Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
“Of course.” She led him out of the room. “We’re pretty tight in here. There are only two bedrooms, and we share a bathroom. The kitchen’s up front along with a nice-sized great room, but no satellite hookup in there. Believe it or not there’s an old-school DVD player connected to the TV. That’s all we have. Hope you like romcoms and eighties action movies. And here is the door to the pantry.” She opened it and allowed him in. “The landline is here, but the truly secure line is in the basement. Feel under the middle shelf and you’ll find the switch that pulls it back. The stairs lead you to the comms room and all the toys.”
Toys. He could use some toys on her.
Damn it. He wasn’t thinking that way. He wasn’t some asshole who saw a woman and immediately started thinking about getting her in bed. He wasn’t a player, but she was…
Off limits. A coworker. Someone he probably wouldn’t work with again but might.
A paid killer’s daughter. That’s what her dad was. Sure he killed people to protect the good old US of A, but Drake bet Sokolov could make a side project of him if he wanted to.
“I’ll be here when you’re done.” She slipped out of the pantry and away.
He watched her go. He’d been through too fucking much in the last twenty-four hours to possibly have his mind on sex. Yet here he was. He was held together with baling wire and duct tape, and he was wondering if she had a boyfriend.
He was a creeping creeper, and he should do his job.
He made his way down the stairs to the comms room, which looked pretty much like the comms room in every safe house he’d ever been in. He quickly found the computer, and Taylor had laid the drive next to where she would have uploaded the data. The drive had been crushed in the same fashion he would have used had he been the one to upload it. He would have waited to ensure it uploaded properly and then he would have destroyed the drive.
All in all, she definitely knew Agency protocol.
He sat down and quickly dialed into the network, the signal pinging around the globe until it made its way to one specific number back in Virginia.
He glanced at the clock and estimated the time difference. It should be early morning on the East Coast, but someone would answer. Drake dialed the number and someone immediately answered.
“Drake?”
It was kind of nice that someone was worried enough about him to come in early. “Hey, Brad.”
Brad Perry had been with the Agency for a few years longer than Drake had, but they were both considered wunderkind. Brad had been in his early twenties when he’d joined the Agency, while Drake’s father had brought him in in his teens. They’d worked several ops in which youth was a necessary part of the cover.
He’d been called 21 Jump Street more than once.
A long sigh came over the line. “Man, I’m glad to hear your voice. What the hell happened? You should know the entire team stayed until dawn trying to figure out if you were alive or dead. Thank god Delta was at the safe house or we’d still be in the dark. After what happened with…well, we weren’t sure how to handle it.”
With his sister. Julia’s death had created a mess for the Agency on several levels. Drake had been the one to sit down and craft a fiction about his sister’s disappearance that didn’t tell his mom she’d A) been working for the Agency, and B) died a traitor to everything they’d been raised to believe in.
“I’m fine. I’ll write up a report. Did Delta send the intel?” He used her call sign. She probably shouldn’t have given her real name, but they knew each other. Still, he wasn’t going to let Brad know that Taylor was the girl in the park he’d talked about a couple of times.
He certainly wasn’t going to let him know that she’d turned into a gorgeous woman who’d apparently managed to drag him out of a wrecked car, give him medical care, and complete his op for him.
Her competency was every bit as sexy as those pouty lips of hers.
“Yes, the data was received and counterintelligence is already working on it.” A pause came over the line. “I’m sorry about Borys. He did some good work for us.”
Borys. Damn, that was his name. Borys had fed them excellent intel over the years he’d been embedded in Eastern Europe. “Yeah. We need to figure out who killed him. I’m sending you a couple of pictures of the guy. He had a thick accent. Russian, I think. If you could get me an ID, I would appreciate it. Whoever he was working for knew about the meet, and I was pretty sure only Borys and I knew the exact spot. I’d like to know if we have a leak somewhere.”