Snowbound With The Secret Agent

Portia DiNapoli was the epitome of distraction. The fact that he was spending mental energy on her when dating her, or anyone else, wasn’t in his best interest or the woman’s, raised his internal alarm. He needed to get it through his thick skull that he had a job to do that a woman, Portia or whomever, would only complicate. He’d had his share of committed relationships over the years but none had stuck. It always came down to him having to put his career first, and there was the added danger of anyone he was involved with becoming a target of the bad people it was his job to take down. Portia DiNapoli’s nearly constant presence in his current surveillance had stirred something in him, though. He probably ought to at least think about dating someone again.

The thing was, he hadn’t been tempted by any of the women he’d had the opportunity to flirt with, dance with, talk to at the local bar scene in Harrisburg. And he’d been out so rarely, the case taking up all of his time.

His casual interest, and that was all it was, a fleeting second glance, in Portia, was complicated. It wasn’t because she was beautiful, and she was. Big brown eyes with long lashes, a full mouth with lips he’d fantasized doing a lot more than smile at her patrons. She wasn’t short, but at least a head shorter than him. The perfect size to pull her in close and lay a kiss on her rosy lips. She always wore rose lipstick, or maybe that was her natural color. Her eyes dazzled behind oversize glasses and her curvy figure was stunning in her sexily delicious pastel cardigans. Portia seemed to have a collection of those, from what he’d noticed. She was all woman, all sexy curves. It might be a record-breaking cold winter, but the sight of Portia each time he’d gone to the library had warmed him up quicker than any wood stove. Today she wore leggings under a body-conscious, curve-hugging dress. The binoculars in his hands were the best technology on the market, but he didn’t need them to know the shape of her sweet ass under her clothes. Not that he’d meant to notice it. But when she’d bent over to shelve books the other day, well, he’d happened to catch a glimpse of her sexy rear.

Let it go, man.

She probably had a zillion dudes lining up to take her out. He didn’t know, because his physical observation of her began and ended with the library. After he’d found out her apartment was in the one next to his, he’d taken extra care to avoid running into her, using his back entrance almost exclusively. She favored the front, and liked to get a cup of coffee at the shop his apartment was perched over. He knew she wasn’t married. And not just from the confidential dossier he’d run on her at Trail Hikers. From her bare left hand to the hours she kept, coming in before the library opened and staying well past closing, Portia DiNapoli was a dedicated career woman. With no commitments outside the Silver Valley Library, except the local homeless shelter. He’d felt no guilt investigating her. He’d had to; when the center of an ROC op was taking place in her library, he’d had to rule her out as a suspect.

Not that his background check on her or anyone was ever considered conclusive. The best bad guys, and girls, were good. Really good. They wouldn’t leave any clues that they were doing anything more than visiting a library.

Portia’s stance shifted and he recognized the defensive posture—he’d seen her use it last week with a patron who was angry about overdue fines.

But now she wasn’t confronting a disgruntled library patron, but an ROC operative, a fully trained, lethal agent. His gut tightened and a distinct discomfort filled his chest. The thought of Portia being hurt by ROC was unthinkable.

Now it looked like the dialogue between Portia and Markova was getting heated. At least, Portia’s face was turning red and he’d bet it wasn’t from the frigid January temperatures.

“Fuuuudge,” he said to himself in the truck, where he’d had his binoculars trained on the library’s back entrance since he’d followed Markova here two hours ago. She’d driven from the drab mobile home she kept on the outskirts of town, parked her car behind a restaurant two buildings down and then walked the rest of the way to the library. Kyle figured he was lucky she’d never even looked toward the banged up truck he huddled down in. She never seemed to care about her surroundings but Kyle knew it was all part of her training, to appear as if she were any other civilian—not a trained assassin who didn’t miss details others never noticed.

It was freaking freezing and he couldn’t risk alerting her to his presence by turning on his engine. Parked behind the 24/7 diner, his vehicle looked like many of the other patrons’ wheels: nondescript and dirty from the overdose of salt on the icy roads.

He’d determined that ROC was using the library somehow to pass information but he didn’t know how. And he couldn’t directly ask Ludmila Markova, the woman whose file he’d committed to photographic memory months ago. She had to be caught committing a crime before he could tip off SVPD to arrest her.

As he watched, Markova hadn’t been successful in getting the back door open, which he found surprising, as well as amusing. The thugs Ivanov employed were top notch and knew their way around locks of all kinds. And they usually were smarter than to attempt to sneak into a public building in broad daylight. But nothing was usual for ROC. They did whatever had to be done to accomplish their jobs, whether that was moving kidnapped underage immigrant women into sex slavery and trafficking illegal drugs, or laundering money made from all of the above.

He watched Portia DiNapoli speak to Markova and a cold sense of dread blanketed him. Emotions weren’t allowed during his missions, but he never ignored his intuition. This could go south so very quickly, so very badly. Markova had at least the long knife she’d used to try to pry the door open, and she was adept at using it according to the profile he had on her. Besides her current work for ROC, a number of assassinations were included at the top of the long list of grim accomplishments in her FSB history.

By comparison, Portia DiNapoli’s record was as squeaky clean as they came, and reflected an average American who did her job well and contributed to the community with her entire heart. People like Portia were why the Trail Hikers’ work was so important. She was not someone who deserved to bleed out in the library parking lot because she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time with a trained ROC killer.

Kyle eased himself out of the truck’s passenger side, using a car parked next to his to shield his movements. His breath steamed in the frozen air and he kept his movements slow and steady. If luck was on his side, Markova would turn and leave without harming Portia.

Kyle never relied on luck. He listened to their conversation, which was taking place no more than ten yards away.

“Excuse me, can I help you?” Portia’s voice, normally gravelly and sexy, sounded angry as she shouted at Markova. Making like he was walking toward the diner’s back entrance, he hoped to be able to shout and startle the criminal, forcing her to leave the library parking lot.

But the word laptop got his radar up.

“Hey, our laptops are for in-house use only. Why are you—” From Portia’s tone, there’d be no working it out. He heard it and so did Markova, apparently, who turned and fled. But not before she shoved Portia, who disappeared into the open exit.

Okay, that made it easier, at least. Portia would be safe.

Except that she’d decided the library laptop wasn’t going to disappear on her. To his surprise and consternation, Portia was back on her feet and out the door in a blink. He watched her long legs stretch out, her arms pumping, and did what any reputable, competent undercover agent would not do. Kyle ran after Portia.

Portia followed the woman up and onto the railroad tracks, her feet screaming that her simple leather oxfords were no replacement for sneakers or snow boots in the frigid temperatures. Snow crunched under foot and her lungs burned with no scarf to help warm the air.

What was so important on the laptop that the woman would rather risk being criminally charged for taking it than just simply turning it back in and then checking it out again the next day? And why was she running from Portia? Why had she shoved her?

Portia’s mind raced with the possibilities, but right now she needed to get the woman, get the library’s computer. She was gaining on the woman and gave it ten more strides. As she drew close enough to touch her, she reached for her hoodie and tugged. The woman turned and faced her, still holding the laptop in her arm. Shooting Portia an evil grin that was revealed by the curve of bright red lips in the mouth opening of the knitted mask, she brandished a knife with menacing intent, and the winter sun flashed off the blade.

Portia drew up short, barely stopping herself from falling on the woman—and her knife. She felt the wooden train ties under her thin-soled shoes, her legs trembling, no, quaking. But not from the cold. From the shock, the sheer terror of facing down her own mortality. Before Portia could pull back, run from the knife, she saw the woman’s eyes glint, narrow, focused on something behind Portia. Her lips curled upward again, as if the laptop thief liked what she saw. Without further threats, the woman jumped off the tracks and ran into the woods on the other side of town. Too late, Portia realized the pounding of her feet on the railroad track wasn’t what made the frozen wood ties shake. It was a train. The sound of its whistle blowing was the last thing she remembered before being hit sideways by an overpowering force.

Chapter 2

Kyle chased after Portia as he watched the train bear down on the pair in his peripheral vision. He’d seen it pass through the commercial district several times. A lot of times it slowed to a crawl, and then a complete stop as the tracks were switched to allow the container shipments to go to the other part of town that housed many national distribution centers. But this train didn’t slow down, the conductor showing no sign of seeing the women on the tracks as it kept going, way too fast for a local. Kyle figured he had thirty seconds, tops, to prevent Portia from catching up to Markova, or worse, before the train hit them both. Because if Portia caught Markova, the knife blade plunging into her body was the last thing she’d feel.

Kyle couldn’t believe that neither Portia nor Markova had noticed the train as he ran toward them. Portia continued her pursuit of the woman she thought was a mere thief, clearly ignorant of how lethal an encounter with her would be. ROC didn’t put up with interference of any kind and made it a trademark to never leave a witness alive. No matter how trivial the crime, it left no one living to tell their tales. It was what made them so powerful, enabling their insidious network of crime to reach into the most seemingly solid communities.

He ran in a perpendicular line to the tracks, knowing he risked Markova seeing him, wondering if he was law enforcement, but he didn’t care. He had to save Portia. The op would still be there—as far as Markova knew, he was either a Good Samaritan or a friend of Portia’s who’d witnessed their altercation. Or even an undercover cop. Let ROC come after him. He’d be damned if they would add an innocent Silver Valley librarian to their tally of victims.

By the time he was within a few feet of the tracks, the women faced one another, the knife in Markova’s hands poised to do maximum harm. He ran toward them and opened his mouth to shout a warning, anything to distract the knife-wielding criminal. But it was futile against the roar of the train engine, the wheels of the old cargo car squealing in protest as the engineer applied the brakes. Too late, though, to save either woman if they didn’t get off the tracks.

He’d practiced so many dangerous scenarios in both his Marine Corps and Trail Hiker training, and experienced countless more in his work as a Marine Scout and then as an undercover operative for the past seven years. There were no surprises as he measured the situation, decided on his course of action and followed through just in the nick of time. Markova jumped the tracks a second ahead of him. As he hit Portia sideways, tackling her off the tracks and holding her as they rolled down the embankment, the roar of the train drowning out all other noise, he had only one surprise.

He hadn’t screamed “look out” or “stop” or even “train.” The word, the name that had scraped past his throat, dry from the cold air, had been the name of someone he’d never met, not in the conventional way.

Portia.

Portia was aware of a very heavy weight on top of her, her face smooshed against a thick winter coat of some type, the scents of tar, train exhaust, and something else mingling and filling each breath she gasped for. The click of the train-car wheels across the track oddly comforted her, a definite sign that she hadn’t been flattened by the engine but in fact had been knocked off the tracks.

“You with me?” A low, rumbling voice filled her ears as much as she felt it through her very center. Her shuddering, shock-affected center.

“Y-y-yes.” The chatter couldn’t be helped, no matter how hard she clenched her jaw. But it wasn’t hypothermic shivers that ran through her; it was so much more.

The weight shifted and she realized someone lay atop her, a very large, lean person, on the ground next to the railroad embankment. An involuntary moan left her lips. Did the man hear it? Did he think she never wanted him to leave her?

“I thought you were a goner back there.” He gently rolled them both to their sides, still holding her protectively. Bright eyes filled her vision, a gloved hand cupped her chin.

“Who?” She couldn’t manage more than the one syllable; the question who are you? really didn’t matter, as she was still here, alive, intact. And yet it mattered a whole hell of a lot. Who was this savior?

“Here.” Strong arms on either side of her, the weight gone, the sense of being lifted higher, higher, but in reality the man had only shifted her into a seated position on the ground, sitting next to her, his arm still wrapped around her shoulders. “Give yourself a few breaths before you try to stand up. Assess if you’re hurting anywhere.”

She listened to his voice, acknowledged she could listen to it all day, any day, and never grow bored of it.

“Are you in any pain?” He reiterated his concern as the last few cars passed, revealing a row of Silver Valley PD police cars on the other side of the tracks, back in the parking lot that stretched behind the library, diner and several other Silver Valley businesses.

“No. I’m...I’m okay.” She wiggled her toes, her fingers, and mentally moved up her anatomy. Her butt and shoulders were sore on the left side—the large man had somehow cushioned the rest of her from the impact upon stony ground, but since he’d saved her life, she was inclined to agree with him.

“Who are you?” At least her voice sounded stronger. She’d never met him, she was certain, but there was something familiar about him, as if they did know one another. Suspicion stole into her sense of security. Did he know the laptop thief—was he part of some kind of criminal network?

Gray eyes narrowed, thin lines fanning out from their corners. “I’m someone you can trust.”

She wiped a shaky hand over her mouth. “That’s something after almost being—” She cut off abruptly. Shudders started to wrack her body and tears spilled onto her cheeks. She’d been that close to dying. To losing it all, forever.

In one moment the importance of her worries and hopes to raise money for the library, to expand its services, her homeless shelter efforts—they all evaporated into what she’d almost become. Oblivion. She looked around her and vowed to never take another day for granted, no matter how cold or how aggravated she was by a laptop thief. It could all be gone as quick as she could say “choo choo.”

“Come on.” He lifted her to her feet and hugged her to his side. Only when he motioned with his free arm did she notice the pair of police officers who’d walked up to them, followed by EMTs.

“This woman is on the verge of shock.” Her rescuer’s voice held a note of steel she hadn’t noticed as he’d made sure she’d survived their tumble. She turned to thank him but he was gone. Her brain felt like she was thinking in a fog and Portia didn’t argue as the EMTs each took an arm and carefully walked her back to the parking area. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut when they had to briefly traverse the tracks again, but at least it wasn’t more than a few paces.

As she received first aid for a couple of cuts and bruises and then was taken to the ER against her desires, as a safeguard, her equilibrium returned. Portia had a lot to do when she got back to the library, but what she wanted to know more than anything was who the man was who’d saved her. And why she could still feel the imprint of his hands, his arms around her as they fell through the air and hit the hard ground, hours later. The matter of the person who’d led her so close to death didn’t elude her. Portia wanted to know who she was and wanted the woman to face full criminal charges for all she’d done. But the overarching curiosity that kept her from drowning in the shock and despair of almost dying wasn’t over the laptop thief. It was all about her rescuer, the man whose arms made her feel like no one could ever hurt her again.

And his eyes—the color of the Susquehanna in January. But unlike the cold slate of the river that ran through central Pennsylvania, where Silver Valley was nestled, the man’s eyes had a warmth in them. And a sadness.

It must have been the shock, as he described it, that made a myriad of emotions assault her as she mentally replayed what had just happened. Because what else explained the instant, white-hot zap of attraction she’d felt for the man, her train-wreck savior?

And who was he?

Ludmila Markova wasn’t happy. She’d have to circle back, in disguise this time, and drop the laptop off through the front door of the library, to leave it on the circulation desk. The book slot was too small for the computer, no doubt for added security. She’d have to act like a dopey kid who’d accidentally taken the laptop from the library property by accident.

Then she’d kill the librarian. Portia DiNapoli. She’d kept one eye on the bitch each time she’d entered the library, mostly just as herself, since this ignorant American town seemed to have a lot of library patrons. It made it easy for her to blend in.

She swore as she made herself down an entire quart of kefir. The protein was necessary to keep up her strength, and she missed the tang of her mother’s homemade drink.

The thought of her mother, gunned down next to her brothers and sisters and Papa, brought tears to her eyes. She viciously swiped at them. No more. After this mission, she’d be free and have the funds to go wherever she wanted. Not back to Russia—never.

Using the tactics ingrained into her by the former KGB official who trained her, she shoved her worthless emotions aside and focused on what the rest of the day would look like. First a stop to the library. Then find the librarian and eliminate the worry of her testimony, no matter how unlikely.

“What do you mean you were almost hit by a train? I thought you were working the ROC distribution network case?”

Silver Valley PD detective Josh Avery looked at Kyle as if his colleague was a new recruit. Kyle’s liaison with SVPD was a necessary part of working an op targeting criminal activity in Silver Valley. ROC was a menace to Silver Valley and instead of eradicating the crime ring’s reach with the takedown of a human trafficking ring, they’d found themselves looking down the barrel of ROC setting up Silver Valley to be its epicenter of heroin distribution in central Pennsylvania, Maryland and parts of New Jersey. Several of the SVPD detectives and officers were cut into Trail Hiker ops on a need-to-know basis, and often a Trail Hiker agent was paired with a single point of contact at SVPD to minimize leaks and maximize both law enforcement agencies’ ability to solve cases. Kyle came into SVPD to debrief Josh, after he was sure Portia was okay and being taken care of by the EMTs. Again, his focus was too heavy on the Portia side for his agent liking.

“I was. I am.” Kyle weighed what to say next, even though Josh was his SVPD liaison for this particular Trail Hiker case. But they were working as a team. “I was conducting surveillance, the same kind you do every day, on the library’s back entrance. Another agent had the front door covered. When trouble showed up in the way of an intruder—Markova—trying to pry open the locked exit-only door, I paid attention. I never expected the librarian to take off after the assailant, though.”

“It’s not like we can warn civilians about top-secret ROC details, not if we want to keep our covert ops secret.” Josh’s face revealed his concern.

“That’s the double-edged sword of this work, isn’t it? Providing safety for all by tracking the bad guys we can’t talk about.” Kyle leaned back in the chair across from Josh’s desk, in the detective’s office. “Who knew a librarian could run that fast?”

“I haven’t seen the official report come across yet. Are you sure it was the head librarian, Portia? Or one of her assistants?”

“It was Portia. And we’re lucky Markova didn’t knife her on the spot at the library.” No sense pretending he didn’t know who Portia was. “You know Portia?”

“She’s my fiancée’s best friend.” Josh grinned. “Don’t get sucked into any librarian stereotypes. Portia doesn’t take crap from anyone.”

Two strikes against his attempts at staying unseen today. He avoided public venues with any law enforcement agencies, or LEAs, as much as possible while doing his initial surveillance of Markova and ROC. But both Portia and Markova had seen him on the railroad tracks. Portia might believe he was a simple Good Samaritan, as could Markova. But a former FSB agent operated on the belief that there were no coincidences. Chances were that Markova suspected she’d been marked. His days in his undercover guise as a homeless man were numbered now, because Markova was as good as an enemy agent got. She’d put him with his disguise with little trouble. “Hell. Can’t one go anywhere in this town without running into another connection.”

“It’s not that bad. We’re bigger than you think, not just because we’re over twenty thousand last count. And you could run into the same people in a city of millions, especially in our profession. It happens.”

“But it’s not supposed to. Not if I’m doing my job right.” Kyle’s mission was to stay under the radar of a casual observer. He knew that Portia probably hadn’t noticed him in the library. He wore various disguises whenever he went there, to keep himself free to be himself during off-hours. He should have worn a disguise this morning, too, but with daylight surveillance, he wasn’t as worried—it was easier to pass off someone as inconsequential, normal, during busier working hours.

Josh nodded. He got it—he was an SVPD detective, yes, but also a Trail Hiker Agent as needed, per case. Right now they were using all agencies and means available to eradicate the crime through which ROC had infiltrated Silver Valley.

Kyle happened to have drawn the case of the stolen freight shipments, which amounted to millions of dollars of lost high-end technology goods in the past six months. Televisions, luxury audio systems and scores of top-of-the-line computer systems had been stolen. It’d blossomed into more when he discovered that heroin shipments were part of the ROC clandestine network, too. “I’ve narrowed down the place where they exchange possible hits and heroin drops to the library. I just haven’t spotted them doing it yet.”

“You still think it’s with the library’s computer internal system?”

“I did. But now, I’m not so sure. I’ve sat surveillance on Markova and the library for almost three weeks with no new leads.” The lack of movement on the case had given him too much time to think about Portia.