Ian shot him a chiding look. Diego Fuentes didn’t give up, he just waited until a person was suitably comfortable.
“The villa next door was leased today,” Trevor announced, moving to the desk as Ian sat down in the sinfully soft leather and stared across the gleaming cherry top. “Kira Porter and her uncle Jason McClane moved in this evening. I did some preliminary background checks. They’re coming up clean.”
Trevor powered up his laptop, coded in the security passes, and brought up the file he had pulled together on Kira Porter. It was amazingly in-depth.
Ian leaned back in his chair and stared at the file Trevor was currently scrolling through. There was nothing about her work as an unofficial agent for the DHS, and nothing in there concerning her code name, Chameleon.
“This woman is no one to fuck with,” Trevor said, his voice unaccountably serious. “She has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, training in heavy weapons and hand-to-hand combat. Her cousin managed to buy her a six-month training session with a team of off-duty SEALs ten years ago. She goes back for four weeks once a year to renew that training. Her bodyguard, Daniel Calloway, is one of the original SEAL team members that trained her. They train almost daily from what I understand. And the few times anyone attempted to kidnap McClane’s darling niece, they turned up dead within weeks. He doesn’t take prisoners, he makes examples.”
“Makes sense to train her,” Deke mused. “McClane is protective of her. She’s the only family he has left.”
“Enough about Ms. Porter.” Ian leaned forward and hit the command key, closing the file Trevor had been scrolling through. “She’s an interesting event in our otherwise dull lives, I realize, but we have our own business to conduct.” He flicked his fingers from the laptop to Trevor, an indication to use the equipment for the reasons they were there rather than going over information that, as far as they were concerned, had nothing to do with the business at hand.
“Okay, delivery routes and points of transport.” Trevor pulled up the satellite map on the laptop. “Here’s the current routes.” He highlighted the mountain passes and broken roads that led to several makeshift airfields and shipping ports. “We’ve had reports that Sorrell has men watching two of those routes, here and here.” Trevor pointed out the routes into the U.S. “This could be the line he’s wanting to use to transport the explosives and men for the strike rumored to be in progress against America.”
“He’s escalating against us to grab those lines,” Cristo Mendez pointed out. “Not that I give a damn what happens to a few hundred U.S. soldier boys, but if they grab those lines then that mess is gonna slap back on us,” he growled.
“Let’s move the lines for now,” Ian suggested. “See what he goes after when we switch. The lines as they are lead into California and then Nevada, and the second one has a lead into Annapolis. Let’s see how we can reroute them while still making it appear we’re unaware of his spies. I want to know what this bastard intends to use the Fuentes lines for.”
Ian listened to the others’ suggestions, watching the computer screen as Trevor and then Deke laid out the new supply routes and calculated the risk factors.
There were no hidden roads anymore, satellite recon had canceled those out. Now, the major job was to keep the product en route, get it to its location and do so with the least amount of bloodshed. Because the various agencies weren’t going to make it easy on him. As far as they were concerned, he was a traitor now. A SEAL gone bad, and they were out to fuck him. They had no idea of the danger America was facing if Sorrell managed to grab the Fuentes power hold.
But Kira knew the truth, and Ian needed to know exactly what she intended to do with that truth.
Seven
KIRA KNEW IAN WOULD COME to her. How she knew, she wasn’t even going to guess; when it came to the things she knew about Ian, her perception worried her. The things they seemed to sense about each other was almost terrifying.
Kira hadn’t even known the woman that resided within herself. She had been the Chameleon for so long, that when Ian awoke that emotional, sexual part of her last year, she hadn’t known what to do with herself, or how to handle it.
She was learning though, and if she had to learn, then he could learn with her. He couldn’t convince her he wasn’t working an operation here. She knew better. As he knew her in all her guises, she knew him as well. And she was waiting on him.
The security her bodyguard Daniel and her uncle Jason had laid along the perimeter hadn’t included the stone fence between the two villas. She wanted that clear. She wanted a straight, easy path for her bad boy SEAL to get to her.
Traitor, he was called. The order that had gone out from the law enforcement agencies worldwide was capture only. They wanted information; they wanted to crucify him in public for his defection to the other side. They wanted to make an example of him.
He had excellent security; she had to give him that. The four men he had gathered around him were considered the best killers in the Fuentes cartel. Or in the world. They were hard, jaded, cynical, and paranoid. And they knew no fear. They were also die-hard Fuentes soldiers and completely loyal to Diego.
There were already three confirmed attempts to kidnap the reigning Fuentes heir. And two attempted assassinations. Ian had already lost a previous team of security personnel that Diego Fuentes had placed around him.
As she lay back, propped up on her pillows in her huge bed, holding one of the steamy romance novels she invariably got off on, she watched the figure that stepped through the open balcony doors.
His dark blond hair was loose, framing his quiet expression. The tobacco-brown eyes were lit with an inner fire that burned inside her as well.
He was restraining himself. She could see it in the tension of his shoulders, the determination in his expression.
She laid the book on the bedside table, though she did nothing to cover the black boxer-type panties and matching tank she wore.
She hadn’t dressed to seduce. She’d be damned if she would allow him the excuse that she had enticed his hard-won control. Besides, seduction wasn’t on her agenda. There were no lies between them, they both knew why he was there, they both knew the hunger rising between them wouldn’t be denied for long.
“You’re not leaving, are you?” He was a straightforward kind of guy. She liked that. And his voice assured her that he wasn’t accepting excuses this time.