His Toughest Call Read online

  Leah’s tears disappeared and he saw something spark in her eyes. Desire, maybe? Whatever it was, it was followed by doubt. And confusion, bucketloads of confusion.

  Wanting to give her something else to think about but also because he’d always wanted to taste her, Seth dropped his head and swiped his mouth over her lips. He felt her shock and waited for her to pull back, to slap his face, to tear a verbal strip off him.

  When she did neither, Seth pulled his mouth off hers and bent his head so their eyes were level. “Your husband is an effing idiot and I’m going to show you exactly how sexy you are.”

  Seth didn’t give her time to respond; he slammed his mouth on hers and hoped his kiss conveyed that she was all woman, sexy as hell, utterly perfect. His hands traced the cord down the side of her neck and slipped under the fabric of his jacket to trace her collarbone, down her chest. His tongue tangled with hers, long, slow, sexy swipes that had his head reeling. She was heat and fire and passion and he felt the walls of the jail cell disappear. He could only think of Leah; he loved her spicy, decadent mouth and marveled over the fact that her perfect skin was so smooth, so silky, so girly. Seth nibbled his way across her jaw, pulled her delicate earlobe into his mouth and smiled when she shuddered.

  “You are all woman, soft and gorgeous and so very sexy.” Seth growled in her ear. He dragged a finger down her breast and felt her nipple pucker. He wished he could pull her bodice down and taste her, but swiftly reminded himself that kissing her in a squalid jail cell was one thing, he couldn’t take this any further.

  If they weren’t sitting behind bars, he could seduce her into making love, but he knew that he would be taking advantage of her broken heart, her need for attention. Besides, should he ever be that lucky to take Leah to bed he wanted her to want him, to be thinking of him and only him. He wasn’t any woman’s panacea for pain.

  Seth lifted his hand to cradle her cheek and his fingers pushed past her hairline, and soft, fragrant curls fell over his knuckles.

  “Leah, look at me.” Seth commanded and when her eyes met his, he spoke again. “This isn’t about you, about how hot or sexy or attractive you are. This isn’t about how loving you are or how good you are in bed. This is about the fact he is a tool who needs his face rearranged.” Seth’s thumb gently stroked her cheekbone. “You are gorgeous, incredibly, breathtakingly hot. If you don’t remember anything else I said tonight, remember that.”

  Leah pulled her bottom lip between her teeth as she nodded.

  “He treated you like crap, Leah. When this passes and he wants to talk, don’t forget that,” Seth said, his tone low but insistent.

  “Okay,” Leah agreed.

  “You won’t allow him to talk his way out of it?”

  “No.”

  “Halcott! Hamilton-Green!”

  Seth snapped his head up at the yell and the sound of boots hitting cement suggested someone was walking towards their cell. Seth moved away from Leah and winked at her as he slouched against the wall, his face insouciant.

  A big policeman approached the bars, his blue shirt stretched across his enormous belly. “Charges against both of you have been dropped. You’re free to go,” He said, unlocking the cell door and pushing it open.

  Seth stood up and, as he held out his hand to Leah to help her up, he saw Jed and McKenna approach the cell, both worried. McKenna rushed into the cell and pulled Leah into her arms. Leah, as expected, burst into tears. Thunderclouds appeared in Jed’s eyes.

  “Your brother-in-law desperately needs a come-to-Jesus talk.” Seth told him.

  Jed looked at his wife and sister and nodded. When he looked at Seth, he was wearing his I-want-to-kill-someone expression. “I’m on it.”

  Seth clapped him on the shoulder as he walked past him. “Yeah, so am I.”

  “What the hell do you mean we can’t trace that email?”

  Seth slammed his hands onto his hips and looked up at the high ceiling of his incident room, searching for the calm and the patience he was reputed to have. He looked down at the still swollen fingers on his hand and grimaced; it seemed as though he’d left those two traits as well as his mind back in Cape Town when he left two weeks before. His eyes were watching Cracker’s hands dance across the keyboard but on his mental big screen another set of images flashed—Leah, touching her top lip with the pink tip of her tongue after he kissed her, her wedding hair mussed from his hands. The desire in her blue eyes, the confusion. The fear on Heath Green’s face when he placed his forearm across his throat and lifted him onto his toes, the ache in his hand after he plowed his fist into the dry wall an inch to the left of asshat’s eye, seeing Leah sitting on a lounger on her verandah, her arms around her knees, tears running down her face. It had taken everything he had to say goodbye, to walk away from her.

  Seth scrubbed his hands over his face and told himself to concentrate. He was back in New York, was back at work, and he needed to focus. Leah would be okay... she just needed time.

  Cracker’s blond dreadlocks bounced as he monitored the reams of code running across his screen. Cracker was his most creative hacker, and if he was having trouble pinning down the IP address of the computer The Recruiter’s latest taunting email was sent from, then the rest of his hackers—all ten of them—didn’t have a chance.

  Crap!

  When Cracker shook his head and leaned back in his chair, Seth muttered a string of long and creative curses.

  “Sorry, boss,” Cracker muttered.

  Seth laid a hand on his shoulder to reassure the young man—God, was he even twenty yet?—that he wasn’t upset with him. He was just deeply pissed off that a scumbag was running around the world, selling his services as a recruiter for any cult who could pay him his enormous fee. As someone who’d grown up in a cult-like commune, who’d escaped the rigid, crazy world—the notion of someone actively recruiting members, usually teenagers, to join organizations for a financial reward was even more despicable than the cults themselves.

  And any group or individual who twisted the tenets of various religions to suit their own egotistical agenda were fucking despicable indeed.

  Seth felt a presence beside him and looked sideways at Smith Stone, a philanthropist billionaire and the president of Pytheon International, a non-cult-like organization whose sole purpose was to right the wrongs that governments, the military, and police organizations couldn’t. Sometimes that meant fudging the rules, coloring outside the lines, using a lot of coercion, threats and, yeah, sometimes that meant annihilation. Of a structure, of a bank account and, very infrequently, a person.

  Like him, Stone was prepared to make the hard decisions, to issue the order. They both understood that playing by the rules didn’t work in certain circumstances and they needed to be creative to get the job done.

  And they always, always got the job done.

  The Recruiter was at the top of Seth’s shoot first, talk later list.

  “What are we working on?” Stone demanded, his deep voice holding a hint of command.

  Just a hint because, as Seth had told him before, he gave the orders in his incident room. They were both determined, driven alpha males, leaders of the pack and they frequently bumped heads but Seth trusted Stone. He respected Stone and he knew that the trust and respect was returned.

  Stone was, in fact, the closest he had to a friend now that Jed had married McKenna, retired from Pytheon and taken to sailing the high seas with McKenna and her daughter, Daisy.

  “Ismail Khan, super-wealthy and influential South Africa businessman, contacted us this morning. He’s a moderate Muslim, and heads a foundation that is world-renowned for humanitarian efforts around the world. Very well respected...” Seth nodded to Cracker and pictures appeared on the large monitor that covered most of the wall. “Wife, Fatima, sons Muhammad—currently studying in London—and Fayed. Daughter Sadiyah.”

  Stone crossed his arms and watched the pictures fly across the wall. “What’s the problem?”

  “Fayed
has disappeared. Packed up, swiped some cash from his mother, caught the bus for school but never arrived,” Seth answered.

  “And why have we been contacted?” Stone asked, shoving his hands into the pockets of his suit pants.

  “He’s wealthy, he’s connected, and he thinks his son has been radicalized. He wants us to find him.”

  They’d tracked a few kids who’d joined radical Islamic sects across the Middle East. Some they’d managed to return to their parents before they were fully indoctrinated, never to be heard from again. Some they lost. It was too soon to speculate on what Fayed’s fate would be. All Seth knew was that he’d do his best to get Fayed home.

  “And what organization do we think he’s joined?” Stone asked.

  Seth shrugged. “Hard to tell as yet. The kid is an amateur hacker; pretty good if the father is to be believed. It might be that cell we’ve heard rumors about, an internet-based organization that uses vulnerable and disenfranchised teenagers to hack systems, organizations. It’s cyber terrorism. They are exceptionally well-funded, very computer savvy, and are open to using any means to recruit new members to join the cause.”

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” Stone said, narrowing his dark eyes. “And why do you have an image of The Recruiter up on the screen? Do you think he’s involved?”

  Seth leaned over Cracker and brought up the message they’d been trying to trace. “We received this ten minutes ago.”

  “The Recruiter many, Halcott none.” Stone read the words. His eyes narrowed on the screen. “The asswipe is taunting you now? By sending you a photo of Fayed?”

  “Yeah, I’ve become part of the game.” Seth frowned at the image of the teen on the large screen. The kid was tall and gangly and had the beginnings of a mustache. His dark eyes blazed with intelligence. “He’s taunting me, wanting us to think that he’s omnipotent, that he can take kids from anywhere in the world, that he’s untouchable.”

  “Big ego.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Seth agreed. “Hopefully his hubris will cause him to make a mistake.”

  Seth stared at the screen, mulling over the facts. He was going to nail this fucker if it was the last thing he did. “You want to play, dickhead? I’m your guy,” he stated before turning his attention back to Stone. “I’m going to go to Cape Town, and I’m going to nail his balls to the nearest wall.”

  Stone rubbed his chin. “I really need to explain to you, again, the concept of what working for a boss entails, Halcott.”

  “I’m going, Stone.”

  “We’re short of agents, I need you here,” Stone argued.

  “Tough.” Seth ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Hire more people, Stone.”

  “I’m going through the applications right now; hopefully I’ll have a couple of candidates to add to the payroll soon,” Stone replied.

  Seth nodded and his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. “I’m not discussing this, Stone.” Seth reiterated, pulling out his phone. Seeing that it was Jed, via a satellite phone, he turned the screen to show Stone who was calling before putting the phone to his ear.

  Jed sounded a million miles away, which he, sort of, was. Seth nodded to Cracker, who immediately tracked the signal of Jed’s phone. They were fifty nautical miles south of the Cook Islands and within seconds Cracker had the latest picture of his yacht taken by one of the many satellites orbiting earth. Seth had never asked Cracker how he hacked into satellites and wasn’t sure if he needed to know. He was just grateful for Cracker’s skills and he grinned at the picture of the yacht taken yesterday morning that Cracker put up on the big screen. Daisy, five years old, was fishing off the stern and Mac was sitting next to her. McKenna was reading a book and all seemed well with their world.

  Poor guy; sexy wife, cute kid, tropical seas, and sunshine.

  “What’s up?” Seth asked.

  The connection via the sat phone was scratchy and Seth could only hear the third of every word Jed spoke.

  “Leah said...scratch scratch...tell you...said she met... scratch, scratch...sounds fishy.”

  “I can’t hear you, dude.”

  “Call Leah...explain...Signal weak... Keep...eye on us.”

  Yeah, Jed knew Seth could track him and was happy for him to do it. Jed, like him, knew that a pretty location and warm weather didn’t mean trouble was also on vacation. He’d been an operative long enough and knew Pytheon routinely used satellite images, illegally acquired, on many ops.

  “Tell Mac not to sunbathe nude on the deck.” Seth teased him.

  “Not... first rodeo...Call Leah, important.”

  The call dropped and Seth frowned. From Jed’s garbled message he heard the three of them—Jed, McKenna and Daisy—were fine but there seemed to be something up Jed’s sister, Leah. Jed’s very sexy sister, Leah. She of the sexy toes and the ultra-brief marriage.

  Seth ignored Stone’s inquiring face and held up his hand to ward off his questions. He swiped his thumb over the screen of his encrypted smart phone and scrolled through his contacts. When he pushed the green icon to dial Leah Hamilton his heart, to his annoyance, bounced off his ribs.

  Leah answered within two rings, her voice polite and businesslike. “Leah Hamilton, how can I help you?”

  Since his number could not be traced, Seth introduced himself and he heard her suck in a deep breath. “Jed, McKenna—”

  “They’re fine, Leah.” Seth hastened to assure her. “I spoke to Jed a minute ago but the connection was really bad. I think he was trying to tell me that I should call you.”

  “That’s a relief,” Leah replied. “Well, I spoke to him a couple of days ago, McKenna is doing well, she felt had a bit of morning sickness but seems to be over it now.”

  Oh, yeah, his best friends were pregnant. He was happy for them but it wasn’t something he could see in his future. Kids? Hell, no, he knew what could happen to them. Love, of a wife, of a family, wasn’t on his agenda. He’d learned a very long time ago that the more he loved—valued—the more there was to lose. When what he valued was removed, the pain could be devastating and he’d planned to avoid it if he could.

  “They are leaving the Cook Islands and are sailing towards New Zealand.”

  Seth heard the false note of cheeriness in Leah’s voice and wondered how she was doing. He thought he should ask but he couldn’t find the words. Are you okay? Have you seen a lawyer? Do you think about that super-hot kiss we shared two weeks ago?

  Seth shook his head, needing all his willpower not to show just how much that memory, and her sexy voice, affected him. “So, what did Jed want you to tell me?”

  “Oh, that... I met your dad. He was visiting Cape Town and he came by my office, told me that you and Jed had told him to look me up if he ever got to the city.”

  Not sure if he’d heard her properly, Seth forced the words through his constricted throat. “Sorry, who did you say came to your offices?”

  “Your dad, Ben Halcott.”

  That was what he’d thought she’d said, but that wasn’t possible.

  Seth told Leah to hold on and dropped his phone to hold it against his pants leg. He was sure someone was playing a sick joke on him and that Leah had her wires crossed but he always covered all his bases. His first instinct was to make sure his mom was safe. He tapped Cracker’s shoulder. “Check the GPS in my mom’s phone. Use whatever excuse you come up with to double-check what the GPS says. I want to know where she is, exactly.”

  Cracker nodded and whipped around to face his screen. Stone just folded his arms across his chest and lifted his eyebrows at Seth as he raised the phone back up to his ear. “I’m back,” Seth said, his voice even. This was a bad joke, it had to be. “Can you describe him?”

  “Add thirty years onto your face and that’s what he looked like,” Leah replied. “I took a selfie of us...I meant to send it to Jed to send to you but...with everything else... I forgot.”

  “You have a picture of him?” Dear God, she had an image?

  Excel
lent! Yet his cynical side issued a quick warning—a picture and an easy identification was too damn easy and he smelled a dozen rats. What was this guy’s game? What was this message, what was he trying to say? Why Cape Town, why Leah?

  “I can send it to you if you want,” Leah said. “But you need to give me your number. It didn’t come up on my screen.”

  “Send it to my email address.”

  “Leah, I’ll get back to you,” Seth muttered when she was done taking his details and winced when he heard how abrupt he sounded. It couldn’t be helped. He was abrupt and this was important. Besides, explanations weren’t his thing.

  “Your mom is at work,” Crackersaid, replacing the handset of his phone.

  “You spoke to her?”

  “Yeah, I –”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Seth whipped back. “Access my inbox, Cracker.”

  Cracker flicked a glance between to Stone and back to Seth. “I don’t think I can—”

  “Cut the crap.” Seth barked. “If you can hack into defense satellites, you can hack into our inboxes. Do it.”

  Cracker winced but in ten seconds Seth’s Inbox was displayed on the screen. “Open the latest email, the one from Leah Hamilton. Open the attachment.”

  A photograph appeared on the screen and Seth took ten seconds to look at Leah. Long, curly hair held back by her designer shades, blue eyes dim with sadness. She’d been cheated on during her wedding night two weeks ago, what did you expect? She wore a bright red sundress and her lipstick matched her dress—an obvious attempt to look cheerful even if she didn’t feel it—and she took his breath away.

  No time to think about the girl. Seth forced himself to look at the photo of the man standing next to Leah. He towered over her, big and broad compared to her petite frame. Leah was right. He did look a little like him. Nut brown hair flecked with gray, green eyes. A thin mouth slow to smile, the same rangy, naturally broad-shouldered, slim-hipped build.