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Marissa was ashamed to admit to herself how erotic his total domination felt. She almost feared she was a submissive after all. She shook her head as she got out of the car and made her way to her room in this fleabag motel.
Her phone was ringing.She shot out of bed in full alert and grabbed her smartphone. “Yes?”
“The packages are moving.”
The line went dead. That was Tim on the phone though. Marissa looked at the time, three-thirty in the morning. It was still a couple of hours before dawn. She could probably go back to Fletcher's place and do a stake out. She pulled out her cat-suit, all black and made of flexible leather. She was lucky that the snow had melted in the past few days; otherwise, it would be a challenge to blend into the shadows of the night. She zipped up her light thermal jacket, grabbed a ski mask, and left.
Forty-five minutes later,she was crouching on a hilly mound, training her night-vision binoculars on the property. She parked a mile up on a graveled shoulder that was shaded by some evergreens. Hopefully, at this time of the morning, no one would wonder about an abandoned vehicle. It’d be suicide to go on the property right now because Garett Fletcher had four Rottweilers roaming around freely. Now wasn’t the right time to tranquilize them without knowing for sure that the nerve gas canisters were there. She’d been given a week and a half to find something. Otherwise, she was going to be recalled back to DC.
It irked Marissa that the SK nerve gas was low priority right now for all the agencies. The difference between the FBI and the CIA, besides the latter working mostly oninternational cases, was that the FBI dealt with crimes already committed, seeking to bring perpetrators to justice, while the CIA focused on prevention and evaluating threats.
This explained why the FBI and Homeland Security were expending so many resources on Al-Qaeda that even Viktor had been drawn in. Last she spoke to him, he had been helping take down several Al-Qaeda cells that were scattered around the eastern seaboard, which was why she had no back up of any Guardians. All her black ops team members, including the ones detailed to her by the DoD, were deployed in Afghanistan. Marissa had a feeling if she didn’t turn up actionable data soon, she’d be pulled out of this mission and dumped into the Al-Qaeda one.
The CIA had deemed the attack on AGS a vendetta, and even the tip off from Stan Morgan did nothing to change the minds of their top brass. Yeager supported Marissa, but his boss—the CIA director—wanted all available assets on Al-Qaeda.
Her attention was drawn to a commercial truck, pulling up in front of the second house. The house was all lit up now and men were moving crates inside. It was hard to tell what the crates might contain. Marissa’s heart skipped a beat when she caught a glimpse of one of the faces who could very well be Owen Reed. He certainly had the build for him. After another twenty minutes, the men had shut themselves in the house.
It tookher maybe an hour to get to a CIA substation. It looked like a shack from the outside, but the interior was setup with sophisticated communication systems. Marissa looked through a retinal scanner before she was allowed inside. She hooked up her laptop and called Yeager.
When her boss came on the line, she immediately said, “Ineed you to divert some resources for a raid on the Fletcher property.”
There was a pause and then, “Do you have positive ID?”
“No. But I’m sending these pictures to AGS to process. They have a visual on the property right now.” Marissa said. “Can I have Guthrie back?”
“She’ll be free soon. The Al-Qaeda cells were a dead end.” Yeager's tired voice informed her. “They were just a minor splinter group sympathetic to the cause and had no involvement in the attacks on DC at all.”
“So Viktor was right,” Marissa said. And the directors of every government agency can kiss his ass. She knew Viktor was frustrated by the bureaucracy that had bogged down other missions, this one included.
“Baran was right,” Yeager repeated. “And he is pissed as hell right now.”
“All right, I’ll keep you posted.”
She called Tim.
“Hanging in there, Burns?” The analyst probably had not slept for a while and was operating on caffeine.
“Yup, what you got?”
“Possible ID on Reed.”
“You serious?” Tim’s voice perked up. “Send them to me, girl.”
“Listen. We need to move in soon. Something tells me these guys won’t stay in town for long. They’ve had more than a week to assemble the SK nerve gas. Right now, they’re probably plotting their end game.”
“Sounds ominous. Viktor should be back from New York this morning.”
“Viktor’s in New York?”
“Albany. There was some tip from several folks about a disturbing congregation of young Muslim men in a house.”
“And?”
“And nothing. These were Al-Qaeda wannabes. Theydownloaded instructions for a homemade bomb and have some of the materials, but that’s all they had. They didn’t need the AGS for this, and DHS could have instructed local law enforcement to do the raid. Viktor is really pissed because we’re stretched thin. He’s been dragged into every agency meeting, bored out of his mind, while he’s itching to get his hands on Reed. And he’s so damned worried about you—”
“Tim, calm down,” Marissa cut in. “I’m fine.” She looked at the time; it was almost 7:00 a.m. “I gotta go. I’m pulling a double shift at the bar. I’ll keep my eyes open. But you guys have to move in tonight, and don’t forget about the guard dogs.”
“Copy that. Most of the guys will be back this morning. Will send briefs through secure channels.”
