Chapter Seven
“Sarah. Wake up.”
Sarah sucked in a breath and sat up. Rand knelt next to her bed, his beard gone, gaze wary. “What time is it? What’s going on?” She rubbed her eyes and tossed back the sheet.
“Four forty-five, sorry about this.”
“What’s up?” She swung her feet over the side of the mattress.
“One of our guys got visual confirmation Wei boarded a flight headed to Dulles.”
She sucked in a deep breath. Wei. God, she hoped he was wrong.
“What?” Rand frowned at her, the lines deepening.
“Nothing. I’m up. What are we doing?”
“Get your things together. Hector is sending us to the hotel a Chinese delegation is staying at. I’ll brief you in the car.”
“Why?” She gaped at him in horror.
“I know it sounds crazy, but trust me, okay?”
She watched him stride out of the room, still struggling to understand why anyone would think it a good idea to put her that close to the people who very well had the case in their custody.
Christ. Wei might be there, too.
She flopped back on the bed.
They couldn’t force her to go, could they? That was probably why it was Rand telling her they were going. Where he was concerned, her better sense didn’t prevail. It very well might put them face-to-face with one of the deadliest men on the planet.
Charlie had shown her a few images of Wei once. He’d said it was better to die than end up in that man’s hands. And here they were, on a one-way path to colliding with him.
They.
Her and Rand.
Fuck.
He was still angry with her. She could see it in the curve of his mouth, the frown. The stupid, pigheaded man.
Sarah pushed back up and to her feet. Mom’s voice chased her across the room. Just put one foot in front of the other.
She pulled her hair up into a bun and surveyed herself in the mirror. She’d left everything behind in Seoul. Her baggage would be in China. She had nothing except the dirty clothes she’d arrived wearing and now someone’s cast-offs. It wasn’t a great way to jump into something new.
Sarah met Rand in the hallway. He didn’t speak, and really, she wasn’t in the mood to talk to him, anyway. Too bad what she wanted and needed didn’t align. She kept her mouth shut for the moment, biding her time.
Instead of going back to the—what was it? Work area?—of the building, Rand guided her out through a parking garage.
“What are we doing?” she asked.
“We’re setting up for surveillance. Come on.”
“No.” She stopped in her tracks. If she was going to risk her life, she wanted answers. Rand turned and stared at her, his lips twisted up into a frustrated grimace. “Why the hell would we head toward these people?” Sarah kept her voice down, conscious of the other vehicles parked in the adjoining garage.
“Get in and I’ll tell you. We can’t have this conversation here.” He unlocked a large SUV and held the door for her.
Sarah weighed her options. Getting in the truck was the easiest thing to do. Resisting orders, going off on her own were harder. Would she put lives at risk? What about her family? Coworkers? How far did this go?
Ultimately, she felt safest with Rand, which made no sense at all.
Sarah climbed into the SUV, vowing to hold him to that promise. Rand circled the vehicle and got in behind the wheel. She buckled in. “I want answers.”
“Not yet.”
“When, then?”
“Later.”
“Rand—”
He grasped her arm and laid his fingers across her lips. Something about his gaze, the wary way he stared at her, made her keep the next words to herself. He didn’t want to talk in the building or in the vehicle.
Because someone’s listening in?
She nodded and kept her trap shut.
He guided the truck out to the drive and onto the darkened street. She sighed and settled in, watching the trees pass them by, the moon still hanging in the sky overhead. Usually stargazing relaxed her, seeing how big and wide the universe was. Not tonight. All her muscles coiled tight. Every bump in the rode jarred all the way up her spine.
“It’s a nice night,” she said into the silence.
Rand didn’t so much as grunt a reply.
“How far are we from the city?” Her memory of the drive out was foggy. She’d dozed off and on, too exhausted to hold it together until they arrived.
They drove another twenty minutes, finally crossing into some town’s city limits. Rand pulled off and into a gas station, but not up to a pump.
“What are we—”
“Why don’t you pump the gas while I hit the head?” Rand said over her.
“O-kay.” Sarah blinked at the parking spot they’d pulled into, an easy thirty yards from the closest pump, on the side of the small building.
Nothing made sense tonight.
She popped her seat belt and got out, stretching the kinks out of her back and legs. A car pulled up two spaces down and…Hector got out.
Sarah blinked at the guy, then at Rand.
“Keys are in the ignition, bags are in the back.” Hector pushed his hands into his pockets and glanced around.
“What the hell is going on?” Sarah asked.
“We’ll talk about it on the way. Get in.” Rand gestured to the four-door sedan.
“No.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You said before we’d talk. We didn’t. Now you’re telling me to just do what you say, which makes no goddamn sense. Someone’s going to tell me what the hell is going on. I’ve been grilled to death and kept in the dark. Either you tell me why I should go, or I’ll…call a cab and go home.”
Rand stalked toward her, his expression made fiercer by the lack of light. “I told you. Wei is landing. We have to watch where he’s going so we can try to get the case back. Understand?”
“No. That’s just it. Why would I want to be anywhere he is?”
“A good offense—”
“Do not give me that cliché line. This is my life, Rand.”
“We need to know what they know. I don’t speak Chinese, you do. I don’t know how these people work, you do. We can’t trust any other operative. No one else knows we’ve left, because we can’t trust anyone. We still don’t know who put the tracker in you. The way I see it, we either go after this full force, or we run. Running solves nothing. Fighting back is our only option for protecting you and getting the contact protocols back so we don’t lose decades of work. Does that make sense?”
“You could try being less of a dick.” She hated that his words made sense. Besides, she wasn’t the kind of person who ran from anything. She wanted answers.
“You could try being a team player.”
“That’s rich, coming from you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. God, it was high school all over again. She wanted to scratch his eyes out. He could have said half of that and gotten her in the car with little to no argument.
“Yeah, well, at least I know how to follow orders.” He pointed at the sedan. “Get in the car, or don’t, but whatever you do—don’t go home. You’re going to risk your parents’ lives if you lead whoever’s behind this back to them. Get it?”
“You think I don’t know that? That I haven’t been doing this long enough to realize my choices put my family at risk? Why do you think I don’t want to blindly do what you say? It’s not to pester you, that’s for sure. God, you can be an ass sometimes.”
Rand’s face twisted up and he balled his hands into fists. For a few moments, he stared at the asphalt. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m not used to working with a team.”
“Did hell just freeze over, or did I hear an apology?”
“Yeah, don’t break out the ice skates yet. We’ve got work to do.” He glanced over his shoulder at Hector watching them snipe at each other.
She still wanted to strangle Rand, but not as much anymore. She didn’t like this plan, but in a scenario where they could trust no one it was almost their only option.
Sarah circled around the sedan to the passenger side while Rand slid behind the wheel. He cranked the engine and they rolled out onto a side street. Neither spoke, but the silence was easier now.
“When are we going to talk about earlier?” She’d rather have field surgery on her arm again than go down this path, but if they were going to work together they had to sort things out.
“I’d rather not get into it with you right now.”
“Rand, we have to talk about it.”
“How about not?”
“Will you grow up all ready?” Sarah rolled her eyes and reconsidered the idea of strangling him. “We had sex, Rand. We also have to work together.”
“I’m aware of that.”
She flopped back in her seat. The man hadn’t grown up one bit. They were one blessed second away from yelling at each other, if his tone was any barometer. This whole problem was ridiculous and stupid and out of freaking control. He drove her batshit crazy. Not that it was an excuse, but him telling her where to go, what to do, and giving her no choice in the matter grated on her nerves. She hadn’t let anyone make her decisions since the day her mom stopped picking out her outfits. Rand and Matt had never been able to convince her to play in her own proverbial sandbox, so why did Rand think she would be any different as an adult?
Fuck it.
He couldn’t get away from her, and it wasn’t like he could stop listening. He might not want to hear what she had to say, but he was a captive audience until they got to wherever it was they were going.
“If you’d stopped for five seconds before running out in the hall like an idiot, we could have talked. Just because I had sex with you doesn’t mean there’s an us. I meant what I said back there. Being in a relationship is the sort of thing people talk about. You decide it together. Besides, now isn’t the time to go all caveman on me. This situation is not normal. We are not normal.” She pushed her hands through her hair. “It’s not that I don’t care about you. I do. I think we can both admit we’ve been attracted to each other for a long damn time, but that doesn’t mean a fairy godmother is going to wave her magic wand and it’ll work out for us. That’s what I wanted us to talk about, but you don’t listen to me and that’s what’s so frustrating.”
The car eased to a stop, right there on the two-lane road.
Rand turned to face her. Was his face stuck like that? It’d serve him right to have a permanent scowl to wear around.
“That’s not what I meant at all,” he said.
“You’re going to have to be a lot more specific.”
“Everything’s happening so fast, I can’t stop and hold your hand.”
“I don’t expect you to, but at least treat me with respect.”
“I…do.”
“No, you don’t. You got mad at me because I said there was no us, and I was right. Not now, not yet, but maybe there might have been. You know, when we aren’t playing this cloak-and-dagger crap. If we still like each other. We might not even want to be around the people we’ve become. Had you thought about that? It’s one thing to look at you and see the guy I daydreamed about as a teenager, but it’s another to be who we are now.”
The silence grated on her.
This was where he should apologize, but Rand wouldn’t. He was a guy. He couldn’t be wrong. It wasn’t like he was hurting her heart, or anything.
Damn.
What had she gotten in her eye?
Sara rubbed at her face. The exhaustion must be wearing on her. That was the only reason for the way her eyes were watering.
A car horn blared.
Rand muttered under his breath and gassed it. The car fishtailed a bit before it got traction. Rand whipped off the road onto the shoulder and shifted into park.
Goddamn it, couldn’t they just move on already?
“I’m sorry, Sarah. I just… I fucked up.”
“Yeah, you did.” Shit. She really was crying. And why shouldn’t she? This wasn’t just some guy. He was Rand. Her Rand.
“Hey. Hey, look at me, please?” He grasped her hand and tugged her around to face him.
The early morning light made his hair look redder, his hazel eyes gone a smoky green-blue. “I’m sorry.” He squeezed her hand in his.
“Who are you?”
“What?”
“Rand doesn’t apologize.”
“I just did.”
“Exactly. Who are you?”
“Sarah…” He caressed her hand, and her soul trembled.
“Drive, please.” She wiped her cheeks, tugging her hand from his. “Tell me about Wei. Why is he here? Why are we going toward him?”
“Honestly, we don’t know why he’s here. The Chinese are about to throw a big party for the new Secretary of State, and all the prominent political figures are expected to show up. There’s not enough room for them all at the embassy, so some are staying off-site at a couple hotels. Intelligence indicated that one group in particular has their finger in some covert work, so we’re going to shadow them. I’d prefer if we could hand this off to someone else, but we don’t have that many people on hand who speak Chinese as fluently as you do.”
“Mandarin.”
“Yes, sorry. Mandarin. Besides, if we get the chance to get the case, we can open it, extract the documents, and leave them with an empty toy to mess with.”
“It’s really risky.”
“Would you rather hide? I could find somewhere to stash you.”
“No. You don’t speak Mandarin.” She leaned her head back against the headrest, not quite at peace with her decision. He was right, though. She could hide all she wanted, do nothing, and still become a target. At least this way, she was fighting back.
“Ideally, we’ll be holed up in a surveillance suite listening to them, and if we’re lucky, find out where the case is. Hopefully we hear what we need to that way. But if we need to actively follow them, we can claim we’re lovers having a whirlwind weekend together before you go back to work. You’re a D.C. local, so it shouldn’t be a surprise if you run into anyone you know.”
It sounded as solid as a thrown-together plan could be. If Rand didn’t have another option for understanding the Chinese delegation, it made sense why she needed to be there. She didn’t have to like it, though.
She’d trusted him, and he’d been there for her, but she couldn’t allow herself to fall into blindly following after him again. Yes, he was her Rand. Yes, things between them were complicated. And, yes, she’d work with him. But history was reminding her that when it came to him, she had to be careful how much of her heart she entrusted to his care.
…
Zhang Wei picked up the silver briefcase from the final TSA screening booth and exited customs. The Dulles International Airport was a hub of activity first thing in the morning. Wei proceeded to the baggage check, snagged his single piece of luggage, and hailed a cab at the curb. There was a tight timetable to keep, and he wouldn’t be the one that let everyone down.
Americans had no pride. No sense of loyalty. The informant proved that.
Wei hated this whole circus. From beginning to end, it was a disgrace to those participating and those pulled into the quagmire. He had to agree—it was worth wading through muck to identify those responsible for it in the first place.
Forty-five minutes later, Wei got out of the cab at one of the dozen or so coffee shops and paid the driver. He checked the time.
Five minutes to spare.
He was cutting this far too close. Then again, loitering too long and risking getting caught with government secrets wasn’t an option, either.
At precisely sixty seconds to the appointed time, he entered the coffee shop and ordered a cappuccino to go. He turned, surveying the people waiting for a drink, sitting at tables or in line to order.
One of them was the informant. Could he pick out which one?
The cluster of young women nearest the counter were out. They were too buried in their phones to notice life happening around them. The businessman at the check counter was too arrogant to realize the world didn’t march according to his plan. A petite black woman waiting to order was tense. The dirt on her shoes and the ill-fitting suit placed her at a lower income bracket than the diamond necklace around her throat. But the man in front of her…he had a cold, calculating manner and a shrewd eye.
Wei picked up his drink and casually perused his phone.
He wasn’t actually supposed to speak to the informant. He didn’t even know the gender or identity of the person, just that they wanted proof Wei had the briefcase before continuing.
The alarm vibrated his phone.
Time to go.
He picked up the briefcase and his drink, and rolled the suitcase after him out onto the street.
One way or another, they were going to get the names of the traitors selling Chinese secrets. The informant could sell them, or Wei could extract them with some of his favorite methods. It was all up to them, but Wei knew which way he’d choose.
He hailed a cab and settled in for the ride, the briefcase of secrets in his lap. Soon, very soon, he’d have a new list to whittle away at. He almost hoped it was a long one, so he could make them all pay.
…
Rand held the door for Sarah. She rolled her suitcase into the suite and stopped on the marble entry.
“They really spared no expense on this.” She stepped forward, her hips swaying left and right.
“Probably someone’s hotel points.” He followed her in, his gaze snagging on the bed covered in rose petals. A bucket of ice held a bottle of wine at the foot of the bed. “I could get used to digs like this. Usually I’m lucky if I get a toilet.”
“You and me both.” Sarah collapsed onto one of the high-backed chairs flanking a polished wooden table. There were dark circles under her eyes and her lids drooped. A lot of that was his fault.
She was right; he should have listened to her. Stopped assuming and listened. But when it came to Sarah…she made him all sorts of crazy. And then there was the guilt. Eight years, and it might as well have been yesterday for all the difference it made.
He paced to the window and stared out over the main street in front of their swanky hotel.
Seeing her again totally blindsided him. For years he’d shoved the past deep down. He didn’t go there. But he couldn’t look at Sarah. Guilt and desire warred against each other.
She didn’t look much like her brother, until she smiled. They had the same devil-may-care grin. The one that always meant they were going to get in trouble—and it would be awesome. How many times had his ass gotten grounded because Matt had said those magical words, Hey, I’ve got an idea…
And then there was Sarah.
Sarah cared about people. She’d always had this big, amazing heart that pulled people into her orbit and kept them close. What she’d accomplished—and was still doing—was impressive. She was doing a hell of a lot more good than he’d ever managed to do.
Being with her, it felt as though he hadn’t missed a moment. Falling into their old ways, picking at each other, arguing, that was easy, but it wasn’t what he wanted. It’d never been his goal.
Did she remember their Lincoln Log promise?
Matt had been grounded and Rand had come over to play. He’d been on the cusp of puberty. Sarah was still a gregarious child. They’d played with the cabin pieces, building a house using all the available parts they could fit together.
He’d promised to build them a real house some day, one where they could live together. After they got married, of course, because back then that was where his childish logic took him. For a long time after that, probably into high school, he’d always looked at Sarah as a piece of his life, now and forever. She fit him in a way no one else ever had, maybe because they’d grown up together, or maybe because he wanted to believe it.
“Is it time for a nap yet?” Sarah asked. She’d curled up in the chair, knees tucked up against her chest.
“You can sleep. I’m going to go over the surveillance setup.”
“That’s not fair.” She cracked an eye open, glaring at him. “When’s the last time you slept?”
“I napped this morning.”
“Napping is not sleeping. I can’t let you do everything.”
“And like I said, you’re no good to me dead on your feet. Sleep. Besides, you’re the one that knows Mandarin, so I need you awake and ready for when Wei gets here. If he’s coming here at all.” He stood and held out his hand.
She peered at his palm for a moment before stretching out her arm. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and hauled her to her feet and straight into his arms. She flattened her other hand against his chest but didn’t shove him away.
They were supposed to play at being whirlwind lovers, right?
He stared down at her, the woman from his past and his dreams, and knew this was going to be the easiest role he’d ever played. The question was, was he faking it? Or was it real?
“Are we going to talk about us later, too?” she asked.
“You’ve never been on a surveillance mission, have you?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll tell you this—we’ll have all the time in the world to talk. Sleep. We’ll get everything figured out later.”
Rand sorted their bags, what stayed here and what he needed to take over to their other room. H e’d scored them a room here, allowing them to move around the Chinese delegation freely. It was a weak lead, but right now it was all they had. Sarah had rolled her eyes at the concept of their cover, but that was the only protest she’d made.
Once he had her tucked in bed, Rand exchanged his jacket for a blue workman’s coat with a patch for a made-up electrician company. He put on a matching hat, sunglasses up on his brow, and headed out to where they’d really be staying. The honeymoon suite was just a front, part of their cover story.
Hector had organized all of this through third-party channels he could trust. There was, hopefully, no chance that Mitch’s or Irene’s people were involved in their sting. If all went well, they’d catch word of the briefcase and call in the real law enforcement to put the stolen property back in American custody. From there they’d have to sort out who was behind burning Sarah. As long as the case was locked, she was reasonably safe.
And then what? When all of this was over—what then? Was there an us to think about?
He’d have to finally face Matt. Ask his forgiveness for what’d happened. And then…his permission. Because if Sarah was the least bit interested, Rand was going after her.
“Okay, let’s see what you’ve got going on…”
It was time to focus his thoughts. Sarah was right. Whatever would happen between them came after this.
He plugged the laptop in the surveillance kit into the Ethernet cord sticking out of the wall the set-up team had been kind enough to locate for him. The big chunk of drywall missing would be hard to explain, but that wasn’t his job.
Once he was hardwired into the system, Rand had access to all of the security cameras in the hotel. Recent upgrades and renovations meant that each and every room was outfitted with voice activated valets, or consoles, which could do a number of things from ordering new towels to changing the TV channel. They were also easy to hack into, turning every single valet system in the rooms into a listening device.
Rand wouldn’t need to plant a bug.
The hotel had done it for him already.
Man, he loved technology.
Back in the old days, he’d be waiting around for the suite to empty so he could get in and try to leave something that wouldn’t be noticed. Now, his biggest concern was where were the damn snacks, and when would something worth watching happen?
…
Zhang Wei strolled through the entrance of the Carlyle Hotel, scanning the people loitering in the lobby, the guests at the coffee bar. It was still early, but he’d already received confirmation that the Chinese delegation had arrived and wanted to inspect the briefcase. The upcoming festivities were the perfect cover for bringing together potential buyers for the information held within the case, should they chose to auction off what they didn’t need. If they could get the case open. That was currently their biggest hurdle, one he hoped to solve in the near future.
No one would like what Wei had to say about the package. The Americans had been thorough this time.
He took the elevator to one of the upper floors and followed the signs to the suite number. The door opened before he’d even knocked.
A fresh-faced young man in a well-tailored suit stood on the other side.
“They are expecting you.” The young man bowed, lower than Wei would have expected. If Wei smelled him, would he stink of fear? Probably so.
Wei’s mind was a network of information, faces, places. An image of a young attaché sprang to mind. Li Qiang. Of course. A paper-pusher. An assistant to the delegation.
“Thank you, Qiang.” Wei stepped over the threshold and left his luggage by the door.
The delegation was spread out through the spacious suite, but everyone’s focus zeroed in on him. They all wanted what was in the briefcase. The only question was, how to access it?
“In here.” Wang Ping, the leader of the delegation, waved Wei into another room set up to be an office. Normally, they would be at the embassy, but with the current renovations and planning for the welcome party for the new Secretary of State, their business was better conducted offsite.
Wei and a handful of the other men retired to the inner office.
“What have you learned?” Ping crossed his arms over his chest.
“The briefcase is more sophisticated than it appears.” He set the silver case on the desk. “If I attempt to open it, I risk destroying the documents inside of it.”
“How do you know that?”
“I had it scanned and X-rayed before I left. There is a liquid in the case lining. My guess is trying to force it open will release it, destroying the contents.”
“Then how do we open it?”
“Intelligence has made contact with the person who sold us information. Clearly they intended to charge more for this. I have provided confirmation of our possession of the case and the initial payment should be processing shortly. We will know how to open it before much longer.”
Ping began speaking to the others, dismissing Wei’s presence. That was how he preferred it, to be on the fringes, to do his job in the shadows.