Garret's Gambit Read online

  Garret’s Gambit

  Bullard’s Battle

  Book #4

  Dale Mayer

  Books in This Series:

  Ryland’s Reach, Book 1

  Cain’s Cross, Book 2

  Eton’s Escape, Book 3

  Garret’s Gambit, Book 4

  Kano’s Keep, Book 5

  Fallon’s Flaw, Book 6

  Quinn’s Quest, Book 7

  Bullard’s Beauty, Book 8

  Bullard’s Best, Book 9

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  About Kano’s Keep

  Excerpt from Damon’s Deal

  Author’s Note

  Complimentary Download

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  About This Book

  Welcome to a new stand-alone but interconnected series from Dale Mayer. This is Bullard’s story—and that of his team’s. All raw, rough, incredibly capable men who have one goal: to find out who was behind the attack on their leader, before the attacker, or attackers, return to finish the job.

  Stay tuned for more nonstop action as the men narrow down their suspects … and find a way to let love back into their own empty lives.

  Stronger than he had any right to be after the plane explosion and still angry about it all, Garret’s seriously unimpressed to fly to London to speak with an ex-fiancée who’d screwed him over with his own brother. But she had information on his missing brother, who was a link to the plane crash that sent Garret into the ocean.

  Yet Astra, not Amy, waits in London for Garret, to explain the little she knows, hoping he’ll let go of some of his resentment and help her look for her sister, Amy—who disappears just before Garret’s arrival. Some coincidence there. Then her sister hasn’t faced the music for any of her actions in a long time. Today is no different. Too bad Amy and Garret hadn’t broken up much earlier. It might have given Astra a chance with the man she has loved since forever.

  Still, if finding Astra’s sister leads Garret to finding his brother, who might be able to give them answers regarding the sabotaged plane, then Astra’s happy to play the game. However, it’s not that easy, as the men who failed to kill the two team members are still looking for their chance to finish the job. And to take out anyone who is close by …

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  Chapter 1

  Garret Balderson and Kano walked toward the front doors of the airport. They carried only duffel bags with them, and Garret hadn’t even had a chance to regroup from his last trip, still dealing with the aftermath of his coma, yet powering through that too. But he was here now, walking into the same airport that he’d only left a few minutes before. He never made it out of the parking lot before being informed of his newest destination. Once on the plane and in the air, he finally started to relax. Without realizing, he slipped into a deep restorative sleep.

  Kano shook Garret gently, as the plane began to descend. “Okay, time to get busy. So, how bad is your relationship with Amy?”

  “It sucks,” he said grimly.

  “Wonderful,” he said. “She didn’t ask for you specifically. Is that important?”

  “No, she wouldn’t,” he said. “Not unless it was a dire emergency.”

  “Well, with your brother missing, it potentially is.”

  Granted, they worked on different teams for Bullard but, with compartmentalized ops, there wasn’t any crossover, unless one team had to bail out another. Garret didn’t respond because he, Amy, and his brother, Gregg, had all been caught up in a nasty triangle that ended with Garret being the odd man out, once he discovered his fiancée was having an affair with his brother.

  As far as he knew, his relationship with Gregg was still strong but maybe not. Maybe Garret just used that as a way to keep his mind clear and to help his heart disengage.

  As they walked out into the hazy, rainy day, Garret stopped and sighed. “I wonder if London has ever once looked sunny with clear skies?”

  “Not any time that I’ve landed here,” Kano replied. “Come on. Let’s grab a rental.”

  “Isn’t it already arranged?”

  “Supposedly but waiting on confirmation, as my messages download. We seem to be having some network trouble since we landed.” Just then both of their phones went off, showing the updates that had come in. Kano looked at his phone and said, “Oh, we have a ride here waiting for us.”

  “As long as it’s not Amy,” Garret said, with feeling. “I’m not quite ready for that.”

  “Maybe not,” he said. “Charles sent a car.”

  Garret stopped, looked at him, and said, “Charles? How did that work out? Are we staying with him?”

  Kano shrugged. “Potentially. Have no idea as yet.”

  “That means MI6 is already aware that we’re here,” Garret said.

  “No surprise there,” Kano said. “I’m sure they flagged us as soon as we came through security.”

  “And yet no need for them to know,” he said.

  “Doesn’t matter that there is or isn’t. We’re on their home turf, and we sometimes do property damage while we’re here,” Kano said, with half a smile.

  “I don’t really think that’s a fair assessment,” Garret said, with a chuckle of his own.

  “No, you’re right,” he said. “We always do property damage when we’re here.”

  “Not intentionally though,” Garret clarified. “It’s not like we intend to leave a path of destruction in our wake.”

  “No, but, whenever we’re here, we’re after bad guys, and they are the ones causing damage.”

  “A much better way of looking at it,” he said, with a smirk. When they made their way outside, they saw a black luxury car waiting, its driver leaning against the door, his arms crossed.

  They stopped, looked at him, and Kano said, “Ah, it’s Jonas.”

  “Wow,” Jonas said, walking toward them. “Did you think it would be anybody else?”

  “Don’t you have somebody else better to babysit?” Garret said, complaining.

  “You land in my country, then you land on my turf,” he replied in a reasonable voice. But his jaw muscle twitched.

  “We thought somebody else was coming to get us.”

  “Maybe, but you’re not going anywhere before you talk to me,” Jonas said, and his tone brooked no argument.

  So they stood at the side of the vehicle. “Here and now?” Garret asked.

  “Sure, and then I can drop you off wherever you want to go.”

  “Of course you can,” Garret said, with a sigh. The three men got inside, Jonas driving, with Garret and Kano taking the back seat, but the car was not moving.

  “What are you here for?” Jonas asked.

  “To talk to my ex-fiancée,” Garret said in a hard voice. “You got a problem with that?”

  Jonas twisted around in the front seat to look back at him. “Why the hell would you want to do that?”

  “Apparently she has some information for me,” he said. “I don’t know if I believe her or not because I don’t trust her.”

  “Nice relationship,” he said.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “That’s Amy, huh?”

  Frowning, Garret looked at
him and asked, “How do you know that?”

  “Hey, we’ve got sources too,” Jonas replied.

  “Sure, you do,” Garret said, rolling his eyes. “The bottom line is, I’m not exactly sure what it is she wants to tell us or even if it’s coming from her or someone else. But, either way, what difference does it make to you?”

  “Well, for one thing, she’s gone missing,” he said, “and her sister’s here, raising hell.”

  “What do you mean, Amy’s gone missing?”

  Again came that look from the front seat. “Just what I said. She’s gone missing.”

  “Who reported her missing?”

  “Again, just what I said. Her sister,” Jonas replied. “Do you know her?”

  “Astra, yes,” Garret said. “I do.”

  “Good, because we need to talk to her, and she’s not being very cooperative.”

  “Huh, it’s almost like she knows you,” Garret said.

  “Funny. We need to find out if she knows anything about her sister’s disappearance.”

  “If she’s the one who called it in, then she’s probably already told you everything she knows,” he said.

  Kano looked at Garret. “Who is this Astra?”

  “Amy’s kid sister,” he said.

  “How much of a kid sister?”

  “Four years maybe,” he said. “I don’t remember exactly. She was there when it all blew up. I told her that I was walking, and she just shrugged and said that she would too.”

  “Interesting take on it.”

  “Yeah, Amy and Astra don’t get along very well,” he said. “So it’s interesting that she’s the one who called it in.”

  “Maybe,” Kano said.

  “Let’s go have a little talk with her, shall we?” Jonas said.

  “What are we, inseparable now? But, if I don’t have a choice, then I don’t have a choice,” Garret said. “Let’s get on with it. But, Jonas, it would have been nice if I’d had a choice.”

  “Dream on,” he said. “You know how we feel about giving you too much of a choice.”

  “You didn’t have to meet us here.”

  “Not to worry,” he said. “We’ll drop you off at Charles’s later.”

  Garret settled in his seat and said, “So you’ll put Charles in the spotlight over this too?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “The way we get along with Charles is that he keeps us in the loop.”

  “And did he tell you that we were coming?”

  “Doesn’t matter if he did or didn’t,” Jonas said cheerfully, as they pulled up in front of a hotel. “We would have heard from other channels.”

  Garret looked at the hotel and asked, “Astra’s here?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you expect our presence to loosen her tongue?”

  “It’s worth a try,” Jonas said.

  “You’re not treating her like the family of a missing person, which I find interesting. You treat all your crime victims this way?”

  “Why would she be a victim?”

  “Well, her sister’s missing. Yet you think she has intel that she’s not giving up? Isn’t that counterproductive? The sister would want you to find Amy. So what gives, Jonas?”

  “Yeah, I don’t understand that either,” Kano said. “Something else is behind this.”

  “There is,” Garret said, “no doubt. But Jonas here, he likes to play things close to the vest.”

  “It’s the only way to operate,” Jonas said.

  “Not true,” Garret said.

  “With you guys, it is,” Jonas said. “You are nothing but consistent—consistently right in our way.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Garret said. “It’s not likely to stay that way.”

  “Says you, but we need something to break here.”

  “Twenty-four hours already gone by?”

  “Almost,” Jonas admitted.

  “Well, I’m glad that she’s deserving of at least that much attention,” he said. “Anybody mention my brother?”

  At that, Jonas got out of the vehicle and leaned down, looking at him with a frown. “What about your brother?”

  “Well, apparently he’s missing,” Garret said. “That’s why I’m here to talk to Amy. She supposedly had information on his disappearance.”

  At that, Jonas started to swear.

  “What’s the matter?” Garret said. “Did you think you were the only one with access to intel?”

  “I was hoping I had access to the right information, at least,” he said, “but you guys keep hiding stuff from us.”

  “I’m not hiding anything,” he said. “I was sent over to talk to her. I only found out my brother was missing moments before we got on the plane that landed here.”

  “How long has he been missing?”

  “Our intel is a little short on that,” Kano said smoothly. “But we’re looking at thirty-six hours, possibly forty-eight.”

  “Which means not very long, and, knowing you guys, maybe he’s not missing at all.”

  “Maybe not,” Garret said. “I don’t know much, but I for damn sure wouldn’t have made this trip on the back of another if I’d thought something wasn’t behind it.”

  “Good point,” Jonas said, as they all got out of the vehicle and walked into the lobby.

  “Is Astra expecting us?” Garret asked.

  “No,” Jonas replied.

  “So how do you know she’s here?”

  “I called ahead, while I was waiting for you guys.”

  “And don’t tell me. I can guess. She still doesn’t know that you’re here, right?”

  “I don’t know if she does or not,” he said. “It would be really nice of you guys to help us out though. I understand no love is lost between you and your ex-fiancée, but, if her sister can lead us to answers on your brother and Amy, that would be worth your while.”

  “I still want to know why you’re tracking Astra, the sister,” Garret said, feeling the hair on the back of his neck going up at the thought. “She’s not in this industry.”

  “Says you,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  Jonas hesitated, then shrugged. “Our intel says she’s pretty high up in the government, the US government. We want to know what’s going on, but nobody’s talking.”

  “So, if you’re asking us,” Garret said, “then chances are she’s in one of those little secret divisions.”

  “That’s what we’re assuming because we find no sign of her on any of the websites. Also, when we Google her, we don’t get anything.”

  “Sounds like little sister’s grown up,” Garret said. “You could be completely wrong though, you know?”

  “It happens,” Jonas said, “but not very often.”

  “Doesn’t mean it’s not happening now.”

  “Like we said, if it is, it is.”

  “Damn,” he said. “I hope she isn’t involved in that shit. She was a pretty nice, innocent young girl.”

  Just then a cold crisp voice with a hard edge cut across the lobby. “I still am, only now, I’m a woman.” And she walked across, her gaze on Garret.

  He stopped and stared. “Okay, little sis, you grew up.”

  She gave him a big hug. “We came very close to being family,” she said, “but all that went by the wayside.”

  “I thought you would have been family by now, through my brother instead,” he said.

  “Your brother isn’t too eager to move forward.”

  At that, Garret stopped and stared at her. “Seriously?”

  “He said he wanted to straighten things up with you before he took any further steps in that direction.”

  Something inside Garret settled a little at that. “I can’t imagine he loved Amy, what with the way it happened,” he said. “But still, that’s no excuse.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Astra said. “The only thing I can say is that I thought my sister was growing up a little bit.”

  “Well, there’s de
finitely room for that,” he snapped back.

  She winced. “You still pining for her?”

  “Hell no,” he said. “She’s just another life lesson, that’s all.”

  “Maybe so,” Astra said. “But not all lessons have to be bad.”

  “They’re never good though,” he said. “So, enough of that. What are you doing here?” He motioned at the two men at his side. “Do you know these two?”

  She looked at Kano, frowned, and said, “You work with Garret, don’t you?”

  Kano reached out a hand, introduced himself.

  She nodded. “That’s what I thought.” She turned to look at Jonas and frowned. “You’re the one who’s been bugging me for information that I don’t have.”

  Watching their interactions, Garret found nothing in her crisp assertive mannerisms even slightly reminiscent of the young girl he used to know. It was all he could do to not stare at her bemusedly.

  At that point, Jonas stepped forward. “We do have a few questions.”

  “And I don’t have any answers,” she said. “Maybe now that Garret’s here, we can find some though.”

  “What is it you think Garret can do for you?” Kano asked curiously.

  Garret had to admit he was looking forward to hearing that answer as well.

  She looked at Kano, then at Jonas and finally back at Garret. “He’s the only one who has answers, at least according to my sister.”

  *

  Astra watched their faces when she said that. She knew that Garret had already been shocked at her presence. But she wasn’t the young woman he used to know. She’d grown up a lot over the last few years, becoming a little more directed, a little more focused on getting what she wanted. And what she wanted now—and in the past—was Garret, and she wanted her sister out of his life completely. But she hadn’t wanted her sister to disappear.

  The minute Amy had emailed, saying Gregg had gone missing and that she might have some information, Astra immediately contacted her sister, but Amy hadn’t answered her phone. Neither had she given any inclination as to divulging what that information was.

  As she studied the MI6 officer in front of her, Astra said, “I really don’t have anything more to tell you.”