
“Fuck.” His stomach roiled.
“ Fuck .” Camden snatched the phone and paced, staring at his beautiful woman, beaten and swollen and drooling blood.
His nausea turned into a blood-boiling rage.
His teeth gnashed. “Where is she?”
“That’s the good news.” Jared watched him, maybe deciding how much to share.
“ Where is she? ”
“Somewhere in Maryland. Techs are still working their magic for a precise location.”
What were they still doing here?
They could at least start driving.
“Let’s go.”
“Cool your jets. The damage has been done. It’s proof of life. She’s still alive—”
“Doesn’t fuckin’ look like she’s doing all that well.” Camden ran his hands into his hair and pulled.
“The CIA think she’s a sleeper agent. We need to get there before them.”
“They’re the ones who intercepted it, and yeah, they’re hunting her.”
“ Fuck .” He couldn’t think.
They had to get to Amelia first.
“Asshole, listen up.” Jared waited for Camden to look.
“They’re also asking if you want in on this.” He smirked.
“You can probably thank Beth Tourne for that.”
“That woman is not on our team.”
“That woman is giving you a shot to figure this out and maybe talk to Amelia before they take her to some black site and you never see her again.”
He pulled his hair until it hurt then turned back to Jared.
“How’d they intercept the picture?”
His scowl tightened.
“That’s the same question Parker asked, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll deal with that after the job’s done.”
Jared’s phone buzzed.
He answered it with a grunt.
The lines on his forehead deepened, then he hung up.
“Ready to suit up with their extraction team?”
A flare of hope slightly cooled his raging panic.
“They found her?”
“Think so.” Boss Man nodded.
“You wanna keep talking or roll out?”
Camden dressed in record speed.
They hit the road in a souped-up Suburban.
Government plates . Damn it.
The idea of using another CIA-proffered vehicle made his skin crawl until Jared messed with the dashboard.
Lights spun as their tires flew.
Morning traffic pulled out of their way.
Though they were flying down the left lanes at top speeds, time passed painfully.
Finally, they pulled into a run-down shopping center that was still bustling with cars.
Jared parked near the gathering of unmarked government vehicles.
The stores could have used fresh paint and new signs like every other business he’d seen within the last few miles—the kind of place where people kept their heads down and never saw anything.
Camden reached for the door.
“Hang tight.”
He turned toward his boss, itching to get into the fray.
“This is their show,” Jared cautioned.
“Got it. I know the drill.”
“They say hold, you hold.”
“I got it—”
“I know you got it and you know the drill and all that crap, but you’ve never had a stake in the game like this before.”
Tension ticked in his jaw.
“I’m not the young gun who jumps first and asks questions later anymore.”
He had to get in there because Amelia was trapped and in pain.
Jared could question him later.
“You’ve more than proven yourself on this job.” Jared snorted.
“Didn’t expect you to find a woman along the way. But that seems par for the course lately.”
His teammates all had wives.
They’d been single when Titan hired Camden.
The Abu Dhabi headquarters had remained just as much fun but now with families in the mix.
He’d never thought about that until recently.
Hell, he’d never noticed the transition.
One teammate then the next had settled down.
He’d been the holdout, the guy who everyone thought wasn’t serious.
He hadn’t been. Apparently, that had changed.
“All right.” Jared nodded.
“Go.”
Camden jumped out and quickly found himself in the center of a gaggle of team members gearing up.
“You Titan?” a man asked and pointed at the back of a van.
“Suit up, and check your comms.”
He strapped the Kevlar over his chest and placed his mic.
The earpiece crackled as he fit it on.
“Test, test.”
“This is Zulu team reading you crystal clear, Ace.”
Their team leader walked over and shook Camden’s hand.
“Clint MacIntyre. Everyone calls me Tyre. You good to go?”
“One hundred percent.”
“I understand your girl’s in there.”
Possessiveness gripped his chest. He was grateful to be there and anxious to get a move on.
What exactly had Beth said when orchestrating this operation on US soil?
It wasn’t exactly unheard of for CIA case managers to sidestep the complication of laws when their own people were in a tight spot.
But Amelia wasn’t CIA, and for that matter, she and her sister weren’t on their good side either.
No matter—Camden confirmed that Amelia was his.
“Yeah. She is.”
“You saw the picture?” Tyre asked.
His molars clenched.
He would never be able to erase the picture from his memory.
It would haunt him. “Affirmative.”
“We have strict instructions to transport her to a private medical facility. They’ll get her checked out and patched up. So long as you don’t do anything stupid, this will be a simple in and out. Are we on the same page?”
Camden agreed.
Tyre gestured over Camden’s shoulder.
Another person handed him an H&K MP7.
Small and made to defeat body armor, the little submachine gun was exactly what he wanted with a new team working in an urban setting.
Camden inspected his weapon.
With the safety in place, he dropped the bolt release and checked the magazine.
It was good to go. He slammed the magazine up and into the grip.
His hand ran up and thumbed back the bolt release.
“Load up.” Tyre gestured a circle over his head.
“You’re with me.”
They split into two groups.
One piled into the gear van.
Camden’s was an armored SUV.
The heavy door shut with a thud, and they rolled out of the parking lot.
Tyre turned from the front passenger seat.
“Two-story motel and two points of access to a metal walkway. We’ve had eyes in place since oh six hundred. Tangos have a standard rotation with two men stationed at her door. Zulu-One”—he pointed out the windshield at the van driving ahead—“will neutralize and close in on the farthest access point. We will take roof access and drop in.” He gestured to the three of them shoved in the back seat.
“Mikey and Rogers, broadside. You and me right down the center. Engage and neutralize. Mikey and Rogers will take our six. You post left side. I’m right of the door and will breach. You getting all this, Ace?”
“Affirmative.”
Tyre checked their whereabouts as they rumbled into a pocked parking lot.
“All right, boys. GTG?”
Camden had never been so good to go in his life.
They moved out.
A voice crackled in Camden’s earpiece, “Zulu One in position.”
They skirted the back of the motel.
A rickety metal ladder clung to the backside of the building.
They climbed the rusted rungs.
Their weight strained the ladder.
At the top, they kept low and spread out at Tyre’s direction.
With hand signals, he positioned them.
The roof ledge overlooked an overhanging balcony walkway with about three feet of clearance.
They couldn’t see their marks.
“Zulu Two in position.”
Static crackled.
Amelia was underneath them.
His heart raced to pull her out of hell.
“Zulu One. You’re a go,” Zulu base command ordered.
An eternity crawled by before Camden saw the men push from the back of the van.
Their action was obscured by a sign and cars in the parking lot.
From their rooftop vantage point, they saw Zulu One spread out and attack.
He lost a line of sight on each, but the updates poured through the earpiece.
He finally heard, “Tangoes section A and B neutralized.”
“Good work, Zulu One. Zulu Two, in place and ready?”
“Ready for a green light,” Tyre said.
Time ticked by. Camden’s pulse jumped with each second, but his attention had never been so hyper-focused.
“Zulu Two. You’re a go.”
Tyre held up his hand for their countdown.
Camden’s pulse kept count of the seconds until his team leader said, “Go.”
Down they dropped.
The booming sound of four men on the walkway was like thunder.
Zulu Two operated as if they’d practiced together a hundred times.
Mikey and Rogers flanked him and Tyre.
They converged on two tangos and quickly disabled the threats.
Tyre moved into place.
“Ready?”
Fuck yes.
He raised his chin and his weapon, ready to take down anyone in their way.
Tyre didn’t use much force to knock the door in.
“Hands up. Hands up.”
They pushed in.
The room was empty. God damn it.
Then two hands rose from the other side of the bed.
Amelia . Camden hustled across the small space and lowered his gun.
“You’re okay.” He flicked the safety and pulled a terrified Amelia into his arms. Camden breathed her in and never wanted to let go.
“It’s okay. Everything will be okay.”
Her arms wrapped around his neck.
“I knew you’d come.”
“Opening up the gates of hell wouldn’t have stopped me, sweetheart.”
“Target located,” Tyre’s voice crackled in the earpiece. “Send medical.”