Page 90 of Hidden Agendas (Tempting SEALs 4)

The pictures Macey’s contact had sent were horrifying. It was Nathan, but if wasn’t the Nathan Emily had once known. His large powerful body was rangy and thin now, his ribs standing out beneath the flesh of his abdomen. His face was swollen, bruised. Fresh wounds were cut into his legs, arms, and chest. His face was barely recognizable, and his eyes, deep, deep sapphire-blue eyes, were glazed and bright with violence.

“We’ve received a little more information from Judas,” Macey muttered as the pictures were spread over the coffee table. “The last transmission was several hours ago. We tracked it here, to Atlanta, but that’s as far as I’ve managed to get. He’s been pumped up with Whore’s Dust during his captivity. The spy, who we’ve only been able to identify as Mr. White, is determined to break him. He thinks if he can make Nathan break his marriage vows by screwing another woman, even under the influence of drugs, then Nathan will break and give him the information he wants.”

“And what does he want?” Jordan’s voice was lethal, rasping with fury.

“Information.” Macey sighed as he wiped his hand over his harsh, weary face. “Nathan was one of the elite, as you know, Jordan. He had information very few men have. So far, he hasn’t broken, but our Mr. White thinks it’s only a matter of time.”

Emily flinched as she sat on the floor beside Kell’s chair. That name, Mr. White. She frowned, feeling the dark areas of her mind shifting, shadows within shadows and a haunting cry. Who was crying?

“Okay?” Kell’s hand settled on her shoulder as she nodded quickly.

The doctors had been confident that those memories were never going to return. They were locked in forever by the effects of that drug.

She lifted her gaze, meeting her father’s eyes as he sat in the chair across from them. His expression was somber, and filled with grief for Nathan, she knew. He had helped train Nathan, had loved him as he had loved all the men he had fought with and trained.

“Our Mr. White gets around,” Jordan spat out with loathing. “He’s managed to betray the identities of several SEALs on mission as well as DEA and Homeland Security agents over the past year alone. He’s feeding Fuentes, but my sources say he’s feeding the terrorist Sorrell as well, and betraying Fuentes with each turn of the knife.”

“He’s also taken out several OHS Agents,” Kira confirmed from where she sat at the bar.

Printouts were laid out on the table from several files. Transmissions and agency reports that had been gathered over several months.

“Fuentes doesn’t deal in terrorism,” Ian muttered then, his ruined voice gravelly and harsh. “The information we’ve gathered says he’s fighting the merger Sorrell is attempting to make.”

“Because it’s not a merger, it’s an overthrow, with Fuentes standing as cover for the terrorist. It takes Fuentes’s power and his control and leaves him vulnerable against the law enforcement agencies searching for him,” Jordan mused, while the others went through the papers, took in the information, then placed them back in the folders.

“So we have Fuentes, his spy Mr. White, and Sorrell all with their little fingers involved in our operation now,” Kell bit out. “Fuentes has definitely sent out a kidnapper. Are there any other threats?”

Emily watched her father flinch before he answered. “There’s information that Sorrell has asked to take possession of Emily once she’s been kidnapped.”

Emily reached up, gripping Kell’s leg where it tensed beside her. She had heard of Sorrell. The unidentified terrorist traded regularly in human flesh. Kidnapped young women whom he kept drugged and used as sex toys within his organization.

“Without Fuentes’s network and his contacts, Sorrell can’t achieve the foothold he wants here in the U.S.,” Macey broke in at that point. “And without Fuentes, Mr. White can’t eliminate the threat the senator is posing.”

“Have we gained any information on what that threat is?” Kell asked.

“Whoever Mr. White is, he’s a known associate of mine,” her father answered, his jaw clenching in anger. “I’ve figured out that much. And he has to be one of the senators or private members of the committees I’m on. The bill I’m trying to get through Congress at the moment focuses on a stronger checks-and-balance system for assuring that those committees aren’t infiltrated by men like Mr. White. The bill has an investigative plan attached to it. If it’s passed by the Senate, then Mr. White won’t be able to hide any longer.”

“Bingo,” Kell muttered. “Then it doesn’t have anything to do with the destruction of the Fuentes compound during the rescue, or the new laws you’re trying to put through against the drug suppliers and dealers that are arrested?”

Richard Stanton shook his head wearily. “I suspected that was it, until the last transmission Macey received. Mr. White agreed with Sorrell’s demands that he hold Emily in exchange for my good behavior,” he snarled, his tone cutting. “If it were retaliation, they would have killed her outright by now and that bill is the only thing that could interest Sorrell, Mr. White, and Fuentes all at once.”

Which meant the stakes were much higher than any of them had realized. If Fuentes’s kidnapper actually managed to take her, then she may as well consider her life over.

Kell tightened his hand at Emily’s shoulder briefly as he stared back at the senator, meeting the other man’s gaze directly.

He had to fight to keep from pulling her out now, to steal away to that safe house he knew was available. He would keep her there, protect her himself, shadow her every move. But for how long? Without her, the kidnapper would fade away, and Fuentes would make certain the next strike was one they couldn’t guard against.

As with all his games, he was playing by a predetermined set of rules right now. Keep the queen on the board, and the game would progress. Remove the prize and he would strike immediately.

“Judas is certain the attempt is going to be made at the Andover ball,” Ian said then. “Sorrell and Fuentes’s spy, Mr. White, will be in attendance. There will be over six hundred guests at that party. There’s no way in hell to narrow down who is who in the amount of time we have, even if we did have the information to do it.”

“So we’re walking in blind,” Emily said faintly then, looking at each of the men, as Kell fought to hold back the fury he could feel rising in his gut.

“Durango Team will be at the party,” Reno said then. “All of us will be there before you arrive and our priority is making certain you aren’t taken. Kira Porter has also been assigned to the mission. White won’t have the chance to take you, though he and his cohorts will feel confident enough to make the attempt. Then we’ll have him. And our sources say he will know who White is.”

White. The name clashed inside her head, sending an ache of tension to center behind her eyes. Why the hell did that name keep affecting her?

“Emily?” her father asked then.

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