And he was gone.
“There is a bomb under your car that was not there this morning,” he told her then. “Dawg and Rowdy checked that car before we went out to it. I checked it before you got into it; do you remember that, Chay?”
She nodded slowly staring back at him as she tried to think, to figure out where and how and why.
“Someone planted that bomb after you arrived here. Are you still safe, Chay? Did you check that motherfucking car before you got in it?”
She licked her lips slowly. “I ran the transmitter over it. I always do that. I did it this morning. I used the mirror in my bag to look beneath it.”
“But it was hidden,” he snarled. “Do you realize that? A pro put that bomb in there, sweetheart. Tell me, Chay; do you realize that?”
His voice was rising, his hands tightening on her shoulders until she was afraid he might start shaking her.
“Natches, I am neither a moron nor a candidate for suicide,” she informed him coolly. “I didn’t find the bomb, which means it was well hidden and expertly placed. And someone has already taken out one of the other agents, so this assignment is severely in danger.” She pulled her cell phone from her bag, flipped it open, pressed the secured speed dial and waited while he glared at her.
“Cranston,” Timothy barked into the phone.
“We just lost Denton to a car bomb. We’re compromised.”
“Are you with Mackay?”
“Natches, yes.” She stared back at Natches.
“Keep your ass there. I already have calls out to the other agents to park their vehicles immediately and contact the sheriff for pickup. I just received word myself. I’m on my way.”
He disconnected and Chaya slowly flipped the phone closed.
“Who is he after?” Natches snarled again.
“Military intelligence and DHS have tracked the persons responsible for the hijacking and theft of military weapons, including those missiles, across the nation to a paramilitary group. Freedom’s League. Five years ago, Freedom’s League was hijacking and stealing weapons in Iraq as well. Their members are military and ex-military. They steal the weapons by hijacking them one at a time here and there, or in large shipments. Some they sell, evidently to fund other missions they undertake.
“It was Freedom’s League members I was investigating when I was captured by Nassar in Iraq. It was those same members that executed a false order for those missiles to be launched on the hotel Craig and Beth were staying in when he was trying to escape. They’ve managed to infiltrate the military to a degree that DHS is now desperate, and Timothy is rabid to capture one of their generals.
“The League is located in the eastern, southern, and western states, and their leaders are well trained and well organized.”
“I didn’t ask you what. I asked you who,” he snarled back, so furious she flinched.
“I don’t know who,” she screamed back at him, her fists striking his chest to get away from him, to escape the ragged pain she could see in his eyes, that she could feel in her heart. “If I knew who, I would have killed him myself, and Cranston knows it.”
She jerked around, staring out the windshield, watching as the other Mackays, the sheriff, and several deputies worked to tape off the area and roll other vehicles away from her rental car.
“All I know is that one of the head members of the League has been tracked here, through the operation with the missiles. The Swede attempting to buy the missiles finally made a deal with the government. In exchange for a lighter sentence, he gave them the information he had on this one buy. The League was involved and he was contacted by someone he trusted and had dealt with in the past. He wasn’t originally contacted by Johnny Grace. He didn’t know his name, didn’t have a description, all he had was the fact that his contact had been in the military, and he was based here in Somerset, working within the League to gather the funds and the arms to launch a future revolution in America.”
She watched as Dawg and Rowdy rolled another car out of the way. The agents who were still at the hotel were now marking their vehicles, but it looked like four were out.
“You’re in danger, Chay,” he told her, his voice throbbing with his anger. “They obviously know why you’re here and who you’re after.”
She shook her head. “That’s not possible. I don’t know who. I don’t think Timothy knows. He makes his list night by night, his questions as well, based on the answers I pull in from each interview. You know how this works,” she repeated. “It’s not an easy process, and this link is the only one Timothy has managed to find in five years. If we can manage to identify one of the head members and take him alive, then we can bust the organization.”
“Until they re-form?”
“But even that takes time.” She turned back to him, staring into his tormented eyes, seeing the same fears that plagued her. The fear of loss. “Sometimes, even a lifetime, Natches. We fight one battle at a time, as long as we can fight, then we turn the rest to the new generation and pray they’re as diligent. What more can we do?”
THIRTEEN
Four of the six agents’ vehicles had been wired, Chaya’s among them. Three of the four, including Denton, were assigned to watch the subjects after interview. It was obvious someone was getting spooked, and Chaya couldn’t figure out how.
“The only questions we asked that could have possibly tripped anyone’s radar were the ones involving the Mackay family,” Chaya told the sheriff and Natches that afternoon as she sat in the back of the cruiser, headed for the last name on that morning’s list.
Timothy Cranston had called and ordered the interviews for that day be completed. Natches hadn’t been pleased, and Chaya knew he was only biding his time. She could feel the temper rising inside him as they drove toward one of the more popular nightclubs—or bars, as Natches called them—in town.
The sheriff pulled into the parking lot, and from the corner of her eye, she caught his grimace as he glanced toward the Harleys parked close to the building.
“Biker bar?” she asked him.
“We could only get so lucky.” He shook his head as Natches moved from the front of the car and opened the back door for her.
“Ever been in a honky-tonk, sweetheart?” Natches asked her then.
Chaya stared around the parking lot and shook her head. “What’s wrong with honky-tonks?”
“The question is: What’s not wrong with them?” The sheriff sighed as he jammed his hat down on his head, his expression intimidating. “Who’s on the damned list for this place anyway?”
She pulled the small notebook from her pocket and glanced at the name. It was cute. “Rogue Walker.”
She nearly bounced into Natches’s back as he came to a hard stop, turned, and stared over her head at the sheriff. Swinging around, Chaya got a glimpse of complete male horror a second before it was gone.
“It’s a cute name,” she announced.
“Lord have mercy on us,” Sheriff Mayes muttered before Natches gripped her arm and led her to the door.
“Try not to piss her off,” he suggested.
Chaya would have grinned at the suggestion if her nerves weren’t still rattled over Denton’s death and the bombs they had found in the vehicles the agents drove. Someone was definitely trying to send a message. That person didn’t like the questions and was going to put a stop to them.
“The file Cranston sent stated that Ms. Walker—”
“Don’t call her miz nothin’,” Natches interrupted. “Call her Rogue. Period. Don’t comment on her clothes, her hair, or her motorcycle, and no matter what you do, don’t even hint at mentioning her past employment.”
Chaya stopped and stared up at him with a frown. “She was a schoolteacher; what’s so bad about that?”
“Lord help us if you ask about it,” he muttered. “Let’s get this the hell over with. If fists start flying, get back to the cruiser. We’ll be right behind you.”
Oh yeah, she just bet he would be. He was probably praying for a fight to get rid of some of that testosterone.
Shaking her head, she followed him into the bar and picked out the subject immediately.
Dressed in black pants, boots, and a snug vest, Ms. Rogue Walker was tipping a beer to her lips and glancing to the door in boredom.
Long golden red hair cascaded down her back in thick ringlets; pale creamy flesh was accentuated by the black attire and gave her an almost feyish appearance. She was slender but curvy. Full breasts pressed against the front of the vest, and deep, pretty violet eyes widened before a sharp, disinterested mask descended over her face and she turned away.
Interesting. Chaya looked back at Natches. “A former conquest?”
“Even I wasn’t that damned brave,” he growled. “Now get this over with so we can leave.”
“Fine, get a beer, park your butt at the bar with the sheriff, and leave me alone.”
He grabbed hold of her arm, keeping her from turning away as his head lowered, his eyes darkening in irritation. “Not gonna happen.”
“Better happen.” She smiled tightly. “Or else? I can do ‘or else’ really well, Natches, and I can make it stick. This is the wrong place to decide to take over, and it’s definitely the wrong place for a public quarrel.” She jerked her arm out of his hold and tried to tamp down the adrenaline still racing through her. It made her cranky and it made it more difficult for her to hold on to the patience she knew she needed right now. “I’ll just be a few minutes. You can see me perfectly fine while having a beer.”
“And when I get you home we’re going to have a talk about this ‘do it your way’ crap,” he said, scowling. “First thing.”
“Fine.” She nodded. “First thing. I’ll be ready for you. Are we doing it naked or clothed?”
Before he could do more than narrow his eyes on her, she turned and moved down the bar to where Rogue Walker was watching the confrontation with interest now.
“I wondered when you would get to me,” she said as Chaya stepped to her.
Her voice was beautiful. Chaya cocked her head to the side and stared at the petite woman. She was a few inches shorter than Chaya’s five feet seven inches, and much smaller boned.
“Do you sing?” Chaya asked her as she lifted herself onto one of the barstools and turned to face the other girl.
“In the shower,” she said suggestively, running her eyes over Chaya. “Want to hear me?”
Strange, Rogue Walker’s file hadn’t said anything about an alternate lifestyle. Or a lover of any type.
“Natches gets jealous.” She sighed mockingly.
Rogue rolled her eyes. “As many games as that man played before he left for the Marines, he has no right to jealousy.”
“Does any man?” Chaya countered.
Rogue laughed, a soft, amused sound. “No, they don’t, Agent Dane. But I’m sure that’s not why you came here to talk to me. I assume this has something to do with that little bastard Johnny Grace?”
Chaya pulled the digital recorder from her jacket pocket and laid it on the bar. “I need to record this,” she told the other woman.
Rogue shrugged. “I sound like crap on it, but whatever.” She lifted the beer to her lips and sipped as Chaya set the recorder and stated the date, time, and subject.
“For the record, your name is . . .”
Rogue stopped her by laying her hand over the recorder and staring at her hard. “I imagine you know my full name?”
“I do.”
“State it and we’re going to fight. My name is Rogue Walker, period. Understood?”
Chaya inclined her head. “Understood.”
“And don’t state my age, please.” Her smile was all teeth. “If you don’t mind.”