Running on Empty (8 page)

The room’s remaining contents were simplistic, basic. A king-size bed, perfect for his large frame, was covered in bedding that smelled clean and fresh. In the corner, some free weights, a weight bench, and a boxing bag. After several months of intensive training, he was stronger and fitter than ever.

His gaze moved to the kitchen area, which housed a small fridge, a microwave, a two-eyed stove, and a toaster. Gallons of spring water sat on the countertop. And in the bathroom, he had a running toilet, a sink, and an enclosed shower with clean, plentiful water.

Instead of the peace he expected, bitterness, like a dark, evil entity, swirled within him.
This
was what he had been reduced to? A box of books, a toilet that flushed, and clean water? This was supposed to make him happy? After what she had done to him? After she had taken everything from him? He was supposed to settle for this?

He turned his back on his small oasis and walked out the door. He had planned to give her some time to worry about why she had been taken. Suddenly, he didn’t give a damn about the psychological torture he had planned. He wanted answers, he wanted an explanation, and then he wanted vengeance. Her death was the only thing that would give him peace.

Chapter Six

Washington, DC

“Hello, Mr. McCall,” a cheerful, male voice said.

The man who stood before Noah looked about as dangerous as the rescued black Lab puppy he and Samara had picked out for their kids last week. With iron-gray hair, a wrinkled, craggy face and twinkling, light blue eyes, he was the picture of non-threatening. In fact, if he put on about fifty pounds, he might make a convincing Santa Claus. No way was he involved in the dangerous world of covert ops.

“And you are?” Noah asked.

“Albert Marks.” He held out his hand. “You can call me Al.”

The friendly, low-key demeanor made Noah more wary than ever. As he shook the older man’s hand, Noah noted the firm, solid grip along with the calluses on his trigger finger.

“And I assume you are Sabrina’s former employer?”

“Something like that.” He gazed around as he spoke. To a casual observer, it looked as though he was taking in the view, but the keen alertness in that sharp gaze made Noah reevaluate his first impression. This wasn’t a man who did anything without a reason.

“Why don’t we walk and talk?” Albert said.

Setting his gait to the slower pace of the older man, Noah waited for him to start. He had come to this meeting with almost no knowledge of what he would learn. When he hired Sabrina, it had been on the recommendation of Jordan Montgomery, who had, at one time, worked for the same agency. 

Noah knew enough about Sabrina to trust her implicitly, but some things he had taken on faith. Though he usually liked to know as much about his operatives as possible in order to assess their strengths and weaknesses, he had accepted not knowing everything about Sabrina. Recommendations from one of his most trusted operatives, along with the knowledge that she had worked for the ultrasecretive EDJE had gone a long way in his hiring decision. He had never regretted his decision. For the years she had been an LCR operative, her job performance had been exemplary.

“Sabrina was once our most valued female agent,” Marks said. “I oversaw her training. Watched her grow from a wary, damaged young woman to a mature, finely tuned, lethal agent. There’s not a finer or more dedicated professional alive. Working for you, Mr. McCall, may have saved her sanity.”

“I didn’t come here to be convinced of my operative’s professionalism or strength. I’m aware of that. I came here because you seemed to have a means to find her. If that’s not the case, then you’re no help to me or her.”

A dry chuckle emerged. “Forgive me, son. I have a tendency to go down memory lane a little too often these days.” He nodded. “Yes, I do have the means to find Sabrina. In fact, I’m waiting on a call about her location any moment.”

“You know who took her?”

“There are numerous people who would like to get their hands on her, so the suspect list is quite long. However, I don’t know who has her or why.”

“Then how can you pinpoint her location?”

“She has a locating device in her arm.”

“You tagged her?”

“With her permission, of course. We tag all EDJE employees for their protection. When she left, I offered to remove it, as we always do for departing agents. However, Sabrina knew she would always be a high-value target. She trusted me enough to keep the locator device active. I’m the only person who knows that she still has hers. Official records indicate that it was removed.”

“That’s why she gave me your phone number and code.”

“Yes.” He smiled. “We’ve always had a good relationship. Most Agency employees called me Albert, but Sabrina always called me Uncle Al.

“I retired last year, but Sabrina and I still chat from time to time. Even though it pained me to no end when she left us, I understood her reasoning. Taking lives can destroy a person’s soul, no matter how rotten that life might have been. Of course, Declan saw the damage long before I did.” He shook his head. “Never seen anything like those two. They could read each other better than most people can read books.”

Albert’s gaze went unfocused as he reminisced. “Sabrina was twenty, but in many ways still just a child when she came to us. And though we have numerous female agents, Sabrina was like a daughter to me. And, of course, Declan was as dear to me as my own children. When they fell in love…it just seemed like it was a perfect match.

“Did you ever meet Declan, Mr. McCall?”

“No,” Noah said. “Never had the privilege.”

“Finest man I knew. Losing him was like losing a part of my family. In fact, he—”

Hoping to divert Albert’s journey down memory lane again, Noah opened his mouth to suggest that the man call his people again to see if they had a location on Sabrina. A cell phone chimed in Albert’s pocket, stopping him.

The friendly, charming smile disappeared, and a cold, deadly look entered Albert’s eyes. As he answered the phone with a clipped “Yes,” the older man’s expression went rock hard.
This
was the man who had trained assassins and been in charge of deadly operations. 

Albert listened for a full minute before speaking. Noah was transfixed by the incredible transformation in the man’s demeanor. No doubt about it, in his younger years, Albert Marks would have been a helluva an agent.

The older man pocketed his phone. “We have her location. Now, let me ask you, Mr. McCall, do your people have what it takes to rescue Sabrina?”

“Without a doubt.”

“And the people who took her…can you capture them?”

“Of course.”

“Excellent. I’d like to have them brought to me. I’ll text you a location.” The affable, charming smile reappeared. “I’ll handle it from there.”

Having seen both sides of Albert Marks, Noah realized every expression he had revealed and each word he had uttered had all been chosen for a reason. This man, whoever the hell he was, was both impressive as all get-out and scary as hell.

Coley Spring, Idaho

Strong, hard hands bit into her shoulders and shook her awake. Sabrina blinked her heavy eyelids and gazed blearily up at the tall figure above her. A black ski mask covered his face, and even his eyes stayed hidden behind reflective sunglasses. All she saw was her reflection—ratty hair, pale face, hideous bruise on her cheek and tired, glazed eyes.

Whoever the man was, he wanted his identity to stay hidden, which meant she knew him. And by hiding his face, she assumed he didn’t intend to kill her. At least not yet.

He pulled her to her feet, and she realized that he had bound her hands behind her. The thought that she hadn’t wakened when that happened infuriated her. Allowing that fury to envelop her, she managed to jerk away from his hands and stand on her own. Though she swayed like a drunk, she was pleased that her legs held. 

Shoulders straight, she ignored the knowledge that she looked like three-day-old roadkill and glared up at her abductor.

The man took several steps back and just looked at her through those damn glasses. While he looked, she took the time to assess him. He was tall. Maybe about six-foot-five and muscular. Not just muscular—strong, hard, seemingly indestructible. The hands that shook her had been large, unyielding. His strength didn’t intimidate her. She had taken down men just as large and brutal. Every man had his weakness…she would find his. 

As she regarded him unblinkingly, he backed away further. Her heart lightened. He had to know what she could do to him. A worldwide reputation of lethal legwork commanded respect.

Still, he continued his silence. Would taunting him bring him closer? It was worth a try. She smiled up at him, challenge in her eyes. “What are you so afraid of? I’m all tied up, barely able to move.”

Silence.

Fine, she would wait him out. They continued to stare at each other for what felt like an eternity. At last, when she was to the point of screaming at him, he huffed out a long, heavy breath and said, “Do you have any idea how very much I want to…kill you?”

Every sense went on alert. She knew that voice…didn’t she? Though it was raspy, gravelly, it was a voice she’d heard before. Or was it? Years ago she had been able to not only identify voices within a sea of chatter but also accents and dialects. And once she had even ID’d a man on a recording from an explosive sigh he had given just before he’d shot an EDJE agent.

This man’s voice was familiar and not. It sounded damaged or not right, as if his vocal cords had been strained beyond endurance. Yet the timbre or tone called to her. An outbreak of chills swept through, and goose bumps covered her entire body. That was damn strange. The voice didn’t incite fear or even anger. Instead, it was causing some sort of odd excitement in her bloodstream.

Holy hell, was she getting turned on by a stranger who had brutally abducted her? That was freaking sick. Not only was it too early to consider Stockholm syndrome, her reaction didn’t compute to that kind of feeling. She actually felt a rush of arousal zooming through her. 

Admittedly, it had been a long time since she’d been with a man. Still…this was all wrong. Sabrina Fox didn’t get turned on easily. The few men she had allowed to get close enough to find that information out would attest to that. Only one man had ever been able to move her like that.

“You don’t seem disturbed that I want to kill you.”

Shaking off the odd feelings his voice evoked, Sabrina shrugged. “You’re not the first, won’t be the last.”

“If I succeed, I will be the last.”

“You won’t succeed.”

“You seem sure of that. Why?”

“Bigger men than you have tried and failed.”

“You’ve killed many men, haven’t you?”

“Enough.”

“How many?”

“Sorry, asshole. I don’t kill and tell.”

“Estimate,” he barked.

She had truly never counted…never wanted to know. But still, she couldn’t resist his taunt. “Twenty…twenty-five. After a while, you just lose count...you know.”

“Have you ever killed anyone you cared about?”

That was a damn strange thing to ask. 

“Answer my question.” The harsh words snapped like a whip.

“No, I’ve never killed anyone I cared about.”

“Ever betrayed anyone you loved?”

“Look, can we just get on with—”

“Answer. The. Fucking. Question.” His voice had gone soft but held an unmistakable lethal edge.

“No, I have never betrayed anyone I loved. Satisfied?”

Call her crazy, but she got the idea that her answer disturbed him. He continued to stare silently at her, but she could swear his shoulders drooped a little. Seconds later, he recovered and said in that harsh, ravaged voice, “Have you ever cared about anyone?”

“Okay, this is getting ridiculous. Either tell me what you want to know or let me go.”

Sabrina snapped her mouth shut and hurled silent curses at herself. She had been trained to endure torture and hardships. Instead, she had allowed him to draw her out with little more than a couple of taunts. Damned if he’d get another rise out of her. Her reflection in his sunglasses was pitifully humiliating. She looked like a mutinous five-year-old refusing to eat her spinach.

Straightening her lips into a thin, hard line, she gave him her best death stare. 

Despite the torrential rage whirling through him, Declan felt a swell of emotion. The infamous death stare. They had been in Italy and Sabrina had still been in training. He had spent hours teaching her how to freeze her features into a cold, emotionless mask and blank her gaze as if her eyes could pierce a soul. Even though the lessons had been serious, more than once she had laughed at how uncomfortable it had been to stare without blinking. 

Declan had an advantage few could claim—he knew how to get under her skin. Her insecurities, her doubts, her fears…what made her tick. She might have lied about a lot of things, but he knew the truth about many. He had the information to break her.

“You say you’ve killed twenty-five men. Did you enjoy it? Did they have families? Children? Did you deprive children of their fathers? Deprive mothers of their sons? What did it feel like to hear them take that last breath? Hear the death rattle and know you were responsible?”

Silence.

“You’re nothing but a killing machine. No redeeming values or qualities. No better than the men and women you killed.” He paused for several seconds, then continued, “Do you have a conscience? Morals?” He repeated the questions, the insults, the taunts…drilling into her insecurities. Five, ten, fifteen minutes, he was relentless in his need to make her suffer.

She swayed, caught herself and straightened. Her face was paler than death, but she continued her silence. The stare continued. Not by even a flicker did she indicate his words made any impact. 

What was the point of this? If he planned to kill her, then he damn well needed to get on with it. Still, there was one last question he had to ask: “In your entire, miserable existence have you ever loved anyone?”