Once a Hero Read online

  Once a Hero

  Protector Sweethearts Book 2

  Jan Thompson

  Once a Hero (Protector Sweethearts Book 2)

  Copyright © 2020 Jan Edttii Lim Thompson

  Author Website: JanThompson.com

  Book News: JanThompson.com/newsletter

  Published by Georgia Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, persons, places, events, and things either are the product of the author’s active imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Scripture quotations are from the public domain King James Version of the Holy Bible.

  The lyrics for this “Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed” hymn penned by Isaac Watts in 1707, with additional chorus by Ralph E. Hudson (1843-1901) are in the public domain.

  eBook Cover Design: Georgia Press LLC

  Paperback Cover Design: Georgia Press & Deranged Doctor Design

  First eBook Edition: June 2020

  eBook ISBN 978-1-944188-61-0

  First Paperback Edition: July 2020

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-944188-66-5

  To my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to save me from my sins and rose again from the grave to give me eternal life in heaven.

  For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

  ―John 3:16

  Contents

  About the Protector Sweethearts Series

  About ONCE A HERO

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  The Next Book is ONCE A SPY

  Acknowledgments

  Books by Jan Thompson

  Binary Hackers

  Protector Sweethearts

  Savannah Sweethearts

  Vacation Sweethearts

  Seaside Chapel

  About Jan Thompson

  About the Protector Sweethearts Series

  Christian Romantic Suspense

  Private investigator Helen Hu and her associates specialize in searching for missing persons and lost things. Join them in their adventures in USA Today bestselling author Jan Thompson's Protector Sweethearts, a series of Christian Romantic Suspense with a side of mystery.

  Protector Sweethearts is a spin-off of Savannah Sweethearts and Vacation Sweethearts.

  JanThompson.com/protector

  Book 1: Once a Thief

  Book 2: Once a Hero

  Book 3: Once a Spy

  (More books to come)

  Book 7: Never a Traitor

  Protector Sweethearts

  JanThompson.com/protector

  For book release news, subscribe to Jan Thompson’s mailing list:

  JanThompson.com/newsletter

  About ONCE A HERO

  Protector Sweethearts Book 2

  A former FBI agent and a treasure hunter must join forces to defeat a mutual enemy in a race to find treasures from the lost Amber Room.

  Emerging from a deep undercover operation gone wrong, FBI Special Agent Jake Kessler finds himself suspended without pay and left out of the remaining hunt for the most notorious terrorist in the world. The only person who might be able to help him is a random stranger he meets in San Francisco, who wants something in return even when there is a price on her own head.

  Once a Hero is book 2 in USA Today bestselling author Jan Thompson’s Protector Sweethearts Christian Romantic Suspense series. It follows the story of FBI Special Agent Jake Kessler, who first appears undercover in Reach for Me (Vacation Sweethearts Book 2), where the hunt for an international terrorist forms the undercurrent of that novel.

  A relentless hunter…

  They say that FBI Special Agent Jake Kessler doesn’t follow orders, and that he deserves to be tortured and left to die on that sinking ship. Whatever. Jake is simply thankful he makes it out alive and in one piece, even though his cover is now blown.

  The workaholic that he is, Jake doesn’t know the meaning of suspension. On his own time, he goes to San Francisco to follow a tenuous lead. All he has to do is meet an informant who has news for him about the international criminal at large, Molyneux. Something goes wrong, and now Jake is fired from the bureau.

  A reticent stranger…

  Treasure hunter Beatrice Glynn is also at the restaurant to meet the same person, who would recognize Beatrice if not for her disguise. Beatrice’s goal is to find the Amber Room before Molyneux does, thus fulfilling her deceased father’s lifelong quest. Beatrice thinks she is very close. If she can only get a few more clues to the whereabouts of the Amber Room…

  Beatrice does not want Jake to know who she is, but in the chaos at the restaurant, they meet face to face. Their goals intersect, and their hunting parties join forces.

  A ruthless enemy…

  Getting civilian into mortal danger when he doesn’t have his badge isn’t Jake’s intention, but dying is the least of their worries when his archenemy finds them no matter where they go.

  They can run, but they cannot hide from her. Why? How?

  Their best bet to survive is to get ahead of their mutual enemy, who will remove everyone in the way toward finding the remainder of the lost original Amber Room. But how can Jake and Beatrice find something that no longer exists?

  Once a Hero (Protector Sweethearts Book 2)

  JanThompson.com/hero

  Protector Sweethearts

  JanThompson.com/protector

  Subscribe to Jan Thompson’s mailing list:

  JanThompson.com/newsletter

  Prologue

  The sounds of his own bones cracking threw FBI Special Agent Jake Kessler into another blinding mental vortex so dark and deep that he couldn’t hear his own screams, muffled under the oily, bloody rag they had stuffed into his mouth and tied around the back of his head.

  A boot on his chest, pressing down at his rib cage and the internal organs inside.

  Can’t breathe!

  Strong hands had held his head in an odd position, and if they had pulled him any farther back as he lay prone on the floor, still tied to that chair, Jake was sure his neck would snap—

  But then it wouldn’t matter anymore, would it, if he had
died?

  God, let me die…

  “I told you it wasn’t me!” Molyneux screamed into his ear again as she drew the blade of her dagger into his thigh, twisting and shredding his muscles.

  The pain was so unbearable that Jake was going to pass out.

  Help me, God!

  Still, nothing happened.

  It was ridiculous to consider how much pain he could tolerate, but here was his test.

  Slowly, Molyneux withdrew her dagger.

  Whoa. I’m still alive.

  God must have something for me to do, yes?

  How much could Jake do in his condition, in this place? He opened his one non-swollen eye to look around him in the dimly lit hole in the ground.

  Ah, he had been on the other side of this equation once, interrogating suspects, albeit in a more civilized manner becoming of the twenty-first century. He would have extended more mercy to Molyneux’s goons. Goons who were now pistol-whipping him again.

  Thwack! Thwack!

  Funny how it sounded at close range.

  God, let me die…

  How many times had Molyneux confessed to him, her prisoner? Yeah, she had repeated ad infinitum that she had not been guilty of the Vienna bombings.

  Or Tel Aviv.

  Or Rome.

  Or Barcelona, for that matter.

  Oh, and Paris.

  The list had gone on and on.

  Denials, all.

  Tasting his own blood from his busted lips, Jake couldn’t process everything the French-born woman had been saying, let alone believe that she was to be absolved of all those terrorist acts that had her thumbprints all over them.

  Those had all been signature Molyneux moves.

  Operating under the radar through highly secure virtual private networks that even the NSA had envied, Molyneux moved in the darkness of evil.

  A crackle of thunder rocked the room.

  Rocked?

  Are we on a boat?

  Jake couldn’t speak, but he could still hear, see, think.

  He blinked, trying to recall how he got here. All he could remember was that he had been sitting in a coffee shop in Cannes, waiting for an informant, when something pricked his neck—

  The next thing he knew, he had blacked out and woken up in this place.

  He hadn’t eaten since then.

  He felt thirsty, but the oily rag in his mouth only made him gag.

  Several peals of thunder rocked the room again.

  A heavy door flung open. A tall, well-armed man entered and whispered in Molyneux’s ear.

  Without another word, she left with him.

  And so did her goons.

  The room listed. Jake’s chair tilted over and slid all the way to a wall.

  Now Jake was sure they were on a boat.

  In a storm at sea.

  In the Bay of Cannes, perhaps?

  As if on cue, the sound of thunder boomed through the vessel.

  The entire cabin rolled until Jake was looking up at the locked door.

  He heard all sorts of metallic and oceanic noise, but what he saw scared him.

  Water seeped in all around the supposedly heavy, sealed door…

  Chapter One

  Six months later, Jake Kessler still had no idea why Molyneux had chosen to confront him personally, out on a fishing boat in the Bay of Cannes in a thunderstorm, no less.

  All he knew was that if his private investigator friend, Helen Hu, hadn’t come to his rescue, he would have drowned at the bottom of the sea, leaving the hunt for Molyneux unfinished and someone else’s problem.

  However, he had lived to tell the tale—albeit through multiple surgeries later—and so, yeah, Molyneux was still his problem, although he had to regroup without a team.

  Jake couldn’t comprehend the sudden suspension without pay. For what, exactly? For almost dying in the hands of Molyneux?

  The Bureau wasn’t sympathetic to his life-and-death situation. All they cared was that their multi-million-dollar operation had ground to a screeching halt because Jake had blown his cover.

  Unintentionally, he might add.

  But nobody would listen.

  The suspension stood.

  Helen Hu had offered to pay him a stipend if he wanted to continue the operation against Molyneux.

  Who wouldn’t?

  But first, Jake had to recover from his wounds. Staying in the Paris apartment rent-free with Helen Hu and Reuben Costa while they were on their delayed honeymoon was weird, to say the least, but he mostly kept to himself in his space while they occupied the rest of the luxurious apartment.

  In all his life, Jake had never met another couple working through their honeymoon.

  Yet they had no choice. Molyneux had bombed Cannes one day after Jake was rescued. All that went into the report that caused Jake to get suspended.

  If Jake hadn’t gone off script and agreed to meet an informant in Cannes, perhaps the row of historic hotels could have been saved from the blaze.

  In any case, Jake didn’t get his meeting in Cannes either. Molyneux’s people got to him first.

  He thought the informant was dead until she contacted him two days ago.

  Which was why Jake was in a transatlantic private jet now, heading for San Francisco.

  This time, the informant had better show up.

  Stretched out on the reclining leather seat, Jake rolled his head to one side to look out of the window. It was all dark.

  He glanced at his watch. He’d arrive in San Francisco in two hours, drive half an hour to the twenty-four-hour restaurant—traffic should be light at two in the morning—and pray that the informant would show up.

  At some point in time, the wild goose chase had to end.

  “That all we got on Molyneux?” A voice broke his muse.

  Private investigator Earl Young tossed the folder back on the table between them. The way the seats were configured in Helen’s jet, Jake couldn’t reach for the folder from his reclining position.

  Jake glanced over his feet at the end of the recliner. On the other side of the table, Earl was sitting up, swiping his iPad.

  “There has to be something more. She didn’t become Molyneux the Doll overnight.” Earl didn’t look up. “What about family? Parents? Siblings? Spouses?”

  “What you see is all we get.” Jake pointed to the table. “Four years of work right there.”

  “And still no fingerprint, no DNA, no first names. For all we know, she might not exist.”

  “Few people know her real name.” Jake crossed his feet. He wiggled his toes in his hiking socks.

  The temperature in the cabin was warm, but once they get on the ground, he needed to dress warmly for the low fifties in the middle of the night. Days in San Francisco were mild, but the informant wanted to meet under the cover of night.

  “She has to have been born somewhere.” Earl tapped his iPad. “Do we know if she has always been a French citizen?”

  “You read my report from the Bay of Cannes incident,” Jake said. “I looked into her eyes and I talked to her, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say she looked like a neighbor next door or down the street who probably owns a pair of gardening gloves. If she walked in the streets of Cannes or Paris or maybe even San Francisco, I might not be able to peg her as the world’s top terrorist.”

  Earl nodded. “That’s how she has hidden from the law for the last ten years.”

  “Or more.”

  “I’ll dig into her past and see what I can unearth. How long are you going to be in the States?”

  Jake shrugged. “I don’t know. Frankly, just between you and me, I want to be done with this operation.”

  “Well, the Bureau thinks you already are.” Earl leaned back and closed his eyes.

  Jake had nothing to say about that. He was pulled into the operation when his FBI partner died in Vienna in the explosion. The man was celebrating his twentieth wedding anniversary with his beloved wife. The blast left his wife maimed.
>
  After that tragedy, an opportunity came up for him to go on deep undercover in Molyneux’s organization. Being single and unattached, Jake took up the multi-year operation.

  His sole contact inside the FBI, Stella Evans, had been his only lifeline to the outside world as he navigated the sewers of Molyneux’s operation for three years.

  And yet, in all that time, Jake never could get up close and personal with Molyneux until that day in the boat.

  Even before he had recovered from his wounds, Jake received the news about his suspension based on entirely frivolous reasons, including turning renegade and arranging a meeting with an informant without proper backups.