Unstoppable (Tracers, #2.5)(11)
Author: Laura Griffin

She gazed up at the meandering crack in the ceiling. This place was a dump, and yet she didn’t want to be anywhere else. Maybe it was the way he seemed so comfortable, lying there with his arms around her. Or maybe it was the way her head fit so naturally against his collarbone. She never wanted to leave.

“You finally stopped shaking.”

She tipped her head back to look at him. “You warmed me up.”

He ran his hand over her hip and she closed her eyes.

“I get them, too, sometimes. The flashbacks.”

She opened her eyes, shocked. She never would have expected him to bring that up again, and definitely not while they were nak*d together for the first time. She waited for him to go on but he didn’t.

“Iraq?” she asked.

“Afghanistan, mostly.” He cleared his throat. “Actually, one particular night in Afghanistan.”

“What happened?”

Seconds ticked by, and the room was silent except for the low hum of the air conditioner.

“I got my teammate killed.”

She rested her cheek against his chest, waiting. She couldn’t ask.

“I did something impulsive. In the moment, you know?” He paused. “It didn’t go like I’d planned, and pretty soon Adam—that was his name—he’s lying on the floor of the helo with his face half blown off, screaming for his mom. I swear to God, I’ll never forget the sound of it.”

She covered his hand with hers and squeezed it. Neither of them spoke as she listened to Gage’s heart beat. Images of him on the floor of some helicopter crowded her mind. For the first time, she understood why Joe had never been married. What woman could live with that sort of fear hanging over her head?

Kelsey’s chest constricted as she realized what a terrible, irreversible mistake she had made. She’d let herself fall for a man who had the power to rip her to shreds. Even if by some miracle he didn’t push her away when the job was over, he could still do it. Without even wanting to, he could still break her heart.

GAGE WAITED FOR her to say something, but she didn’t. Even more surprising, she didn’t pat his hand and start spouting platitudes about not blaming himself and time healing all wounds or some of the other crap he’d heard over the past three months. She just listened. He knew she was listening because he could feel her body tense under his hands.

He tried to imagine Kelsey at work in Iraq, digging up women and children and elderly people who had been executed by their own government. He didn’t know a lot of people who’d sign up for a job like that.

“So”—he cleared his throat—“do you ever talk to anyone about it?”

“Not really. What about you?”

“Not really.”

“I had some friends while I was there,” she said. “One friend, really. I talked to him some. He was on a counterterrorism task force, so he’d seen things. He understood.”

Gage wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this but he persisted anyway. “You talk to him anymore?”

“Not a lot.” She sounded guarded now and he knew he’d guessed right. This was an intimate friend. “We run into each other every now and then, but it’s not the same. Our relationship more or less ended when I left.”

He filed that away for later. How did she run into him still if the relationship was over? A sour ball of resentment formed in his stomach. Which was crazy, he knew. How could he be jealous when she wasn’t even his girlfriend? This thing was temporary, and they both knew it, so why should he care who the hell she ran into “every now and then”?

She sat up. “I’m going to take that shower now. Want to come?” She gave him a look over her shoulder that made his just-returning-to-normal pulse kick up again. Then she turned to face him, emphasizing the invitation with a view of her lush br**sts.

He sighed. “How did I ever mistake you for skinny?”

She scowled at him and swung her legs over the side of the bed. He caught her around the waist.

“I meant that in a nice way.”

“That was so rude.” She swatted his hand. “You are not invited into my shower!”

He scooped her up and carried her into the bathroom, ignoring the way she pounded his chest.

“I’m serious!”

“My room, my shower.” He put her on her feet in the tub, then climbed in with her. Blocking her exit with his arm, he reached over and turned on the water, and she squealed as an icy spray shot down from the faucet.

“Gage!”

He silenced her protest with a kiss, not letting her up for air until the water flowed hot and her arms draped over his shoulders and she was completely convinced of how attracted he was to her very amazing, unskinny body.

He pulled back to look at her. Lips parted, cheeks flushed, eyes glazed with desire—she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and he had the overwhelming wish to freeze this image, this moment, in his head so he could take a part of her with him when he left.

Nine

Mia knocked again and glanced at her watch. She tapped her foot impatiently. Finally the door swung back and her jaw dropped open at the sight of the gorgeous, half-naked man standing before her.

She cast a glance over her shoulder. Yep, it was Kelsey’s Suburban, parked right in front of this motel room.

“I’m sorry.” She turned back to face him, and he hadn’t somehow managed to put on a shirt in the intervening two seconds. She concentrated on not drooling as he looked her over with a calm, blue-eyed gaze.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I think I have the wrong room.”

“Mia?” Kelsey appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing here?”

Mia took in the wet hair, the bare feet, the towel in her friend’s hand.

Oh, damn. She cast an apprehensive glance at the parking lot. “Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to let you know we’re here. Obviously.”

The man’s eyebrows tipped up. “We?”

“Yes, me. And some… colleagues.” She glanced at Kelsey.

“It’s okay. He knows everything.” Kelsey made quick introductions, acting as if it made perfect sense for a naval lieutenant to be out here in the middle of nowhere providing security for an archaeology dig.

“Kelsey, can I talk to you for a sec? Privately?”

The lieutenant disappeared into the dim room as Kelsey stepped outside and pulled the door shut.

“Oh my gosh, Kels.”

“What?”

“Where do I start? The FBI is here. The CT task force out of San Antonio. There’s a briefing in ten minutes and they want you there.”

The blood drained from Kelsey’s face. “Blake’s task force?”

“Yes.”

“But what does counterterrorism have to do this?”

“Come to the briefing in ten minutes,” Mia said. “Behind the diner.”

Fifteen minutes later, Mia was leaning against the fender of a black SUV as Special Agent in Charge Blake Reid updated his team. Kelsey and her lieutenant, both in jeans and T-shirts now, walked over and silently joined the group.

Mia watched Blake’s reaction, but he didn’t miss a beat, probably because Mia had already let him know that his ex-girlfriend and the man providing her security would be attending the meeting.

“I just got off the phone with San Antonio,” Blake said. “The remains sent to us by Dr. Quinn have been positively IDed as Khalid Rahim, who was working as a confidential informant for us before he went missing last January.” Blake glanced at Mia. “Dr. Voss is here today with a mobile DNA lab on loan from the Delphi Center. She’s going to try to get an ID on the second set of remains as soon as they’re pulled from the ground.” He glanced at Kelsey. “We’d appreciate your help with that.”

“Of course.”

“We expect to learn that the second body is that of an agent out of our Brownsville field office. He went missing at the same time as our CI while investigating a possible terrorist cell out of Mexico City.”

Kelsey’s brow furrowed. “Mexican terrorists?”

“Al-Qaeda,” Blake corrected. “We believe this particular group is a sleeper cell that we’ve heard rumors about for years. At the time of his disappearance our agent had a lead on an attack they’d been plotting from their base in Mexico. Our theory is that the CI’s cover got blown somehow, and then both he and our agent ended up murdered.”

“Tell me about the attack.” This from the SEAL.

For the first time, Blake hesitated. “We’re still running a background check on you, Lieutenant Brewer. Until that’s complete—”

“Then let me tell you what I know,” he cut in. “Those two graves Kelsey found were located near a dirt road that makes a bend down near the border.” He turned and held his hand out to Mia. “Borrow your pen?”

She handed him a ballpoint pen and the SEAL produced a small notebook from one of his pockets. He flipped it open to a page where he’d obviously been mapping something. Mia noted the GPS coordinates scrawled on the edge of the page.

“Here’s the town.” He drew a straight line from a spot marked “Madrone” to a spot marked with an X. “Here’s where the road bends. Now watch this.” He extended the line north and south. To the north, the line followed a highway until it intersected Interstate 10. To the south, it intersected a crudely drawn picture of a rock and some trees.

“What’s that?” Blake wanted to know.

“The entrance to a tunnel.”

Blake’s gaze shot up. “A tunnel leading—”

“South, under the river. We were there last night, saw some traffic moving through.”

“Foot traffic?” One of the agents asked.

“Motorized traffic. This thing’s big enough for cars, SUVs, even a mid-sized rig.”

“That fits with the intercept.” The agent turned to Blake, who was regarding Lieutenant Brewer with a wary look. Blake wanted the SEAL’s information, obviously. What he probably didn’t want was a reason to cooperate with this man, who clearly had been doing a very hands-on job of guarding Kelsey.

Blake’s gaze moved from the SEAL to Kelsey. From what Mia knew of Blake Reid, she predicted his professional ambition would win out over petty jealousy.

“We’ve intercepted communications about a truck bomb being smuggled into the U.S. via Mexico,” Blake said. “We believe the intended target is the global economic summit being held in Houston this weekend.”

“It’s a straight shot to Houston on I-10,” Kelsey pointed out.

Blake didn’t acknowledge her. “At first, we had intel the bomb might be coming through a border crossing in Brownsville. Then we had reason to believe it was coming through Del Rio.”

“Maybe it’s not coming through. Maybe it’s coming under,” the SEAL said. “Whatever cartel controls the route could have granted access for a hefty fee.”

Blake gave a curt nod. “Show me this tunnel.”

KELSEY LOWERED HER binoculars and sighed. Two hours and still nothing. How long did it take to map a tunnel complex? With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she trekked to the bottom of the hill and over to the mobile crime lab near the recovery site.

Kelsey stepped inside the air-conditioned trailer, which put her dilapidated camper to shame. “Any word?”

Mia glanced up from her work. Kelsey had excavated the skull first, and Mia now stood at a slate-topped table, extracting tooth pulp for her DNA test.

“Nothing.” Mia glanced at the nearby sat phone. “That thing’s been quiet. Go back to work. It’ll get your mind off it.”

Kelsey bit her lip. Nothing would get her mind off it. “I can’t concentrate. I tried.”

The phone buzzed and she lunged to answer it.

“Kelsey, it’s Blake. Is Brewer with you?”

Her heart skipped. “I thought he was with you?”

“He peeled off to install a surveillance cam for us at some manhole he knows about on the U.S. side.”

“And where are you?”

“On the Mexico side, checking things out. I just watched a convoy go in—three white delivery trucks—and I think one of them is our bomb.”

“But why—”

“Call it a hunch. Our bomb squad should be there any minute, but this convoy could be gone by then.”

“Can’t your team just block them off at the exit?”

“Yeah, and if all they’re smuggling is dope or people, we spook our terrorists and miss the chance to intercept the explosive. Listen, Brewer’s not answering his radio, which means he’s probably underground, but I need him to set up a diversion somehow so we can get a tracking device on these trucks. If you hear from him, tell him to get in touch ASAP.”

“I’ll tell him,” Kelsey said, although she knew Gage wouldn’t call. But it didn’t matter, because she also knew exactly where to find him.

GAGE WATCHED FROM the shadows as the men positioned the magnetic sign on the side of the truck: U.S. MAIL, complete with the official-looking eagle logo. As far as maintaining a low profile on American highways and maybe even pulling up to a government building, it was damn good cover.

Gage made himself invisible as he eased along the wall and positioned himself near the back of those trucks. Two of the three were locked with a padlock. The middle one had had its cargo door open ever since the drivers had stopped to retrieve the signs and disguise the vehicles.

Gage crept around back and peered inside. It was too dark to see, but his nose was giving him plenty of other information. He took out his penlight and shined it in the cargo space.

Holy, holy shit. Whoever bankrolled this op wasn’t fooling around.

Adrenaline hummed through Gage’s veins as he made his way back to one of the manholes he’d discovered today. He climbed the ladder and the instant he was above ground he was on the radio with the leader of the FBI’s bomb squad. The guy was a former SEAL, which just proved Gage’s theory that every frogman was really just a highly trained kid who liked to blow shit up.