Tactical Force. Elle James
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his guard down for a moment.
As he rounded a sharp bend in the road, a delivery truck darted out of a side road and stopped in the middle of the road, effectively blocking both lanes of traffic.
Warning bells went off in Jack’s head. “Hang on,” he called out.
Instead of slowing, Jack sped up, aiming straight for the truck.
As he neared, he noted men climbing out of the cab, AR-15s in their hands.
Damn. They’d brought serious weapons to the party.
He swerved at the last moment, taking the motorcycle off the road and down into the shallow ditch, praying Anne could hold on long enough to make it out on the other side.
Her arms tightened around him as they bumped over the rough terrain. At one point he thought the bike might turn over, and then it would be all over for them. Somehow, he managed to right the front tire, gunned the accelerator and sent them popping up over the shoulder and back onto the road. A couple sets of headlights headed toward him, but there was no going back.
Jack powered forward, ready to take to the ditches again if necessary.
The trucks remained on the correct side of the road. As they approached, they slowed.
Jack’s hand squeezed tighter on the throttle, preparing to twist it to make the bike go faster.
Then he saw that the lead truck was Declan’s black four-wheel drive and the one following belonged to Mack Balkman. Declan passed him and turned his truck sideways, blocking one lane of the rural road, using the big vehicle as a shield to protect the two people on the motorcycle.
Mack did the same, blocking the other lane.
Jack noted there was a passenger in each vehicle. Probably Gus Walsh and Frank “Mustang” Ford. Cole was probably helping Charlie’s computer guy, Jonah Spradlin, look into the texts from Anne’s phone history.
A guard stood at the electric gate to the Halverson estate, armed with his own AR-15 rifle and a powerful spotlight.
When Jack rode up to the closed gate, the guard shined the light into his face.
“It’s me,” Jack said. “Jack Snow. And I have Anne Bellamy with me.”
The guard shifted the light to the woman on the back of the motorcycle. A moment later, the gate opened and Jack drove through.
He’d never been quite so content to drive the winding road to the sprawling house at the end, knowing his team had his back, and the fence, gate and guards would see to their safety.
As he pulled up to a stop in front of the massive entrance, the door opened and Cole McCastlain emerged. Charlie Halverson stepped out behind him, followed by her assistant, Grace Lawrence, and her butler, Roger Arnold.
“I understand you’ve had a little excitement tonight.” Cole grinned and held out a hand to help Anne from the back of the motorcycle.
She nodded and half fell against Cole. “Sorry, I’m a little wobbly after going cross-country on the back of Mr. Snow’s motorcycle.”
Cole chuckled. “I don’t blame you. I’m always a little wobbly after riding a motorcycle. You have to ride often to build up the muscles needed to be comfortable on one.”
“Good to know,” Anne said. “Not that I plan on riding one ever again, if I can help it.”
“Oh, honey,” Grace said, moving forward with a smile. “We never say never around here.” She held out her hand. “I’m Grace Lawrence, Charlie’s assistant.” She turned to the older woman. “This is Charlie Halverson. John Halverson’s widow.”
“Mrs. Halverson, words are not enough to thank you for coming to my rescue. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t.”
“Please, call me Charlie. Mrs. Halverson was my husband’s mother.” She smiled and took both of Anne’s hands in hers. “I’m glad Jack could help. I don’t know what’s going on, but you’re safe now. Please, come inside.”
Anne glanced back at Jack. “Thank you.”
He nodded, flipped the kickstand down on his bike and joined Cole on the stairs.
Charlie led Anne and Grace into the house.
Arnold joined Cole and Jack. “Declan and the others are on their way in. They sustained some gunfire.”
“Are they okay?” Jack asked.
The butler nodded. “There was some damage to their vehicles, but they’re fine.”
Jack shook his head. If they’d been a little slower on the motorcycle, they would have taken those bullets. Anne had been on the back of the bike. She’d have been hit first. His heart raced, and he broke out in a sweat. Anne could have died. Just like Kylie. He’d have to rethink his motorcycle if he was tasked to protect Ms. Bellamy.
With that thought came another. Did he want to protect the woman? His history with women went deeper and more tragic than with Kylie. He’d lost his mother to cancer when he was only twelve. And just when he thought he was getting over Kylie and found someone else to love, Jennifer, the nurse deployed to the same base as he was in Afghanistan, had been killed when her vehicle rolled over an IED.
No. He was bad luck to the women in his life.
Women he loved. He could protect Anne Bellamy as long as he didn’t make the mistake of jinxing her by falling in love with her. The right thing to do would be to let someone else take over the woman’s protection. After saving her from being run down in DC and being shot at on the road to the Halverson estate, he felt he had a vested interest in her well-being.
He couldn’t get ahead of himself. If Anne stayed at the Halverson estate, she wouldn’t need a personal protector. Jack wouldn’t have to worry about her safety or jinxing her.
“What’s wrong?” Cole asked him.
“Why do you ask?”
Cole shrugged. “You were frowning.”
Jack shook his head, clearing his rampant thoughts. “I was thinking about the mess they made of her apartment and the message on the wall,” he lied. Now that he did think about it, he wondered who had put it there and why they thought she was a problem.
“Halverson must have been onto something big with Trinity for them to target him for assassination.”
“If they knew about Ms. Bellamy all along, why did they wait until now to go after her?”
“I assume it has to do with the person who texted her,” Cole said. “Using the phone number Anne gave Snow, Jonah hacked into the phone system and is going through her call and text history as we speak. We should go to the war room and see if he’s found anything.”
Jack followed Cole through the house and into Halverson’s study, where the trapdoor was hidden. It led into a basement painted white and set up with a conference room and a computer room with an array of monitors, CPUs and keyboards lining the walls.
Jonah Spradlin, Charlie Halverson’s young computer guru, sat at a keyboard, looking up at a setup of six monitors. His fingers flew across the keys, then he’d pause and study the screen. He repeated the process several times, shaking his head, his lips pressing together each time.
“Find anything?” Cole asked, taking the seat beside Jonah. Cole pressed several keys on the keyboard in front of him and brought up a screen.
“I traced the call back to a burner phone purchased at a store in Arlington,” Jonah said. “I hacked into their computer system, but the name the phone was registered to was Linda Radcliff, a woman who died five years ago.”
“Did they have video surveillance at the store?”
“Yes, but I haven’t hacked into that system yet. I’m working on it.”
“If