Читать книгу: «Tactical Force», страница 2

Chapter Two

“How…” Anne tried to swing her leg over the bike, but her A-line skirt hampered her maneuver. Finally, she pulled the skirt up high enough to allow her to mount the cycle and settle behind him. “No judging,” she mumbled.

He grinned. “Great legs. Sorry, couldn’t help it.” Jack handed her a helmet and helped her to adjust the strap beneath her chin. Then he pulled his own helmet over his head and cinched the strap. “Hold on around my waist.”

She placed her hands on his hips, barely squeezing, amazed at how firm they were. A rush of awareness rocked through her.

“Seriously?” He took her hands and pulled them around his middle. “Now hold on tight. This beast has a powerful takeoff.”

As if to prove his point, Jack cranked the engine and twisted the throttle. The motorcycle sprang forward.

Anne clenched her arms around him in a death grip so tight she was certain Jack could barely breathe. He slowed the bike a little and drove down the street at a more sedate pace.

He looked back with a grin.

Most likely, he was happy to have startled her.

The grin disappeared and a frown replaced it in that split second he’d turned to look back at her.

Anne swiveled her helmet-heavy head and took note of headlights glaring at them. A dark sedan raced toward them at a high speed. Her heart leaped into her throat. “Go!” she yelled.

“Hold on!” Jack shouted. He made an abrupt turn, leaning hard into it.

Anne leaned the opposite direction.

Jack seemed to struggle with navigating the corner and he slowed.

“Lean with me!” he yelled, twisting his right hand on the handle. The motorcycle shot forward, putting distance between them and the vehicle turning at the corner behind them.

If Anne had any doubts they were being followed, she was certain now that the car behind them wasn’t on a sightseeing trip in the night.

With the bike being more agile and maneuverable, Jack managed to weave in and out of streets, down back alleys and eventually onto the main road leading out of the city.

Anne held on, leaning when Jack leaned and in the same direction as him, making turns easier.

When she was sure they’d lost the dark sedan. Anne released a sigh of relief.

Jack settled into a smooth drive, following the altered directions on Anne’s cell phone.

When they were only a block away from her apartment complex, he slowed almost to a crawl.

“Third building on the left,” Anne called out as he neared the parking lot.

He drove to the location and brought the bike to a rolling stop.

Anne clambered off, her legs shaking. She smoothed her skirt down and hiked her purse strap onto her shoulder. “Thank you for getting me to my apartment. Tell Mrs. Halv—”

Jack adjusted the kickstand and dismounted.

“Where are you going?” Anne asked, her brow furrowing.

“To see you to your door and make sure you get inside safely.” He cupped her elbow and walked her toward the entrance. “And to find out what this is all about.”

She ground to a halt and pulled her elbow free. “I’ll be fine.” Already hyperaware of the man after holding him around his middle for the past thirty minutes, Anne just wanted to be free of him, and settle in with a cup of her favorite tea to soothe her fractured nerves. “Be sure to thank Mrs. Halverson for me.”

“She likes to be called Charlie.”

“Thank Charlie for me,” Anne said and turned to walk into the building.

Jack’s footsteps sounded behind her.

Anne spun to face him. “Seriously, you don’t have to go up with me. I can manage on my own now.”

“I’ve been given a mission to see you safely somewhere.” He shrugged. “Although the somewhere was vague.” He gave a nod toward the building. “I’ll assume it was to your apartment.”

“I’m here. You can go.” She waved her hand as if shooing a pesky animal or child away.

“I’m not leaving until I know you’re safely inside your apartment. Remember, we were followed not all that long ago.”

“Yes, but you lost the trailing vehicle quite efficiently, though you scared the bejesus out of me in the process.” She tipped her head toward his motorcycle. “And you quite convinced me that I don’t like riding motorcycles. But thank you for delivering me to my apartment in one piece.” With that parting comment, she turned and strode toward the door.

Again, Jack followed.

Anne gritted her teeth and kept going. If he wanted to follow her all the way up to her apartment…fine. As long as he didn’t cup her elbow, sending crazy bursts of electrical current all the way through her body.

At her door, she fumbled for the key in her purse. Finally wrapping her fingers around it, she started to fit it into the doorknob.

Before she could, Jack grabbed her arm again.

And like before, that jolt of electricity traveled up her arm and down to her belly. She started to turn to tell him not to touch her when he gently pushed her to one side of the door and pressed a finger to his lips. He wasn’t even looking at her, but at her door.

Then he released her arm and gave her door a slight nudge.

It opened without resistance. The doorjamb appeared splintered, as if someone had forced his way into her apartment.

Her heart thudding against her chest, Anne started to step inside.

Jack put out his arm and shook his head, mouthing the word Stay.

Too shocked to argue, Anne remained rooted to the floor outside her apartment, while Jack slipped inside.

She counted to ten, her stomach knotting and her breathing unsteady. How long could it take to look for bad guys? Just when Anne had decided she couldn’t wait another moment, Jack appeared in the entryway, his mouth set in a grim line. He opened the door wider, flipped the light switch on and stood back. “I take it you didn’t leave your place like this when you left for work this morning?”

Anne stepped across the threshold and gasped. “What the h—?”

Her home looked like something from a warzone. The sofa had been flipped on its back. The seat cushions had been flung across the room after they’d been ripped open and the stuffing pulled out. The artwork she’d painstakingly chosen and positioned on the walls had been slashed or painted over with a garish red spray paint.

Every drawer in her kitchen had been dumped on the floor. Knives stuck into the walls as if they’d been thrown one by one.

The photo frame containing a picture of Anne, her mother and her father had been destroyed, the picture pulled out and torn up into tiny pieces.

Tears welled in Anne’s eyes as she continued through the little apartment to the bedroom. How much worse could it get? They’d destroyed practically everything she owned.

It got worse. The bedroom, like the living room, was a shambles, with the mattress dragged off the bed frame, a long gash drawn down the center. The pillows were in tatters, the filling scattered across the room. But the message on the wall was what made Anne press a hand to her chest and reel from shock.

Words written in bright red spray paint covered the wall over her headboard.

CONSIDER THIS A WARNING

Beside the words was a symbol Anne was all too familiar with. The crisscrossing Trinity symbol that might mean nothing to most but struck fear in the hearts of those familiar with the organization’s history.

Anne staggered backward until her back hit the wall. Then she slid down and gathered her knees to her chest. “This. Can’t. Be. Happening.”

Jack dropped to his haunches beside her and took her hands in his. “I’m sorry, but it is. And you can’t stay here. They know where you live and might come back.”

She shook her head, her eyes glazed, her hands shaking in his. “I haven’t done anything. Why would they come after me?”

“I don’t know.” Jack gently pulled her to her feet. “Grab the clothes you can, or better yet, leave it all here and buy new.” He slipped an arm around her waist and pressed her body against his. “The main thing is to get you out of here as soon as possible.”

She shook her head. “But this is all I own… My things.”

“They’re just things. At least you weren’t here when they came in.” He flung open the closet door.

Whoever had trashed her apartment had used the same red paint, spraying a thick swath across the clothes hanging in her closet.

Jack grabbed a gym bag from the floor. “They didn’t get this,” he said.

He unzipped it and held it open. “Find whatever you can that’s undamaged, enough to get you by, and let’s get the heck out of here. I don’t want them to come back while we’re here.”

Anne couldn’t seem to make her feet move. A crippling lethargy settled over her, making it impossible to think or motivate herself.

Jack dropped the bag and gripped her arms. “Anne.” He tipped her chin up and stared into her eyes. “These are just things. We have to leave. I need you to be with me.” He gave her a gentle shake. “Now.”

Though she knew she needed to comply, she just couldn’t.

“I’m not getting through to you,” Jack said with a sigh. “Maybe this will work.” He bent his head and pressed his lips to hers in a hard, persistent kiss.

The shock of it forced Anne’s mind off the destruction and centered it on the feel of his lips against hers. She raised her hands to wrap around the back of his neck and pulled him closer. As if by kissing him, she could block out all the horror of her apartment.

When he finally set her away, he stared down into her eyes. “Are you with me now?” he asked, his tone deep, his voice gravelly.

She nodded. “I am.”

He released her arms. “Then pack. You have one minute to get all the undamaged items you can into that bag. If it’s nothing, so be it. You’re coming with me.” He left her alone in the room.

Anne shook out of her stunned haze and scrambled through her clothing, searching for panties, bras, jeans, shirts and skirts she could salvage from the items the intruders had permanently destroyed. She changed out of her skirt and heels into a pair of jeans and loafers.

She jammed what few undamaged things she could find into the gym bag and hurried to find Jack, wanting to be with him at all times. Though he was a stranger, he made her feel safer than she’d felt alone.

He stood by the open door of her apartment, looking up and down the hallway. When he heard her behind him, he shot a glance over his shoulder. “Ready?”

Anne nodded, closed the door and handed him her cell phone. “I think this has to do with the text messages I received before I left work this evening.”

Jack took the phone from her and read through the messages, his face growing tighter, a muscle ticking in his jaw by the time he finished. “I take it you didn’t read the last two messages.”

Anne frowned. “I had other things on my mind, and I’d hoped by ignoring the texts, whoever had sent them would just go away.” She snorted. “Obviously, that didn’t happen.”

“Read them.” Jack pushed the cell phone beneath her nose.

Anne focused on the words.

Destroy your phone.

They will track you with it.

“If whoever did this to your apartment can track you using your phone, you need to ditch that phone. The sooner the better.” Jack pulled his own cell phone from his back pocket and snapped pictures of the messages on Anne’s cell phone. He glanced up at her. “Sorry, but it must be done.” He dismantled the phone, pulled the SIM card from it, dropped the card into the kitchen’s garbage disposal and ground it into oblivion. Then he placed the phone on the floor and stomped his heel into the screen.

“I need to get pictures of the message on the wall. Wait here,” he said and disappeared into her bedroom. When he returned to the living room, he sent the pictures to someone and placed a call.

“We’re headed your way. We could be bringing a tail… Good. See you in a few.”

“What was that all about?” Anne asked.

“I sent the images to my boss. We’ve got a couple of computer wizzes who can do some poking around to see what they can find.” He took the gym bag from her hand and led the way down the stairs toward the parking lot. He made her wait in the stairwell until he was certain the parking lot was safe.

Jack strapped the bag onto the back of the bike and went back to collect Anne. Slipping an arm around her, he shielded her body with his and walked her to the motorcycle.

Once they’d both mounted the bike, Anne leaned over Jack’s shoulder. “Are you taking me to a hotel? I have nowhere else to go,” she said, her heart flipping in her chest and the tears rushing to fill her eyes. She couldn’t go to a friend’s house. Not with Trinity looking for her.

Jack shook his head. “We’re going to Charlie’s.”

Anne wondered whether everything would have gone on as usual if she’d ignored the first text message. Had she set the course of events by responding? And now that her phone was destroyed, the mysterious texter wouldn’t have a way to contact her. Somehow, that didn’t give her any sense of relief. Quite the opposite.

JACK DROVE OUT the other end of the apartment complex, choosing a circuitous route to Charlie’s estate.

He kept an eye on the small rearview mirror mounted on his handlebar, searching for headlights and praying he didn’t find any.

Avoiding the main roads, he wove his way through suburbs and backroads until he finally found himself on the road to the Halverson estate.

If anything was going to happen, it would happen here. It stood to reason that if they had hacked into her phone and knew she’d received messages from someone trying to stop Trinity, they would know she’d place a call to Charlie Halverson.

Since a prior attempt to break into the estate, Charlie had beefed up security and built a stronger wall to keep people out and protect those on the inside. That would be the best place to take Anne.

Getting there unscathed was the plan.

Someone else had other plans for them.

Jack turned onto the quiet country highway leading to the Halverson estate. With eight miles of curvy roads ahead, he couldn’t let his guard down for a moment.

As he rounded a sharp bend in the road, a delivery truck darted out of a side road and stopped in the middle of the road, effectively blocking both lanes of traffic.

Warning bells went off in Jack’s head. “Hang on,” he called out.

Instead of slowing, Jack sped up, aiming straight for the truck.

As he neared, he noted men climbing out of the cab, AR-15s in their hands.

Damn. They’d brought serious weapons to the party.

He swerved at the last moment, taking the motorcycle off the road and down into the shallow ditch, praying Anne could hold on long enough to make it out on the other side.

Her arms tightened around him as they bumped over the rough terrain. At one point he thought the bike might turn over, and then it would be all over for them. Somehow, he managed to right the front tire, gunned the accelerator and sent them popping up over the shoulder and back onto the road. A couple sets of headlights headed toward him, but there was no going back.

Jack powered forward, ready to take to the ditches again if necessary.

The trucks remained on the correct side of the road. As they approached, they slowed.

Jack’s hand squeezed tighter on the throttle, preparing to twist it to make the bike go faster.

Then he saw that the lead truck was Declan’s black four-wheel drive and the one following belonged to Mack Balkman. Declan passed him and turned his truck sideways, blocking one lane of the rural road, using the big vehicle as a shield to protect the two people on the motorcycle.

Mack did the same, blocking the other lane.

Jack noted there was a passenger in each vehicle. Probably Gus Walsh and Frank “Mustang” Ford. Cole was probably helping Charlie’s computer guy, Jonah Spradlin, look into the texts from Anne’s phone history.

A guard stood at the electric gate to the Halverson estate, armed with his own AR-15 rifle and a powerful spotlight.

When Jack rode up to the closed gate, the guard shined the light into his face.

“It’s me,” Jack said. “Jack Snow. And I have Anne Bellamy with me.”

The guard shifted the light to the woman on the back of the motorcycle. A moment later, the gate opened and Jack drove through.

He’d never been quite so content to drive the winding road to the sprawling house at the end, knowing his team had his back, and the fence, gate and guards would see to their safety.

As he pulled up to a stop in front of the massive entrance, the door opened and Cole McCastlain emerged. Charlie Halverson stepped out behind him, followed by her assistant, Grace Lawrence, and her butler, Roger Arnold.

“I understand you’ve had a little excitement tonight.” Cole grinned and held out a hand to help Anne from the back of the motorcycle.

She nodded and half fell against Cole. “Sorry, I’m a little wobbly after going cross-country on the back of Mr. Snow’s motorcycle.”

Cole chuckled. “I don’t blame you. I’m always a little wobbly after riding a motorcycle. You have to ride often to build up the muscles needed to be comfortable on one.”

“Good to know,” Anne said. “Not that I plan on riding one ever again, if I can help it.”

“Oh, honey,” Grace said, moving forward with a smile. “We never say never around here.” She held out her hand. “I’m Grace Lawrence, Charlie’s assistant.” She turned to the older woman. “This is Charlie Halverson. John Halverson’s widow.”

“Mrs. Halverson, words are not enough to thank you for coming to my rescue. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t.”

“Please, call me Charlie. Mrs. Halverson was my husband’s mother.” She smiled and took both of Anne’s hands in hers. “I’m glad Jack could help. I don’t know what’s going on, but you’re safe now. Please, come inside.”

Anne glanced back at Jack. “Thank you.”

He nodded, flipped the kickstand down on his bike and joined Cole on the stairs.

Charlie led Anne and Grace into the house.

Arnold joined Cole and Jack. “Declan and the others are on their way in. They sustained some gunfire.”

“Are they okay?” Jack asked.

The butler nodded. “There was some damage to their vehicles, but they’re fine.”

Jack shook his head. If they’d been a little slower on the motorcycle, they would have taken those bullets. Anne had been on the back of the bike. She’d have been hit first. His heart raced, and he broke out in a sweat. Anne could have died. Just like Kylie. He’d have to rethink his motorcycle if he was tasked to protect Ms. Bellamy.

With that thought came another. Did he want to protect the woman? His history with women went deeper and more tragic than with Kylie. He’d lost his mother to cancer when he was only twelve. And just when he thought he was getting over Kylie and found someone else to love, Jennifer, the nurse deployed to the same base as he was in Afghanistan, had been killed when her vehicle rolled over an IED.

No. He was bad luck to the women in his life.

Women he loved. He could protect Anne Bellamy as long as he didn’t make the mistake of jinxing her by falling in love with her. The right thing to do would be to let someone else take over the woman’s protection. After saving her from being run down in DC and being shot at on the road to the Halverson estate, he felt he had a vested interest in her well-being.

He couldn’t get ahead of himself. If Anne stayed at the Halverson estate, she wouldn’t need a personal protector. Jack wouldn’t have to worry about her safety or jinxing her.

“What’s wrong?” Cole asked him.

“Why do you ask?”

Cole shrugged. “You were frowning.”

Jack shook his head, clearing his rampant thoughts. “I was thinking about the mess they made of her apartment and the message on the wall,” he lied. Now that he did think about it, he wondered who had put it there and why they thought she was a problem.

“Halverson must have been onto something big with Trinity for them to target him for assassination.”

“If they knew about Ms. Bellamy all along, why did they wait until now to go after her?”

“I assume it has to do with the person who texted her,” Cole said. “Using the phone number Anne gave Snow, Jonah hacked into the phone system and is going through her call and text history as we speak. We should go to the war room and see if he’s found anything.”

Jack followed Cole through the house and into Halverson’s study, where the trapdoor was hidden. It led into a basement painted white and set up with a conference room and a computer room with an array of monitors, CPUs and keyboards lining the walls.

Jonah Spradlin, Charlie Halverson’s young computer guru, sat at a keyboard, looking up at a setup of six monitors. His fingers flew across the keys, then he’d pause and study the screen. He repeated the process several times, shaking his head, his lips pressing together each time.

“Find anything?” Cole asked, taking the seat beside Jonah. Cole pressed several keys on the keyboard in front of him and brought up a screen.

“I traced the call back to a burner phone purchased at a store in Arlington,” Jonah said. “I hacked into their computer system, but the name the phone was registered to was Linda Radcliff, a woman who died five years ago.”

“Did they have video surveillance at the store?”

“Yes, but I haven’t hacked into that system yet. I’m working on it.”

“If the phone was registered to a Linda, the person had to be female,” Cole surmised. “Surely, the clerk or store owner would have denied the sale if the ID didn’t match the person presenting it.”

“So, we’re looking for a female texter.” Jack paced the length of the room and back. “What will that buy us? There are hundreds of thousands of females in this area. We have to narrow it down a little more than that.”

“We’re working on it. We don’t have a lot to go on and now your lady doesn’t have a phone for our mystery texter to send messages to.”

“She figured out Ms. Bellamy was associated with John Halverson,” Jack pointed out. “She’s smart. She’ll come up with a way to communicate with Ms. Bellamy again.”

Cole glanced up. “What’s your girl’s plan from here?”

Jack frowned. “She’s not my girl. And I have no idea. I just got her here.”

“I’m going to work tomorrow, as usual.” A female voice sounded behind them.

Anne descended the steps into the war room, followed by Grace and Charlie.

Jack faced her, his feet spread, his arms crossing over his chest. “The hell you are.”

Anne’s eyebrows rose up her forehead. “I have a big meeting to prepare for on Friday. I need to be in my office every day this week. Besides, the person who texted me wanted me to help stop Trinity from doing something. I can’t help if I’m locked behind the walls of this estate.”

“You’re a walking target,” Jack said. “It would be suicide for you to step past the gates.”

Anne lifted her chin. “I can’t hide away forever.”

“You can until we figure out what’s going on,” Jack insisted.

“We can figure it out a lot faster from inside the government offices. I assume since the person texted me, I’m probably in a position to find out something. Otherwise, why would he ask me for help?”

“She,” Jack corrected.

Anne cocked an eyebrow. “See? You already know more than when we started.”

“Okay, she’s female—” Jack threw his hand in the air “—so is half the population of the Metro area.”

“I’m going to work tomorrow,” Anne said. “I just need a ride in to a Metro station, and I’ll take it from there.”

“You can’t go alone,” Charlie said.

“Charlie’s right,” Jack said. “It’s too dangerous. You’re not equipped to handle armed assassins.”

Again, Anne stared at him with a cocked eyebrow. “And you are?”

“More so than you,” Jack shot back.

Charlie clapped her hands together. “Then it’s settled.”

Jack glared at the woman whose money funded Declan’s Defenders. “What’s settled?”

“The fact that Anne can’t go to work alone.” Charlie smiled as if everything was perfectly obvious. “You’ll go with her.”