Imposter (24 page)

Burke went still then said, “My team?”

“Yes.”

“If you want to get back into law enforcement--” 

“No.”  Eve shook her head.  “I want to do what I can - all I can - to stop chemical weapons from getting into the hands of terrorists.” 

“Eve,” Burke tightened his grip on her hand. “Baby, what happened with Richard wasn’t your fault.  I didn’t see Lanski for what he was.”

“I know I’m not to blame for what Richard did.  This isn’t about that.  Well,” she shook her head, “not entirely.  I can’t say I would have come to this realization if not for Richard’s involvement in this plot.  But it’s what I want, John.  It feels right.” 

She held Burke’s gaze for a long moment, then he nodded.

* * *  

The next morning Eve followed Burke into a conference room used by the Shadow Agency, the covert team of operatives specializing in chemical weapons terrorism led by Burke.  The Shadow Agency headquarters was in a secure location known to only the handful of people now assembled in this room. 

The other men and women glanced up and fell silent as she took a place at the front of the room beside Burke.

“I’d like to introduce Dr. Eve Collins,” Burke said. “Eve has joined our team.  Eve, meet Agents Lisa Portland, Dylan Armstrong, and Luke Falco.”   

Eve nodded to each agent in turn then took a seat in the remaining unoccupied chair.

Burke reached up and lowered a white board from the ceiling.  “Team,” he said. “We have another assignment.”

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SNOWBOUND

BOOK TWO IN THE PROTECTORS SERIES

COMING JULY 2011
 

Chapter One
 

“So, how does it feel knowing you’re taking your last ride?”

Mallory Burke didn’t respond to the latest comment made by Hugo from behind the wheel of the sedan, refusing to let him bait her.  He’d been doing his best to get a reaction out of her since they’d embarked on this journey into the mountains of West Virginia a few hours ago when Hugo had discovered that Mallory wasn’t just the bartender his boss Billy Wilder had hired for his strip club, but an undercover federal agent.

Hugo had called Wilder with that newsflash and Billy had ordered that Mallory be brought to his mountain cabin - pronto.

Though Mallory wasn’t responding to Hugo’s running commentary, she was reacting all right.  The gravity of her situation had her heart pounding so hard she wondered if Hugo and his companion, Miles Pratt, the other man in the car, could hear it.

Pratt, seated beside her in the back seat, turned to her and smirked.  His unibrow looked like a caterpillar crawling across his forehead.  His large bulk took up more than his share of the leather bench seat, wedging Mallory in tight between him and the rear passenger door.  The door was locked, though with her hands tied behind her back she wouldn’t be able to open it in any case.  She was currently working on loosening the knot, but Hugo tied a knot with the skill of a sailor.  Lucky for her, she was good at untying knots.  This one was just about undone.

The knot wasn’t going to be her biggest obstacle to getting away from these bozos.  Problem was, when she did get away, she was going to have to escape into the snow storm raging outside her window.  As she thought that, the big sedan skidded and the rear fishtailed.

“Fuckin’ snow,” Hugo muttered.

On this, Mallory agreed with him.

Snow or not, there was no way she was going to the cabin.  She’d overheard Hugo and Miles say with no small measure of respect - and fear - that the boss himself would be there.  Though she wanted to encounter their boss - Paul Considine - with a fierceness that had her pulse pounding, she wanted it to be on her terms.  Not like this.  Not at Considine’s mercy.

Mallory swallowed hard.  Hugo and Miles had been taunting her with all of the things they would do to her when they had her at the cabin.  Despite her professional training and years of experience with the Bureau, she couldn’t hold back a shudder at the methods of torture they’d described that were specific to her gender.  There was no way she could allow these two to touch her and, she had accomplished her assignment, found out what she’d gone undercover to learn and now needed to take that information back to the Bureau.  The lives of twelve young women depended on her.  Mallory closed her eyes briefly. 
She could not fail.

Wind rattled her window.  Mallory jerked back, nudging Miles.  For once, he didn’t comment.  He removed his safety belt and leaned forward in his seat.  Eyes narrowed, he studied the near white-out conditions.  The wipers swished across the windshield at full speed, clearing snow for an instant before the glass was pelted again and covered.

“Slow down, man,” Miles said.

“No way.”  Hugo swiped a hand across his mouth.  “It’ll be my head if we don’t get her up there fast.”

Fast seemed optimistic and foolhardy. They hadn’t come across another car since Hugo had turned down this road.  Apparently, others had the good sense to stay away today.  Trees that lined this stretch of road swayed, buffeted by the force of the wind.  Hugo’s hands, inside brown leather gloves, were clamped around the steering wheel.  He was trying to keep the car steady, keep it on the road, Mallory thought as the wind struck the sedan and the car veered off to the right.  Just where the road was at this point was a guess.  The thick snow clinging to the ground obliterated the road and it was only the line of trees that provided orientation.  With the road conditions as treacherous as they were, Mallory might not have to worry about what awaited her at the cabin.  She had a more immediate worry that she might not make it out of the sedan alive.

“We need to turn back,” Mallory said.  “We can’t go on in this.”

“Hear that, Miles?  Little Miss Fed’s got somethin’ to say.”  Hugo met her gaze in the rearview mirror and bared his yellow teeth in a smile that made the fine hairs on the back of Mallory’s neck rise.  “Save your breath, sweetheart, for when we get to the cabin.  You’re gonna need it when you start screaming.”

Mallory wanted to come back with a smart retort, but Hugo’s words struck home and her mouth went dry.  Work the knot. 
Work the knot. 
She increased the pace on the ropes to a frenzy, twisting and pulling.  Perspiration trickled down her brow while she shivered with cold.  Panic was setting in and she was losing it.  Losing it was the surest way to get herself killed.

Mallory forced herself to stop jerking frantically on the rope.  Forced herself to fight back the panic clawing at her.  Directing her focus to the task at hand, she went back to working the knot.

Miles had disarmed her, but she could see her gun tucked into the waistband of his black pants.  Once she freed her hands . . . done!

She was panting like a racehorse.  Adrenaline pumped through her.  She would have one chance to grab her gun. 
One chance.
She blocked out the thought of what these two would do to her if she failed.

She glanced at Miles.  His attention was all on the road.  His shoulders hunched as he leaned forward so he was now perched on the end of the seat, clasping the head rest of the unoccupied front passenger seat.

“Slow down, will ya!  I can’t see nothin’ but snow!”  Miles’s shout was barely audible above the wind.

Mallory reached out to grab her gun.  The sedan went into a spin. The world swirled crazily as the car whirled like a top.  Her screams echoed with those of Miles and Hugo.

The sedan struck something - hard.  Mallory was flung forward.  The seat belt cut across her chest, cutting off her breath but holding her in place. In a blur of movement, Miles was thrown to the front of the car and through the windshield.

Windows shattered, peppering Mallory with slivers of glass.  She screamed.  She was dressed in jeans and a parka which protected her body but her head and face were bare.  She swung her arms up and hunched her shoulders in an attempt to protect herself from the spray of glass. 

The sedan crumpled.  The crunch of metal blended with Hugo’s pain-filled shrieks and then there was silence. 

She’d been holding her breath. She released it in a rush, the sudden surge pounding in her ears.  She was alive.  She repeated that thought and took another breath.  Pain radiated from her right arm, leg and side.  Her head hurt.  When she lifted it from the seat back, her head swam and her vision grayed.  Wind and snow blew in through the shattered windows.  The cold air and wet flakes that struck her face revived her.  She blinked quickly and fought back the blackness. 

She wanted to get out of the car but was pinned by the front seat.  The sedan had struck an outcropping of rock and the front of the car had been pushed back on impact.  Miles’s body was crushed.  There was no doubt that he was dead.   Given what she’d learned of his involvement with the twelve women, she would not regret his passing.

Mallory shifted position carefully, testing how deeply she was wedged in.  Not as tightly as she feared.  Keeping her movements slow, but steady, she raised her arm.  She gasped at the pain that shot through her, but took heart in the fact that she was able to move her arm at all.

Gritting her teeth, she levered up on her uninjured arm to free her lower body.   Her breath shallowed and perspiration broke out on her forehead as she continued the slow, arduous process of extricating herself.

She was almost completely free when her ankle caught. Again, she cried out when she forced movement, but made another attempt, then another until her foot was clear.

That slight exertion had left her panting.  She bolstered her flagging energy.  Her cell phone had been confiscated by Hugo before he’d tied her. There was no way to get to the phone the way he was positioned.  But Miles also had a phone.

She grunted and pushed the crumpled passenger door but it would not open.  Averting her face, Mallory reared back as far as she could in the cramped space and with her uninjured foot, kicked out the few shards of glass that still clung to the rear windshield then climbed out of the car.  Outside, the blowing wind was deafening.  Miles and Hugo had nabbed her as she’d been leaving the club that morning at the end of her shift.  She’d already changed out of the mini skirt and halter top that were part of her outfit while she tended bar and had put on her parka.  She was thankful for that now as the bitter cold stole her breath and burned the raw scrapes and cuts on her exposed skin.

Her ankle balked at supporting her weight and she fell back onto the wide trunk.  She needed support - a cane of some kind.  Looking about wildly, she saw that improvising a cane wouldn’t be a problem.  Thick tree limbs littered the snow covered ground and she retrieved one.

Miles had landed a few feet from the car in a bank of snow that was red with his blood. As she crouched over the fallen man, she saw that his neck was bent at an impossible angle.  He was clearly dead.

In the short time since she’d left the car, her fingers had stiffened from the cold.  She flexed them and blew on them  then began patting Miles down.  She found his phone in an outer pocket of his jacket.  Broken.  Unuseable. She let out a frustrated sigh.  Her semi-automatic was no longer in the waistband of his trousers.  Likely, it had been flung away when he was thrown from the car.  She didn’t like being defenseless, but she was hardly in a condition to go traipsing into the snow drifts in search of it.  It was all she could do to remain vertical.

The sound of a vehicle approaching rose above the roar of the wind and then a metallic blue van came into view, glowing like a beacon amid all the white.  She knew that van.  It was one of   Billy’s from the bar.  Her stomach clenched.

The driver met her gaze and his eyes widened. 

Mallory’s breath caught.  Staying on the road was not an option.  The mountains lay beyond.   He couldn’t pursue her into them with the van.  He’d have to follow on foot and she’d have a chance.