Dreya’s voice was so calm, it made him want to growl like Clayne so often did. You’d think the woman was surfing the Web while sitting at a table in one of her favorite Starbucks locations in Foggy Bottom instead of hacking into the computer of a senior partner at a law firm in Miami that only had one client—the Zeta drug cartel.
This had to be the most insane undercover job he’d ever been part of as a cop. It was also likely the most illegal thing he’d ever done as a cop. They had no warrant, no backup, and no real plan. Just him and Dreya breaking into the well-guarded office of the Martz Law Firm, looking for a list of U.S. federal attorneys targeted for assassination. It was an impossible task that would get one or both of them shot or arrested if they didn’t pull it off just right.
Somewhere, he could hear Tommy laughing his ass off at the irony of what Braden had become. A fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, make-it-up-as-you-go cop who ignored issues of questionable legalities and had a thief for a partner.
How the heck had he gotten himself here?
Here being inside a rental van full of expensive surveillance gear, parked on the street a mere few blocks down the street from an extremely nice high-rise office building with unobstructed views of Biscayne Bay and the Port of Miami. Thank God it was four o’clock in the morning, or this place would have been crawling with people. As it was, he figured they only had another hour at most before the suit-and-tie crowd started showing up for work. Hopefully, they’d be long gone before then.
If he could get Dreya to hurry up and get her sexy ass out of there.
He swallowed the urge to tell her to abort the mission, focusing instead on the monitor that was tied into the building’s security system—the one that showed the security guard moving around the thirtieth floor of the building, getting closer to Dreya with every passing second. She needed to hurry the hell up.
Braden looked from one monitor to the next. He had a bad feeling about this mission from the moment John had pulled him and Dreya into one of the conference rooms when they’d gotten back from the shoot house yesterday afternoon. Braden had been surprised either of them had been included in what was clearly an official briefing with a room full of DCO agents as well as both director and deputy director of the agency. He and Dreya weren’t even on the payroll.
“We have a major situation on our hands, and I’m clearing the benches for this one,” John had said without preamble. “A few days ago, our source in the Zeta drug cartel informed us that one of their rogue lieutenants was planning to make a move against one or more federal attorneys as a way to disrupt the ongoing trials involving his particular cartel members. We assumed they were going to target attorneys in Houston or Dallas, since that’s where their biggest players are being prosecuted, but an hour ago, we discovered we were wrong. Our source came through with significantly more information, specifically, the identity of approximately twenty cartel assassins who entered the United States this morning. They intend to take out a dozen targets, maybe more. The hits are going down sometime early tomorrow morning, and they’re synchronized to happen all across the country within minutes of each other.”
“If that isn’t bad enough,” Coleman added, “we don’t know where the cartel assassins are currently located or exactly which federal attorneys are being targeted.”
“Each of your teams is being given folders with everything we have on the killers,” John continued as a dark-haired guy with glasses handed out manila folders. He picked up the remote for the projector and clicked a button. Photos of men and women filled the screen at the front of the room. “These are the federal attorneys our analysts tell us are the most likely targets. You’ll find the names, addresses, and background information on the ones in the city where we’re sending you and your team.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t tell the Justice Department about any of this, because we don’t know how many people the cartel has on the inside,” Coleman said. “If the assassins get word that we’re on to them, they could disappear into the wind, move up their timetables, even go after alternate targets. We have to wait and take them down all at once before they know what hit them. It’s the only way to get them all.”
The guy in the glasses passed Braden and Dreya, handing a folder to Danica.
“Wait a minute,” Danica said as she scanned the papers in it. “John, there are seven names on the list you gave Clayne and me, and they’re scattered all over San Diego. There’s no way we’ll be able to cover all of them at once.”
“We need a better idea of who the real targets are, or we’re earning a lot of frequent flyer miles for nothing,” Clayne put in.
John’s mouth curved into a smile as he looked at Braden and Dreya. “That’s where our newest team comes in. Braden and Dreya get the most important city—Miami. That’s where the cartel’s stateside law firm is located. We’re hoping they’ll have a list of the real targets.”
“Why would a law firm have a list like that?” Braden asked.
He couldn’t believe John was serious. He and Dreya had been at the DCO for four days, not to mention partners for all of twenty-four hours.
John lifted a brow. “Who do you think decided which federal attorneys would make the best targets? They know which ones to kill to cripple every major federal case against the cartel. According to our source, the Martz Law Firm of Miami didn’t merely come up with the list but proposed the entire idea. Apparently, they’re coordinating the entire operation.”
“What do you want us to do?” Dreya asked.
“We need you and Braden to break into their offices and find the list of targets, then get the names to us in time to stop the assassinations.”
Sitting there in the van, Braden snorted at the memory. John had made it sound so simple.
He glanced at his watch, then at the monitors. Dreya had already been in there thirty minutes. If she didn’t find that list soon, she wouldn’t be the only one in trouble. There were going to be a whole lot of federal attorneys in deep shit, too.
If he and Dreya were going to be a team full-time, they were going to have to go out in the field at some point, but this was too soon. Dreya was too new at this whole superspy crap. And he was too damn far away from the building if she needed backup.
“Almost got it,” Dreya whispered in his earpiece.
Braden shot another look at the guard’s progress, biting his tongue to keep from pointing out that Dreya had said that same thing five minutes ago. He took a deep breath. She’d been a thief for most of her adult life. She knew what she was doing. She simply needed more time.
At least he had eyes on her for most of it. Using the detailed set of instructions that came with the gear, he’d hacked into the building’s security system when they had first arrived. Dreya had slipped over to the upscale high-rise tower through the adjacent multilevel parking garage and climbed up three stories, clawing her way along the seams between the panes of glass until she reached a terrace that gave her access to the tenth floor. Then Braden had momentarily cut into the feed of each of the building’s security cameras, one after the other, running short loops of empty background space for the guard in the control room to see while Dreya had taken the stairwell up to the thirtieth floor where Martz had their offices.
Unfortunately, there weren’t any cameras in the corner office of the partner who was supposedly running this whole assassination show, so he couldn’t see her now. But she kept up a constant dialogue to let him know what was going on. He had to admit that while she might be new at this covert ops stuff, she was damn good at it.
Of course, his objectivity might be a little compromised when it came to Dreya. Thanks to that kiss the other night, he was starting to feel things for the feline shifter he shouldn’t feel for a partner. He hadn’t planned on kissing her, but they’d been standing so close to each other that he couldn’t stop himself.
Dreya had tasted so sweet and felt so right in his arms. He still wasn’t sure how they hadn’t ended up in bed. When she’d started undressing him, it had taken everything in him to pull away from her. He’d dated a lot of women, some of them seriously, but he couldn’t ever remember feeling like this about any other woman. It was like he was on fire every time they got close to each other.
