A Kiss to Kill (18 page)

On a hunch, he’d asked if there was a file on Kick Jackson. One came up, all right. With sizeable bandwidth. But it was flagged for level one, passworded clearance— which neither Gregg nor the other man was authorized to access. Same thing for Alex Zane’s file.

The existence of the files was not terribly surprising, given the men’s profession. But level one clearance required to view them?
That
was interesting. What was so top secret about what they did for ZU? It could be legit and completely unrelated to the al Sayika connection. Of necessity, military intelligence files on Zero Unit operators tended to be thin and vague—which made these large files unusual. Unusual enough that even Pentagon Guy commented. Though his explanation was that Zane and Jackson must be involved in a critical, long-term ZU op. Gregg knew that wasn’t true. They’d both resigned from the unit months ago. He figured those files being pass-coded was far less benign than some op.

And he noticed one other detail as their headers flashed past.
The flag codes for files were the same as the source code listed on the orders to bring in Gina to Zero Unit headquarters
.

Hell yeah, he’d memorized it. Not that it would do him any good. Without the password, Gregg had zero chance of finding out where the written orders and file lock-downs originated—which might have led him straight to the traitor. Unfortunately, computer hacking—especially the goddamn
Pentagon
system—was so far out of Gregg’s wheelhouse he had a better chance of being elected President.

He’d just have to find a different way to get the source of those codes.

Which brought him back to his present tail.

The guy was a typical jarhead dressed in khaki who would have blended in perfectly except he kept letting his eyes flick over to Gregg every time he moved his newspaper.
Rookie
.

Gregg briefly considered luring the dimwit into a trap and forcing him to spill who he was working for. But that would be a useless exercise, without doubt. The jarhead wouldn’t know any more than Pentagon Guy had about who was behind his orders. The al Sayika mole was smart. A classic man-behind-the-curtain, pulling strings from afar, with none of his puppets being any the wiser.

Except Gregg.

His cell phone rang. He was surprised to see it was Tommy. “Yeah.”

“You’ve got company.”

“No shit,” Gregg drawled. Then frowned. “Wait. Where are you?” As far as he knew, Tommy was still up at ZU-NE, not in D.C. He glanced around.

“I meant company at the hotel.”

Ah. Gregg came to attention. His first thought was of Gina. “What’s going on?”

“Raj called.” Raj was the Watergate bellman he’d paid handsomely to keep an eye on the room and Gina, and to call Tommy with hourly updates on who checked into the hotel and who was hanging around that shouldn’t be. Tommy continued, “Raj said last night someone booked three doubles and a suite on the top floor. An hour ago, four people and a bunch of equipment arrived.”

Gregg let out a curse. “STORM?”

“Judging by the descriptions.”

Stunned by the obvious implication, Gregg cursed again and hung up.
Fucking hell
.

The little bitch had sold him out.

He felt gutshot. She’d said she
believed
him. Had sworn she trusted him. He’d put his fucking life in her hands by leaving her alone with a phone and no restraints. But god
damn
it, as soon as his back was turned, she’d gone running straight back to her so-called protectors. The ones who’d almost gotten her killed. Why did women never, ever, listen to him?

Barely containing his anger, Gregg got up at the Crystal City stop and stalked off the bus. Too late, he remembered his tail.
Fuck
. He needed to get his head back in the game. Leading the man a few blocks, he ducked behind a building and as soon as Mr. Jarhead rounded the corner, he jammed his SIG into the side of the man’s neck.

“Get lost,” he growled. “Or I’ll paint the wall with your brains.”

His tail wisely turned and ran.

One problem solved.

Now, what to do about the other, more pressing matter?

He rode the Metro across the river to D.C. and got off at Foggy Bottom. No sense disguising his movements any longer. He was already blown seven ways from Sunday.

He could, of course, bail on the whole damned situation. Disappear into the shadows somewhere in the world and never be heard from again. There were a million places where he could go to ground. He knew how to do it, and he’d stashed enough money in various numbered accounts around the globe that he could live comfortably without working another day for the rest of his life. More than comfortably.

The thing that stopped him was, what would he
do
for the rest of his life?

Without his job he had nothing. He
was
nothing. Gregg van Halen was a shadow, a chameleon, a ghostlike entity moving unseen through the darkest elements of humanity, tasked with luring out evil from where it lay festering and spreading, and eliminating it. Without that single-minded purpose driving him, he would simply be absorbed into his solitary existence and disappear to nothingness. In his world, when a tree fell in the forest, it had never really been there.

Last year, for a few brief weeks, he thought he’d found something more to live for. A reason to try and loosen up on the strict control that had ruled his dark environs for as long as he could remember. A reason to expose himself to the light and linger in the sunshine, for a while at least. A reason to listen to his heart, for once, and let himself feel those emotions so long denied.

Gina
.

She was everything he’d ever dreamed of finding. Sweetness. Light. Love. And everything he knew he couldn’t keep.
Shouldn’t
keep. Because of who he was and what he did. But he’d wanted her so badly. He’d been captivated by her inner strength and her amazing loyalty, by her dizzying sensuality and her sweet submission to his raw ways.

But he should have listened to himself. Not let himself be swayed by fickle, fleeting emotions, or by false feelings of tenderness. Not let himself dream of the impossible.

She had just proven he’d been absolutely right not to trust any of those things. Not to trust
her
. He needed to step back into the shadows where he belonged. He needed to return to his true purpose.

But to do that, he needed to clear his name and get his job back.

Which meant he had to go to the Watergate and somehow try to convince the STORM operators who were hunting him that he was not the traitor they sought. That they should trust him to find out who it really was.

And he needed to look Gina Cappozi in the eye and tell her that if she could do this to him, he was finished being her protector. Through being her lover.

And done being her fool.

SEVENTEEN

BY
the time Gregg had ridden up in the Watergate elevator without seeing a single guard or lookout, he figured he knew what was coming.

What the hell. It wasn’t the first time he’d walked into the middle of a nest of vipers.

Before exiting at the top floor, he pulled out the SIG and chambered a round in case things got really nasty, then tucked it in the front of his waistband. If you got shoved to the ground on your face, you had a lot better chance of getting to your weapon there than at the small of your back.

Too bad he’d given up the Beretta to the woman. That would teach him.

He walked nonchalantly down the hallway, resisting the temptation to wave to the surveillance camera—just to keep them guessing. At the suite he inserted his key card. The lock snicked green. He took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and stepped into the brightly lit marble foyer.

To his mild surprise he wasn’t jumped, or slammed against a wall. Or the floor. In his peripheral vision, he saw Alex Zane standing with his arms crossed like a bouncer on one side of the foyer, and mirroring him on the other was the female FBI agent who’d sat with Gina for hours up at Haven Oaks after her rescue. Though, they’d rarely talked about business. Mostly it was personal stuff. He’d learned more about the two women’s love lives than any man had a right to know. And way too much information about how Gina felt about him and his betrayal . . . Maybe now he could return the favor.

When he took another step in, the two melted behind him and shut the door, boxing him in. They were both packing weapons, but neither made a move for them. Well, well. This might actually be civilized.

Straight ahead, the man he recognized as Bobby Lee Quinn, the STORM team leader for Gina’s rescue last December, lounged casually in one of the sitting room’s leather wing chairs, facing him. His fingers toyed with a bucket of ice sitting on a side table. Gregg put his hands on his hips and just stood there.

Bobby Lee Quinn cocked an eyebrow. “No fight?”

Gregg shrugged. “What’s the point? I’m outnumbered.”

Quinn puffed out a laugh. “Like that would stop you.”

“I could ask the same thing,” he pointed out. “I expected major bruises and handcuffs. At the very least, a little saber rattling.”

It was Quinn’s turn to shrug. “We could do that if you prefer.”

Gregg strolled in, tossed the briefcase containing his other clothes onto the sofa, and quickly scanned the sitting room. No one else visible. But the door to the bedroom was closed. Reinforcements? Or Gina? “Or,” he said, “you could go fuck yourself.”

Quinn’s eyes narrowed. Zane took two steps out of the foyer toward him, and the woman clamped a restraining hand onto his shoulder, then dropped it as soon as Zane glanced at her. Instead of meeting the other man’s gaze, she stared unblinkingly at the SIG in Gregg’s waistband. He could almost taste the tension arcing between her and Zane. Trouble in the ranks?

Gregg flopped down on the sofa, slung an arm across the back of it, and propped his feet up on the coffee table. Then he pulled the SIG.

Instantly their two automatics were aimed at him. He ignored them. “Let’s get one thing straight,” he said. “I’m not giving myself up here. And believe me, there’s no way in hell I’m going anywhere with any of you. Not without somebody getting real dead real fast. So you may as well listen to what I have to say.”

Quinn’s expression didn’t change. “Don’t bother,” he returned. “Dr. Cappozi has already given us the whole spiel. You’re innocent.
Blah, blah, blah
. Personally, I think she’s suffering from PTSD delusions. But she’s the
only
reason you’re still breathing. So how ’bout I talk and
you
listen.”

“Where is she?” Gregg was unable to stop himself from asking. Not that he actually gave a flying fuck.

“She’s safe,” Quinn said. His jaw flexed. “What happened in New York won’t happen again.”

“That’s for
damn
sure,” Gregg muttered. Next time he wouldn’t be around to save her ass.

“I suggest you listen carefully. This is how it’s going to work,” Quinn said. “You’re going to answer our questions and tell us everything we want to know, starting with who you just met with and what you talked about. Then we’re going to put you under guard while we check out your story. And after that we’re going to take a vote. If you pass, you live.”

Gregg snorted. An empty threat and they both knew it. Even if they didn’t believe him, STORM wouldn’t be authorized to execute him. Both CIA and DHS would want to interrogate him before anything like that happened. He was more worried about the traitor piling up additional evidence against him in the meantime, so he wouldn’t get the chance to prove himself before being carted off to Siberia or Mogadishu. The best way to prevent that, and to get his job back, was to cooperate. And pray like hell STORM wasn’t compromised.

“Fine,” he acceded. Besides, at this point he had fuck all to lose. “I just have one condition.”

“What’s that?” Quinn asked.

“Gina Cappozi,” he said. “Two minutes with her. Alone.”

“I
say we waste the bastard while we still can.”

Rarely had Rebel seen Alex in such a foul mood. He didn’t want to be here, that was pretty obvious. She wasn’t exactly sure if it was because of her presence, or that of his former Zero Unit compatriot, Gregg van Halen. Alex obviously didn’t care for the guy. He was convinced van Halen was working for al Sayika, and had killed Dez Johnson yesterday in the attack on Gina. No amount of explanation or pleading by the unhappy Dr. Cappozi that Greg was being framed would persuade him otherwise. The fact that van Halen’s own story corroborated everything Gina said, and also matched the forensic evidence from the scene, made no difference.

Alex was out for blood.

Projecting? Just a little, Rebel thought. The violent suggestion was just his raw emotions talking. Not that she exactly blamed him. Not for this, anyway. The man really had suffered at the hands of these terrorists. And if she thought there was a chance van Halen was working for them, she’d be just as hostile to him as Alex. However, she didn’t.

“I thought you wanted justice,” she responded. “Not retribution.”

“In this case they’re one and the same,” he shot back, undaunted. “Van Halen’s guilty as hell. Someone should pay for what happened to Gina and Dez.”

And you
, she silently added. And Kick, and Tara. And all the others who’d been so badly hurt by these barbaric terrorists. “But we have to be sure it’s the
right
person,” she argued. “I for one am not convinced Gregg’s the traitor.”

“Me, neither,” interjected Tara, from where she stood at the open French doors to the balcony sipping a Coke. Behind her, the sun was setting over the Potomac, casting a reddish glow over her winter-white turtleneck like a transparent superhero cape. She still looked thin and fragile from her month-long hospital stay after nearly dying during the Louisiana op. If anyone had reason to want retribution, it was Tara. That she also doubted van Halen’s guilt spoke volumes, in Rebel’s opinion.

“No one’s wasting anyone,” Commander Quinn stated flatly.

“Then let’s turn the fucker over to DHS and let
them
deal with him,” Alex said emphatically. “We found him. Our job here’s done.”

“I’m not so sure,” Quinn said. “Have to admit, his story has the ring of truth to it.”

“Jesus! Not you, too! Secret codes and government conspiracy for fuck’s sake? Come
on
!”

“It’s not that far-fetched,” Tara said quietly. Tara’s mother had died of cancer due to an EPA cover-up of a toxic chemical leak back in the days when the government turned a blind eye to such things. Oh, wait. They still did.

“She’s right,” Rebel said. “We owe it to their victims to find out the truth.”

“Not to mention all the future victims of whatever al Sayika is planning for Washington, D.C., if we don’t stop them,” Quinn reminded them. “Gotta say, van Halen looked genuinely outraged when we questioned him about that.”

Alex scowled. “What was he supposed to say? ‘Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you about the nuclear trigger I helped smuggle into the country?’ Bad guys lie, Quinn. It’s what they do.”

“I can usually tell when a man’s lying to me,” Quinn returned evenly. “In any case, we’re not making any decisions until Kick, Marc, and Darcy arrive later tonight. We need everyone’s input before acting on this. It’s too important.”

“But DHS—”

“Has already made up its mind. It would take them months to process and clear him. If van Halen’s story checks out, we need him free and working with us now, immediately.”

“
Working
with us? Are you fucking nuts?” Alex exclaimed.

With a dismissive sigh, the commander turned to Rebel. “Special Agent Haywood—” Quinn began.

“Rebel, please.”

He inclined his head. “Okay, Rebel. Our murder investigation of the
Allah’s Paradise
suspect has been left hanging long enough. The D.C. Metro police have the lead on this, but I’d like you to get down to Walter Reed and see what you can dig up for us.”

She eased out a silent breath of relief. There was nothing she wanted more than to escape Alex’s bad mood and stubborn insistence on ignoring her completely—unless he was snapping at her, of course. Which seemed to be his new way of dealing with the hurt he’d caused her. Yeah,
that
made sense.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“And take Zane with you,” Quinn added, jerking a thumb in his direction. “He needs cooling down.”

Whoa, wait. “But, sir,” she protested. “I really—”

“That’s an order. And don’t come back until you both can be in the same room without wanting to strangle each other.” He Frisbee’d a key card to Alex. “Your room’s three doors down. I suggest you use it. Otherwise I’ll call SAC Montana to come take her off your hands.”

Alex’s face actually turned purple. He started to sputter.

Quinn rose to his feet and all six-foot-four of him leaned over the table and drilled them both with a meaningful glare. “But first find out who murdered Gibran Bakreen and how they managed it. I’ll expect a report in two hours. Now get the hell out of here.”

Rebel exhaled sharply, turned, and headed for the door. She didn’t wait to see if Alex followed. To paraphrase her childhood idol, frankly, she didn’t give a sweet goodnight.

Okay, she did. Quinn was right. If she was never in the same room with Alex Zane again it would be too soon. Well. At least until she’d sorted through the dizzying array of gutting revelations he’d sprung on her since last night. And
that
might take a lifetime of therapy.

She’d made it halfway down the hall before he caught up with her.

“Why don’t you follow Quinn’s advice and use that room key right now?” she strongly suggested. “I can do the investigation myself. I don’t need your—”

“No.”

“Seriously? Take the out, Alex. You’ve made it pretty clear you don’t want to work with me. Or anything else with me, for that matter.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Oh? Let’s see. What part of ‘I want to quit the mission’ didn’t I understand correctly?”

“I keep telling you. It’s because my flashbacks put you in danger. But we’re going to a hospital. I think you’ll be okay.”

A derisive snort escaped. Yeah, she’d be okay.
When she saw his backside for the last time and got over him completely
. Like maybe in, say, oh,
never
.

She slapped her forehead. “Your flashbacks. Right. Yeah,
they
made you want to marry a lesbian rather than be with me.”

He swore, and all at once he grabbed her arm from behind. He spun her, slamming her up against a door so hard it rattled. Instinctively, she blocked him with a self-defense move and jerked her knee up to hit him where it would hurt the most. But he’d been working out every day for eight months and he was too fast and far too strong for her. He pinned her to the door.

Her pulse skyrocketed, unsure if he’d suddenly plunged into one of his violent flashbacks and would unconsciously hurt her.

But he didn’t move. Just held her there, suspended, her feet scrabbling for purchase two inches above the floor. A moment ticked by. One high heel toppled to the floor. Followed by the other.

“Fuck you,” he said. “
Fuck
you.”

“Right back at you mister,” she retorted furiously.

And then he kissed her. Hard. Savagely. Giving her no quarter to resist.

She struggled, fighting her own desires as much as she wanted to fight him. But she couldn’t. Her heart just wouldn’t stop wanting him. So with a final halfhearted punch to his shoulder, she caved.

She opened to him, moaning her surrender. She slid her hands up the defined muscles of his biceps and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Ah, Rebel,” he groaned, low and rough. “Angel.”

There was a click, and the door behind her suddenly swung open. He held her trapped against him and surged into the room, shoving her up to the wall inside. He kicked the door shut behind them with a
bang
.

Then his lips softened. His hands went from overpowering to persuasive. “Baby, God, it was
always
you I wanted. Always.”

Tears filled her eyes.
This was so unfair
. “Liar!”

“I’ll show you if you don’t believe me.”

Her bare feet hit the carpet as his hands drove up under her skirt. In one powerful motion, he ripped off her panties. She gasped, and instantly his tongue swept into her mouth, cutting off the sound. His belt rattled. A second later she was lifted up again. His powerful grip splayed her thighs apart. He kissed her like a man on fire.

The hot, blunt tip of him pushed up against her swollen flesh. She was slick with want and in an agony of need. For one potent, pregnant instant, his eyes met hers.

“Yes,”
she answered the question burning in them.

And then he was in her. Thrusting up inside her to the very hilt.