Chapter 5
Garnet couldn’t work in these conditions. Her headspace was all wrong. The pain made her dizzy as all get out. She closed her eyes, trying to find some kind of focus. When she finally opened her eyes, double vision made it difficult to see.
Tall prodded her with his fingers. “You need to do what I said.”
She looked up and met his gaze. This might get her hit again, but she didn’t care. “You hit me, and now I can’t see straight.”
Short slapped Tall’s shoulder. “See, you can’t do that shit. Calm the fuck down and let me do this.”
She thought Tall was going to kill the guy, but he just blew out a breath and turned to leave the room. She was alone with Short. He was nicer, but still one of her captors. Antagonizing him on purpose wouldn’t get her anything special, so she said nothing to him.
“Get some rest. You can start in the morning. I’ll have some food and water brought in.”
Short left the room, and she looked around, seeing a blanket and pillow in the corner. Sleeping on the floor wasn’t great, but at least they’d left a pillow for her.
She had access to a bathroom and a pillow. That was more than she expected. While she was splashing cool water in her face, someone delivered food.
It had been hours since she’d had her last meal, and she devoured the food quickly. If Tall had anything to do with her care, she probably wouldn’t have any food at all.
The food was typical Middle Eastern fare, so she couldn’t pinpoint exactly where they’d taken her. She could still be in Lebanon, or they could have driven her anywhere in the area. She didn’t think they’d put her on a plane or helicopter, but they could have.
She finished the food and then got ready for bed. Looking back, she should have stayed at the embassy. She could have slept on a cot in the server room. She hadn’t needed an actual bed. A blanket and a pillow would have been fine.
At some point, she woke to someone banging around the room. She cracked open her eyes, seeing Tall standing next to the desk, his lips down in a frown.
“Get up. You need to work.”
She sat up, letting her eyes adjust to the overhead light. “What time is it?”
“Eight.”
“In the morning?”
“No, night. You slept most of the day away. Now it’s time for you to earn your keep.”
She wanted to say something snarky, but he didn’t seem to be the kind of guy who liked jokes. He was more the type who hit people who made the jokes.
“I still don’t know exactly what you want to do.”
“We need access.”
“Access to what?”
“Just give us access, and we’ll do the rest.”
She shook her head, and he pulled his hand back like he was going to hit her again.
She ducked away and started speaking fast. “Listen, it’s not one big system.
There are hundreds, no, thousands of little systems that force you to be at that exact location or in specific locations to access them.
It’s like if you go to a restaurant and want French fries, or chips, but they don’t have a fry vat to cook them.
You can yell all you want that you want fries, but you aren’t getting them.
I need to know exactly what you want and where it is located to even know if I can hack into their systems.”
She wasn’t going to reveal which systems she could hack and which ones she couldn’t. If what they wanted was dangerous, she wouldn’t do it, even if she could. She would lie and stall, but she wouldn’t do something that could destroy a building or a country. She sure as hell wouldn’t start a war.
Tall’s lips thinned, and he lowered his hand. She guessed he wasn’t going to hit her after all. He just had to tell her what she needed to know, or she couldn’t help them. Not that she would, but he didn’t need to know what she would or wouldn’t do.
Bean hated waiting. The wait, more than anything, drove him crazy.
Garnet was out there waiting for someone to save her, but her rescue would take time.
He knew rushing in would ruin everything.
They trained to the extent that their operations were like reflex, but running in without thinking, without plans, without waiting for the right time would get people killed.
The government was spending a ton of money to get her back. They liked to keep their assets safe, but agents knew going into certain situations meant they might end up captured. Garnet must have some skills or knowledge they didn’t want other people to have.
Why was she here? What had happened to this embassy that she had to fly over and fix the issue? Why couldn’t someone else fix it?
“You look deep in thought,” Keel said.
He nodded, thinking he had to tell his team something about Garnet. He looked up, seeing the camera with the red blinking light. “I’m having thoughts, but I don’t like this situation.”
Chase stood. “Let’s go outside and stretch. I need to move around some.”
They followed Chase outside, all of them taking in their surroundings, looking for cameras and checking angles. Stanley made a motion for a group of trees, and they headed over. It was clear from the camera angles so no one would be watching them.
“What’s up?” Chase asked as he stretched his hands over his head, making it look like he was really doing stretches.
“Long story. Garnet was at the dinner we went to. The one in DC where we all wore penguin suits.”
The atmosphere of the group changed, and their attention focused even more on him. “Tell us everything,” Chase said.
“The social hour before dinner. You know, while we were all milling about before we went in to eat. I saw her walk in. I wanted to meet her, so I excused myself from the conversation I was having and ended up beside her. We spoke and exchanged numbers. Well, I gave her my number.”
“Is she military?” Link asked.
He shook his head. “No. She’s a computer geek. But she’s wicked smart. Like photographic memory, smart. She knew everyone’s name at the event. She works on special projects. Didn’t tell me what, but she left before the dinner was over.”
“Did she tell you anything else?” Link asked.
He shook his head. “Not really. She sent a text, telling me she was headed out on a business trip and would text me when she got home. I replied, but she never sent another text.”
“When did you realize it was her that we were going in to rescue?” Mick asked.
“While we were looking at the files, I saw her photo.”
“So why are we out here whispering about all this?” Chase asked.
“Why would she come over here to fix this? They have computer people over here. They have people who could handle the problem. Unless it was something bigger. Like, why would they send someone from the US to Beirut? That cost a lot of money and time.”
“What are you getting at?” Mick asked.
“Maybe she was sent here because they think someone on the inside did something that forced her to come here. What if they wanted her over here because they are working with the terrorists?”
“You don’t think she’s working with the terrorists?”
Bean slowly shook his head as he thought about his conversation with Garnet. “No. I don’t think she would. I don’t know her well, but based on the few minutes we chatted, I didn’t get any weird feelings about her.”
“So your Spidey senses weren’t tingling?” Stanley asked.
“No.”
“Who the hell would screw with computers to get someone over?” Link asked.
Bean shrugged. “No clue, but whoever it was, they are probably already on a watch list somewhere.”
“No, I mean, which employee would do that?”
“Someone who suddenly got an influx of cash.”
Keel grunted. “There’s always someone who will double-cross their country. We see it all the time. Someone needs to look into the banking information of the people working here.”
“We can do that once we finish this mission,” Chase said.
Bean nodded. “We need to be careful going in. The people holding her might know we are coming.”
They all nodded. They knew they had targets on their backs when they went into any mission, but having a target placed there from someone on the inside sucked.