by Ronie Kendig
Breath trapped in her throat, she stared back, disbelieving. He couldn’t know about Mitre.
“Do this thing with Rutger, and we will talk.”
***
REAPER HEADQUARTERS, MARYLAND
. . . garbed in authority lost their lives, breath snuffed like lamps doused. Rage in the right hand, vengeance in the left, there was naught but blood upon the lands. Kingdoms shifted. Countries collapsed. Chaos seized and reigned in answer to the summons of the enemies of kings. Upon those from below is marked the quest that tethers their soul in darkness . . .
Rage in the right hand. Vengeance in the left. Upon those from below . . . marked . . . tethers their soul in darkness . . .
Leif ran his thumb over the scar on his right hand. He’d gotten it in the crash, from the fire.
Fire.
His mind bungeed back to RTB, that explosion. Seeing the aftermath of the fireball. The scorch marks. He dug into his laptop and the files. Pulled up the photos he’d taken from news footage. From his visits to the site. Studied the dark smudges.
Phone in hand, he placed a call.
“Spill.”
“Hey. It’s Runt.”
“What can I do for you?”
“D’you have pictures from the explosion at the shop that you could send over?”
“Sure,” Spill said. “I’ll have Ghillie shoot them your way.”
“Cool, thanks. Take care.”
“Is that it?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Leif ended the call and stared at the photos, itching to see the images from the shop.
“Hey,” Devine said, joining him. “You got a minute?”
Leif closed his laptop, extricating himself from the past. “What’s up?”
“When Adam and I visited Brigham, Gilliam’s unit commander mentioned there were some AARs that he bugged Gilliam to fix, said they were vague.”
“Okay.”
“He sent them over, and I noticed a pattern. Each incomplete AAR was from when he and his team had dealings with a particular unit.” She handed him four separate files, each with highlights.
Leif eyed them. “Typical,” he said, recognizing a special-ops unit designation. “A lot of times those are classified, so he might’ve been told to be vague.”
“Yeah, I just . . .” Peyton shrugged. “I dunno. Just seems odd that his team would keep getting picked to work with the same unit.”
“If it works and ain’t broke,” Leif said with a smirk.
“But what if it’s more?”
Leif eyed her. “Like?”
She folded her arms, skating a glance behind him—toward Lawe, if he guessed the trajectory of her gaze right. “I dated this guy once. A Marine.”
“No wonder it ended.”
“It ended because I picked up on something in his texts and emails. He was vague. I got a hunch that he was leaving stuff out, and turned out he was leaving out his other girlfriend.”
“Ouch.”
“So,” Peyton said, “what if Gilliam was leaving stuff out because he wanted to hide it?”
“You saying he was shady?”
“Or the unit was, or someone on his team.” She shrugged. “It’s possible, right?”
“Maybe.” Leif had to consider what she’d said. It happened more often than anyone wanted to admit. “Can I keep these?”
“Yeah. I have the originals.”
“Okay, people,” Braun said as she strode into the hub. The team gathered for a briefing. “We have a serious problem. I just got off the phone with the commander of Indo-Pacific Command. Apparently, Chinese authorities are claiming the attempted murder of General Chang was carried out by an operative for Taiwan.”
“Come again?” Leif objected.
Lawe snorted. “Are they out—”
“According to the Chinese, one of the men involved in the attack—”
“One of the men?” Culver repeated, looking at Leif.
“—killed himself when authorities stormed his home,” Braun continued, unfazed.
“Kurofuji worked with someone?” Lawe asked, frowning. “Did we miss a memo?”
“Negative,” Leif said, confounded at how things got twisted when a government implemented a wag-the-dog scenario and used a bad situation to advance agenda or policy. “We had one man on location, and that—”
“PLA provided footage of the apprehension in Beijing the day after the attack at the palace,” Braun said, tersely plowing past their objections. “Mr. Purcell, if you please.”
The wall screen sprang to life, a scene unfolding across its surface. Outside an apartment building, a line of SWAT stood ready. Shots exploded through the door. The camera—apparently an officer’s body cam—swung away for protection, which provided a bird’s-eye view of the parking lot several levels below. Light danced and glinted, and then the camera shifted back as the sea of black-clad bodies flooded into the apartment. A volley of gunfire erupted. Shouts rang out.
Saito leaned forward, then yanked his gaze from the screen, tapping into his phone as the confrontation continued. Had he figured something out?
“Inside,” Braun explained, “they found a computer with emails to and from a notorious and much-sought-after Taiwanese operative. After barricading himself in his bedroom, the target killed himself.”
“That’s convenient,” Lawe grumbled.
Nodding, Leif roughed a hand over his mouth. “Now he can’t confirm or deny the accusations. But this isn’t just about an assassination attempt.”
“Precisely. Establishing an attack on their soil hand-delivers China justification to attack Taiwan,” Braun growled. “We all know they’ve been looking for a reason to do exactly that for years, but according to them, trying to assassinate one of the most powerful men in China and killing a half dozen notables means it is not only their right, but their duty to respond.”
“I think they spelled duty wrong,” Lawe muttered.
“This makes no sense,” Leif countered. “If we’re hunting names from the Book of the Wars, why would these operators be working for other countries?”
“Actually, if you think about it, the prophecy,” Peyton said quietly, “doesn’t say who the Neiothen are, nor does it list their country of origin. Simply that they will rise up.”
I will rise.
I will rise.
I will rise.
Leif shook his head, plugging the dam on whatever that was. “But still—”
“You said that’s Beijing?” Saito asked.
Braun frowned, then nodded. “The video came from the Chinese embassy here.”
“Someone is lying,” Saito said. “That footage is either faked or it’s not connected to what happened at the palace.” Unflinching, he set down his phone.
“How do you figure?” the admiral asked.
He pointed to the screen. “At the beginning of the raid, when the body cam panned away from the insertion to avoid the light and shock, the footage showed the road below.” He instructed Cell to freeze the frame. “There were puddles all over the street. Rain.” He looked at the others. “According to weather tracking, it hasn’t rained since before we landed in Beijing.” He squinted at the paused image. “China wanted someone to blame and a reason to go to war. The attack on the defense minister is the perfect excuse for an escalation of aggression.”
“Which is what we suspected,” Braun agreed with a nod.
“But not stopping that attack isn’t our fault,” Culver noted, then hesitated. “Right? I mean—”
“Fault isn’t our concern,” Braun snapped. “Preventing a fallout is. If China attacks Taiwan . . . this is classic dominos falling here.”
Cell shifted. “Or, like the text foretold, kings falling.”
“Right. One country falls, then another in response, and so on, until all that’s left standing is whoever toppled the first domino,” Braun said, her tanned face severe. “We’re assembling intel and, within the week, hope to send you after the next name on the list.”
Frustration coiled in Leif’s gut. They were seriously getting away from their primary directive. “What about the book?” he asked. “Why aren’t we doing more about that?”
Dru glanced at Cell, who focused on his laptop.
That ticked off Leif. “Am I missing something?”
“We’ve had a . . . complication,” Dru admitted but didn’t expound.
“I-I’m close to unlocking the next name,” Cell said. “But without the book, this may be the last one.”
“Which means we should be looking for the book,” Leif asserted.
“Just because you aren’t out there running around like chickens with your heads chopped off,” Dru said, “doesn’t mean we’re not working on it. You aren’t the only team or operators at our disposal.”
“We have another contact connected to Carsen Gilliam,” Braun said, ignoring Leif’s challenge. “His psychiatrist, Dr. Lilah Sheng.”
Leif pinched the bridge of his nose, hating the way they kept bulldozing over him. And that they were still searching for Carsen. It bugged him. Worried him. “Why haven’t we seen notes from this doctor?”
“Because she’s a civilian doctor,” Dru said. “No records, and patient-doctor confidentiality buried it. We were able to back-source from bank records where he made a payment to her. But it seems they met more than once—consistently, in fact.”
“Civvy doc means he didn’t want it on his records,” Culver suggested.
“How sure are we about this, that he really visited her so often?” Lawe asked.
“Hacked his car locator records,” Cell said. “He was there every week since he returned from his last deployment.”
“I want Leif and Iskra to talk to this doc,” Dru said.
“Wait,” Leif said. “She’s back?”
“She’s en route now.”
Irritation crawled through Leif’s veins, but he shoved his thoughts back to the mission at hand. “Okay, wait—if we can hack Gilliam’s car and figure out his movements, how are we not able to track him down? He’s a freakin’ soldier, not a spy. How is he hiding so well the agency can’t find him?”
“That’s what we’d like to know,” Dru said. “Get out there and find an answer. By the time you return, we hope to have things sorted to send Reaper after the next target.” The director sent a heated glare at Cell. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Purcell?”
“As you wish.”
CHAPTER 16
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
The forty-minute drive was made in near silence because Leif didn’t trust himself to speak to Iskra. They were headed out to the medical center where Dr. Lilah Sheng had met with Carsen Gilliam. A shrink. They were going to see a shrink, and it was hard not to feel like this was one of those nightmares where he’d forgotten to wear pants. Top that brilliance-of-a-mission objective with the fact that the woman beside him had been away on a mission to find the book without him. Again.
About halfway there, Iskra shifted in her seat to face him.
Hand up, Leif kept his gaze on the road. “Save it.”
“What?”
“It is what it is, so let’s just leave it.”
“You cannot know what I was going to say.”
He slid a glance toward her. “Right then, when you turned, you were about to say something about where you’ve been, or maybe why.”
“And what else?”
He nodded, eyeing a rig in the rearview mirror that was bearing down on them. “Either that you know I want to know about the mission, but you can’t tell me, so you’re sorry. Or that you want to know what the dreams were about.” He checked her expression to verify his accuracy, and when she arched an eyebrow, he grinned. “I’ve been able to read you from day one.”
“Why is that?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I guess because, as Dru told me once, we’re the same. We think alike.”
“Well, I am sorry you were not on that mission with me. I wanted you there.”
“Seriously?” He veered toward the off-ramp.
“I always did things alone before because it was easier, but with you . . . it is different. Like you said—we’re the same. So it makes things simpler to work together. I wanted to talk things through with you. Then, coming back and finding you shouting in your dreams, drenched in sweat . . . I hated it.”
He clenched his jaw. “You and me both.”
“This last mission, I just . . . I really could have used your presence.”
Okay, that surprised him. “Why’s that?”
“I met with Veratti.”
Leif nearly missed the red light. He nailed the brakes. “What?”
“It wasn’t part of the plan, but”—she hunched her shoulders—“it had to be done.”
“Is that where you got the knot on your cheek?”
“I expressed an opinion he did not like.”
Leif’s mind screwed up every which way from Sunday. She’d told him about the mission and that piece-of-crap Veratti had roughed her up. Iskra wasn’t a woman who needed protection or pandering. She was tough and resilient. Yet she had a softer side that was as sweet and sticky as honey, drawing him to her like a bee. “You’re good at holding your own with guys like him.”
She smiled. “He admitted he had control of the book but lost it. Implied Rutger Hermanns has the book. Veratti wants me to find it.”
Pulling into the medical complex, Leif darted her a look. “You’re working with him?” This would be some kind of messed up.
“No, I’m working with you,” she said firmly. “But I must give the appearance of placating him.”
“Why?” He slid into a parking spot and checked the clock on the dash. They had a few minutes, so he angled toward her. “He got something on you?”
“No, but he has something I want.”
“What?”
“My brother. He said if I did this, we would talk about Mitre.”
“And you believe him, that he knows where your brother is.” He wasn’t accusing or questioning. Just curious. Could Ciro Veratti have information on her brother? He wasn’t sure why, but her search for Mitre had worrisome rip currents.
“I cannot risk not believing him and missing the opportunity to find Mitre.” She touched his hand. “You know what will happen if I walk away simply because Veratti is dangerous.”
“It takes longer to find your brother.” Really, he wasn’t seeing the bad side of that scenario.
“Is twelve years not long enough?”
Who was he to argue? He’d spent the last four years searching for his past. “You’re right.” He nodded. “I hear you.” But man, it made him sick to think of her tightroping that fine line with Ciro Veratti. “Did you tell Dru about this?”
She nodded. “He is working on a few things, and so am I—and I will not give up.” Vehemence dug into her features.
Leif admired her grit and determination that nearly contradicted her beautiful façade. He nodded, scanning the parking lot and entrance. “Well, we better get in there.”
When they approached the appointment desk, Leif checked the time. On the nose. “Leif Metcalfe for Dr. Sheng.”
The studious brunette nodded to a side door. “Go on in. She’s expecting you.”
Moments later, they were seated at a round laminate table with the much-younger-than-expected Lilah Sheng. “As you know,” she said sweetly, a leather-bound notebook in hand, “patient confidentiality prohibits me from divulging much of what Mr. Gilliam said to me.”
“Actually,” Leif said, sliding a letter from the deputy director across the table, “this will help loosen the details a little.”
Wariness barged into the doctor’s confidence. She scanned the letter, then sighed and wagged her eyebrows. “Well, that does change things. So, you think he’s committed a crime?”
“Yes.” Going AWOL was a crime, so Leif wasn’t lying. “And we are concerned he might commit another.”
Iskra threaded her fingers. “We simply want to
find him, and to do that, we need your help.”
“Well, like many veterans I speak with, he wanted to fix the symptoms but wasn’t willing to look at the problem.” Dr. Sheng leaned back in her seat. “Most come in wanting me to help them get rid of, say, angry outbursts. Or to lessen their responses to unexpected noises. But they do not want to delve into what caused their heightened state of vigilance.”
It took everything in Leif not to shift in his seat.
“Carsen asked most often about a single recurring nightmare. He wanted to know if it had significance, what it meant. He hoped that once he understood it, it’d go away.”
“A nightmare? Only one?” Man, that was hitting a little close to home.
“Yes, and the strangest thing was that while military in nature, it wasn’t real.”
“Dreams . . . aren’t real,” Leif said, confused.
Sheng gave a placating smile. “What I mean is that for most veterans who come see me, the nightmares are based in truth. Something that happened in combat. A distortion of some traumatic event that significantly impacted them,” she explained. “Carsen said this dream seemed like he was having someone else’s nightmare—with things that didn’t happen to him—and while it was terrible and terrifying, he somehow felt distanced from it.”
There was this side of Leif’s head that, when he flew, felt like someone was trying to extract his gray matter from his skull. That was what it felt like sitting here listening to this. But he had to get his thoughts back on terra firma. “Did you, um, see anything in Carsen that gave you concern?”
“Do you mean did I think he could turn violent?”
“Sure.” Not exactly, but okay.
“Never.” She shook her head, glancing at her notebook. “Carsen was a gentle young man with a fervor for his country and fellow veterans. Never once was I worried for his safety or those around him. And trust me, I see plenty that does give me concern.”
Good to know. Reassuring. “Did he ever mention wanting to leave the country?”
“No,” she said, smiling again. “Recall that I said Carsen was very much about serving this country. He was a patriot. A healthy one, physically and mentally.”
***
After meeting with Dr. Sheng, Iskra noticed Leif was strangely quiet on the way back, even while picking up Taissia from kindergarten. Back at the loft, Taissia was content to munch on pizza while watching her favorite snowman-and-sisters cartoon.