“But you think it was a woman in a military uniform in the backseat?”
Brittany nodded. “Yes, but other than the fact that there was gold embroidery on the sleeve, I couldn’t see anything distinguishing about it. My friend is looking into the car, but she’s hit a roadblock.”
“The same friend that gave you the e-mail to track me down?”
She nodded.
“I’ll put my people on it, too,” he said. “But whoever gave you that deployment order was high up. Only a handful of people had access to that kind of information.”
She’d figured as much and resisted the opportunity to question him about the op. She didn’t think he was in any mood to share more information with her. But she hadn’t given up hope on convincing him. Not by a long shot. Especially if he wasn’t leaving, which she suspected was off the table for now.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that at the moment. But fear for her life should take precedence over fear of falling into bed again.
Should.
“Do you think that is what they are after?” she asked.
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced. “It could be that they want to know what you have because they think you are getting too close.” He held her gaze. “Or it could be that your stories are drawing too much attention and they just want to shut you up.”
•••
From the way she paled, John knew he’d made his point and that she was finally taking this seriously. He didn’t like scaring her, but she needed to understand the situation. People who were willing to take out a platoon of Navy SEALs weren’t going to balk at getting rid of a reporter. And even if the people trying to kill her weren’t the same as those who had tried to kill him, there were plenty who were interested in keeping the story out of the papers. A story that might force the US past the brink of war that it was teetering on with Russia.
In any case, John wasn’t going to stick around to find out who was behind the attack on Brittany. If that guy onthe motorcycle had friends and they came after them, John was going to be seriously undermanned.
Besides, this place was making him twitchy. There were too many people around Vaernes who might recognize him. The platoon hadn’t been at the air station long and they’d kept to themselves, but they weren’t invisible, and it wasn’t inconceivable that some people around the base might remember him.
He was pretty sure Nils had. But he was also pretty sure Nils understood what he did, which might keep him quiet. He’d definitely bought the jealous-boyfriend-after-an-argument bit—which might not have been as much of a bit as John would have liked.
“Pack your bags,” he said. “We need to get out of here.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know yet, but we can’t stay here.”
“You think that guy has been following me and knows where I’m staying?”
His nonanswer was answer enough.
She packed in record time, which wasn’t surprising as she simply shoved the mess of clothes and shoes flowing out of the suitcase back into it.
After putting on a pair of hiking shoes—the tennis- shoe kind, not the boot kind—she went into the bathroom to retrieve her toiletries. As it was still raining, he was glad to see she had a lightweight raincoat, which was more practical than the umbrella she’d had before.
In an impressive five minutes, they were heading down the fire escape staircase. Exiting into the back parking lot of the hotel, he stopped her from going to her car. “Leave it.”
“I have to return it; it’s a rental.”
“You can call them and tell them where you left it. I don’t want to chance it.”
“Chance what? Do you think they are out there?” She looked around the empty parking lot as if someone wasgoing to jump out. It wasn’t completely dark, but it was about as dark as it would get.
He shook his head. “Not right now, but they could be tracking you.”
She obviously didn’t like the sound of that and made a face.
“Don’t we have to get your things from your hotel?” she asked.
“I don’t have a hotel.” He hadn’t been planning to stick around. “I left a bag at the train station.”
