Blindsided, page 9
part #1 of Book Two Series
“Magnolia?”
“The local bioengineering lab. Genetic mapping, paternity testing, boring stuff like that. But I just happen to have the weekend off. So, would you like some company when you visit the fjord?”
“Get bent,” Rafe said again.
Sean laughed.
“I’m not sure when I’m going,” Ruby hedged. “Can I get your number and let you know?”
“Sure. Where are you staying?”
“With a friend. Do you live in Moss Bo?”
“Just outside.” Ferris pulled a slender phone from the pocket of his button-down shirt. “What’s your number?”
Luckily, she’d looked at the list of numbers for the burner phones Sean had handed out before they’d left the hostel, so she had the answer to that question. She watched as he put it into his phone.
Then she turned back to her beer. As she took another sip, her gaze landed on the mirror above the bar and the reflection of the woman who occupied the small table that sat against the far wall.
Dr. Trudy Gordon.
Her heart lurched in her chest. Ruby froze.
“Cool. Definitely call me. The fjord’s amazing. Do you kayak? We could rent some, maybe put together a picnic.”
Aw. A picnic.
For a brief moment, she wondered what it would be like to be that girl.
The one who was free to follow her heart, and wholly unafraid of where it might lead.
And then Rafe said, “That dickhead is playing you.”
And Sean said, “I think he seems nice. Who doesn’t love a good picnic?”
And she heroically resisted the urge to rip the earwig out and stomp on it.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she told Ferris, “I think I see a familiar face.”
Ferris frowned and opened his mouth to protest, but suddenly Pete was there. He wedged himself between them with his back to her and waved at the bartender.
“Hey partner,” he said to Ferris. “You American? Can you tell me the best way to get to that park?”
“What park?” Ferris retorted, clearly annoyed.
“You know, that park. The national one.”
“Norway has forty-seven national parks,” Ferris informed him, clearly exasperated.
“Well, the closest one, then.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Ruby said over Pete’s broad shoulder and hurried away.
“What is it?” Rafe wanted to know.
“She’s in a bloody bar full of people,” Sean retorted. “Just be patient, old man.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Aye, your protests have been well-documented.”
Bickering like brothers, she thought. She wondered if she should point it out.
But then Trudy Gordon suddenly stood, and Ruby had to double-time it over to Trudy’s table before she could escape.
“Hi,” she said as she landed in front of the woman. “I’m trying to ditch that guy at the bar. Can I sit with you for a few minutes?”
Trudy blinked at her. She looked even more somber in person, her pale face drawn, her wide mouth tight. Dark circles underscored her blue eyes. She wore no makeup, and her hair was pulled back into a tight, merciless bun. She was younger than she looked in the picture, somewhere in her mid-thirties.
“Please,” Ruby added, letting her desperation show. “He was very…aggressive. And I’m not from around here, and it made me…”
“Uncomfortable.” Trudy nodded. “I have a few minutes.”
She sat back down, and something inside of Ruby eased. Any woman who would help another woman when it counted was not a bad human being.
“I think she’s done this before,” Sean muttered.
“Like hell,” Rafe said.
But he didn’t sound certain.
Ha. Suck it, Blackheart!
“Thank you.” Ruby sat down at the table. “I really appreciate it.”
“Not a problem.” Trudy flicked a look toward the bar. “Which one? The young wanker or the old one?”
A surprised laugh caught in her chest. “The old one.”
“American.” Trudy shook her head. “Look at those boots. Do men actually wear those boots in the American West?”
Ruby didn’t know. She’d never been to the American West.
“They look uncomfortable,” Trudy observed before she could reply. “But there is something…masculine about them, I suppose.”
Ruby scooted closer. “Trudy.”
And Trudy went motionless, like a deer caught in headlights.
“We need to talk,” Ruby told her softly.
It was a risk, to simply go directly at her, but even though she enjoyed the rush, Ruby preferred not to play any games with the woman across from her.
Because she was certain she was right about Trudy’s relationship with Jack. There had been something there.
This woman, she thought, had cared for Rafe’s partner. Maybe even loved him.
And she likely knew what had happened to him.
Trudy stared at her, the hint of humor she’d displayed gone. “Who are you?”
“My name is Ruby. I’m here about Jack.”
Something jagged and sharp flashed in Trudy’s gaze. “You should leave.”
“I can’t. Not until it’s done.”
“Please, you have to go. It isn’t safe.”
“I know,” Ruby told her. “I don’t care. We need to talk.”
Trudy looked away. “It’s impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible.” Ruby pulled out the piece of paper Rafe had shoved into her pocket before she’d left him and slid it across the table.
Trudy glared at the paper. “No!”
“We can help you,” Ruby said.
“Don’t tell her that,” Sean warned. “I’ve no inklin’ to give her a bloody iota of help.”
Rafe said nothing.
“Trudy,” Ruby said again, but suddenly the table they occupied slammed violently into the wall, and when she looked up, she found a man standing over them.
Tall, thin, bald; his face was long and narrow, with deeply set, cold blue eyes. An unremarkable man with bland features and nondescript clothing, a man who would blend—except for one chilling exception: he was missing his left ear.
It was just…gone.
He stared down at her with a look so hard and flat, she was reminded instantly of Rafe’s mother.
Monster.
“I have to go!” Trudy gasped, and before Ruby could stop her, she jumped to her feet and hurried away.
But the note went with her.
Ruby stared at the one-eared man. He stared back. And every cell in her body turned to ice.
“Tilgi meg,” he said in Norwegian, his eyes glinting.
Run!
The cry sounded in her head like a foghorn.
“Who the hell is that?” Rafe snarled.
“Goddamn it,” Sean hissed. “I knew we should have put a camera on her.”
Ruby only watched the man, her heart beating too hard.
Fight or flight.
Her instincts screamed go. This man was evil. She’d met it before, knew its color and shape and harsh, metallic scent. But running would only trigger the chase.
So she just waited.
“You should go home,” he said, a thick Russian accent shaping the words. “Before you have an accident.”
And then his eyes stroked over her.
Goosebumps washed across her skin in a rush, and she thought about the knife she carried, a military blade Sean had given to her before she’d climbed from the van. She’d turned away the gun; she hated guns.
But blades were old friends, ones she still utilized and trusted to keep her safe.
Fight or flight.
“You first,” she invited coldly.
“Who the fuck is that, Ruby?”
She ignored the question, her eyes locked with the man’s dark blue gaze.
A sudden, unexpected smile broke across his face, but it did nothing to humanize him.
“Pretty little bird,” he murmured and tilted his head, and she wondered stupidly if missing an ear threw his head off-balance. “So easily broken.”
“Dead man walking,” Rafe said, and the cold promise Ruby heard was like a physical slap.
Because Rafe had a monster inside of him, too.
But before she could figure out what to do, Pete was there, stalking toward the man with a predator’s certainty, his gray gaze like flint.
Ruby blinked at the transformation in him.
The Monster looked at him, too. Then back at her.
“Until next time, little bird,” he said, his eyes gleaming.
And then he disappeared.
Fourteen
“There can’t be that many one-eared Russian bastards walkin’ around.” Sean scowled down at the screen of his hand-held tablet. “I’d wager Interpol or MI6 has his number. Maybe Mossad.” He shot Rafe a look. “Since the all-powerful, all-knowin’ CIA’s database is off-limits and all.”
Rafe’s hands tightened around the van’s steering wheel. He wasn’t happy about the one-eared man’s sudden appearance, or his interaction, no matter how brief, with Ruby. “You’d prefer they know what we’re doing?”
“Hell no. Bunch of faithless spook bastards.”
A dark smile curved his mouth. “The feeling is mutual, I can assure you.”
Sean snorted. “I’m loyal. Not like those whoremongers.”
A point with which Rafe couldn’t argue.
The Agency had buried Jack with minimal honors and stonewalled every one of Rafe’s attempts to get answers or launch an investigation.
In stark contrast, Sean had sunk who knew how much money into a decaying 1960 hotel, set up a base of operations, obtained enough arms to outfit a small army, not to mention the bomb components he’d somehow laid hands on, shared his intel openly, and was now accompanying Rafe to conduct reconnaissance of the Magnolia facility as the sun sank and the night turned bitter cold.
If he hadn’t been a criminal, there were moments when Rafe thought he might actually like Sean McDougal.
“Why the hell did you bring Mickey with you?” he demanded, something that had been eating at him since the boy had greeted them at the airport. “Are you trying to get him killed?”
“He loved his uncle,” Sean retorted. “He deserves vengeance, too.”
“He’s what? Twelve? Why not let him be a kid?”
“Like you were a kid? Like I was?” Sean shook his head. “Mick knows the score. Saw his ma die right in front of him, and wasn’t nothin’ he could do. But this, this he can do somethin’ about.”
“I’m sorry,” Rafe said stiffly.
“Love o’ my life. Miss my sweet Gilly every fuckin’ day.”
“How?”
“Goddamn cancer.”
Rafe waited for a beat. Then, “Still. Your job is to teach him to be better.”
“Better than what?”
“Than us.”
Sean stared at him. “What’s wrong with us?”
Rafe just shook his head.
“He’s stayin’ behind,” Sean said and scowled down at his tablet. “I’d never let him get hurt.”
“And if you get hurt?”
“Then you’ll get him out.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because Jackie trusted you. And he didn’t trust wrong.”
“With the exception of Trudy Gordon,” Rafe muttered.
“That’s different. She was a gamble. You aren’t.”
Goddamn it.
“You make a lot of assumptions,” Rafe told him shortly.
Sean only shrugged. “You’ve no use for me, but you’ll not hold that against Mick.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re better than that.”
Rafe was getting tired of other people thinking he was better than he was. Or that he had some goddamn choice in anything.
We’re free to decide.
Damn her.
“I’m placing those charges,” he said, because it needed to be understood.
“You ain’t hoggin’ all the fun, old man.” Sean’s tone was dismissive. “Slow down.
Turn’s right up here.”
Rafe slowed the van and turned onto the narrow strip of asphalt that climbed up into the range of mountains that sat just south of Moss Bo and the Magnolia facility. The road was wet, the mountains were dusted with snow, and the trees were swaying in the growing wind. Behind them, a plethora of camera equipment filled the seat, as well as a high-powered spotting scope with infrared and night vision lenses.
The sun was sinking and clouds were moving in, a thick, white swell that could mean either rain or snow. From the bite of the wind, Rafe was putting his money on snow.
They’d left Ruby in the care of Pete, both of whom were searching for the identity of the one-eared man. Luckily, Pete had snapped a picture of the man as he was walking toward him, which they’d uploaded and were now scanning against the billions of images on both the internet and the dark web.
He would be somewhere. Nearly everyone on earth was.
“He scared her,” Pete had told Rafe grimly. “Won’t surprise me a bit if he’s former KGB. He had the look. She challenged him, and he liked it. He’s going to be a problem.”
The predator inside him had smiled in anticipation.
Because the one-eared man had scared Ruby; Rafe had caught the waver in her voice—something he hadn’t heard in two decades—and every part of him had recognized it and responded accordingly.
Only now he wasn’t too small and too weak to defend her.
Now he could kill for her. Would.
They drove into the mountains, the road twisting and turning beneath them for ten miles before Rafe found the spot he was looking for and pulled off. They unloaded their equipment and hiked into the trees. Half a mile later, they came to the clearing he’d spotted from the main highway through the Moss Bo valley.
The perfect place from which to photograph and observe the Magnolia facility.
“You were right,” Sean said, staring down into the broad, open valley. “You can see the whole thing from up here. Christ, it’s the size of a bloody football field.”
Rafe set up the spotting scope. “Access from above is limited to the four directional elevator shafts. There has to be another point of entry.”
Sean’s gaze met his. “Sognefjord.”
“Likely. We’ll need suits and tanks.”
“Aye.” Sean lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes. “Jaysus. The skylight in the middle has to be at least seventy feet wide.”
Rafe leaned down and looked through the scope.
The Magnolia facility had been largely built underground, but its shape was perfectly outlined by the backfill they’d packed on top of it, the square elevator shafts that sat on the north, south, east and west sides of the compound revealed by the thick, neatly cut grass. On the western side, a wall of glass protruded from the facility. Other than the center skylight, it was the only visible part of the building. In front of the wall, a strip of narrow pavement traced its shape. Several shuttle vans were parked on the pavement, but there were no other vehicles, and no discernable parking area.
“They must bus their people in,” he said. “Bring them in, lock them down for their shifts, then drive them back to the barracks at the end of the day.”
“Militant of them,” Sean murmured.
“We’re going to have to figure out how to empty the place.” Because while Rafe had no problem killing someone who deserved it, he wasn’t willing to kill innocent people, and he suspected most of Magnolia’s employees fell into that category.
At least, he hoped they did.
“Fire alarm should do it. We’ll just have to hack in and turn off the suppression system.”
Rafe’s mouth twisted. “Is that all?”
“Relax, old man. Mick can take care of it. The kid can hack into anything. Kinda scares the shite outta me.”
Christ. All they needed was a goofy dog, and their rag-tag crew would be complete.
“You and I go in,” Rafe said. “Pete does the extraction.”
“Ah.” Sean turned and looked at him. “I see, then.”
“See what?”
“Why you wanted me to come on this little jaunt. You want to plan the op without her.”
Rafe scowled. “She’s staying behind with Mickey.”
Sean laughed. “You just keep tellin’ yourself that.”
“She’s not going in,” he said coldly. “I’ll lock her in a goddamn box, first.”
Sean’s smiled died. He looked at Rafe for a long, silent moment. “You’re a scary fucker sometimes.”
Rafe said nothing. He knew exactly what he was.
“But,” Sean added, “it ain’t gonna work.”
“Why not?”
“Have you met her?”
Rafe ignored that question and changed out the lens on the scope. “According to the building plans, there’s a negative pressure room in the interior circle of the compound. There are likely oxygen tanks somewhere close by.”
“What’s she to you?” Sean asked.
Rafe only shook his head.
“Because she’s not here for Jackie,” Sean continued. “She’s here for you.”
The tangled mixture of self-loathing and hope within Rafe tightened. “She’s here to help.”
“Aye, to help you. Why is that?”
Rafe only stared at him.
“C’mon, old man. I can tell there’s more to the story. Give me some credit.”
Rafe said nothing.
“You tell me, and I’ll make sure she’s safe when you blow your ass to kingdom come.”
“You’ll do that anyway.”
Now it was Sean who scowled.
“We knew each other when we were kids,” Rafe admitted, not knowing why.
Sean’s brows lifted expectantly. “And?”
“And then she showed up with Jack’s message.”
“She was the bloody Messenger?”
“Yes.”
A sudden, broad smile curved Sean’s mouth. “Ah.”
“Ah what?” Rafe demanded, irritated.
“It was fate, then.”
Rafe froze.
“Some things,” Sean said, “are meant to be.”
But everything inside of Rafe rejected the idea. Fate; destiny; forever. Things were not written.
