Page 31 of ELITE Justice
“You are so good at this.” He sat up and took one nipple into his hot mouth and sucked.
Damn, she loved that. She was close.
He released her nipple with a tiny nip of teeth. “What do you need?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“Touch me,” she begged.
The second his rough thumb caught the underside of her clit, she screamed his name and came so hard she never felt him follow her.
An hour later, her alarm was buzzing. With closed eyes, she smacked her hand around the nightstand and finally turned the damn thing off.
Jonathan was gone. She felt his loss before she ran her hand over cool sheets. Already missing him, she wanted these past few days to be her life; her working all day and Jonathan in her bed all night.
Well, she wanted most of it. She didn’t want to be a waitress or even a restaurant manager one day beyond the return of her aunt and uncle. This experience had proven that she needed to find something more mentally challenging to do with her life. But, today, she had to get up and wait on mostly friendly people, chat with the regulars, and make sure the restaurant was in good shape when the family finally returned.
She smiled knowing Jonathan would be there again that night.
Her personal protection stood guard at her apartment door when she headed down to the diner. “Morning, Gwen.”
“Morning, Stan.” She practically skipped down the two flights of steps.
* * *
Construction workers yelled backand forth to each other. Heavy equipment beeped and growled as it moved around on the other side of the two completed towers. Out of sync pounding surrounded them. Four more seven-story buildings would be completed before the new American Airlines headquarters was complete.
“Tomorrow morning dozens of dignitaries from across the state will stand here, in front of this entrance, and officially christen our beautiful new facility.” The man in the blue blazer and white construction helmet beamed with pride. The gold American Airlines logo pin flashed in the growing sunlight with every breath he took. “I have complete faith in my contractor and his security team, but the president of the company claims to have gotten a call from the director of Homeland Security requesting that your team be allowed to search the entire property.” He grinned at Alex. “Have at it. We’re going to do a final walk-through.” The man was then joined by several others dressed in blue blazers adorned with the same gold logo, light blue button-down shirts, and khaki pants before they strode through the front doors.
The Guardian team stood in front of the crew that was assembling the raised platform where a couple dozen VIPs would sit and listen to boring speeches from the governor, the mayor, airline executives, and God knew what other important targets. Jonathan hated how exposed they would be.
According to the architectural plans, the area directly in front of them would eventually be a parking garage. At the moment, it was a flat open space. A perfect, unobstructed line of sight from the acres of trees five hundred yards in front of them.
Such an easy shot for even a novice sniper with a half-decent gun. A skilled marksman with a professionally honed rifle could make that shot from the tallest trees a mile away.
Fuck. They had a lot of acreage to scout.
“Listen up, men.” Alex’s command voice gained the attention of every man in the area. “First sweep and report back at eleven-thirty hours. We’ll reassess and take thirty minutes for lunch. If you find anything, mark it on your maps and call it in.” He rattled off several phone numbers. He instructed the local police with the bomb dogs to start in close to the platform and work their way out through the spectator stands. The Army bomb dogs and their handlers from Fort Hood were sent into the building. Alex simply nodded to the small team Homeland Security had sent from their Special Operations Group. He’d obviously spoken with them privately.
When all that remained were Guardian men, Alex gathered them around an enlarged satellite photo spread out on the table he was using as a command post. Making eye contact with someone behind Jonathan, Alex lifted his chin. “Come up and show me exactly what we talked about last night.”
A six-foot man in a Guardian uniform stepped next to Alex with confidence. Although Jonathan thought he’d met everyone from the Dallas Center office, he didn’t recognize this guy. He must’ve been brought in from one of the other offices because he was clean-shaven and his dark hair was short as Jonathan’s. He’d make time to introduce himself at some point that day.
When brilliant blue eyes swept his rapt audience, Jonathan was shocked to realize it was Kane. “Although there’s a twelve-foot chain-link fence with concertina wire on top, it’s not very well patrolled. In places, the golf cart path the rent-a-cops ride around on is separated by twenty-five feet of deep forest underbrush from the fence. There are a couple gates that are opened at dawn and closed at dusk for local joggers and the nearby neighborhoods to walk their dogs and stroll with their children. The fence is also not electrified even though the signs claim it is. Several years ago some women joggers found a bunch of dead bunnies fried in the fence so maintenance was ordered by high abba-dabbas to turn it off.”
For the next five minutes, Kane pointed out possible points of entry, likely sniper hides, and the gate locations. By the time he was finished, there were red grease pencil dots all over the map.
“This place is a fucking sieve,” Quin pointed out.
“We’re not here to give them a security evaluation. Our mission today is to determine if anyone has already chosen this place to kill high-value targets, or commit mass murder.” Alex looked each man in the eye. “Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” the reply rumbled in low voices.
“Jonathan, Kane, take the southwest quadrant.” Alex ran his finger around the area on the photograph he wanted them to investigate. “There seem to be the most possibilities there and Kane should be able to show them to you quickly since he’s been here before.”
“Yes, sir,” Jonathan replied, and Kane immediately repeated. They turned in unison and trotted off in that direction.
As they entered the woods, Kane asked, “Everybody is very respectful of Captain Wolf. Who else am I supposed to ‘sir’? I didn’t get a personnel handbook or any kind of boot camp training.”
Jonathan chuckled. Kane was being introduced to Guardian by being thrown into the deep end of the pool. “We adhere to a chain of command just like in the military. Of course, you’re expected to ‘sir’ Mr. Wolf and ‘ma’am’ Katlin Callahan—”
