Betrayal (SSU Trilogy Book 2) (The Surgical Strike Unit) Read online

  “Body,” Rafe panted. “Small changes…mind…shit, I’m losing it again…mind only sometimes my own…headaches when can think inde-pend-dent-ly…otherwise, only think of mission…shit…I’m losing control again…will try to…slow myself…down… Please, Niko, you gotta…stop me…do whatever you have to do…don’t let me succeed… They tell me…hate you…hate everyone…can’t do it…can’t kill you all…”

  “Rafe!” Niko tried to draw his brother back via his voice.

  But on a harsh groan, the line went dead.

  Niko squeezed his eyes closed. Holy Christ, his fear all but suffocated him. They’d recently lost their father. He couldn’t lose Rafe, too.

  Jenna’s arms encircled him from behind and she pressed her cheek between his shoulder blades.

  “What’s wrong with Rafe?”

  Niko spun around and crushed her in a desperate hug, needing her warmth and vitality to chase away the chill of fear. He didn’t know how long he held her, absorbing her strength and soaking up the comforting words she offered. Then, in a shaking voice, he began to explain. “Rafe has been sent to kill your brother…”

  Sunday, Morning

  Amazon Jungle

  “Let’s head toward the river,” Kai told Susana as they prepared to leave the campsite the next morning.

  She was feeling much better today. Kai had let her sleep late, then fed her a meal in a pouch that was passably close to being eggs, and some energy drink. He must have been a Boy Scout as a kid, because the depth of his supplies was mind-boggling.

  He’d had the hammock and mosquito net stowed by the time she’d finished eating. He strapped on both backpacks, ignoring her protests that she could carry one. But he’d agreed that because she was more familiar with the jungle, she should lead today.

  His suggestion to get closer to the river made sense. Not only would they be able to use the river as a navigation aid, letting them know which way was upstream toward her camp, but if a search party from her dig was out on the water, she needed to be able to signal them.

  She knew Jacie and the others would organize a search party. Yet even if someone had witnessed her being pushed into the river and convinced the supply boat captain to follow immediately, the current would have quickly carried her out of sight.

  “Susana?” Kai prodded, making her realize he’d been speaking to her. “You okay?”

  She shrugged. “Just thinking about my crew. They’ve got to be worried sick. When they don’t find me, they’re going to think I’m dead. Or that I’ve been kidnapped by the person who’s been trying to shut the dig down.”

  “You mentioned something about that before. Tell me what’s been going on.”

  She shoved aside a hanging vine before it slapped her in the eye. As concisely as possible, she told him about the property damage and the threatening notes.

  “It has to be the same person who knocked me into the river,” she concluded.

  “No,” Kai said. “The person behind the threats targeted the entire dig, not just you. Having you disappear into the river won’t make the others go home, will it?”

  Susana hesitated. “Not right away. They’ll stay and search for me. Then most of them will probably stick around and work until the first scheduled break. But after that?” She shrugged. “The funding comes through my contract with the Adventure Channel. I don’t know if the producers care enough about the site itself to finish excavation.”

  “Right. So if someone wanted the site closed, he or she had to force all of your staff to leave. But the mercenaries only needed your abdomen in order to retrieve the chip, and the tracking device gave them an easy way to locate you.”

  Susana flinched. God, it made her sound like a thing instead of a person. “But…that means there’s one person in camp in league with the mercenaries. Plus a second person vandalizing the site?”

  “Most likely.”

  “Damn. I can’t believe one of my crew is involved. It makes no sense.”

  “How well do you know them?”

  “Most of them have been with me for years. I trust them absolutely. I like to have consistency. And that’s particularly important after my deal with the Adventure Channel. Viewers want to see the same people on each show. It gives them a better chance to identify with us.” She’d much rather think of a stranger hiding in the jungle, coming out only to wreak havoc, than to think one of her crew hated her enough to conspire to have her killed.

  She glanced back in time to see Kai raise his eyebrows in disbelief.

  “It’s not one of them,” she insisted. “I trust them with my life. Out in the jungle, you have to know and trust your crew. They’re all the support you have.”

  “Just like you trusted Elena Dominguez?”

  Susana planted her feet and spun around. “How do you know about that?”

  “Background report.”

  Susana narrowed her eyes, hating that she couldn’t get beyond her past. “That was five years ago. And Elena and I only worked together on that one dig. Yes, she betrayed me. But I didn’t have the level of trust in her that I do with my crew.”

  Kai just shrugged. The cynical, almost pitying look in his eyes made her want to shake him. Instead, she muttered a string of curses and turned her attention to the path she was clearing.

  Elena had been an average archaeologist. Not as smart or lucky as some, but she’d had some minor successes. Unfortunately, she’d resented Susana’s assignment to spearhead a large dig. When valuable artifacts went missing from the site, Elena had accused Susana of selling them on the black market. Even after Susana was proven innocent, it took years to restore her reputation. Her contract with the Adventure Channel had restored her credibility with the public, but plenty of her colleagues still saw her either as a brainless bimbo who’d been falsely credited with successes that rightly belonged to the men she’d worked with, or considered her a fortune hunter.

  Susana knew she was lucky to have a crew that believed in her one hundred percent. She didn’t care what Kai suggested. He wasn’t going to seed her mind with suspicion. Maybe Kai didn’t understand the idea of trust and loyalty, but she did. Her crew was her family far more than her mother had ever been.

  She trusted them.

  Several hours later they stopped for a break by a small stream.

  “Let me check your bandages,” Kai said. He dumped the packs on the ground and turned to face Susana.

  She nodded and started to unbutton her shirt. Her finger slipped the first button out of its hole. Then some change in the air made her pause and look up.

  Kai stood in front of her. His head was lowered, eyes transfixed on her hands where they hovered above the next button.

  Her heart stuttered. The thick, humid air grew even heavier, sexual tension clinging to every damp molecule.

  And suddenly it felt like she was performing a striptease.

  Slowly, hands unsteady, she undid the second button. God, she felt as nervous as she had the first time she’d posed for the camera, back when she was thirteen. The photographer had asked her to undo the very top button on her blouse, the one holding the fabric together under her chin. Unused to having a roomful of strangers watching her, she’d been unable to work the button free because her hands were shaking so badly.

  Much as they were now.

  No more than two inches of skin showed, but she felt exposed. It was ridiculous. She’d modeled for over ten years, changing clothes countless times in front of total strangers. Posing nude a time or two.

  And she’d stripped for lovers.

  But somehow, with Kai still standing a good three feet away and him not even meeting her eyes, she felt the power of her own sexuality like never before. She was filthy, sweaty and bloody, and she’d have sworn her body was too exhausted to feel desire. Yet every nerve was deliriously awake.

  She needed to undo one more button in order to expose the bandage on her back. Watching Kai’s head, she slipped the button free one millimeter at a tim
e.

  With a delicate shrug of her shoulders the fabric fell back, exposing her collarbones.

  Kai sucked in a breath and finally looked up.

  Oh, God. She’d never seen such a look before. Here was desire at its most elemental…wild and pure. Turning his eyes into pools of molten gold that sucked her under.

  An answering heat flared to life in her veins.

  She stared, feeling both trapped and free. Vulnerable and strong. A shiver skittered across her skin, raising goose bumps. Anticipation? Or fear?

  The breath in her lungs evaporated.

  She waited for Kai to do something. Step forward. Touch her. Kiss her.

  Not sure if she would welcome him or flee into the safety of the woods, but knowing that she needed him to act. Needed him to break this delicious, maddening tension.

  Instead, Kai flinched. The fire in his eyes disappeared as if doused by ice water, switching him from an aroused male ready to pounce, to a cool stranger. His eyes swept over her once, impersonally, then he spun away from her, like he couldn’t bear looking at her another moment.

  Susana glared at his back. What was that all about? She’d never seen a man change expressions so quickly, and she’d known quite a few excellent actors.

  “I’ll check your bandages later,” Kai threw back over his shoulder. His voice was so hard, if she hadn’t witnessed it herself, she’d never have believed that a moment ago he’d wanted to jump her.

  He grabbed a canteen and headed upstream. “When I get back, we’re moving out.”

  “To hell with you,” she called after his retreating back. She was childishly pleased to note his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides as he walked away.

  She shivered and hitched up her shirt.

  What on earth had he seen in her eyes to make him flee? Okay, she’d been stunned, and a little frightened by his look, but also turned on. Had he somehow missed that last bit? Had he run away because he thought she didn’t want him?

  Stupid man.

  But no…the look he’d shot her before he turned his back on her had been unfriendly. Maybe he didn’t want to want her.

  Maybe he couldn’t wait to get out of the jungle and away from her and the trouble that was after her. “Cowardly bastard,” she muttered.

  Truth was, it didn’t matter why. Kai didn’t want her. Fine.

  She would just forget the whole thing. Pretend that the heat had been her imagination.

  She jammed a button through its hole.

  Really. He hadn’t even kissed her. How hard could this be?

  Chapter 8

  Sunday, Afternoon

  Santarém, Brazil

  “Your man Tonelli was in Santarém, not Belém.” The agent’s voice crackled over the satellite connection. “Knew we were coming, too. Bastard snuck out of his hotel. Our point man saw him take a taxi toward the docks, so we gave chase. The taxi driver was good, though. We knocked the vehicle off the road, but he got it back under control and got away from us.”

  Jamieson let his silence communicate his rage. Cursing was so uncouth. “Find him,” he ordered after a sufficient amount of time had passed.

  There was only one reason Tonelli would run. He’d lost Dias.

  Jamieson wasn’t giving the man any more chances. “The job has changed. Don’t just scare Tonelli. Eliminate him.”

  “You need proof?”

  “Yes. Full body. Don’t bother me again until it’s done.” Jamieson replaced the receiver in its cradle. Had Tonelli run to Paterson and the SSU for help? Or was he going after Dias and the chip on his own?

  Jamieson sighed. He’d had big hopes for the man. No matter. Kaufmann’s team was ready. They’d take care of finding the chip.

  Amazon Jungle

  Thank God, Susana wasn’t speaking to him. Because Kai didn’t want to talk about that supercharged look they’d shared. Hell, he still hadn’t recovered. He’d been walking around half hard for the past two hours.

  Susana had no idea how close he’d come to pouncing on her. She’d met his eyes almost shyly, and his primitive instincts had exploded, ready to devour her. To claim her as his mate.

  He’d wanted his mouth against hers. His tongue on her skin. Her body flush against his.

  The need hit him so fast, with such animal ferocity, he’d almost lost control. But then he’d realized she was frozen, in what appeared to be fear, and his desire vanished. He’d been terrified that Susana had seen some of the violence swirling inside him and hadn’t felt safe.

  Hell he’d scared himself with the surge of uncharacteristic possessiveness he’d felt. Even now his instincts screamed mine when he thought of Susana.

  Damn jungle. He had to get out of here. He rolled his shoulders, ignoring the familiar throb from where the bone had been dislocated during torture intended to get him to reveal the location of the chip.

  Kai placed his hand on the branch Susana had held back for him, but made sure he didn’t meet her eyes or touch her. Until he knew that this gut-wrenching, got-to-have-this-particular-woman-now-or-I’ll-die feeling toward Susana wasn’t part of the aftermath of killing the mercenaries, he didn’t dare touch her. She deserved better than that.

  He bit his tongue, forcing back the urge to apologize for scaring her with his raw need. For having to cut into her to remove the tracking device. For killing the mercenaries in front of her.

  Useless words.

  Up ahead, Susana stomped down the path she was forging, leaving a thick wake of anger behind her. Good. Let her stay mad. That was better than the flash of hurt he’d seen on her face just before he’d turned his back on her.

  Silence was better than questions he couldn’t answer.

  As he lengthened his steps to catch up with her, he caught a whiff of her scent. Need twisted through his belly. He swallowed heavily and focused on placing one foot rapidly in front of the other. Just a few more days of ignoring his attraction to her and they’d be at her camp.

  A few more days of keeping his hands to himself. Of doing everything in his power to make sure Susana kept her emotional distance so he wouldn’t be tempted to give in to this mess of need swirling inside him.

  Once they reached her camp he’d get on the radio and call for an extraction.

  And the temptation of Susana would be taken out of his hands.

  Sunday, Evening

  Washington, D.C.

  The director of the SSU snatched up his personal cell phone on the fifth ring. “Ryker.”

  “Rafe’s been compromised,” Niko Andros said, his voice crackling with fear.

  “Details?” Ryker fired his damp gym towel at the nearest flat surface and watched it land on his scarred cherry credenza, narrowly missing a classified government file.

  “I don’t know much. Kaufmann’s security was waiting for his team. Some of them are dead. Rafe—” Niko’s voice choked off.

  Ryker waited for Niko to get control.

  “Rafe was injected with Kaufmann’s drugs. Put through the mind control program…” Niko took a deep breath. “His mission is to kill Kai and Susana Dias, then retrieve the chip. He called me from New York City. He—”

  Another crack in Niko’s usually steady voice, but Ryker couldn’t blame him. So far, no one had survived these drugs.

  “Rafe…doesn’t have many moments of clarity,” Niko continued. “He’s already experiencing headaches.”

  Ryker strode over to the battered nineteenth century globe resting in the corner of his office. According to Dr. Gabrielle Montague, the woman who’d fled from Kaufmann’s lab, Kaufmann’s subjects experienced headaches only after approaching Level 3, which typically occurred at week eleven. It usually took three to four weeks for a subject to achieve Level 1 status, the most optimal stage of the progression. One month after reaching Level 1 the subjects would start deteriorating into Level 2. When they reached Level 5, their internal organs failed and the subjects died. Since Rafe had only disappeared slightly over seven weeks ago, something must h
ave changed in Kaufmann’s formula to accelerate Rafe toward Level 3 so quickly.

  And it meant Rafe likely didn’t have the full three months before his mind and body self-destructed.

  Ryker spun the globe and watched the continents fly past. He’d sent a recovery team in after Rafe’s first missed report, but the lab had burned to the ground. There’d been no trail to follow and the subdermal tracking devices in Rafe and his men had gone dark, suggesting they were either alive and underground. Or dead.

  Ryker allowed himself a moment of relief that Rafe was alive, before demanding, “He specifically mentioned Dias?”

  “Yes.”

  Ryker swore softly, turned away from the globe, and started pacing back and forth across the office. He hadn’t given Dias’s name to Rafe for precisely this reason. If captured, he wouldn’t be able to tip the enemy off about Nevsky’s daughter.

  Which meant the spy within the SSU was more dangerous than Ryker thought. Or maybe there was more than one spy. He could name several government and private security organizations that wanted the SSU to fail.

  On his next pass in front of the credenza, Ryker snatched up his towel and finished drying the remaining sweat from his neck and back. The loose, energetic feeling he’d gotten from sparring with his sensei faded.

  Ryker snapped the towel against his leg. The spy had discovered not only the name of Nevsky’s daughter, but also learned about Rafe’s mission to investigate Kaufmann’s lab.

  Since Mark Tonelli had been present when Niko learned that Nevsky had a daughter, then unnamed, it was possible Tonelli or his CIA colleagues had done their own research, discovered Dias’s name, and let it slip to someone who was associated with Kaufmann’s lab.

  But only a select few within the SSU had been aware of Rafe’s mission. That made the search for the spy a little easier.

  “We’ve tried to raise Kai on his sat phone,” Niko said. “No answer. When’s the last time he checked in?”