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Tonight changed everything. Seeing her name on the guest list had put us on high alert, but we’d still hoped she wasn’t inadvertently inserting herself into our mission. Her thinly veiled Nancy Drew act had proved that was exactly what she was doing. It also confirmed that her public claims that she was writing for the lifestyle section because she needed a break from investigative reporting had been an elaborate ruse. Ms. Armand was investigating her own kidnapping. And if we didn’t protect her from herself, she was about to stumble into the bloody hands of the Carbonados again.
“What’s the play, TJ?” X, still across the room, asked into the comms. She was the founder and head of HEAT, my direct supervisor, and as the team called her, their uber-boss.
In the field, though, as the leader of the Alpha Team, I called the shots. “Not enough time to stop her from tripping the sensors, drag her back here, and then return to the offices to plant the bug. Just in case Ms. Armand’s not being as reckless as we suspect, we’ll wait to get eyes on her before we send in the decoy.”
Kessler, who was the one tasked with the bug planting, nodded. “I’ll let you know the second I see her. And if she is breaking into Izak Kovac’s office, I’ll slip in behind her, plant the bug, and keep her in position until the team can extract us both.”
In our ears, technical team lead Jason Jensen told us, “We’re working on getting extra resources in place for the revised extraction plan. But you need to go now or you won’t catch up with her. Security camera feeds inside the building will be disabled in three, two, one. Go.”
“Got it,” Kessler said.
“No. You and Li were at the party where she was kidnapped. She might recognize you from that, or worse, realize you were her rescuers.” I held out my hand, and Kessler dropped the bug, a tiny, clear, nearly undetectable disk, into my hand.
I headed for the side exit. Derek and Chase were tall enough to create a screen for me while I slipped out of the ballroom. In the hallway, I announced, “Three taps mean send in the decoy. Going dark now.”
My team’s voices were still in my ear as I took the twisting path toward the senior staff offices, but the halls were silent, almost eerily so. When I spotted Ms. Armand entering the hall from a different direction, I slipped into the shadow of a doorway, then followed a few feet behind her, tapping the bone just below my ear so the comms picked up my signal to send the Armand decoy into the party. When the real reporter crossed the threshold into the office reception area, Jensen, who was monitoring the building’s security system, started another countdown, this time indicating when the laser sensors she had tripped would click on and create a barrier between the offices and the hall.
I stepped across the threshold just as Jensen reached “one,” then stopped and watched Ms. Armand. As long as she didn’t attempt to recross the threshold, which would interrupt the beams and set off alarms that would have the embassy’s armed guards running in our direction, I could allow her free rein. Learning why she was here might help us determine how much she knew and how worried we should be.
I didn’t mind the show one bit. I’d only seen her from afar once, and since then, only in surveillance photos that usually showed off the spray of freckles across her nose and the barely tamed curls in her hair. Tonight, her make-up hid the freckles, and the tight updo smoothed out her unruly locks, much to my chagrin. She slid out of the ridiculous black coat that she must have thought would obscure her identity from the security cameras, making the show even more enjoyable. She was beautiful and sexy as hell in her low-cut, backless gown that looked like it could slide right off her shoulders and straight to the floor with the slightest flick of my fingers.
I ignored my hard-on and hoped our team doctor, who was monitoring each operative’s vital signs through our high-tech wristwatches, would keep the spike in my heart rate and blood pressure to herself.
“Everything okay, TJ?” Samantha Bond, the doctor in question, asked in my comms.
I tapped once under my ear for yes, and Bond went silent. She wasn’t just a medical professional, she was a good friend, a field surgeon I’d met way back when, during my Army days. Like everyone on the Alpha Team, Bond was actually more like family. And like most close families, they would give me no peace if they caught a whiff of my lascivious thoughts about the reporter, which included that one-step gown removal and had progressed to an image of the woman lying naked on top of the desk she was currently trying and failing to breach.
When it was clear the locked desk was Ms. Armand’s only objective, and thus her behavior was unlikely to yield more information about her motives, I leaned against the doorjamb and smiled, finally ready to reveal my presence. She would scream, as startled civilians normally do, but no one was close enough to hear her. As long as she didn’t bolt for the exit, we wouldn’t be discovered. Although if she did bolt, I would block her path, and she would run right into me. I would easily be able to contain her and would have the chance to hold her in my arms for a minute in the process.
“Not every pick works in every lock,” I said quietly, more than half-hoping she would run straight at me.
She jumped and sucked in her breath, but she didn’t scream or run. She stood quickly and tucked her tools behind her back. “Mr… What was it again?”
“TJ, Ms. Armand, but a woman in your profession doesn’t forget names.” I grinned and closed in on her slowly, enjoying the way she blushed, which brought out the blue in her eyes and the reddish highlights in her dark brown hair.
“Are you following me?”
I tsked and shook my head. “If you had any idea what you’re doing right now, you wouldn’t need to ask. You would have clocked me tracking you twenty feet down the hallway.”
More color rose in her cheeks. I’d forgotten how freckles and blushing were so closely tied together. And how the combination was so damn charming. The rediscovery wasn’t doing a lot to maintain my professionalism, but it sure as hell was fun to watch.
“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here, or do I have to guess?” I asked.
“I’m sure you’re not with embassy security, so I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“You’re right, I’m not a security guard. I’m just a patriotic American trying to prevent the international incident that will result if you get caught trying to break into the locked desk of”—I leaned back to check the name on the door, even though I knew damn well whose office it was—“Izak Kovac.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.” She lied so easily she could have almost been in my line of work. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m doing a human-interest story on Kovac’s husband, Luka. He’s an interior designer, and he mentioned that he decorated his husband’s embassy office.”
I nodded and kept up my unfazed demeanor while at least three of my team members muttered into their comms, “Fuck me.”
We’d assumed she would be after Izak, who had some low-level corruption tendencies but nothing that was of concern to HEAT. Luka, however, was a different story.
“That makes sense,” I responded to Ms. Armand. “You’re here to admire the décor.”
“Well, to see it, at least. It’s a little…” She wrinkled her nose. “A little too minimalistic for my taste.”
I smiled. “Sure, understandable.” I took a few steps toward her and stopped beside the desk. I attached the clear disk to the underside of the desk lip, then slid my hands into my pants pockets. “And what décor were you hoping to observe in Mr. Kovac’s desk?”
