Elite Ops: Black Jack Part 5

"I think we need to plan for when all h.e.l.l breaks loose," Travis grunted as a limo drew to a stop in front of the two women.

The chauffeur jumped out, and Travis couldn't help the amused twitch of his lips. He had to admit, Wild Card made a h.e.l.l of a chauffeur.

"Looks slick in that perky little hat, huh?" Nik said. "Maybe we should send pictures to his wife."

Travis snickered at the thought. Wild Card's wife was a h.e.l.l of a woman; he had no doubt she wouldn't ooh and aah over how cute she thought he looked. It was enough to make a single man shudder in fear. Or in envy.

"Save the pictures," Travis advised him. "Maybe we could throw darts at them instead."

Nik's amused grunt was a rough, broken sound, part amus.e.m.e.nt, part mockery. The man never laughed. He rarely smiled. But h.e.l.l, Travis couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed himself.

"So what are we putting in our report to Live Wire?" Nik asked him as Wild Card helped Lilly and Angelica into the car.

What was he putting in his report to Jordan?

"She's viable," he stated.

"Really?" The skepticism in Nik's voice wasn't lost on Travis. "That's not how I saw things, Black Jack."

"Do you intend to report differently?" As the limo pulled away, Travis turned back to the mountain they now called Renegade.

Nik was the only one of the team that seemed to change code names like underwear. Jordan couldn't seem to make his mind up about the big, blond-haired giant.

"Not me." Nik shook his head firmly as he glanced back at Travis. "If I were you, I'd talk to Wild Card, though." He nodded in the direction the limo had taken. "Make sure he has the same report. Because I'm betting viable' isn't the word he would choose either."

But it was the one he would use in his report, Travis promised himself. He'd talk to Wild Card. Tonight, he'd meet with Night Hawk. The game was about to begin. That meant "viable" had to be the word they all used. Or Night Hawk would pay the price.

Under no circ.u.mstances could the Elite Ops be revealed. The damage it could cause, the danger it could represent to them all, was too high.

If Lilly wasn't considered viable and an a.s.set to the operation, then she was a risk. And all risks had to be eliminated.

Immediately.

Chapter 3.

lilly had thought there would be no way to find a motorcycle she hadn't even known she owned. The idea of it intrigued her, though. The thought of riding wild and free with nothing but the wind surrounding her filled her with a sense of heady excitement.

Finding the d.a.m.ned thing would be the hard part. Or so she had thought.

Lilly didn't have memories of the past six years, but she had a strong sense of intuition.

As she rode through Hagerstown in the rented cab, her gaze narrowed on street signs and buildings, Lilly found herself pulling free bits of memory. She could remember riding through town in the dark, but she didn't remember why.

A certain street sign snagged a memory and she had the driver turn. A building pulled at a memory, a sense of familiarity struck her at an intersection, and soon she had the driver stopping in front of a lot filled with storage units.

She stared at the long lines of blue and white units. A flashback tore through her mind, causing a sudden shaft of pain to seize her temples.

It was here. She knew the unit number and the code to the lock. Her temples throbbed with pain, but she knew. The memory of it was there, a little hazy, but present.

Paying the driver, Lilly left the car and entered the lot, walking quickly to the farthest line of units. She could feel the security cameras trained on her as she kept her face turned carefully from them.

The storage unit she moved to was a simple ten by ten with a combination key and digital code lock.

Lilly bent to the edge of the bottom frame, moving aside the thick layer of gravel carefully until she revealed the cement pad beneath the unit. There, a small depression had been hollowed out of the cement. The key rested there, wrapped in a protective, heavy plastic case.

Within seconds she had the unit unlocked and the key returned to its resting place.

Opening the door slowly, Lilly reached in, flipped the light on, and entered the unit as she closed the door behind her.

There was more than a motorcycle sitting there. Lilly felt her throat tighten, her heart racing out of control. Perspiration dotted her forehead, and for a moment she swore she would become ill. On one wall a series of shelves had been hung. A wide black case sat in the middle of the shelf, surrounded by smaller ones.

Stepping to it, she opened it carefully, her breath catching at the sight of the weapon packed carefully in black foam.

A sniper rifle. It was broken down, well oiled, and shining in the dim light. Reaching out to touch it with trembling fingers, Lilly fought back the realization that she had used it, more than once.

Moving to the smaller cases, she found handguns, and knew somehow that they were modified and highly illegal. There were empty clips and cases of ammunition.

There were clothes, maps, files that Lilly scanned as fear stole her breath.

What in the h.e.l.l had she been involved in?

Shaking, she pulled a leather bag from a small cabinet and packed clothes, a Glock, ammunition, and several knives inside.

Storing the bag in the back compartment of the motorcycle, Lilly turned to the remainder of the clothes.

She dressed quickly in leather pants, t-shirt, and jacket. Flat leather boots pulled above the knee, and she found the key to the cycle hanging in the ignition.

Fear was ever present, but so was excitement. It pounded inside her, raced through her bloodstream, and sent adrenaline flying through her system.

She didn't remember who she had been.

She didn't remember what she had been.

But maybe those memories were now growing stronger, moving closer, and were almost within reach.

Friendly's Sports Bar sat in the perfect location for a.s.signations such as the one Travis had set up with his favorite former Elite Ops counterpart.

It sat on a corner. Across the street were an a.s.sortment of closely built inner-city brick houses that served as apartments, homes, and offices.

Franklin Street was a busy area, especially on a Friday night, which allowed for greater anonymity, as well as plenty of traffic, both by vehicle and by foot, which could be used as a distraction as the other agents positioned themselves to watch every corner of the tavern.

They wanted to know who was following Lilly, how she was being followed, and who they could be traced back to.

Sitting at the bar, Travis nursed a beer, his gaze trained on the side entrance of the building from the short end of the L-shaped bar. At the other corner, Nik sat sideways on a bar stool as the red-haired Tehya, one of the team's communications experts, sat beside him and flirted outrageously.

Farther down the bar Clint McIntyre, a former Navy SEAL and now part of the Elite Ops independent backup team, sat with his wife and tried playing the drunken male on the make while his wife, Morganna, her long dark hair pulled back in a braid, pretended not to be amused.

The rest of the team, backup as well as the agents, were positioned outside along with Jordan and Santos Bahre, one of Lilly's commanders.

"She's not showing." Santos's voice came through the tiny ea.r.s.et that linked communications between the agents and the commanders. "I warned you she wasn't this predictable."

Travis glanced around the bar.

"She's here." She'd been here for a while, he suspected. He could feel her watching, those green eyes narrowed on him as she waited to see what he'd do.

"Doubtful." Reno Chavez, commander of the backup team that had been with the Ops for years, now spoke into the link. "Macey and I both have the entrances covered. There's no way she slipped in there without us knowing it."

There was a way. Lilly always found a way.

Travis pushed back the warm beer he had been nursing and made to rise when he felt the small hand that pressed between his shoulder blades, indicating he should remain in place.

Settling back on the stool, he turned his head, restrained his smile, and watched as Lilly slid onto the bar stool that had been vacated beside him.

"I didn't think you were going to show." He motioned for the bartender to take her order.

Waving the man away, Lilly turned back to him, her gaze suspicious as she watched him closely.

She was wearing her riding leathers. Leather pants, boots, a short jacket, and a black silk shirt that bared her midriff if she moved just the right way.

"Neither did I." Her green eyes were dark in the shadows. "Tell me who you are and what do you have to do with me?"

There was something about him, something familiar, something she couldn't put her finger on. She should know him, but she couldn't remember him. She couldn't remember meeting him.

But her body seemed to know him. Each time she had seen him, this morning as well as tonight, her body had responded with heated warmth and that familiar sense of remembrance.

This man had touched her, he had kissed her. Her body remembered it and she ached for more. That ache had followed her through the day, the remembered feel of his body behind her, at the store, impossible to recover from.

"I've had many things to do with you." His smile was rakish, his brown eyes filled with s.e.xual knowledge. A s.e.xual knowledge of her.

Lilly looked up at the bartender as he set a cold beer in front of her.

"Good to see you back, Lilly." The grizzled bartender gave a wide smile and a wink. "I see your friend found you."

"That he did." She lifted the beer to her lips and took a long, cold drink.

The bartender moved away, leaving her with the man watching her now. She didn't even know his name.

"Travis Caine," he whispered at her ear as though reading her thoughts. "In case you were wondering."

She was doing more than wondering. It had been driving her crazy not knowing even that sc.r.a.p of information. "I know your name then," she said quietly. "Who are you to me?"

"We met six years ago," he told her. "We've run together at odd times since."

Lilly pushed the fingers of one hand through her hair.

"We traveled together then?" Her heart was racing, her lungs starved for oxygen as she fought not to breathe too hard.

He nodded and Lilly tipped the beer to her lips, and finished it quickly before setting it rather hard on the bar and flicking her fingers at the bartender to the empty bottle.

He'd obviously been watching for her. Within seconds there was another bottle in front of her. She wondered what tip she usually left him for such excellent service.

She finished half the beer, set the bottle on the bar, then glanced back at Travis.

"I fight?" she whispered back at him.

"Rather well." He gave her a strange half smile. Strange, because she felt she should know what that smile meant.

"What did I do when I fought?" she asked him. "Did I kill?"

She knew she had. She rubbed her finger and thumb together, knowing her fingerprints weren't there any longer and they weren't there for a reason.

"You don't remember anything about the past six years then?" he asked as he turned more fully to her, the backs of his fingers stroking down her lower arm.

Did she remember anything?

She remembered her nightmares. They were filled with pain, rage, and fear. She remembered a sense of drowning, of icy water closing over her head as she fought to breathe.

She remembered a kiss, a touch and an underlying anger that made no sense.

She remembered the sharp retort of a gun, and then nothing.

"I don't remember anything." At least nothing that she was willing to discuss at the moment. Especially considering the fact she was presently being watched.

A long, slow turn of the stool seat gave her a clear view of the bar and within seconds she knew all she needed to know. A second later she was facing him once again.

"You have friends with you." She kept her voice low enough that it wouldn't carry to any listening device, unless he was wearing one himself.

She felt herself paling at the thought and dropped her head to stare at the beer. Where had that suspicion come from? How could she look around once and see so much, pinpoint those who were there for fun and those she knew were there to watch her?

When her gaze met his again, she saw a warning in his eyes. A warning that she not see any more, or say any more?

"There's no one with me," he finally replied. "But you."

Yeah, right, no one was there with him. He was lying to her and they both knew it. But he was also warning her. To protect her? What the h.e.l.l was going on here and what did this man want from her?

"Why am I here?" she asked him. "Are we going to talk or play games all night?"

"I rather enjoy playing with you." He grinned then.

"And I'm getting rather impatient." She got to her feet. "You want to talk, Mr. Caine, then you can come to me."