Vixen

 

She lay on Cry Baby’s bed, recuperating, as he dressed quickly to head back out. “That bad?” she asked.

“Could be,” he said. He looked at her and then away, a muscle ticking in his jaw.

“Look, I know the deal. I can let myself out the way I got in.”

“It’s not that, he said and sighed. He rubbed his face with a big hand and she trembled, remembering those fingers around her throat. Sex with Cry Baby had been an electrifying experience, one she planned on doing as often as she could. There was no way she’d allow sex like he could give her to fade away, even if she had to cross the pond to get more of it. But the confusion and worry on his face diffused her after-sex glow.

“What is it?” she asked, already sitting up.

Cry Baby sighed and looked back over her for a moment. “First, tell me why you went after Nestor.”

Ah, she thought, something has gone wrong. “And you think, after one roll in the hay, I’m going to give you classified information?”

He peered at her, a margin of respect blazing in his eyes, but he sighed in frustration. This was where things between them, if there even was a them, could get rocky. Her job, and her country came first. Right now, they were an ocean apart.

He looked her over and nodded. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

“What’s happened?” she asked. She knew he wouldn’t answer, any more than she did, but she was going to try. She was a spy, after all.

“I’ll be back in a little, okay?” he told her.

She froze for two entire minutes before she leapt out of bead and raced to find her suit that had been tossed God knew where.

“What are you doing?” he called out after her.

“I need my comm unit, they may have tried to contact me by now.”

Sure enough, when she put her comm unit in her ear, she heard the code phrasing.

“Vixen, report in, Level four.”

The phrase repeated. “They’ve contacted me,” she told Cry Baby.

He said nothing and she turned around to face him. His face was in a hard mask and he was dressed, keys in hand.

“I suppose this is goodbye, Water Boy,” she forced out passed the lump in her throat. Jobs like theirs didn’t really lend themselves to relationships. She knew that, it was why she was still single at thirty. She was gone too long, and her job couldn’t be talked about. She and Cry Baby had broken protocol telling each other what they did. Still, the time she’d spent with him, however short it had been, meant something to her.

“For now,” he told her. “But I don’t plan on it being the end.”

His intense gaze made her heart beat faster. “No?”

“Hell, no. Just…wait for me. Report in. If you leave, I’ll give you my number. Send me a message and I’ll receive it. Make sure it’s from your safe number that I can always contact you on.”

She slipped into her suit and he came behind her and helped her zip it up after he kissed her back. This was new, this feeling of understanding. No judgement, no questions passed what could be answered. They understood the work each did, and gave concessions when they could.

“Could this be this easy?” she asked, not sure he’d answer.

“It won’t be easy. But it can be this easy to say will give it a shot,” he told her.

She looked at him over her shoulder. “I think I’d like that.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “Good.”

He left her side and wrote down something on a small white card he got off his coffee table. “My safe number. It works internationally, but I don’t always have it on.”

“I got it. I’ve got one too, remember?”

A sheepish smile crossed his face. “That will take some getting used to. See you later?” he asked.

“Count on it.”

He kissed her again, and she wanted him to linger, but the kiss was over before she could sink into it, and Cry Baby was gone. Before she could completely get her bearings, he as out of the door, and she heard his car start.

“Is that how people feel when I do that to them?” she asked the air. Probably. She shrugged and plugged his number in her phone before she called in to her handler.

“You’re late,” Trace told her.

“And you’re irritating. What’s going on?”

“Your mission has been changed. Nestor Ivanov has been killed, and the SEAL team that brought him in will be detained. The last member, one James “Cry Baby” Alvarez, hasn’t made it yet. When he does, they will be questioned. They contacted each team member one after the other to ease the process of locking them down.”

“Are you out of your mind? Why would they be detained?”

Her heart dropped and she pulled her phone from her face to send off a rapid text to Cry Baby.

DON’T GO IN. COME BACK HOME, NOW. WE’LL FIGURE OUT OUR NEXT MOVE THEN.

“They have personal reasons to want to see the man dead, and it is believed that one of them took it upon themselves to permanently remove Nestor for personal reasons, rather than stay true to the mission they were given. It is believed that either Xavier “Heim” Spencer or Viktor “Snake” Franklin would be the most likely culprits.”

Tiffany closed her eyes. She remembered the anger that Heim and Snake had shown at being deactivated, and she knew they had personal reasons to hate Nestor’s guts, but if they wanted to kill him, they’d have done it before they brought him back to American soil. She told Trace as much.

Her handler had been an SIS agent for over twenty years, before he took on a purely supervisory role. He took over her in the field training when she was green, and Tiffany knew that he’d take her words into consideration.

“You’re the highest-ranking field agent in SIS right now, Vixen. Do you believe that Nestor’s death was attached to your mission and the SEAL team is being targeted in a cover up?”

“Yes, Trace. The team found out they were deactivated after Nestor was brought in, and left. I know exactly where Cry Baby has been the entire time, and his team was awaiting contact from him to proceed forward.”

She didn’t want to get into the details of what she’d been doing, but she wouldn’t see Cry Baby detained. A key rattled in the door and she raced for one of the weapons she’s seen Cry Baby disarm when he’d first come home hours before. She had the muzzle of a beautiful Colt M1911 semi-automatic pistol. The man had amazing toys.

Cry Baby entered with his hands up and out, showing he was unarmed. She lowered the weapon, acknowledging him. He didn’t say anything and approached her before he sat on the couch. She listened to Trace as Cry Baby found a notepad and a marker.

“They were detained by their command, not us,” Trace said.

MY TEAM IN DANGER?

His hastily scrawled words made her heart pump frantically. Depending on his reaction, she could have a very hard juggling act over the next few minutes.

She put the phone between her ear and shoulder to hold it, and used her hands to signal. She held up her hand with her fingers out to represent ‘five’ and then cupped her hand around her throat, like a choke. It meant ‘five hostages’, but he needed to give him short messages.

His eyes got wide and he scribbled fast.

DETAINED?

Thank God, she thought, he understood. She nodded and went back to her call.

“What can we do?” she asked Trace.

“We may not be able to do much for those five for now, but I can cover Cry Baby. I assume you stopped him from going to command?” he told her.

“Yes, sir.”

“He’s officially become an SIS asset, and not touchable. Standby for the memo to circulate. If he’s got any friends that could help, now is the time to tell me. He will then be cleared for classified intel.”

“You have another team you can trust?” she asked Cry Baby.

“How much has the shit hit the fan?” he asked.

“Hell might freeze over, and death is probably ninety-nine percent assured,” she answered.

Cry Baby nodded. “Matthew ‘Wolf’ Steel and his team.”

“Got all their names and Call Signs?”

“Matthew ‘Wolf’ Steel, Christopher “Abe” Powers, Hunter “Cookie” Knox, Sam “Mozart” Reed, Faulkner “Dude” Cooper, and Kason “Benny” Sawyer are the team. But I’d also like John “Tex” Keegan. If anyone can get around where he’s not supposed to, that man can,” Cry Baby explained.

“Tex, we know all about. He’s been considered an asset for years, as long as he stopped looking into you Vixen,” Trace said, hearing what Cry Baby said.

“You know Tex?” she asked.

“You do too?” Cry Baby returned.

It was her turn to look sheepish. “He’s helped me out a few times.”

“Long as he knows you’re mine now, it doesn’t matter,” Cry Baby grumbled.

“It wasn’t like that—wait, yours?”

“Did I stutter?” he asked, his intense gaze burrowing into hers. “You just saved me from the brig, putting my team on watch, and gathering assets to make it possible for me to get them out and find the bastard responsible. Honey, even if just a while ago hadn’t happened, you officially belong to a SEAL.”

“And on that note, I’ll call you when things are finalized, but I’d call that team to your location now. Better safe than sorry,” Trace told her.

She didn’t even say anything as she hung up the phone. Her body temperature rose and she thought she might pass out, but she’d never felt more exhilarated in her life. Missions always got her blood pumping. But belonging to anyone, especially a SEAL? That she wasn’t so sure about.

“Look James—”

“Don’t think too hard. Just let it be what it is,” he told her.

Maybe. Or she’d just have to focus on the mission first and they’d deal with the rest later. She was all for trying out a new relationship, but the possession in is voice freaked her out. Forever didn’t happen in their line of work, and it was foolish to think so. So, yeah, mission first.

If they survived the mission, that is.

“Nestor Ivanov was the main point of contact by which the coordination for the attacks on the intelligence community was orchestrated through. It is SIS’s belief that he was being tipped off by someone in high command within that community,” she told Cry Baby.

What she was telling him was beyond classified and he knew it. But since he’d been made an asset, he was now cleared to hear the information she couldn’t share before. It could very well mean the difference between life and death for his team.

“How high we are talking?” Cry Baby asked. He’d made the transition from lover to SEAL instantly, and she almost would have felt like they hadn’t done a thing if she didn’t still fell him inside of her.

“Top level. Not Director, Presidential, or Minister, but somewhere close. Someone who could have knowledge of special forces from around the world,” she explained.

She watched as the lightbulb went on and then exploded in his head. Emotions flashed across his face, too fast for her to interpret, but his jerky movements as he sat down on his couch told her enough.

“You’re talking Joint Special Operations Command or higher, potentially, in the States,” he forced out.

“Or Special Operations Command, Europe, yes,” she finished.

“Why not SIS, NATO, or some other form of intelligence?” he asked.

They both knew the answer to that. Most outfits had their own ways of removing agents or liabilities. Something as public, or connected and the United States based special forces, even in conjunction with other services, would have to be handled differently. The world watched SEAL Team Six since the War on Terror started. The common, every day house wife knew what Delta Force was now. While many may not know the that the Army’s Intelligence Support Activity Special Mission Unit did most of the deep reconnaissance and intel-gathering, they did know the units for direct attacked. Those units had been publicized, so much more so than any other elite service members around the world, and they were the ones primarily targeted.

The world’s media had done known favors to those brave warriors.

“They wanted a war, they got one,” Cry Baby forced out through gritted teeth.