The Temptation (7 page)

I wanted to yell “Unfortunate? That’s what you call it?” but instead I said, “It was Bachmann. He called me. He wants me but he plans to hold off for a couple of days before we make the trade.”

“We can’t let him take Lexi and we have to get Rori back,” Zane said, his expression tight.

I clenched then flexed my hands. “We need to re-open operation Big Bad Wolf and find him first.”

Oxford said nothing as she looked to each one of us. Finally, she said, “I just got off the phone with SAC Carter. RED resources cannot be used to locate your sister and we cannot re-open the Bachmann operation.”

For a moment there was stunned silence.

“What the hell?” Zane said.

“Bullshit,” Ryan said.

Nick looked angry but said nothing.

My skin burned hot as I looked at her with incredulity. “That can’t be right. RED would never let a family member be abducted and not do anything about it.”

“Unfortunately we can do nothing to help your sister.” Oxford remained calm. “This will have to be left to the BPD.”

Ryan, Zane, and I all spoke at once, anger in our words. I was on fire.

Oxford held up her hand to silence us and her expression grew dark. “If you need to take a leave of absence, Lexi, I will grant you one.” She glanced at Zane and Ryan. “You will need to take it up with your respective ASACs. That is the best I can do.”

I wanted to scream and hit something. I could barely think rationally, but a part of me knew her hands were tied and that the call had come from above. It wasn’t right for me to take it out on her. I could never forget how much I owed her.

But how hard had she fought for my sister?

“Not only was my sister taken,” I said, “but Bachmann knows who I am and where I live. There has to be a leak somewhere. RED should be very concerned about that.”

“I’m sorry, Agent Steele.” Oxford met my furious stare. “You may go now.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying to control myself. I wanted to protest, rant and rave, but I turned and walked out the door, followed by my brothers and Nick.

We went to my office. Once Nick had closed the door behind us, it was like an explosion went off as we all started to talk at once.

“What the hell is going on?” Zane’s expression was furious. “Since when does RED back off something like this?”

Ryan clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides. “If I’d known this kind of shit went on with RED, I would never have signed on.”

“This is the first time something like this has happened since I came on with RED.” I clenched my hand in my hair, wanting to pull it out. “I don’t understand it.”

“We can use my operations center.” Nick’s voice caught our attention and we stopped talking. “I’ve been mirroring Big Bad Wolf since I came back to Boston and RED.”

“Operations center?” Zane said.

“Nick has a high-tech war room in his home.” I took a deep breath. “I didn’t realize you were working on the op on your own,” I added to Nick.

“I have a vested interest in tracking down Bachmann.” Nick looked at my brothers. “Bachmann’s organization abducted my sister and she was put through hell before we found her.”

“Hell is an understatement. We can only pray that something similar doesn’t happen to Rori.” My stomach twisted as I picked up our family photo from my desktop and looked at my sister’s smiling face. Like Kristen, she was an innocent. “And we have to find Bachmann as soon as possible.”

After Nick gave Zane and Ryan his address, my brothers went straight to their floors to talk with their respective ASACs about a leave of absence. Nick and I headed to his home after he talked with Oxford about time off. Surprisingly, she gave him a few days.

It was starting to get dark by the time we were on our way to Nick’s. We took both vehicles and I parked my Jeep in front of his brownstone, behind his SUV with its spider-webbed front window. Anger still burned through me as I walked at his side up the short set of stone steps and he unlocked the front door.

Anger and more anger. A pain so deep that it cut right through my soul had taken residence inside me. My sister had been taken. She had no idea what was happening to her or why.

And what was Bachmann doing to her? The thought gave me chills. If I had never worked for RED this wouldn’t have happened.

But FAS had held my family’s safety over me when I was forced to be an assassin. So if it wasn’t for Oxford and RED, something could just as easily have happened to any one of them then. Maybe all of them.

I wondered about our decision to not tell our parents or other brothers that she was missing. It was the right thing to do, I told myself. To put Mama through the pain of wondering what might happen to her youngest daughter would be cruel and possibly detrimental to her health.

The interior of his home was cool and dim but he flipped the light switch and a couple of lights came on. Nick’s home was spotless, unlike my disaster of an apartment. This was a different brownstone than the one his sister had lived in before her abduction, but I had been here many times before we split up. Before he’d left Boston for Arizona.

When the door was closed behind us we both paused in the foyer. I looked up at him and it hit me how much I’d missed him and the comfort of his embrace. He seemed to read my mind. He took me in his arms and held me as I buried my face against his T-shirt.

His scent was familiar and comforting and his arms felt good around me. Despite the horror of the situation, I needed him at that moment.

When we drew apart, he held me by my shoulders and looked into my eyes. I didn’t fight my need for his strong presence. He stroked hair from my face with his fingertips.

“I’m sorry this happened to Rori.” His fingers were callused but gentle as he touched me. “We’ll find her. And I’m not about to let him take you, too, Lexi.”

A feeling went through me that I couldn’t identify and I didn’t know if I wanted to. It was something stronger than friendship or the need for comfort.

He kissed my forehead then inclined his head toward the staircase that led up to the second floor. “Let’s get started.”

Chapter 9

War

I followed Nick to the next level up in his brownstone and into a war room that was as modern and high-tech as the one he’d set up in his sister’s home when he was searching for her. The dim room had a blue glow from the bank of monitors. Five chairs were positioned in front of the long L-shaped desk that extended along two walls.

“Expecting company?” I asked.

He glanced at me. “Possibly.”

“Your special special team?” There was hope in my voice. Even though the four huge black ops team members had discounted me at first because I’m such a petite package, I respected them. They respected me equally after having seen me in action, especially when I snapped a man’s neck using my thighs.

“I hope you can get them out here.” I met Nick’s gaze. “We can use all the help we can get.”

“Agreed.” He nodded. “I haven’t been able to reach any of them so I’m assuming they’re on a mission.”

I took a deep breath. “Let’s get on it.”

He showed me the information he’d managed to duplicate on his system.

“How did you do this so fast?” I asked as I looked over everything. “It’s only been a matter of hours since this morning when we were told the op was killed.”

He showed me his laptop and I saw his desktop from work was mirrored on it. “When you left earlier this morning, I downloaded everything and loaded it onto my system.”

“Very illegal,” I said.

“I don’t give a shit if it is.”

“Same here.” I sat before one of the keyboards in front of the large bank of monitors.

Nick hadn’t had time to key into the monitors that fortunately were still set up in front of the various hotels, so we worked on that. It was simply a matter of knowing the wireless codes that would connect to the cameras that RED had installed. I accessed my work computer using one of his hard drives, downloaded all of the necessary info, and we had everything we would need to give us a head start.

The doorbell rang and Nick went to answer it. He returned with Zane and Ryan. They each took a chair while I filled them in on what we had and what we knew at this point. Since neither of them worked in the same department as Nick and I, they weren’t up to speed.

In the meantime, Nick worked the cameras monitoring the entrances to four of D.C.’s most exclusive hotels.

“The snitch we worked with gave us a good idea of what’s going on,” I explained. “We believe Bachmann has a high-level prostitution ring where the call girls may or may not be working against their will.” I gestured to the monitors. “According to our source, the operation is headquartered in one of these hotels, but he wasn’t sure which.”

“Is he a reliable source?” Zane asked.

“He was.” I glanced at Nick then back to Zane and Ryan. “Apparently he was tortured to death and he gave up the fact that I was working the op undercover. We just hope he didn’t give up everything and Bachmann doesn’t relocate his headquarters before we’re able to locate him.”

When I’d told my brothers all I knew, it was time to get to work.

We each took a hotel and monitored the comings and goings at the same time we zipped through recordings from the past few days for that hotel.

All the while I thought about how Rori had been abducted and my stomach stayed permanently clenched. I didn’t think it would ever relax until my sister was safe and sound.

After at least an hour had passed, Zane said, “I think I’ve got something.” His voice jerked me out of my trance and I paused the recording I’d been reviewing. Hope surged in my chest.

“What is it?” Ryan asked.

Zane switched over the recording of what had been his live video feed for today, along with the prior day’s recording, so that each took up half of the bank of monitors in front of us. Both were paused. He backed up each recording. The numbers at the top showed the times and dates.

He pointed out women who were headed into the hotel. “These women come in every day about the same time. If it wasn’t for the provocative way they’re dressed, they could be hotel employees. But I know this hotel and it’s very conservative.”

“Maybe they’re just guests,” Ryan said.

“Could be.” Zane nodded. “But these same women come in approximately eight in the evening and leave around two in the morning. I went back two weeks’ time and checked those hours. The women trickle in and out during the same timeframe.”

A thrill of excitement went through me. This could be it. I tapped my fingers on the desktop. “Not exactly the hours that guests would be coming and going.”

“Before they go into the hotel for the evening,” Zane added, “two of the women meet in that coffee shop right there on the corner.”

I looked at the coffee shop that was within range of the cameras. “That’s interesting.”

“Let’s focus on that hotel.” Nick clicked a few keys on his keyboard. “And see what else we can come up with.”

We split up the days. Not only did we see the same pattern for the same women day in and day out over the past few weeks, we recognized prominent politicians, lawyers, judges, and businessmen coming and going during a similar timeframe. None of them seemed to stay more than a few hours.

“Even for D.C. that’s a lot of politicians going in and out of one hotel,” I said.

“And none of them look like they want to be seen,” Zane said as we worked through the recordings. “Notice how they seem to avoid eye contact with anyone?”

“Yep.” Ryan gave a nod. “That’s exactly what it looks like.”

A burst of excitement went through me when I saw a dark haired man with a goatee and I stopped the playback. I pointed to him. “That’s Eric Dawson, one of Bachmann’s key men.”

My brothers and Nick looked at the man entering the hotel.

“Are you sure?” Zane asked.

“Ninety-nine percent.” I studied Dawson. “Yep. That’s him.” I explained to my brothers what I’d already told Nick earlier that morning.

“I think I’ve seen that guy on a couple of recordings that I viewed.” Ryan said.

“This is all excellent news.” I studied the image of the man and nodded. “We’ve got you, you bastard.”

We continued looking a little longer. “No sign of anyone who looks like Bachmann.” I glanced up from the recording I’d been reviewing. “Not that I expected anything. I’m certain he would have had plastic surgery to take care of what the young woman did to him.”

Zane nodded. “From what you and Nick shared, I’d bet that’s the case.”

“Eric Dawson seems to have a regular schedule of coming in at ten
PM
and then leaving again the following afternoon,” Ryan said, and I nodded.

“Now we need a plan.” I looked thoughtfully at the screen then at my brothers. “We need to catch flights into Dulles first thing in the morning. Zane, you can go in undercover as a businessman staying at the hotel and you can potentially catch the attention of one of the call girls. Ryan, you can man the van.”

“Why does he get all of the fun?” Ryan asked but I knew he was kidding.

“Zane has a little more undercover field experience and you have a lot of experience on surveillance,” I said.

 “Ryan and I can drive up together in the surveillance van. We’ll head there tonight,” Zane said.

I nodded. “Good.”

“What if Rori isn’t in D.C. with Bachmann?” Ryan said.

“On the phone Bachmann said that Rori was being taken to him.” I frowned. “So I’m assuming he meant to Washington, and that’s why he didn’t have her yet. It’s a good eight hour drive from Boston to D.C.”

“We could use an inside woman to pose as a high-class prostitute,” Nick said. “But without RED’s resources…”

“Georgina.” I drew my personal cell phone out of its holster at my hip. The call I needed to make had to be on my own dime.

“She’d be perfect,” Zane said. “Think she’ll do it?”

“In a heartbeat.” The tone buzzed in my ear as I called my friend and fellow RED agent on her personal line. “As long as she’s not working undercover right now,” I added.

Georgina lived in the apartment above mine and we had become tight friends over the years. She’d been there for me more times than I could count.