Way of the Warrior (Troubleshooters #17.5)(61)

“Wake the f*ck up, Agent Bentwood,” Johansen yelled as he kicked her chair.

It nearly toppled, but Johansen reached out to steady it and that’s when Rook struck. He shot the gun out of the general’s hand and was on him in the next second.

He punched him in the face, clocked him in the ribs, and turned him over, wrapping both the general’s hands in one of his before he stood him up.

“Ties,” he demanded, and Knight was there.

He used the zip ties to bind Johansen’s hands in front of him before pushing the man to the sofa and forcing him to sit. Blood dripped from his nose and hate burned in his eyes. Rook shrugged and turned to Vivi.

Knight was there, wrapping gauze around her throat. “She’s good. He winged her,” Knight reported.

Arbor roused then, cursing. He’d been hit several times in the face, but his wounds weren’t serious. The general looked pissed. “Johansen, I’ll have your f*cking ass in a sling for this,” he spit out, along with some blood, maybe a tooth or two.

Johansen had gone silent.

“Goddammit,” Knight yelled as he rushed to Johansen.

Rook turned and panic rushed through him. Johansen was foaming at the mouth, a single plastic packet falling from his dying hands. He fell over on the sofa, and Rook saw his chances at redemption fading away along with the life in the brigadier general’s eyes.

Cyanide. Goddamn. What was so bad you wanted to kill yourself to keep it from getting out?

“You Delta boys are always in the middle of some serious shit,” Arbor said wearily. “Now untie my ass, soldier.”

Knight did as Arbor requested.

Rook was busy with Vivi. Her eyes were open, but she refused to meet his gaze. “Olivia?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s wrong?”

“I got shot, Rook,” she said, and a small smile curved those full lips he wanted to spend his life licking and kissing. Fuck that. A lifetime might not be long enough.

“Are you smiling?”

“This makes me a full-fledged field operative now, right?”

He rubbed his eyes and laughed. This was another clusterf*ck all the way around. He and Knight could still pump Arbor for information, but their most solid lead, Johansen, had killed himself. And here he was f*cking laughing. “Sure, Vivi. Full fledged.”

“Boys,” Arbor said into the silence. “I think it’s time Agent Bentwood was returned home.”

She shook her head as she rubbed her wrists. “Um, hello? All this started because of the research I did. I contacted General Arbor, and I got you out of prison, Rook.”

Her voice wavered. Rook wanted to hold her. There was no time. Rook hardened his softening heart. “You did good, Vivi. You led me to General Arbor, and you’ve given me the deputy director’s name. But this is shit you don’t need to be involved in.”

“I’m in this. They know I’ve been asking questions, delving into files,” she managed to get out in a raspy voice. “You can’t just go after the deputy director of the CIA with no evidence.”

Arbor walked over to her then and got down on his haunches in front of her. “You did good, Agent Bentwood. Go home. You covered your tracks. I can’t believe your brother involved you in this, but you’ve done everything you could. Don’t ruin your life for a fight you weren’t meant for. I’m going to fill these men in on everything you told me, okay? Go back to D.C., live your life, and know that you honored your brother in the very best way possible.”

She nodded, but around her mouth were the lines Rook had begun to associate with stubbornness. “They’ll be searching for Rook. They’ll take him back to Leavenworth. This was supposed to be over in twenty-four hours. We were supposed to verify the truth and let justice prevail.”

Rook rubbed his chest at her forlorn tone.

Arbor shook his head. “Rook won’t be going back to Leavenworth.”

Unspoken communication hovered in the air between him, Arbor, and Knight—Johansen’s unforeseen suicide played into the very large picture.

That day in the Hindu Kush two years ago had been the beginning. But the roots of it all were embedded so deep it would take more than twenty-four hours to unravel it all. He and Knight had taken their unit into those mountains and been forced to fight their way out. Rook thought he’d lost his best friend.

That he hadn’t, that Knight was here, obviously alive and well, told Rook things were murky and ominous. The packet Rook had placed in a safety deposit box in Oklahoma City held the answers. But it was encrypted. He’d taken it off their communications specialist, Private E. R. Coombs, when he’d found his body. Coombs had been shot point-blank when he’d walked into a copse of trees, leaving his unit behind as he ran a subversive mission within their mission.

Who had sent him on that death errand? Who was to be the recipient of that information that now lay hidden in an Oklahoma City bank under an assumed name? Who the f*ck wanted to destroy an entire unit two years later because of that information?

It was all on the disk. But he wouldn’t involve Vivi. He refused.

“You need me,” she stated as she lifted her chin. “The information in that safety deposit box you opened two years ago is encrypted. You need me.”

Shock made him cold. Olivia Bentwood was dangerous. Beautiful and dangerous. A deadly combo. Long moments passed, but he finally shook his head. “No.”