HOT Valor (Hostile Operations Team - Book 11) Page 10

  She slanted a look at Johnny from beneath her lashes. He had headphones on and was watching a movie. Something with explosions and car chases. Every once in a while he’d snort, and she could tell it was because the movie had gotten something wrong.

  She wanted to reach out and put her hand on his arm. Trace her fingers along the smooth muscles there before tugging his head down for a kiss. Would it still be as exciting as so long ago? Would his mouth still have the power to melt her defenses and make her beg for his touch?

  Kat turned toward the wall and closed her eyes determinedly. Enough. She would never know—and she didn’t want to know either.

  Liar. The word bounced around her brain like a pinball, mocking her until she finally fell into an exhausted sleep.

  Chapter 16

  “He’s gone where?”

  Every cell in Mark DeWitt’s body had iced over before flaring again in a bright, hot wave of adrenaline and fear.

  “Moscow, sir.” Gabe looked apologetic and slightly ill at the same time. “He was seen boarding a plane in Atlanta. The passport he used bore the name Ivan Nemtyev. There might be a woman with him, but we aren’t certain. Her name was Svetlana Vlacic.”

  Mark clenched a fist at his side. “Photo?”

  Gabe handed over a folder. Mark flipped it open to reveal a lovely woman with shoulder-length black hair and an icy beauty that could freeze any man in his tracks. She was striking and somewhat aloof. Cautious, he would say. As if she’d seen too much and had no innocence left.

  There was a shot of Mendez too. He was growing a beard. It was shocking to see him in jeans and boots, with facial hair, but it was definitely him. The bastard might be forty-nine, but he was handsome and muscular and could probably kick the asses of guys twenty years his junior.

  “Why weren’t they stopped?”

  “The TSA agent wasn’t certain it was him. By the time we got the photo and identified him, the plane was gone.”

  “Call it back.”

  “Can’t do that, sir. It’s not an American carrier, and they’re over the Atlantic by now.”

  “Fuck.” What good was it being vice president if you had all this power and couldn’t use it? “Any word from Ian Black yet?”

  “Black’s on his way, sir.”

  “Call Turov. Now.”

  “Yes, sir.” Gabe took out his phone and dialed. It was risky but necessary. Turov’s business lines were certainly tapped by the CIA, but this line was not. Not yet anyway. The spooks had to find it first, and Mark knew they had not.

  Gabe said something to whomever answered. Mark snapped his fingers impatiently and Gabe handed over the phone.

  “We’ve got trouble,” Mark said.

  “You take great risks,” Turov replied, his voice colder than a winter’s day.

  Arrogant bastard. Mark clenched the phone. He hated like hell being beholden to this Russian. The man was a hundred times the hard-ass that Grigori Androv had been. Hard to blame him when he’d been shot by one of Mendez’s operators last year.

  “Mendez is on his way to Moscow. He’s traveling under the name Ivan Nemtyev. He’s with a woman. Svetlana Vlacic.”

  Turov was silent for a long moment. “Do you have photos of the woman?”

  “Gabe will send them over.”

  “This is nothing to worry over. We will capture them, and we will eliminate Mendez, along with his men, when the time comes.”

  Mark gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to know what Turov had planned for the HOT squad he’d captured. He wanted the deniability. And he wanted Mendez in the US to take the fall for everything that had happened.

  “I need him alive. You got what you wanted—Levkin is dead. But I need Mendez to take the blame for the operation.”

  “You’ve planted the evidence in HOT’s computers with my help. That should be sufficient for your Senate investigation. You will pin the whole thing on him. The evidence is incontrovertible.”

  Mark’s gut churned. Idiot! “It’s not enough. I need the man himself. He’s a martyr, Sergei. He will fall on his sword for his president and his country. I need him to do that.”

  “And if he does not?”

  “Then I need him alive anyway. He’ll look guilty no matter how he denies it. And Campbell will look guilty by default. There will be a public outcry. The scandal will be too much for him to weather.”

  Sergei blew out an impatient breath. “You overthink these things.”

  Mark ground his teeth. “I’ll be in Moscow in a few days. Don’t kill him. If you capture him, give him to me. I will make it worth your while.”

  Sergei sighed as if extremely put upon. “Fine. I will hand him over to you. But you need to fix the problem.”

  Mark blinked. Who was the fucking vice president of the United States here? The second most powerful man in America and therefore the world? He was.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “You had better, my friend. Or perhaps someone will take care of you.”

  Sergei Turov tossed his cell phone onto the leather seat of his limousine and made a noise of disgust. He did not much like whiny assholes. And Mark DeWitt was one of the whiniest. Too bad Sergei could not eliminate him. He did not honestly care one way or the other if DeWitt became president of the United States. It would do him little good in spite of the leverage he had over Mr. DeWitt.

  But eliminating the Hostile Operations Team… Now that he cared about quite a lot. Killing John Mendez? Even better.

  Misha arched an eyebrow from his seat opposite. “And what is Mr. DeWitt’s crisis now?”

  “Apparently, John Mendez is traveling to Moscow. With a woman.”

  Misha’s expression grew hard. “What woman?”

  “Can’t you guess? Dmitri told us she was with him.”

  He’d sent Dmitri to New Orleans because he’d gotten information she was there. Dmitri had tracked her down—but she hadn’t been alone.

  Misha shook his head. “She would not dare. She’s been running for eight years. Why return now?”

  “Because of Mendez.”

  He knew about her past because Dmitri had told him many years ago. He also knew who the father of her child was. Yet another thing to hate John Mendez for. Sergei hadn’t known Sasha—as he preferred to think of her—at that time, but once she’d come to work for him, she’d been his and no one else’s.

  “He is dangerous, Father.”

  “Yes, I am aware.”

  Sergei frowned and studied the scenery as they rode from his offices in Moscow to his mansion in the city with its view of the Kremlin and the Moskva River. He’d worked very hard to build his fortune, first in partnership with Grigori Androv and now on his own. He’d made the company Zoprava bigger and better in the past year. He’d had to since John Mendez and HOT had put a stop to the trafficking side of operations when Grigori got too careless with the information.

  That had been a multibillion dollar loss to the bottom line. And then there was the half billion dollars they’d lost when Grigori bought technology that did not work from an American defense contractor. Sergei had tried to recover the money, but again HOT was there. The money—and the technology—were gone.

  He pressed a hand to his chest. It still ached where he’d been shot by one of Mendez’s military commandos. He could feel the indentation where the bullet had gone through. It had exited the other side, shattering bone and blood vessels.

  He’d coded twice on the operating table. He’d lived, but he’d been told he might never walk again. They’d sent him back to Russia broken and half-dead.

  But he refused to die. He refused to give up. Misha had taken over the business for him, and he’d fought harder than he’d ever fought for anything in order to recover. He could walk now, but he needed a cane. And he grew tired much quicker than before. A lingering legacy from his wound.

  The burning hatred he felt for John Mendez and his Hostile Operations Team had kept him alive. He did not blame the man who’d shot him.
That man was a foot soldier.

  He blamed Mendez. And now the colonel was coming to Moscow? Walking into his lair? Bringing Sasha with him? A bubble of something Sergei might have once called glee began to grow in his psyche.

  Mendez and Sasha together. In Moscow. He would destroy them. But first he would make them beg.

  “I imagine he’s coming for me,” Sergei said. “But we will be waiting for him. First we will make him watch as we torture Sasha in front of his eyes. And then we will make sure he dies a slow and painful death. We can toss his remains in with his men. Once the bomb blows, they’ll eventually find his DNA. He will be implicated in the tragic death of our president.”

  “We can certainly arrange that,” Misha said with a shrug. “If it’s what you want.”

  “Da. I think it is.”

  “What about the American vice president?”

  Sergei thought about it. He did not like DeWitt. The man was arrogant and grasping, but he had no real convictions. No allegiances to anything other than whatever cause or group would get him what he wanted. But he did owe much of his wealth to deals he’d made with Zoprava—and with the less savory aspects of Sergei’s business.

  At one time, DeWitt had used his influence in Congress to get favorable deals for Zoprava, and it had made him reckless in his dealings with Sergei. He used to give orders, thinking he was in the driver’s seat. Now, whether he liked it or not, he took them.

  “He is still useful. For now.”

  They made it through customs in Moscow with no trouble. Kat had thought for a second it was about to get dicey, but the immigration control agent was simply doing the staring game they liked to play with new arrivals. He sat in his booth and spent a full five minutes looking at her passport and then her. Passport, her. Passport, her. Just when she was ready to explode, he stamped it and let her go.

  Johnny faced the same treatment. She waited for him, watching as he went through the stare-down. She was more nervous for him than she had been for herself, but he looked about as cool as a spring day in Siberia. When it was over and the agent slammed the stamp down, her lungs deflated. She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath.

  Johnny sauntered over, rolling the carry-on bag like he was too hip for words.

  “Where do we go now?” she asked as she fell in beside him. Her nerves were jangling with adrenaline. Her stomach clenched tight. Eight years. Eight years since Roman died and she escaped.

  The memories assailed her, raining down like small arms fire. She wanted to cover her head and drop into a protective crouch, but she kept on walking like her dreams hadn’t died that day.

  “Yaroslavsky Station.”

  Her feet stopped moving. Johnny kept walking for two steps and then turned back to her, an eyebrow arched.

  “Yaroslavsky,” she repeated. “Why?”

  “Because we are going to Siberia. And that is where the trains are.”

  Siberia. “What is in Siberia?”

  “A friend. I hope.”

  “So call this friend. Why spend days on a train if you do not know if this friend is there or not?”

  He came over and took her elbow. Gently, she noted. “We’re going by train to confuse our trail. We’re going today.”

  “Where in Siberia?”

  “Novosibirsk. Two days, solnishko.”

  She couldn’t breathe. Simply could not breathe. Novosibirsk was where Dmitri had sent her after she’d been ordered to leave Moscow. Novosibirsk was where Roman had died.

  It took her a moment to realize that Johnny was holding her up. She stiffened her spine and jerked free from his grip. He let her go easily. He looked puzzled. His brows drew down and his head tilted to one side as he studied her.

  “What’s wrong, Kat?”

  “Nothing.” But her voice wasn’t working right.

  He gripped her arm again and steered her to a bench. She sank down on it. She only needed a minute. She put her elbows on her knees and dropped her head so she could drag in air.

  He sat beside her and put an arm over her back. Electricity zapped through her body, sizzling into her core, tingling its way along her spine. After all this time, he still affected her like no man ever had before or since.

  His hand spread over her shoulder and rubbed back and forth. “Breathe.”

  “I’m trying.”

  They sat like that for at least ten minutes. He didn’t rush her, though she knew he was in a hurry. Finally she straightened. Her eyes were surprisingly clear. Maybe she’d cried all the tears she ever would over her little boy. That thought angered her. What kind of mother was she if she didn’t cry for him?

  “You planning to tell me what this is about?”

  His voice was oiled gravel. Soothing and deep. She turned to gaze at the face she’d once loved. Still loved. Maybe she shouldn’t tell him anything, but she hadn’t talked about Roman in so long now that she wanted to tell someone about him. The longer she didn’t speak his name, the more it seemed like he’d never existed at all.

  “I had a son. He died in a car accident when he was twelve. It happened in Novosibirsk.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She sucked in a breath. “His name was Roman Ivanovich Rostov. He was the best thing in my life.”

  He lifted his head to gaze across the crowds of people traversing the airport. She didn’t know what he was thinking about, but he swiveled his gaze to her again. “I don’t know the right words to say to you, Kat. I know what it feels like to have someone you love ripped away. I know the pain never stops, even if it grows dull with time. I won’t ask you to go with me if you can’t. But I have to. I’ll be back in a few days. Ian can find you a safe house. We can meet up when I return.”

  She shook her head vigorously. “No. I’m going. I can handle it.”

  He reached for her hand, enclosed her fingers in his, and her body melted. “I won’t ditch you. Promise. You can stay in Moscow and I’ll come for you.”

  Kat would never know what made her do it, but she reached up with her free hand and cupped his jaw. His eyes darkened for a second. And then, almost as if the pull was too strong for either of them to resist, his head fell toward hers while she lifted her face. Their lips met—and the world shattered.

  Chapter 17

  Guilt and desire blazed inside him. Her mouth was sweet, her lips soft, and he plundered them like he hadn’t had a woman in years rather than months. His entire body sizzled with electricity that zapped and popped through his blood like champagne bubbles.

  His cock was stone. His heart hammered as if he’d run a hundred miles. His soul ached.

  She was familiar and not familiar. He took her face in his hands and kissed her harder, his tongue spearing into her mouth. She met him stroke for stroke, a little moan vibrating in her throat.

  She tasted like home to him. He couldn’t get enough. Vaguely he was aware they were in an airport and people were watching. If they’d been alone—if this had happened in the apartment over the club in New Orleans—he’d be pushing her backward and taking control. If she’d let him, he wouldn’t stop until they’d both been thoroughly satisfied.

  But this was not New Orleans. It was Sheremetyevo Airport, and she’d just told him something very personal and devastating. She was hurting, and he was not the type of man to take advantage of that.

  He broke the kiss, his hands on her arms, gently removing them from around his neck. Her blue eyes were troubled, confused. He watched as the clouds of desire slipped away and realization dawned.

  She shoved away from him, jumping to her feet and shouldering her bag. Two bright spots of color flared in her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”

  He levered himself off the bench. “It’s okay,” he said, his voice rough while his cock throbbed and desire beat in his veins. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  She leveled a look at him. “You don’t have to be nice about it.”

  The urge to grasp her hips and tug he
r into him, to let her feel the hardness and heat of him, was strong. Instead, he frowned hard at her. “Not being nice, Kat. It was mutual. And if you’d like to continue the discussion, we can do it on the train. But it’s time to get the fuck out of here before we draw any further attention.”

  Her gaze darted over their surroundings. “Yes, we should go.”

  They trudged through the airport in silence, though sound was all around them. He’d started to lead them toward the express trains when something caught his eye. A man with hard eyes and a bulge under his coat watched them. Mendez swiveled his gaze until he found the others.

  Four men, each with the same hard expression. He glanced at Kat. Her jaw was tight, her brows drawn low. They weren’t armed because it was impossible to bring a weapon on a plane. His plan had been to acquire guns on the train tonight.

  “Do you see them?” he asked her without looking up.

  “Yes. They are Sergei’s men.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “I am. I recognize two of them. The other two are newer, but they have the same look.”

  “Do you think they know you?”

  “I think they’ve been told who I am, yes.”

  “This is not going to be easy. Shit.” He knew it wasn’t his coded message to Ghost that had led to this moment. More than likely DeWitt was having the airports watched. They’d been ID’d in Atlanta, though probably not until it was too late to stop them. Either that or someone wanted them in Russia. That was a possibility too.

  “I have an idea,” she said, taking his hand and leading him toward the women’s restroom. They burst through the door and Kat started to laugh as she turned and backed toward the wall, tugging him with her. She had a come-hither look in her eyes as she pulled on his shirt. There were five other women in the restroom.

  Kat wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth to his. She curled a leg around his hip and he grabbed her ass, his heart pounding as he held her to him and plundered her mouth for a second time.

  She tasted sweet and hot and he wanted to eat her up. But that’s not what this was about. He got where she was going with this display. Two of the women in the restroom started yelling at them. The other three left. Mendez slid a hand between his and Kat’s body and palmed her breast. She tugged on his waistband and the women disappeared. One smacked his back with her purse on the way out.