Operation Heartbreaker (17 page)

His mother had died when he’d only been half a year old. Murdered by the Secret Service because she’d fled to Ukraine. Pregnant, something that shouldn’t have happened. And his father was a ruthless bastard, who traded humans and weapons and sold drugs in school yards. It would probably have been better for the world to let him die. But he only had this one father and wasn’t ready to let him go.

“Watch out, man. You’re driving like a maniac!”

Viktor stepped onto the breaks, he’d almost tailgated the ambulance.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you have a death wish or something?”

“Shut up!” Viktor grunted, grinding his jaw.

“Alrighty then,” Jean commented and put enough sarcasm into it to fuel Viktor’s rage even more.

“You look like you’re trying to wring someone’s neck.” Jean pointed at the steering wheel Viktor was yet again gripping so tightly as if wanting to tear it from the dashboard.

“Actually, it’s not going so bad,” Jean continued in a chatty mode. “The CIA buddies in the van are history and Ally will be back on her feet in no time.”

„There are more like them where they came from. Besides, as clumsily as they acted they were most certainly mercs. Those are employed so there are no tracks leading to the government in case they get caught.”

Jean shrugged.

“In either case, we’re rid of them, n’est-ce pas? The rest is history. I don’t intend to stick around longer than necessary. As soon as we have the list…”

“And how are you planning to get your hands on the stick?”

Jean smiled. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Ally is at the hospital. You can count on Cole showing up.”

“How can you be so sure about it?”

“Because he’s always near her. He never leaves her out of his sight for more than a few days. And now that she’s injured…” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

“And you know that, because…?”

Jean opened his eyes and turned to Viktor. “My father is a well-informed man. And since my favorite thing to do is poke my nose into top secret stuff, I know things others don’t.”

“Interesting,” Viktor remarked. “My father smashes people’s knee caps to get information like this, and he hasn’t heard of any of that.” If Cole really was close by he’d have a hard time here, at the center of the CIA, to make a move without being noticed.

“Your father smashes other people’s knee caps because he likes it,” Jean noted.

Viktor left this uncommented because he knew Jean was right about that.

“What’s more, he’s not half as well informed as he thinks. This Enzo di Lorenzo is also after the list, just because your father wants it. He has no idea who or what is behind it, yet he sent his men to intercept Ally at the airport. That means at least one of Sergej’s people acts as a snitch for Lorenzo. The Italian would’ve never come close to the whole SK-project on his own, n’est-ce pas?”

Two to zero for him. Viktor knew of the safety gaps under the roof of his father, Danilo was already dealing with it. “You really believe that Cole will show up?”

“One hundred percent.”

Viktor wasn’t so sure. Now that Cyrus Patrick was dead, President Mitchel would move heaven and earth to get the list. Cyrus had been his partner and closest confidant. What was left of him was getting packed into a body bag as they spoke. That was something in the light of the fact that he’d been watched by a small army in a bulletproofed safe house.

His hands were tensing up around the steering wheel once again. Judging by the handwriting, his father was responsible for the mess. Just what he’d expected of him. To put a bug on Ally and send his guys in Washington after Cyrus, the moment she’d given him the address. Sergej wasn’t someone to be trusted, he’d found that out as a child already. He should have been better prepared for him. Grinding his teeth, he turned onto the parking lot of the hospital. This day could only get better.

16

“You’ve grown,” Cole whispered and caressed Ally’s tear drenched face with his knuckles. Her throat felt constricted as silent sobs were shaking her entire body.

“Shhht,” her father tried to calm her, took her face in both hands and wiped away the tears with his thumbs.

“You are so brave. Now it’s time for you to rest.”

“But you were dead!” she wept. “I felt it.”

Cole pulled out the pin with his initials. “You mean, because of this?”

Yes. No. She was confused.

“It’s not mine,” he said quietly, which confused her even more.

“It’s Cyrus’ pin. I took it during our last,” he cleared his throat, “meeting. Since then he’d been hidden so well that I couldn’t localize him.”

She shook her head in confusion. “You couldn’t find him?”

The furrows on his forehead got deeper. “Contrary to you, I have to touch the things or people before I can track them down. Cyrus knew that and always paid attention that I didn’t get too close to him during our encounters. Which wasn’t so hard, I’ve only seen him twice in person.”

She needed a minute to digest this information. “So you used me to find him?” To murder him, to be exact. Her stomach revolted at this thought.

Cole shook his head. “Somebody got to the house before I had a chance.”

“You didn’t kill him?”

Head-shaking again.

“But who…?” Sure, the CIA was capable of doing their own people, no question about it. But right before the election the death of the deputy director of the CIA came at a rather inconvenient time. What’s more, the president had lost a scapegoat he could have pinned the whole dilemma on.

On the other hand, he could now claim that Cyrus had committed suicide because he couldn’t live with the truth. After all, the government was world champion in making up bullshit like that, they were doing it twenty times a day. But a handcuffed deputy director of the CIA on all channels had something to it. Would Mitchel waive that voluntarily?

“We don’t think the Secret Service was behind it,” David cut in.

“Why not?”

“The execution of the job was too messy. It was something personal.”

Thinking of the splattered blood made her stomach turn again.

“Where did you get your smart phone?” Cole changed the subject all of a sudden.

She’d almost forgot about the little Blackberry. She had only used it once. “Viktor?”

Cole nodded as if he hadn’t expected anything else.

“It was traceable, probably GPS or he used the SIM card.”

She knew that already. That’s how Viktor had caught up with her on the subway.

“Your young friend must have adjusted it”, he continued with more sharpness in his voice, “so that it works like an intercom.”

“Viktor was eavesdropping?” What would be the point, they were together the entire time anyway.

“Not Viktor,” her father said. “Sergej.”

For a moment she was at a loss for words. This ruthless bastard! He must have called his local men. He knew the street already, he only needed the house number. So they had half an hour to take care of the deputy director. They most likely didn’t even need the number. Cyrus’ hideout was probably stuffed with technology so it could be located with a radio scanner.

Julie owned one of those. She’d assembled a scanner a year ago for a school project. Afterwards she’d forced Ally to dedicate an entire article on it in the school newspaper. Ally had written it herself, so she knew how it worked.

If those guys had known Cyrus’ location before she’d left Paris, the deputy director most likely had a hell of a night–literally. Sergej had said he wanted Mitchel alive, but that didn’t apply for the former head of the research department. That Russian was really to be feared. “And, where do we go from here?”

Her father lifted his eyebrows in response, but remained silent.

“Will you confront the president with the facts?” she asked. If he still was trying to keep her out of it, he was dead wrong.

Her father’s eyes questioningly wandered across her face, then he sighed. “We first have to free our people from the lab.”

“What people?”

Cole frowned. “The SK test subjects.”

“But…I thought the project was dropped.” She met his gaze. “Because of the side effects and all.”

“Ally, there are no side effects. The program is still active, only with fewer subjects, so they won’t lose control over the entire business again. Cyrus invented the fairytale about the side effects.”

“But why?”

“After we found out that the government wasn’t deploying us to protect our country, but made us mercenaries, sold to the highest bidder, I and a few others turned against the CIA.”

It probably hadn’t been a walk in the park.

“First, we took out those clients who’d hired us as protection for their drug transports in Afghanistan. Drugs that were sold in the States and everywhere else in the world to finance the war of al-Qaeda and ISIS. Cyrus had been informed that the congress intended to cut his budget. They were running out of bogeymen and the government couldn’t justify the vast sums of money that had flown after the passing of the PATRIOT Act any longer.”

She remembered the PATRIOT Act, a law that had been passed after 9/11 to declare war on terrorism. But the law didn’t just have effects on criminals. The civil liberties had been greatly restricted and the NSA had practically gotten a free pass.

“This way he caught two birds with one stone,” Cole continued. “On one hand he strengthened his enemies and consequently secured his job, while at the same time making a fortune with the payments of his clients. The money he invested in companies with headquarters in hospitable countries like Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, and Ukraine. Regimes involved in his dirty dealings.”

“Three birds,” David added. “Basically, Cyrus wasn’t after the money, it was about the research. After the country had invested in his science project for over a decade, he could announce the failure of the venture while secretly continuing with the genetic research without having to answer to a higher authority.”

For real?

“After we‘d finished off his clients, we went after his partners and secured the pen drives until we found out that Cyrus could erase them. And he did. One after another was destroyed and with them key evidence.

After Mitchel found out his partners had been killed, Cyrus invented the story of the side effects and recommended to terminate the project. Mitchel agreed and gave Cyrus free rein.”

What a freaking mess, Ally thought and closed her eyes for a moment. “Then it’s not over,” she whispered.

“No.” There was so much sorrow in this word that she took his hand. “Why do we have to free the remaining test subjects? You saved yourself, too, didn’t you?”

“Because contrary to me, they don’t know what they’re doing.”

What was that supposed to mean? If one stabs a knife into someone else’s back, one most certainly knows that it’s cowardly, but above all deadly.

Cole squeezed her hand and looked over to David.

“When you did the experiment a few days ago,” her uncle started, “you didn’t know who you were tracking down, right?”

Automatically, her thoughts turned to the man in front of the
Casa del Prado
Theater in San Diego. And she thought of Bangizwe Sebuturo, who’d been shot in front of her eyes.

What if other gifted only knew a part of the truth as well? What if they did similar stuff at an expense of innocent lives? How could they differentiate between a real terrorist and someone other people just wanted to get rid of?

Due to her gift she could localize people all over the world. With her help they would have caught Osama bin Laden within hours.

And also the congressman who’d pushed the budget cuts to Cyrus’ project. Who might have gotten involved in an unfortunate car accident that would’ve been everything but accidental.

She shouldn’t apply her gift without knowing the exact background. She’d already fallen for Cole’s trick with the pin. CP had been the initials of Cyrus Patrick, not Cole’s. Without a second guess she’d lead Sergej to Cyrus safe house in the outskirts of D.C.

What if next time she accidentally betrayed her father? After all, she’d almost done so today. Cole could only play the number with the pin on her, because using her gift was new to her. Until three days ago she’d constantly suppressed it. She was lacking experience–big time. If she would have thought about it the only thing she’d have to do was imagining Cole’s face and contact would have been made. That was all it took.

The more she realized the danger of her gift, the more she understood what her father was trying to tell her. The government used people to achieve their goals. Nothing new. But behind the Secret Service were people who use the system for their own agenda. It wasn’t all about protecting the USA against terror attacks. Those people tried to protect themselves, and the citizens of this country were paying for their lies. And whoever got in their way had to die.

She shuddered and gave Cole a sad smile. They had a job to do.

~ *  ~

Ally held Cole’s hand until they reached the hospital. Before he disappeared, he injected something in her drip that put her into a deep sleep. Half of the hour-long examination marathon she was barely conscious, so the FBI agents Smith and Wallice once again had to leave empty-handed.

Cole appeared in their place, this time in a green scrubs. Clever. A rather annoyed David was also by her side. He pushed a mobile phone into her hand and asked her to contact Julie, who’d been terrorizing him for hours with her calls.

Oh, damn, she’d completely forgotten about her friend. Besides, her brand-new smart phone had ended underneath Cole’s heel. That was the second one destroyed within days. Considering the fact that David had just offered her a brand-new iPhone, she wouldn’t complain. Instead she grinned like a Cheshire cat and called Julie. They talked for almost an hour until her doctor came into the room–this time a real one.

“Julie, I have to go.”

“Unbelievable! Well, at least take my advice. According to our horoscope today is an ideal day to fall in love.”

“Um, okay, I’ll keep that in mind.” That said she ended the call.

Instead of declaring his undying love for her, the physician announced that she'd have to stay in this sterile bunker one more night. A simple precaution, yada yada.

So much for her horoscope. As soon as he had left, Viktor showed up. As if it had a mind of it’s own, her heart made a backflip. He didn’t say anything, but his worry was all over his face. Without a word, he walked up to her bed an interlaced his fingers with hers. She felt the invigorating flow right away that leaped from his palm over to hers. First, her hand tingled, then her arm, and finally her entire body.

She would have loved to have such a gift. With Viktor’s help she’d be back on her feet in record time without having to waste another thought on her concussion. But most likely they’d send her to the cardiologist, for her heart left an interesting curve on the screen of the ECG, which was a bit embarrassing.

Viktor, who’d followed her glance, smiled. But she only had eyes for his dimples. It should be forbidden to look that handsome. Though he had also been involved in the accident, he didn’t even have a scratch. With his powers this was to be expected. Still, what was wrong with a pair of dark circles under his eyes? Instead, sitting on her bed, he was looking like a GQ model, dressed from head to toe in designer clothes, playing the underdog. While she was wearing a hospital gown which was open in the back and looked more like an oversized bib than clothing. Besides, her face was bruised up, not to mention her messy hair.

“Thank God, I’m not attached to such an device.” He smiled, and again the ECG curve jumped up.

Em-bar-rass-ing! Ally bit her lower lip and tried to ignore the excited beeping of the machine. “Why?” she asked huskily.

He leaned in to her and his earthy scent with the hint of cologne engulfed her. “Because the curve would go through the roof,” he whispered, his lips in her hair. She retreated a bit, just enough to be able to look at him. The knuckle of his index finger tenderly caressed her cheek. “In fact, every time I see you.” He nodded at the hysterically deflecting cardiogram next to the bed.

She cleared her throat and tried to not pay attention to the curve of his sensual lips that were coming dangerously close to her mouth. He wrapped his arm around her waist, his free hand landed on her naked back.

Oh boy! Heat passed through her body and for a moment it took her breath away. The feeling of his hands on her skin was like a shock, but a pleasant one, that is. He slowly pulled her towards him as if wanting to test her reaction.

Instead of protesting she gasped in surprise when his fingers made their way down her back until they came to rest on the arch of her bums. In her entire life she’d never been this aroused. She pushed herself towards him, and he didn’t need more encouragement. A moment later he was over her, and they were kissing.

Not carefully, like the first time, but hungry. Nevertheless, she sensed he was holding back. His grip of her butt became tighter while his free hand made its way across the thin fabric of her gown until it found her breast. Ally groaned and clawed her hands into his shirt. She basically pulled him onto the bed, when suddenly a floodgate opened: Lust, pain, anger, sadness, longing, desire and an incredible passion. Overwhelmed by his emotions she interrupted the kiss as if she was burned. At least that’s how it felt. She was gasping for air like a stranded fish.