by Liliana Hart
“Probably not the best way to look at it,” Jack said.
OVER THE NEXT FEW HOURS, the guys rotated from outside to inside and back again. We ate, we talked, and we watched a continuous amount of information come across the screen. Names of agents who’d been compromised, and illegal deals that had been sanctioned by the head of the FBI. After the attorney general cleaned house, there was going to be no one living there anymore.
Doug had wiped each flash drive after he’d made sure the information was securely downloaded and stored. He’d also eaten the biggest steak, the rest of the Wheat Thins, a jar of olives from the back of the fridge, and a box of Grape Nuts that I knew had been in the pantry at least two years when our friend Vaughn had left them after he’d stayed the weekend.
I was helping Jack clean up the kitchen when I heard a woman’s voice coming from the office. I dropped the pan into the sink and suds splashed everywhere, and I ran into the office, my heart in my throat.
I hadn’t heard my mother’s voice since before her death. At least the fake one. Malachi had told me things had been too dangerous and she hadn’t made it. But he’d never given me the details.
And now, here she was on the screen, and I wanted to throw something at the wall. Her face looked the same. My mother had those timeless bones and good skin that never seemed to age. Her hair had always been dark like mine—I’d always thought that was the one thing I’d gotten from her before I found out she wasn’t my biological mother. Her eyes were dark and serious, and her lips hypnotic as she spoke matter-of-factly into the camera.
“Look at the date,” Jack said, pointing to the top corner of the screen. “That’s only months ago.”
I gasped and put my hand over my mouth.
“My name is Angela Davis Graves. Agent number 20014. I’ve been sanctioned by the CIA to bring in my husband, Malachi Graves. In exchange, I’ll be given leniency for crimes I committed after he recruited and trained me.
Malachi is a threat and a danger to anyone he comes in contact with. He has no conscience. No fear. And he has his own agenda, which makes him dangerous.
I felt Jack’s hand on my shoulder, and everyone in the room was silent. It took me a moment to process what she was saying.
Malachi has in his possession several flash drives with sensitive information. His need for power far surpassed his need for money. He liked being the man who stood in the background. The man those in power relied on, but who was strategically calling all the shots. He’s a master chess player, and there’s only one way to beat him at his own game.
If you break through the encryption on the flash drives, you’ll discover names and bank accounts where he’s keeping large amounts of money that are funding terrorist organizations all over the world. There are names of agents, past and present, who’ve been compromised and have prices on their heads. There are names of world leaders who have sold nuclear weapons to countries who would use them against their own people.
Malachi can pull the strings because he has information on everyone. Information is his greatest commodity. He can sell it, or he can use it. He’s desperate for the flash drives because I destroyed his entire network with a well-placed bomb. This information is his lifeline. It’s his access to his money, to his contacts, and it has the formula for the disease he’s getting ready to spread across Europe and cause a global panic. And he’s got the keys to the antidote he can sell to the highest pharmaceutical bidder. He’ll do whatever it takes…”
“Whoa,” Doug said, rolling his chair over to Trinity. His fingers typed furiously across the keyboard, and he was swearing under his breath.
“What’s going on?” Jack said.
“Someone is overriding Trinity,” Doug said. “This is impossible.”
I watched the screens go blank, and the information that we’d been reading disappeared, image by image. And then in its place was a satellite image, blurry at first and then it came into focus.
“That’s the house,” Jack said, “And they’ve got infrared.”
My brain was slow to process the red images on the screen, but then Jack moved to the desk to get an extra weapon and I watched him do it in real time on the screen.
“Shut it down,” Jack ordered Doug.
“I’m trying,” Doug said. “The only computer that has the capabilities to do this is Miranda. She’s out there somewhere.”
“Jack,” I said, pointing to the two heat signatures lying prone outside.
Martinez was gathering extra ammo from Jack’s gun cabinet, and Lewis and Colburn each took a rifle. Smith drew his weapon and waited for instructions.
“Jaye, take the kid and Trinity upstairs,” Jack said. “I guess Malachi couldn’t wait until midnight.”
He handed me a revolver, and I grabbed Doug by the shirtsleeve to pull him up and get him moving. He was still trying to block entry to the intruder.
“Let’s go, Doug,” I said, tugging harder. “You can do that upstairs.”
We filed out of the office with Martinez and Lewis in front of us, and Jack, Colburn, and Smith behind us. I was hoping Cole and Walters were only incapacitated instead of dead.
We were past the kitchen and Doug and I were about to split off to head toward the stairs when I heard a terrible whistling noise. The windows at the back of the house exploded simultaneously, and all I could do was tackle Doug, forcing him to the ground.
I landed weirdly on my arm and felt my shoulder pop out of socket, and I cried out in pain. Doug’s pale face was inches from mine, his eyes rolling from side to side. I pushed him as best I could toward the stairs, to tuck us into the little wedge that might give us some protection.
My ears were ringing, and smoke and dust filled the air, making it almost impossible to see. I kept scanning the room for Jack, but I didn’t see anything but Martinez’s and Lewis’s prone bodies on the ground, covered in blood. They’d taken the brunt of the blast.
The house became a warzone, and gunfire erupted all around us. I couldn’t tell the direction it was coming from because it felt like it was coming from everywhere. I saw a man walk through the smoke, and I knew it was my father, and he had his weapon pointed right at Jack.
“No!” I cried out, and I saw the evil in his smile as his finger pressed down on the trigger.
The shot cracked loudly, and my body jerked on top of Doug, almost as if I’d felt the impact of the bullet. I was already crawling on my hands and knees. I didn’t care if I became the target.
But as I pulled myself along the floor with one working arm, the glass cutting my hands and pricking into my knees, I swore I heard my name. I jerked my head up and watched my father fall to his knees, his chest a bloom of red and a trickle of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.
He turned his head and looked straight at me, even as the life faded from his eyes.
“I want all weapons on the ground,” a voice called out. “I’d hate for anyone else to have to die tonight.”
“Hello, Angela,” Jack said.
A sob escaped my throat at the sound of Jack’s voice. He was alive.
“Congratulations on the marriage,” my mother said. “Put down your weapon. This isn’t your fight anymore.”
“Honestly,” Jack said. “I don’t know whose fight it is. What I do know is that there are a lot of people who need to pay for what’s on those flash drives. You shouldn’t have killed Malachi. Death is too easy for him.”
“Hell is never easy on anyone,” she said. “My mission was to take out Malachi and collect the flash drives. I’m also supposed to dispose of anyone who’s seen the information. There’s not an agency in the world who doesn’t have something to hide in there. So, I’m going to do one good deed in my life and tell you to hit that button, so all that information is spread to every corner of the earth. And do it soon. If the cleanup team gets here before you do it, they’ll finish the job for me.”
My mother looked at me, and I realized I’d never known who she was. Not even a littl
e bit. She might as well have been a stranger to me.
“You’ll need to get that arm seen to,” she said. And then she disappeared into the chasm between what had once been our house and the night.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jack and I stood over Martinez’s hospital bed the next morning. He had a big family, and they’d all trickled into the waiting room sometime during the night. It was nice to watch them together—to watch them pray for their son, brother, and uncle—to watch them shed tears for the loss of Lewis.
That’s what a family was supposed to do. What they were supposed to be.
Lewis’s family hadn’t been as big and boisterous as Martinez’s, but they were just as much a unit. And for this moment in time, it was that unity that was holding the broken pieces of their lives together.
Jack had spoken with them at length. He’d held Lewis’s mother as she’d cried over the loss of her only son, and he’d assured Lewis’s shell-shocked widow that her unborn child would know his father. That her son would always have a family.
Our losses were great, but they could’ve been much greater. And all I could think was, It’s over. Malachi was dead, and my mother had disappeared back into the custody of the CIA. We’d followed her instructions and all of the information that had been on the flash drives had gone public. Doug had even sent personal emails with attachments to the president and the attorney general. We were hoping it was the best way for the cleanup crew to not follow through on killing us. I was too tired to care at the moment.
We’d hastily packed bags and called in the troops. I didn’t know my mother. Didn’t trust her. And there were no secrets anymore. The more traffic and publicity there was, the safer we’d be.
Cole and Walters had been shot with tranquilizers, so they were sleeping off the hangover in a hospital room. Doug had been taken to his mother at the hotel she and Michelle were sharing, and immediately given her a hug.
The EMTs had brought Lewis, Martinez, and Malachi to the hospital, but Lewis and my father had been DOA, so they’d been taken straight to the morgue. Martinez was lucky to be alive. That’s all there was to it.
Carver’s wife, Michelle, had been right. I’d watched the entirety of my mother’s video. She hadn’t started as an agent with deception in her mind. She’d been young and in love, and my father had been a manipulative bastard who’d molded her into exactly what he’d needed. My mother hadn’t been innocent through the years, but she’d recognized that there were wrongs that had to be righted, and that Malachi had to be stopped.
She’d been planting the seeds of faking their own deaths for years before Malachi had eventually felt the heat of his activities catching up with him. And then once they’d escaped their death together, she’d had to do it again and make him believe she was really dead so she could lure him in.
“You ready?” Jack asked.
We’d both been patched up, and my shoulder had been slipped back into socket. They’d put my arm in a sling for good measure, and I was grateful for it because any movement hurt. We’d gotten a room at a hotel for the night, and we’d at least been able to shower and change clothes.
Jack was good about thinking of the future and different scenarios, so he’d told me to dress nice, and he’d helped me with my hair since I couldn’t brush it myself. I’d gone with simple black leggings and a black sleeveless tunic that had been the least amount of trouble to put on. Jack had chosen gray dress slacks and a light blue shirt. And he’d brought his sports coat for good measure.
There’d been an army of reporters waiting outside the doors at the hospital when we’d come back to check on Martinez and to talk to Lewis’s family. Not just Floyd Parker either, but reporters from all over the country.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m ready. I guess we’re going to need to remodel the living room.”
“I’m not sure explosions and bullet holes are the décor we’re looking for,” Jack said. “But we can go for a Valentine’s Day Massacre look if you’d prefer.”
“Hilarious,” I said. “When do you think we can go home?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll take it day by day. Staying alive is the first priority.”
“Do you really think they’ll leave us alone?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I do. They’ve got too many problems to deal with us. The best thing they can do is leave us alone and let us go about our lives. Malachi is gone, and they have a leash on your mother.”
We left Martinez’s room and headed out of the hospital to the Suburban. Jack’s unit wouldn’t be ready for another week. The sun was bright in a cloudless sky, and I searched for my sunglasses, annoyed that it was my right arm that was constrained.
“When do you think they’ll want to do Lewis’s funeral?” I asked, taking a little longer to haul myself into the passenger side.
“The family wants to do it Sunday with the viewing on Saturday,” Jack said. “They’ll be in to see you later this afternoon or tomorrow morning. I gave them your cell number. I didn’t think you’d mind. They asked for you specifically.”
“No,” I said, the words barely audible. “I don’t mind. I’ll be available for them.”
“He’s the first line of duty death in King George County in thirty-five years,” Jack said.
“You can’t blame yourself,” I told him. “You’ll drive yourself crazy with what-ifs. This sucks. There’s no doubt about it, but you know better than anyone it’s the risk of the job. It could just as easily have been you or me, or one of the other guys.
“When you went on that raid where you got shot, were you thinking about how it might be the last time you’d ever see your friends or leave your house?”
“No,” he said, his grip tightening on the wheel.
“It’s because it’s the job. The thought is there in the back of your mind, but you can’t dwell on it every time you leave the house. Lewis and all the other guys weren’t thinking about it either. They came because it was the job. Lewis died protecting us. I’ll never forget that.”
Jack let out a slow breath. “I know,” he said. “Martinez is going to have a rough time getting through this. He and Lewis were like brothers. Martinez is going to be Lewis’s kid’s godfather.”
“That’s good,” I told him. “They’ll need each other.”
“I’ve been getting nonstop calls from reporters,” he said. “I’m going to give a press conference this afternoon. Maybe that will slow them down some. They know about your father and that he was the one responsible, but because there are so many people on those flash drives who are alive and in serious hot water, I don’t think they’ll spend too much time on you. But I’m sure you’ll get calls.”
“I turned my phone off,” I said. “I’m thinking about getting a new one with a new number.”
“They’ll find that too,” he said. “They’re relentless.” Jack’s phone started to ring and he said, “See? Relentless.”
But it was Nash’s name that came up on the screen on the dashboard. Jack hit the answer button and said, “What’ve you got, Nash?”
“I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry to hear about Lewis. Hitchcock is taking up donations for Sherry,” he said, referring to Lewis’s wife. “And a bunch of the guys are headed to the hospital. They’re going to rotate sitting with Martinez and his family.”
“That’s good,” Jack said. “Let’s see if we can get local businesses to get involved in the donations for Sherry. I don’t want her to have to worry about anything financial right now.”
“Will do,” Nash said. “I also called to update you on the case. I just got off the phone with the lab guys in Richmond. They finished the analysis of the poison in the capsules, and I think you’re going to find this interesting.”
“After the night we’ve had,” he said. “I don’t know if I can handle interesting.”
“Ha,” Nash said. “The powder inside the capsule was pure sodium cyanide. Specifically, it’s the exact formula found in a
certain brand produced back in 2006. Gold and gem miners use it because it’ll eat away at the rock without damaging the gem.”
“Oh,” Jack said, perking up. “You’re right. I do find that interesting.”
“But here’s the kicker,” Nash said. “They also found these tiny green flecks in the powder that were only visible under the microscope. The green flecks are consistent in all the capsules from the poisoned tins. They didn’t know what the green stuff was, but it was mostly copper sulfate and something called…” We could hear Nash flipping through papers until he found what he was looking for. “It’s called diuron. Anyway, it took them a bit to figure it out, but those two things together are what’s found in algaecide.”
“Algaecide?” I asked, confused.
“Yeah, for saltwater fish tanks and pools,” Nash said. “There’s a store in Fredericksburg and a store in Richmond that sells that specific brand, so I called and asked the store managers about the stuff and how it was used. They both said that it comes in a tablet form and that it works best if you grind it up first before you put it in the tank.”
I looked at Jack and raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Ohhhh,” I said as the lightbulb went off.
“That is very helpful information,” Jack said. “Excellent work. Where are you now?”
“I’m heading to Fredericksburg. Both places said they’d send over a client list, but the store in Fredericksburg isn’t computerized. How do you feel about serving a warrant and making a possible arrest this morning?”
Jack looked at me. We both lived the mantra that it was always better to do something than nothing. And going back to the station or to the hotel left too much room to do nothing but think about what we’d lost.
“We’re in,” I said.
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” Nash said. “I’ve already got you a warrant for the Buchanan house. I’ll bet dollars to donuts you find the poison and the algaecide right there on the premises.”
“I definitely think it’s worth having another conversation with Mrs. Buchanan,” Jack said.