Facing Fire Read online

  He looked from Tasha to Ellery Kimball. Where Tasha stood tall and lean with her long blond hair and smoking body as a shield to hide her lethal, kill-on-demand nature, Ellery was a cute, petite redhead. The size fooled most people. Josiah had stood next to her at the gun range often enough to appreciate her dedication to the team and impressive kill shot. She chose not to work in the field but Josiah would have welcomed her—either woman—on Delta team.

  But Ellery had other skills. Impressive skills. She was downright spooky when it came to her ability to find and track information. She watched over them all, provided necessary intel, and searched down every angle. If Tasha had Ellery out in the field now, that meant Ellery had found something.

  He turned his attention to her. “Well?”

  “It could be a coincidence but—”

  “I doubt it.” He didn’t even know what it was and he knew it mattered.

  Ellery slipped a folder out from underneath her arm. “Two days ago I started getting alarms about hits on your names.”

  He had no idea what that meant. “Okay.”

  “Computer searches. Ordinary, with little attempt to hide the researching.” Ellery looked from Tasha to Josiah. “Not just on one of us. Someone is searching the entire team, so it can’t be a coincidence. Someone had to get all of our names,” Ellery said.

  Tasha sighed at him. “Searching our real names.”

  The import of that sank in and something inside his brain exploded. “What?”

  The news didn’t make sense. A long-time CIA agent who helped set up the Alliance—Jake Pearce—had turned on them and thrown in with Benton, choosing piles of blood money over honor and decency. The Alliance had paid Jake back, leaving his remains buried in a rock pile in Pakistan. Only Benton escaped that firefight with any knowledge of the true identities of the Alliance members.

  That was the point. He knew who they were already. Jake made it clear he had passed on top-secret intel about the entire team. So, Benton wouldn’t need to hunt them down through routine computer searches. He possessed their names and could act.

  No one else should have that intel. There were firewalls and protections in place. Rotating IPs and signals bouncing all over the world. Josiah didn’t understand most of it, but he’d understood the people who knew him before, in his former life, would be protected by his anonymity.

  He’d signed up with the Alliance based on certain assurances. When the United States and the United Kingdom decided to pool resources and form the team, they pulled in people from the CIA, MI6, and the U.S. military, and a few from places, organizations, and operations he’d never even heard of. Pure black-ops, black-box, off-the-books shit.

  Josiah had entered the Alliance through the back door. His cover had always been as the clean-cut son of the UK’s ambassador to Italy. Someone who obtained his position in the diplomatic service likely as a result of his impressive family ties. That allowed him to disappear for long periods of time, and no one ever questioned where he’d gone. Most assumed he worked in an office out of the country somewhere, and well-placed correspondence now and then supported that theory.

  But he’d never sat at a desk in his life. He worked undercover, honing his skills and his shot until Tasha tagged him for a spot not only in the Alliance, but running one of its two teams. He hadn’t looked back since.

  Ellery held that file in a death grip. “I have a program that looks for certain search strings. Random words that link to the histories of the Alliance members. Code names for CIA and MI6 operations. Military operations for some of you. Relative names. Your birth names. Street names. All of it.”

  He took it all back. She was far more than spooky and amazingly competent. She was brilliant. But still, she was one person. Even with all the resources available to her, she couldn’t possibly cull through all of that information. “That must be a massive amount of data.”

  She smiled. “I review it all day, every day.”

  For once he was relieved to be wrong. “Damn.”

  “That’s why she is the Alliance’s most valuable resource.” Tasha took a step back, peeking around the hedge. She gestured to someone.

  Mike came around the corner. “Which makes me wonder why she’s out in the open and not hidden away in a locked room somewhere.”

  Tasha’s eyebrow lifted. “I can protect her.”

  Josiah didn’t argue. The Alliance had been Tasha’s idea. She claimed that she’d run into random CIA agents on her operations one too many times so that she had no choice but to find a joint solution to international problems. “No doubts here.”

  “I’m sure as hell not arguing.” Mike whistled. “Man, what is up with your family?”

  Josiah wasn’t sure what Mike was referring to, the fake politeness, the icy reserve, or the obvious disdain for their son. A feeling Josiah had dealt with for years since his father didn’t even attempt to hide it. “I’m sure families in . . . Nebraska? Was that where you’re from?”

  Mike shrugged. “I’m from one of those square states. The name doesn’t matter.”

  A country boy with a military background and an ability to sneak up and shoot anything at any time without flinching. That’s how Josiah saw Mike, that and as his right-hand man. American or no, Josiah trusted Mike to handle every situation and had never been disappointed. “Well, I’m sure there are difficult families in your square state as well.”

  “It’s the rich people, passive-aggressive thing I’m talking about.” Mike stared at Ellery, the only other American standing there at the moment, before looking back to Josiah. “No wonder you threw in with us and left this country.”

  “Excuse me?” Tasha’s eyebrow lifted as she responded, drawing out the word in her unmistakably British accent.

  “I’m just saying there are a lot of people acting all nice and fine to your face over here, speaking in that refined hoity-toity way while they secretly hope you fall out a window.” Mike held up a hand to her in what looked like mock surrender. “No offense.”

  A smile edged the corner of Tasha’s mouth. “You’re not wrong.”

  While Josiah enjoyed the U.S./UK rivalry on the team, now was not the time. “The computer searches?”

  “It’s elementary stuff in that the person didn’t do much to hide her identity. She employed the usual safeguards, but not anything that would get by someone who was looking for a breach.” Ellery handed Josiah the file. “I was able to trace her right back to her Paris apartment.”

  Josiah flipped through the pages with Mike right at his shoulder, following along. The name jumped out at Josiah first. Didn’t tweak any memories for him. “Sutton Dahl. What do we know about her?”

  “American in her late twenties. She’s supposed to be there on vacation.” Ellery ticked off the biographical information as if she had it all memorized, which, knowing her, she likely did.

  Josiah knew her well enough to know there was more to hear. “But?”

  “She’s a private investigator from Maryland,” Ellery explained. “This is her first time overseas. She’s alone and not spending much on her credit cards. No dinners out. No extravagant expenses. No sightseeing that I can tell.”

  Tasha exhaled. “We wonder if she’s on an assignment of some sort. One that points back to us.”

  “Pretty.” Mike lifted one of the pages and glanced at the woman’s photo. Then he frowned at Josiah’s glare. “What? She is.”

  Mike wasn’t exaggerating. The more Josiah looked, the more tempting it was to flip back to the photo on that first page. This Sutton had a bit of an all-American look to her. Big blue eyes and long wavy hair, not quite red and not quite blond. Probably a bit of both.

  “She’s connected to Benton somehow?” Young, smart, and pretty. Could be the perfect type for someone like Benton, though who knew, because Benton led a reclusive lifestyle. Never seen, generally unknown. Which meant Josiah had no idea what the guy’s preferences were or who, if anyone, he’d want around him.

  Tasha
shook her head. “There’s nothing in her file or movements over the years to suggest that. She appears hardworking and dedicated. Normal. There aren’t any holes or red flags. The reports from law firms and companies who used her services are all glowing.”

  Of course Ellery and Tasha tracked that down. Probably pretended to be someone looking for a reference. “What type of investigative work does she do?”

  The smile on Ellery’s face said something good was coming. “Mostly divorce.”

  Mike said what Josiah was thinking. “What the fuck?”

  “But she has our names, which suggests a tie to Benton or someone like Benton or someone working with him.” Josiah couldn’t come up with another explanation for this Sutton woman possessing top-secret information she shouldn’t have. Maybe she stumbled over it as part of a case she was working on, but that seemed like a reach. The Alliance’s information would not be on some cheating spouse’s computer.

  “She could be a true believer, the female version of Benton who gave up her old life and is in Paris on a job.” Ellery shook her head. “I don’t know yet.”

  Mike whistled. “That’s a scary thought. Benton with more stamina and smarts? Damn.”

  “The question is where and how Ms. Dahl got the information she’s searching.” Tasha eased her way back toward the opening of the maze and glanced around before returning her attention to the group. “And what she hopes to find.”

  “I’ll go find out.” Silence followed Josiah’s volunteering. The way they kept glancing at one another had him grinding his back teeth together. “Stop with the staring. I’m fine.”

  “Yeah, you sound it,” Mike said in a voice loaded with sarcasm.

  Josiah ignored the tone and turned back to his boss. “I’m guessing we’re in lockdown protocol.”

  Tasha did not hesitate. “I put that in place five minutes after your uncle died.”

  “He was murdered. No need to pretty it up. He wasn’t hit by a bus.” No, he was blown apart. An image that would never leave Josiah’s brain. The only way he could get through the day and keep moving was to block the memory and concentrate on revenge.

  Tasha’s mouth fell into a thin line. “I am aware of the circumstances.”

  Lockdown meant team members in safe houses and minimal staff back at the Warehouse. The team would be spread out nearby and searching for leads while waiting for the call to move in. Some might be guarding the members’ loved ones along with whatever reinforcements Tasha had brought in, using whatever excuses she used. The woman could work miracles.

  Josiah guessed that Tasha’s live-in boyfriend, Ward Bennett, one of the day-to-day managers of the Alliance and a former CIA agent, hovered close. Mike worked on Delta team but Josiah knew the rest of his men were on the ground, providing support. He’d get the specifics later. Right now, Josiah wanted to move before Sutton Dahl got spooked or wise to her computer search mistake or whatever and bolted.

  “I’m the most logical one to go. Benton took his shot at me and was successful, so he’ll move on to someone else.” And Josiah vowed to be waiting. No one else in the Alliance was going to have to attend a funeral. Not on Josiah’s watch.

  “You plan to break into this woman’s house and question her?” Ellery asked.

  “I will do whatever it takes to get answers.” Josiah didn’t go into detail because he didn’t have to. They got it.

  Ellery winced. “It’s possible this woman’s computer search and your uncle’s death are unrelated.”

  No way did Josiah buy that. “I think we all know that’s not true.”

  “Fine.” Tasha let out a long, loud breath. “Go, take Mike, and no bloodshed.”

  She’d never said that last part before and Josiah didn’t like it now. “No way I can promise that.”

  “That was an order, Josiah.”

  He wasn’t joking. He wasn’t trying to test the breadth of her command either. He stated a simple reality. “This operation is well off the books. This is personal. We are at war with this evil motherfucker Benton. That means I will do whatever it takes to shake the intel out of Sutton Dahl. Whatever she has, however I have to do it, I’ll get it.”

  Tasha moved in closer as her voice dipped lower. “You can’t kill her. Not unless we know more.”

  He sure as hell knew he could. If Sutton Dahl said the wrong thing or withheld information, if she knew about his uncle’s death or was some sort of demented Benton cheerleader, he’d pull the trigger. No questions asked.

  The list of reasons to hurt this person, woman or not, was not hard for him to mentally construct. “We’ll see.”

  Ellery’s eyes narrowed. “And if she’s innocent?”

  That was exactly Josiah’s point. “If she’s mixed up with Benton she is not innocent.”

  4

  SUTTON TAPPED her fingernails against the side of her wineglass and stared at her laptop from across the room. Since her entire short-term rental consisted of an open area where the couch folded into a bed and the kitchen area led to a tiny bath, she could read every word without her glasses. Nothing extravagant. Exactly the type of place one would expect to be able to rent weekly for cash and no questions.

  Day two of searching and she wasn’t one inch closer to figuring out what the random words and names in that file meant. She’d run computer searches. Called in a favor and had a friend at the office do some poking around on a few federal databases Sutton couldn’t access in France without raising suspicion.

  She’d also checked the cameras she planted in Bane’s office during her visit, looking for clues. He and his sidekick, the guy she knew only as Frederick—and she knew that only because she overheard Bane use the name one day while she peeked out her peephole—went in and out, but nothing unusual.

  Curiosity ate at her. So did the fear she’d messed up and left something in Bane’s office. Maybe she triggered an alarm. More and more she worried he had cameras watching her while she moved around in there. But if that were true, he should have made a move and confronted her by now. She’d been in her fake office, and between her presence there and the cameras and motion sensors she had set up, she knew no one snuck in.

  Maybe the file she found in the safe didn’t mean anything. She’d hoped it would provide a lead that would let her catch Bane in the act of something. So far, no.

  Her eyes, still itchy and sore from the contacts she wore all day and hated, failed and her vision blurred. She wanted to blame the red wine but the room’s punishing heat caused the dryness. The fall breeze had chilled her as she walked from the Metro. The fourth floor apartment over the tea shop, with the heat register she couldn’t control, warmed her right back up. The shorts and oversized long-sleeved tee helped to keep her from breaking into a sweat as she sat there. So did being in bare feet on her hardwood floor.

  She blew out a long breath. “Okay, one more time.”

  Her mom had taught her that. Be smart but be relentless.

  With the glass still in her hand, Sutton headed for the desk sitting in front of the one window in the small apartment. A few hours of researching and analyzing, then she’d try reading one of the twenty magazines stacked up on the floor next to her makeshift bed.

  She had taken two steps when a weird scratching sound caught her attention. She squinted, moving in closer to the window. The bang behind her had her spinning around. The glass fell from her hand and crashed against the floor, peppering her bare legs and toes with tiny sharp pieces.

  She didn’t feel any of it. The sight of an armed man dressed in black, storming in with weapon ready, had her body locked in place. Air trapped in her lungs and fear clogged her throat as she fought to scream.

  He came right for her. No hesitation. No conversation. Gun up, vest on, face covered.

  She tried to pivot and uneven shards of glass bit into her feet. She ignored the pain as she dove for the lamp. She’d get one good whack in before—

  “One move and you die,” he said in a deep voice that carried a ha
rsh whip of anger. “Talk or scream and you die.”

  She struggled to listen to the list of promised threats included in his order but the panicked rush of blood through her ears blocked out some of it. She got the gist—do not cause trouble or she’d bleed out.

  “Okay, okay.” She tried placating but her voice bobbled and the shaking in her muscles made it hard to stay still. “Please don’t shoot.”

  Some men liked the victim act. She could play that as she shifted closer to her knife. Since the fear whipping around inside her was very real, the act would not be a reach.

  With her hands up she lifted one foot, then the other, trying to brush the glass away. Fear flooded her and her breathing came out in pants, but she forced her heartbeat to slow. Getting sucked into the darkness now could mean her death.

  The longer she stood there the more confident she felt. She was trained. Danger came with her job. If Bane had created this round, that only meant she was getting close to the truth.

  All of her mother’s warnings came rushing back. All those years working on the hostage recovery team had made Mom paranoid, or what Sutton thought of as paranoid until right that moment.

  Sutton mentally sorted through the memories for the right self-defense strategy. Fight, scream, and don’t let them take you. Make a scene. Draw attention. The tiny space hampered all those options. She needed to be able to run. To bolt and not look back. The mask—whatever covered this guy’s face—suggested that talking her way out of this nightmare might not be an option.

  The knife gave her the biggest chance. Unfortunately it sat in her pants pocket. The same pants hanging on the knob to the bathroom door. Not very convenient.

  “You don’t have to . . .” Her gaze shot past the guy in front of her to the second one standing at the apartment’s entry. He shut and locked the door, trapping all three of them inside.

  Her heartbeat took off again, wild and frantic. Adrenaline and terror mixed inside her and threatened to buckle her knees. These two—whoever they were—had the wrong place, the wrong person. Or maybe Bane sent them. That possibility kept floating through her head. It matched with that gnawing sensation at the back of her brain that she’d messed something up while digging around his office.