Omega Force 01- Storm Force (13 page)

A noise at the window caught her
attention, and she turned too fast, wincing as the edge of the bedspread
touched the raw wound on her back. She didn’t see anything at first, but then,
there it was again. A rustle. Walking closer to the window, she looked at the
sill in disbelief.

Through the glass, outlined by the light
of the fountain below, she saw the silhouette of a freaking eagle, its head
cocked, staring back at her.

There was no sign of Archer in the lobby of the King’s Crossing
Suites when Kell and Nik arrived just before midnight. It was a typical generic suburban suites hotel,
filled with furnishings and carpets all dyed a hundred shades of beige.

“Where’s our kitten?”
Kell studied the few people still wedged into the
chairs scattered around the lobby, talking and drinking. It wasn’t as if Archer
Logan, their cougar-shifting team member, could easily hide. The man was six foot
four of muscle, with shoulder-length waves of black hair and the creepiest
green eyes on earth. Women liked that long-haired shit. From what he’d seen,
they fell all over the guy.

“My guess would be
the bar.” Nik angled toward a door leading off the
back side of the lobby. The faint sounds of soft rock and clink of glasses met
them as they paused in the doorway to give their vision time to adjust to the
low lighting.

Sure enough,
Archer sat at a back-corner table, flirting with a waitress who stood with one
hip cocked provocatively, one finger twirling around her hair. To his credit,
as soon as he spotted Kell and Nik
winding their way through the tables, Archer seemed to give her the heave-ho.
She eyed them with obvious annoyance when she passed them on the way back to
the bar.

“Sorry to cramp
your style.” Kell pulled out a chair and angled it so
he could see the entire room. Force of habit.

Archer clamped a
hand on his shoulder and almost jarred Kell out of
his chair. “Hey, gotta try and keep pace with you,
ladies’ man. Heard you caught a shifter and didn’t even know it.”

Kell speared Nik with a you-and-your-big-mouth look, but he didn’t have a lot of
room to criticize. He’d put them all in jeopardy. “Tell us about Felderman.”

The waitress
returned, set a beer in front of Kell and a glass of
bourbon in front of Nik, and winked at Archer before
turning to leave. She added an extra swivel to her hips as she made her way
through the tables and back to the bar.

Kell joined the others in watching the show. He
wanted to make a wisecrack about tomcats or alley cats or something cruder, but
really, it would just set him up for more ridicule.

“OK, then. Felderman.” Archer took a
sip of his drink. “He hasn’t left his room, unless he jumped out the window.
I’ve got a clear view of the elevator from here. He checked into Room 601.
Ordered room service an hour ago — steak, rare.”

Kell was impressed. “And you know that, how?”

Archer grinned. “Gadget hacked into the hotel’s
room-charge system. He’s sending me text updates. So I also know Felderman hasn’t made any phone calls out, but did receive
one from a number Gadget traced to” — he punched a button on his phone and looked
at the screen — “Travis Milkin. Felderman
didn’t answer the phone. Name mean anything?”

Kell shook his head. “No, but…What?”

Nik was frowning into space. “That name is
familiar.” He concentrated a few seconds, then nodded.
“I think he’s on that payroll list Gadget sent us for Tex-La Shipping, working
with Michael Benedict. Security, I think. I remember him because there were two
people with that last name.”

“Damn it.” Kell
shoved away his beer. He’d love to drain it, but he had a feeling his long day
was about to turn into a long night. “Everything leads back to this guy. Now I
really want to talk to Felderman. You ready to meet
the esteemed governor of Texas?”

“Hell yeah.” Nik took a sip of
his bourbon and pushed back his chair, but stopped to pull his cell out of his
pocket. The screen was lit with an incoming call. He raised an eyebrow at Kell as he lifted the phone to his ear. “What’ve you got,
Robin?”

Kell strained to hear, but the noise in the bar was
too loud. He didn’t like the deepening frown on Nik’s
face, though, and despite his earlier avoidance, he took a swig of beer.

After a lot of non-illuminating grunts and
curses, Nik ended the call. “We have one big clusterfuck now.”

Not good. “Spill it.”

“We need somewhere else to talk, where it’s
quiet and there are no ears. Wonder if the hotel has a room available?”

Archer reached into the pocket of his dark-green
shirt, which looked suspiciously like silk, and held up a keycard. “Already got one, across the hall from Felderman.”

“Nice work.” Kell
hadn’t given the kitties — or Robin, either — enough credit. They were smart, and
he needed to stop being threatened by them. It was going to take all of them to
untangle this monumental pile of chaos.

They didn’t talk on the ride to the sixth floor
or on the walk down the long corridor. Kell paused
outside Felderman’s room and listened. The drone of a
television seeped through the door, but nothing else. He studied the hallway
they’d just traversed. The governor hadn’t chosen the room with any quick
getaways in mind. The room was at the dead end of the corridor, and the nearest
exit lay halfway back to the elevator.

Archer unlocked the door to Room 602, and they
followed him inside.

Kell pulled out the chair from behind the small
desk and waited till the others were settled. “OK, let’s have it.”

“You
were right — Mori went to Benedict’s house in River Oaks. Once Robin had the
address, she was able to find a trace of Mori’s scent.” Nick got up to pace.
“The house is a big fortress. Since she was in flight mode, Robin took her time
looking at what security setups she could see from outside. The whole place is
wired, with cameras all around the grounds.”

Kell wasn’t surprised. If Benedict was involved in
something like the Zemurray bombing, he had every
right to be paranoid. Plus, the filthy rich, unlike himself,
actually had material things worth protecting.

“Did Robin see Mori?”

Nik sat on the bed nearest Kell
and nodded, his expression assessing, cautious.

Kell’s adrenaline surged. It was bad news. “Tell me.”

Archer moved closer, propping himself against
the room’s armoire/TV stand.

“As near as Robin can tell, Benedict has Mori
locked in a small room in the attic on the back of the house. There’s an
undersized dormer window that appears to be secured with a steel locking
system. Robin judged the window glass was that fiberglass-reinforced hurricane
material.”

Kell let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was
holding. This would require an extraction, but it was doable. “Then we should—”

“There’s more.”

His breath caught again. “Go on.”

Nik’s gaze was weighted. “Robin was able to hear a little
bit of a conversation between Mori and Benedict. The room’s wired with cameras,
and he apparently can watch her and talk to her via a monitor. He plans to keep
her in the room indefinitely as kind of a sex slave, although Robin couldn’t
hear details. Even with her shifter hearing, she wasn’t able to get everything
through that glass. He’s refusing her clothing or food until she submits to
him — although the words Robin heard were a lot cruder than that.”

Michael Benedict was going to pay. Kell’s thoughts went where they shouldn’t, way past proving
Benedict guilty of terrorism and all the way killing the man. Slowly and painfully.   

Nik paused and seemed to measure his words, his gaze
searching Kell’s face. “Was Mori wearing one of your
shirts?”

A cold ripple went up Kell’s
spine. “Yeah, a Ranger T-shirt. Why?”

“Benedict had it, holding it up on the monitor.
Robin couldn’t hear his words, but whatever he said, it scared Mori. My guess
is, he’s threatening you as a way of controlling her.”

Not happening. Kell
propelled himself off the chair and charged toward the door. “Fine.
That sonofabitch wants me? He’s getting way more than
he bargained for.”

Archer stepped in Kell’s
path and planted a baseball mitt-sized hand in the middle of his chest. “Not
without a plan.”

Nik sighed. “There’s one more thing. Mori’s
injured.”

The chill returned to Kell’s
spine. He knocked Archer’s hand away, and turned back to Nik.
“How badly?”

“There’s a burn on her back Robin says will
leave a scar even on a shifter. Worse if infection doesn’t set in.”

Archer gave a low whistle. “Damn. Yeah, we heal
most things fast, but a deep burn is hard to overcome. Could Robin tell what
kind of shifter Mori is? Or how she might have been burned?”

“That’s a no on the shifter question, but Robin’s
guessing a pretty large animal. Mori’s tall and athletic. But the injury…” Nik shook his head and shifted his gaze back to Kell. “She wasn’t just burned, man. Robin says it looked
like she was branded — you know, like with a branding iron. B
for Benedict.”

Kell’s breath left him, and if his back hadn’t turned
into one big stress-filled spasm, he’d have thought he was dreaming. “What kind
of sick fuck does something like that?”

“The head of a shifter group,” Archer said, his expression grim. He’d moved back to block access
to the hotel room door, and Kell gauged his chances were
slim of getting around the man without one of them getting hurt. “Chances are
if Mori’s a shifter, so is Benedict. My guess would be that he’s the leader of
their clan, or pack, or whatever her species has. The leaders hold all the
power; they’re all arrogant fucks, but we learn to live with them.”

Kell took a step toward Archer, his thoughts focused
on getting Mori out of that bastard’s house if he had to burn down River Oaks
to do it.

“Kellison.” Nik’s voice was
soft. “Rein it in. We charge in there without a plan and we’re all fucked. You
know that, man. You
know
that.”

Kell closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His
head had begun to pound in rhythm with his back. Nik
was right. He’d get them all killed if he didn’t rely on his training. Another mission plan. Another extraction.
He’d done it many times before.

He nodded, and hated the look of relief Nik exchanged with Archer. “Sorry. I’m good.” And had issued another fucking apology.

“I say we don’t go in until daylight.” Nik sat back on the bed, apparently convinced Kell had gotten himself under control. “We need to be able
to see since we’re dealing with a lot of unknowns.”

Kell’s mind ticked through what he knew of Benedict.
Tomorrow was Friday, a business day, and with any luck,
Benedict would go to work to keep his schedule looking normal. If anything else
happened to Mori, Robin would let them know.

“Maybe even mid-morning.” Kell reclaimed his
chair at the desk. “It gives us planning time, and if Benedict goes to his
office in Galveston, it will minimize our risk in getting Mori out.” Then
they’d go after the SOB knowing she was safe — whatever she was.

Kell wished he could chastise himself for not
realizing Mori was a shifter, but he’d seen nothing to indicate it. Nothing. And now that he knew, her behavior puzzled him even
more.

“Archer, I need an honest answer from you.”

The shifter’s brows rose, and Kell felt shame that he’d treated both Archer and Adam like
obligations rather than partners — even more so than Robin. “What’s the
question?”

Kell weighed his potential embarrassment against his need
to know the truth. Truth won. “If Mori’s a shifter, knowing how strong you and
Adam and Robin are, she could have taken me out anytime she wanted, right?”

Archer’s expression was cautious. “Well, yeah. If she’d really wanted to get away from you — or kill you,
for that matter — she could have. Obviously, she didn’t want to. And the fact she
hasn’t taken Benedict out is what convinces me he’s a shifter as well, and
probably her alpha.”

Which
was the conclusion Kell had come to as well. Mori
had to know Kell was in over his head. “Why stick with
me as long as she did? Why go through all the shit with the handcuffs?”

Archer leaned
against the wall leading into the entry foyer. “Look, a lot of clans or packs
expect women to be docile. Mori’s probably spent her whole life having independence
drilled out of her. We’re also taught not to reveal what we are. So she was
into you enough to stay, maybe hope you could help her. When she realized you
couldn’t, she took off, maybe to protect you and her both.”

Kell thought of how many times she’d tried to push him
away, saying it was for his own good. She’d gone to Michael Benedict, at least
in part, to protect him.

“Let’s figure out
how to get her out of there.” Kell caught Nik and Archer exchanging relieved looks. “I can still
function, guys.”

He reached behind
him and opened the desk drawer, pushed aside the room service menu and Bible,
and pulled out a few sheets of hotel stationery and a cheap promotional pen.
“Is Benedict was still on the property?”

Nik shrugged. “We’re assuming so. Robin didn’t get a
visual, but there are two cars in the garage, including the sedan he’s been
driving to Galveston.”

Kell wrote names on the pad. “Archer, you’re our link to
Gadget. I need you to go onto the River Oaks estate now, probably on all fours,
and assess the security setup, including the roof and access to that attic
window.” He paused, wondering how high cougars could jump. “Also, get a
guesstimate on how many people he has on staff at the house. Tell us when he
leaves, and who’s left after he leaves. You want to bring Adam in from New
Orleans?”

Adam was Archer’s
younger brother, born a year later, but close enough
in looks to be his twin. He was quiet and reserved, almost shy with people. Content to follow in his gregarious brother’s wake. They
were almost inseparable.

Archer thought a
moment. “No, it would slow us down waiting for him to get here and come into
the operation late. Besides, Gadget needs help in New Orleans, just in case we
have to change direction fast.”

Kell nodded. “Call in or text every piece of information
you get so Nik and I can develop the extraction plan
and a timeline.” He watched Archer Velcro-strap his cell phone around his leg,
beneath his pants cuff. It was the same method Robin used to keep her tiny
little phone with her when she shifted. “Before you do anything else, see if
you can find a way to let Mori know what’s going on without being picked up on
the cameras or microphones. She needs to act as normal as possible to anyone
who’s watching, no matter what we’re doing outside that window.”