Way of the Warrior (Troubleshooters #17.5)(57)

“I’m driving,” he said above the wind.

She shrugged and got in the passenger seat. He smiled. It was his first victory with her, unless you counted the kiss in Kansas.

He got in, turned up the heat, and sat there.

“We really need to move. Small window of time here. Lots of shit to get done,” she reminded him.

“Who are you, Olivia Bentwood?”

She didn’t answer right away, obviously weighing what she would give him and what she would hold back. His neck prickled again, and he recognized it as the fear taking hold. He was a soldier, hardened in battle, but his nightmares caused his waking hours to be filled with horror. He’d done and been the recipient of unimaginably bad things. Fear held his hand and kept him sane. It was a comforting friend in the midst of a world gone mad.

“Don’t bullshit me. You know who I am. You know what I’ve done. I want it all, Olivia, or I’ll leave you the first time you turn your back,” he told her, making sure to keep his voice as deadened as his intent.

She glanced at him, eyes wide, mouth falling open. “You would leave? After everything I’ve gone through to get you this meeting, you would leave?” Her disgust at the prospect reverberated through the car.

He opened his hands and clenched them again. “You made the decision to do this. Not me.”

“Is that how you sleep at night? You didn’t make the decisions so that absolves you from responsibility? Michael told me all about you, Rook, but never that you were a coward.”

He grabbed her neck then, wrapping his big, scarred hand around her throat, holding her loosely as he stroked the soft skin of her chin with his thumb. His threat was implied. He controlled the situation, not her. “Who are you? You told me CIA. I’ve no doubt you’re probably a desk jockey cyber spook with that fancy, blacked-out computer, but I’m just not sure.”

“Why not a badass CIA field operative?”

He snorted, barely cutting off the laugh that threatened to escape. “Seriously?”

“Not entirely out of the realm of feasibility. Maybe I’m as hardcore as you?”

He narrowed his gaze and squeezed his hand infinitesimally. “I have your throat in my hand. You wield a mean computer virus, but if you were with the Company, I’d be digging a knife out of my side right now. CIA field operatives are the very best killers, almost as good as Delta Force.”

Her eyes went wide, sucking the air from his lungs. He didn’t want to scare her, but at the end of the day, he’d been trained to do just that and he did it really well.

“You don’t scare me,” she whispered.

He almost laughed. She’d read his mind. “Yes, I do. You were scared from the moment you saw me sitting there, chained to the floor. You were scared when that goddamn guard touched you over and over. And you were scared when I got in your face. You hid it well, but yes, it was fear. I smelled it all over you, tasted it when I kissed you. Now tell me, who are you?”

“Cyber spook,” she said with a sigh. “I was recruited right out of high school. I went to school at MIT, dual majored in computer science and programming, and entered the field of cyber spying at the age of twenty-one. I’ve worked at Langley for six years, in all areas of interest for the agency.”

It made sense now, how Michael had managed to find out so much. He’d had his sister do his research for him. “You make a habit of dipping into classified information for personal use?”

She didn’t deny it. That same core of honor that ran through Michael hadn’t missed his sister. “Michael needed me. I answered the call. You have no idea what I would have done for my brother.”

“Oh, I think I most definitely know. After all, you’re here, aren’t you?”

She nodded, but her eyes were drooping.

“How long since you slept?”

She licked her lips. His dick went hard.

“Two, maybe three days now?”

“We’re headed to see General Arbor?”

Surprise flared in her eyes. Fatigue was making her slow.

“You knew I knew where we were headed,” he reminded her. “You need sleep.”

She licked her lips again. “I can sleep when I’m dead,” she pointed out.

He stroked his thumb over her lips now, taking the wetness and spreading it. He ached, couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman as badly as he did Michael’s sister. “I’m going to make sure you don’t die, Vivi.”

She smiled. “Michael always called me Vivi.”

He almost groaned. “I know.” Rook pulled his hand away, palm itching to stay against her warm skin. “Who gave the order for the clusterf*ck in Mogadishu?” he asked.

Her gaze met his, direct and without any hint of subterfuge. “Deputy Director of the CIA Grant Horner along with former Joint Special Operations Commander Gordon Channel.”

Rook nodded. The CIA worked closely with JSOC, so it wasn’t unusual for Delta to be involved in their operations. Fucking spooks. When they weren’t lying, they were lying. He put the car in gear.

Horner was a name, a place to start. But Rook knew that Horner was the fall guy. So was Channel. The game had begun in the mountains of the Hindu Kush of Kunar Province. Rook’s unit being inserted into the shithole that was Mogadishu two years later had been another move on the game board. Ultimately, Horner was simply a pawn for the main players as they sought checkmate.