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Cross That Line

Page 103

by Barbara Freethy

His heart raced again as he made his way to the small airfield, which was used by many private jets. Zane, Kara, and Jason pulled up in an SUV alongside him seconds after he arrived. They jumped out of their cars, with Jason stopping to talk to airport police while they ran onto the tarmac.

A ground worker was just about to pull the stairs away from the plane when he saw them approaching with guns drawn. As he stepped back, a man in a suit fired from the door to the plane.

Tyler fired back, taking him down in one shot. Then he moved up the stairs. When he entered the private plane, he saw Neil Levitan sitting in a seat, frozen with fear. But there was something else in his eyes. He turned around as Vivienne Troye fired her weapon. He ducked just in time and then he fired at her shoulder. She dropped the gun and screamed in pain as she fell to the ground. Zane and Kara were coming in the plane. Zane checked on the pilots, while Kara grabbed Vivienne's gun.

Then he turned to the doctor who had hurt, almost killed, Jack and God knew how many others; the man who had probably ordered the abduction of Naomi and Rachel. He burned with a rage he could barely contain. "Dr. Levitan," he said. "We finally meet."

"I don't know what this is about," the doctor said hurriedly.

"It's about Jack Barrone and Brett Young and all the other men and women you hurt and exploited by extracting classified information from their memories. It's about the warehouse and the basement lab where you were conducting your experiments. It's about the attempted murders of Megan Prescott, Jack Barrone, Rachel Thorne, and Naomi Randall. It's about Ethan Hollander and Andrew Lang and Frank Conover." He gave him a long stare. "That's right, Doctor. We know it all, and everyone is talking."

"I treated Jack and Brett for PTSD. That's it. I don't know what you're talking about."

"Well, you'll have plenty of time to figure it out. You're under arrest." He grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet, thinking he didn't look much like a renowned godlike figure now.

"She made me do it. She was blackmailing me," he said, pointing to Vivienne. "She's a spy with MSS. They forced me. They threatened my family. I'm a victim, too."

"Is that true?" Kara asked Vivienne.

Vivienne looked at Neil in disgust. "What the coward says? No, it's not true. I need medical help."

"You'll get it on your way to jail," Kara told her. "Get up." She helped Vivienne to her feet and then marched her to the stairs.

Zane tossed him a pair of cuffs, and it gave him great pleasure to pull Levitan's hands behind his back and cuff him.

"I want my lawyer," Levitan told him.

"Did Conover know what you were doing?"

Levitan hesitated. Then he repeated, "I want my lawyer."

"You know whoever talks first gets the deal. If you were really being blackmailed by the Chinese spy service, then you're safer with us than you are on your own. You know that, right?"

"It didn't start out like this," Levitan said. "And my work is going to save lives."

"At what cost?" he challenged. "Did Frank Conover know what you were doing to veterans, to men and women who served their country and sacrificed their bodies, their minds?" he asked again.

Neil slowly shook his head. "No. He didn't know anything. And that's all I'm going to say until I get a lawyer."

He pushed him toward the exit and took him down the stairs, handing him off to Cole, who put him in the back of an SUV. Vivienne was being tended to by medics. The other man at the scene was deceased.

Zane joined him and Jason a moment later. "The pilots know nothing. They were hired to fly to a private airfield in Miami. God knows where they were going from there."

"What did Levitan say?" Jason asked.

"That Conover wasn't involved. That he was being blackmailed by the woman, who he claims is a spy for MSS."

Jason's gaze moved to Vivienne and back. "That's interesting."

"Yeah. But I'm not sure Levitan wasn't a willing participant. Unfortunately, he asked for his lawyer."

"We'll figure it out," Jason said. "Let's get everyone back to the office and see who wants to talk first."

It was almost three o'clock in the morning when Tyler quietly let himself into the hotel suite. He walked into the bedroom where the curtains were open, and the lights from the city cast a warm glow over the room, showing Rachel asleep in the luxurious, pillow-topped, king-size bed that they'd shared the night before.

That felt like a million years ago. He should let her sleep. She deserved it. But as he looked at her pretty face, her brown hair spread across the pillow, he felt an impossible pull. He didn't want to leave. He wanted to crawl into bed next to her, put his arms around her and never let her go.

Never?