Chapter 31
31
Danger was closing in.
Remi feared her days were short. “I ran from John, but now I see that he was just trying to protect me ... at least from a distance.” She shared a look with Hawk. “And he almost paid with his life.”
“In general, I trust no one, but if I’m going to trust someone, John’s the man. He saved my life, Remi. Back on a mission. Risked his own to save me. So it’s all going to work out. He knows about the operation. He’ll know who you need to talk to. And he can make that happen.”
It was their best next step, unless they wanted to retrieve the device themselves, but she wouldn’t touch that with the proverbial ten-foot pole. That would be foolish and dangerous. Knowing the location was already too much. She appreciated that Hawk had never pressured her about where the device had been hidden.
Over the next hour, she finished up her laundry but stayed in the sweats. She found Hawk at the table on his laptop, his expression dark as he worked.
“Anything from John?” she asked.
He looked up from the laptop and shook his head.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’m going to take a nap.”
“I think that’s a good idea. Honestly, I don’t think we’ll hear anything from John or find anything out today. It’s too soon. We’ll plan on staying here for the night. Get some rest. Eat leftover lasagna for dinner.” He grinned.
And she smiled in return, then headed for bed, hoping she could put the events of the day, and her memories, out of her mind and get some rest.
Lord, please let this be over soon.
She was beyond done with this metaphorical storm and ready to get to the lodge she called home. At Cedar Trails, her only concern was for her guests, and she found hope and inspiration in the beauty of God’s creation and the power of the waves during the storms. She longed for the calm that came after.
Because right now, her mind was spinning with catastrophic images and morbid memories.
A helicopter crash.
Sergei Petrov dead.
The special forces team dead.
Murdered?
All Remi could think about was ridding herself of this burden. In her job in the Army, she worked to take pictures and present a positive image of the good guys doing their jobs.
Why had Sergei shared so much? Why had she let him? Now in her head she carried around military secrets that dangerous men wanted and that could pose a national threat. Inside, she was screaming. She should have known better than to get involved with a stranger on the run from gunmen, but she had. There was no returning from that decision. And she’d needed to know what kind of trouble she was in by helping a stranger. The gunmen could have been sent to make sure that Sergei didn’t defect with his country’s most important military secrets. From his government’s point of view, Sergei was a bad guy. A traitor. She wasn’t sure if they had been informed of his death.
She hadn’t realized the knowledge would end up putting her in so much danger even two years later. Then again, the information in the right hands could save people. She had a responsibility to deliver it.
After an entire hour of trying to fall asleep—because her body said she needed it, but her mind refused—she crawled out of bed. Remi found Hawk still sitting at the table.
He looked up from his laptop. “Did you get some rest?”
“No.” Remi sank into the comfy sofa. No wonder Hawk wanted her to sleep on the bed. The sofa was better.
And the next thing Remi knew, she woke up ... on the sofa. She laid her arm over her eyes. She got the distinct impression she’d taken a very long nap, when she hadn’t meant to fall asleep at all. She peeked out from under her arm when she sensed that Hawk stood over her.
“What ... is dinner ready?”
“You missed it. We’re eating leftover lasagna for breakfast. That okay?”
“What?” She sat up. “I slept through the night?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I tried.”
“You didn’t try hard enough.”
“Well, full disclosure, I didn’t try at all. I let you sleep. You needed it.”
“Did you take the bed, then?”
“You had the sofa, what else was I going to do?”
She rubbed her eyes. “Any news from John?”
A ding suddenly came through on Hawk’s burner cell. “I was going to say no, but let me read this. It’s from John. I sent this number to him via an app we use to communicate. It’s easier.”
“What does it say?”
“He asked us to come to the hospital. He’ll have a security detail in place so we can talk there.”
Remi wasn’t so sure this was a good idea. “You don’t think Cole will try something there?”
“Security is everywhere. And we need to talk to him. You can tell him what you remember.” Hawk frowned. Was he second-guessing this decision because she was?
“Let’s go, then. Honestly, I can’t eat lasagna for breakfast. Let’s just grab coffee and food on the go.”
A half hour later, she’d showered and changed into her clean clothes, and Hawk drove through a coffee kiosk in Gordo’s vehicle because Hawk intended to return it today, if possible. After coffee and croissants were acquired, Hawk steered them back onto the freeway.
“Oh, Hawk, I put your clothes I wore last night in the wash. Don’t forget to put them in the dryer or they’ll mildew.” Wow. Had she really just said that?
He laughed. “I’m sure you’re ready to get into your own closet in your own place.”
Yeah. Her own place.
“While that sounds nice, you know as well as I do that until the device and information are retrieved, I could still be in danger. Even then I could be looking over my shoulder for a long time.”
He pressed his hand on the console near hers. She sensed he might reach for her hand. Touch her arm. Something. Maybe she would be the one to do it because she needed his touch and reassurance. She hadn’t realized just how much.
“I’m in this with you for as long as it takes,” he said.
“I appreciate that.” But she wasn’t sure that it was necessary. At some point, he’d have to go back to his life, and she’d go back to hers, whatever the future held for her.
Hawk was a good man, and she’d known a lot of good men. That’s why she couldn’t fathom that his brother would be his polar opposite. From Cole’s point of view, he could even believe he was a good guy.
Remi blew out a breath.
“What is it?” Hawk asked.
“Sergei said something and I can’t stop thinking about it. He’d been put between the proverbial rock and hard place and had no choice but to flee as he did. He said that his country would think of him as a traitor. They would believe he was taking their military secrets to America. But they wouldn’t understand that he was preventing the device from getting into the hands of terrorists via their own government official. He’d tried to warn them, but the messenger had been silenced and, if Sergei stayed, he would be dead too. It was all in the perception his departure created, and the spin the Zarovian government would craft for the public.”
“As it turned out, there was no hope of him surviving this.” Hawk shook his head.
“It’s all about perspective,” she said.
And actually, Hawk had said the same thing earlier.
“What are you getting at?” he asked.
“When I was on the boat with Cole and he was speeding away, trying to take me to—I don’t know—his secret lair and torture me? He said these words exactly ... ‘Remember before it’s too late.’”
Oh...
“You’re too quiet. What is it?” he asked.
Then she looked at Hawk. “Just hear me out.”
“I will as soon as you tell me.”
“Cole must be the one who sent the message. He needed me to remember, before it’s too late.”
“Those words are generic, why would you think he was the one?” Hawk asked.
“I’m not sure, but I think we’re missing something important. I just don’t know what it is.”
“Even if he was, that doesn’t mean anything more than he needs the information you have. It doesn’t change anything.”
“Fine. Maybe you’re right. Let’s go see John.” But she wasn’t all that sure she was going to share the location of the Tempest device with anyone until she talked to the top brass in charge.
Lord, open the doors. Close the doors. Lead us and guide us. Reveal the truth. Show me who I need to give this information to. In the hands of the wrong party, it could tilt the balance of power and change the future.
Finally, Hawk steered them into the hospital parking garage.
She wiped her palms on her jeans. Her nerves were getting the best of her. She’d already met this man and looked forward to seeing him in better health, but she was getting closer to sharing a lot of delicate intelligence she was never supposed to have. And ... maybe John wasn’t the right guy after all.
Hawk opened the doors to the main lobby for her, then together they headed to the north tower elevators. She suspected that Hawk was more than anxious to see his friend. In the hospital, familiar sensations bombarded her, reminding her of Germany.
I’m being watched.
We’re being watched.
She shouldn’t have expected anything less. While it could be a good thing that John had a protection detail—and, by extension, Remi and Hawk while there—that fact made her uneasy. Next to her, the tension rolling off Hawk increased.
They shared an elevator with an elderly woman in a wheelchair and someone—her daughter, maybe?—in her sixties pushing the chair.
“We’ll be there soon, Mom.”
Hawk and Remi stood behind them, giving them the right-of-way to exit the elevator first. She risked a glance at him. His jaw was working. What was he thinking? Was he second-guessing this plan to talk to John? Hawk had maintained this was their best option—tell the man everything and let him take it from here.
The elevator stopped. The doors slid open, and the daughter pushed her mother out. The doors whooshed closed again. These could be the last moments they would be alone before seeing John.
“What does the company he works for do, even as a front?” she asked.
“Conclave Assets. That was the name. He told me it’s an import-export business but a front for an intelligence firm.”
“And he didn’t mean a private investigation company. Did you verify that information? Do we know anything at all about it other than what he said?”
“I already knew he worked at the company, but I didn’t know it was a front. It has a website, I checked. This is what we know. We know that John is our best contact right now, and for no other reason than he already knows about the operation, and we can learn more from him. We’ve been over this.” Hawk shot her a sideways glance.
“You didn’t even know he was involved before. You can’t—”
The door whooshed open, and Remi said nothing more as they stepped out into the hall. She was letting her doubts take over. Cole was the bad guy here. Cole had abducted her. He’d abducted Jo. She needed to remember that. But there could be numerous parties after the information she had.
After studying the room-number signs, they headed toward a hallway that should take them to John’s room. Two men stood outside his door, deep in conversation using hushed tones. A man stepped out in front of them from a side hall and smiled. He wore an official-looking suit and had the air and haircut of a federal agent. “Mr. Beckett. Ms. Grant. Mr. Marshall would like to speak with you. He thought you might have gotten lost.” He gestured behind them. “I can show you the way.”
They allowed the man to accompany them to the room.
Looked like they were doing this. How much, or how little, should she tell John that she’d remembered? Very little. Nothing vital. She only needed one thing from him—to contact the person in authority over Operation Blackout.