Page 103 of Wicked Intentions (Wicked Games 3)
“She’s lucky you trust her,” he says, after a beat. “With her history of running out on you, most other guys would’ve figured this was the same thing.”
I turn and head toward the war room again. “Yeah, well, don’t give me a medal yet, ’cause I told her the phone was untraceable, which it isn’t.”
“Good thinking,” Connor says. “Unless Moreno or one of his men take it away from her at some point, which we have to assume they will.”
“We’ll still be able to locate her.”
“Oh? How’s that?”
“I might’ve put a tracker on her sweatshirt,” I grudgingly admit.
When he doesn’t say anything, I go on. “And one on her belt. And another one in each of her boots.”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “Ain’t love grand?”
“Don’t judge me!”
“I’m not, brother. I’ve got GPS on every piece of Hello Kitty shit in Tabby’s closet.”
I push through the glass doors of the war room, muttering. “You must need extra bandwidth.”
The command center in Metrix—referred to by everyone as the war room—is exactly what its name suggests. All our ops are planned and monitored in the large rectangular space. It’s the central hub for every mission, the beating heart of the company, the one place I know that will be able to pinpoint Mariana’s location to within a five-foot radius.
An array of electronic equipment bristles from every wall and flat surface. Computers, video screens, satellite monitoring systems, you name it. In the center of the room is a long black table surrounded by leather captain’s chairs. One end of the room has a raised dais with computer terminals. I think it was modeled after the combat ops center at the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker complex in Colorado Springs, but Connor won’t admit it.
He’d never fess up to getting ideas from the Air Force.
I jog over to the nearest computer terminal, pull up the tracking program linked to my phone, and navigate to the map. And there’s Mariana, designated as a cluster of red dots, her location irrefutable.
Six thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean and climbing.
“Shit,” Connor says. “She’s in a bird. Gonna need to scramble the FBI.”
“They’ll take too long!” I growl in frustration. “Fuckin’ paper pushers!”
I look over at him and he sees my expression. “Oh no. Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
“Ask Tabby to hack into air traffic control and see which flight has those coordinates.” I point at the screen. “Find out where it’s going. And see if she can fiddle with the onboard flight management system to get it to slow down a little, or at least tamper with the fuel gauge readout or something else so the pilot has to make an unscheduled landing.”
His brows lift. “Would you like her to make it rain, too, brother?”
After a moment, I ask, “Can she do that?”
He just shakes his head, sighs, and removes his cell phone from his pocket.
Twenty-Nine
Ryan
The flight is hours long. I don’t know exactly how many because I don’t have a watch and there aren’t any clocks on the plane, but when we begin to descend, the sun is rising over the distant horizon in a brilliant orange glow, and I can finally see land.
I unbuckle my lap belt and rise. Instantly, all three men behind me rise, too, watching me like hungry vultures.
I don’t bother pointing at the lavatory. They can fucking figure it out on their own.
Slamming the door behind me, I turn on the faucet and splash cold water on my face. I’m exhausted. I need a shower, clean clothes, and to brush my teeth. I use the toilet, flush, then comb my fingers through my hair. I’m hot, so I drag the hoodie over my head and enjoy the relief of cool air on my bare skin.
A tinny metal plink catches my attention. I look down.
