Guardians of the Portals (24 page)

"Say it," he demanded.

She purred, "
Wolf,
" as his tongue and mouth explored her neck and chin, nipping at her lower lip, drawing blood then soothing with bursts of energy.

"Again," he demanded.

She moaned, "
Why?
" and arched her neck, prepared to howl his name but her heart stopped as he plundered her eager mouth and husked the last words she ever expected to hear...

"Because you are mine."

––––––––

J
ake surveyed the communications room with interest. Reeking of controlled chaos, it formed the nerve center of Greyfalcon—now his bailiwick and home away from home. Odd how circumstances—and competing loyalties—changed.

"Kier, come in, please." The technician to his immediate right fiddled with a bank of controls, cursing under his breath. "Kier. Pick up the damn phone. Kieran!"

"What's up, Fletcher?"

The tech looked up with dismay. The kid had been around long enough to know that the last thing he needed was a direct line to the Capo and nothing said
you're fucked
quite like having an ex-Special Forces SOB like himself breathing down his damn neck.

"Sir. Um, nobody's reported in, sir."

"Since...?"

"About 15:30."

"About. You don't know exactly, boy?"

The tech blanched with an
oh crap I'm gonna die
look on his sallow face, as well he should. Lately he'd been operating on a short fuse, even on good days. Today didn't look like one of those.

"Sorry, sir. I came on at 16:00. Tank didn't log nothing in, and I didn't pick it up 'til it was time for the next report."

"So," he paused for effect, "let me take a wild guess. It never came in."

"No, sir. I've been dialing for maybe two solid hours. Nothing. Nobody home."

He stared hard at the hapless com specialist, enjoying watching the boy squirm. It had been a dull-as-dirt day waiting on word from the team. Knutr had been on his ass, giving him the 'time is money' spiel all day long. He had an itch to pass it on and the tech happened to be in the line of fire. Like he was fond of saying, 'it all flows downhill.'

"And maybe it might have been a good idea to pass your concerns up the line. Or am I wrong about that?"

"Yes, I mean ... no sir, Mr. O'Brien."

"Gunny, boy. Just Gunny. Now, move your ass over and let me have a go at this."

Jake sat on a swivel chair and poked at the gain. He ran a quick diagnostics just in case the idiot had forgotten that crucial step when he'd come on shift. Knutr's focus on the bottom line had him hiring subpar techs, some fresh out of school, still wet behind the ears. He'd have preferred a former Marine comspec, or even some teenage hoodlum off the mean streets of Baltimore who knew his way around electronics.

"Falcon, this is base, come in please. Falcon, do you read?" Jake checked the time on the monitor, set to elapsed time since last contact with the team. He didn't like what he saw or what he wasn't hearing. Nothing, black hole nothing. The team could have run afoul of some indigenes and shut down the Portal to protect their delivery, or it was a technical glitch. Neither option gave him a warm fuzzy.

He took a deep breath and moved away from the console. "Keep trying, son. I want to hear the minute you make contact."

The tech moved into position and reacquired his headset, obviously anxious to rid his station of unwanted interference. Pausing at the doorway, with clear line-of-sight to the console, Jake saw the kid, name of Fletcher if he remembered correctly, get up from his desk and saunter over to a young woman deep into a
PC World
magazine.

The young man nodded to the girl and hitched a hip on her desk. She gave her monitors a quick check, made a note in the log, then turned expectantly to Fletcher. Clearly he was her only entertainment option for the next six hours of her shift.

"What's up?"

"Ah, Kier's off the reservation again. Between him and that scary new dude with the limp, I don't know who's worse."

The girl snorted, "I'd put my money on Kieran. That asshole's probably hangin' out, shooting up somewhere. Don't see how Jake gets off being all 'I'm the badass guy in charge' when his baby boy is such a fuck up."

"Yeah, this is the third time this month. And I'm the one who gets the shit thrown at 'em, know what I mean, Addy?"

Addy nodded and settled in for what looked to be an extended bitch session over their crap jobs. She asked, not trying to mask her curiosity, "What's with the new dude, Trey? And what's with the Falcon moniker?"

Jake waited for Fletcher's take on the situation. It was a question he'd entertained more than once.

"Well, I heard something interesting from the first shift, something somebody let drop by accident." Fletcher had her undivided. He paused, letting the tidbit sink in before unleashing the big tah-dah.

The girl scowled, her patience running thin. "So? Do you see a crystal ball here?"

"Alright, alright. Don't get your thongs in a twist. What I heard was that this guy called Falcon is actually—are you ready for this—the big boss' son!"

"You're kidding. No way. Knutr's kid?"

Fletcher chuckled and shook his head no. "He's Gunnarr's youngest son."

Addy's mouth fell open. "You don't mean the one from...?"

"Yep. From opposition central, the great and good Althings. That's exactly who I mean." Fletcher crossed his arms, pleased with the girl's look of awe and respect. "I guess he got the Falcon tag 'cause it's, like, oooh scary or some such shit."

Jake was impressed. Knutr and Gunnarr had played it cagey when it came to Trey and his role in Greyfalcon. They should have known better. Down here in the nerve center, their currency was information, as he was so fond of reminding his charges, and Fletcher had enough with that tidbit to set himself above the others vying for the girl's attention. The kid reached over to Addy's earbuds and slipped one end into his right ear, leaving the other for her to share. Neither heard his chuckle as he left to make his way to visit Gunnarr.

****

"O
'Brien, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Gunnarr lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. He offered the pack to Jake who accepted one gratefully.

The two men leaned comfortably on the ledge overlooking the parking lot. Jake took his time, brow knotted in concentration as he composed his thoughts. Gunnarr pulled the collar of his coat higher around his neck. The unusual warm spell over Thanksgiving had lulled everyone into thinking they were going to have a mild winter.

While Gunnarr waited, the man took a drag and exhaled with a rush. "We may have a problem, Capo."

Gunnarr raised an eyebrow, interested. O'Brien was a man of few words so when he spoke, it behooved him to listen. When he said there was a problem, he was not exaggerating. Gunnarr looked around the roof of Greyfalcon headquarters and recalled the night only a few short months before when his men had shot and captured his former employee and sometime friend.

He hadn't been there when the old fool and his daughter had tried a snatch and grab on Jake’s loser son, Kieran. His second-in-command, Knutr, had had the unpleasant task of informing him that they'd confirmed that O'Brien's daughter was a shifter. In the process of mounting a full-scale retrieval, Knutr’s men had nearly killed Jake. That was bad enough but then the idiots also managed to lose their most valuable asset in history. That hadn't ended well, for any of them.

Gunnarr attempted to keep his voice calm, though his gut clenched in anticipation of news of the
you’re fucked
variety. "Which one this time, Jake?"

"Both of them."

"Shit. Now what?" Gunnar pitched his smoke over the edge and lit another. What he wanted was a stiff drink. They could ill afford any more screw ups by either Kieran or Trey.

"There's been no communication with the Portal for over six hours. And I checked the comlink. Everything is operational."

"Damn it. We can't afford to lose that delivery. We were taking a huge risk going through such a technologically advanced dimension as it was."

Jake glared and stated flatly, "Knutr was the one who wanted the short cut to avoid the Feds. I know you all are worried about the Somalian pirate situation, but sending that much ordnance at one time's more than risky." Jake paced along the ledge, his shoulders hunched, determined to have his say. "Knutr's up to something and, whether or not you trust him, or that goddam son of yours..."

Gunnarr held up a hand, a warning gesture Jake usually respected. But his old friend was too worried about his son going out on mission after mission with a man clearly looking to get himself, and everyone around him, killed. Reckless didn't begin to touch Trey's behavior. Unfortunately, Kieran had developed a serious case of hero worship and slavishly followed Trey's lead, including activities during their downtime that threatened to spill over into their assignments.

As Capo he was painfully aware of the undercurrents in the gossip network. Few were happy about Trey and his disregard for protocol but he'd allowed him free rein, praying to Freyja that decision wouldn't come back and bite him in the ass. For all intents and purposes his son looked and acted like a psychopath, but so far no one could fault him for not getting the job done.

"It would be wise of you to remember that he is my son, Jake. I sent Kieran with him because that boy is a stone-cold killer and the best marksman I've ever seen. They make a nearly invincible team." Jake mouthed an obscenity but the capo ignored him and continued. "What they do for recreation is no concern of mine ... or yours."

Jake growled, "You'd better be concerned, Capo. Because one of these days, one or the other—or both—will go out there, stoned out of their gourds, and whole teams will be lost. Along with your precious arms shipments."

Gunnarr turned away from O'Brien and gnawed on his lower lip. While he preferred to let the dynamic with Kieran and his son play out without interference, he did share O'Brien's concerns over Knutr. He suspected there was more to this operation than even he was privy to. It irked him to be out of the loop, and he was coming to the painful conclusion that his trust in his cousin had been misplaced.

To make matters worse, ever since they'd recovered Trey, close to death, he'd sensed that his son cared little if he lived or died. He'd strong-armed a team of surgeons into saving Trey's leg. Then he'd brought in the best healers from every clan, working around the clock to repair the shattered limb. He'd called in every chit owed him, running roughshod over his semi-independent contractors, building a debt it would take years to pay off. With so much at stake, if his son wanted to take risks, it was only right that he do so in the service of family and Greyfalcon.

The problem was complicated in that if he pulled Trey out of service it would cast a shadow of weakness and distrust that his clan could ill afford. He and his sons, all of them, had to be united on this matter or all would be lost to the competing clans or the Russian mob. He needed more options. He lit another cigarette, buying time, thinking hard.

Yes, it was the perfect solution...

He looked at Jake, not bothering to hide the smirk of satisfaction at coming up with a workaround sure to irritate all involved. "I will put
you
in charge of seeing to their good behavior. And it will be
your
responsibility to make sure nothing happens to those shipments. We've already lost too many assets..." Too late he stuttered to a stop as O'Brien blanched and wavered, his face a mask of pure agony. He backpedaled quickly, appalled at how that had sounded. "I'm sorry, old friend. I didn't mean..."

Jake straightened, his face tight, mouth set in a grim line. "If there is nothing else? I will let you know if and when the situation changes." Jake marched to the access door but paused before he went down the stairwell. He turned back and said, so quietly Gunnarr barely heard him, "He's my son. He's all I have left."

Gunnarr felt sucker-punched. He hadn't meant to bring up O'Brien's loss. Wife and daughter—assets of inestimable value—were both gone. He had regrets and the parties responsible had been punished. Partially to salve his conscience, he'd offered Jake a position with Greyfalcon, feeding the man half-truths that lay blame at the Althing's door for the deaths of his wife and daughter. The sad reality was that it had been an unfortunate sequence of events in which his people had played pivotal roles. There was plenty of blame to go around.

Fortunately for his organization, Jake and Kieran served a useful purpose, each having unique skills that made recalcitrant clans think twice before challenging his hegemony over the arms and drug trade.

But, damn his son to hell. It was bad enough he'd deserted his family to take up with the do-gooder Althings. Killing his brother, Bryn, was unforgivable, though he suspected the boy had acted in self-defense. Neither ever brought the topic up, but both were acutely aware of the implications of that act and how it placed Gunnarr in a shaky position as titular Capo.

Yes, the boy was becoming a problem.

****

"B
ase, do you read? Out. Base,
do you read
." The comspecialist, Zack, threw the handset onto the soft sand. "Dammit, Kier, why don't they pick up?"

"Keep trying. We can't move out until Falcon gets back from reconnoiter."

"Why'd it close? It's never shut down on us before." Zack was close to panicking and he didn't particularly care who knew it. "We're not getting out of this one, are we," he whined, more a statement than a question.

"Shut up, let me think. There's a reason we can't get through. Either they changed the code or we fucked up." Kieran ran through his check list but as far as he could tell, they'd keyed the sequence correctly. There was no way this mess was their fault.

He barked at Zack, "Gimme the specs on the indigenes. Maybe we missed something there."

Pulling his notepad from the com-unit's backpack, Zack tapped in an access code. He scrolled down the pages, then handed the compact computer to his commander.