Seek and Destroy (44 page)

    The blonde had the server in, up, and running in record time. Nice to know not all IT techs out there were blubbering idiots. This woman showed them all it could be done within the time he'd plotted out in his plan. She was the first one to ever stay within his timeline.

    How nice. And just when he'd started to doubt whether he'd underestimated the time it took to install a server. Apparently not. Interesting how she just sat there staring at the screen, pretending to type. She'd completed the install and hadn't run any diagnostics.

    No, wait. She checked the size of the hard drive. Surreal leaned closer to the monitor. And now the RAM.

    How very...uncommon. He started to like the blonde more and more. Untrusting, just like him. Of course she'd check to see if the server had everything they'd ordered. She flipped her hair and he caught a quick glance at the side of her face.

    Surreal sucked in a harsh gasp. He knew that profile. The curve of her face. She didn't have her lovely smile curling those magical little lips of hers, but she didn't have to. He knew the exact shape of her lips when they formed into that delicious grin.

    Charis Marie McKoy. And she'd come to see him, to be with him. "So it
was
you who figured it out. Oh, my lover. It is so good to see you take an interest in my work."

    She stiffened. He flipped his gaze over to another monitor to see what she saw. A slow and steady smile spread across his lips. No doubt she discovered the lack of hard drive space and memory on the server. He couldn't fit it all in there with the bomb. There simply hadn't been enough room.

    "I can't slip anything past you, can I?"

    Her stature changed as she hunched over the keyboard. This time he stiffened. What was she doing? He glanced back at the monitor to watch her keystrokes.

    Oh no. Oh hell no! She wouldn't. "No. Charis, my love. What are you doing?" He raised his hands and watched helplessly as she started the process to uninstall the server. "No!"

    She shook her head. As she turned to her side, he saw her lips moving. Son-of-a-bitch. Who the hell was she talking to? Why couldn't he hear her? What the fuck was going on?

    His answer came then in the form of that goddamn NASSD agent, Snyder. He bolted into the server room and pulled Charis to her feet. She jerked out of his grasp.

    Good girl.

    Then she sat back down and continued to uninstall the server. Snyder grabbed her around the waist and unceremoniously threw her over his shoulder.

    How barbaric. Surreal bunched up his fists at the sight.

    She kicked. She looked like she screamed. Why couldn't he hear her? His equipment never failed. He'd already confirmed the audio feed earlier this morning. Why didn't it work now?

    Of course. Snyder and his little cronies at NASSD had overridden the feed. No, it couldn't have been them. They were all brawn and no brain. ICE must have done it. Not just ICE, but his ICE angel. Why hadn't he considered that?

    Snyder struggled against Charis as she fought to break free. Surreal screamed at his monitor, his all-consuming rage taking over. He felt his boil over. "Leave her alone! You leave her alone or I'll kill you! I. Will. Kill. You!"

    He dropped her. She landed on her feet. As she ran back to the keyboard-diligent little thing-Snyder reached over and yanked all the cords out of the back of the server.

    "No!" Surreal hit the space bar. And again. Over and over. Nothing happened. He then realized he would have blown up the love of his live if the bomb had detonated. His heart leapt to his throat. "Oh, Charis. I'm so sorry. My baby. I'm so sorry."

    Shaking, he pulled her picture off the monitor and held it to his chest. His breath was ragged, labored, and he'd started to sweat. He hated to sweat. But look what he'd almost done. It was that man's fault. He hated him so much. His hatred for Snyder had almost cost him his Charis.

    Now, seeing him manhandle her like that only made his hatred grow into a blinding fury. He had to protect her.

    Snyder turned to the camera. Looking Surreal square in the eye, he smiled smugly and approached. Reaching up, he mouthed
fuck you
and ripped the camera off the wall. Surreal's monitor went black.

    "No! Fuck you!
Fuck you
!" Surreal punched his desk as he screamed at the monitor. He pushed back from his desk and jumped to his feet, kicking his chair over. Picking up his scrambler, he threw it at the screen, shattering it.

    He chanted the same cuss words over and over as he tore his workplace apart. CPUs went flying. He threw all his monitors to the floor and jumped on them until they no longer looked like anything more than a pile of broken electronic components. He overturned his desk and kicked and punched until it broke into several pieces.

    When he'd successfully destroyed every piece of his system, Surreal stood above it, gasping and dizzy from his rampage. He looked around in utter disbelief at what he'd just done. His system, his entire life. Destroyed at the hands of Snyder.

    "Look what you did," he rasped, his breath still ragged as he gasped to fill his lungs. His hands hurt. Looking down, he opened and closed his fingers, baffled as to how his knuckles had gotten so bloody. Oh, that's right. He had tried to fight off Snyder as the man destroyed his system. But he was no match against a bully asshole like the NASSD agent.

    And the way he'd grabbed Charis like that...

    
Charis.

    Spinning in all directions, he searched for her picture. "Charis? Darling? Where are you?" He started to openly cry and fell to his knees when he didn't find her. "Charis? Please, lover. Where are you?"

    There. Buried under one of the monitors. He threw the pieces off her and choked on a sob. His Charis. His lover. He picked up the two pieces of the picture he'd found. Shaking, he tried to fit them back together. He sobbed uncontrollably when he realized the futility. She was gone.

    "No! I'm so sorry. So sorry." He pulled the torn pieces of her picture to his chest and started to rock back and forth. "I love you. So. Much." He allowed the grief to wash through him. He'd lost her. Because of that NASSD agent, he'd lost the one connection he'd had to his true love.

    Or did he?

    He started sorting it through in his mind. Maybe he looked at it as half empty. This was actually a good thing. She obviously wanted to be with him. She reached out to him, begged him to save her. That's why she'd been tracking him. Not to find him, but to have him find her.

    Of course! Why hadn't he seen it? She even wore a disguise. That NASSD agent had her. He used her to get to him. Surreal couldn't let that happen. No, he'd save her from that barbarian. He'd be her hero.

    He needed to make haste. Charis counted on him.

    

    She hated him. She loved him, but she hated him. She'd never had anyone throw her over his shoulder before.
Hellooo?
Can we move into this century, please?

    "Sweetheart, I had to," he explained, as if whatever he had to say would lessen how much she wanted to strangle him. She shifted her head so she had a better view. Of the outside.

    Riding in a private jet should have been a little more enjoyable. The plush leather seats hugged around her. She'd never been more comfortable. NASSD really knew how to travel in style.

    "You were hysterical."

    She crisply folded her arms across her chest, her gaze firmly fixed on the window
away
from him. He had no idea how hysterical she could be. In the span of two seconds she was going to show him. Hysterical? How about homicidal?

    A voice came over the speakers inside the small jet plane. "SAC Snyder? Sir, there's a call for you. I'll patch it through the satcom."

    "Think of it this way," he stated as the phone next to him rang. She kept her gaze fixed on the clouds. "At least it worked."

    She heard herself growl. Shocked at how he seemed to draw all kinds of primitive sounds from her, she labored her breathing to stop herself from lunging at him.

    "Snyder." A long pause as he listened to the details of how they captured Surreal. Good. Great. She could go home. And David Snyder could go back to Hawaii. Or Hell. Or wherever he came from.

    "Son-of-a-bitch!" He slammed the receiver down.

    His reaction forced her to get over her anger PDQ. She turned to him. "What?"

    "He wasn't there."

    "What?" She exchanged glances with the Neely brothers before looking back to David. How could he not be there? She'd tracked him to that location. She didn't have any flaws in her plan. He had to be there. He
had
to.

    He closed his eyes and rubbed them almost angrily. Okay, very angrily. "He must have known. When our team moved in, they found a pile of destroyed equipment. God
damn
it. No Surreal."

    He disappeared again. She huddled in her seat, making no response. What could she say? They'd lost him. Again. With a pang, she realized what that meant.

    Without them being able to track his movement, he could be anywhere by now. They were already twenty minutes from touchdown in Seattle when a mere two hours ago they'd been thwarting a bombing in Colorado.

    Got to love the modern age of travel.

    She tried to relax, to force her mind to think like him. If she were Surreal, what would be her next move?

    She thought back to the time she'd spent an entire weekend building a house out of cards after having her tonsils out. At ten, it had been quite the feat. The house had to have been as tall as her. She'd felt so proud of that house. When she'd finished, she wanted to call for her mom so she'd see it. Having just had surgery on her throat, she couldn't talk, let alone yell.

    Logan and Mitch had just walked into the living room. She'd beamed and motioned for them to look at her masterpiece. They'd smiled at each other a split second before plowing her house over, laughing and kicking until every last card lay flat on the floor. They knew she couldn't cry out, couldn't tell on them. And she didn't. Instead of getting them in trouble, which she would have paid for later, she'd plotted her revenge.

    After the chocolate ex-lax didn't do nearly as much as she'd hoped, she'd taken it a step further. She'd posted pictures of them playing with her Barbie Dolls all over the school. The two months restriction she'd received was totally worth their public humiliation.

    She'd taken their attack on her house of cards personally. For that, she'd gone after them personally.

    That had to be it. It was now personal to Surreal. "I don't think he'll take out any more buildings."

    David arched his dark brow. "Why not?"

    "A man like Surreal will spend months perfecting the minutest detail. Only this time he doesn't have months and he knows it. He also knows I've cracked his code, so chances of him following through with the next bombing are very slim. We'll be there waiting for him again."

    "What about finding another building that starts with an 'I'? He didn't get what he wanted this time," he pointed out.

    "Yeah," one of the Neely brothers, though Charis couldn't remember whether he was Ron or Rich, spoke up. "Maybe he had a back-up."

    She shook her head. "That's not the way he works." She tapped her temple with her finger. "He doesn't create contingencies."

    "Why the hell not?" David furrowed his brow.

    "Like I said, he plans. And he plans. And he plans. By the time he's ready to carry it out, he's already gone through it so many times in his mind, he's positive nothing will go wrong."

    He made a grunt. "And when it does?"

    "Well, I don't know."

    He narrowed his eyes at her. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

    She shrugged.

    He cursed.

    They sat there in deafening silence as the plane started its descent into the SeaTac Airport.

    One of the pilot's voices sounded throughout the cabin. "Agent McKoy? Please pick up the receiver to your right. SD Weber would like to have a word with you. Make it quick. We're about ten minutes from landing."

    What now? After the day she'd just had, she was in no mood to deal with the director. With a huff, she grabbed the receiver and brought it up to her ear. "This is-"

    "Hello Charis
darling
."

    Wait a minute. This didn't sound like the director. Besides, he'd never call her darling. It sounded more like...

    "Thomas?"

    David perked up. She swung her eyes over to him as he hurried to her side. He motioned for her to hand him the receiver. She shook her head.

    "Give me the phone," he insisted in a hiss of a whisper.

    "No," she bit back, covering the mouthpiece with her hand. She gave him a hostile glare. "Is it really you?"

    "I know Snyder is there with you. I know he has you."

    Her heart jumped to her throat. Could he see them? She darted her eyes in every direction, looking for some sort of camera. And just how did he know David had her? Had he seen them together? Did he break into her house and install cameras?

    "How did you get this number?"

    He laughed, and the sound sent a shiver through her. "You taught me well. If it's in the system, I can find it. Even NASSD's satellite communications link. I just listened in on how unhappy Snyder was when I wasn't there to greet those men."

    "We will find you," she promised. David tried to grab the receiver out of her hand. She turned just in time.

    "I know. I'm counting on it. I know how much you need me. I have a plan, darling. I'm going to get you out of there. I'll save you. And then, you and I can finally be together again."