HOT Valor (Hostile Operations Team - Book 11) Read online

  When they were gone, Kat disengaged. He hated that she was no longer kissing him. But they had to go to work. He went over and stood behind the door while she slipped into the nearest stall on the other side of the door.

  The first man appeared, pushing open the door as he drew his weapon. There wasn’t a lot of time before he’d see Mendez in the mirror, so Mendez grabbed his wrist and yanked. With a quick movement, he twisted the man’s arm and brought it down hard on his knee, snapping the bone in two. The man started to scream as Mendez grabbed the Glock he’d been carrying. It was fitted with a silencer, but Mendez didn’t use it on him. Instead, he jammed an elbow into the guy’s face and knocked him out.

  The other three men burst through the door then, weapons drawn, faces twisted into hard expressions. Kat dropped from the top of the stall onto one of them as Mendez took on the other two. He fired four quick shots, double-tapping each man. They dropped like stones.

  Kat grappled on the floor with the fourth. Mendez aimed but couldn’t get a shot without putting her in danger too. The dude twisted, his hands going around Kat’s neck—but then she kneed him in the balls and he wheezed in a breath. She scrambled for the gun he’d dropped—but Mendez was there, double-tapping the asshole into the next life.

  His eyes met Kat’s. She grinned at him, and his heart performed a backflip. What the fuck?

  “Come on,” he told her. “We need to get out of here ASAP.”

  She shoved the Glock she’d retrieved into her pants, they grabbed their bags and stripped weapons and ammo off the bodies littering the restroom, and then they shot out the door. Mendez snatched a sign hanging on the janitorial cart sitting right outside.

  “Sorry, closed for cleaning,” he told a woman as he plopped it in front of the door. She frowned but turned on her heel and kept going.

  He took Kat’s hand in his and they ran until they reached the express train. They flopped into their seats and kept an eye on the doors. No one came after them before the train started its journey.

  When they got to Yaroslavsky station, he used different identification cards to buy two tickets on the Trans-Siberian Express to Novosibirsk. It wasn’t foolproof, but he had to think that Sergei would be looking for them in Moscow, not on a train to Siberia. He wasn’t going to make it easy in any case.

  They picked up coats in a shop and made their way to the first-class sleeper cabin. There were two berths in the wooden cabin with a small table on the wall between them. The space between the beds was tight and there was some sort of flowery cover on the beds.

  One look and he knew he’d be hanging out in the restaurant car for most of the journey. Because these quarters were tight, and he’d spend the entire time with a hard-on and no chance of using it. Now that he’d kissed her—now that he’d had his hand on her breast—the need to have her was stronger than ever. He kept telling himself she wasn’t Valentina, but it didn’t matter. Kat was physically very like the woman he’d loved—but she was different in other ways.

  She was harder, colder, more ruthless. Valentina had not been ruthless at all. But Kat was. Sure, life could do that and probably had. But it made her different from his memories, and that made wanting her more confusing than it should be.

  Whatever the case, it would be a very bad idea to act on the attraction. Any distraction from the mission could prove deadly.

  And he had a feeling that sex with Kat would be a huge distraction.

  He slung his bag and the suitcase onto the luggage rack overhead and flopped down on the long bench seat that would later be his bed. Kat stowed her belongs and sat across from him, twisting open a bottle of water and taking a long drink.

  “You okay?” he asked. They hadn’t spoken about the incident in the airport since it had happened, mostly because they’d still been on the alert, but now they had a moment to breathe and dissect events.

  “Fine.” She frowned. “He knew we were coming.”

  “Seems to be the case.”

  “Are you certain nobody on your end is leaking information?”

  “There’s no way they would. I’m certain.”

  She blew out a breath and rubbed a hand over her eyes. “It’s not Ian. He didn’t know where we were going.”

  “The airports were being watched. It’s what I’d do. We were seen, and that information was shared with Sergei.”

  “Will he have any idea you’re going to Siberia?”

  “He might—but then again, Russia is a big place. He’ll probably be too busy tearing Moscow up looking for me.”

  She frowned. “I hope that is true.”

  “Good thinking back there,” he said after a few moments.

  She dropped her head, her hair hiding her face. He thought she might be embarrassed. Or maybe she was aroused. God knows he had been.

  “Yes, well, there weren’t many options. It seems I have forced myself on you twice today. I apologize.”

  “There’s no need.” He thought about what had prompted that first kiss. She’d lost her child. Had she lost a husband too? “Were you married?”

  She’d asked him yesterday if he’d ever been married, but he hadn’t asked her the same. Now he couldn’t help but ask. He wanted to know more about her.

  Her head came up. “No, I was not. Roman’s father was out of the picture before I knew I was pregnant.”

  “Did you ever try to contact him?”

  Her lashes dropped, shuttering her glittering gaze. “It was impossible. He was someone I met on a mission. He was not Russian.”

  “And yet you left Russia.”

  She didn’t spare him the pain in her eyes this time. Her lip trembled, and he had to force himself not to go to her. Not to take her in his arms and stroke her soft hair while telling her it would all be okay.

  How the fuck would it be okay? She’d lost a child.

  “Roman was gone by then. What would be the point in telling his father he’d existed once he was dead?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe there is no point. Or maybe he’d want to know.”

  Her chin quivered. “Would you?”

  He frowned. Emptiness yawned inside him for a long moment. “I don’t know.”

  “And neither do I. I have done what I thought best.”

  “Yet you bear the burden alone. Maybe he could help.”

  “I would spare him the pain. It’s been a few years now, and I am used to it.”

  She was lying, either to herself or to him, but he wasn’t going to call her on it. He knew the deals you made with yourself to get past pain. To push it down deep and tell yourself everything was normal.

  “You gonna be all right when we reach Novosibirsk?”

  She shrugged. “It’s two days from now. I’ll manage.”

  “If there was another way, I’d take it. There’s not.” He hadn’t had news of Yuri Budayev in about six months, but he hoped the man was still there. If he wasn’t, Mendez would think of something else. But Yuri was his best chance of gaining the means to penetrate Sergei Turov’s inner circle.

  Kat gave him a smile that somehow turned him inside out with its loveliness and its sadness. “No, you would still take the most expedient way. It’s what you are supposed to do.”

  “It is and I would. You’re right.”

  “I know that, John Mendez. I know you better than you think.” There was a wistful note in her voice.

  “Valentina must have told you a lot.”

  She shrugged. “She did not need to. It’s obvious what kind of man you are.”

  “He’s in Moscow,” Alex said to the men and women crowded into Richie’s man cave. He’d gotten the message from Viper a few hours ago, and he still couldn’t believe where Mendez had gone.

  “Moscow! Whoa.”

  Alex didn’t know who said it, but he nodded. “Yeah, whoa is right.”

  “Are you sure?” Viking asked. “That’s kinda radical.”

  “Yeah, but remember him that night we had Grigori Androv in custody?” Fiddler
asked. All eyes turned to him. “I don’t know what the colonel said, but Androv looked terrified. I didn’t even know the colonel could speak Russian until then.”

  “And he was part of the translation team for the documents on the flash drive that your wife got from Androv,” Ryan “Flash” Gordon said, nodding to Fiddler. “It was kinda amazing.”

  “Viper is fluent in Russian,” Alex said. “He was assigned to Russia in the nineties, at the embassy.”

  “Which helps DeWitt’s case, right?” Remy “Cage” Marchand said. “All these Russian ties, and now the ambassador is dead. How’s DeWitt going to spin it? That the colonel’s working for the Russians and sent in a HOT team to eliminate Levkin?”

  “Probably,” Alex said. “Since HOT reports directly to the president, the veep’ll want to implicate President Campbell. That’s the ultimate goal, I’m sure.”

  “Congressional investigation, the threat of scandal, and Campbell resigns. DeWitt is sworn in as president,” Ice said.

  He looked as if he would burst with anger. Alex didn’t blame him. Whether it was because Ice liked his father-in-law or loved his wife, he didn’t know. Though loving his wife would be enough even if he couldn’t stand his father-in-law. Grace was what mattered first and foremost to Ice, and she would be deeply hurt if her father was made out to be a criminal.

  “It’s a reckless plan,” Ice continued. “He can’t guarantee that the president will resign. He’s kind of a stubborn old guy. He may ride it out and come out stronger for it.” He frowned. “But we’ll go down for sure. HOT will be eliminated. And the colonel would still go to jail.”

  Alex nodded. “I think that’s about the size of it.”

  “And we still don’t know where Delta Squad is.” It was Victoria who spoke. Alex liked her. She was smart, talented, and beautiful—not that looks mattered in this game, but he was a man and he couldn’t help but notice.

  “Nope,” Kid said. “Nothing on them at all. It’s like they’ve disappeared.”

  “Fuck,” Cage said. “That’s not good.”

  “Not at all,” Richie agreed.

  The rest of the SEALs and soldiers murmured angrily. They were a family in HOT. If someone got killed in the line of duty, they all hurt. They were tight. Nobody understood what HOT did like other HOT members. To have an entire nine-man squad missing in action?

  Unthinkable.

  Richie’s phone rang in his pocket. He answered. “Yeah, baby? … Okay, great. Send him through.”

  Evie Girard and the other women who were not HOT—and weren’t part of this meeting—were nevertheless in the house. And they were a fierce advance guard for anyone trying to gain entrance.

  There was a knock on the door. Richie went over to open it. “Look what the cat dragged in,” he said to the man on the other side.

  Ian Black grinned as he stepped inside. “Touched to see you bastards too.”

  His gaze skimmed the group. Alex could feel the current of negative energy flowing through the men. They didn’t like Black even if they’d agreed he could be trusted. They had a past together, not all of it great since Black often worked at cross-purposes to their missions.

  “Victoria,” he said when his eyes found the redhead. “Nice to see you looking so happy.”

  Brandy might have growled, though Alex wasn’t sure.

  Victoria elbowed her husband. “Thanks. It’s nice to see you again.”

  Lucky laughed and went over to Ian, embracing him and kissing both cheeks. Big Mac stood by with a what you gonna do? look on his face.

  “Great to see you, Ian,” Lucky said. Alex didn’t know why she liked Ian, but she seemed to be the only one who did. Maybe Victoria did too, but she was a lot cooler about it. Then again, Victoria was cool about everything.

  “Still hanging out with these losers?” Black asked.

  Lucky laughed. “Always.” Then she left his side and returned to her husband’s. Big Mac might have tugged her in closer than usual as he fixed Black with a hard stare.

  Alex held out his hand. “Thanks for joining us, Ian.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” he said, returning Alex’s handshake.

  He had a firm grip. A confident grip. Whatever Alex might think of the man personally, he believed Ian Black was on the right side. They just worked differently. And they had different masters. The CIA wasn’t precisely forthcoming about their goals and plans with HOT. And vice versa.

  Not that Black still was CIA, but he’d been trained by them.

  “He’s in Moscow,” Alex said.

  Black blinked, and Alex felt a thrill of satisfaction that he knew something Black didn’t. “Jesus—what the fuck is he doing there?”

  “Not really sure. I think we were hoping you’d know. Who’s the operator he’s traveling with?”

  Ian shoved a hand through his dark hair. “Kat Kasharin. Her sister knew Mendez in Moscow.”

  “What happened to the sister?”

  “Dead. She was an FSB agent who disappeared over twenty years ago.”

  Alex frowned. “How did you get him to agree to work with her?”

  Ian snorted wryly. “Threats and pleading. How else?”

  The guys laughed.

  “Seriously,” Ian said, “Mendez isn’t dumb and Kat has skills he’ll need in Russia. She was also FSB and Dmitri Leonov was her handler—plus she worked for Sergei Turov until she came to work for me. She knows his organization even if she’s been out for a few years.”

  “You clearly haven’t heard from her in a while if you didn’t know they were in Russia.”

  “No. I’m trying to keep contact to a minimum unless it’s critical. I don’t know who’s listening in these days.”

  No shit there.

  “Any idea who Mendez would want to meet in Moscow?”

  “Haven’t a fucking clue. But I don’t like it, I can tell you that. It’s risky. If he’d waited, I could have assembled a strike team to go with him.”

  Alex didn’t think Mendez would have waited on that for a hot minute. “We’ve learned that Dmitri Leonov was in New Orleans. He’s gone to ground though.”

  “He left. He took shots at Kat, but he didn’t get a kill. Deliberate, no doubt. One of my guys told me that Mendez made contact with him though.”

  It was Alex’s turn to blink. “He made contact with Leonov?”

  Black grinned. “Yeah. Walked into a bar just as pretty as you please and put a gun to Leonov’s balls. The last thing I heard about that was that Leonov ran shouting after Mendez but couldn’t catch him. He hung around until the next night when he abruptly left town.”

  “Maybe he got word Viper was gone.”

  “Probably. Which means someone was watching for Mendez at the airports. If they know where he went, Leonov knows it too.”

  Alex swung his gaze to Kid and Hacker. “Can you find anything in the airline databases about where he’s gone?”

  “Give us a few,” Hacker said.

  They started clacking keys while Alex turned back to Ian.

  “You’re pretty hands-off for a change. Why?”

  “Because it matters,” Ian said. “Because as deep as I am, I’m still watched. I can’t take many chances. Warning him was a big risk—if it looks like I’m communicating with him, they’ll haul me in.”

  Viper had always maintained that Ian was deep cover CIA. Looked like he’d been right after all. “Yet you’re here. How do you know you haven’t compromised us?”

  “I haven’t. Not yet anyway. I can’t stay much longer though.”

  “What else can you tell us?” Richie asked. “Anything about this Kat? How do you know you can trust her?”

  Ian shot him a look. “She’s been with me for about seven years now.” His gaze strayed past Richie. Alex thought he was probably looking at Victoria, but it didn’t last long. “As for trusting her… I’ve been burned before. Still, I trust her as much as I’m able.”

  Victoria tilted her chin up. “I’ve met Kat. Once. She
’s tough and determined. She’s aloof, but I never heard of anyone not wanting to work with her. I never did, but I would have if I’d had the opportunity.”

  “Still doesn’t mean we can trust her,” Alex said thoughtfully.

  “We don’t have to,” Ian said. “Mendez does.”

  Kid looked up from his keyboard, interrupting them. “We’ve got him. Mr. Lyon is traveling to Moscow by way of New York.”

  Chapter 18

  They ate dinner together in the restaurant car and then lingered over coffee. Kat’s system was messed up from all the travel and adrenaline over the fight. No matter how tired she should be, she couldn’t get there. Apparently neither could Johnny. They were awake and red-eyed, facing each other over a table and trying to appear normal.

  Hell, maybe they did appear normal. There were Western tourists on this train who looked the same kind of worn-out yet oddly awake that they did. Overnight flights from the States and then a train ride across the Russian landscape, which the tourists had probably never seen before, tended to excite even the most staid of travelers.

  Add in a fight for her life, and maybe Kat had a better reason than most for still being awake and jittery. She kept expecting Sergei’s men to burst through the doors and take them hostage, but it didn’t happen. If Sergei’s people were coming, they would have done so by now.

  She told herself to relax, but it was easier said than done. For Johnny too, she suspected. She put her chin on her palm and watched the landscape slide by.

  The days were getting longer. In May the sun would never quite set completely, at least not in the northern reaches of the country. She’d missed it, oddly enough.

  “Where did you grow up?” Johnny asked, and she swiveled her head.

  His beard was filling in, a mixture of silver and black. It made him more handsome than she could bear. Except that she had to bear it, didn’t she?