Smokescreen (30 page)

Darcy began transmitting the contents of the book, pulling the numerical sequences from memory. She included when to start new lines and new pages. Those specifics could be imperative to accuracy in the decoding process. Between potholes and ruts, the ride was rough, but with Ben doing the driving and Santana puttering along fat, dumb and happy, she could forget worrying about him being suspicious. There was only one road into town, so them following was a given. And that left her free to focus entirely on relaying the code.

Ben gave her numerous curious looks, but he didn’t interrupt once. He just drove the Jeep down the winding dirt road, choking on Santana’s dust.

In Devil’s Pass, Santana pulled into a hole-in-the-wall hotel with a pink neon sign out front. Traveler’s Inn. The parking lot was pretty full, so Ben looped around the two-story white stucco building, turned off the Jeep’s lights and then drove out and parked on the far end.

With a perfect view of the entrance, Darcy finished her report to Maggie. “I’ll transmit the photos as soon as I can.”

“Great,” Maggie said. She paused, clearly hesitant, then added, “You are doing okay, right?”

“I’m fine.” At least she thought she was. She looked over at Ben, hiked a shoulder, checking with him.

He nodded.

“Yes, I’m fine.” She ended the call and dropped the phone into her purse. “Great view of the entrance,” she told Ben. “I can see why General Shaw wanted you in the S.A.S.S. Do covert tactics come naturally to you, or were you trained?”

He didn’t answer. “Santana’s got company.”

Darcy swung her gaze to the porch in front of the entrance. Two men in dark clothes approached Santana. She grabbed her camera and snapped off shots of each of them. Red shirts.
Interesting.
The trio talked briefly, then the two men walked back toward the hotel entrance.

“Do you recognize them?” she asked Ben.

“No, I don’t.” Worry edged his voice. “Who do we follow?”

Santana was walking back to his car. “Santana.” The two men likely were hotel guests; easy to pick up on later.

But Santana didn’t leave. He grabbed a suitcase and walked back to the entrance, then into the hotel.

A feeling Darcy often had gotten on missions awakened inside her. A feeling that all the puzzle pieces had gathered in one place and she didn’t have enough eyes to watch them all. She hated to call in overt backup without first verifying specifics—but this mission was too important. Later, she’d prove she could handle her job. Now, too many lives were at stake. Her ego would just have to take the hit.

Again, Maggie answered the phone at Home Base.

Darcy quickly explained the situation and Colonel Drake got on the line.

“Darcy?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m up to speed on this. I have Kate requesting overt resources to tag Santana and his friends. Get those photos to us ASAP, and as soon as backup is on-site, you concentrate on Wexler. Nothing’s going to cross that border without him being there to let it in.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She stared at yet another Independence Festival poster taped to the hotel’s front wall. They were plastered all over town.

“It’ll be a couple hours. FBI,” Colonel Drake said, tagging the type of overt backup that would be arriving.

“No problem.”

The colonel’s tone shifted, turned less strident. “Darcy?”

“Yes?”

“You—you are all right? I mean, all pretense aside.”

Though her teeth ached from clamping her jaw tight, she held back a snapped response. They were justified
in their concern. Still, if they were that damn worried, she shouldn’t be here. “Yes, Colonel. I’m fine.”

“Of course.” Her sigh of relief blew static in Darcy’s ear.

Less appreciative of their concern and more irritated by it, Darcy glared out the window. “Colonel, do you doubt I can handle this mission?”

Silence.

“Do you?”

“I don’t doubt you can, Darcy. I’m concerned that you doubt you can.”

“Well, I don’t. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Darcy hung up without a goodbye. Then what she’d done hit her and she nearly stroked. “God, I’ve lost my mind.”

Ben’s eyes stretched wide. “That’s an overstatement, right?”

“Not by much.” She glanced over and answered honestly. “I just yelled at and hung up on my commanding officer.”

Ben grunted. “Almost like the old days, huh?”

Shock bolted through Darcy and the truth hit her. “Well, yeah. It was.” And why knowing that made her feel infinitely better, she had no idea. In the old days, Colonel Drake had threatened to fire her ass at least once a week.

She looked back at Ben.

“It feels good to be treated normal.” He winked.

Darcy grunted. It did.

T
wo hours later, two backup male FBI officers arrived. Colonel Drake officially passed the torch of watching Santana and his two cohorts to them, and then turned Darcy and Ben loose.

Ben drove by Wexler’s house on Palafox Street. His red truck sat parked in the drive. Weary to the bone, Darcy got out and checked the hood. It was cold, and all the lights were off in the house. He was down for the night. Just in case, she attached a magnetic tracking device under his rear bumper and activated it to Home Base. If the truck moved, they’d notify her. Done, she slid back into the passenger seat in Ben’s Jeep.

His hand on the gearshift, he asked, “Where to?”

“Home.” She needed sleep. More than needed it, she craved it.

Ben stopped at the intersection, then turned right and made his way to Dove Cove. At the far end of the cul-de-sac, he pulled into his driveway, and then cut the engine. It ticked loudly in the silence. “The guesthouse is back there,” he said, pointing beyond the end of the drive and the back of his two-story home. The white clapboard looked inviting, and the house had a yawn
ing front porch. One heavy rocker sat near the front door.
Since his divorce, a loner like me.

“Come on. I’ll walk you back and show you around.”

“What about my Jeep?” Darcy climbed out of his.

“You can ride to work with me.”

“But my things are there.”

“Didn’t think of that.” He looked abashed. “I’ll get you settled and run over and get them. That’ll give you a little more downtime.”

Thoughtful.
“Thanks.” Truthfully, she needed the downtime too much to object. While she wasn’t suffering her normal posthyper symptoms, she was weary to the bone and needed respite.

The cottage was white like the house with sun-yellow trim. Pink roses grew on a lattice trellis outside the door. Inside, the cottage was calm and comforting in soft creams with splashes of blues and greens. “Very pretty.”

He stood in the small living room attached to the kitchen and pointed out the amenities. “Bed and bath are down the hall. Basics like coffee and tea are in the pantry. Fridge is nearly empty, but there are canned goods and juices. Make yourself at home.” He backed out the door. “I should be back in about an hour.”

An hour.
“Wait.” She’d forgotten it was so far from Devil’s Pass to Los Casas. “If you can spare a T-shirt, I can make do until morning without my things.”

“Sure. There’s a couple in the bedroom dresser. Feel free to use anything else around, too.”

“Thanks, Ben.”

He stood there a long moment, just looking at her, as if he felt torn between staying and going.

Odd to feel much less admit, but she wanted him to stay. Heat rushed up her neck to her face.

“Will you be all right here?” He licked at his lips, leaned against the open door. “You seem to be feeling okay. Are you?”

After the incident at the bar, she couldn’t object to his asking. Again, his worry was just. It was kind of everyone, but she sure was getting weary of all the concern. It made her feel even less able than she already felt. “I’m fine, Ben.” He was worried, not attracted. Damn it. “Just a little tired. I’m going to transmit the photos to Home Base and then sleep awhile.”

“Do you need a computer?”

“No. I have a satellite-based transmitter.” She pulled it from her bag. “It’s much more secure than a computer or phone line—at least until Thomas Kunz gets his creepy hands on the technology. Then he’ll have GRID sell it to anyone who wants to destroy us.”

“It’s sick to live with so much hate.”

“The things he does? It’s even sicker, Ben. Trust me on that.” She set up the transmitter, connected the camera, and transmitted the photos.

“Maggie said you’re really wired after an attack. But you don’t seem wired.”

“I always have been, but tonight I’m not,” she confessed. He’d never before been around to talk her down. Odd. A man she’d known such a short period of time had so quickly come to mean so much. “You changed things for me.”

“Me?” He walked back to her. “How?”

She looked up at him, touched a finger to his jaw. “By being you, Ben.”

His eyes shone. “It’s personal, isn’t it, Darcy?” He cupped her chin in his hands. “For you and me.”

The unsteady crackle in his voice proved he had mixed emotions about that. Well, so did she, so they were in good company. “Yeah, it’s personal,” she said, then lifted her gaze from his chest to his eyes. “At least, it is for me….”

“For me, too,” he said straight out. “I don’t like it, and I doubt you do, either. But it’s there. It’s been there since I first heard your voice—outside Regret, when you cleared me through the gate.”

“Wow,” she said, a little breathless, a little stunned and starry. “Since then? Really?”

He nodded.

She watched his mouth, his lips, the softening of the look in his eye. He was going to kiss her. It had been over five years since she’d been kissed, and excited and fearful of what her reaction would be, she welcomed and shunned it.

He didn’t move. Just held her face in his big hands and looked into her eyes. Desire shone in his own, desire and uncertainty. He was worried about her reaction, afraid he’d do something to send her over the edge. Would it be okay? She had no idea. She could lose it. Could be wired for sound for three days. Could suffer all the horrible symptoms she’d suffered on other attacks that had knocked her to her knees.

Or maybe it wasn’t her reaction but his own that worried him. He’d made no secret of it that he’d avoided women since being burned so badly with Diane. In his own way, he was every bit as fearful of entanglements as she.

A full minute passed. Then another. And still another. Darcy inwardly cringed. One of them had to take the leap. Could she? Hell, if one was going to be taken, she
supposed she’d have to do it. He’d be afraid of sending her reeling. Should she?

She definitely should not. Not with everything else going on. Yet he looked so… She slid her hands at his waist. And he felt so… She inhaled deeply. And he smelled so…

Oh, to hell with it. No guts, no glory.
She pressed her lips to his. Her senses wide open, she captured every minute detail, took in every nuance, got lost in sensations born in attraction and tempered into more like steel by fire. Deliberately firm, he gentled the kiss to tender and hinted at passion, though cautious and controlled. But the kiss demanded more, deepened, and caution disappeared, control surrendered questing to be swept into the desire assaulting the senses in battering waves. Heat swelled and spread through her chest and settled low in her belly, tingling, seeping into cell and pore, awakening her body from its long, lonely sleep.

Swimming in sensation, she wound her arms around him, splayed her fingertips on his broad back; felt his fingertips glide dancingly down her spine from nape to waist. He tugged her to him until their bodies aligned and his heat crept to her through their clothes.

He eased his mouth from hers, his breath rough and uneven. “Darcy, is the sensory input too much for you?” He looked worried and a little baffled. “I didn’t mean to let things get so intense. I’m not sure how it—it just…happened.”

The transmitter beeped, signaling it had finished forwarding the photos of Santana’s cohorts to Home Base. It returned photos of the FBI agents so Darcy would recognize them.

Ben jerked, startled. He pulled back to better look at her, and grimaced. Slowly, hesitantly, he released her and stepped away. “I think we’re in trouble here.”

She blew out a hot breath, half-expecting to see steam rolling off them both. “Definitely.”

He might not like it, but he wanted to touch her; he clasped her hands and the grimace left his face. Despite an obvious attempt to be neutral, hope burned in his eyes. “Do you mind, Darcy?”

She should. She’d like to. She wished she could. Life was so much simpler without relationship entanglements that
always
led to complications, and her personal challenges damned her and her partner to even more of them. After what happened to her friend Merry in the fire—as a direct result of being Darcy’s friend—it was only right that she should mind. Yet truth was truth. “No, I honestly don’t. It’s selfish not to mind—if I had half a brain I’d run like hell, but I’m not going to run, Ben, and I really don’t mind. So if there’s running to be done, you’re going to have to do it.” Fully expecting him to do just that, she held her breath.

He ignored that aspect of what she’d said, and focused on another. “Why is it selfish not to mind?”

She tilted her head back to look up into his eyes. He wasn’t joking. That made her frown. “The fire where I was injured…” She paused, awaiting his nod. When he gave it to her, she went on. “It was my house that burned. My friend, Merry, died in it, Ben.” Her voice faded and she pushed strength back into it. “She died because the terrorists thought she was me.”

“I’m sorry, Darcy.”

“Me, too.” He had no idea just how sorry—no one did.

“It’s their fault, not yours.” When she looked up at him, he added. “It’s written all over you that you feel guilty about this.”

“I feel responsible—and guilty.”

“You’re not. You didn’t start the fire.”

“There’s more, Ben.”

“What more?”

“You know I spend a lot of time in isolation. I have to do it. Anyone with me would, too.” She rubbed his thumbs with hers. “I don’t think that’s fair to ask of anyone else—to ask of you. I shouldn’t do it.”

He grunted and rolled his gaze heavenward. “Hell, Darcy, think. Where do I spend most of my time?” He ticked off his own response. “Los Casas. Here at home. At Mick’s, at church, rocking on the front porch—and once a year, at the festival. I
like
isolation.”

“You do, don’t you?” Relieved and excited, Darcy smiled.

“Yeah.” He pulled her to him. “Come here.”

Darcy walked into his arms.

Long hours later, Darcy’s cell phone rang.

Ben rubbed her arm, wrist to elbow, unwrapped his leg from hers, letting it fall from the sofa to the floor. “It’s yours.”

“Aw, I don’t want to move.” Snuggled back against his chest, his legs on either side of her hips, her arms folded over his at her waist, she felt totally relaxed and too comfortable to consider moving.

He pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. “Don’t.”

Boy, would she love that. “Have to, but hold my place for me.”

“You got it, sweet stuff.”

She rolled off the sofa, where they’d sprawled and dozed off, then grabbed the phone from her purse. “Hello.”

“Darcy, it’s Colonel Drake. I’ve just upgraded your mission to a Code 2.”

Darcy’s heart thudded. Code 2 missions signaled imminent threat. Wide-awake now, she asked, “Why?”

“The photos you sent in—the two men with Santana—they reside at the Broken Branch Redemption compound. We think it’s a front for GRID.”

“Santana owns TNT and runs Broken Branch. He cuts a deal with GRID and hides the explosives at Broken Branch, knowing we won’t go in due to the ‘freedom of religion’ complications. I’d say it’s highly likely, Colonel. Do we have any more details on these men? They could be GRID operatives as well.”

“Maggie, Kate and Nathan, and Amanda and Max are on it.”

Five Class-A operatives.
Darcy thought a second, reviewing their collective expertise. “You might want to get Jackson Stone from Task Force 123 on it, too, Colonel. He’s got a mind like mine only his is a lot more full. He’s been this way since birth.” Darcy shoved her hair back from her face. “I’m guessing the supersleuths at Langley are still trying to break the code.”

“Ever since you relayed it.” She sighed. “So far, no luck.”

Perplexed, Darcy stared at the window. “So why are we upgrading to a Code 2?” Something had to spur the urgency.

“The tracking device you put on Wexler’s truck is active. He left home about five minutes ago, heading back to the Oasis.”

Darcy grabbed her shoes and started shoving them on her feet. “I’m on my way, Colonel.”

“You are holding up—”

“I’m fine.” She’d spoken sharply—far more so than was warranted. The question irritated the spit out of her. It shouldn’t, but it did. Her problem, not the commander’s. She sighed. “I’m sorry, Colonel Drake. I know you’re just concerned. Everything really is going fine.”

“I’m glad, Darcy.”

God, she felt like a heel. “Thank you for asking and for caring. I mean that.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’ll keep you posted.” After ending the call, she grabbed her purse and told Ben, “Hustle. Wexler’s on the move.”

It was three in the morning. Neither of them had to say what they feared he could be moving.

Inside the Oasis, Mick sat behind the bar, his elbow bent, his chin propped on his hand, and eyes closed. The place was empty except for Wexler and a man who had his back to Darcy. They stood at the pool table and the man was taking a shot at the purple four ball. He looked out of place, wearing a suit. Wexler wasn’t in uniform. He had on faded jeans and a cotton shirt.

Darcy sat down at a table near them, and half-turned away to better hear them. Ben went to the bar and snagged two sodas.

“Ben!” Wexler snagged him. “Who’s that you’re with?” He cranked his neck to look her way. “Darcy?” His affable expression faded. “What are you doing here?”

“Darcy’s renting my guesthouse,” Ben said. “Her car broke down, so I came to help her out. Since we were close, we figured we’d drop in for a drink.”

The man sank the four ball.

“At 3:30 in the morning?” Wexler frowned.

Ben looked at Darcy. “Took me longer to get it running than we thought.”

“Yes, it did.” Darcy nodded, then glanced at Wexler.

Whether he was ticked that she was there with Ben or ticked that either of them were there, she had no idea. The man holding the cue stick turned around to look at her.

Needle.

She caught herself before reacting. Needle was a known GRID operative whose photo had been on Home Base’s wall for six months, two weeks and four days. Both Amanda and Kate had had run-ins with him on previous GRID missions. That he was here with Wexler, and that he was wearing a red shirt under his suit’s jacket, acted as heavy-duty verification of Intel’s suspicions about another attack and Ben’s assertion that Wexler was involved in it.