Forged in Fire Page 8

  Obviously looking for someone.

  Russ frowned, pinched his chin. If they were looking for someone, then they hadn’t tapped his operation. His crew remained unidentified. Nobody had survived the test flight, so nobody knew what they looked like.

  Whatever Winters and his crew were up to, it was unlikely that it had anything to do with his plans for that plane.

  His tense muscles loosened. Russ relaxed against the back of his bench, stretched his legs out and crossed his ankles. When his cell phone started vibrating against the leather of his laptop case, he fished it out and glanced down. Tension pinched again when he recognized the number flashing across the screen.

  Swearing beneath his breath, he let the phone numb his hand for a few moments before flipping it open.

  No news, in this case, was good news. This contact had strict instructions to call once the plane was in the air and negotiations were underway. The only reason he’d be calling early was if something had gone wrong.

  He hit the green call button and pressed the cell to his ear. “What?”

  With absolute stillness he listened to his FBI contact’s tale of HQ1 interference and Commander Jace Mackenzie’s demands to shut down the flight and search the plane.

  Just like that, his operation tanked.

  Without missing a beat, Russ switched to Plan B. “You’ll be receiving a list. Make sure the passengers are available.”

  He hit the disconnect button and punched in another phone number. His crew chief picked up on the first ring.

  “Our party’s been crashed. Pass the word. We’ll be moving to our second venue.” He didn’t wait for acknowledgement, simply disconnected the call.

  How the fuck had those bastards stumbled onto his operation?

  The woman had to be the key. Nothing else made sense. The four had disappeared and minutes later the commander of SEAL Team 7—who just happened to be Winters’ CO—had called the FBI, insisting fresh intel indicated that the flight was about to be hijacked?

  Beth Brown must have passed the information on to Zane Winters, who’d passed it on to Mackenzie.

  But how the fuck had she found out?

  Maybe his PacAtlantic conduit had squealed. It was always a risk working with amateurs. The man was of no use to them anyway at this point, a thread that needed snipping. But before he took the bastard out, they’d have a little chat about the benefits of confidentiality.

  As for Beth Brown…. His gaze lingered on the woman’s profile. Suddenly, she stopped dead. Winters dropped his arm from her shoulder and turned in the direction she stared. Russ turned in that direction as well, and swore softly as he caught a glimpse of his crew chief before a swarm of passengers swallowed him again.

  Quick as a muzzle flash, the three SEALs melted into the crowd, in obvious and hot pursuit.

  Russ turned to stare at the abandoned feminine figure.

  How in the fuck? How in the goddamn fuck had she managed to identify his crew? There were no pictures. No descriptions. Not one fucking person alive from the Argentina flight who could have identified them.

  Damn it, he’d ordered the death of all those poor kids just so this wouldn’t happen—so there would be no possibility of his crew being identified.

  He forced himself to breathe again, wrenched his gaze away and punched another number into his cell. With the SEALs in pursuit, she was alone. Vulnerable.

  “Did you get a look at our associate’s girlfriend?” he asked without preamble. “Good. He appears quite fond of her. It would benefit us to make her acquaintance. Yes. Now.”

  He needed answers and he needed them fast. How deep did this fucking leak go? The bosses were going to demand answers, and if he didn’t have them he could forget about taking an early retirement. Unless it was into a shallow grave to swap stories with the worms.

  Beth Brown had the answers. She’d been the one to identify his crew. As a side benefit, she’d make excellent leverage. If Winters wanted to spend any time between those long legs, he’d do exactly as he was told.

  Russ stretched and twisted in his seat, holding onto his laptop so it wouldn’t crash to the floor. Casually, he scanned gate C18.

  The three SEALs were cutting through the crowd with the silent and lethal efficiency of great white sharks plunging through a school of minnows. Russ’s crew had broken and split, but they had yet to make it out of the terminal.

  He glanced toward the woman as a thick-shouldered bear of a man moved in behind her, but turned away so he wouldn’t appear overly interested.

  Instead, he fixed his attention on the dark-skinned little angel across from him. He widened his eyes—the thick lenses of his glasses would magnify the expression—and waggled his eyebrows. It was an exaggerated face that never failed to draw giggles from his nieces and nephews.

  Ah… but this little heart breaker, Her eyes widened, her mouth fell open, and she retreated—pressing back against the blue plastic of her bench. Tiny fingers crept up to latch on her mother’s hand, and the eyes that locked on Russ’s face held the terrified fascination of a child who had just come face to face with the bogeyman.

  * * *

  Beth’s heart—which had started hammering the moment she caught the hijacker’s eyes across the crowded terminal—suddenly froze in mid-beat. Her head went light and tingly. There were only three people she knew well enough in this departure gate to grab her shoulder and all three of them were hunting down the criminals in front of her.

  “You need to come with me,” a man said from behind her. The voice was brusque, scratchy, and completely unfamiliar.

  Her heart lurched back to life, but oh so sluggish, oh so slow. Instinctively, she took one long step forward and twisted her torso, trying to dislodge his hand. She could feel the heat of his body and the brush of his clothing as he shuffled along with her, mirroring her movement. The fingers clamped over her shoulder tightened with brutal force.

  “This isn’t a request, Miss. I’m with airport security and you need to come with me,” he said, authority rasping in that smoke-ground voice.

  Beth glanced back. He wasn’t particularly tall—no taller than her—but twice her width, with the muscled chest and bulging biceps of a wrestler. His eyes were amber, too close together, separated by a broad, flat nose, and gleaming with an expression that chilled her to the marrow.Pure cruelty.

  She remembered that cruelty from the dream. A smile had stretched those thick lips as he’d plowed bullet after bullet into Zane. He’d laughed as Zane had been driven back, his blue t-shirt swimming in crimson as the life pumped out of him.

  This was a man who reveled in dealing death.

  And he expected her to leave the terminal with him?

  Absolutely not.

  “You’re not wearing a uniform.” She stalled for time, surprised to find the initial burst of fear had vanished. But then she was perfectly safe. He could hardly drag her out of the terminal against her will.

  Although, if he realized there was no way on God’s green earth she was leaving with him, he might split before the FBI arrived. She needed to keep him here for the roundup.

  He paused, a shadow of frustration swept across his face. “I’m undercover and you–”

  “Airport security doesn’t have undercover.”

  Those too-close-together eyes narrowed. “How the fuck would you know?”

  Beth stared straight into that malevolent gaze and lied. “Because I work for the airport. You don’t. So what’s this really about?”

  His fleshy lips pulled back into a soundless snarl, revealing surprisingly white teeth. Beth had expected them to be yellow, even sharp and pointy.

  “You’re coming with me,” he growled, his temper grating against the smoker’s rasp until his voice sounded like grinding glass. He gave her shoulder a nasty little yank.

  “No, I’m not.” She jerked back, ignoring the pain that ricocheted down her arm and throbbed in her fingers.

  A flat, muddy sheen dulled the brown gaze
across from her. Ice sluiced down Beth’s spine. She could see in his eyes that he was imagining hurting her in the worst possible way.

  “If you don’t let go of my arm,” Beth said, Zane’s order running through her mind. “I’m going to scream.”

  It finally dawned on him that she wasn’t falling for his ruse, or his attempt to intimidate. A scowl twisted his flattened face. He yanked on her shoulder again and dipped his head. His breath, ripe with the smell of onions and greasy hamburger, blasted her in the face and for a moment she thought she was going to throw up.

  “I’m done playing games, bitch. You’re gonna come with me now, without fuss, or I’m gonna take this gun out of my pocket and blow your fucking head off. Get it?” He kept his voice low, but the words and the threat came hard and fast. Perfectly clear.

  He slid that crushing grip from her shoulder to her elbow and squeezed so hard her entire arm throbbed. She hissed in pain and he grunted with satisfaction. She didn’t struggle, though. It would draw attention and she couldn’t afford to scare him off.

  “We’re leaving,” he told her roughly, twisting her arm until the nerves screamed. “Play nice now.”

  Beth needed to do something and she needed to do it fast. She could easily get free—that wasn’t what worried her—but there was no way she could overpower the man, and hold him until the FBI arrived. Nor did she know how long it would take Zane and his teammates to contain their targets. So how in the world was she supposed to keep him here? At the first sign of trouble, he’d take off.

  The only weapon she had at her disposal was the location. Beth quickly scanned the clusters of people surrounding her. There were plenty of men in the crowd strong enough to hold her attacker. And if they acted in concert, the bozo trying to drag her out of the terminal wouldn’t be going anywhere. Zane had been right; since 9/11, passengers were taking a much more active role in their safety. That could work to her advantage.

  How to galvanize them into action was the question. She flashed back to the last two hijackings attempts in the news. In both cases, the passengers had reacted to a perceived threat and sprung into action, mobbing and then restraining the terrorist. If she could incite the same reaction…

  Her best bet would be to convince everyone he had a bomb. A bomb threat resonated at a visceral level.

  Without consciously making a decision, she threw back her head and screamed. She screamed as loud and as hard as she could, until her throat burned and her voice seized, and her ears were ringing. The shrillness of her shriek pierced the chattering, laughing crowd, and instant silence fell.

  Hundreds of startled, curious faces swung in her direction.

  The man beside her cursed.

  She screamed again—just as loud, just as hard. When she finally fell silent, a confused hush consumed the departure gate.

  The hand grinding the bones of her elbow dropped. The guy was about to bolt, she could sense it.

  Oh, no, he wasn’t. Beth stepped into him, tangling her feet in his, hoping to trip him, or block him.

  “He’s got a bomb!” she shouted. “Somebody stop him. He’s got a bomb!”

  An uneasy buzz swept through the crowd. Eyes sharpened and swung toward the man she’d accused, but nobody stepped forward to restrain him. In fact, the fool might have escaped, if his survival instincts hadn’t kicked in. Rather than playing the amused, or surprised, or irritated bystander, he gave Beth’s shoulder a hard shove and leapt back.

  His instinctive reaction looked guilty as hell. Several men stepped forward, their focus locked on the clearly rattled would-be hijacker. In a move that looked oddly choreographed, the approaching men fell into a loose pack formation, moving forward and splitting to the sides as though they intended to circle him—cutting off any avenue of escape.

  “You okay, miss?” one of the men asked.

  Before she had a chance to respond, her attacker made another snap decision. Rather than making a run for it, he leapt forward and grabbed Beth by her hair. Yanking her head back, he wrapped his arm around her throat and squeezed—hard.

  She gagged, clawed at his arm and tried to turn her head to bite him, but she couldn’t angle her head enough to reach his flesh. She kicked back with her heels, but there wasn’t enough leverage to inflict any damage and while her elbows connected with a bit more force, it wasn’t enough to gain her freedom. Instead, he cursed and squeezed even harder.

  This time the black dots dancing across her vision had nothing to do with shock and everything to do with lack of blood and breath.

  “Everyone stay back!” he snarled the order as her vision started to gray. “Stay back or I’ll break her fucking neck.”

  * * *

  Damn it to hell!

  Russ watched with increasing frustration as Eric Dietrich completely lost control of the situation. It shouldn’t have been that difficult to get the woman to leave willingly. All he’d had to do was present himself as an authority figure. Demand that she accompany him. If one presented themselves as someone in authority, people tended to follow along like pathetic little lambs—at least in the beginning. By the time she’d realized her mistake, it would be too late. Without her SEAL contingent protecting her, the woman had been vulnerable. Easy pickings.

  Swearing beneath his breath, Russ turned from the drama taking place like a runaway train across the corridor. He typed a command into the keyboard of his laptop that would wipe the computer clean, leaving it a useless lump of plastic and metal. Although nothing was ever truly wiped clean. If the FBI or DHS techs got their hands on it, everything that had just vanished could be resurrected. Eventually. But by then Russ would be long gone.

  Of course if he intervened, his laptop wasn’t the only thing he could kiss goodbye. He’d lose any possibility of escape as well. Since he wasn’t booked on Flight 2077, it was doubtful he’d have been hauled in for questioning.

  While they’d separate and hold the passengers of the compromised flight for interrogation—hell, he was counting on it—there would be no reason for the FBI to quarantine the surrounding gates. He would have been free to catch his plane to the Twin Cities.

  Except, he needed that fucking woman.

  Since Dietrich had lost his opportunity, that left Russ to step up and take charge. Of course, by taking action he’d bring himself to the feds’ attention, but they wouldn’t discover anything detrimental. His military record had been erased years ago. Even if they did fingerprint him, his prints were on file under the Russ Branson persona, thanks to a carefully crafted arrest report charging the man with a DUI.

  He should update the bosses. Explain why the operation was moving to door number two. A pulse of pure tension shot through him. He took a deep, calming breath. He’d take care of that unpleasant task as soon as he corrected the situation across the corridor.

  Moving without haste, he zipped the laptop into its case and rose to his feet. He stretched, worked the kinks out of his shoulders, and smoothed the wrinkles from his slacks. A quick tuck-in of his shirt and he was ready for battle. Breathing easily, calmly, he picked up the laptop case and tucked his cell into the pocket of his slacks.

  Beth Brown screamed as Russ started across the corridor. He stopped and stared, appreciating the show. The surrounding gates had gone still as death, every eye swinging in her direction. Which by default included Dietrich. The attention brought him into focus like a blinding white spotlight.

  That alone was reason enough to kill the stupid bastard.

  She was a smart cookie. No way in hell was Dietrich dragging her out now. Not with the entire fucking airport watching.

  Russ scanned the gate area, but hundreds of frozen passengers obstructed his view. Too bad. He’d bet Jilly’s entire Broadway sound track collection that Beth Brown’s scream had set off some interesting physical reactions in Zane Winters’ physiology.

  As the woman shrieked again, Dietrich reacted exactly as Russ had come to expect—like a fucking idiot. All he had to do was laugh her off as a
n unstable, hysterical girlfriend. All he had to do was walk away. Instead, he launched himself across the space separating them and grabbed her by the neck, proving to the watching passengers that he was dangerous. No doubt everyone was wondering if he did have a bomb beneath his shirt.

  Un-fucking-believable.

  Once this job was over, he’d hunt down the bastard who’d vouched for the fool, and stuff that glowing recommendation down the asshole’s slit throat.

  Half a dozen men broke from the crowd and formed a loose circle around the pair. Russ picked up his pace. Adrenaline crested, along with the razor-sharp awareness he remembered from those long-ago special-ops days. His senses sharpened. His vision brightened. His hearing crystallized, until he could hear the hard thump of his heart.

  It felt good to be so alive. Back in the action.

  He’d been stuck in the prep and flow of strategy for so long he’d forgotten how much he loved these heightened moments just before the kill.

  Chapter Six

  Zane locked his gaze on the target and slipped between the laughing, chattering, milling clusters of people. The ages of the passengers ran the gamut from frail seniors leaning on canes to a jostling crowd of college-aged males who’d staked out a section next to the wall and were tossing a football back and forth. A knot of Asians in three-piece business suits to the right were yammering away in Korean. To the left, another group of passengers with fair hair and light skin were decked out in colorful sweaters and denim jeans.

  In some eerie way, deploying through the crowd felt like deploying through the ocean—but rather than the buoyancy of the waves, you were carried along by the rise and fall of voices.

  Zane lost the tango when the blond hijacker faded into the crowd. He parked it, and waited for the asshole to move. From his position he’d know the moment the guy went right or left.

  Within minutes his target lost patience and moved. He was easy to track. His head jutted a good six inches above most of the passengers and his white-gold hair shone like a beacon.