Keep My Baby Safe Read online

  “That’s my point.”

  She sighed again. “When was the last time you got laid?”

  “What?” he asked, his head jerking about to look at her. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Maybe nothing,” Tasha said quietly, “but men and women fuck, Dan. Because you’re not interested in it anymore—”

  He began to burn in anger. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “Okay. They’re endangering the fucking mission,” he hissed as he leaned in close.

  “How? What do you see that I don’t?”

  “Call it a feeling.”

  “Okay, good. Listening to your gut can save your life.” She looked at the other table again. “What has your alarm bells ringing? Derrick and Rich have been burying their cocks in every woman they could find for three months. You didn’t seem to have a problem with it then. Why now?”

  He ground his teeth. Maybe he was overreacting. “We weren’t on…studying birds before.”

  She nodded. “Point taken.” She looked away as the four rose, the women snuggling in close as Rich and Derrick led them out of the room. “I’ll talk to them, okay? You’re right, this isn’t a booty trip. But if I call them back now, that’ll turn some heads.”

  He took a hard pull from his beer and banged the glass on the table. This was just like Mexico. Or was it? Here, nobody knew who they were and nobody was looking for them. Maybe Tasha was right. Men and women did fuck, and he’d done his share of picking women and fucking them. But that was before.

  He knew what happened in Mexico had affected him. He could feel the cold hand of death still gripping his guts. Gretchen was dead because of him, and he hadn’t been able to get past that. Perhaps it was clouding his judgement. Tasha was clearly better suited to this than he was. She was far more expert in fieldcraft, and she didn’t seem alarmed. He pushed his reservations down.

  “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

  She smiled, but it was slightly sad. “When this is all over, you and I need to talk, okay? Just you and me,” she said, pointing back and forth between them with her pointer finger. “I’m expert at keeping secrets. You can trust me. Let me try to help you.”

  He felt his heart squeeze. He hadn’t told anyone what had happened, and the thought of admitting his shame terrified him. But at the same time, he wanted to tell someone, unburden himself and let go of the darkness that was consuming him.

  He smiled as he looked at the table and nodded. “Okay, thanks. Maybe I’ll take you up on that.”

  She patted his hand gently. “Do. You’re a good man, not to mention hot as shit. You’re breaking a lot of women’s hearts by being the way you are.”

  “Yours?” he asked with a teasing smile.

  She giggled. “No, not mine. Remember, I’m the nasty, ball-busting bitch. But I hear Sergeant Starm is still crying in her beer every night.”

  “Right,” he said, drawing the word out in a slow drawl. “The other thing that bothers me about this is Fug.”

  Tasha nodded in agreement. “Yeah, but we don’t know the arrangement she has with Derrick. Maybe she’s fine with him fucking someone else. Maybe she’s doing the same. Or maybe he’s going to break her heart. Either way, it’s really none of our business.”

  Dan took another pull from his beer. “Yeah,” he muttered.

  They finished their beers and returned to their rooms. They each had a room, with Tasha’s room between Derrick’s and Rich’s. If Derrick was as loud as Rich, whose room was next to Dan’s, she was getting it from both sides.

  “You suck that big cock,” Rich snarled, his voice strained and breathless, clearly audible through the paper-thin walls.

  “I love your big American cock,” a woman’s voice replied, her tone dripping with sex.

  After few minutes of quiet, he heard the woman cry out in pleasure. “Oh… fuck! You’re making me come. Eat that pussy. You eat that pussy so good.”

  Dan groaned as the bed in the next room begin to squeak and bump against the wall. It sounded like Rich was pounding the shit out of her. Listening to Rich and the woman go at it like they were made him ache for the touch of a woman.

  “Fuck me. Fuck me!” Rich roared as the woman cried out in pleasure again.

  “Goddammit,” Dan muttered, trying to shut out the noise.

  Maybe he should walk down the hall, pound on Tasha’s door, and see if she wanted to get loud too.

  “Fuck, I’m coming!” Rich roared.

  There were sounds of particularly hard fucking, a heavy thump, more hard and fast fucking for a moment, then Rich roared again as something fell to the floor with a popping snap. Then it was quiet.

  Dan grinned to himself as he wondered if the woman, or Rich, would be able to walk in the morning.

  After a few minutes of quiet, he banged his hand on the wall. “You two okay in there?” he called, his grin spreading as he wondered what they were doing now.

  His imagination was still running away with him when his door burst open and the woman who had left on Rich’s arm burst into his room. That was shocking enough. The fact she was as naked as the day she was born was more so. But most shocking of all was the deadly, silenced pistol she held in her hand. Dan threw himself off the bed as her pistol spat death, the sound of a loud hand clap accompanying each rip in the bed.

  He grabbed the edge of the bed and flipped it high with a crash. Two more bullets ripped through the mattress as the woman stumbled back. Dan charged her, leaping over the bed as it continued to crash to the floor. Another clap and the window behind him spiderwebbed. He grabbed her arm and pivoted, draping it over his shoulder as he pressed his back into her. A quick jerk down and he heard her elbow explode. She screamed in agony as the pistol fell from her numb hand.

  He dropped, grabbed the weapon, and pivoted and fired two shots into her torso, a third into her head, the wall behind her red with her blood.

  As she fell, he scrambled to his feet and charged out of his room and into Rich’s. Rich lay naked on the bed, a single bullet hole in his head, his eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling. He pounded out of Rich’s room before skidding to a stop at Tasha’s door.

  The door was open. His weapon popped up as he entered, but he couldn’t fire. Tasha was in a fierce battle with the other woman from the bar. The woman had Tasha pulled onto her chest with her arm around Tasha’s throat, the two women’s faces twisted into a snarl of pain and effort. Tasha fired an elbow backwards into the woman’s face, causing her to release Tasha and stagger back, blood gushing from her nose. Freed from her assailant’s grasp, Tasha pivoted and threw a hard right into the woman’s stomach, following up with a left to the face.

  The woman gasped as she staggered back then fell over the bed. He entered deeper into the room, his weapon on the woman.

  “Don’t shoot her!” Tasha panted.

  Tasha was bleeding from the bottom lip, and her chest had a smear of blood over one breast, the red lurid against her pale skin. He glanced at her, but other than her lip, she appeared unhurt. The blood must belong to the other woman.

  “You okay?” he asked as the woman on the bed tried to get up. He stepped up close and pointed the pistol at her head, the threat clear. She stared at him with wide eyes as she stilled, her hands at the sides of her head.

  “Yeah,” Tasha said as she wiped her lip, then picked up a pistol from the floor that matched the one in his hand.

  “Watch her,” he said. Tasha quickly checked the weapon and then pointed it at the woman, ignoring her own nakedness.

  Dan entered Derrick’s room. He was as dead as Rich. He’d been shot twice in the chest and the bed was covered in blood.

  His jaws clenched tight, he closed all the doors to their rooms before he returned to Tasha’s.

  “Are they…” Tasha asked as Dan closed the door behind himself.

  “Yes. Both of them.”

  She whirled on the woman. “Who sent
you?” she snarled.

  “Fuck you, bitch.”

  Tasha handed the gun to him and hauled the naked woman off the bed before driving a hard right into the woman’s stomach. She doubled over as she groaned and fell back to the bed.

  “You’re going to tell me what I want to know,” Tasha growled as she loomed over the woman. “Who sent you?”

  “He’ll kill me if I tell you.”

  “I’m going to kill you if you don’t.”

  “I’m not telling you shit.”

  Without warning, Tasha drove a right straight into the woman’s pussy. He winced in sympathetic pain as the woman screamed in agony and curled up into a fetal position, her hands clasped between her legs. Tasha was one tough bitch, and she obviously didn’t mind using brutality to get the information she wanted.

  “Talk!”

  “Kangka,” the woman sobbed.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Tasha rolled the woman onto her back, forced her legs open, then drew her hand back as if she were going to throw another punch.

  “No!” the woman cried, cowering and covering herself. “I don’t know, I swear. He never tells me. He told me to get those two men alone and kill them. That’s all I know. I swear!”

  “Did you tell him about us?” Dan asked.

  “No. I didn’t have time. Don’t hurt me anymore. I just do what I’m told.”

  Tasha looked at Dan, her lips thin. “Think she’s telling the truth?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” The gun in her hand popped twice as the woman’s chest exploded in blood. “We need to get out of here. Now!”

  “What about this mess?”

  Tasha began wiping the weapon on the bedsheets. “Wipe it down and leave it.”

  “What about Rich and—” Dan began.

  “Nothing we can do for them now.”

  She hurried into the bathroom and wiped the blood off her chest and lip as Dan wiped down his weapon and left it on the bed beside the other. She was shrugging into a shirt when he paused at the bathroom door.

  “Do you have your weapon?” she asked.

  “No. In my room.”

  “Go get it. Get your phone but leave everything else.”

  “My passport?”

  “Leave it. We’re burned. I have backup IDs.”

  “But Rich and—”

  “Forget them,” she snarled, pushing past him into the room. “If we don’t get out of here, we’ll be dead too.”

  He left and returned to her room with his phone and weapon. She handed him a new passport, shoving three others into her pocket. He tucked it away without looking at it.

  She stepped out of the room and paused as she took a deep breath. The hardness, rage, and pain that had been on her face since he’d burst in on her melted away. She turned to him and smiled.

  “Let’s take a walk and enjoy the night air, dear,” she said, looping her arm through his.

  They walked out of the hotel Vispin. Tasha moved and chatted away like she didn’t have a care in the world, but he was seething inside. He’d fucked up again, and this time it had cost him the lives of two of his friends.

  Natasha

  “One room,” Tasha said as she passed Marands across the counter to the clerk.

  The clerk took the money and nodded. “Any luggage this evening?”

  “No. Lost on the flight in,” she growled.

  “I’m sorry, madam.”

  She offered him a tight, humorless smile and a nod. “Our bags are probably still in Kiev,” she said, her Russian accent thick. She snatched the key from the clerk and spoke to Dan in Russian. She knew he didn’t speak Russian, but he fell into step with her as she strode past.

  “You speak Russian?” he asked quietly as the elevator took them to their floor.

  “Yeah. My mother is Russian, which is why the CIA recruited me. I speak Russian with both a southern and northern accent.”

  They entered their room and shut the door. The Orkut Grand was a much more upscale hotel than the Vispin. In addition to its polished marble floors and thick carpeting, it had modern electronic locks. The moment the door clicked shut, she leaned against it. The sadness returned to her face. “I need to report in,” she said after a moment.

  The SAT phones were power hogs so she plugged it in to charge it, then dialed ‘The University.’ The phone was encrypted so they didn’t have to worry about anyone intercepting the call and listening in.

  “University of Miami. How may I help you?” the pleasant woman answered.

  “Lancaster,” Tasha said, giving the code word so the woman would know she wasn’t speaking under duress. Without it, a caller would get the runaround and never know they were speaking to the NSA headquarters. “Let me speak to the deputy on duty.”

  “Standby.”

  “This is Deputy-Director Castalon.”

  She cut to the chase. “Our cover is blown.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t know, but Derrick Long and Rich Tesley are dead.”

  “Dammit. Where are you now?”

  “Safe. I had backup documents, but we need to come in.”

  There was a pause. “No.”

  “What do you mean, ‘no?’” Dan demanded. “Didn’t you hear what Tasha said? We’re fucked!”

  “Is that Tech-Sergeant Thames?”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied.

  “Good to finally speak with you, Thames. I heard what she said, but this is a priority mission.”

  “I don’t give a shit. We’re no longer combat ready.”

  “There is no one else, Thames. You’re our only assets on the ground.”

  “We’ve lost half our team!”

  “I realize that, but you know the importance of this mission. I’m sorry about your men, but the mission continues. Any idea how their cover was blown so quickly?”

  Dan looked at Tasha and she shook her head. “No, sir.”

  “Is your cover intact?”

  “I believe so,” Tasha said. “Dan and I are posing as a husband and wife from Kiev.”

  “Good. We have no confirmation that the Griffins are in Orkut, but all evidence is pointing there. According to the lab assistants, it will take years to modify the virus, but if the Griffins transfer the knowledge to others, the research can continue in their absence. The lab assistant is confident the doctors won’t willingly help, and he thought they could stall for a few weeks before anyone noticed, but they can’t stall forever. It’s imperative we get them out of there as soon as possible, before anyone realizes what they’re doing.”

  “Understood,” Tasha said, holding Dan’s eyes. Nobody could stand up to torture forever, and they would eventually break and do what Kangka demanded.

  “We’ve tasked a satellite to look for signs the lab isn’t in Talish, but there are a lot of small villages, any one of which could potentially be the one Kangka is using. It’s going to take time. I’ll be straight with you, Lancaster. You and Dan are our best hope for finding the Griffins.”

  Dan snarled, stood, and stomped away from the bed.

  “We’ll do our best, Deputy-Director,” she said softly.

  “You get off on this shit, don’t you?” Dan snarled when Tasha hung up.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Bullshit! The sneaking around, playing spy. Two of my friends are dead, and you’re over there having a fucking orgasm because you get to play Jane Bond.”

  “Fuck you, you arrogant asshole. Derrick and Rich were my friends, too. You think you’re the only one who cares they’re dead?” she yelled, so mad she wanted to take a swing at him.

  “I don’t know. Am I? You were sitting up and begging a minute ago when that guy was on the phone.”

  “We have a fucking job to do.”

  “Yeah, and part of that is not leaving anyone behind. We need to claim the bodies and get them shipped home to their families.”

  “Do yo
u have a fucking death wish? Are you sure those women didn’t finger us? I’m not. They only sent two because Kangka didn’t know about us, but the women saw us sitting with Derrick and Rich. If we show up at the morgue, we may end up on a slab next to them.”

  Dan glared at her. “This is fucked up.”

  “You think I don’t know that? But if we don’t get the Griffins out and destroy their research, then Derrick and Rich will have died for nothing.”

  “Fuck,” he snarled. “This is all my fault.”

  “How is it your fault?”

  “I should have known.”

  “You did. You tried to warn me, but I blew you off.” She stared at him a moment. “How did you know?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t know, but I had this gut feeling.”

  She sat down hard on the edge of the bed and looked at him, her eyes sad. “It’s not your fault. It’s my fault for not listening to you. It’s my fault because I should have seen whatever it was that set your alarm bells off. It’s Derrick and Rich’s fault. They were probably fingered the moment they leaned on that guy. There is plenty of fault to go around, but none of it is yours.”

  “I should have—”

  “Stop it,” she snapped. “You did. I didn’t listen.” She looked at him. “I never listen. I think I’m so smart, so fucking clever. Now it has cost me. Again.”

  “Again?” he asked.

  “Yeah, again.”

  “What?”

  She shook her head, not wanting to tell him, then decided he, of all people, had a right to know. “I was a field agent about three years ago. Because of my Russian, I was running assets for the CIA in Moscow. My cover was as a translator in the American Embassy. One of our assets called his marker. He’d agreed to provide us information on the condition we would get him and his family out of Russia and into the United States. He was in the Russian Navy, an adjutant to one of the admirals. He had access to a lot of classified information on the Russian’s submarine fleet.”

  She looked at him. Some of the tenseness was leaving his body.

  “I made a dead drop with forged documents for him and his family to travel under. They were to travel to Odessa, in the Ukraine, where they would use the documents to catch a ferry to Istanbul. From there, we would pick them up and smuggle them into the United States. I don’t know if they followed me, or they suspected and followed him, but the Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye, the GRU, picked him up.”