Chain Lynx (The Lynx Series Book 3) Read online

  I cleared my throat to start again. “When Maria headed out the door, I shadow walked my way through the prison and out the side exit, to where Franco was smoking a cigarette. Franco was one of the first guards I met there. I knew his son was deathly ill, so I used that. Used him.”

  I wrenched my gaze from Striker’s and focused on the cratered surface of the ceiling tile, where I wasn’t worried about finding censure shining back at me. Not that Striker would judge me harshly. I guessed I was feeling guilty — manipulative and self-serving — to have put Franco’s life at risk for mine.

  Striker wiped the damp cloth across my mouth.

  “Thank you,” I said. The shame I had felt took a sidestep, and I was able to focus on Striker again.

  He pulled his chair closer to my head, leaning in where I could see his face clearly.

  “I told Franco I was the answer to his prayers for Pablo, his God-sent miracle.”

  Striker squeezed my hand. “I’m glad we got to the boy in time. Axel said Pablo was in dire straits when they found him. It was a difficult rescue.”

  “Where are Axel and Randy now?” I was glad to shift the conversation.

  “Axel’s with Pablo’s family, getting them straightened out. Randy’s delivering Maria to the FBI.”

  “Oh.” My emotions were bigger than that. Much bigger. But there weren’t really any words to convey the enormity of it all. I wasn’t sure I could fully take all this in. Pablo safe. Maria in custody. Me – alive and free. Striker here, holding my hand.

  “Do I get to hear your side of the story?” I asked. “Where’s everyone else?”

  “They’re here at Lackland. The doctors say you’re too fragile for visitors. They let me in because I’m your commander, and I need to debrief you.”

  “They won’t let my team see me?” I scowled, annoyed.

  “They can come in, Lynx, but only when you’re asleep. It’s hard to kick Gater out when you’re coming around, though.” There was an odd little inflection to that last sentence. A strange little light flickered in Striker’s eyes that was quickly replaced with concern when I gripped his hand with a gasp.

  Striker reached out and pushed the call button again. The nurse came in, glanced at my machines, and gave me a shot that made it all go away.

  Three

  I couldn’t move. So damned uncomfortable. Back aching. Head throbbing, I laid there dazed and confused, and more than a little nauseated. All I wanted was to roll over.

  “Lynx, stop,” Striker’s voice pinned me.

  I opened my lids to the institutional green walls and fluorescent lights of my hospital room. America, not Honduras. Help, not imprisonment. I pieced my reality back together.

  I couldn’t turn my head. Couldn’t see anyone. “Striker? I want to turn over,” I whimpered like a puppy.

  Striker positioned himself where I could see his face. “Chica, you’ve had surgery. Do you remember me telling you that you were going to have surgery?”

  I wanted to shake “no,” but I couldn’t move my head, not even a little.

  “They fixed your sternum and ribs, and they put you in traction. Now you have to lie very still and quiet until the swelling goes down around your spine.”

  “How’d they fix my ribs?” My words had to edge past my uncooperative tongue, though my mind was being extremely supportive. I felt truly lucid for the first time in a long time. My thoughts were clear and had an edge to them instead of the fuzzy, shaded things I had conjured since the plane went down.

  “You have some wires and a whole lot of screws in you. You’ll probably need a doctor’s note to get through the airlines’ security from here on out.” His voice was teasing, but his expression was serious.

  “Huh. You know, when I was growing up, Mom always said she wanted me to make a crazy quilt of experiences. It was supposed to be a comfort to me in my old age when I could wrap myself in my memories.” I stopped to take a breath. Speaking in complete sentences felt as aerobic as sprinting a mile or sparring with my kung fu partner used to feel. “I don’t think she literally wanted me to make a quilt of memories on my body. At this rate, I’m going to end up looking like the bride of Frankenstein.”

  Striker chuckled. I guessed he found my pitiful vanity charming. “We had a plastic surgeon come in and work with your surgical team.” His thumb gently stroked over my cheek. “They did everything they could to hide the incisions. Dr. Morrissey says we can have laser treatments done on your other scars. They should all but disappear. You won’t look like the bride of Frankenstein. I promise.”

  My brows pulled together. “How could they hide scars on my sternum?”

  “They did the incisions under your breasts - well, what will be your breasts.”

  “What do you mean, ‘what will be my breasts’?” I felt a little panicky. What happened to my breasts? I liked my breasts.

  “Chica, you dropped down near eighty pounds. You don’t have any fat on you. You barely have any muscle on you. You are literally a skin bag of bones, for now. After you were rehydrated, they got you up closer to ninety pounds. The doctors felt safe doing surgery with that minimum. They didn’t want you to have another heart attack in OR.”

  I tried to nod again, but again, it wasn’t possible. “Everything went okay, though?”

  “Everything went beautifully.” Striker looked at me with warm eyes. “Your vitals are nice and stable. And you’ve been cleared to have visitors as long as you don’t tax yourself. Do you feel ready? Your teammates want to come in, if it’s okay with you.”

  “Yes. Yes, please.”

  Striker stood and went to the door. Feet softly shuffled in. Familiar faces gathered around my bed where I could see them from my limited vantage point. Striker, Jack, Blaze, and Gater. They looked good to me. Like everything that was healthy and wholesome in this world.

  “Hey, guys.” I attempted a smile.

  Jack reached out to put his massive hand on my knee and leaned his six-foot five frame in to kiss my cheek. “Lynx, same old, same old. You have the adventures, and we stand around your hospital bed, watching you heal. Honestly, girl, doesn’t this ever get old for you?” he asked.

  “It’s my hobby, Jack.”

  My gaze scanned across the four teammates who circled my bed. (Strike Force numbered seven in all.) They were dressed in identical gray camo fatigues, with charcoal gray compression shirts.

  “Hey, you’re in uniform. What’s up with that?” I asked.

  “We’re on duty,” Blaze said.

  Not here to visit me. Here working. “I need an explanation.” My muscles tightened as if preparing for a blow. The memory of Striker’s words stood in the shadows, glaring at me – You aren’t going home. It isn’t safe. You still have people out there, trying to get you. But with Maria in custody. . .my gaze searched out Striker.

  “You remember a guy named Jonathan Frith?” Striker asked.

  I searched my memory for a minute before I reached in a back drawer and pulled out a thought. “FBI,” I said.

  “Yeah, that’s the one. He’s not with the FBI anymore. He took a more lucrative position over at Omega.”

  “Huh.” Omega was our competitor, whose members had earned a nasty reputation for Lord of the Flies-like antics.

  “Frith had a meeting with Iniquus Command. Even if he is with Omega, it seems like he still has a soul,” Striker said.

  I scowled, not following the relevance of this conversation. “Why was Frith talking to Iniquus, if he’s working for Omega?”

  “Because he owes you,” Striker crossed his arms over his chest. “Frith said you saved his ass once when he was on assignment. If you hadn’t puzzled something out properly, and gotten to him with a warning, he would be nothing but a tar smear on a country road. Instead, he got a promotion and a nice little bonus check.”

  “Owes me?” Something was way off about this scenario. “How did Frith know I was working for Iniquus?” I asked. I had only officially worked for Iniquus for a l
ittle over three months when Maria kidnapped me. Of course, I had worked on assignments with my mentor, Spyder McGraw, for a few years, but no one had known that, not even Iniquus Command. I had been Spyder’s secret weapon, his private puzzler.

  “Because the case you unraveled, which saved Frith’s life, happened on what was an FBI/Iniquus contract,” Striker said.

  “No. That’s not possible.” I had to rummage around for a more information before I decided, “Frith can’t know me from that. That case happened when I was living in the apartment with Mom. I was working for Spyder McGraw then, and Iniquus didn’t find out about me until Travis Wilson’s attack. And Wilson happened almost a year after the Frith case was resolved.”

  Striker shrugged. “I don’t know then.” He perched at the corner of the bed, making it less of a strain to see him.

  “Maybe he knew you from your work on the Sylanos case,” Jack said. “After Sylanos died, our contract to bridge CIA and FBI was complete, and we were taken off the assignment. Omega did follow up. Your name was sure to be in our files when we handed them over.”

  “Sylanos is dead? When did that happen? How did that happen?” Both hands went to my head, as if I could still my swirling thoughts. A lot can happen in five months.

  “We’ll catch you up on all that later, Chica. Sylanos has nothing to do with Frith.”

  “But still, I want to know how Frith put me together with Iniquus. And second. . .” Whoa. Weird what my brain was doing – suddenly it crackled with staticky sounds.

  Striker reached out to hold my hand, grounding me. “And second?”

  “Yeah, yeah second, why would the FBI and CIA hire us to work the Sylanos case, and then replace us with our competition? You would think they’d stay on the same horse and not change midstream.”

  “They weren’t changing horses midstream. It was more like they were running two horses in the same race. Omega was working on the Sylanos case at the same time we were working on the Sylanos case. As to why they kept Omega on? I’d guess it’s because Omega will do things we won’t touch.”

  “Why would someone. . .? I’m lost. What?” Darned my head. Now I had colors kaleidoscoping behind my right eye and the tip of my nose tingled. I let go of Striker’s hand so I could scratch.

  Striker cocked his head and looked at me with that assessing look of his. He seemed hesitant to keep going. I wondered if I sounded as messed up as I felt. I grabbed his hand again so he wouldn’t up and disappear with the team and leave me laying here wondering.

  “Iniquus has to work in the gray area of the law in order to be effective,” Striker said. “While we’re willing to make reaches, we also have boundaries. Omega usually gets called in when they’re working outside of the gray area in the black. The out-and-out bold criminal acts - in the name of American security — rendition, interrogation, assassination.”

  “So what did Frith tell Command?” I asked, trying to get the meat off this bone.

  Striker paused, then enunciated each word with clarity, “Frith says you’ve become an Omega target.”

  My blood iced, prickling my skin with goose flesh. An Omega target. Holy shit. How was I going to go up against the power of Omega? If I thought it was bad to have Travis Wilson or Maria Rodriguez after me, they were nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the money and might of Omega.

  My team tightened their stances as if readying for a fight. And I lay tethered and incapacitated on my back with a wobbly brain.

  “Iniquus will be damned if they’re going to let Omega, or anyone else, hurt one of our own,” Jack said.

  I wanted to shake my head to clear the rubble. I swallowed hard instead. It didn’t help. “But if Omega was going after me, they’d find out someone already got to me. They’d know I was kidnapped months ago.”

  “Right,” Striker said. “Command had the meeting with Frith last Tuesday when your 911 came in. Frith said that Omega knew you were kidnapped, so your file was in a holding pattern until you resurfaced.” Striker seemed to understand my distress; he had slowed his words down considerably. “I suppose they decided not to waste resources when they knew Iniquus would be beating the bushes for you while you were held captive.”

  “What day is today?” I asked, suddenly needing some kind of context.

  “Monday, you called 911 six days ago,” Jack said. “We didn’t get to you until Friday.”

  “So Omega decided to let you guys try to recover me from Maria, then they’d move in and take me again?” I asked.

  “Exactly,” Jack said. “We assume that Frith didn’t come to us when Omega signed the contract because Omega didn’t have a spark. No spark, no fire, so no reason for Frith to put his ass out there trying to help you.”

  “Then something sparked,” I said, tight lipped and braced for more bad news.

  “Frith said their surveillance guy picked up your 911 call same time we did,” Striker said. “When we were out looking for you in the desert, it seems we weren’t the only ones.”

  “We got to you first.” Jack patted my knee, wearing a conquering hero smile. Richly deserved. He was my hero. They all were.

  Four

  This new information was all too much. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in. The oxygen from my tubing felt cold and dry in my nostrils. I didn’t like how it smelled. “I don’t understand any of this. Who is the client who initiated an Omega contract on me? Why is there a contract on me?”

  “We don’t know.” Striker said.

  I opened my eyes and looked down the bed at Gater. “I need to take baby steps here. Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me again where am I? How did you find me?”

  Gater cleared his throat. “You’re at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, ma’am. When you called in your mayday to 911, you gave them your name and your Iniquus affiliation. The FAA contacted headquarters to update Command. They were trying to figure out where you were coming in from, and what your destination had been. They needed to get a trajectory for search and rescue. As soon as we got word they’d heard from you outside of Corpus Christi, we took off from DC.”

  Striker turned my hand over and drew slow circles onto my palm. He used the gesture when he thought I needed to be calmed. “There had been a big tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico, Lynx. Do you remember that?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I tried to nod but nothing moved. “Days and days of storm. Wind and lightning, but no rain on the island where I landed. I thought it had mostly blown over. I needed water. I tried to get to the States.”

  “The storm stalled in the Caribbean, then moved west and stalled over Texas,” Striker said. “We got into Texas airspace just as they started rerouting flights. We were told to land here at Lackland. Lucky thing, too. I have a buddy who’s in command. He’s been golden through this whole thing.” Striker’s finger tracing on my palm made me itch. I interlaced my fingers with his to make him stop.

  “It’s the Lackland pilots that flew your search and rescue mission,” Jack said. “We took off from the base as soon as the winds died down enough to get the helicopters off the ground. We found you pretty quickly at that point, because of the smoke signals you set with the tire fires.”

  “We weren’t sitting on our hands waiting for the weather to turn, though, Lynx. We went out in jeeps for the first two days,” Gater leaned over me.

  I smiled at him. “I missed you all so much.” Sentimental tears threatened to spill over, but I didn’t want to wander down an emotional path. Right now I wanted understanding. So I shifted my eyes to Striker. “Jeeps?”

  “I broke our team up and sent them out with Lackland airmen,” Striker said. “We started at the coast and worked a grid. On the 911 tapes, you said you were out of fuel, and didn’t have instruments or communication so you weren’t sure where you were. We figured if you were trying to fly a Cessna through that storm, you’d have put the wind to your back. You got blown a lot further inland than we expected. And you know, we got to you pretty much in the nick of tim
e.”

  “Yes, thank you.” I paused, looking for a stronger expression, something that conveyed the power of my gratitude. “I wish there was a better word. A bigger phrase. Thank you just doesn’t accommodate all of the feelings I have. I am so grateful and so blessed. Overwhelmed, in fact.”

  The men scuffled their feet. I thought they were probably uncomfortable that I laid my appreciation on the table like that. My team was stoic by nature. They liked black and white and symmetry, where I preferred shades and hues and dancing whirls. Somehow, we still made a great team.

  I shifted the energy safely back to debriefing mode by asking, “And the uniforms?”

  “You’re under our protection, just like at the safe house,” Jack said.

  I was under Iniquus protection. My brain clouded. Protection? I searched through my haze. Ah, yes. Omega was after me. Why would Omega want me? Maybe there was something I had forgotten – something that got knocked from my memory in the crash. . .

  “What’s the date?” It was odd to flounder in a space of non-reality, with no sense of time or place.

  “July 12,” Blaze said.

  “Lynx, how is it that you had your cellphone to call 911 in the first place?” Gater asked. Like all of the men on my team, Gater’s build was ready for combat without an ounce of fat. He always made me think of apple pie and Saturday night football. He stood at the end of my bed, with his hands on my blanket-covered feet. The gesture was oddly grounding, and I appreciated it. My thoughts stopped swirling and resolved into linear form again.

  I closed my eyes, remembering that cold February night.

  “I’m guessing that you pulled off one of your magic tricks so you could keep your phone at the prison,” Blaze said.

  “Yes. But there were no reception bars. I knew you wouldn’t find me that way.”

  “There weren’t any pings,” Jack said. “We wondered why. We figured your battery died, until Randy and Axel went down to Honduras. They said your prison was in an area so remote, not only was there no cell tower, but there weren’t even any land lines running in. They had to use their satellite phones for communication.”