CHAPTER THREE
“Bro, who the hell is IK?” Trev tapped on the screen of Draven’s phone. He searched his desk for a pen, then changed his mind and connected the phone to his computer with a cable. “And what the fuck is she doing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo?”
“IK is India Fox.” Now that he knew where he had to go, there was no point in trying to hide any of the information from Trev. The nosey fucker would probably just tap into his phone and find it anyway. “And I told you, she’s my sister’s friend from when we were kids.”
“India Fox?” Trev’s hands stilled. “You mean the deputy director of the CIA’s daughter? That India Fox?”
“Yeah. Why do you know her?” If he had to punch Trev for sleeping with her, then Nemesis better get ready to pay out the big bucks for a new fucking war room.
“We pulled her out of Eastern Europe a while back,” Trev said. “On the mission where Dalton saw Lina again for the first time.”
Reality slammed into him. India wasn’t just his little sister’s friend. There was only one reason she could have been in Eastern Europe and only one which made perfect sense for why she was in the Congo. “She’s CIA?”
He already knew the answer before Trev answered. “I can neither confirm nor deny…”
“Cut the crap and give me a straight answer.”
“Bro, you know the rules.”
He did fucking know the rules. The only intel they received was on a need-to-know basis. He didn’t give a rat’s ass if he wasn’t supposed to know. She’d called him for help… ergo, he needed to know.
“Give me that.” He snatched his phone off the desk.
“Hey…”
“Shut it.” His finger hovered over the text message, and he tapped it to pull up her number, but changed his mind at the last second. He went to his dial pad and tapped out a number from memory and put it to his ear. On ring number three the call was answered. He heaved a sigh of relief when he recognized the voice on the other end.
“Fox residence, how may I help you?”
“Hi, Mrs. Mac. It’s Draven Kilkenny, do you remember me?”
“Why yes, I do. How can I help you, Draven? Your sister isn’t here if you are looking for her.”
He figured this time Mrs. Mac wasn’t covering for India and Lizz and attempted to keep the urgency out of his voice. “They aren’t the ones I’m looking for this time, Mrs. Mac. Is the DD around, and if so, will he take a call from me?”
“Why, he’s been in his office since last night. Stomping and hollering like a bull,” Mrs. Mac said. “Give me a moment and I’ll put your call through to him.”
“Thanks, and, Mrs. Mac?”
“Yes?”
“It’s good to hear your voice again.”
“And it’s good to hear yours, too. Just a moment, Draven, and the DD will be right with you.”
When the housekeeper called her boss the DD, that was how you knew you were accepted in India’s house. “Thanks.”
“You have the deputy director of the CIA’s home number and you can dial it from memory, and you didn’t think to tell me?” Trev muttered.
The door of the war room pushed open, revealing Dalton with his sleeping son strapped to his chest. “Who does?”
“Me,” Draven replied just as the deputy director picked up the phone in his office.
“What can I do for you, Draven?”
“Hi, Sir.” Draven wasn’t in the mood to play games and figured ripping off the Band-Aid was probably the quickest way to get answers. “Want to tell me why India is in the DRC and what the hell went wrong over there?”
“You know about that, huh?”
“I know she’s in the Congo when she’s meant to be working at a store in Riverton with my sister.” Draven’s words were bordering on rude, but he was past caring. “Why the hell didn’t I know you had dragged her into the Farm after you? Have you lost your damn mind… Sir?” Given the way Nemesis was scowling at him, he figured he better tag on the ‘Sir’ at the end.
“If you wake…” Dalton didn’t get to finish the sentence as his son started crying before he had a chance to. Dalton pointed a finger at Draven. “Asshole. I just got him to sleep.”
He made an apologetic face toward Dalton. He hadn’t planned on waking the baby, and mouthed sorry, then went back to the phone.
“Sir, I need you to explain what the hell is going on and I need you to do it before my ass is on a plane to go get her.”
He could picture India’s father pacing around his dark-paneled office. While most people would be concerned about pissing the deputy director of the CIA off, Draven wasn’t. He’d known the man since he was ten and had to go haul his sister out of the house and down the street for dinner.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” the deputy director said. The sound of a chair creaking filtered through the phone, letting Draven know he’d probably sat down. “She went to pick up some documents. She hasn’t come back.”
“How long?” he demanded.
“Two weeks.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. How long has she been at the Farm?”
“Since high school.”
“You, Sir, are an idiot and an asshole. Why the hell would you want that life for your child? Your. Only. Child?”
“That doesn’t matter now,” the deputy director replied. “What’s done is done.”
He’s such a fucking dick!
“Yes, Sir, it does matter.” He would not let India’s father get away with being an idiot, not when it might cost them all more than they bargained for, especially India.
“He sent us in to pull her out of a situation before.” Nemesis swayed side to side, rocking the baby in his arms. “Why the hell didn’t he call us in now?”
Draven started to ask, but the deputy director must have been able to hear what his boss said, because he spoke before Draven could. Halfway through what he was saying, Draven hit speaker as he figured it was better the other two men in the war room heard what he had to say.
“Because this time she’s in the DRC on a non-sanctioned mission.”
“And her team?”
“I—I don’t…”
“The bodies of three Americans were found in Kinshasa.” Trev’s fingers flew over the keyboards. “I’m just checking…” He glanced at the phone in Draven’s hand and snapped his mouth shut. Draven understood that to mean Trev was going to search any database the deaths may be logged in to see if he could find any identities for the men. “I’m assuming there are no visas and no entry logs for any of them crossing the border into the DRC?”
“No, I would suppose not,” the deputy director confirmed.
“Then these probably aren’t their real names.” Trev pulled photos of three men up on his screen, each of them was clearly deceased at the time the pictures were taken. “I’ll send them to your email.”
“Okay.” The deputy director rattled off a proton email, which they all knew was a throwaway account.
“DD?” An idea teased at the edge of Draven’s mind, and he was probably an idiot for asking, but now that it had occurred to him, he needed to know the answer.
“Yes, son?”
“You know how my dad was your best friend. Is this a similar situation?”
The deputy director’s inhale was audible, and it took him a couple of heartbeats to reply. “Yes, I suppose you could call it similar. Your father is a good man. You should call him more often.”
“Okay, I’ll call my dad…”
When he saw the other two look all kinds of confused, he cut off anything they may have said with a hand signal for silence. “I’ll let you know what I find out. When India gets back, will you call me and let me know she’s okay?”
“Talk to you soon, son. Don’t be a stranger.”
“Good to talk to you, too.” It was way obvious, at least to him, that the whole direction of the conversation about his dad had changed the tone and outcome of the phone call. But he didn’t have time to worry about that shit now. India needed his help, and her father wasn’t going to give him anything. He hit end on the call.
“Did you send that email?” He crossed the room to see the computer screen.
“No.” Trev turned the screen so Draven could see it better. “I was just about to hit send when you went all cryptic and shit. So…”
“What’s going on, Kilkenny?” Dalton asked softly. “And be quiet as he’s asleep again.”
“The deputy director is compromised somehow. First, there is zero chance he’d call my father a good man, considering he swindled the DD out of a fortune a while back.” The more he thought about it, the more he knew it to be true. “Second, I don’t think he’s enough of an asshole to leave India out in the cold with no backup.” He glanced at Dalton. “I’m either going to need a team or some backup.”
“Charlie Team is in Afghanistan pulling out some tourists who got caught up in that earthquake last week,” Dalton said. “Trev, book him a flight to somewhere that gets him close to Istanbul. That’s the drop-off point for the tourists.”
“Roger.” Trev already had the airline website open. “Do you still want me to send him images?”
“Yeah, find some random John Does and send him those,” Dalton ordered. “They can’t tell from photos where they were taken, right?”
“I’ll scrape the metadata and make sure they aren’t available to the public before I reset the data as DRC.”
“Trev… that’s tech speak; plain English will do.”
“Yes, Boss, I can give him images which look like they came from there.”
“Good.” Dalton turned toward the door. “I’m going to put my boy down to sleep and get back to the wedding. I want to dance with my wife at least once more before we’re done for the night. Call if you need me.” He glanced at Draven. “Is Charlie enough, or do you want me to round you up a team?”
“They are over there,” Draven said. “There’s no point in pulling all the guys outta here. It’s been a shit few months. Let them have the down time.”
“Good luck with telling Caleb that,” Dalton snorted softly. “If he wants to chase your ass all the way to the Congo, well, I’m not going to stop him.”
“You mean you don’t want him here, bored out of his brain for the next month, causing trouble?”
“That, too.” Dalton shut the door behind him.
“You know, weird as it is to see him with a baby on his hip,” Trev whispered in case their boss overheard, “it also suits him more than it should.”
“Right? I’ve been trying to picture it, but now I’ve see it, anything I had in my head doesn’t even come close.”
“Truth.” Trev pointed to the screen, bringing them back on task. “I have a flight out of Billings which can connect you to DC and from there on to Istanbul. Will that work?”
He fished in his back pocket for his wallet and pulled out his credit card. “Here, put it on this one.”
“No need, bro.” Trev was already filling in details. “We owe you personal flights, so I’ll book it for Nemesis Inc. If the boss or the accountants disagree, we can bill you for it later.”
He rarely used the personal flights perk which came with being employed by Dalton. Very few of them did, preferring to gift them to family members who needed them more. “That works. Thanks, bro.”
“Go get your shit. You need to be at the airport in two hours if you want to make that flight,” Trev said. “I’ll figure out what I can from here and send updates to Kristof. He’ll have it by the time you have boots on the ground in Istanbul.”
“Appreciate it.” It wouldn’t take him long to gather his stuff. His go bag was already in the cage below here, and he had a couple of changes of clothes stashed in there, which would do. “Hey, will you feed my cat?”
“Sure, me and Check are buddies.” Trev waved over his shoulder. “He likes me because I bring the good food and not just kibble.”
“Do not steal my cat,” Draven warned as he headed to the door. “You only get to borrow him when I’m working, and don’t you forget it.”
Trev’s laughter followed him down the corridor, but he knew the asshole was just messing with him. I’ll deal with him when I get back if he isn’t . He scanned his hand and waited for the elevator to arrive.
Game time.
Unpack my weapons.
Check my other gear.
Grab my tickets.
Get my ass to the DRC .
Draven made a mental list and by the time he stepped into the elevator, he was already in mission mode. Now he just had to hope he found India before whoever was hunting her got to her.
“Hey, man, good to have you here.”
Draven took the hand Kristof Hunter offered, then did the same with Braddock Keane. “I appreciate the assistance on this one.”
“No worries.” Kristof led the way into the safe house. “I dropped our guests off this morning, or I’d have waited to give you a lift here. But sitting around in an airport isn’t my idea of fun.”
“Same.” He dropped his go bag where a bunch of others lay on the floor. “Do we have a plan for getting into the DRC?”
“Yup.” Braddock tapped the keyboard on a hardbacked laptop. “We have a supply flight into Somalia. From there, we’re trucking it across a nonexistent border. That work?”
“Yeah.” It definitely did work. The fewer people who knew they were on the ground, the better. “And getting out?”
“It’s not difficult to find a team floating around in that area.” Kristof handed him a mug. “We’ll hitch a ride once we know which way the wind blows.”
Jeez, he could not work like that all the time. Which was why he was Bravo Team and not Charlie Team. Bravo specialized in working the black jobs where the government required plausible deniability. Charlie team worked on rescuing American citizens who’d purchased Nemesis travel insurance. If there was a natural disaster—earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, etc. —an act of terror, or even if war broke out while an insured family was on vacation, then Charlie Team would ensure their clients were returned home safely. It was rare the insurance was offered to non-Americans; Draven was only aware of two instances. One, a prince of Jordan, and another a former Mossad agent who had helped Alpha team out of a sticky spot a few years back. Dalton had issued the phone number on the spot. Draven knew both of those offers would be upheld should the need arise.
“Are there weapons for me? Because I feel naked without them.”
“Yeah.” Kristof led him deeper into the house and into a bedroom. In the closet on the far wall was a massive safe. “We do our best to hide them, as this isn’t the safest part of the world. But take your pick.” He stepped out of the way, revealing a full set of the typical weaponry they used. From handguns to M-16s, to RPG launchers, flash-bangs, and grenades. If he needed it, it was here.
“Awesome.”
“Vests and armor are in the other room.” Kristof locked the safe again once he’d gathered what he needed. “Maybe double up on plates considering where we’re going.”
“Yeah, good idea.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Mind if I bring one for India?”
“Hell no, take what you need. I can order more from HQ if I need them. The smaller sizes are in the back. We carry them for clients and shit.”
“Appreciate it.”
“She’s important, huh?”
“I’ve known her since she was a kid. She’s my sister Lizz’s best friend.”
“And that’s all?”
He figured there was no reason not to tell Kristof. “And her father is the deputy director of the CIA.”
“Whoa, you run in circles which are too high for my blood. I’m just a good ole farm boy whose only connection is the old dudes running moonshine.”
“When do we leave?” It grated on him to not know the details as of yet. But this wasn’t his team. He wouldn’t think twice about giving Kentucky shit about being close-mouthed… Kristof, not so much.
“Depends on if you need to sleep off the jet lag…”
“Hell no. I’m ready to roll when you guys are. I slept on the plane.” He figured Kristof would know all the sleeping he’d done on the trans-Atlantic flight had been cat naps at best. But it didn’t matter. Sleep was the last of his worries. The longer it took for him to get to India, the bigger the chance that she wasn’t going to be where her coordinates said she was. “A lot can go wrong in that part of the world, and from what I know, she’s running solo.”
“That’s not good,” Kristof agreed. “The DRC is no place for any American, never mind a woman.”
“Agreed. That’s why I’m on the way. I’m going to pull her pretty butt out of there and send her home where it’s safe.”
“You say that like you think she’s gonna stay there.” Kristof locked up the safe again. “Good luck with that, bro.”
Draven winced internally because he had a gut feeling that Kristof was correct. There wasn’t a chance in hell India Fox was going to do a damn thing she was told.