The Colonel made no response as he walked in a circle around her. “I see the report of your military experience is accurate.”
She had instinctively come to attention under his scrutiny. Eyes forward, spine stiff, hands tight to her sides, her demeanor bore out her backstory. She had subconsciously responded to something in the Colonel’s bearing that marked him as a commanding officer. With that level of training and discipline, he would be a formidable adversary should she ever need to face him. She also couldn’t help but wonder if he still had access to military records. And if the fabricated history the FBI had constructed would withstand digging if he was able to call in any favors from active-duty personnel.
The Colonel, apparently satisfied for the moment, moved away to face the group. “I’m sure you all are wondering what the nature of this assignment is.” He paced in front of them as he spoke. “It’s a critical contract, and I have been requested to personally lead the group.”
Judging by the looks they all gave each other, she assumed the Colonel’s personal participation was a rarity.
“This mission requires twelve people”—the Colonel flicked a glance her way—“but we have thirteen.”
Dani felt the tension in the room go up a notch.
“I cleared it with the client,” the Colonel continued. “And no one’s pay will be affected except Toro’s, so I’m fine with having a former soldier among us—even if her discharge wasn’t exactly . . . honorable.”
The background had held up so far, and the men seemed to be recalibrating their opinion of her.
“An extra body won’t hurt, because the nature of this new contract will prove challenging,” the Colonel went on. Once he had recaptured everyone’s attention, he came to a stop and faced them. “We are going to help create a virtual training program. We are playing the roles of insurgents in an urban-combat scenario. There will be booby traps, barricades, and other obstacles. We may be required to split into teams or work alone at various points.”
“Who’s putting on the training?” Toro asked. “No one’s supposed to know who we are.”
“Your identities will be concealed at all times,” the Colonel responded. “We’ll all be wearing specially constructed suits that will render avatars with no resemblance to your appearance. Your actions will be recorded so they can be converted into a training scenario with options for whoever is going through it.”
This reminded Dani of similar exercises she had undergone in the military. Given what she’d learned about the Colonel, she assumed this was part of a private company’s attempt to develop interactive training for the military. She wondered how much the Colonel would get as a kickback when the contract sold.
“We’re the rats in the maze,” Chopper said. “What’s the cheese?”
“Double your normal fee,” the Colonel said. “And a bonus for the one who finishes first.”
“Nice,” Guapo said. “I could use the money.”
“Yeah right,” one of the men who had been waiting in the hangar said to him. “Like it’s going to be you.”
The usual smack talk followed, with most of the group insulting one another’s tactical prowess. Dani and the Colonel regarded each other in silence. She could feel him taking her measure and let him know she was doing the same to him.
He may have been a colonel at one point, but as far as she was concerned, he’d given up the right to the respect his rank demanded when he retained a team of killers to do his bidding. He had clearly been seduced by money and power, forsaking his oath. She had not forsaken hers, and he would soon discover that money and power would do him no good when justice caught up to him.
CHAPTER 23
Dani contemplated how to get incriminating information out of the Colonel.
“It’s time to go,” the Colonel said to the team. “Our transportation is waiting.”
He hadn’t mentioned where they were going, and no one else did either. Dani had been on missions where they were not told their destination until their arrival at a strategic location. She had never expected such tactics from a loosely knit group of contract killers. As the Colonel turned to walk outside the building, she felt that she was slipping into uncharted territory.
Toro caught her eye and raised a questioning brow. Certain he was wondering what their next move should be, she gave him a slight nod and fell in line with the others.
She considered her options. If she tried to take them all into custody now, she would end up dead. Her fighting skills were sound, but even if Toro joined her, they would be fighting eleven experienced assassins. And she noticed that the Colonel had a sidearm in his holster.
She could feign a sudden illness and say she couldn’t go with them, but what would Toro do? Would he take the opportunity to leave her behind and make a bid for freedom? Twelve against one left her in no position to stop him if he did.
The Colonel would be highly suspicious of her sudden illness and might not allow her to simply leave.
She was hamstrung by circumstance, and any choice she made could end badly. Her best course of action was to go along with the plan until she could gather hard evidence and contact the JTTF.
Despite her close proximity to Toro, she was unable to speak without risking others overhearing or without drawing suspicion by whispering. She kept her silence as the group walked around to the far side of one of the two hangars. The massive bay door was open, and a private jet was sitting at the beginning of a runway.
This was more than she had anticipated. She exchanged a quick glance with Toro, whose expression told her he had been caught off guard as well. Either the others took the fact that they could be headed anywhere in stride, or they already knew where they were going and weren’t sharing the information with Toro or the outsider they had come to know as Nikki.
Fully committed now, she climbed the lowered stairs leading into the passenger compartment and took a seat beside Toro with a sudden surge of hope. The pilot would have to file a flight plan with the FAA. Her JTTF team would at least know where she had taken off and landed. The momentary hope faded as she realized that the Bureau would have no way of knowing she was even on a plane at all. They would have no reason to check what would appear to be test flights out of an airplane-maintenance-and-repair facility in another state. She wasn’t even sure aircraft being flown for diagnostics and repair purposes were required to file a flight plan. It seemed their mysterious client—and the Colonel—had thought of everything.
The Colonel addressed them as the engines powered up. “You all are damned lucky the client provided this jet, because it’s going to be a long flight.”
The repair facility probably belonged to the client too. It clearly had no affiliation with the nearby airport, but it had a runway. Flying across the country under the pretext of checking mechanical work done on the craft was against FAA regulations, but no client of the Colonel’s was likely to care. The more she thought about everything that had led her up to this point, the less it played like a training exercise.
“Where are we going?” Chopper asked, buckling into his seat.
Dani read the genuine curiosity that prompted his question. Maybe the others really didn’t know any more than she and Toro did. If so, they were accustomed to following orders without question. This made them both dangerous and vulnerable.
“Close your windows,” the Colonel said in response. “You’ll see where we are when we land, which is also when you’ll get your weapons back.”
Everyone sitting beside a window reached up to slide it shut. They were all now in a tube, totally cut off from the outside world.
Takeoff was smooth, and Dani resigned herself to a quiet trip. At least the cabin was well appointed and comfortable. Unable to talk to Toro, make plans for her arrival, or even see where she was going, she decided to get some rest while she could. Previous deployments had conditioned her to sleep in nearly any situation or position in order to preserve strength and prepare for whatever lay ahead.
She had the sense that several hours had passed when the plane’s descent awakened her with popping ears. She longed to slide the window cover open, but no one in the cabin had disobeyed orders. Even a sliver of light at the bottom of the window would have drawn attention.
She barely felt the wheels contact the runway, and the jet taxied to a stop a couple of minutes later. Everyone seemed anxious to get out of the semidark tube, and she felt a sense of relief when they all began to climb down the stairs.