Buch lesen: «The Big Guns»
“You should sleep.”
His orders were getting a bit out of hand, but she let it pass. He’d killed for her. When a guy took that step, you cut him some slack.
“I’m not getting into bed before I wash the dirt and blood and heaven only knows what else off me.”
His gaze wandered all over her, and the skin under his heated gaze tingled. “What about you? You can have half of the bed.”
“No. It’s not a good idea.”
“I was only talking about getting some rest. Nothing else.”
“You know, you’re a very attractive woman, Sela.”
“One with her own mind. I know who I’m attracted to and who I’m not.”
“And what type of guy are you attracted to?”
She debated playing it safe, then thought about how close she’d come to death over the last twenty-four hours, and skipped right over the games to the truth.
“You.”
The Big Guns
HelenKay Dimon
MILLS & BOON
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To Jill Shalvis for being a terrific conference roommate,
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning author HelenKay Dimon spent twelve years in the most unromantic career ever—divorce lawyer. After dedicating all that effort to helping people terminate relationships, she is thrilled to deal in happy endings and write romance novels for a living. Now her days are filled with gardening, writing, reading and spending time with her family in and around San Diego. HelenKay loves hearing from readers, so stop by her website at www.helenkaydimon.com and say hello.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Zach Bachman —This explosives and demolitions agent isn’t ready to give up. While the rest of the Recovery Project team switches to wait-and-see mode, Zach launches his own investigation into corruption in the Witness Security Program…and ends up in the middle of a kidnapping.
Sela Andrews —She is just trying to earn a living. She finally has a decent job and a safe place to live. It all seems perfect until she gets hit in the head and wakes up to see Zach in front of her. The question is whether he’s there to hurt her or to help.
Trevor Walters —He’s a powerful man with few weaknesses but his assistant Sela is one of them. When she’s taken he has to turn for help in the most unexpected place…but whether he can be trusted remains a question.
Rod Lehman —He worked as a handler in the Witness Security Program and retired to set up the Recovery Project. He’s a guy accustomed to finding people but now he’s the one who’s missing. His team worries he’s dead, but there are rumors he might be at the center of the murder conspiracy.
Vince Ritter —He is Rod’s former partner and a consultant to the Recovery Project…but no one on the team can tell which side he’s really on.
Luke Hathaway —As the interim head of the Recovery Project all the pressure is on him. He has to watch over Zach as he rescues the girl, protect the team and find the bad guy. Failing is not an option.
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 One
Sela Andrews was five minutes away from walking into an ambush. Slumped down in his Jeep on the street outside her apartment, Zach Bachman watched the setup unfold.
The small split-screen monitor on his watch showed Sela approaching the elevator on the floor five stories above.
That wasn’t the problem, except for how clueless she appeared to be to the danger around her. The other shot centered on the building’s underground garage. There, in stall seventeen, not far from where Zach sat, a man fiddled with something under the hood of her car.
And not just any man. A guy dressed in black, his gaze skipping around the garage as if looking for witnesses. He’d even taken the time to disable the security camera. He just didn’t know he’d missed one—Zach’s.
Thanks to this development, Zach knew he had to break his word. When he’d convinced Adam Wright, his fellow Recovery Project agent, to tap into the cameras in Sela’s building, Zach promised to watch but not get involved. That wasn’t possible now. He pressed the green button on the bottom of his watch and sent Adam an emergency pulse. Just in case.
That left Sela. Going through the garage door was the faster route to cutting her off, but also the most likely to give away his position and get shot. Not his favorite activity, certainly not at this painfully early time of day. No, he had to do this the long and hard way.
Out of the car, he hit the building’s lobby at a run, stopping only to use the master key Adam had made for just this type of problem. Zach’s sneakers squeaked against the tile floor as he crossed in front of the elevator bank. He knew the schematics without thinking and headed for the emergency stairwell in the back corner.
As he raced down the stairs two at a time to the underground garage, his palm slid against the metal railing. The stale hot air of the enclosed space filled his lungs, but he didn’t stop. As they passed, he ignored the man stumbling up the stairs from what looked like a hard night of drinking. None of that mattered because Zach had to get there before she did.
He hit the landing, stopping only when momentum slammed his shoulder against the stairwell door. His breathing stayed steady and strong, a testament to his former military career and good conditioning.
He pressed his hand against the door and waited for the ding of the elevator bell to signal Sela’s entry into the garage.
Only silence greeted him.
The door creaked as he pulled it open and peered into the dark garage through the tiny slit. Nothing. Too much nothing. Everything was quiet.
No squealing tires. No engines running. At just after four in the morning on a summer weekend, no one else was in the garage. Not even a security guard. That might be usual for some parts of the country, but not for a city. This area of D.C. buzzed with some level of activity most of the time, but not this morning.
The emergency cones set up at the garage’s entrance likely played a role in that. Looked like this guy had thought of everything to give him the precious time needed to get to Sela. The real concern centered on the guy knowing Sela would be on the move in the early-morning hours on a Sunday. Zach had watched her for weeks and hadn’t anticipated her going out now. But this guy knew.
Not wanting to be too many steps behind, Zach slipped into the garage, keeping his back flat against the concrete wall. With one hand he caught the door before it slammed shut behind him. With the other he reached for the gun tucked into the holder on his hip.
Then he saw it. Behind a row of cars, something flashed. Possibly nothing, but just as likely a reflection of the attacker from all the metal overhead. It gave Zach a place to focus.
He slid down against the wall, debating whether to make his move and take the attacker out before he touched Sela or hold his position. The elevator bell ruined any chance of an offensive strike. He had no choice. The most dangerous option won out.
With a harsh hiss of profanity, he slunk back into the shadows. His insides screamed to grab Sela to safety, but his head knew the right answer. Bide his time. This—whatever was happening right now—could be the key to finding the information he needed on Trevor Walters, Sela’s boss, and the Recovery Project’s nemesis.
Zach couldn’t stop now, not when he was this close to his goal. He’d made a personal vow to find the evidence needed to catch Trevor once and for all, and Zach meant to keep it.
Sela stepped into the garage. Folders and paperwork weighed down her arms. Her sandy-blond hair fell loose in gentle curls around her shoulders. She hummed an off-key tune, seemingly oblivious to the choking gas fumes in the enclosed space.
Zach shook his head at her behavior. For a smart woman she acted pretty dumb. With her arms full, she couldn’t defend herself. Now he had to handle the job.
Moving in double time, she put a slim file between her teeth and wrestled her car keys out of the pocket of her black blazer. While juggling books and papers in one arm, she aimed the door opener at her car. The high-pitched chirp of the alarm echoed through the abandoned garage.
Zach shifted, trying to figure out the current location of the owner of the mysterious glint of light. When he glanced back at Sela, he realized the worst had happened. Her attacker had managed to sneak up on her, his cover protected thanks to her awful pseudosinging and the bulky back end of her SUV.
When she reached for the door handle, balancing her load on an upraised thigh, her stalker sprang into action. A metal object swooped down in an arc before connecting with her head. Zach jumped at the resounding whack as he watched her crumple to the cement. Papers fell in a swoosh and scattered. Her keys jangled, then skidded to a halt under her SUV. She didn’t have warning or time to scream.
The only sound came from the attacker a second later. “Got her,” he said into his cell phone, not bothering to lower his voice.
Zach muttered a harsh oath under his breath but forced his legs to remain still. His hands clenched and unclenched as he watched the attacker stuff Sela’s unmoving body into a rusty pickup truck parked a few spots away from hers. Slipping the small camera out of his pocket, he took the attacker’s photo. Got a shot of the truck, too. When the vehicle roared to life and started moving, Zach flipped into fast-forward. He hesitated only until the guy pulled away and out of sight, then Zach ran out of the garage entrance and up the ramp into the warm, dark morning.
In a silent crouch, he headed for the Jeep. It took less than a minute to get there and slide inside. The ignition turned over with little more than a soft purr. Leaving the lights off, he followed the truck at a safe distance, hanging back behind the few other cars on the road.
Keeping his gaze on the license plate in front of him, Zach hit the button on his watch to patch him into Recovery Project headquarters. Adam picked up on the first ring. He was the tech guy in their group. He had a series of cameras set up throughout the city and could track anything or anyone who was moving.
Before Adam could say a word, Zach jumped in. “I’m sending you a photo.”
“That’s nice of you. Thanks for dragging me out of bed, by the way.”
“I need an ID.”
“Got it.” The amusement left Adam’s voice this time. “This looks bad.”
“Also need you to do your satellite magic and follow a car for me in case I lose it. Track me and then look for the truck a short distance in front of me.”
“It’s not as easy as you make it sound, but I’ll figure it out.”
“And I can’t explain now, so don’t ask.” Zach hung up without any other discussion, knowing Adam would make it all work.
The rest, like saving the girl, was up to Zach.
SELA’S HEAD THROBBED. The muscles in her upper arms burned in agony. Her right cheek felt raw and puffy. Every part of her body, except maybe her nose, hurt like never before.
She tried to sit up but flopped back down when the world spun violently around her. Her hands weren’t bound, but the blinding soreness coursing through her body made even small movements difficult.
She remembered bits and pieces of the last few minutes. She’d gathered up her work and ran out of her apartment without doing her usual check. The rush to talk to her boss made her less than careful. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. She lived in Foggy Bottom, a nice part of Washington, D.C., home to a university, the infamous Watergate and Kennedy Center and rows of impressive brownstones.
But she had known someone was watching her. Could feel the eyes focus on her every time she stepped out her door, which was why she was headed to the office before dawn, before the city burst to life. Her nerves had buzzed until all she heard was a chaotic melody in her head. She remembered the garage and a crack against her skull. She bounced around a vehicle until her kidnapper treated her to another fist to the side of the head.
She’d experienced more violence in the past hour—or maybe minutes, she wasn’t even sure how much time has passed—than in her entire life up until that point. The good news, what little she could find, came from her ability to breathe. Whoever hit her hadn’t killed her. The only question was how long her good fortune would hold out.
“Mornin’, sunshine.” The feral voice shocked her into opening her sore eyes.
The brightness sent a new bolt of pain ricocheting around the inside of her brain. The harsh glow from the overhead light screamed through the room and forced her out of her slumber. She saw her attacker face-to-face and immediately missed the false safety of darkness.
A squeal raced to her lips, but she swallowed it back down. Greasy brown hair, narrow yellow-brown eyes and a dirt-stained blue jean jacket. The burly vermin balanced in front of her on his haunches, his stale breath hissing against the bruised skin on her face.
He was her nightmare.
Heck, he was every woman’s nightmare.
“Wake up, sweetie pie. It’s time for us to have some fun.”
She ignored his grim words as her gaze darted around the room. She needed an escape or something big enough to knock him over.
“What’s the matter? You not gonna talk?” His booming laugh filled the small space as he leaned in closer.
What he found so funny, she had no idea.
“I could make you talk. Scream for me, even.” Instead of following through with his threat, he pushed against his thighs and stood.
Sela let out the shaky breath suspended in her chest. From what she could see, she was in a one-room cabin with two possible exits—a window above the kitchen sink that was caked with filth, and the front door off to her left. A very solid-looking wooden door and she had to go through a disgusting guy to get there.
A metal card table and two folding chairs sat in front of the kitchenette lining the wall to her far right. The path to the front door looked miles away, even though the room could not have been more than fifteen feet wide.
She tried a second time to heave her aching body to a sitting position when a brisk knock at the front door stopped her. Her captor whipped out a small gun from behind his back and aimed it in the direction of the sound. Before Sela could scream for help he grabbed her shoulder and lifted her off the sofa.
The jarring move sent a new wave of pain rattling through her battered body. She whimpered but her captor silenced any sound by locking his elbow around her neck and dragging her, half-choking, across the room.
With his back against the door and the muzzle of his gun pressed against her forehead, he called out. “Who is it?”
“Open up,” came the muffled reply.
Sela struggled to identify the voice. From her attacker’s frown, she assumed he couldn’t place it, either.
Her attacker’s grip eased enough for circulation to rush back to her neck. She debated whether or not she could land a swift kick in this guy’s crotch. The idea of him falling to the ground in agony sure sounded good right about now.
“Johnnie? Let me in.” The door muffled the other man’s voice but his words were clear.
Her captor pressed the tip of the gun against the wooden door. “Who are you?”
“The boss sent me.”
“Not possible.”
Boss? The contents of Sela’s stomach spun and swished. The situation went from awful to unbelievable. She had to get out of there, and having two attackers wasn’t going to make that easy.
“This is your final warning. Open up,” the mystery guest yelled through the door.
When Johnnie unlocked the door, Sela felt the last of her hope shrivel.
Chapter Two
Zach heard the lock click and nearly ripped the cabin door off its hinges in the rush to get to Sela. He surged through the door and stopped. His gun never wavered. It aimed right at Johnnie’s forehead in a weapons standoff.
Adam had tracked this guy, Johnnie Weed, down and sent over his criminal record via secured text. Sounded like Johnnie liked to hurt women. Zach decided on the race through back roads that he wouldn’t need backup to take care of Johnnie if he touched Sela. He would tear the other man apart with his bare hands.
Right now the shock on Johnnie’s face matched the fear on Sela’s. “I don’t know you,” Johnnie said.
Zach forced his lungs to inflate, then slowly released his held breath. His gaze moved over her, checking for any sign of injury. A fierce bruise already marred her cheek. Her short skirt was hiked up high on her thighs, and it looked as if her scuffed pumps were the only things holding her tattered panty hose to her legs.
Rage filled his brain until he had to fight the urge to kill Johnnie right there. Instead, Zach nodded in Sela’s direction with a studied coolness he didn’t feel. “Let her go.”
Johnnie kept his arm locked around her slim throat as he held her just out of Zach’s easy reach. “This ain’t your business.”
Johnnie’s gun shifted next to her face. Zach concentrated on the weapon so he didn’t have to see the confusion move over her.
Yeah, she knew him. He could tell by the way her eyes narrowed and her mouth fell into a grim line. Identifying him sure didn’t mean she was happy to see him. She looked the exact opposite of relieved.
And Zach could guess why. The Recovery Project made it a priority to discover everything about Trevor Walters and it would be dumb to assume he didn’t return the favor. Zach guessed his team’s photos were all over Trevor’s office and since Sela was Trevor’s assistant she knew all the details.
“Put that thing down before you hurt her.” Zach issued the order as he plotted a way to inflict some hurt of his own on Johnnie.
“Why do you get a say?”
“Just do it.”
“Do ya think you’re in charge?”
Zach’s hand snaked out with lightning speed. He grabbed the barrel of Johnnie’s gun and snatched it away. With the other arm, Zach elbowed Johnnie under the jaw. The man’s head whipped back from the offensive strike, and he lost his grip on Sela. She spun to the side and landed on the dusty floor with a soft groan.
Zach moved in. He slammed Johnnie in the nose with the heel of his hand. The sudden whack worked as planned. Johnnie howled in pain as blood spurted.
“I’m in charge around here, Johnnie. Don’t forget it.”
“Why did ya hit me?” The guy practically squealed the question.
“You’re lucky that’s all I did.”
“Did the boss really send you?”
Zach treated Johnnie to a look of disgust. “Clean yourself up.”
Johnnie crawled to his feet and grabbed for the dirty kitchen towel hanging over the faucet. “You broke my nose.”
Hurting Johnnie felt good. Too good. Zach cursed his lack of control. He’d finally wrestled the animal part of him into submission only to find his hold weak.
Sela picked that moment to make a mad dash for the door. The woman had a lousy sense of timing.
She ducked low and tried to barrel past him. She might have made it, too, except he was ready. He knew she was a born fighter. He’d studied her, followed her and watched her day after day for weeks. The person who ordered her kidnapping might underestimate her survival instinct. Zach didn’t plan to make that mistake.
He snatched her around her slim waist and lifted her into the air, pressing her back against the full length of his body with as gentle a touch as possible. “Whoa, you’re not going anywhere.”
“Let me go.” Labored breathing strained her voice.
When he squeezed her midsection, she let out a shocked yelp of distress. He turned her around so their noses almost touched. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
She pushed against him, her small fists knocking against his chest in a futile attempt to break free. “Don’t touch me.”
Zach captured her hands in his and pulled her body tight against him. Each slope and contour of her fit him like a perfect puzzle piece.
“Settle down,” he said.
She ignored him. She grunted and shoved at him.
“Are you hurt?” He conducted a visual tour, looking for signs of obvious injury.
“What do you care?” Her eyes promised mutiny.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Zach scowled at Johnnie where he leaned over the nearby sink, and once again debated killing him. “I’ll deal with you later.”
Zach could not get off his game. Not yet. There would be time to talk and figure out why Johnnie picked today and who hired him, but this wasn’t it. Reacting to her distress would distract him and kill them both.
“You touch her, Johnnie, you die. You understand me?”
“Well, well, well.” Johnnie threw the stained towel in the sink. “Big man thinks he owns the woman.”
Adrenaline pumped through Zach. His only thought was to protect Sela. That was his job. Didn’t matter if it was a formal operation or a self-imposed assignment. He’d taken on that role the second he started watching her.
The blow came out of nowhere.
One minute Johnnie skulked around, head down and shoulders slumped with a general air of defeat. The next he snarled like a wild animal. He aimed his full body weight for Zach’s stomach. Anticipating the hit, Zach moved to the side at the last minute and pushed Sela out of the fray.
Johnnie didn’t stop. He launched a second strike. This one with fists. Zach blocked a wild punch and sent Johnnie spinning into the couch. Zach outweighed his attacker by a good thirty pounds and he had been trained to fight. Trained by the best to kill.
A kick straight to the stomach and the fight ended with Johnnie rolling on the floor, holding his bruised ribs. In those precious final minutes of battle Zach feared he had gone over the edge, that his tenuous hold on his control had finally snapped, speeding him across that imaginary line between good and evil.
Thinking about Johnnie hurting Sela torched Zach’s insides. He barely knew her, but that didn’t matter. There were some things a man didn’t do. Smacking a woman around was at the dead top of the list.
Zach inhaled long and deep, hoping to calm the madness brewing inside of him. When his breathing returned to normal he tipped his head back against the wall and looked around the room.
Sela was gone.
“CARE TO TELL ME what that was about?” Luke Hathaway stood staring at the wall of computer monitors in the Recovery Project’s warehouse headquarters. With one hand balanced against the console, he hovered. He was good at hovering.
Ever since Recovery had lost its government funding and disbanded as a quasi-official agency, it operated even deeper undercover. When Rod Lehman had disappeared—the man who’d handpicked the Recovery members and set the group’s mission—Luke had stepped up to serve as de facto leader.
A serious injury to his shoulder made him a possible vulnerability to his fellow agents in the field. Not that he regretted the move that took away partial use of his arm since it happened while saving his wife, Claire, the love of his life and the person who now bankrolled the Recovery Project.
But the change in financing meant no more fancy downtown Washington, D.C., offices with the fake cover of an antiques salvage operation. No more formal law-enforcement assistance. No more protection if they stepped too close to the line. That was all long gone. Now they had a nondescript beige warehouse by the southwest waterfront. It didn’t look like much but the technology inside rivaled that of any government intelligence agency thanks to Adam’s technical expertise.
Being in command, taking the lead but often staying behind when the bullets started flying, let Luke play a major role without his unwanted disability causing a problem for his team. It also allowed him to focus and make sure the group’s original mission never changed. They specialized in finding missing people, those who were taken against their will and those who disappeared on purpose. Locating Rod, now presumed dead, was their main job and a constant source of frustration. They were experts, could find almost anyone, and they couldn’t find this one man who meant so much.
Since they’d just come off a series of cases uncovering corruption in the Witness Security Program— WitSec—that left several of the program participants dead in a cash-for-information scheme by the very officials charged with protecting them, the Recovery agents were all exhausted. They were supposed to be taking a short break to regroup and figure out what role Trevor Walters, the very rich, very connected and very dirty owner of Orion Industries, played in the WitSec murders. And if he had a partner. Which meant Adam and Zach shouldn’t be handling an operation, and certainly shouldn’t being doing so without Luke’s involvement.
The only reason Luke knew to get there this morning was his emergency alarm went off when the building’s tracking devices started humming. That meant either Adam was working instead of sleeping with his new girlfriend Maddie in the loft above the team’s workspace or someone had broken in. Either way, Luke had to move. He left his house in the capable hands of fellow team member Caleb Mattern, who was also in charge of watching over Claire and Caleb’s new wife, Avery. They were two women determined to help even if it meant danger, which made protecting them an even bigger challenge. But Caleb was up to the task.
Skipping his usual morning coffee and a few extra hours in bed with his pregnant wife made Luke more than a little frustrated. Things would only get worse in a few minutes when the caffeine headache kicked in.
“I’ll ask again. This obviously isn’t a drill since I didn’t schedule one, so what is Zach doing?” This time Luke loomed behind Adam, making sure he couldn’t move his chair without slamming into either the desk in front of him or Luke behind him.
“You sure you want to know?”
“Details.”
When Adam tried to spin around this time, Luke stepped back. Adam’s lack of eye contact told Luke most of what he needed to know.
“Someone grabbed Trevor’s assistant,” Adam said.
“Sela Andrews?”
“That’s the one.”
“Where is she now?”
“With Zach.”
Luke blew out a long breath. “Okay, and where is he?”
Adam glanced over his shoulder at the monitor. “Western Maryland. He hasn’t checked in since he left the car to get her, but his watch is on. I can hear everything.”
“It’s bad?”
“It’s not good, but Zach has it under control.” Adam cleared his throat. “For now.”
“Get out there. I’ll take care of the communications on this end and watch over Maddie.” When Adam didn’t move, Luke motioned for him to get up.
“I might not get there in time,” Adam said.
“Go. Use back roads. Borrow a helicopter if you have to. Move in fast and keep talking so I know where you are.”
Adam went to the weapons cabinet and typed in the security code. He loaded up with three guns, a knife and a bag of small explosives and headed for the door. He turned back right as the metal closure to the attached garage slid open. “Hey, Luke?”
Luke didn’t look up from the monitors and their focus on the darkness around Zach’s car. “Yeah?”
“Sorry we hid this one from you.”
Luke understood. The drive to rescue was ingrained in the men he fought beside. So was the need to find Rod and have an answer, whatever it was.
Other than Rod, the only person known to have information on the WitSec scam—the side job Rod was working on when he disappeared—was Trevor Walters. The one person close to Trevor was Sela. That made her a priority.
Luke nodded. “Later Zach can give us all an explanation of why he was close enough to Sela to watch her get kidnapped.”
“About that—”
“Get the woman out alive and figure out who tried to snatch her and why. We’ll handle the rest once she’s safe.”
“Thanks.”
“Just get there.” Luke made the statement to the silent room, but he knew Adam understood. One second too late and Zach would be a dead man.
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