Not only was the receipt LaCroix's, the clock on the sergeant's carefully crafted revenge was already counting down.
Damn it, she had time. LaCroix was being watched. If he was about to make his move, she'd know. Because John would know.
The knowledge kept the bulk of her panic at bay—until a phone rang. The sound wasn't coming from her back pocket. It was coming from the crumpled jeans less than a yard from her shoes.
John's jeans.
It rang again, the deep trill reverberating straight through her, across the living room and down into John's bedroom at the far end of the hall. She could hear him rising up from the bed and moving off. His door opening.
"Rachel?"
Shit. She didn't have time to answer, much less explain. Not if that call was about LaCroix.
Not if she hoped to save Saniye's life.
Regan shoved the receipt in her pocket and spun around, grabbing her bag and her keys on her way to the back door of the kitchen. She cleared the house and raced across the darkened drive to vault into the Tiguan. Within seconds, she'd fired up the engine and was using the car's hands-free feature to dial Jelly as she backed the car into the street and spun it around toward Vilseck.
Three agonizing rings in, Jelly picked up. "Just got off the phone with Brooks. He says—"
"Call him back! Have him dispatch SWAT and a bomb disposal team to the Karmandi home! I'm on my way there—LaCroix is executing his attack now."
If he hadn't already.
8
Regan reached the heart of Vilseck in record time.
Unfortunately, LaCroix had arrived first.
Though that dark, sweater-clad back was roughly sixty yards away and on the opposite side of the divided, mostly residential street, it was him. Who else would be carrying a three-foot box covered in pastel-pink wrapping paper with a trio of matching latex balloons and a froth of ribbons floating behind him shortly before midnight?
Make that forty yards from her now—and twenty from the door of that ice-blue, two-story Bavarian home.
The Karmandi home.
A fresh wave of adrenaline coursed through her veins as she hit the brakes and swerved to the right, pulling the Tiguan off the paved road and onto the flanking cobblestone walk. She killed the engine and grabbed her bag, slipping her fingers into the hidden compartment within.
Seconds later, she and her 9mm Sig Sauer were bailing out of the VW and heading across the blessedly otherwise deserted road. By the time she'd reached the grassy divider, LaCroix was less than five yards from the white-washed door of the Bavarian stucco. A single light burned from within. She could only pray that whoever'd left it lit had long since fallen asleep.
"US Army CID! Stop right there, Sergeant. Gently lower the package to the ground, then turn around—slowly."
The man stopped. But he didn't lower the box, much less turn. Though his head did shift far enough to the left to catch their reflections in the windows of the car parked in front of the Karmandi home.
"Now, Sergeant."
"Evening, Rachel. Well, this makes sense now, doesn't it? Though, if you're CID, I seriously doubt that's your name. How about you introduce—"
The piercing wail of a German police car bearing down on their location drowned out the rest. Moments later, several more joined in, obliterating the surreal calm of the darkened street.
The cavalry had arrived.
One by one, the sirens cut out as the vehicles closed in.
It was too late. Another light had fired up inside the Karmandi home, then another, as half a dozen silent, pulsing red, white and blue strobes pulled up on both sides of Regan and the primary focus of her attention.
The white-washed door opened. A curious Olan Karmandi stood inside its frame, peering out—with his swaddled, days-old daughter in his arms.
"Go back inside, doctor! Don't—"
"Luftballons, Papa!"
Shit. Karmandi's pajama-clad son had spotted the giant gift-wrapped box and darted out past the hem of his father's robe.
"Sener, Halt!"
The four-year-old boy froze five feet from the sergeant and his deceptively cheery burden. Tears welled up, splashing down onto pale, chubby cheeks as the boy stared at the 9mm in her hands.
The one sighted in on the back of LaCroix's cropped, dark-blond curls.
Regan forced herself to remain where she was, even as the sergeant took a step away from her and toward the now openly sobbing child.
"Evan, don't do this."
He stopped. "Evan?" He shook his head as he tsked softly. Pointedly. "I'm afraid we don't know each other that well, do we—Rachel?"
"Regan. Special Agent Regan Chase."
He nodded, but still didn't turn. Much less lower that damned box. He did, however, remain where he was. "Nice to meet you, Regan."
"Let the boy go back inside, Evan."
"He can go as far as his dad. But if he takes one step further—"
"He won't!" shouted Karmandi. "You have my word." Though the doc had addressed LaCroix, he was alternating that tortured stare of his between her and his son. Karmandi might not understand what was going on, but he was smart enough to know that an armed special agent wouldn't be all but on his doorstep, trying to talk a man with a package out of moving closer unless it was serious.
Deadly serious.
"Sener, Komm!"
The boy spun around and ran to his father.
The doc grabbed the collar of Sener's green footie pjs and held on for all he was worth before the kid could dart past. "Please, let me take the children to my wife. I will return shortly—I swear."
"But it's your wife I want."
Confusion clouded into Karmandi's bloodless features, before coalescing into full-blown terror as the explanation punched in. Given the two US soldiers at odds in front of him—and who else was in town—there was only one possibility. Ertonç.
Regan risked a step forward, then another.
"I can hear you creeping, Agent Chase."
She froze. And adjusted the aim on her 9mm until it was dead center on the base of those closely-cropped curls. "I'm armed, Evan."
"Figured as much."
She winced at the whisper of Jelly's nearly imperceptible tread closing in as he took up a supporting position on her right.
"Tell that lumbering ox he'd better stand fast too."
Regan caught Jelly's terse, freckled nod in her periphery, even as she focused on the soldier in front of her. "Put the box down, Evan. You don't want to do this."
"Oh, I do. And you know why, don't you? And why it has to be her?"
"I know." The sergeant's logic in choosing the aimpoint for his revenge was chilling, but brilliant. Why murder the man responsible for killing the woman he loved, when LaCroix could let Ertonç live with the horrific knowledge, day in and day out, that the fallout from his decisions in Syria had caused LaCroix to slaughter the only woman left that Ertonç loved…and quite possibly her entire family? Especially since the damage to NATO would be the same. "Now, put the box down."
"Or what?"
"I'll shoot."
"In front of the kid?"
"If I must." And she would. Because he was not getting any closer to that door with those two rigid bodies and that tiny, bundled form. "But it wouldn't be in front of him, would it?" Karmandi had shifted his grip, using the collar of those green pj's to force his son's face behind his quivering, robe-clad thigh.
All Sener could see was the far wall of the paneled foyer.
As for Karmandi, he might be a physician, but she didn't think he'd suffer too many nightmares over the outcome she threatened. At least not regretful ones. Not with his children's lives at stake.
LaCroix left those realities unaddressed. Nor did he order a halt to the fresh wave of muted footfalls along the pavement behind her and Jelly. She flicked a glance toward the parked car's windows and caught the reflected mixed marriage of German and US Army police moving into position amid the pulsing lights.
"If
you shoot, I'll drop the box. I put in a mercury switch. It's my specialty. If you've done your research—and given how you look, I know you have—you know I'm telling the truth. One slight tip and—boom. The box explodes and we all die. You, me, the doc and those two kids, along with the rest of that herd of uniformed oxen behind us. Of course, I could be lying. But are you willing to take the chance?"
He was right about the mercury switch. He did have a thing for them. But it was a bluff. One she might've fallen for if she hadn't spotted the slender tag nestled amid that froth of pink ribbon hanging down from those balloons. If he'd attached that tag to the package, she'd have never seen it.
Not from this angle.
She took a step forward. "No."
"No, you didn't do your due diligence? Or, no, you don't care if we all die?"
"No, it won't explode." She took another step, then another. And another. One final step, and she had the 9mm's muzzle pressing into that blond stubble at the base of his skull. She had to give LaCroix credit. He didn't flinch.
"How can you be so sure?"
"The tag."
He actually glanced up. "What about it?"
"It's made out to Saniye."
"So?"
"Most people who wrap up a giant bear will address the tag to the baby." Especially if they've taken the time to toss in all that pink. "You didn't even add Olan's name. You addressed it to Saniye—and only Saniye—because you wanted her to open it." Hell, he needed her to. The sergeant also needed Ertonç to know he knew exactly who he'd targeted. So much so, he'd inked Saniye's birth name onto an oversized tag and hung it from the base of the balloons to increase the odds that at least part of her name would survive the explosion. "That bomb's rigged to go off the moment the general's sole remaining child sees that tag, assumes it's a gift from her father, and opens the box that came with those balloons. Not before. Not after. Now put it down."
The moment LaCroix bent his knees to comply, Jelly moved in, along with half a dozen German and US Army police. Not only were the latter unnecessary, the cuffing was downright anticlimactic. The sergeant just stood there while Jelly hooked him up. Silent, patient. Resigned.
Until Jelly spun the man around.
LaCroix stared at her then, studying her at length for the first time since she'd planted herself on that barstool days earlier. He actually smiled, chipmunk cheeks on full display. "CID, huh? Not quite as fresh from the deli as John Boy thinks, eh? He's gonna be pissed."
She reached for LaCroix's arm, but Jelly shook his head. "I'll take it from here. The locals are multiplying. Reporters and cameras won't be far behind. You'd best leave now, Prez, before your cover's blown far and wide."
As much as she wanted to personally toss LaCroix's handcuffed hide into the back of a patrol vehicle, Jelly was right.
Regan nodded her thanks.
As she turned to depart, LaCroix let out a chuckle. "That's not her only problem. John Boy's got zero tolerance for liars. And when he finds out he fucked one?" The sergeant's whistle was as low and taunting as that laugh had been. "Pissed won't begin to cover it."
"I—"
"Don't bother denying it. The captain was so into you, he forgot to close the blinds. Saw it all, Chief. Right up to the moment he scooped you up and sprinted down the hall for seconds. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm glad he got some. It's been a while. And I hope you enjoyed it too, because that man is never, ever gonna forgive you."
She turned her back on LaCroix's latest laugh—and the awkward pity in Jelly's carefully averted stare—and headed for her car.
She had no idea if any of the other soldiers or German police had heard, let alone understood. Nor did she want to know.
Hell, she couldn't even drive back to John's house. Even if she had been eager to confess all, apologies and explanations would have to wait. She had a suspect to process. Paperwork to file, and a case to wrap up.
By the time Regan tossed her 9mm into the Tiguan and crawled in after, she could see Karmandi handing off the baby to his wife amid the still-flashing strobes across the street. The doc removed his housecoat next, revealing a set of gray sweats. He passed the robe off too—this time to a waiting policeman—then reached out to smooth a strand of dark, sleep-mussed hair behind his wife’s ear. He leaned close to give her a kiss before turning to follow a camouflaged soldier to a desert-sand truck. Within minutes, he'd be at the station, providing his statement.
His father-in-law wouldn't be far behind.
Hell, Ertonç might already be there. She'd know soon enough.
With the keys still in the Tiguan's ignition, Regan fired it up and executed a tight u-turn off the cobbled walkway and onto the now blocked-off road that led to Hohenfels. She could feel the effects of the sustained rush as the adrenaline began to ebb from her blood. She needed to get back on post and into her office at CID, and soon—before the brunt of the withdrawal hit.
She made it in the nick of time, though not quite as far as she'd hoped. She was pulling into the parking lot and past yet another cluster of desert-sand trucks and Humvees when the tremors began.
As she killed the VW's engine, she spotted Mira's profile just before the NCIS agent turned into the building, along with another soldier from the protective detail. Ertonç had arrived, then. She needed to get in there too. Take the general's statement personally. She owed Ertonç that much.
Hell, she owed John.
Unfortunately, she couldn't risk climbing out of the car. Not with the shakes hitting so hard her teeth had begun to chatter. She lowered her forehead and pressed it into the steering wheel as she willed them to cease.
They grew worse.
What if she'd been wrong about that gift tag? Where would Karmandi, his son and that days-old bundle be then?
Damn it, she hadn't been wrong. The Karmandis were okay.
All of them.
NATO was okay, too. For now.
She closed her eyes and dragged her breath in, then slowly pushed it out. Over and over, until the chattering and trembling eased.
Only then did she peel her forehead from the steering wheel. She caught a glimpse of her face in the rearview mirror and blanched.
She still had bedhead from, well, bed.
She grabbed her leather bag from the passenger seat and located a hairband from within. She scraped the tangled strands up into an oversized, makeshift bun and used the thick band to secure it. Plumbing the depths of the bag once more, she retrieved the 9mm's holster and her CID badge, along with two evidence bags.
The sticky note and florist receipt from John's kitchen went into the latter, separately.
It was time.
Hooking her 9mm and gold shield to the waistband of her jeans, she purged the remainder of her doubts as she grabbed the evidence bags and bailed out of the car.
Her phone pinged as she entered the building.
The text was from Mira, letting her know she was at the station, along with the general. But there was another notification on the screen too. An older one that'd come in during that frantic drive to Vilseck. This one was from John.
everything ok? call me
"Agent Chase?"
Regan flinched. She clicked off her phone and shoved it in her back pocket as she turned toward the young, black MP headed up the hall. "Yes, Corporal?"
"The witness parade's begun, and it's already gettin' hairy. Agent Jellin's not back yet. I texted Capt'n Brooks, but he must still be in with the post commander, because he hasn't answered neither. Sergeant Hernandez didn't want him waitin' any longer so he went in, but we're not sure how much to say."
No surprise there. Turkish or not, a general was still a general. No wonder Hernandez was stressed. "I'll handle it. Which room?"
The corporal tipped his buzz cut to the door slightly behind him and off his right. "Should I bring coffee?"
With the adrenaline purged from her blood, she'd have crawled back to Hohenfels on her hands and knees to accept it. Unfortunately, her pending caffein
ated status depended on the general's wishes, not hers.
"I'll let you know." She stepped past the MP and pushed through the door to the interview room. "Sorry to keep you waiting, sir. Captain Brooks is—"
The rest jammed up at the middle of her throat as she spotted the massive, tee shirt-clad back seated across the table from Hernandez. The titanic torso and solid shoulders within did not belong to Ertonç.
They belonged to John.
For some reason, he was here at the station, turning to stare at her, as utterly stunned as she. Scratch that; he was definitely more stunned. Until he stood and swung his entire body around to take hers in. She watched as suspicion crashed through the confusion, only to give way to damning comprehension—and the ice-cold anger she'd seen in this man once before. In his drive two nights ago when LaCroix had interrupted that goodnight kiss with his crude crack. And now, that anger was focused on her.
She stood there and accepted it. Absorbed it.
What choice did she have?
Despite the dyed hair and green-tinted contacts she'd yet to remove, she'd thoroughly shed Rachel Pace along with her clothes onto this man's living room floor five hours earlier. She hadn't donned the woman since. Not that John would believe her. Not with that icy stare of his growing icier by the second as he took in the mist-green wrinkled sweatshirt and jeans he'd personally stripped from her limbs…along with the gold shield now firmly attached to her waist.
It was the shield that condemned her. That, and the compact, black Sig Sauer P228 at her hip. Most US Army officers carried the larger, desert-tan P320.
But then, she wasn't even a commissioned officer, was she?
Sergeant Hernandez chose that moment to remember his manners. The stocky MP came to his feet. "Sir, this is Chief Warrant Officer Two Regan Chase, CID. Special Agent Chase has been running the LaCroix investigation."
The confirmation caused a flare in that carefully banked fury, searing off the ice. Pure, molten steel roiled beneath. John felt used. It was in every inch of those rigidly clenched muscles beneath the wrinkled tee and jeans that he, too, had recently picked up off the floor of his living room.
Along with the rest.
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