Hell for Leather: Black Knights Inc. (16 page)

Ooooh, Delilah just loved it when he got authoritative and down-home countrified all in one breath. Was there anything sexier?

Um, not that I can recall.

Sad
sack
, whispered the voice.

Shut
it!

Chelsea cast Zoelner one last fulminating glance before sighing resignedly and loosening her shoulders. “During the Vietnam conflict,” she said, “it was decided that having eight nuclear ordinances from a bygone era spread willy-nilly around the globe wasn’t really in our country’s best interest.”

Delilah barely contained a snort. “You think?”

Chelsea made a face and shrugged. “Well, it’s not as bad as one might suppose. Most of the lost weapons were at the bottom of the ocean or submerged in swamps so deep they were impossible to recover. But others…”

Delilah shivered at the thought of the “others.”

“Well,” the CIA agent continued, “by that time technology had progressed enough to make their recovery somewhat feasible. Problem was, in many instances, we didn’t know the exact locations of the warheads. Enter a five-man team of Marine Corps Advanced Sonar Specialists.”

“Including Theo Fairchild and Charles Sander,” Ozzie said, uncrossing one arm to rub a finger under his chin, his expression contemplative.

“Affirmative.” Chelsea nodded. “And low and behold, those go-getter guys not only pinpointed the exact locations of those few ordinances that were salvageable at the time, but they pinpointed the whole damn lot.”

Delilah couldn’t believe it. Her uncle had been part of some super-secret, nuclear missile detection team back in the day, and he’d never once breathed a word to her about it.

Is
no
one
what
they
appear
to
be?
First, she had to go and learn the Black Knights weren’t really a rowdy motorcycle club but were instead Uncle Sam’s most terrifying, tip, tip, tippity-top of the spear. And now this?
Seriously?
She tossed the question out into the ether. Surprisingly, this time the ether answered back.
You
mean
like
you’re not
really
a
bartender, but one of Chicago’s most sought-after forensic accountants?

And touché. Delilah gave credit where credit was due.

“So this file, BA Repatriate,” Zoelner said, “I suppose it gives the global coordinates of the remaining five weapons?”

Five
freakin’
missing
nuclear
weapons!

“No.” Agent Duvall shook her head, adjusting her glasses again. “That’s just the thing. The file containing the actual
locations
of the weapons was above Winterfield’s security clearance. He couldn’t access it. The only thing he could access was the file detailing the original mission and the names and ranks of the men who worked on it.”

“Of whom two are now MIA,” Mac murmured.

“The only two who are still alive,” the CIA agent confirmed.

“Christ,” Mac swung away, cursing a blue streak under his breath.

“And you didn’t think to raise a red flag and put a protective detail around Theo and Charles when the
first
three men turned up dead?” Zoelner demanded.

“Considering one of them died in ’78 of an overdose and the next two died in the nineties, one from a heart attack and the other in a bizarre fishing accident,” Chelsea declared, “
no!
No, we did
not
consider a protective detail!”

Ozzie plopped down on the coffee table, repeatedly running a hand back through his hair. And if Zoelner had looked like he wanted to kill Chelsea Duvall before, now he looked like he wanted to beat her senseless and
then
kill her.

“Do you really believe it’s possible, that after forty-some-odd years, these two men still remember the exact coordinates of the missin’ warheads?” Mac interrupted, his back still turned.

Chelsea hesitated a beat. “Obviously the
terrorists
believe it.” She shrugged and added, “And, honestly? Yeah. If it was
me
tasked with pinpointing a handful of nukes, you bet your ass I’d remember. Wouldn’t you?”

“Goddamnit, Chelsea!” Zoelner roared. “And you didn’t think that type of information warranted you going against your orders!”

“We weren’t
certain
there was any need for alarm!” Chelsea yelled right back, jumping up to slam her hands into her hips. “We didn’t know
for
sure
which files Winterfield snagged. We just knew which files he had access to. And until ten minutes ago, we thought it was entirely possible Fairchild and Sander were just holed up somewhere tying one on!”

Delilah’s mind raced to reach the same conclusions the Knights evidently already had. “Excuse me,” she said after a beat, raising her hand like she was still back in school. “Can someone please explain to me what in the world all of that means? I mean, I get that you guys are under the impression that this al-Whoever guy—”

“Al-Hallaj,” Chelsea added helpfully.

“Yeah, okay.” Delilah nodded. “So, I get that you think Winterfield sold the files to al-Hallaj. And I get that al-Hallaj took Sander and my uncle in order to try to…uh…get the locations of the warheads from them.” She couldn’t bring herself to voice the word
torture
. “Am I correct in believing that once again technology has advanced to a point where some or all of the remaining five might be salvageable?”

The CIA agent nodded, and Delilah’s heart sank. If she wasn’t mistaken, the thing was hanging out somewhere in the vicinity of her kneecaps.

“So, let’s not get into the discussion of why
we
, the United States of America, haven’t gone to secure the warheads, and jump instead to the question of why
I’ve
been targeted twice. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Unfortunately, it does,” Mac murmured, the muscles in his mile-wide shoulders twitching fitfully.

“It does?” she asked. “But, why?”

Mac turned his face slightly, his distinctive profile in view. And if she’d ever seen a jaw looking harder than his, she couldn’t remember the occasion. That redwood of dread in her stomach hit a growth spurt, sending branches up to strangle her throat.

“It means they’ve been unable to get the information from the men by traditional means.”
Traditional
means.
She knew he meant torture. “So, they’re
attemptin’
to use
you
as leverage.”

Uh-huh. Okay. Right. So…terrorists—freakin’ frackin’
terrorists
—wanted to use her as leverage. Against her uncle. In order to find nuclear weapons…

She bent at the waist, trying to decide if she was going to puke or pass out. Fortunately, she was saved from doing either when the soft muttering of helicopter blades sounded overhead a mere second before the front door exploded open. What was left of the ruined slab of oak disintegrated on impact with the wall.

She bolted upright just as three men in full-on SWAT gear poured into the house, their huge, black machine guns up and at the ready. The Black Knights answered in kind, handguns whipped from waistbands and holsters in the blink of an eye. Each group aimed for the other. Each group yelled for the other to drop their weapons. It was a rootin’, tootin’, gun-totin’ Yosemite Sam melee.

And Delilah was caught smack-dab in the middle of it.
Yippee!

“Get behind me,” Mac bellowed to Delilah, barely sparing her a glance as he kept his weapon trained on the intruders. But that quick peek was enough to tell him her face had completely drained of blood. It was as white as the chalk he and his father had used to paint the cattle with during culling season.

“Don’t move!” yelled one of the three men decked out in expensive tactical gear.

Mac knew a CIA wet unit when he saw one. Not that he was all that impressed. After all, whatever training these spooky boys had gotten back at Langley, he knew it couldn’t possibly compare to the rigorous, months-long physical hell Frank “Boss” Knight had put him through before allowing him to join the ranks of Black Knights Inc.
You
might
not
officially
be
a
Navy
SEAL
, Boss had thundered more than a time or two while watching him struggle to keep from drowning in the frigid waters of Lake Michigan or having him fire so many rounds that his fingers went numb,
but, fuckin’-A, I’ll make sure you
should
have
been.

Mac had survived that ordeal. And many,
many
more in the years since. Which meant that although he had a small amount of respect for the skills of the black-suited men in front of him—
small
being the operative word—he’d still bet a dollar to a doughnut that he and the two Knights lined up beside him could drop the fancy boys faster than a buckin’ bronco could blaze out of a chute.

“I said,
don’t move
,” the man—obviously, he was the team leader—yelled again when Delilah started to head for Mac. And then the idiot made his second mistake. His first had been daring to come at the BKI boys with guns hot, of course. But now the dumbass had the unmitigated gall to train his weapon on Delilah.

“Uh-uh,” Mac tsked, his finger tightening on his trigger, every muscle in his body tensing to absorb the coming recoil should he have to fill Dumbass SWAT Guy full of hot lead. “You best keep pointin’ that iron at me, friend. Because if you don’t, I’ll drop you so fast you’ll be kissin’ St. Peter hello within a second.”

The guy must’ve known Mac wasn’t whistling Dixie. He hesitated barely a heartbeat before once again aiming the black eye of his quick-firing Colt in Mac’s direction.

“That’s better.” Mac jerked his chin in a nod, his anger going from a rapid boil to a slow simmer. “Now, we’re all just gonna hold our fire and our breath while Delilah makes her way over to me,
capisce
?”

“I’m on orders to take Miss Fairchild into protective custody,” the guy said, one small drop of sweat glistening on the bridge of his nose. Besides his eyes and the tops of his cheeks, that was the only part of his face not covered by the black, tactical balaclava he wore.

“You’ll take her over my dead body,” Mac growled.

Delilah quickly flitted across the room. When she ducked behind him and shoved her fingers into the top of his waistband, he heaved a secret sigh of relief.

“Your dead body can certainly be arranged,” Mr. Asshat SWAT-man retorted, the smug, self-satisfied gleam in his eye all but screaming that he was the winner in the big dick lottery, the hot girlfriend competition, and the sharp-shooting championship. And although Mac was well versed in dealing with the immeasurable arrogance of Company Men—even as a Fed he’d had to suffer their occasional association—he discovered he had an intense desire to wipe that look off of Asshat’s face with a well-placed strike from his handy-dandy Ka-Bar. Or a well-aimed bullet. Either one would do nicely.

“Oh, for the love of—” Agent Duvall jumped into the fray. “Are you guys kidding me with this? I mean, I’m just spitballing here, but aren’t we all on the same friggin’ team?”

“Morales informed me the Black Knights might not be willing to hand over the woman,” Mr. Asshat explained. “In which case, I’m instructed to take her by force.”

Mac’s finger twitched on his trigger as the fire under his anger flamed with new life.

“Jesus Christ,” the little CIA agent huffed before screaming into her earpiece at whatever now-deaf technician was on the other end. “Get Morales back on the goddamned line!”

As she waited for the call to go through, she let her gaze ping-pong back and forth between the two opposing groups. “This place could seriously use a Xanax salt lick,” she muttered, shaking her head in exasperation.

Ozzie chuckled despite the charged atmosphere. “You’re funny, Agent Duvall. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Not since I gave up stand-up comedy for a regular ol’ nine-to-five,” she said, tapping her foot impatiently.

This time Ozzie barked with laughter. “There are two things I know for certain,” he said, and Mac would have rolled his eyes had he not been inclined to keep his blinkers trained on Asshat SWAT-guy. Because he was fully aware of what was coming.

“Oh, yeah?” Agent Duvall asked, falling hook, line, and sinker. Mac was pretty sure that grumbling noise he heard was coming from Zoelner. “And what two things are those?”

“Number one,” Ozzie began, “Warrant is one of the most underrated hair bands of the eighties.”

“Oh-
kay.
And number two?” the little CIA agent prodded when Ozzie hesitated.

“You’re going to marry me someday.”

Mac felt Agent Duvall’s look of disbelief more than he saw it. “Are you serious?” she demanded. “Are you really doing this right now? Flirting with me?”

“Yeah.” Ozzie shrugged. “I figured I’d just go for it.”

When Agent Duvall opened her mouth to say, “You know what? You’re not as good-looking as you think,” with a hint of laughter in her voice, Mac peeked over at Zoelner, not surprised to find the guy had settled into that weird state of statue-like stillness.

“Not as good-looking as I think?” Ozzie retorted. “I find that hard to believe. I
do
own a mirror.”

This time Agent Duvall laughed outright, and Zoelner hissed, “Why don’t you stop being such a goddamned hemorrhoid, Ozzie.”

With that, Mac’s suspicions about Zoelner’s feelings toward Chelsea Duvall were confirmed. Because, unless he was mistaken—and he very much doubted he was—the ex-spook was absolutely green with jealousy.

And, okay, given the fact they were in the middle of a good ol’-fashioned standoff, Mac fully recognized how ridiculous the entire last three minutes—aka the circus that was Ozzie, Zoelner, SWAT Guys, and Agent Duvall—had been. In fact, he reckoned the only thing they were missing here was a clown car. But it was the sheer absurdity of the entire thing that made his anger dissipate enough for him to realize Delilah had pressed herself against him, turkey peeking around his shoulder at the scene being played out like some sort of poorly written slapstick comedy.

And even though he had one very large machine gun pointed at his chest, the only thought to run through his mind in that instant was…
boobs…

Great, glorious, good-God-almighty boobs…

Then he was distracted—
thank
you, sweet Jesus
—when Agent Duvall lifted a hand to the Bluetooth device in her ear and said, “Sir! Excuse my French, but what the
hell
is going on here? I’ve got three guys in full tactical pointing weapons at me and saying they’re working on your orders to take Delilah Fairchild into custody.”

***

“What do you mean I’m not safe with the Black Knights?” Delilah demanded in response to the declaration Chelsea made after
finally
signing off with her supervisor. The call had lasted five eternal, god-awful, soul-sucking minutes. And Delilah figured if she heard one more, “Yes, sir. I understand, sir,” she was going to grab Mac’s gun and shoot the CIA agent in the ass. After all, it was
her
they were talking about here. The fact that they wanted to take
her
into custody.

“I mean just that,” Chelsea said. “You’re not safe with the Black Knights.”

Delilah was no longer hiding behind Mac’s back because the mysterious Morales had apparently issued an order for the three Men in Black to stand down, and the tension in the room had leveled out in response. Oh, it was still a pretty hairy environment, what with six heavily armed, testosterone-laden males scowling and posturing toward each other, but at least now Delilah felt safe enough to stand in the middle of them, hands on hips, scowl pasted firmly in place.

Not
safe
with
the
Black
Knights? Preposterous!
If she wasn’t safe with
them
, then she wasn’t safe with
anyone
. She flicked a quick glance toward Mac. Unfortunately, she could read nothing behind the Mask of Inscrutability. Her heart skipped a beat.
Give
me
a
sign, Mac. Let me know Chelsea is chock-a-block full of crap…

And maybe he was a mind reader, or maybe his Spidey sense worked for more than just piecing together clues, because his electric blue eyes alighted on her face for a brief second, one heartbeat…then two. But it was enough. Because the flicker of dead-eye certainty she saw in his gaze took the tiniest edge off her screaming nerves.

“We lost al-Hallaj,” Chelsea said. “And since the Black Knights have not been unable to assure your safety from him on two separate occasions, my supervisor would feel more comfortable keeping you under the CIA’s protection until such a time as we have al-Hallaj in custody.” She gestured toward the Men in Black. “And these men are here to—”

“We
might
have,” Zoelner interrupted, his voice so low and raspy Delilah wondered who’d been shoving tacks down his throat, “been able to keep Delilah safe had
someone
,” he lifted a meaningful brow at Chelsea, “told us there was a fucking
terrorist
on the loose!”

“As I already
explained
to you,” Chelsea shouted, two red flags painting her cheeks, “we weren’t
certain
of that fact at the time!”

“Oh, so you’re saying it’s perfectly fine for
you
guys to fuck up. But when
we
do it, you think you have the authority to—”

“Can we get back to the real issue?” Ozzie interrupted. “Which is that your idiotic CIA compatriots went and
lost
al-Hallaj? I mean, honestly, how the hell did you manage that? He was driving a wimpy little hybrid and you had choppers and…uh…” he snapped his fingers, “oh, yeah,
satellites
!”

Chelsea turned to Ozzie, frowning and pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose with a brusque finger. “He drove under an overpass in a heavily wooded area and the helos lost sight of him,” she explained. “Then he abandoned the car on the other side of the overpass and ducked into a large drainage pipe that ran for more than a mile. In the couple of minutes it took the pursuing team to fast-rope into a nearby clearing, hump it back to the overpass and realize that’s how he’d made his escape, he was already gone. They gave chase and we trained the satellites on the truncating location of the drainage pipe, but it was too late. We’ve got men scouring—”

Ozzie rolled his eyes and held up a hand in the classic traffic cop “stop” signal. “Whoa, there, Long Windy. Is it possible to get the tweeted version of this saga?”

The look Chelsea sent him very clearly stated that whatever headway his earlier flirtations had made with her had instantly been lost.

“In short,” Zoelner grumbled beneath his breath, “you lost the guy, and now we’ve got a big, steaming pile of jack shit.”

“Which really sucks out loud,” Ozzie added.

And Delilah had to agree. The whole situation sucked. Silently. Out loud. Every which way. She turned when she saw the lead SWAT guy lift a hand to his ear, pressing his earpiece closer to his head. He nodded tersely before informing the group, “My supervisor just told me we’ve got five minutes to secure Miss Fairchild. Then we’re moving out.”

Mac took a threatening step forward and Ozzie muttered something about the SWAT guy’s cornhole and what should be stuffed in it.

In response, SWAT Guy made a move toward his weapon. Ozzie’s handgun was up and aimed before Delilah could blink. And suddenly World War III was about to break out all over again as every man in the room armed himself anew.

“Agent Duvall,” Zoelner hissed. “Now would be an excellent time to call and tell Morales that the only way Delilah Fairchild is walking out of this house is over our corpses.”

“I’ve already said that can be arranged,” SWAT Guy growled.

Delilah barely resisted rolling her eyes.
God, save me from this sea of testosterone.
She fancied if she squinted just right, she’d be able to see the stuff sloshing around the room in great, heaving waves.

“And make that call fast,” Ozzie added. “Because, according to shit-for-brains here, we’ve only got five minutes before the bullets start flying.”

“Are you all kidding me right now?” Chelsea demanded.

“About the flying bullets,” Ozzie said, “or about the fact that this guy does, indeed, have shit for brains?”

“Go fuck yourself,” SWAT Guy growled at Ozzie.

“Better than fucking you, Middle-Aged Mutant Ninja Turtle,” Ozzie retorted.

And that one got her. Despite everything, despite the fact that she was horrified about the terrorist, scared shitless for her uncle, and damn near dead on her feet from thirty-some-odd hours of no sleep, Delilah felt her lips twitch. Because, what with the all-black suit, the balaclava, and the pack attached to his back, SWAT Guy
did
kind of look like he could pass for the fifth member of the TMNT gang.

“Oh, shut up, all of you!” Chelsea barked, holding her Bluetooth device in place with one finger. She turned her back on the group and proceeded to throw out accusations like buckets of hydrochloric acid to whoever was talking in her ear. Then Chelsea was quiet for a long moment, during which time every eye in the room was focused on her back. Well, except for Zoelner’s. When Delilah glanced at the guy, she couldn’t help but note
his
eyes were focused like laser pointers on Chelsea’s butt.