Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Mike walked into Harry’s office taking in the situation at a glance.
Harry, looking like he wanted to chew someone’s head off, Nicole sitting back in an armchair, feet up on the coffee table, fingers linked over huge belly, eyes closed.
Sam, standing behind her like some huge guard dog, hands on her shoulders.
“Sitrep,” Mike said, as soon as the door closed behind him. Nicole’s eyes opened for a second, then closed again.
“Okay, we have the name of the man who ordered the attack on Chloe,” Harry said, and Mike froze. Every cell, every muscle on lockdown.
“Who. And where?” He managed to unlock his throat enough to get the words out.
The man who’d ordered the attack on Chloe. The man who only had a few hours to live.
“Whoa,” Sam said when Mike headed without a word for the gun locker.
“Yeah, hold it,” Harry said, holding up his hands when Mike snarled at him. “Listen, she’s my sister. You think I don’t want to get back at this fucker? At least as much as you do? But we need more intel.”
Back home, Mike had been so relaxed he felt boneless. Now he felt as if the top of his head was about ready to blow. He didn’t want more intel, he didn’t need it. If they had a name, they had an address and he wanted to be there now.
He could barely reason through the buzzing in his head. Barely think of steps to take, how to plan it through, because his head was so full of images of a broken and hurt Chloe. “Where’s the intel coming from?”
“Same place the name came from. A woman Chloe helped. She works at the Meteor Club. Chloe did some talk sessions with her and some of the other women, they all started rebelling and this guy sent his goons to teach Chloe a lesson.”
“Name?” To teach Chloe a lesson. That some man would hurt Chloe, send men to beat her up because she befriended some of the poor women who worked at the Meteor…Christ, that was a dead man walking. When Mike heard who he was, the hair on his body stood on end.
“Vladimir Nikitin. Former FSB, Special Forces. Now works for one of the big Russian mafiya conglomerates as an enforcer.” Harry shot an annoyed look at Nicole, resting in the armchair. “Nicole found that out. She beat me to it.”
A faint smile appeared on Nicole’s mouth. Without opening her eyes, she wriggled her fingers in a hello gesture.
“According to the woman who came to us, this Russian is the vanguard of a major investment Russians are making in the Meteor, and they’ve got something big planned. The Russian came over with three other goons, two of which are out of commission thanks to you.”
My pleasure, Mike thought sourly. Man, was he sorry he hadn’t whacked both of them.
“We got this intel from a woman, as I said. The Russian is blind over here and doesn’t know what happened to his men. That was a good call to keep the info anonymous. The Russian—this Nikitin—waterboarded the woman for more information.”
Mike turned his head slowly, carefully toward Harry, trying to make sure his head didn’t explode. “He what?”
Harry blew out a breath, grim lines in his face. “You heard me. Fucker waterboarded this woman for intel. She didn’t have anything to give him so he did it three more times. Just to show her who’s boss.”
Mike felt nauseous for a moment. SERE training was part of Force Recon training, and Mike had undergone it at the Remote Training Site in Warner Springs. Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. That more or less said it for what they trained them to face if they ever got caught by the enemy.
The Marines were right to subject applicants to the worst things that could be thrown at them because, by God, the enemy had even worse things in store.
He’d undergone R2I—Resistance to Interrogation where he’d been subjected to everything short of life-threatening physical torture.
Of all the tests Mike had survived, waterboarding had been the absolute worst.
There had been something so very dark about it—reducing you to an animal state of panic.
It got results, because it broke men down fast. Mike had survived two bouts by the skin of his teeth, but it had taken him days to recover and he still had nightmares.
Used against enemies sworn to destroy his country, he could sort of justify its use.
But a woman being waterboarded for information on another woman? And when she didn’t have anything to offer, being waterboarded three times more as punishment? That was the kind of man after Chloe? Man, he was going down.
Chloe. Without thinking, his cell was in his hand, the first number on his speed dial list ringing.
“Hello?” Mike let out an exhale at hearing her voice. Harry relaxed just a bit, too.
“Hi, honey, just checking. Everything okay?”
He listened carefully to her tone. “Mike, you left about half an hour ago, what could possibly happen in half an hour? I’m fine.
I’m sitting in your kitchen, sipping tea.
Pretty soon I’m going to go looking for something to read that isn’t gun magazines and every novel Stephen Hunter ever wrote.
I left my Kindle in my place and I need something to read. ”
He smiled. She sounded just fine. Maybe a little bored. Bored was fine. Bored was great, actually.
“There’s a Kindle in the bedroom. Order yourself some books from . On my credit card, password ‘remington’.”
“Figures.” Chloe laughed. “Okay, I think I will. So, I guess I’ll see you later?”
You bet. “Yeah, honey, just as soon as I can make it. Don’t go anywhere and don’t open to anyone except me or one of us. Check the security cam outside before you open the door.” He switched the cellphone off and looked at Harry. “She’s okay.”
“Yeah, I heard. And good luck to anyone trying to break into your place. Just a little while longer and I think we’ll get a handle on this thing.
Just as soon as we crack what’s on that thumb drive, we can retaliate.
With any luck, we can take it to Kelly and he’ll have this Russian, Nikitin, and the other guy deported so fast their head will swim. ”
Mike narrowed his eyes. Having them deported wasn’t permanent enough for him. He wanted to—
Harry narrowed his own eyes. “And that’s it, Mike.
We have to bring him to justice. No funny business that will just come back and bite us in the ass.
Is that clear? I want Chloe safe just as much as you do, but I also don’t want you spending 30 years in the brig.
Chloe would be really pissed off at that, big time. ”
Mike opened his mouth to answer when the side door opened and Barney walked in frowning, a small, frilly woman’s purse hanging incongruously from one big, hairy paw, a scanner in the other. Right behind him came a gorgeous dark-haired woman, clearly frightened, tear tracks drying on her cheeks.
Before Mike or Harry could ask what Barney had done to make the woman cry, Barney threw the purse on Harry’s desk in disgust. The woman was barely holding it together, arms crossed over her midriff, shaking like a leaf.
“What’s this, Barney,” Harry frowned.
“Bad news, boss. I asked Ms. Consuelo here—" he jerked a huge thumb at the woman, “—whether she was being tagged. She said she turned her cell phone off before coming here. But then I turned on the scan and it’s picking up on a transponder somewhere, and we can’t find it. I don’t think it’s in the purse.
” He switched the scanner on. A small LED light lit up and it emitted a faint whine.
Unfortunately the audio level of the scanner wasn’t correlated with distance.
It could only tell that there was a transponder within a radius of five feet, not where it was.
“Let’s find out,” Harry said. He picked up the purse, which looked almost as ridiculous in his hand as it had in Barney’s, and pressed a button.
Marisa appeared almost immediately in the doorway.
She looked at the crying, shivering woman and immediately looked daggers at every man in the room. “What have you men done to that woman?”
Barney held up his huge hands. “Nothing, Marisa, I swear.”
The woman, Consuelo, had stopped crying and was looking astonished. “No, no, ma’am. No one hurt me. Nothing like that at all. I’m afraid I might have hurt them.”
Harry handed the frilly purse to Marisa. “I need for you to take this into the lobby for a few minutes please, Marisa. We need to understand if there is a bug transmitting Consuelo’s location in it.”
Marisa’s face cleared immediately. She was intimately familiar with all the tricks men could use to track down women they wanted to hurt. Harry didn’t need to explain any further.
“I’ll take it into the lobby and then into the outside hallway, just so you can be sure.” She looked at Consuelo. “No one but me will touch it, I guarantee it.”
Consuelo waved her away, swiping at her face with the heels of her hands. “I don’t care. All I care about is that maybe I have something on me that will let him follow me here.”
Marisa disappeared. The door whooshed behind her.
The LED light was still on, unchanged. Whatever was setting off the signal wasn’t in the purse.
Barney was standing in front of Consuelo, a dull red on his cheekbones. “Ma’am?” he rumbled. “It’s on your person. It has to be.” He looked helplessly at Harry and Mike, the blush turning stoplight red.
Barney was a certified sharpshooter, a sixth dan, and the company mechanic. He kept the RBK fleet of vehicles in perfect running order. He was a master at Close Quarter Combat and had an amazing collection of blues vinyl.
He also had difficulty dealing with women, particularly in the saying no department. Nicole, Ellen and Chloe ran roughshod over him.