Black Ops 03 - Deadly Games by Cate Noble Read Free Book Online Page B

really could use the coffee. Edgy, he paced. He hated being kept in the dark, literally and figuratively. The windowless nine-foot square room made him restless.
    Sparsely furnished, it held a twin bed, a wall-mounted television, a compact refrigerator, and a small-scale table with chairs just slightly larger thankiddy furniture. The adjacent bath was equally spartan: sink, shower, head.
    Rocco was familiar with his place of detainment, the basement level of a high-rise not too far outside D.C. He had debriefed “persons of interest” here before. He’d just never imagined himself on the receiving end.
    While considered a secure location, it wasn’t as private as the truly hidden places the CIA used when it needed to keep a subject’s whereabouts secret. And even though this place was designed more for protection than detention, the bar across the outside of the door effectively held Rocco against his will.
    Once Things 1 and 2—the cocky bastards refused his request to see ID—had locked Rocco up, they had seemingly abandoned him. Except for that one short blast of verbal crossfire over Travis Franks’s whereabouts. That had been fun. The Things were convinced that Rocco and Travis were jointly pulling the wool over their eyes. And Rocco had been too pissed to bother correcting them.
    While Rocco had yet to figure out Travis’s game, one thing was as clear as rainwater: Rocco had been played. Right along with Travis’s two watchers. And none of them were happy campers.
    Point of fact was the call Rocco had overheard during the ride there. Thing 1 had placed it—to whom?—only to receive a royal ass-chewing for letting Travis out of their sight. Interesting.
    Rocco glanced toward the remote-controlled camera installed above the prison-issued door. If not for the camera’s periodic movements, he might have wondered if the Things had skipped out, and maybethey had. But someone was out there watching him. He could feel it.
    And he’d make damn sure they felt it, too, because he planned to throttle the next person who came in that door.
    Screw Travis. Rocco wasn’t
behaving
any longer.
    So where was Travis now? And damn it, whatever he was up to, how would it affect Maddy’s chances for survival?
    That Rocco had allowed Travis to confiscate his friggin’ cell phone was another mistake. Rocco had initially thought he’d understood Travis’s hesitancy to disclose strategy in front of the two watchers and had gone along, fully expecting Travis to reconnect here and bring Rocco up to speed.
    None of that had happened.
    Without his cell phone, Rocco was pretty much screwed seven ways to hell. He had no way to contact Minh Tran. No hope of saving Maddy. Travis better have a giant rabbit up his sleeve.
    Rocco eyed the clock. Three hours. He was supposed to be in San Francisco by ten A.M. What would happen when he didn’t show? Maybe if he’d had his cell phone he could have talked Minh Tran’s goon down. Or struck a new agreement. Was Travis even thinking of that? Or was he too focused on his own agenda? On recovering Harry Gambrel?
    The new intel on Harry couldn’t have come at a worse time. For Maddy. Ever since recovering Dante Johnson and Max Duncan from prisons in Thailand, Travis had been mentally flying a missing-man formation. Travis had seemingly been hell-bent on bringing home the last member of his team. No matter the cost.
    And yet Travis had assured Rocco that someone they both trusted was working to save Maddy. “Both trusted” made for a very short list: Dante and Max. Check.
    Unless Travis had enlisted help in Southeast Asia. That list was even shorter: Diego Marques. Uncheck. After helping Rocco free Dr. Rufin, Diego had sworn never to work with the Agency again. Had Travis somehow changed Diego’s mind? Or had Travis come up with a fix on where Maddy was being held?
    Who knew? At this point Rocco was second-guessing every supposition he’d made. To be left isolated like this was unacceptable.