Dangerous Assignment (Aegis Group Book 4) (26 page)

His mother.

In town.

Now.

Just what he needed.

21.

Zacharias paced the empty
office suite.

Fifteen minutes.

Where the hell were they?

He adjusted the cuffs on his shirt. The suit didn’t fit quite right, but he didn’t have time to see a tailor. An off-the-rack suit would have to do. For now.

But punctuality was clearly more than his new clients could manage.

He took another back and forth tour of the meeting spot.

Night swaddled the city in darkness, broken only by the street lights. This part of DC was quiet at night. All the better for a meet. If his customers would just hurry the fuck up.

He glanced again at his phone.

No messages.

No signal.

The damn Koreans were grinding his patience down to nothing.

A car turned down the street. The streetlights gleamed off its dark exterior. The car slowed and turned into the lot next door.

“Is that them?” Zacharias asked over his shoulder.

“Yes, sir. Perimeter has verified their identity.”

Money could buy a lot of things. Decent help was one of them.

“Finally,” Zacharias muttered.

The minutes stretched on. The Korean buyers would have to go through a pat down check before being admitted. It was one of the perks of being on time.

At long last, three men in similarly cut suits entered. One spoke, his language smooth and completely unintelligible.

“My Korean is dusty. But I suspect you’ll understand this?” Zacharias set his briefcase down on a long conference table, the only furniture in the room. He opened it and stepped back.

“Has it been tested?” The same man now spoke in English.

“I verified it is still in working order. I just came from supervising its extraction.”

“We will want a demonstration.”

Zacharias barked a laugh.

“You don’t demonstrate a nuclear warhead, gentlemen. You detonate it.”

If the North Koreans didn’t want the bomb, there were other buyers who would. Regardless of who his customer was, Zacharias was bound to make a pretty penny.

The last mother Abigail
had been introduced to was Baron’s. After they’d already been engaged. Sort of. The whole process had been rather anticlimactic. All that had mattered to Baron and his family was how far they could trace her bloodline. Who she was hadn’t mattered.

Luke’s mother was through that door, in
his
kitchen, and this meeting would be nothing like meeting her former mother-in-law.

Abigail had faced down terrorists, militant minded idiots and the true crazies of the world. The woman through that door scared her far more than anything else could.

The one person who mattered the most to Luke was cooking them breakfast. After spending the night in a hotel. Luke had assured Abigail that his mother had been understanding, but Abigail wasn’t so sure. She had offered to leave. To stay at one of the barrack apartments in the Aegis building, but Luke wouldn’t allow it.

Besides, the way he saw it, his mom got the five-star treatment for a night. He’d left her for a few hours to pick up his mother, take her out to eat, and get her settled. Truth was, Abigail had spent those hours sleeping, so now she had all of the anxiety that should have been building bubbling up in her right now.

She’d prolonged the introduction by showering, drying her hair, and generally dragging her heels.

It wasn’t like her. Then again, since Luke crashed into her life, she wasn’t like anything she’d ever been.

The door cracked open and Luke stuck his head in.

“Breakfast is almost ready.” He smiled and her stomach flip-flopped. “What’s wrong?”

“I shouldn’t be here,” she said.

“What?” Luke stepped through, pushing the door closed behind him. “No, mom understood.”

“She’s going to hate me.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“She hasn’t met me yet.”

“Look, all she knows is you’re like me, and we had a really bad job go down. You got hurt, and you’re staying with me.”

“In your bedroom. You really think she’ll buy that?”

“Hey, no sense denying the chemistry is there.”

Abigail rubbed her face. What she wouldn’t do for make-up or something to help her feel more…prepared.

“What’s bothering you?” Luke sat on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t know how to do this.”

“Do what? Eat? I hate to tell you, sugar, but you can eat.”

“Not that.” She glared at him. “Normal things. Meeting your mother things.”

“Come on, it’s not that bad. She’s my mom. You’ve kept your cool through so much crazy shit, this should be easy.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Okay, then explain it to me.”

“That’s work. That’s…me pretending to be someone else. This,” she gestured around them, “is real. It’s me. And this me doesn’t know what to do.”

Luke pushed to his feet and wrapped his arms around her.

“What do you know? Wonder Woman is human after all.” He rubbed her back. “Mom’s cool. And you know what? She’s probably going to keep cooking until you go out there. It’s what she does when
she’s
nervous. Come on.”

He took her hand and tugged her forward, one slow step at a time.

Abigail wasn’t ready for this, but she hadn’t been ready for Luke in the first place. All there was to do now was to hold on for the ride.

He ushered her out into the living room and toward the small, country kitchen.

“Mom? This,” —he kept one firm hand on her back— “is Abigail.”

Mrs. Briar turned, a spatula in hand. She was a trim, tall woman with generous laugh lines around her mouth and large eyes framed by shoulder length hair. It was all too easy to imagine her laughing at something ridiculous Luke had said.

“Nice to meet you, Abigail.” Mrs. Briar wiped her hand on a towel and then extended it to Abigail.

She swallowed her nerves and took a step forward—just close enough to clasp her hand with Luke’s mother.

“I’ve heard a lot about you.” She hoped she didn’t sound lame.

“Lord.” Mrs. Briar slashed a suspicious glance her son’s way. “What lies have you been telling?”

“That you’re a loving, warm mother who dotes on her son.” Luke circled the bar and perched on a stool.

“Well, that’s not too far off the truth. Have a seat.” Mrs. Briar waved her over next to Luke. “How long have you worked with my boy?”

“Mom, I told you—” He clamped his mouth shut at a look from his mother.

Abigail squeezed his knee.

“We met on our last job. I don’t work for Aegis, if that’s what you mean.”

“Where is it you’re from?”

Abigail kept her answers as truthful as she could, pulling mostly from what she’d already told Luke and bits of the truth. Princeton would always be home to her, though not in the sense that most people thought of. It was the one place she’d lived the longest, spent time finding herself. As the questions kept coming, she relaxed into them and found herself laughing at the mother-son banter, their easy manner, and wished she knew what it was like to have that sort of relationship with a person.

Breakfast was a hearty affair, with plenty of food and more laughter. The more they talked the easier it became to piece herself together. Luke seemed to realize when she was floundering and ran interference for what she couldn’t answer. His mother took it all in stride.

“I’m going to run the trash downstairs. Don’t burn the place down while I’m gone.” Luke hefted two garbage bags and exited out the front door.

If Abigail didn’t know better, it was a planned maneuver to leave her alone with his mother.

“Breakfast was wonderful, Mrs. Briar.”

“Lord, stop calling me that. My name’s Linda.”

Abigail nodded and folded her hands in her lap.

“I take it things didn’t go well on this last job?” Linda sat on the couch, one leg folded under her, facing Abigail.

“No.”

“And you can’t tell me more?” The strain in her voice… She was a mother worried about her son.

“If…Luke was never really in danger, if that’s what you want to know.” A little lie. He’d been in danger while in Nador’s hands, but Linda didn’t need to know that. What she was asking for was comfort.

“I don’t know how you do this.” Linda sighed and propped her head in her hand. “Every time he doesn’t answer that damn phone I convince myself something awful has happened.”

“He’s very good at his job.”

“I know.
Too
good.” Linda crossed her arms over her chest. “Do me a favor? Watch out for him? Sometimes he doesn’t have any sense. He goes off trying to be a hero.”

Don’t I know it?

The front door opened, but Luke didn’t step in. His mouth was set in a grim line that made Abigail’s stomach clench in a bad way.

“We gotta go to work, mom.”

It was time.

She’d known this was coming from the moment she spoke with Baron.

Abigail let out a breath and glanced at Linda, a short, quick nod.

She’d do her best to watch out for Luke, however long she could.

Luke stared at the
bastard’s smug mug on the screen and wished he could rip it off the fucking wall. If only Baron had the nerve to step into a room with him. Luke would tear the man limb from limb, if only for the hell he’d put Abigail through.

She—was amazing.

In a room crowded with the heads of Aegis, Admiral Crawford, Mr. Stevens, Zain and a few others, a handful of FBI agents and two state-side Mossad liaisons, Abigail stood out. She was a beacon of calm amid what was becoming a fucking three ring circus.

“Gentlemen. Ladies.” Baron’s voice crackled over the speakers. “What we know is that a rogue Mossad operative is on American soil. What next? That’s what we’re trying to find out. Not whose fault it is.”

The way the admiral was staring at Baron’s face said it all—
bullshit
.

Baron was trying to deflect the blame sitting squarely in his lap. And succeeding.

“What were his last known coordinates?” FBI Supervisory Special Agent Ryan Brooks aimed a tempered version of Admiral Crawford’s glare at the two in-person Mossad liaisons.

“Zacharias was spotted in Newark airport. After that, he vanished,” the more senior Mossad agent said.

“What kind of a risk does he pose?” Ryan turned in place, asking the Aegis team more than the Mossad agents. Ryan’s team wasn’t usually the unit to handle terrorist threats. Their focus was violent crimes, but given their history working with Aegis, they’d been dispatched immediately over other teams.

“A serious one,” Abigail said.

“We don’t know that.” Baron inclined his head.

“Actually, we do.” Zain laid his tablet on the desk. “Lali and I were able to identify three potential groups, all of whom have begun talking, coordinating.”

“Where? Show me.” Brooks leaned on the table.

Zain tossed a digital map of Washington, DC onto the wall.

“We traced some of Zacharias’ money to DC, where he made some investments about eight years ago. There’s a security company out of there—mercenaries, really—who just took on a new contract. They backed out of a bidding war with us yesterday morning, citing a change in manpower. If Zach is hiring help, these are likely the only guys he could get without giving up something more valuable than money.”

“DC?” Abigail sat forward.

Wait—wait—wait…No.

“What would be in DC?” one of the other Mossad agents said over her.

Abigail turned toward the screen, her gaze unreadable. Baron stared back at her, some sort of non-verbal communication happening between the two. Luke curled his hands into fists, fighting the surge of jealousy. Abigail had chosen him, but that didn’t mean her history with Baron was wiped away.

They’d discussed this at length last night, how she expected Baron to try to use her, manipulate her. And they’d come to their own agreement. Ways to keep the trust. To never allow doubts between them.

“If Zacharias is in DC…there’s only one thing he’d go for,” Baron said slowly.

“What’s that?” Brooks glanced from Abigail to Baron. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like this?”

Baron shook his head slightly. It might have been a shift of his body, were Luke not watching him for the sign.

Abigail sat forward, her eyes on Luke. Shit. There went their leverage. “We have reason to believe that sometime during WWII the Germans hid a bomb near Washington with the intent to detonate it remotely at a time when they stood to benefit the most from a disruption in the American government.”

Luke stared. He couldn’t help it.

He knew it. She’d given him the highlights. And still.

A German bomb, outside the capital?