Twisted Mercy (Red Team Book 4) (6 page)

“
I am Jafaar Majid,”
the man said, switching to English.
“Our friend Abdul said you had a room for me.
”

“Oh.” Yusef looked over at his wife. A shadow came over her face. “Yes. I do, of course. I’m happy to hear from you. When may I expect your arrival?”

“
In two days. Tell me, the man who calls himself Khalid, do you have a way of contacting him? Abdul wishes that I speak with him while I’m in town. He has made it clear that Khalid does not represent him. Such a fact as you’ve been asserting casts doubts upon your loyalty to us.
”

Yusef stepped into a back room with the phone, closing the door behind him. “You have no reason to doubt my loyalty,” he said, switching to Pashto. “Your room awaits you. I will call Khalid and let him explain himself to you. When shall I arrange the meeting?”

“Day after I get there. Pick a time.”

“So I shall. I look forward to your visit.”

“
As do I.
”

* * *
 

Max rolled to his side and stuffed a pillow over his head. Unfortunately, he couldn’t cover his nose, which kept pulling long, sweet-scented draws of air into his lungs. Fucking flowers. He was smelling flowers. And bacon. He sniffed the air. Coffee, too.

He opened his eyes, peeping between his pillows. Morning was in full swing. He pushed the pillow away and sat up, squinting from the bright light flooding his cabin. The woman from yesterday was in his kitchen. Her hair was damp.
 

Max groaned and sat up. Setting his elbows on his jeans, he covered his face with his hands and rubbed his eyes.

“Morning,” a soft female voice greeted him. Hope. Her name was Hope, he reminded himself.

“What are you doing here?” he growled, lifting his face to look at her. Greer had dropped him off close to five that morning. It felt like he’d only been asleep an hour.

“You said I could use your bathroom.”

“My bathroom, yeah. Not my kitchen.” He got up and prowled over to see what she was doing, ’cause goddamn did it smell good. And he really was pretty hungry.

“Maybe you should have made that distinction a little clearer.” She flipped a pancake.

“Maybe so. Where’d you get all that stuff?” Last he looked, he had only half a six-pack in the fridge.

“My cooler.”

“There enough for me?”

Hope looked back at him over her shoulder. She smiled at him. Smiled. At him. His eyes grazed her face. She had a narrow face, with a square chin and long dimples that went from her cheekbones down to her jaw. Her lips were pointy at the center top and corners. Her bottom lip was nicely rounded. Her eyes were clear and focused, without any of the haze or shadows of an addict. What the fuck was she doing hanging around with the WKB?

When she turned back to the stove, he noticed the black long-sleeved hooded tee she was wearing. It had a white pattern of skulls and scrolls and flowers that spilled down the sleeves and over the back. With sparkles.
 

Who the hell wore sparkly skulls?

She set a cup of black coffee in front of him. “Cheer up, sunshine,” she said with a little laugh. “Not a morning person, are you?”

“No. What time is it?” He sat on the barstool at the counter.

“Nine.”

“Huh.”

She put a plate in front of him loaded with scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes. She set butter and syrup out as well.

“Aren’t you going to eat, too?” he asked.

“Already did.”

He wolfed his food down in time for her to wash his plate with the rest of the dishes. He went to stand outside, getting a feel for the weather—though this time of summer, it was rarely changeable. Cool in the morning. Hot all day until the sun set. Sometimes the pattern was broken by afternoon showers, but it didn’t look like they’d have any relief from the heat today.
 

Hope stepped outside. Her hair was drying fast. She twisted it together and tied a stretchy band around it, leaving it half up and half down in a feminine spray of hair. He remembered the sweet scent he’d first awakened to and wondered if that was her shampoo.
 

“I’m heading over to the garage,” she said as she skipped down the steps.

“I’ll be over in a while.” He watched her cross the yard and called after her, “Thanks for the grub.”

She waved at him and got in her truck.
 

* * *

Max straddled his black Harley Panhead, primed it, and kicked it to life. It roared like a metal dragon, then settled into a rumbling purr as he turned down the tree-lined dirt road leading to the highway. The noise of his bike shattered the tranquility of the high mountain retreat. One man came out of his cabin, marching toward the road as if he’d finally screwed up the courage to intercept Max. But, as with every other day, he changed his mind after looking at Max’s skull facemask and White Kingdom Brotherhood patches, which were inside out at the moment—another sign he was bad shit to anyone in the know. The man stopped at the end of his drive, impotently raising his fist as he went by. Max flipped him off, then laughed. He’d miss the old bastard when this mission was over.
 

Fuck. He’d miss his bike, too. It was too well known by the club for him to ride it anonymously. If he wanted to keep a low profile when he was done here, he’d have to store the bike and go back to riding in a cage.

Max rode past the compound entrance and turned onto a Forest Service access road. It led deep into Bureau of Land Management grazing land, heading north, then east, through the old ghost town, coming up to Blade’s property the back way.

About an hour later, he turned off on a narrow dirt road that wound behind the Red Team mansion and led to the bunker’s access tunnel. Max rode through the shallow creek and slipped between the boulders covering the entrance. His eyes took a while to acclimate to the dark interior of the tunnel. The roar of his bike’s engine bounced around the dense tunnel walls, as if in complaint that the ride was ending.
 

He rode straight up to the bunker’s loading dock, then cut the engine. Greer opened the door and stood there grinning at him. Max dismounted and removed his helmet. “Things so slow Owen moved you to doorstop?”

“It a crime to be glad to see a friend?” Greer asked as Max climbed up the steps. Standing here in Blade’s bunker, looking at Greer…well, it all felt uncomfortably like coming home. It wasn’t his home. He didn’t have a home. He had work. And a fuse that was burning at both ends.

“The guys are here,” Greer told him. “Get settled, then join us.”

Max had nothing to settle but himself. He walked down the short hallway into the bunker’s large meeting room. The guys were all there, but the new girl, Selena, was missing.
 

Owen Tremaine leaned against one of the walls, with the group but apart from it. He was dangerous and cunning, not a man you took your eyes off for long. This op wasn’t the only project the man was running, but it had his main focus.
 

Kit Bolanger was sitting at the head of the conference table. Max nodded at him.
 

Blade grinned at Max. “Jesus, you look badass.”

“You thought Owen kept me around ’cause I’m soft and cuddly?” He flipped a chair around and straddled it. “What’s doin’?” he asked Kit.
 

“A debrief.”
 

“Where’s Selena?” Max asked.

“She’s gone back to clear out her quarters,” Kit told him. “She’ll be moving in here.”

“She joining the team?”

“Yes,” Owen answered from his place at the wall behind Max, offering no further explanation.
 

“Let’s get to it,” Kit said. “We’ll start with the boys Fang Lee fought the night Selena got Casey out of camp. He said their group was structured, focused, and disciplined, with boys ranging in age from twelve to twenty or so. They’d infiltrated Casey’s camp with the intent of luring her away from the others. Fang said they were trained in pack fight tactics and that they all had animal code names. The one called ‘Lion’ was their leader.

“Fang caught one of them as they retreated. The kid didn’t know the overall objective for their outing, only that they had been assigned to find and hold Casey for five minutes by a certain time that night. ‘Catch and release,’ he’d called it.”
 

Kit didn’t look pleased with the subject, and Max knew why. “If it was catch and release during a range of time, then Amir had to have been at the camp, waiting for that window.”

Blade nodded. “We think he orchestrated the rumble in town and the activities of the boys so that he could do exactly what he did—sneak inside here while most of the team was occupied elsewhere.”

“You think those boys are the same ones you saw at the compound when you went after Holbrook?” Max asked Blade.

“Could be.” Blade shrugged. “I thought the ones I saw were younger, but they could all be part of the same program the WKB has going on. I don’t know where they came from, who they belong to, or why they’re on WKB land.”

“It’s a mystery. And I don’t like mysteries,” Kit grumbled. “For a fact, the WKB is not keeping them around because they have a flush widows and orphans fund. They’re training those boys to fight. We need to know why.”

“Okay. I’ll check it out,” Max said.

“Angel, bring up the schematics for the WKB’s missile complex,” Kit directed, switching to the next topic. “I want us to be on the same page regarding that silo and what we’ve seen of it so far.” The team had discovered the silo’s existence a few days before the rumble in town. Max hadn’t been with them at the time; he’d been stuck at the party in the nearby ghost town, keeping an eye on Amir.

Angel tossed up a diagram of the Titan I missile silo that sprawled beneath the WKB compound, then pulled up a satellite image of the complete compound and laid it over the silo. “This Titan I site had three escape hatches.” Angel highlighted the three doors constructed as egresses for humans. “One inside the supply warehouse. One in the boys’ barracks. And one in this building.”

“That’s the old wrench’s bike shop. The one Hope’s taking over.”
 

Kit met his eyes. “We’ll talk about her in a minute.”

“The original foundation had forty-five thousand square feet of floor space, plus close to half a mile of tunnel footage,” Angel continued. “We don’t know anything about what they’ve done with the site. A lot of missile silos like these have been flooded with water from nearby aquifers, so who knows what condition these tunnels are in. But if they’ve remediated water and retrofitted the three silos, they could have more than tripled the usable square footage. Question is—what have they done with that space and how are they using it now?”

Max walked up to the screen and pointed to the access door he and Greer found last night. “Greer and I used this entrance in the old garage last night.” He showed on the schematics the area they explored. “Not much water damage in the section we went through. They haven’t done anything with this area. It’s run-down but still useable. It’s not guarded and has no security at this entrance, nor at the end that terminates at the boys’ barracks.”

“Good to know,” Kit said. “Get back in there tonight and check out the other end. Greer has found info indicating one of the missile silos has been renovated. I want to know which one.”

“Roger that.” Max looked at Greer. “What have you found?”

“Only that there’s a biometrics system in place, but no specifics yet. I’ll dig into it more after the meeting.”

An alert pinged Greer’s phone. He looked across the table toward Rocco. “You got an incoming call from Yusef Sayed for Khalid. You cool with it?”
he asked. Max had set up that ID for Rocco when they were tracking Amir. The room instantly went quiet.
 

Rocco nodded. “Put him through.” The phone clicked. Rocco greeted his caller in Pashto, “Peace be upon you.”

Yusef’s nervous voice came over the line, speaking in English. “
Peace also upon you.
” He hesitated. “
There is a problem.
”

Rocco switched to English. “Yes?”

“
Abdul Baseer al Jahni has replaced Amir Hadad with a new representative.”

“This is good news. Why does it alarm you?”

“
His new man, Jafaar Majid, does not know or acknowledge you.
”

“And why would this be a problem?”

“
He said al Jahni did not send you, and that I am no longer a trusted ally to him.
”

“Abdul Baseer al Jahni did not send me. Is Jafaar there with you?” Rocco asked.

“He arrives at the motel in a couple of days. I have given him Amir’s room. I am meeting with him the morning after his arrival. He would like you to join us.”

“When?”

“At 11:00 a.m. Here at the motel.”

Kit shook his head and mouthed, “No.” He pantomimed the motion of holding a phone to his ear.

“I cannot be back in town by then. I would be happy to attend by phone, however.”
 

“It is important you be here in person.”

“Important for whom? I cannot change my plans with such short notice. I will be available for your call. You have my number. If that does not suit Jafaar, he may make other arrangements with me.”
 

“Very well. I shall inform him. Thank you, Khalid.”

Rocco disconnected the call. Greer replayed the conversation. Before it was finished, he had Jafaar’s passport photo up on the screen.

Rocco studied his image, then shook his head. “I don’t remember him.”

Kit nodded. “I don’t want you to meet in person until we get footage of him from the motel. He might look different, might jog your memory. If you interacted with him in Afghanistan, it’s a no-go. If he clears, then your position here in the US is as an auditor of al Jahni’s security operations. You don’t work for al Jahni, but for the security provider that enables his business internationally. Your interest is only to report back to your management that al Jahni’s business transactions are secure.”

Rocco nodded. “Roger that.”

“I gotta ask”—Kit paused, his gaze intense as he considered their resident linguist—“are you up to this? We can still redirect.”