Dutch, page 18
She reached up and cupped his cheek with her hand. “I do, Dutch. I told you I love you.”
“I need more than that. When this thing is over, I need to know that you and I are going to be together. It doesn’t matter to me if you want to leave the business, I told you we’ll figure it out.”
Malin moved her hand from his cheek to behind his neck and pulled him close enough that she could join her mouth with his. She kissed him, pushing her tongue through his lips. He kissed her back, but then pulled away.
“Yes, Dutch,” she said, looking into his eyes. “We’ll figure it out.”
“That’s all I needed to know.”
20
Dutch checked his phone repeatedly, but there was no update from anyone regarding Montgomery or McTiernan. Malin hadn’t heard anything either.
While he didn’t mind the time alone with her, he knew the stress of not hearing was eating away at her as much as it was him.
Dutch had declined the invitation to join the group for dinner at the main house. Instead, he and Malin made dinner from what they could find in the cottage. As if by magic, all the fixings for spaghetti and meatballs had appeared in the refrigerator.
“Are we pretending again?” she asked when she set the bowl of pasta in front of him.
“I’m not. Are you?”
She shook her head. “Will it last, Dutch?”
“Once this is over?”
Malin nodded.
“It will.”
“How can you be certain?”
“I can’t accept anything else, Malin.” He stood and held his hand out to her. “Come here,” he said, pulling her back to his chair with him.
Once she was on his lap, Dutch nuzzled her neck. “I know you feel like we’re in limbo, and as far as the rest of the world goes, we are. But between you and me, we aren’t waiting for anything to happen or anything to change, except maybe where we’re living. Otherwise, this is us, baby.”
As if on cue to spoil the moment between them, Dutch’s phone buzzed at the same time Malin’s did.
She didn’t move, so he pulled his out, punched in his access code, and let her see the screen.
“He’s on the move,” she told him, and he nodded. When it pinged again, she looked at the screen a second time. “McTiernan has his flight plan, although it’s filed under an assumed name, of course.”
“Is he flying alone?”
Malin typed the question on the screen and hit send.
“Affirmative,” she answered a few moments later.
“He believes he can handle this.”
After taking a deep breath, Malin nodded and stood, setting his phone on the table in front of him.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said.
“I expect fixers will come from every direction.”
Dutch nodded. “Although Montgomery has too much of an ego to believe any of them can handle you as well as he can.”
“He comes from an era where there weren’t fixers, at least not officially known as such.”
“We’ll be ready, no matter how many they send.”
“Doc wants us to meet him in the winery,” she said, holding up her phone.
“After we eat.”
For a moment, Dutch thought Malin might protest, but she picked up her fork instead.
“You know what amazes me?”
Malin raised her head.
“It doesn’t matter what ingredients you have to work with, the sauce and meatballs always taste the same.”
She laughed and shook her head. “No, they don’t.”
He scrunched his eyes. “They do to me.”
“You’re silly.”
“Wanna know why?”
“Okay. I’ll bite. Why, Dutch?”
“Cuz it always tastes like you made it just for me. Just because you know how much I love it, and since you love me, that’s all I taste.”
She shook her head again. “I’m not sure I follow that, but as long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters.”
“You make me happy with every breath you take, baby.”
Her cheeks along with that sweet spot on her neck turned pink, making him wish that, instead of going to meet Doc, he could carry her upstairs and ravage all the anxiety out of her body so all she could feel was him.
“You make me happy too, Dutch.”
“Ready?”
“Not really.”
“Let’s finish this, Malin, so we can get on with the rest of our lives.”
—:—
While the danger she faced now was less than she had many times during this mission, the nervousness she felt was twice as intense. This was it. One way or another, by this time tomorrow, the last vestiges of the work she’d done for the past year would come to a culmination.
What would it feel like to wake up in a few days and know this was all behind her? The mission she’d accepted to give herself time to get over Dutch, at least in part, had become the very thing that brought him back into her life.
Now here they were, not just working together, but loving each other too.
“Let’s go,” said Dutch, holding his hand out to her.
Malin picked up the angel ornament that sat on the table, and twirled it on her finger. “I’m tempted to bring it with me. Is that silly?”
“Not at all. Put it in your pocket, baby.”
Malin smiled and followed his suggestion.
* * *
“Let’s run through this one more time,” Doc said when she and Dutch came into the winery. “Montgomery’s plane will land in under an hour. He knows how to make contact with Malin. What we anticipate is that he’ll make nice and ask for a meeting so she can brief him on the outcome of the mission he believes she’s ready to wrap.”
Malin felt herself wanting to chew her fingernails, a habit she’d broken in high school. All of their plans were predicated on Montgomery doing exactly as Doc had just laid out. If he didn’t, they’d have to adjust on the fly.
Malin watched Dutch pace, aware that his anxiety was greater than her own, just like it would be for her if he was about to put himself in the direct path of danger.
Several of the K19 team were already staked out in various places in the winery, although even she had no idea where they were. The plan was that she would suggest Montgomery meet her there.
Once they heard from Montgomery, Gunner and Razor would be out front, while Dutch was in the back. Doc would be closest to her.
Dutch hadn’t liked it, but between the two of them, she and Doc had convinced him that neither Doc nor the other four men positioned in the winery would let anything happen to her. Above all else, Malin was armed and perfectly capable of defending herself.
“He’s thirty minutes out,” Doc relayed from the radio headset. Malin held her breath. What was Montgomery waiting for?
As if on cue, her cell phone vibrated. “Kilbourne,” she answered.
“Agent Kilbourne, you’ve been one difficult woman to track down.”
“Yes, sir.”
“McTiernan briefed me on your mission. I understand you’ve uncovered something quite significant.”
Malin tapped her lip, waiting for him to get to the point. “Yes, sir,” she murmured a second time.
“Director Flatley has sent me to do a full debrief as well as to offer his congratulations for a job well done.”
“Where, sir?”
“I’ve just arrived in San Luis Obispo and am heading your way. Is now a good time for us to meet?”
“This is unexpected. When will you be arriving?”
“In less than a half hour.”
“That soon?” she asked, giving Doc a thumbs up. “I mean, of course, sir.”
“I’d rather not disrupt the Butler Family. Is there a place where we can meet privately?”
Malin ended the call after assuring Montgomery that the outer gate to the ranch would be left open, and that she’d be waiting in the winery.
“Showtime,” said Razor, grasping Gunner’s shoulder. “Let’s move out.”
Dutch walked over and put his arms around her waist. “I’m sorry to do this with an audience, but I have to.” He bent down and kissed her. “I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you,” she whispered back.
Dutch groaned and looked up at the ceiling. “I have to go, as much as I don’t want to.”
“I’ll come with you,” she told him, looking back at Doc. “Potty break.”
Malin blew Dutch a kiss before going in the door to the ladies’ bathroom.
She felt on the wall for the light switch, flicked it a couple of times, but it didn’t go on. Just as she turned to go back out, she felt someone’s arm encircle her waist as their opposite hand covered her mouth. Before she could utter a sound, darkness engulfed her.
—:—
Dutch was crouched just outside the winery’s door, by the loading dock, when he thought he heard a noise from inside. He drew his gun and was about to run in when something heavy hit his head, and everything went black.
“What the fuck?” he heard a familiar voice shout through the haze in his addled brain.
“Dutch!” The voice yelled, and he opened his eyes. “Where’s Malin?”
“What do you mean? She went into the bathroom.” Dutch sat up, his body shaky as he looked at Doc, who was shouting orders he couldn’t understand through the mic on his headset.
“Can you stand?” Doc asked, pulling him up.
Barely, but Dutch wouldn’t tell him that. “I’m getting fucking tired of people hitting me over the head.” Once on his feet, the haziness in his brain dissipated as Doc’s words sunk in.
“You asked me where Malin was. What the hell happened?”
“She didn’t come back,” Doc muttered while listening to what someone was saying through the headset.
“What do you mean she didn’t come back?” he yelled, grasping his throbbing head with one of his hands.
“Roger that,” said Doc into the mic before putting his hand on Dutch’s shoulder. “Can you handle a gun?”
“Of course I can handle a fucking gun,” he shouted, feeling for his. When he didn’t find it, he grabbed the one Doc held out for him. “Where is she?”
“Caves.”
Dutch felt adrenaline surge through his veins as he followed Doc through the darkness to the wine caves. He knew better than to ask what had happened. Now his focus had to stay on Doc’s movements as they stealthily made their way to the entrance.
“Montgomery?” he whispered when they met Gunner and Razor near the heavy gate.
Doc shook his head. “Decoy. Hang on,” he said, focusing on the words coming through the headset.
“Roger that,” he responded, motioning them away from the entrance. “Burns has them live,” he said, pulling a piece of paper out of his back pocket.
Dutch watched Doc draw a line representing the cave’s entrance and then several offshoots.
“You can’t tell when you go in, but if you go far enough, there’s an outer ring that connects all the rooms. They’re here.” Doc pointed to the first hallway on the right, and then to the first storage room.
“Who’s got her?” Dutch growled, his hand gripping the gun until his knuckles were white.
“Flatley.”
—:—
Malin straightened her stiff neck and opened her eyes. She looked down at the ropes binding her body to a chair and then up at the man sitting in front of her.
“Kilbourne,” he said.
She couldn’t decide how to address the man speaking to her. Certainly not as Director Flatley. She wouldn’t show him the respect that the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency normally warranted. She’d rather spit at him. Instead she remained silent.
“You already know how this will go. You’ll tell me everything I need to know, and I’ll spare the life of your friend over there.”
Malin turned her head and looked at the body slumped and tied to a chair like she was. Flatley walked over, grabbed the hair of the unconscious woman and yanked her head up so Malin could see Sofia’s face.
He dropped her head and stalked back over to where she sat.
Malin nodded.
“Let’s start with Abdul Ghafor.”
Malin glanced over when she heard Sofia groan.
Flatley heard it too and was about to hit the woman with the butt of his gun when Malin screamed at him to stop.
The man stood where he was and waited.
“He was paid to direct terrorist cells across the county to hack into the electronic vote tabulation during the last election, along with the optical scanners that tabulate mail-in ballots.”
“Where did the money come from?”
“A Super PAC.”
“Where originally?”
“Why are you—” Malin stopped talking when she saw Flatley pull back his arm as though he was going to strike Sofia.
“I ask the questions. Where did the money come from?”
“I don’t know.”
Malin cried out but was too late to stop him from hitting Sofia so hard the chair fell on its side with her in it.
“That’s what happens when you lie to me.”
“Where did the money come from?”
“United Russia.”
“Keep talking.”
Afraid that if Flatley hit Sofia again, she might not be able to withstand the injury he’d cause, Malin continued.
“What else do you want to know?”
“What did United Russia get in exchange for their money?”
“The president pushed the Treasury to let UR convert $5.7 billion of funds held in an offshore account from dollars into rubles.”
Flatley paced back and forth in front of her. “What kind of proof do you have that any of this really happened, Special Agent Kilbourne?”
“I don’t.”
He stopped and studied her.
“Who does?”
“The attorney general.”
Flatley smiled.
Malin blinked but didn’t dare close her eyes. Right there, that was the proof she’d needed. The only question left unanswered had been whether the president’s two-term attorney general was in on it.
Flatley pulled out his phone. “We’re done here,” she heard him say.
—:—
“He got it,” said Doc.
“All of it?” asked Gunner.
“Every word.”
“Who’s in there?” asked Dutch.
“Malin, Flatley, and an unnamed woman. My guess is that it may be Descanso.”
“Where’s Onyx?”
“Westside. Why?”
“Descanso.”
Doc nodded.
While his father had continued to monitor the conversation between Flatley and Malin, Doc had drawn out a map of who would go in where.
Burns Butler wasn’t just a technological wizard who had wired every corner of the wine caves both for audio and visual monitoring, the construction had taken three times as long as had originally been quoted since he’d insisted on several entrances and exits to be worked into the design.
“You’re sure Flatley doesn’t have any backup?” asked Razor.
Doc repeated his question through the mic.
“Burns reports there is no other activity inside the caves. However, Flatley may have someone on the outside who he just made contact with.”
“On it,” said Gunner moving out with Razor. To where, Dutch didn’t know.
“You got this, Dutch?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Look at me.”
Doc tracked his eye movement. “I’ll lead. You follow. Understood.”
“Understood.”
“Let’s move,” Doc said through the mic and then turned to Dutch. “We’re closest.”
Dutch nodded, following Doc as he made his way through the caves, keeping his body up against the stone walls.
He froze momentarily when he heard a man’s voice telling Malin to move. Doc made eye contact, and Dutch nodded, quickly moving to the other side of the corridor, but still out of the room’s view.
When Doc signaled, they turned into the room simultaneously.
“Freeze and lower your weapon,” Doc shouted at the second man Dutch had witnessed holding a gun to Malin’s head.
Like with Orlov, Dutch studied the look on her face. Then, he’d seen fear, but it wasn’t of Orlov. It was of K19 destroying her mission. Now he knew the difference.
This time Malin was afraid of the man holding her hostage. Dutch lowered his chin, just slightly, and at the same moment he saw Malin mimic his movement, he fired, and Flatley fell to the ground.
He and Malin ran toward each other as the K19 team filed into the room. Time stopped for Dutch as they clung to each other amid the chaos in the room.
“Sofia—” Malin cried.
“Onyx has her,” said Doc. “They’ll transport her to the hospital via helicopter.”
“Will she be okay?”
Doc nodded. “It looks like what he did was more for show than to inflict any real injury.”
Dutch held Malin tight in his arms. The noise in the background fell away as he listened to her breathe. He put his hand on her heart and closed his eyes, concentrating on its rhythmic beat.
She did the same with him, one hand on his heart while the other cupped his cheek as their foreheads rested against one another. “You’re hurt,” she said, touching the dried blood in his hair.
He smiled. “Nothing out of the ordinary. I seem to get hit over the head a lot. Better than being shot.”
Doc walked over to them and put a hand on each of their shoulders. “We’re clear,” he said. “Gunner and Razor have Montgomery secured.”
“He was here?” asked Dutch, tearing his eyes away from Malin’s beautiful face. “I thought he was the decoy?”
Doc nodded. “He was, along with Flatley’s transport.”
“Is he dead?” asked Malin.
Dutch spoke before Doc could. “Let’s get you out of here.”
As they rounded the corner, he saw the CIA director’s body on a stretcher, covered with a blanket.
