Dana Marton - Ironclad Cover

On the way to Savall, he stopped by a FedEx store and overnighted the evidence to his office for analysis.

“HOW DO YOU KNOW the bullet wasn’t for you?” Gina was drilling Brant. She stood next to Anita’s chair, Carly and Sam were engrossed in sorting printouts by the front desk. “What if you were the target?”

He’d thought about that last night when he couldn’t sleep. The semi-sitting position the uncomfortable hotel armchairs allowed had been murder on his aching bones. And Anita’s soft breathing, which should have been soothing really, tickled something inside him that wouldn’t let him rest.

“The bottle it hit was right in front of Anita.” The man had to be aiming straight for her chest. The muscles in Brant’s jaw tightened. He was about to say something else when the mailman came through the front door, cutting him off.

The guy flashed an industrial spotlight of a smile around the room. “Hello, my lovelies.” He stopped in midmotion and glanced around at the tense silence. “Came at a bad time?”

“Of course not.” Anita, gracious as always, met him halfway and took the mail.

He gave Brant the once-over then threw Anita a questioning look. She shook her head with a barely repressed grin.

“Goodbye, then.” He was pouting as he walked away.

Brant rubbed his hand over his face. He didn’t even want to know what that was about.

“What do we know about the assault weapon?” Gina asked once the door was closed behind the guy.

“A nine millimeter handgun. I’ll know more when the paperwork on the bullet comes back.”

“Tsernyakov?” Gina threw out the name.

“That would be bad news all around.” They weren’t anywhere near Tsernyakov yet. If he had somehow been tipped off about the mission, the women would be sitting ducks. The safest thing to do would be to evacuate them as soon as possible. Which would end the mission.

Damn, but he didn’t like that option. As little chance as he thought the women had of succeeding, he had no better ideas just now. They had put too many resources and too much effort into this to abort before seeing the operation to the end.

And they had made some progress. They had formed something that was beginning to resemble a team. They had identified a handful of possible links to their main target. If they could figure out who the true connection was to Tsernyakov they could get close enough to him maybe to get a location on the man, which would be more than any unit trusted with his capture had ever been able to accomplish.

Except, that now there was the extra complication of the shooter. Who was he? And what did he want?

“Any enemies?” He looked at Anita.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“How about your family? They know you’re out, right?” Gina’s and Anita’s families had been told the women had been released and entered into some kind of rehabilitation program where they weren’t allowed visitors for now. Carly and Sam had no close family who needed notification. “They must be ticked off over the money.”

Anita looked uneasy as she glanced at the other women, then at him. “No,” she said that too fast, as if wanting to close the subject.

What was the matter? Hadn’t she told the others that she’d stolen from the family business? Pellegrino’s was one of the largest construction companies in the state of Maryland, all of it family owned and operated. He watched her as she brought her expression under control. You wouldn’t know that she was a thief by looking at her. Beautiful on the outside, treacherous on the inside. Now why did that sound familiar?

Probably because he’d gone down that road before.

“I have an off-site consult today,” she said, probably looking for an excuse to leave.

“Cancel it.”

“Could be the shooter was connected to Cavanaugh,” Sam remarked from the reception desk. “Maybe someone connected to him picked up on Anita following him at that party or whatever.”

Samantha Hanley, the youngest member of the team at twenty-one, wore nothing but black and had a fair number of facial piercings. Small scars around her eyebrows indicated that even now she was holding back for the sake of the professional image she was supposed to be projecting.

“Like Michael Lambert,” Gina said.

“No, I don’t think so.” Anita shook her head.

Sam shrugged. “I mean, it’s an option, but not likely. I think in that case someone would have caught her and questioned her. You know, like what she wanted, who she worked for kind of stuff. Probably wouldn’t want to take her out without getting some explanation out of her first.”

“Correct,” Brant said. But he was going to look into it anyway. And he was definitely going to look into Michael Lambert. He had already sent off a request to his office for a full background check on the man.

“You stay put for now,” he said to Anita.

“If we cancel work every time something happens, we will never catch Tsernyakov.” Gina was watching him. “It’s a dangerous mission. Stuff is going to keep happening. Right?”

Gina Torno was a tough one. He supposed she had had to be. Being a cop was no cakewalk and being an ex-cop in prison was downright hazardous to a person’s health. But Gina had made it through—although, not without some scars.

She was right about the mission. He just hadn’t expected something like assassination attempt to start happening this fast. First Carly and now Anita. Were the two connected? If not, it was a hell of a coincidence. And yet, as Gina had pointed out, they were working a risky case. Incidents were going to happen, dangerous incidents because they were entering increasingly dangerous situations. And that was exactly why they were here. He had known the score from day one. And so had they.

“I’ll go with her,” Gina offered.

He took a slow breath and considered that option. He would have preferred going with Anita himself, but if one of Tsernyakov’s men was watching her, it wouldn’t be smart for him to spend too much time with her, risking them identifying him. Tsernyakov had connections, “bought men,” in just about every branch of law enforcement in every country that counted, the reason why they needed a team with a one-hundred-percent authentic criminal background, an unbreakable cover. “Okay,” he said. “Be careful.”

It was good for Anita and Gina to work together. The whole idea had been to forge the women into a team that could handle anything. He had to trust these two enough to let them head off to a business meeting in broad daylight.

He looked at Anita. “Mind if I use your office while you’re gone?”

The look of panic that flashed across her face was quickly covered up with a forced smile.

“Of course. Let me gather up a few things for the meeting.”

“I’ll grab my bag,” Gina said on her way out as she passed him.

He stayed and kept his eyes on Anita as she rummaged through the files on her desk. She wore a light suit that covered considerably more of her than the silk gown she’d worn the night before. Her hair was pinned back. She had the tight look of business efficiency. He tried not to linger on her red stiletto sandals or her toes that were tipped with matching shiny red polish. She glanced up at him and smiled again, and he got the distinct feeling that she was playing for time, waiting for him to step out.

Not a chance, he thought as he willed his gaze not to return to her legs. Not a complete victory as his attention was now captured by her full lips. Man, he was a fool. Women always smiled the sweetest when they were trying to screw you over the worst.

HE HADN’T PLANNED on tossing her office, but once she was gone, the idea that something was off wouldn’t leave him. He glanced through her files. Nothing jumped out. Nothing on her desk, either, or in her drawers. She was neat and orderly—that was about all the information he gained.