Maverick (Elite Ops 2)

“Ariela Abijah was given GHB,” Jordan said, watching Micah, knowing the tender spot he was pressing. Ariela had been Micah’s mother, a woman of rare strength in Jordan’s eyes. He’d met her once, just once, and she had impressed him when it was hard for anyone to do so.

“Orion always uses GHB,” Micah said, his voice bleak. “It’s easy to find, impossible to trace.”

“She knows the difference.” He nodded to Risa. “The doctor suspected it might be GHB from his initial tests.”

“She came out of it early.” Micah smoothed his hand down her arm as Jordan watched.

Hell, another perfect agent shot in the fucking heart, he thought. His Elite Operational Unit was going to hell in a handbasket. First Noah, now Micah? God help them all if John or Travis decided to bite the love bullet.

“How do you know she came out of it early?” Jordan questioned Micah.

“She drifted off again,” he stated. “She would have never done that if she wasn’t still under the influence of the drug. She would have fought it. I’d say six-to eight-hour dosage is what she was given. The tests on her blood should come back with that answer. That means he’s most likely got a hole outside of Atlanta somewhere, perhaps further. The SUV had tinted windows. He could have dumped her in the back and gone for at least four hours before he had to get her secured. He has this planned down to the last second, from kidnapping to death. He’d be living close now that he can’t depend on the bugs he had in the apartment. He took a chance today. He’s being pushed to finish this and he’s making mistakes.”

“Then he’ll make more before it’s over with,” Jordan decided with a nod. “He’ll be pissed now. We’ll get a plan together and get started on it.”

He watched Micah closely. The other man didn’t nod, he didn’t agree. That was a damned bad sign. It meant that at any moment Risa Clay could end up on the missing persons list and only one man would know where to find her. The man who had claimed her.

Ex-fucking-Mossad-agent. Bastards. He’d never met a harder, more cunning agent than those the Mossad produced. Problem was with such men, once they lost their minds to a woman, then they were worse than lions protecting a cub. You took your life in your hands if you dared to endanger that woman.

Micah had that look. Noah had that look when his Sabella, or Bella, as most knew her. Yeah, that was the problem with hard-core black agents. They were only black until some damned female came around and decided to light up their friggin’ lives.

Jordan pushed his fingers through his hair and started considering alternatives to each plan that he knew faced them. He’d have to make certain Risa wasn’t just protected but had a damned bulletproof bubble around her; otherwise Micah would fight him.

He could enforce any plan he wanted to use. It would be simple enough to have Micah jerked off the unit during this op and replaced.

He rejected that idea quickly enough. He could jerk the agent off the case, but as Micah had warned him, he’d turn rogue. Risa would disappear and with her would go one of the best damned agents to be found on the face of the earth. Nope, that one wouldn’t work at all.

“She remembered the wreck,” Jordan suddenly pointed out as the thought tripped in his brain. “GHB affects memory and perception. She shouldn’t have remembered.”

“She shouldn’t have remembered her rape or the fact that her own father gave her to the bastard that hurt her.” Micah cursed. “She remembered it. That was the reason why he had her placed in the private asylum. He was there when she first awoke, she remembered, and he kept her drugged and out of the way so she couldn’t reveal what he was.”

“Damned strange,” Jordan pointed out. “Even Emily Stanton didn’t remember exactly what had happened until after Jansen kidnapped her again. It took a catalyst, and full memory still hasn’t returned. According to the psychologist, Risa’s memories are amazingly intact.”

“Intact enough that someone wants to die by striking out at her,” Micah stated, his voice harder, colder, than before and savage enough that it pierced the fog that still wrapped around Risa’s head.

She could hear them. She could feel Micah’s tension, hear the murder in his voice when he spoke of the doctor her father had brought to the clinic with him. The doctor hadn’t liked coming. He’d been angry. Her father had laughed at him, because he’d forced him to come, to inject her with what he called his creation. But the creation hadn’t worked as they’d wanted it to somehow. It had been painful. And each time Jansen arrived, Risa had tried to fight to get from the bed, to get away from them.

She knows me. The voice crackled in her head. She can identify me.

She’d looked at him. Looked straight at him. But her vision was foggy; her mind was drugged, slow. Who was he? If she knew him, she should recognize his voice; she should know him if she saw him again.

“I know him,” she whispered against Micah’s chest.

Silence filled her head then.

“I can identify him.” She felt Micah’s arms tighten around her. “His hands are so soft. Like a baby. Such large hands, big and scarred. But his palms are so soft….” She felt as though she was drifting away and fought to rise back to consciousness. Whatever she knew, Micah needed to know; she understood that. “But I can’t see his face,” she sighed. “I’m so sleepy, I can’t see his face….” Her voice trailed away.

Micah wanted to curse. He laid his forehead against hers and clenched his eyes closed for a long moment before he touched his lips to her forehead.

Strength. He could hear the strength in her voice. She was trapped somewhere between memory and reality, and she was fighting to remember both. He knew the effects of the drug, knew that the rare few whom it didn’t totally work on were tormented by the distant quality of their memories.

She was strong enough to fight it, just as she had been strong enough to fight Orion when he’d attempted to take her. Strong enough that when she had awakened in the clinic, she had held on to her control, fought back her hysteria, and remained coherent.

“I want him dead,” Micah whispered against her brow before lifting his head to stare back at Jordan. “I’ll kill that bastard that helped Jansen Clay myself.”

“To kill him, you have to identify him,” Jordan pointed out, infuriating him. “We have to take Orion alive if we’re going to identify anyone, Micah. You

know that.”