Targeted (Hostage Rescue Team Series Book 2) (3 page)

Travers kept his voice low enough that no one would be able to overhear as they approached. “Ready?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she answered, ignoring the heavy thud of her pulse. She needed to see the men again, needed to know they were behind bars and would pay for what they’d done. Closure and all that shit.

When they reached the long, rectangular window set into the wall, she stopped in front of it. Travers nodded at one of the other agents and the man hit a switch that erased the digital frosting on the glass, giving them a clear view of those inside while the prisoners would only see a mirror from their side.

Celida folded her arms across her chest and forced herself to breathe slow and deep when the men came into view. They were seated on the far side of the table in the center of the room with their lawyer, facing the window. Eurasian features. Short, stocky, muscular builds. They wore orange prison jumpsuits and their hands were cuffed in front of them on the table. She knew their ankles would be chained as well.

The sight of them in chains soothed her, but didn’t take the vivid memories away. She struggled to keep them at bay as Travers entered the room with an interpreter and took his seat across the table from the two men.

Images flashed through her brain. The bullets tearing through the door. Slicing into her arm and face. Her falling. Blindly returning fire. Screaming at Rachel to hide. The door slamming open, smashing into the side of her head.

She blinked, forced herself to focus on what was being said inside the other room. Travers was talking about the attack. The men confirmed that Xang had recruited them for it by offering extra money. She listened as Travers got the details out of them. It all sounded so remote and clinical. Made it sound as if what they were describing had happened to some random, nameless victims out there.

Not even close. A surge of raw fury shot through her as she listened to the translation of their story.

It happened to
me,
assholes
.

When Travers finished questioning them, he exited the room and met her gaze as the door shut behind him. The locking mechanism slipped into place with a solid
thunk
. It took a moment for her to realize her fingers were digging into her upper arms and that she was holding her breath.

“You want a turn?” he asked her, pale eyes steady on hers.

She shook her head. “You were thorough.” She didn’t want them to see her. Not because she was afraid, but because she didn’t think she could control her reaction if one of them did something stupid like smirk at her. Or worse, laugh at the damage they’d done to her face. The scar didn’t make her self-conscious per se, but the thought of having those men see it bothered her. She was hanging onto her composure so far but didn’t want to push it here in front of her boss and coworkers.

Travers nodded at one of the guards standing by the door. “We’re done. Leave them in there until we’re out of the building.”

Celida knew he’d ordered that for her benefit, and while the thought of him trying to shield her would normally piss her off, this time she appreciated his consideration. She fell in step with him as they headed back down the hallway. “Where to now?” She wanted to be put to work.

He cut her a sideways glance. “Higher-ups want me to review your statements with you. Once we’re done you can help me do up some reports and start pulling on some of the threads we’ve uncovered. We’ve got files on over a dozen more cell members in the area.”

“Sounds good.” She just wanted to dive back into her job and have something else to focus on other than worrying she didn’t have what it took anymore. She wanted to do something meaningful again, something that mattered. These past few weeks awaiting clearance from the doctors for her post-concussion syndrome had been the longest of her life.

“Can you work late tonight?” he asked as they reached the elevators.

“No, the friend I’m picking up is staying with me, so I can’t just ditch her.”

“Zoe? Tuck’s cousin?”

She wasn’t surprised he’d guess that. It was no secret how close she and Zoe were, least of all to Tuck. Fate continually brought him in and out of her life. “Yeah.”

Celida had first met Zoe through Tuck back when they’d been partnered together right after graduating from the Academy. She and Zoe had stayed close ever since, even though she and Tuck hadn’t kept in contact much.

She wished it were different, but in truth his mixed signals drove her freaking crazy. She knew he was as attracted to her as she was to him, yet he wouldn’t go there. Not even once they’d stopped working together and he’d moved on to HRT, removing the professional reasons for him keeping his distance.

She never knew how he’d be when they saw each other. He’d flirt with her one minute and be remote the next. It drove her insane, so she’d stopped tormenting herself and limited her contact with him for the past year. She was sick of being in limbo with him.

“He was pretty torn up about what happened to you, you know,” Travers said.

She nodded, surprised he’d say that to her, or why he’d even care. She
did
know Tuck cared, however. It was his refusal to move beyond friendship that baffled her.

Whatever had happened in the hours after the attack was fuzzy for her, but she distinctly remembered Tuck being there with her in the hotel room at some point, his ruggedly handsome face leaning over her when she’d been on the stretcher, the deep blond waves gleaming in the artificial light overhead. His chocolate-brown eyes had assessed the damage to her face as he spoke to her in his deep Alabama drawl, those powerfully defined arms braced on either side of her.

They worked you over pretty good, huh, sunshine?

Coupled with the obvious concern on his face, that endearment, something she’d only ever heard him use with her and not very often, had nearly made her burst into tears. She didn’t remember much after that except waking up in the hospital later that afternoon, alone. She hadn’t remembered seeing Tuck there, although he’d apparently come by to visit her once more before she was discharged. He’d told her she’d been sleeping and he hadn’t wanted to wake her.

Celida sighed inwardly. Maybe the truth was he’d been relieved at not having to be alone with her.

Since then he’d called her a couple times but the conversations were kind of awkward because she didn’t know what the hell to say and wasn’t going to make herself more emotionally vulnerable to him than she already was. The one time she’d skirted the issue of their relationship status—or lack thereof—he’d said something about things in his life being complicated, but hadn’t elaborated. And once he’d found out Zoe was staying with her when she was discharged from the hospital, he’d rarely called, apparently finding it easier or more comfortable to pass messages through his cousin instead.

She’d flat out asked Zoe what was going on in his life that was so damn complicated it prevented him from spending time with her, but her friend had refused to answer, instead saying she would have to ask Tuck herself. Whatever the complication was, she knew it had to be significant. She’d been driving herself nuts ever since, trying to figure out what the hell that cryptic comment meant.

Celida shook her head at herself. The man was former freaking Delta, for Chrissake, as badass as they came. Why the hell wouldn’t he just tell her whether he was interested or not, once and for all, and put her out of her misery? He wasn’t the type to string a woman along, so she knew he must have his reasons.

“I’ll meet you back at the office,” Travers said as they headed for the door to the parking lot.

She pushed it open and stepped out into the bright June sunshine with Travers right behind her. They split up, him going to the opposite side from where she was parked. Her vehicle was to the left of the main entryway.

She started up the sidewalk, adjusting her grip on her briefcase as she passed the first car parked along the curb—

A loud boom shook the air. A pressure wave slammed into her, the explosion close enough that it felt like someone had kicked her in the chest with an assault boot. Heat blasted her. The air whooshed from her lungs as she fell backward, her left arm and hip taking the brunt of the impact as she hit the sidewalk.

Fighting for breath, heart racing, she rolled onto her stomach to assess the situation. Footsteps pounded on the sidewalk behind her. Hard hands gripped her beneath the armpits and hauled her to her feet, dragged her back to the building entrance. Travers.

“Are you all right?” he demanded.

“Yeah,” she mumbled automatically as she scrambled to gain her footing, ears ringing from the concussion.

The uniformed Marines were running toward them, weapons drawn. The front door and windows on the first two floors of the detention center were blown out. Their shoes crunched on the broken glass.

Before they slipped inside the building she dared to look back to see what the hell was going on. What she saw made her stomach clench.

A tall plume of black smoke boiled up from the end of the row of parked cars, like a mini mushroom cloud. Beneath it, her vehicle and dozens more near it were blackened hunks of twisted metal, completely engulfed in flames.

Tuck hopped out of his truck and slammed the door behind him. Heart hammering, he headed over to where the MPs had set up the secure perimeter around Quantico’s detention center. The passenger door slammed shut a second later, followed by quick, hard footfalls that told him Bauer was right behind him.

A small group of their other teammates were waiting by the line of police tape set up in the middle of the parking lot, keeping everyone out of the area. Tuck got his first real view of the damage as he passed by the end of a fire truck and saw the blackened, twisted remains of the vehicles littering the front of the lot, and the shattered glass in the lower stories of the building.

The EOD guys were still in their ballistic suits but they were gathered around their command truck, so they must have already deemed the area clear of further devices. Emergency crews were still on scene putting out the last of the fires from the explosion and treating the walking wounded who hadn’t already been transported to the hospital.

His buddy and former roommate, Evers, saw him coming and called out as he approached. “I just talked to Travers,” he said without preamble, pushing his shades up to rest in his short, dark hair. “She’s okay.”

Tuck expelled a breath and slowed, practically sagged in relief. He didn’t have to ask who Evers meant and was grateful that his buddy had checked for him.

He ran a hand over his face as he halted beside the others. Bauer stopped next to him, grimly silent as he towered over everyone else with his jacked, six-foot-four frame and surveyed the damage. Tuck was just a shade under six feet and broad through the chest and shoulders, but whenever he stood next to Bauer he felt small.

“God,” Tuck muttered. Looked like something you’d see in Baghdad or Kabul, not here in Quantico. He was so done with scary shit happening to Celida.

Evers clapped him once on the back. “Yeah. Blast wave knocked her down, but the EMTs checked her out and she’s fine.” He glanced from him to Bauer and back, his deep brown eyes holding a trace of amusement. “You guys made good time getting here.”

Tuck nodded. “Thanks, farmboy.”

“Hey, just trying to pay off some of my tab,” Evers teased, referring to the imaginary debt they joked about that he’d accumulated from Tuck doing him a series of favors over the past few months.

“Well you can consider it paid in full now,” Tuck said.

When Evers had called him with the news of the bombing and that Celida had been there, Tuck’s heart had nearly stopped. He’d called Celida repeatedly but she hadn’t answered any of them or his texts. He’d yelled at Bauer to get his ass out of bed and meet him in the truck, assuming they’d likely be called in on standby with the rest of the team because the attack happened on base.

Then he’d broken no less than a dozen traffic laws getting here as fast as he could. “Where is she?”

“Giving a report. Travers said she’ll be in there for the next hour at least.” Evers nodded at the building.

Tuck surveyed the scene again, watching the fire crews. The fires appeared to be out now, so they were busy cleaning up the area. Damage was pretty damn extensive. It was too early to tell what kind of explosive had been used, but he guessed it was plastic explosives. And if it was only one bomb, it had been big. How the hell had someone managed to plant a bomb that size here on base in broad daylight without anyone noticing?

Fucking ballsy, whoever it was. “Any idea who did it?”

“No, not yet.”

He put his hands on his hips and studied the blast radius. It chilled him to know Celida’s car was one of those twisted hunks of metal. If she’d been any closer to it when the bomb went off, she’d likely be dead. He couldn’t even fucking stomach the thought of losing her.

The bombing was his second hard kick in the ass where she was concerned. If he could go back and do things differently between them these past few weeks, he would.

“Think it’s the Uyghur cell?” he asked to no one in particular.

“Could be,” Schroder, the team’s medic and former PJ said, removing his ball cap to run a hand through his short auburn hair before tugging it back on. “I heard the two assholes who shot Celida were inside at the time. Apparently Travers had just finished questioning them a few minutes before the bomb went off.”

Tuck wouldn’t put it past the bastards. With the amount of pressure the U.S. intelligence community was putting on the cell, it stood to reason they’d be getting desperate to act before the entire cell was brought down. And they’d already proven their penchant for using explosives, as evidenced in the twin hotel attacks two months ago.

The same day Celida had been shot and Tuck and his guys had been called in to the primary target, revealed only after Evers and the other team had gone in to rescue Rachel Granger and her brother from another explosives-wired building. Now his buddy and Schroder were back on Tuck’s squad. Evers and Rachel were now living together and Tuck had never seen him happier.