Special Ops Exclusive

chapter 5



Much to Nick’s displeasure, Salazar texted the next morning to reschedule their meeting. Again. With the streets of Mala still in uproar, the presidential guard was committed to keeping the country’s leader safe from the unruly people who refused to acknowledge Garza’s power.

Cortega’s military and law enforcement officers weren’t equipped to deal with a riot of this magnitude. Barricades were being knocked down by the angry mob, all attempts by the tactical team to control the crowd had gone nowhere, and more and more people continued to arrive; some hailed from Cortega, others came from all over the world to show their support for the struggling citizens.

Nick had had enough of it all. He’d spent the morning in one of the city’s most dangerous and derelict neighborhoods trying to track down El Nuevo Diablo. Nearly every man, woman and child living in those projects had refused to speak to him. Those who did demanded compensation for their time, but once he told them who he was looking for, they swiftly handed him back the cash and claimed ignorance. They were so terrified of El Nuevo Diablo that they wouldn’t even accept a cash bribe that could’ve put food on their tables for months.

Now Nick was once again riding the elevator up to his hotel room. He had nothing to do but wait for Eva to get him the name of a con man who supposedly sold fake IDs down by the docks, but Nick doubted Paul Waverly would’ve used anyone less than the best. It was still worth looking into, though.

The elevator doors opened with a loud chime and Nick headed down the carpeted hallway toward his room. He was ten steps from the door when his instincts began to buzz and the little hairs at his nape stood on end.

Something was off.

Without slowing or altering his pace, he continued his approach, his gaze immediately noting the barely visible scratches around the keyhole on the doorknob. Someone had picked the lock.

Nick kept walking. Right past his room. All the way to the stairwell door at the end of the hall.

His hand slid beneath his long-sleeved shirt and down to the waistband of his cargo pants where he’d tucked his 9-millimeter SIG SAUER. He’d just gotten a grip on the weapon when a door flew open from behind.

He spared a hasty glance over his shoulder and saw a tall, muscular man filling the doorway of Nick’s hotel room.

As their eyes locked, triumph lit the stranger’s eyes and his hand whipped up to reveal a .45 handgun with a suppressor affixed to its muzzle.

“We’ve got him!” the man shouted.

Son of a bitch.

Nick dived into the stairwell, adrenaline burning in his blood and fueling his actions. He raced down the stairs, his boots slapping the concrete floor with each hurried step. He’d just reached the third-floor landing when he heard the fifth-floor stairwell door burst open from above.

Footsteps thudded on the stairs, spurring him to move faster. His breathing didn’t change. His heartbeat remained steady. One foot in front of the other.

There was no time to be afraid. No time to panic.

No time to dwell on the metallic pop that echoed in the stairwell as a bullet lodged into the wall above Nick’s head.

He made it to the lobby, throwing the door open with such force that it slammed into the wall with a loud crash. Ignoring the startled looks of the clerks at the front desk, Nick tore out of the hotel. He didn’t turn around. Didn’t check to see if anyone was behind him.

“He’s on the move!”

The male voice had come from the passenger side of the unmarked black van parked at the curb. A second later, a man in camo pants and a black tee flew out of the van and gave chase.

Damn it.

Nick ran faster, dodging people left and right. He made a conscious effort to keep his gun tucked beneath his shirt, but the man chasing him didn’t deem it important to conceal his weapon. Several passersby gasped when they glimpsed the gun in the goon’s hand. A woman screamed, and then several shrieks pierced the air as more people on the sidewalk became aware of the gun-wielding man running by.

Goddammit! Nick didn’t dare turn around, but he knew his pursuer wasn’t too far behind. Fortunately, the Liberty happened to be two blocks from the city’s renowned antiques market—which was precisely why Nick had chosen that particular hotel. The market was an enormous maze of endless booths and tables and curtained kiosks, the perfect place to disappear.

Relief poured into him when the marketplace came into view. Less than a minute later, he was lost in a crowd of antiquers. A glance behind showed his frustrated pursuer elbowing his way through the throng of people.

Everything about the man said mercenary. The clothes, the shaved head, the military precision of his movements.

Nick reached a large area where hundreds of carpets hung from various clotheslines. He ducked behind a dusty Persian rug and began weaving his way through the canopy of carpet, which provided perfect cover.

He didn’t turn around, didn’t slow down, just moved through the market with quick methodical strides, not stopping until he was certain he’d lost his tail.

He ended up at a corner bar twenty blocks from the antiques market. His mercenary friend was nowhere to be seen, and the back of Nick’s neck wasn’t tingling anymore, a sure sign that he was no longer being hunted.

The bar was deserted save for the stocky bartender and a lone patron at the far end of the counter. Both men eyed Nick in suspicion as he approached the counter.

“What can I do for you?” the bartender asked in Spanish.

Nick responded in the same tongue. “A pint. Whatever you’ve got on tap.”

As the burly, olive-skinned man moved away to pour the beer, Nick slid onto a tall stool, positioning himself so that he wasn’t close to the front window but still had a line of sight to the door. The small television hanging over the bar was turned to a local news channel, the male reporter on the screen covering the downtown riot that was going strong. The looting had started in the wee hours of the morning, and there was now talk of Cortega seeking aid from the Brazilian army to control the mobs.

“Crazy people,” the bartender muttered, his disapproving gaze fixed on the TV. He set a tall beer glass nearly overflowing with foam in front of Nick.

Nick paid for the beer and thanked the man, then fished out his cell phone and called Tate.

“They found me,” he murmured, keeping his gaze trained on the door. He kept a close watch on the people beyond the plate-glass window, but the merc with the shaved head was nowhere in sight.

“Who?” Tate asked sharply.

“Mercs. They broke into my hotel room, then chased me for ten frickin’ blocks.”

“You sure they were soldiers for hire and not U.S. military?”

“They were too bold to be military. The one on the street was waving a gun around in front of pedestrians. He wasn’t trying to be covert. If Uncle Sam had sent these guys, they would’ve used some stealth.”

“Did you lose the tail?”

“Yeah. I’ll head to another hotel, hole up there until Salazar gets in touch.”

A familiar voice suddenly caught Nick’s attention, drawing his gaze back to the television screen.

Rebecca Parker.

She was doing a live report from outside the parliament building, shouting over the roar of the crowd.

A spark of concern lit Nick’s gut, but at least the woman had the sense to stick close to the news van this time. As she spoke, the camera panned to the furious mob, then focused on a car that was engulfed in flames thirty feet away. The sheen of sweat on Rebecca’s forehead told him that she must be hot as hell standing near that conflagration, but she sounded cool as a cucumber as she addressed her viewers.

“As you can see, the violence has escalated overnight. Two members of the armed guard were nearly beaten to death by five youths who have since been taken into custody, and several vehicles have been set on fire in the past hour. We’re seeing Molotov cocktails being thrown at the parliament building and—”

“—still looking into it, but Harrison was the only member of the team who spoke to Waverly.”

Nick jerked his gaze away from the screen as he registered Tate’s last remark. “Sorry, what was that?”

“I said that the scientists at the lab that created the virus, D&M Initiative, are being questioned, but they all maintain that they don’t know who contracted them to work on Project Aries. Apparently Richard Harrison was the point man for the project—all he told his staff was that they were working on a top-secret government project.”

“He didn’t give them any names?”

“Nope, but his phone records indicate that he was in touch with Paul Waverly.”

Wariness flooded Nick’s chest. “Do we think someone in the Department of Defense authorized the virus project?”

“Maybe.” Tate paused. “Secretary Barrett has always been gung ho about defense. I can easily see the man green-lighting a biological weapons project like this.”

Nick bit back an indignant denial, but inside, he was seething. His father would never allow a deadly virus to be tested on innocent people. Kirk Barrett was the most honorable man Nick had ever known. A man who cared not only about the American people, but also about all people, a man who considered it his duty to help those who needed it, no matter what.

Not only that, but Nick’s father possessed an ironclad sense of right and wrong. It used to drive him nuts when he was growing up—every mistake he’d made required punishment, even if he’d learned his lesson from it. Kirk Barrett didn’t tolerate wrongdoing, whether it was breaking curfew or forgetting to take the trash out or telling a little white lie.

Nick knew without a shred of doubt that his father was incapable of being involved in something as despicable as Project Aries, but he couldn’t say anything to Tate. Not without confessing that he’d been lying about who he was in the five years they’d served together. Although his commander had known who Nick was, the other men in the unit had been kept in the dark, and he wasn’t ready to confess to the deception. Not now, anyway.

“You’ve gotta light a fire under Salazar’s ass, man,” Tate went on. “The more time you spend waiting, the less chance we have of finding Waverly.”

“Trust me, I know.”

On the TV, Rebecca was urgently informing the audience that a Molotov cocktail had just been hurled at a member of the tactical squad.

“We’ve got a man on fire!” she said sharply. “Folks, these images are graphic. Please, if you’ve got young children, I urge you to move them away from the screen.”

The camera shifted to provide a gruesome tableau of a uniformed man engulfed in flames as he rolled on the pavement. Two policemen were desperately attempting to stomp out the flames that were devouring the man, who was screaming in agony.

Nick blanched. Christ, this was insanity.

“Anyway,” Tate was saying.

A deafening boom and a horrified scream blared out of the screen.

Two seconds later, glass shattered as the bartender dropped the empty beer pitcher he’d been drying with a dishrag.

“Oh, blessed mother,” the man said in Spanish.

Nick sucked in a breath and watched the scene in horror. “Oh, Jesus.” He shot to his feet, nearly dropping the phone. “Tate, I’ll call you back.”

Flames. Orange flames. Filling the screen.

Nick’s heart hammered out a frenetic rhythm. The camera was no longer aimed on Rebecca. It had clattered to the ground, tilted at an awkward angle that made it hard to decipher what was happening.

A familiar female voice cried out in terror. “Jesse! Jesse!”

Rebecca.

With trembling palms, Nick glanced at the bartender and said, “Turn it up!”

The man did as he was ordered, and Rebecca’s voice got louder. She was panicked. Freaking out. Nick couldn’t see her, but he could hear her. He suspected everyone in the world was hanging on Rebecca Parker’s every word.

“The van’s been hit! It’s on fire! Jesse’s down! Oh God, Jesse!”

A blur of movement flashed past the lens, followed by a second explosion that yet again altered the camera angle.

Sneakers. Nick made out a pair of women’s sneakers, a soot-covered hand whizzing past the camera.

“Jesse, open your eyes! Look at me!”

And then the screen went black.

“Go to a different channel,” Nick snapped. “Now!”

Again, no hesitation on the bartender’s part. The second news channel they tuned in to was already covering this latest catastrophe, and they caught the male anchor midsentence.

“—several incendiary devices thrown at the American Broadcast News van.”

The anchor was sitting behind a news desk in the studio, and a picture of Rebecca appeared on the screen next to his head.

Nick’s pulse sped up at the sight of her familiar green eyes and tousled red hair.

“We’ve just received confirmation that the driver was killed in the explosion. Parker’s cameraman has been badly injured—we’re getting reports that he’s being rushed to the hospital with third-degree burns. There is no word on Parker yet. We simply do not know if she—” The man halted, touched his earpiece. “Wait, we’ve got an update. Rebecca Parker, award-winning correspondent for ABN, was not injured in the explosions. She just departed the scene in the ambulance with her cameraman, who has been identified as Jesse Williams.”

Relief crashed over him like a tidal wave. Rebecca wasn’t hurt. Thank God.

But her driver was dead. Her cameraman with third-degree burns.

Because a few protesters had thrown Molotov cocktails at the ABN crew.

Why?

Nick’s gut went rigid as the question floated into his head. Why would the protesters try to harm the very people who were shedding light on their cause?

On the TV, the news anchor was attempting to make sense of it, as well. “Officials on the scene suspect that the explosive devices were intended for the tactical team that had just pulled up near the ABN van. The three Molotov cocktails, however, missed their mark.”

Three Molotov cocktails?

And all three had failed to hit the intended target? Either those protesters had the crappiest aim on the planet, or...

Or the SWAT team hadn’t been the intended target.

Rebecca.

As the alarming thought sliced into his head, Nick glanced at the bartender and said, “Is there a back door I can leave out of?”

The man nodded, his shocked gaze still glued to the screen. He absently pointed to the corridor leading to the restrooms. “Emergency exit, back there.”

With a nod of gratitude, Nick hurried to the corridor. He’d all but forgotten about the trigger-happy mercenaries who were currently pursuing him; all he could focus on was Rebecca. Her cry of horror. Her shaky pleas for her cameraman to open his eyes and look at her.

The hospital. He had to get to the hospital ASAP. His inner alarms were ringing, his instincts screaming for him to get to Rebecca—and fast.

She was in danger. Whatever went down just now, it had been no accident. Someone had intentionally tried to blow up Rebecca and her crew. Nick knew it with a certainty that ran bone-deep.

And he got the feeling that it was all his fault.

* * *

Numb. Rebecca was utterly numb. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Each time she tried to snap herself out of it, the image of Jesse going up in flames assaulted her mind and nausea scampered up her throat. The odor of burned flesh still permeated her clothes, her hair, her nostrils. The look of terror and agony in Jesse’s eyes was one she would never forget.

People were talking to her. Yelling at her. She could hear their voices, but they sounded so very far away, like they were coming from the other end of a long tunnel. It wasn’t until she felt the sting of pain on her arm that she registered what was happening—the emergency room nurses were forcibly pulling her away from Jesse’s gurney.

“You can’t go in there with him, Ms. Parker,” one of the nurses snapped. “Please, let us handle it.”

She nodded weakly and stepped back, her gaze glued to Jesse’s face.

Or what used to be his face.

Sickness churned in her belly and she swallowed hard, trying to keep the nausea at bay. She’d encountered some gory visuals in her career, but this...this...

Rebecca tore her eyes off her friend’s charred, blackened flesh. Sorrow tightened her throat as the reality of the situation sank in.

Jesse wasn’t going to make it.

Nobody could possibly survive the severity of these burns.

“Fourth-degree burns,” she heard a male voice bark.

Shifting her head, she spotted a doctor in green scrubs rushing alongside the gurney, which was being rolled toward a pair of double doors bearing a restricted-access sign. The medical workers flocking Jesse disappeared through the swinging doors, but not before Rebecca heard the words hypovolemic shock being tossed out.

That didn’t sound good.

God, none of this was good.

She still couldn’t believe it. One second she’d been delivering a routine report into Jesse’s camera, the next she was watching her cameraman engulfed by flames.

And then another explosion. The explosion that rocked the van.

Dave’s screams of pain as he burned to death.

Rebecca gagged, choking on bile. She glimpsed a sign for the ladies’ washroom at the end of the hall and dashed toward it, throwing herself into the first available stall and flying to her knees. She threw up, her eyes watering, her throat burning.

She didn’t know how long she huddled over that toilet, but her insides felt raw and achy by the time she unsteadily rose to her feet. She left the stall and approached the sink where she rinsed out her mouth, then studied her ravaged appearance in the mirror.

Soot smudged her face, and she had a tiny nick on her left cheek from the pebble that had dug into her skin when she’d hit the pavement. Her white T-shirt was singed, streaked with black and gray—and red.... Blood. A quick investigation revealed that she had a minor scrape on her left hip.

Drawing in a shaky breath, she bent over the sink again and washed the ash off her face, but the smell of smoke continued to linger in the air.

That bone-numbing paralysis followed her out of the bathroom. She couldn’t seem to focus on a single thought. She knew she needed to find a doctor and ask about Jesse. She needed to call the network. She needed to contact Harry.

But she was so unbelievably numb.

She stood in the fluorescent-lit corridor and sagged against the white wall, then slid into a sitting position and wrapped her arms around her knees. Five minutes or five hours—she could’ve been down there on the floor for either amount of time for how out of it she was.

“Ms. Parker?”

She lifted her head at the sound of the subdued male voice and found the doctor who’d been treating Jesse looming over her.

Rebecca took one look at his face and let out a soft moan. “Oh, God.”

“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “Mr. Williams’s burns were simply too severe. We were dealing with burns on more than twenty-five percent of the total body surface area and I’m afraid that...”

She tuned him out.

Because really, what was the point in listening anymore?

Jesse was dead. Dave was dead.

When you spent ten months of the year on assignment, you didn’t have much time for socializing, and these past five years, Jesse and Dave had been her only friends. The two men, both in their mid-forties, had taken Rebecca under their wing, treated her like the little sister they’d never had, shown her unfailing support and provided her with endless hours of laughter.

And now they were both gone.

“Ms. Parker?” the doctor prompted.

She absently met his gaze. “Sorry, what was that?”

“I was saying that the release of the body can be arranged with the coroner.”

Tears stung her eyes. “Right. Okay.”

With a sympathetic look, the doctor conveyed his apologies again, then walked away.

Wiping her eyes, Rebecca got to her feet, knowing she had to get it together. She would grieve later. Right now, she needed to be strong.

“Rebecca Parker?”

She turned around and saw two unfamiliar men in black suits approaching. The taller of the two flashed a gold badge, then offered a rueful smile. “Detective Raoul Flores,” he introduced. “This is my partner, Dante Valleti. We’re with the Mala P.D.”

Valleti, a stocky man with a shaved head, shot her a grave look. “We’re sorry to bother you in your time of grief, but we need to get a statement from you regarding the events that transpired.”

She stifled a sigh. “Does it have to be now?”

“I’m afraid so,” Flores said briskly. “It’s imperative that we question you while the details are still fresh in your mind—”

Fresh in her mind? She almost burst into hysterical laughter. God! Like she would ever forget seeing Jesse devoured by flames.

“—if we want to find the culprits responsible for the bombing.”

“Why don’t we do this in the commissary rather than the station?” Valleti suggested in a kind tone. “If you’d be more comfortable with that.”

She finally nodded. “Fine. But let’s make it fast. I have to contact Jesse’s family and...” Her throat squeezed. “I...have things to take care of.”

“We understand,” Flores said, his dark eyes flickering with sympathy.

And annoyance. She definitely didn’t miss the tiny spark of annoyance in the detective’s eyes.

Rebecca’s lips tightened as she followed the two men toward the elevator. The last thing she wanted to do was drink a cup of coffee and describe how she’d just watched her friends die before her eyes, and these policemen were insensitive jerks for making her do this. The only reason she’d agreed was because she wanted the people responsible to be punished for what they’d done to Jesse and Dave.

As the elevator doors opened, the trio stepped into the car. Valleti punched the button for the lobby, causing Rebecca to knit her eyebrows together in a frown. “The cafeteria is on the second floor,” she told the detective.

He ignored her.

Suppressing an angry retort, she reached out and tried to press the right button, only to freeze when something hard suddenly jabbed her tailbone.

A gun.

“Detective” Raoul Flores had pulled a gun and was now pressing the muzzle into Rebecca’s lower back.

As fear pummeled into her, Flores’s low warning hung in the elevator car. “One more move and I put a bullet in your spine, sweetheart.”