Buch lesen: «Bridal Armour»
Two agents’ forgotten love is rekindled in USA TODAY bestselling author Debra Webb’s Colby Agency: The Specialists series.
Someone was out to get Thomas Casey. His profession had taught him to trust no one. So when Johara di Rossi abducted him on his way to his beloved niece’s wedding, Thomas assumed the worst—despite their intimate history.
Though attachments made him vulnerable, Thomas was haunted by regret for walking away from Jo years ago. No other woman had stirred such intense desire in him. Now, snowbound in an isolated cabin, with a determined enemy from his past closing in, suspicion begins to melt away as the embers of their passion reignite.
“You should go back. I’ll take it from here.”
“No way.” Jo shook her head. “I didn’t stick my neck out for you just to get a better view when they take you down.”
“I’ll land on my feet,” Thomas insisted.
“This time I think you need someone to break the fall.”
“If you stay, it could mean the end of your career. Or your life.”
“I can take care of myself. You know you need someone watching your back.”
He opened his mouth to protest. She pressed her fingers gently to his lips. “Don’t say it. You have a partner this time. You’ll just have to accept it.”
His lips kissed her fingers. She yanked her hand back as if she’d been scalded. Before she could step back, he caught her and pulled her hard against his strong body.
Bridal Armour
USA TODAY Bestselling Author
Debra Webb
DEBRA WEBB wrote her first story at age nine and her first romance at thirteen. It wasn’t until she spent three years working for the military behind the Iron Curtain and within the confining political walls of Berlin, Germany, that she realized her true calling. A five-year stint with NASA on the space-shuttle program reinforced her love of the endless possibilities within her grasp as a storyteller. A collision course between suspense and romance was set. Debra has been writing romance, suspense and action-packed romance thrillers since. Visit her at www.debrawebb.com or write to her at PO Box 4889, Huntsville, AL 35815, USA.
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CAST OF CHARACTERS
Thomas Casey—Director of Mission Recovery. Thomas is the consummate specialist. But someone is apparently trying to take him down.
Johara de Rossi—Initiative Committee member. The Initiative oversees most government shadow operations. Johara “Jo” has been tasked with determining whether or not director Casey is a traitor to his country.
Jason Grant—A specialist. Grant has been tasked to follow Rossi to see just what the Initiative is up to.
Ginger Olin—A spy sent by the Initiative to see that Johara de Rossi gets the job done. Or is assassinating a presumed traitor Olin’s true assignment?
Emmett Holt—Deputy Director of Mission Recovery. Holt took Lucas Camp’s place when he retired. Some believe he will do anything to move to the top.
Casey Manning—CIA agent and Thomas’s niece. She’s getting married to Levi Stark, a Colby investigator, and Thomas is giving her away.
Cecilia Manning and Louise Stark—Mothers of the bride and groom.
Lucas Camp—Thomas’s closest friend and Casey’s godfather. He will do whatever necessary to protect his friend and see that Casey’s wedding goes off without a hitch.
Victoria Colby-Camp—The semiretired head of the Colby Agency. She and Lucas can’t seem to stay out of the business of investigations.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Excerpt
Chapter One
Denver International Airport,
Thursday, October 16, 3:21 p.m.
“I don’t know how the pilot managed, but we landed safely.” Thomas Casey relaxed his grip on his cell phone and drew in his first deep breath since the pilot had announced a sudden winter storm had hit Denver only minutes before their scheduled landing. The storm had descended rapidly and with the same ferocity as the Bronco Blizzard from another mid-October day a few decades ago.
According to the weather update Thomas had caught on a local newscast since his flight arrived, the forecast called for at least a foot of snow in the coming twenty-four hours. The temperature had dropped dramatically in the past hour, icing the streets of the city and threatening to shut down every form of transportation.
“Any chance you’re getting out of there this afternoon?” Lucas Camp, Thomas’s longtime friend and colleague, asked, hope in his tone.
As soon as he’d gotten off that damned plane, Thomas had put through a call to Lucas. His old friend and his wife, Victoria Colby-Camp, were already ensconced in the small village resort where the wedding would take place.
Despite being a twenty-year veteran of black ops, Thomas felt his knees weaken just a little. He’d never been married nor had children of his own. Casey Manning, his niece, was like a daughter to him. When she’d asked him to give her away at her wedding, he’d choked up so damned bad he could scarcely cough out an answer. Casey was his sister, Cecelia’s, only child. Cecelia’s husband had passed away suddenly just a year ago. Standing in was the least Thomas could do.
If he could get out of this damned airport.
“It’ll take a hell of a lot more than a little snow to keep me away from that wedding,” Thomas promised. “You tell my niece I’ll be there.”
The village was only two hours from Denver, half the distance from here to Aspen. He’d crawled across deserts in the Middle East and scaled mountains in the dead of winter in Eastern Europe. How hard could it be to manage a hundred or so snow-covered miles in Colorado?
“The rehearsal dinner isn’t until tomorrow night,” Lucas reminded him. “Tonight’s reception is just a casual affair. Stay in the city until morning if the roads are too hazardous for safe travel.”
Thomas grinned. “I think you’re getting soft, Lucas.” The next thing he’d be telling Thomas was to be sure to wear his seat belt—which he did anyway. “Ordinarily you’d be suggesting I find myself a pair of cross-country skis and hoof it on over to your location.”
A belly laugh boomed across the connection. “I can see you’ve never been a member of a wedding party, old friend. Once wedding plans are in place, God help the unfortunate soul who throws a wrench in the works. The sweetest young woman will become bridezilla in a heartbeat. I’m not worried about you, Thomas. It’s those of us already here with the bride-to-be who have to worry.”
“I’ll be there, Lucas.” Thomas ended the call and tucked his cell into his pocket. He picked up his carry-on and followed the signs to the lower level and ground transportation.
* * *
JOHARA DEROSSI’S HEART was still lodged in her throat. The way the storm had dropped on the city, she’d been convinced Thomas Casey’s plane would ice up and tumble to the runway like a radio-controlled toy with no battery life. While that might have put a convenient end to her task here, it wasn’t at all how Thomas Casey should leave this world.
The enigmatic director of Mission Recovery owed his country an explanation—her, too, if she was being honest. But her questions were not the priority.
Having disguised herself as one of the many flight attendants from a nearby airline milling about deciding how and where to wait out the storm, she’d cloned his cell phone. Now, listening in on her target’s phone call, she silently thanked Lucas Camp for helping her cause. If the wedding party wasn’t expecting him to arrive until tomorrow, she had a head start.
As Thomas left the gate area for the lower levels, she trailed at a respectable distance, but kept him in sight. He couldn’t be crazy enough to try to pick up his rental car in this weather. She had to presume he’d call a hotel for availability and then pick up a ride on a courtesy shuttle.
It really didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to make it that far anyway.
What did matter was that her window of opportunity was closing fast, the already tight schedule accelerated by the storm. Good thing she thrived on pressure or she’d need serious medication about now.
As a member of the Initiative committee, the small group charged with the oversight of ultra-covert teams like Casey’s Mission Recovery Specialists, her life was rarely dull.
When his name had crossed her desk, along with the report listing the privileged information that had roused the suspicions against him, she had immediate and mixed reactions.
She didn’t want to believe it. Men weren’t built any more dedicated or patriotic than Thomas Casey. The idea that he may be guilty of treason—or worse—made her stomach churn. As an investigator, she knew better than to prejudge an operative or a situation, but Thomas was different. She didn’t want to go digging into his past, but more important, she didn’t want anyone else digging into it.
On some level she recognized just how screwed up that was.
Be that as it may, having served with him on a mission near the time period in question, she was eminently qualified. With that in mind, she’d checked his schedule and counted it good fortune that she would be able to deal with this away from the prying eyes in Washington, D.C.
She walked by him as Thomas paused near the rental car lines and pulled out his phone. Listening in again, she was pleased by his predictable behavior as he made his first call to a nearby hotel. Smart man, she thought, as he booked the room without blinking at the storm-inflated price. The hotel clerk promised the next shuttle would be at the appropriately marked stand within ten minutes.
Adjusting her timetable for the shuttle and the road conditions, Jo started for the parking garage. It took all her control not to skid to a stop when she spotted another familiar face among so many strangers.
Specialist Jason Grant, one of Thomas Casey’s rising stars, was coming down the escalator. Though his eyes were shadowed by dark glasses, she knew his gaze was sweeping the crowd.
Damn it. She’d checked the itineraries for all of Thomas’s team over the next week. Grant wasn’t slated to attend the wedding. According to her information, he should have been working recon on a new case in Vegas. With one conversation, he could ruin her plans for a clean capture. She had only seconds to head him off.
Well, that’s what plan B was for, she mused. Jo popped open one more button on her blouse and rushed back toward Thomas. “Excuse me, sir? Seat A2, right?”
His brow puckered and she knew he was trying to place her from the airplane. “I worked coach,” she explained. “But I spotted this in your seat on my way out.”
She flashed an overly bright smile and handed him a passport. “That’s you, right?”
He opened it and, startled, gazed up at her. “Who are you?”
“You know me,” she murmured, leaning closer. “Thomas.”
His eyes went wide as he recognized her voice under the disguise.
“I need you.” The words were out, full of more truth than she cared to admit regarding their past, present and quite possibly their immediate future.
He nodded once, all business, and fell in beside her as she headed toward an employee access. She refused to look back, though she could feel Grant closing in as the door locked behind them.
“This way.”
“Tell me what’s going on, Jo.”
She ignored the ripple of awareness that followed his using her given name. It wasn’t the reaction she’d expected. Thomas always treated everyone with efficient professionalism. Except for that one notable, extremely personal, incident years ago.
“I’ll tell you everything just as soon as we’re out of here.” She checked her watch. They had less than five minutes before the cabbie she’d paid to wait left in search of another fare. In this weather they’d never find another taxi. “Keep up. We have to get out of the area before the roads are closed.” She’d taken precautions, given herself options, but no one could prepare for a freak blizzard.
“Are you in trouble?”
“Yes.” On one too many levels, she realized. But it was too late to back out now. If she didn’t follow through, someone more objective would take over the investigation. Based on what she’d seen, she didn’t think that was a good idea.
Moving forward, she hoped some deep-seated instinct kicked in, making him curious enough to cooperate with her. Grant wasn’t just one of his Specialists, he was the best of the current crop. He’d been tagged to replace Deputy Director Holt, the man who held the position in which Lucas Camp had once served, when the deputy eventually moved up to replace Thomas.
The Initiative committee had approved the plan. Right now, she wondered what the hell they’d been thinking.
“Jo, wait.”
Would the day ever come when his voice didn’t create that shiver of anticipation? “No time.”
“I need an explanation.”
“And I’ll give you one when we’re away from the airport.”
“Jo.” He caught her arm, forced her to stop and really look at him.
Airport employees passed by, moving to and from their respective duties with various degrees of interest in their obviously strained interaction. She made mental notes, knew he was doing the same. Always an eye out for the next threat.
“A particular German mission file crossed my desk last week.”
“I see.”
She fingered the disk in her pocket. Loaded with enough sedative to guarantee his cooperation, she hesitated to use it. And she knew without reservation that she would get only one chance. “This was the only time we could talk safely.” Or so she’d thought.
“I’ve booked a hotel room,” he said. “We can talk there.”
“Fine.” Better if he believed she’d willingly compromise. “I have a cab waiting.”
At last he fell into step beside her once more, giving her hope this would go well. It almost felt like old times. Almost.
Back then she thought they’d been on the same page, working together toward a common goal. After five years apart on diverging career paths, after reading through so many reports of success from his Specialists who routinely went above and beyond mission parameters, she wasn’t sure they could ever be on the same page again.
She might be sure he wasn’t a traitor, she just wasn’t so sure anymore that she was in the same league as the man behind the stoic, black ops armor.
Chapter Two
Mission Recovery Specialist Jason Grant had successfully shadowed Agent DeRossi to Denver, Colorado. On her tail for several days, he knew the hotel she’d been staying in wasn’t within government per diem limits and, thanks to the GPS tag he’d put on her rental, he’d learned she liked to shop in ritzy boutiques.
For as long as he’d been tracking her, he hadn’t recognized any of her contacts. If Deputy Director Holt hadn’t sent him out here personally, he might think this was a wild goose chase. As it was, he was starting to question the rumor claiming she was here on a Mission Recovery witch hunt. Didn’t look that way to him.
Her return to the airport in a flight attendant uniform piqued his curiosity. He hoped whoever she was here to meet appreciated her effort. She looked pretty damned hot.
He’d followed her through the terminal, but if she’d made contact with anyone, it had been too subtle for him to catch. As a well-trained and experienced member of Mission Recovery, getting something by him was highly unlikely and the thought that she’d managed it made him nervous. And definitely ticked him off.
Beyond the windows of the airport, the storm rolled down from the mountains like an avalanche, blanketing the city with snow and ice. He didn’t care for the idea of being stuck in an airport with thousands of stranded travelers, so it was a relief when DeRossi finally started to move.
Until he lost her.
Her curly blond wig was gone. The bright red blazer of the airline she’d falsely represented was absent from the crowd of travelers milling about. He cursed his arrogance. His boss had warned him she was top of the game, but Jason hadn’t been concerned. The woman had been riding a desk for more than three years. However sharp she had once been, she couldn’t be on the top of her game these days.
His gaze continued to roam the crowd. She hadn’t been that far ahead of him. He tucked himself into a place at the end of the escalators where he could keep an eye on the restrooms as well as the main path to baggage claim.
He gave it three long minutes before he admitted the truth. She’d gotten away. Because she’d spotted him or because she’d completed whatever she’d been sent to do here?
He dialed Deputy Director Holt but the call went straight to voice mail. Probably for the best. Reporting a screw-up like losing the target was way, way low on the list of his favorite activities.
Other than telling him to watch her and report her activities, no one had really briefed him on the real reason why DeRossi was in Colorado at the same time as Director Casey. Having her in the airport at the time of his arrival had to be more than coincidence, but so far as he’d been able to observe she hadn’t made contact.
He’d never met a field agent who liked oversight divisions—whether it was the Internal Affairs divisions of police departments or the covert equivalent of the Initiative committee.
An airport security cart whizzed by and Jason decided it was time to get creative. If he could get into the security office, maybe he’d get lucky and spot her on one of the many video feeds they monitored.
He considered fabricating an elaborate story and settled on a lower-risk version of the truth. Following the cart to the nearest security team office, he walked in, credentials ready.
“Can I help you?”
Jason flipped open the wallet with a badge and ID card as he surveyed the entire space. The security office setup was familiar. One uniformed person at the desk, a couple of others in offices that overlooked the small reception area. He glanced at the one closed door and assumed that was where all the real information was hidden.
“Good afternoon.” He smiled, throwing in a little charm since the uniform was female. “I’m Agent Grant. I was tailing a suspect and she managed to ditch me at baggage claim,” he said with just the right blend of irritation and embarrassment. It was a skill he’d picked up during his time in law enforcement.
“I need a look at your cameras, see if I can spot her. Consider it a professional courtesy,” he added. “I really don’t want to have to hear about this mistake for the rest of my life, if I can avoid it.”
She smiled just a little and made a call to her immediate superior. Feeling the eyes on him, he let his shoulders slump as he tucked his badge away, playing the part of the guy who was having a bad day.
It worked. She hung up the phone and walked him over to the closed door.
Two men in airport security uniforms watched the cycling views of the area from the escalators to the exit doors on the wide bank of monitors. Reading the labels under each, he soon had a feel for each area covered by the closed-circuit cameras.
Public areas, employee-only access and the walkways and streets just outside the terminal. Where was she? She wasn’t loitering in baggage claim. Not in the rental car line either.
“Who are you looking for?”
“Flight attendant. Female. Blonde. In a red blazer.” And with less than a minute a good operative could have changed any one of those distinguishing features. He’d given her three minutes plus the time it had taken him to get in here.
DeRossi was an oversight agent. Hadn’t pushed anything more dangerous than paper in a couple of years. He wanted to bang his head against the wall for underestimating her. No one working any aspect of covert ops got hired or moved up the food chain by accident.
Still. She’d shown no sign of spotting him tailing her and it wasn’t entirely unreasonable to believe her field skills would be rusty.
“Hot?” one of the guards asked.
“Aren’t they all?” Grant mused.
“Sure,” the guard admitted with a smirk. “But a few stand out. Let me cue this for you.”
Jason waited the few seconds, let the guard zoom in. “Yeah, that’s her,” he said, stopping just shy of a fist pump. DeRossi strolled down an employee access hall with a businessman at her side. There was a brief conversation, then they moved again, out of the camera’s view. “Where did she go?”
“Got her,” the other guard said. “She went into a cab with the dude.”
Jason nearly choked when he recognized the man in the picture. Director Casey was no one’s “dude.” It wasn’t his job to know what DeRossi wanted with the head of his division, but of all the possibilities that popped into his head, none of them were good. The director was here for a family event and with no ties to the bride or groom, DeRossi wasn’t on the guest list.
Hell. Had he just allowed the director to be kidnapped?
Feeling more than a little grim, Jason watched the cab pull away from the curb. Without being asked, the pair of guards brought up visuals from the other cameras stationed around the airport until the cab went completely out of their range.
“The cab is in the lane for the long-term parking lots.”
That didn’t make sense to him. The car DeRossi drove to the airport was parked in the short-term garage. He’d parked on the other end of the same level.
“Don’t airline employees have their own lot?”
“Sure,” the first guard said. “If they’re based here, most of the crews take a shuttle in from home. But if she’s with him...” The guard let that thought trail off, but they all knew what he was implying. A sexual rendezvous wasn’t something Jason wanted to think about either.
“Can you cue up a view of those lots?”
The second guard shook his head. “Closed circuit on a different system through another security contract. Sorry.”
“No problem.” He had a general direction at any rate and the storm would slow her down. He hoped. A situation like this was all about the legwork and though she had a head start, he wasn’t out of the game.
His phone rang and the screen showed Deputy Director Holt’s somber face. Jason answered, braced to admit his momentary setback.
“I just received a new alert of a potential problem child in your area. I’m sending you the picture.”
Problem child in this context could mean anything from an informant to an assassin. “Am I being reassigned?” He wanted to ask more questions, but wouldn’t risk it in front of the guards.
“No. Watch for the paths to cross.”
“If they do?”
“Document, but do not intervene.”
Whoa. That set off all of his internal alarms. “Yes, sir.”
“Any news for me?”
He thought of DeRossi and Casey in the cab and out of his reach. “Not at this time.”
“You lost her,” Holt said with an irritable sigh.
“Not exactly.” It wasn’t a lie. He still had a general direction. “This freak storm is slowing everything down.”
“I need to know what she’s after. ASAP.”
“Yes, sir,” Jason replied. “I’m on it.”
Ending the call, he turned the phone back and forth in his hands, waiting for the picture to come through. When it did he gave a low whistle. A woman with fiery red hair and a grin as satisfied as a cat with a mouthful of canary filled his screen. He vaguely wondered what she’d been doing when the photographer had captured the candid shot. He had the disquieting sense that he’d seen her before. Though he couldn’t place her immediately, he knew it would come to him.
Shaking off the errant thought, he considered how to fulfill his orders. Regrettably, he didn’t have much choice but to go back to square one: DeRossi’s hotel room. He’d searched yesterday and turned up nothing useful. Not even that uniform.
Damn. He’d been played by an expert whose day job of riding a desk was apparently no indication of what she was capable of. The fact that she and his boss were headed by cab to long-term parking when Jason had followed her to the short-term garage initially meant she had a backup vehicle. The logical conclusion was she had a secondary hotel room, too.
Damn.
“Can you access the cameras from the gate areas?” Jason provided the terminal number where he’d found DeRossi this morning. He hoped going back to where she’d been would give him a clue about where she was headed with the director.
Reviewing the video footage from the cameras near the gates did nothing but affirm he hadn’t missed a drop or exchange. She might have done a little shopping in recent days, but everything now pointed to her coming here solely to grab Director Casey.
Thanking the security team, he exited the office and headed for the parking garage. Holt expected a new player to intersect with either DeRossi, Casey or both of them. He had to pick up the trail.
Casey had hired Jason into Mission Recovery. Jason wasn’t sure he could sit back and do nothing but document any danger aimed at the director. As a Specialist, his job was to salvage missions that had gone beyond the hope of regular recovery. Holt knew that, knew the philosophy of the Specialists. Did the deputy director really expect Jason to go against the order to stay out of whatever was going on here? Was he relying on the Specialist philosophy of running toward danger rather than away from it?
Jason struggled to make sense of the limited data he had, to organize that data into the context of the orders Holt had handed down.
The Initiative jumped on internal investigations like kids jumped on candy after the piñata breaks. DeRossi had carte blanche to do anything in the name of her official inquiry. And apparently not even Holt knew precisely what she was after. Did that include giving someone a chance to take out the director? Jason’s gut clinched.
None of it lined up.
What could be so bad that execution was the best answer?
The better question was did anyone, including the deputy director, really believe Jason would stand back and let that happen?
Frustrated, he turned up the collar on his suit coat, not nearly enough protection against the blizzard. Staring out into the storm, he guessed there were two inches of snow on the ground already and about ten more on the way. He had to pick a direction and get moving.
Jason remembered Director Casey’s answer when he asked why he’d been selected to join the Specialists. “You have the best instincts I’ve seen in a long time.”
His instincts were on high alert but he just had to figure out where to aim them.
Casey was here for a wedding. Jason turned in the general direction of the mountain resort hosting the event. Somewhere behind the blizzard was a chalet with a fatherless bride counting on her uncle to walk her down the aisle in just over forty-eight hours. Jason felt his temper rising at the idea that he was supposed to observe and document if the director was threatened.
But anger would only blur the instincts.
Evidence to the contrary, in this weather, he couldn’t see DeRossi going anywhere other than her hotel room to wait out the storm, no matter what her primary plans had been. If DeRossi was out to make a statement, the wedding party was full of covert operatives from Specialists to Colby Agency investigators with plenty of history and exemplary service records. There could be any number of reasons for her to intercept Casey here and now.
A cold wind blew through the parking garage and he took it in, clearing his head. His decision made, he turned back to his car, just as a flash of orange caught his peripheral vision. He spun around, watching an oily black cloud beat back the storm in one small spot among the endless fields of parked cars.
Car bomb.
Something entirely too much like fear detonated in his gut.
Busy airport or not, he just couldn’t believe the explosion was a coincidence. Jason raced to see if losing DeRossi had meant the death of his director.
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