Dangerous Assignment (Aegis Group Book 4) (7 page)

“You have already been identified as a Mossad spy. Israel will not save you. I will find out who you are.” The officer in charge nodded at his subordinates. “Take her.”

“Wait—no.” Luke reached out, wrapping his hand around her wrist. This was crazy. Abigail was as American as he was. And if she was CIA or something, there was all the more reason to protect her. “You can’t just accuse her of that without evidence. She’s an American.”

“This is not America, Mr. Briar. She doesn’t even deny it.”

“I’m not a spy,” Abigail said coolly.

A commotion outside broke the moment. The door cracked open, but he couldn’t make out more than a few words. Luke had never picked up more Arabic than it took to get where he was going. He didn’t have the knack for languages like some of the other guys. He spoke English and bad English. That was it.

The officer in charge gestured at the three guards, issued a short command, and all four left, the door closing behind them.

“Abigail—what’s going on?” he asked. He massaged his temples. He could more or less hear now, but the ringing wouldn’t go away.

“By now they will have found the detonator,” she said.

“What? Is that stuff—no. Don’t tell me.” Whatever spy deal she had going, the less he knew, the better. His gut said she was one of the good guys, and that meant they were in this together.

“I didn’t do it. The explosion wasn’t mine.” She stared at the tabletop. Her inflection went up the tiniest bit.

She was scared.

He was willing to bet this wasn’t supposed to happen, and she was freaking out.

Luke extracted a set of lock picks from his wallet. They were the kind of thing he kept on himself these days. Never knew when a client would forget their keys or to give him access to a place he needed to be. This time, well, he was breaking laws in the name of saving an innocent woman. A woman who would go down in place of whoever was really at fault. She didn’t set that bomb. She hadn’t been alone long enough to. But someone wanted to pin this on her, and that was the last thing he was going to let happen.

“They probably caught wind of the culprit and are attempting to track them down. I…this wasn’t mine.” Her voice was higher, thinner now.

“We’ve got to get out of here.” Now. Before the noose tightened around Abigail, before they were both caught up in the net of whatever was going down.

First and foremost, no one was left behind. That meant Abigail. And Ethan, if he was still breathing, though after the blast and a hundred-plus foot drop, chances were slim.

He made quick work of Abigail’s cuffs, despite his fingers slipping due to sweat. They were universal, standard issue cuffs, nothing fancy about them.

“What’d that guy say? You understood him.” Her face had changed. Her chin had tilted. He had no doubt she had a better grasp on what was happening than he did.

“I did.” She sat there.

“What did he say, Abigail?”

“He wants me dead.”

“Not going to happen today, sugar. Come on.” He hauled her out of the chair and shoved his wallet in his pocket. Right now, that was about the sum of their resources, and it wasn’t much. He had money, some cards, the picks and a knife. That was it.

He crossed to the window and hauled it up. A set of iron bars were bolted to the side of the building.

“It’s no use,” Abigail said.

“The hell it is.”

He leaned against the bars—there.

They were on hinges, secured by another padlock.

This one was tricky, but he’d excelled at lock picking back in high school, thanks to his good-for-nothing uncle taking sick joy in locking Luke and his mother out of the house.

“Come on.” Luke grabbed Abigail and pushed her toward the window.

There was no telling how much time they had.

Night was falling.

It was getting dark.

It was their only chance.

Abigail perched on the windowsill. Her maroon button-down was streaked with dust, and a few of the buttons had popped off. Blood stained one side of her collar.

“You should stay here. Tell them I hit you,” she said.

“You’re crazy. Move.” He shoved her off the ledge to get her going. Her feet hit the ground and she went down into a controlled crouch before quick-stepping out of his way.

Luke’s landing was none too graceful. It jarred up his legs and his hip ached for an unknown reason. He’d probably hurt or twisted something he wasn’t feeling yet since the blast.

“Staying with me will get you killed,” Abigail said.

“Shut up and walk.” He grabbed her arm and hauled her along with him.

Whatever mind-fuck Abigail was mired in, he didn’t have time for it. First, they needed to get somewhere safe. Then they could address what she thought she’d done and what the hell was really going on. He checked his cell phone but the device was cracked, broken beyond repair.

“We need to get somewhere we can hide out. American Embassy?” He glanced at Abigail. Whoever she was—whatever she was—she was more than she’d appeared. He’d known it, but hadn’t been able to place her. Still couldn’t unless she wanted to clue him in on it, but he’d been part of enough covert ops when he was still an active SEAL to know he couldn’t always get answers. He might never know who Abigail really was, and that would have to be fine by him.

“We’ll never make it there.” She gestured and they jogged across the street, down an alley and cut across another couple of streets, winding their way farther and farther from the hotel.

They went on for what felt like ages, keeping to shadows, using alleys a sane person wouldn’t go near. Night had fallen by the time Abigail stopped behind a dumpster, her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were wide, nostrils flared. Panic, pure and simple.

“Don’t do that. Hey?” He crowded in, grasping her hip and turned her toward him.

The blood had stopped oozing and she had quite a bit of it crusted on her face.

She stared up at him, the moonlight illuminating her large eyes.

“I don’t know this city. Do you know a place we can go?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Luke stepped back and looked up at the buildings on either side.

They needed somewhere, ideally, with a phone line. He could call Aegis. They’d get them out, with or without support from the government. It would work out. They just needed to keep their heads down.

“What do those signs say?” He pointed at a building across the street.

“For sale.”

“Bingo. Come on.” He took her hand.

Together they watched the street, waiting for a lull.

No cars.

No people.

They sprinted across to the alley opposite their position. Luke boosted Abigail up the fire escape and waited while she jimmied a window and slipped inside. A few minutes later, she unlocked a side door and let him into some sort of shop space.

“There’s a partially furnished apartment upstairs,” she said.

He closed and locked the door behind him and then checked the windows.

They could be found at any second.

“We need to make contact. Get word back to Aegis so they can try to find Ethan.” Luke wouldn’t mourn his friend until someone slapped a toe tag on the body. Until then, Ethan was MIA. Probably in a hospital somewhere, if they were lucky.

Abigail turned, wrapping her arms around herself and walked a few steps away.

For every one thing he knew about her, there were easily a thousand things he didn’t. She’d lied to him, let him believe—albeit not very convincingly—she was just another bodyguard for hire. He had no idea who or what she really was. But his gut said to trust her even as his head started spinning doubts.

“We’re going to get through this,” he said—for both their sake’s.

7.

Abigail turned, studying Luke’s
profile against the windows. He watched the front of the building while she kept an eye on the back. It felt like hours they’d stayed like this, watching, waiting for someone to find them. A time or two they heard sirens, but as of yet nothing had come close to their position.

The Jordan police would want her dead for a number of reasons.

There was only one out she could see, and it would only work for one of them.

Him.

“Luke?” She turned toward him, crossing into the living space.

“Hm?” He tilted his head toward her, but he never took his eyes off the road.

Bless him, he thought she was innocent. That she was an American spy of all things.

“I need you to listen to me.” She licked her lips.

How she wished things could be different. Playing Abigail, having Ethan and Luke at her back had been…the most normal her life had seen in years. Maybe a decade. But she wasn’t this woman, and her life was so far into the realm of weird there was no hope for her.

Luke turned his head. Maybe it was her tone that got his attention, but she could feel his gaze on her in the near darkness.

“They’re going to find us. They won’t let me leave, but if you tell them everything you know—they’ll make it easier on you to be released.”

“We’re getting out of here,” Luke said with complete certainty. She wanted to believe him, but she knew the score. How these things went down. And he couldn’t save her. Being her hero would get him killed.

“No, we’re not. Luke—I didn’t lie. I’m not a spy. Anymore.” She swallowed. Her training made the next sentence hard to speak. It was the one thing she was never supposed to admit. To anyone. For any reason. But she would not let this man take the fall for her choices. Breaking conditioning was as hard as learning it, but for this heroic man, she’d do it. “I am former Mossad. I have been since I was… A long time ago.”

For a few moments neither moved or spoke. She didn’t so much as swallow.

She’d played the part of an American so well, in part because she was. But she was also Mossad.

“Who are you working for?” He hadn’t shifted, but there was a difference in his voice.

“No one.”

“Was—the explosion?”

“It wasn’t mine,” she said quickly. Abigail clasped her hands together. This is where things got tricky. “I was going to kill the Smiths. I was waiting for the right time. They’re—they’re trying to sell the components for what could be the worst terrorist attack the world has ever seen. I’m trying—I was trying to stop them. I was going to kill them. Just them. No casualties. No mistakes. I would never have done what happened tonight, but the police won’t see it that way.”

Luke held up his hand and shook his head. It was a lot to throw at him.

“Your mom? Bacon? Were those lies?”

“No.” She swallowed. “Those were true. It’s a long story.”

“You didn’t set the explosives? Am I supposed to believe you?”

“No, I didn’t set the explosives.” She shook her head. “It’s not how we—I mean, Mossad works.”

“Is your real name Abigail?”

“No.”

“What is it? Who are you?” He turned to face her, his hands curled into fists.

Anger. He was angry. But he wasn’t like most men. It was a simmering, barely-there undercurrent. Because he’d grown up in an environment where he had to go unnoticed. Keep the anger packed in. Oh, how she understood that.

“No one has called me by my real name in a long, long time.” The last person to utter it had been a traitor. She tipped her chin up, never shrinking from the weight of his glare. “My real name is Yael.”

“Yael.” He spat the name. “Why?”

“Why? Which part?” She crossed to a decorative bench and sat, years of covert work weighing on her. The things she’d done…

“The Smiths are bad people, but why them? Why you? What did they want to attack?”

“It’s a long story.” She slid her hands between her thighs like she used to do, and stared at the floor, but it wasn’t the tile she saw, it was her history. Her past. “The short version?”

“And then the full story.”

“If there’s time.”

“There’ll be time.”

“I was living in Palestine as an American contractor. My handler…he sold me out. Someone got to him. Blackmailed him into giving up not only myself, but a dozen other Mossad agents and information. They died. All of them. Except me. Because whoever was pulling Zach’s leash wanted to humiliate me. Use me. They made it clear that they could get to my mother if I didn’t do exactly what they asked. So I faked my death. And I’ve been working my way through those I knew were connected to the operation for the last two years. That’s why I haven’t seen her, why I can’t talk to her. I’m trying to protect her.”

“You’ve been killing those people, haven’t you? The ones you think blackmailed you.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve been killing people you think should be put down.”

“Yes.”

“That’s all you have to say for yourself?”

“Nothing else matters.”

“Who were these people?”

“Terrorists. Cell leaders. Spies. Bad people. But they were still people. The Smiths were the last on my list of those connected to my blackmailing. I believe some of the information they were trying to sell was bounced around between those involved, until the Smiths got it. I’m sorry I lied to you, but I’d do it again. If they thought I was alive, they’d have killed my mother.” For all their wrongs, each life was still a life. Eliminating them based on an order or her own motivation didn’t change the fact that she was a killer. Had been since the beginning.

Luke stared at her, the darkness hiding his features.

“I need to tell you more.” She licked her lips. “I need to tell you some very…sensitive information.”

This was her Hail Mary, as the Americans liked to say. She couldn’t trust her own people, but him? Luke? She could trust him.

“I don’t want to know.” He shook his head.

“Luke—”

“No!”

“Luke, there’s a nuclear warhead at stake here.”

“Jesus. No more!”

“Remember all of this. When they find us, tell them. My fate is sealed. Tell them.” She’d made peace a long time ago with death. There were other clandestine combatants who could leave field work, have a normal life. Families. But not her. She’d done too much. Too many people would want her dead a second time.

“If you’ve been dead—how did they know so much about you?” he asked.

“I…don’t know.”

His question sparked her brain out of the stupor she’d been mired in.

“Think about it,” he said, pacing away from the window. “That blast went off, and there were cops there almost immediately. For them to be there that fast, they had to have been close. And they already knew. There were no questions, no confusion. They knew exactly what’d happened and who was at fault. That’s what’s been bugging me.”

“Someone knew I would be here, and set the explosion up—”

“So you would take the fall.”

A wave of nausea hit her so hard she couldn’t draw a single breath.

That meant there was someone else out there who knew she was alive. Someone she didn’t know about. Someone who probably knew about her mother. She leaned forward.

It had almost been over.

She’d tasted freedom in Luke’s arms.

For a moment, she’d wondered what came next.

There would be no
next
. No
freedom
.

The Smiths were the last people she knew of who could connect to the operation that’d burned her.

What had she missed?
Who
had she missed?

If she died, if they killed her, what would happen to her mother? Was she even alive still?

“I need to find a phone.” She stood, shoving a hand through her hair. The frantic need to hear her mother’s voice gnawed at her.

“Abigail—Yael—wait.”

“I have to find out where my mother is.” If she was alive. If she was okay.

“How are you going to do that?”

“I make regular payments to a photographer to document—it doesn’t matter. I need to make a phone call.”

“There’s no one out there.” He gestured to the window.

“Curfew. Shit.” She paced to the kitchen, then back toward Luke. She’d known about the curfew. Had warned Ethan and Luke about it last night when Ethan wanted to go out for supplies.

Luke met her at the bench, his gaze narrowed, his sensual lips tightly compressed. What she wouldn’t give for him to look at her like he’d looked at Abigail again. She’d lost that. But then, had she ever really had it?

“Now, start at the beginning and tell me the long version.”

She swallowed. How many times had she wanted someone to know? To hear her story? And now, she wanted to be—to do—anything but that.

Luke had a cramp
in his back and he’d lost the feeling in some of his toes, but he couldn’t move. Abigail—no, Yael—her voice wove a spell over him as she recounted in broad strokes the events leading up to tonight. She rattled off names and places with ease, never once having to pause for details.

She was one bad ass bitch.

He meant it with the greatest respect.

Sure, he was still pissed that he’d believed they were on the same side, that he’d been fooled by her, but when it came down to it, they wanted the same things.

Peace.

Safety for others.

To put an end to bad people.

For fear to be eradicated.

She’d made some wrong choices by his book, but she made them with the best intentions. Right down to planning to assassinate the Smiths.

Whoever had burned her, they must regret it now. She was a one-woman army, with the skills, knowledge, and tools to do everything she set out to do.

He’d known she was something special the moment he’d laid eyes on her. It was in the way she’d looked at him—she’d stripped him down to his core and weighed his worth. She was good, in a shades of gray kind of way. Abigail did bad things for a good reason. It was a truth he understood, something he got.

But there had to be more to it.

Her mouth stopped moving, and like the first time off a boat, he was left feeling a little wonky without its easy cadence and musical quality.

“What about the bomb?” She hadn’t mentioned it again.

“It’s complicated. When you get home, call your CIA people, whoever you know, and tell them a Mossad agent knew about a WWII nuclear warhead hidden near DC. They’ll ask the right people questions.”

“But you won’t tell me who they should ask?”

“I can’t betray the people I swore to protect. Even if they turned against me. It’s not about them…it’s about me. If I lose that foundation of who I am…” She shook her head.

Luke got it.

In battle, during war, it wasn’t the time to start questioning what you believed in. When a soldier started having doubts, when they started to second-guess what they were doing, bad things happened. Until this was over, until Abigail had completed her mission, she couldn’t realign her allegiances.

“Can I ask a question?” There was just one more thing he wanted to know.

“Can you?”

“May I ask a question?” He rolled his eyes.

“You may. I may not be able to answer it. I won’t betray—”

“How old are you?” He had a guess, but for her to have done everything she’d told him, plus years of stuff she hadn’t…nothing added up.

“Thirty-four. I was recruited younger than most. I have been a Mossad agent for…” She leaned back, resting her head against the wall. She’d settled on the day bed after pacing. “Sixteen years.”

Half her life had been in the service of someone else.

“You were eighteen?” He knew he was staring. He could feel the breeze from the window against the back of his throat.

“Seventeen, officially, but the training began when I was sixteen. I have been presumed dead for the last two years.” She wrapped her arms around herself and glanced away.

She’d been a kid. A child. And someone had turned her into…a weapon. And then they’d thrown her to the wolves. What kind of person would take a teenage girl and make a spy out of her? At sixteen he’d known responsibility, but he’d also kicked it with his friends. Played ball. Got in trouble. She hadn’t had that.

Had she ever had a life? A time when she wasn’t someone else?

He got to his feet, stretching to work some of the feeling back into his body, and crossed to the day bed. She didn’t look at him, but he didn’t doubt she was aware of everything he did.

Mossad agents were renowned for being the best. And if she’d been one for half her life before faking her death and becoming a vigilante, then he doubted there wasn’t a thing in the room or on his person she couldn’t catalogue and kill him with in a pinch.