Hunter forced his fingers to unfold from gripping the pen he held in view of the monitor. Opening the jaws of an alligator in the middle of a kill would have been easier.
Gotthard’s eyes shifted left. He nodded, then faced the monitor again. The big guy showed wear around the edges, his eyes more tired looking than usual. Could be the job or his rocky marriage taking a toll, or both. “Joe plans to have teams stationed in different parts of the country ready to go at a minute’s notice. He can’t send an alert through channels to other government security branches of the possible strike with nothing to hand them as hard intelligence. If someone shows our hand too soon, we risk alerting the Fratelli. Then they’d just find the leak, reset their plans, and strike at a later date.”
Gotthard’s point was clear. The Fratelli would find their informant, kill her, and move forward.
Hunter had observed the long hours Gotthard spent trying to connect with this informant online last year and his friend’s excitement when she responded. Gotthard didn’t hide the fact that he was protective of Linette’s safety. What the others probably hadn’t noticed, since few had spent the intensive time Hunter had working with Gotthard in intelligence research in the past year, was that Gotthard also seemed possessive when dealing with her.
He began mentally listing what this B &E would require. “It’ll be tight, but I can insert into Kore in forty-eight hours.”
“A female agent has to insert,” Gotthard said. “Only men in the facility are Wentworth doctors everyone knows.”
Hunter sat up. “The staff is all women?” Of course, that would make sense for a women’s center.
“Pretty much. Joe has a team searching for those three Fras. Carlos and his team are hunting the sniper and Korbin’s tracking the Blanton woman.”
Carlos could search all he wanted for the sniper, but so would Hunter. Korbin wouldn’t pose a problem as long as Hunter kept Abbie out of sight.
That would mean locking her up here or she’d try to leave. He glanced at the orange security light still shining to let him know the front door had not been opened. How could he tell her she couldn’t be with her mother any time soon and might have to stop making phone calls? He’d figure out something, some way to help her mother, too.
And if her mother died while he held Abbie hostage?
Fuck. Moving back to his plan, Hunter said, “I can figure out a cover to access the Kore Women’s Center.”
“I hear ze female vaxing is vorst form of torture. Only for real men,” Gotthard deadpanned, eyes creasing with mirth. He allowed his German accent to surface when he relaxed.
“You need a humor makeover. Tell Joe to give me some time to come up with a plan. If he doesn’t like my plan then send a female, but if the Kore security is as tight as I think, it’s going to take more than inserting as staff.”
Eliot could bypass anything. Could have.
Gotthard’s eyes thinned, sending Hunter a visual message to heed him. “This may not be something one agent can do alone.” When Hunter didn’t reply, Gotthard turned to his right, clearly listening to Joe, who would have heard everything, then Gotthard faced the screen. “You have two hours to hand Joe a plan.”
Hunter signed off and shut down the computer. Time for Abbie to tell him everything she knew. He strode over to his office door, opening it to shout into the foyer. “Borys?”
Boot heels clicked across the buffed cherrywood floors. Borys appeared at the door that led to the kitchen. “I’m busy.”
“Tell Abbie I want to talk to her.”
“She’s not with you?”
Hunter walked over to the stairs and shouted up, “Abbie!”
“I coulda done that.” Borys crossed his arms. “I just looked everywhere for her. She’s not in the house.”
Chapter Eighteen
Where the hell is she?” Hunter yelled at Borys, who stomped to the front door of the cabin.
Like Abbie would be sitting on the cabin’s front steps?
“Front door alarm is still active,” Hunter told him, and swung around to the coat closet.
“Door’s still locked, too, but if she ain’t in here, she has to be outside.” Borys punched the wall monitor, clearing the alarm system, then ran up the stairs. “I only stuck my head in her bedroom earlier. I’ll search it, but she ain’t here.”
“Goddammit!” Hunter slammed his fist inside the closet and hit a panel in the only spot that would make the hidden shelf drop down to reveal a Kahr K9 9mm. He shoved the stainless steel weapon inside his waistband at the small of his back.
“Climbed out the window with sheets,” Borys yelled, pounding back down the stairs.
“Who turned off the upstairs security?” Hunter roared, snatching a down jacket from the closet.
“Me! I like to crack the damn windows sometimes.” Veins stuck out on the sides of Borys’s neck, pulsing. “We never set the upstairs goddamn security! She couldn’t’ve gone far.”
“I activated the traps on the way in last night.”
“Ah, shit. What the hell were you thinking? You never do that when you have a guest. She could be laying out there with a broke neck.”
“She’s not a guest!” Hunter snapped. Borys was lucky he didn’t have time to strangle him. He wanted to kill something right now. “Stay here in case she comes back and don’t fucking let her out if she does.”
“How about fucking telling me what the deal is next time you bring a woman home so I can keep her hemmed up? You must’ve really pissed her off-”
Hunter slammed the door and stared at the frozen landscape. Miles of treacherous terrain so chewed-up a bear would be tough to track. He narrowed his choices down to the least-steep direction leaving the cabin. She couldn’t have hiking boots… unless she stole some from Borys that fit. Would she take the sharp downhill incline ahead?
No. She was going for the Jeep.
He rounded the cabin to where the land sloped away less aggressively with breaks that might look like paths squiggling between swatches of pines that stair-stepped down the mountain.
An innocent-looking route.
Except for several narrow chasms where loose rocks and land would break away unexpectedly.
A fall out here could be fatal.
If she didn’t fall on her own she wouldn’t know to sidestep traps he’d set to stop anyone who made it past his outer security perimeter undetected.
If that didn’t worry him enough, the trails down this side led to where he’d found a mule deer killed by mountain lions.
Joe waited on Gotthard to finish at the computer terminal, wishing this private room, which connected to the electronic surveillance and research division for BAD, had more than fifteen feet square of open area so he could pace. But the room had been constructed specifically for small groups and private meetings within their mission headquarters beneath downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The building affectionately known as the Bat Tower housed an insurance company front for Bureau of American Defense, connected to the underground operations center by a warren of tunnels.
Gotthard finished closing a file he’d opened while videoconferencing with Hunter and swung around. He propped his meaty elbow on the edge of his desk and rested his chin on his thumb. “Opinions?”
Joe had several but preferred to hear his men out first. He turned to Retter, his most dangerous agent and the only other person Joe had allowed to listen in on the videoconference.
Retter’s chest barely moved with a breath. Black hair hung to his shoulders, still damp from showering. He scratched his freshly shaven chin, his guarded gaze studying the floor. The decision weighed on all of them, but Retter had taken the lead on watching Hunter. He leaned his butt against the edge of a stainless steel table adjacent to the one Gotthard sat at where monitors and electronic equipment lined one wall. Retter finally shook his head. “I never saw any change in his normal demeanor all the time I’ve shadowed him on ops for the past four years. Same hard-ass attitude, proficient as he is lethal. He had me convinced he’d moved past Eliot’s death… until now.”