by Dale Mayer
“An awful lot in life is shitty,” he murmured.
She yawned. “It is, indeed. I really don’t want to stay in this damn hospital.”
“Wait until your head gets checked,” he said. “Then, I don’t know, we might get you back home again. We’ll see. It depends on what the doctor says.”
Just then the door opened, and the nurse came in. She bustled forward and said, “You’re looking much better today.”
“I feel better too,” Ally murmured. “When is the doctor coming around?”
“Not until nine,” the nurse said. “We’ll get you fixed up and get your meds and some food in you before he gets here.”
“I really want to go home,” she said.
The nurse stopped, shook her head, and said, “I don’t think that’ll be possible. You must get stabilized again.”
“It’ll be doubly hard for me to sleep here,” she said. “I’ll be seeing kidnappers everywhere.”
“But now that we know,” she said, “it won’t happen again.”
“Except there’s no guard, is there?” Ally asked in a dry tone.
“No, that’s true,” she said hesitantly, as she looked toward the doorway. “You’ll have to talk to the doctor about all this.”
“I will,” Ally said, sinking back against the pillows. “Any chance of a coffee?”
“Sure enough, when I get the rounds done,” she said. “Otherwise, your buddy here can go to the cafeteria and can get some.” The nurse waved as she left Ally alone with Axel.
Ally looked over at Axel. “How about it? Coffee run?”
“Baylor’s outside,” he said cheerfully. “He’ll go get us some.”
“Baylor is hardly your errand boy,” she said in protest.
“But he doesn’t mind, and I’m not leaving you alone,” he said with a smile.
She stared at him. “You’re still that worried?”
“I’m absolutely still worried. But it is what it is.”
“Fine,” she murmured. “I so want to go home, but I need somebody who can help me.”
“You can come back to my place,” he said. “I have a two-bedroom apartment, and I’m only using one.”
She gave him a lopsided smile. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” he said, sitting down. “Who else has been at your side these last few days?”
“But I might need a little more help than I’m quite willing to let you provide,” she said in a dry tone.
“What? You mean, like a shower or bath?”
She nodded.
He grinned, shaking his head. “It could be fun though,” he said. “Something to consider at least.”
She laughed. “Is that all you ever think about?”
“Hey,” he said, “that’s the first time it’s ever even come up with you.”
“If you say so,” she said. “I did think you were cute from the first moment I saw you.” But her eyes were closed, and her head was turned slightly away.
Strong fingers reached over, tapped her gently on the cheek. “Do you want to open your eyes and look at me?”
Her eyes flew open, and she rolled her head to the side, then looked at him and smiled. “What?”
“Do you want to repeat that?”
“Repeat what?” But the corner of her lips curled up.
“That’s what I thought.” And, with that, he leaned over and kissed her.
When he pulled his head back, she stared. “Why did you do that?”
“Why did you say you thought I was cute?”
“Because I like you.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. And I like you. Glad that we’ve got the niceties out of the way.” And lifting her chin a little more, he kissed her again; this time it was deeper, more passionate, and a whole lot more stirring than before.
When he pulled back the second time, she closed her eyes. “That was a deadly kiss.”
“Maybe so,” he said, “but personally I think you’re a deadly woman.”
She opened her eyes, looked at him, and smiled. “Sounds like a meeting of the minds here.”
“Agreed.” And, with that, he lowered his head yet again.
*
A meeting of the minds there might be, but damn Ally was potent. Axel had left soon after that last kiss. “Why can’t there be a guard on her?” he roared into the phone.
Mason’s voice was calming on the other end. “I put in a request. You know that. My hands are tied.”
“They had guards on her before.”
“That was when they felt she might escape their wrath,” he said in a dry tone.
“Well, I guess I’m gonna have to stay here then?” he snapped.
“I figured you might say something like that,” he said. “So I’ve cleared it with the hospital. But you’ll have to watch your step.”
“Why?”
“Because technically you’re not authorized. They only allow family members.”
“Which I’m not,” he said.
“I know. That’s why I said you were her fiancé,” he said. “Are you still at the hospital?”
“Yes. Baylor’s here with me.”
“So leave him as the guard. You go change clothes and grab some food. And then I would suggest you sit either in the hallway or in her room.”
“Probably both,” he said. “But damn it. This is a shitty situation. She’s been attacked twice now.”
“And they have guards on the shooter,” he said, “because that is somebody the brass does want to talk to.”
“Yeah. Not impressed.”
“But they also don’t believe that there’s any other danger to her,” Mason reminded him. “She escaped her captivity and captured her own kidnapper. So, if anything, she might get a commendation.”
“I don’t think she wants that either,” Axel said slowly. “She just wants this over with.”
“It isn’t, of course.”
“No, but the military, if they can make it seem like it is, they will. She didn’t seem to think it’s over at all.”
“But there’s no reason to come back after her,” Mason said. “Which is why the guards are on the shooter.”
“Right, they need him taken out.”
“Right. So, depending on who’s on guard,” he said, “and how many shifts there are, you may want to keep an eye on the shooter too.”
“I’ll talk to Baylor about that,” he said, “but I still don’t believe she’s not in danger.”
“What would they get by taking her?” Mason asked.
“Her skills.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Not sure it’s much of an issue at this point though.”
“It is. They were trying to steal a sub,” he said. “That’s not exactly a one-man job. Plus, however big this crew was to begin with, to steal a sub, it’s been reduced. So maybe whoever’s out there who wants to kill the shooter, maybe they want Ally to fix and to pilot the sub off the ocean floor for him.”
“But trying to catch the shooter’s contact, now that would be worth something,” Mason said. “But who is it likely to be?”
“Well, let’s track his movements,” he said. “That’s what Baylor and I can do from here. We’ll backtrack and see if we can come up with somebody the shooter’s met recently or several times.”
“You do that,” Mason said. “I approve.”
“Can we use Tesla’s skills then too?”
“If you need to,” he said in surprise. “I also have some pull with the investigation again. We might get some help from them.”
“I doubt it,” Axel said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
“Remember. They have to follow the rules,” Mason said in a mild tone.
“I know,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“Of course not. Nobody likes being told we can’t do something.”
Axel hung up just then and looked over to see Baylor already working on it. “There�
�s got to be some trace of a contact,” he said.
“There’s more than a trace,” Baylor said. “The white van was a rental. That hospital stuff on the side was fake. It was rented to a Bulgarian.”
“Do we have a name?”
“We have a name,” Baylor said. “But, when I type in the name, it comes up as somebody in the morgue.”
“He did tell Ally that some of his partners were dead. So now we need to check this Bulgarian for other contacts. Send me his name.”
“I’m on it,” Baylor said. “We’ll also need food sometime.”
“I don’t want more hospital food,” Axel murmured.
“We can order pizza,” Baylor said with a grin. “I can meet them down at the front door.”
“You do that,” he said. “I want a double pepperoni, large. And that’s just for me, by the way.”
Baylor chuckled.
Axel soon heard him making the phone call, but Axel was on track with the Bulgarian because now they had somebody to track. Everybody around Webber was being taken out. So, the question of the hour was, Would somebody come to take out Webber too? It made sense. And it was something that Axel would do, should he be in that position himself.
With a long list of names of known associates for the Bulgarian, he started cross-checking against anybody in Ally’s world. Then, as an afterthought, he checked against Hostettler. And bingo. “We’ve got two brothers,” he said, almost an hour later. “We’ve got a Brian and a Marshal Karsnav, both Russians.”
“Oh, I like that,” Baylor said.
Axel looked up to see his partner walking toward him, just a few feet away, holding two pizza boxes. “I didn’t realize you left,” he said.
“Not an issue,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure we got food.” He set down the pizza boxes and said, “Who are these guys and how are they related?”
“Friends of Hostettler.”
“The dead guy from the sub?”
“Yeah, the guy who was made to look like he killed himself but didn’t, yes. Instead, it was the hidden shooter onboard who shot him.”
“So we have a traitor within the twelve-man team that went on board,” Baylor recapped. “That’s Hostettler. And Ally’s kidnapper, Webber, stated that Hostettler helped him, as the thirteenth person, get on board. However, Hostettler changed his mind—for whatever reason—to not continue with this plan to steal the sub for the Russians, and Hostettler caused the sabotage that grounded the sub, and then he was shot dead anyway.”
“It was quite possible that he had an inkling about it being his demise in the first place,” Axel said.
“If that were me, I would probably end up shooting the shooter,” he said. “And then maybe even taking myself out too.”
“I can’t see either of us in a situation where we would betray our country for money,” Axel said, “but it’s certainly a likely scenario for a lot of people. So Ally survives. Webber comes back after her to see if she survives. To make sure she doesn’t know anything about what happened maybe? Then he returns and kidnaps her?”
“Why not take her the first time?”
“Maybe he needed to recon the hospital. You and I would do recon first. He needed time to set it up better, to make it look like she escaped the hospital, and he would plant evidence pointing to her as being the shooter from the sub.”
“That could work,” Baylor said. “It’s shitty, but it could work.”
“The trouble is, in these cases, the powers that be want a fast and easy answer,” he said. “So it was definitely possible that it would work.”
“So what do we do now? We can’t get a hold of the shooter while he’s in the emergency room,” Baylor said. They quickly discussed the ins and outs of the investigation as they munched their way through the pizzas. “The problem is,” he said, “how do we get these two Russian guys?”
“Yeah, and they may not even be the people we’re looking for ultimately,” Axel reminded him.
Baylor nodded. “A good lead though.”
“On that note,” he said, “I’ll see if we can do any rundowns on these two names. I was doing an internet search,” he said, “but not coming up with anything.” He quickly texted the names to Mason and Tesla. Two known associates of Hostettler’s and both Russian. A Bulgarian owned the van used to kidnap Ally, but he’s in the morgue. These two brothers were in his known circle.
There wasn’t any immediate answer, and that was fine. When the guys finished eating, Axel grabbed his laptop. And then, before he got back to his research, he stood up and checked on Ally. As he walked into her room, she was sleeping still. She hadn’t had dinner again, but there didn’t appear to be any need for food right now. He checked to make sure everything was good. Checked on her windows, the closet in her room, and the bathroom, then he stepped back out again.
Baylor looked up at him and raised an eyebrow.
“She’s sleeping,” Axel said. He frowned and looked back at her. She looked so lost and forlorn in that big bed. He stepped back inside, reached down, picked up her hand, and kissed it. “Just heal,” he whispered. “You’ll be fine now.” And then, because he couldn’t help himself, he leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek. He stood here for a long moment, wondering at his actions, then finally admitting that just something about her tugged at his heartstrings, something he hadn’t expected but was happening anyway.
When he finally went back outside again, he was moody and slightly disoriented. He hadn’t expected to care about her. And he didn’t know if it was just the scenario or if this was something much more. When he sat down with a heavy sigh, Baylor looked over at him.
“Well, you obviously care about her,” he said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Man, I wasn’t expecting that.”
“You should have been,” he said. “It seems like everybody in Mason’s world gets hit by some damn Cupid’s arrow or something.”
“Nah, that’s everybody else,” Axel said. “Never me.”
“Guess what?” he said. “Looks like it’s you this time.”
Axel sat here and wondered. Because, of all the things that he hadn’t expected, it was strange to find somebody who he really liked and respected. He would never forget seeing what she was like in that van—valiant, hanging on, and injured, but struggling to make it until he could get there. “She’s worth fighting for,” he murmured.
Baylor looked at him, smiled, and said, “I never said she wasn’t. But she’s obviously your waterloo.”
He looked at Baylor. “What does that even mean?”
“She’ll bring you down, boy.”
“Is that what happens in relationships?”
“Unless you want to go down,” he said. “In which case then, she becomes your partner. Anything else isn’t good enough.”
Chapter 13
Long after Axel left, the warmth in Ally’s heart remained. It was hard not to think of anything else. But at least it gave Ally something to think about other than the damn kidnapping. And the fact that the asshole who’d done it was still under military guard. She had no idea who had jurisdiction, but she doubted the navy would hand him over anytime soon. She hadn’t heard whether he’d had surgery or not, but she presumed he was getting the treatment he needed. She should have just shot him in the head.
Lying on the hospital bed, she stared out the window, wondering at the point she’d come to where that was a better solution in her mind. But after all that she’d been through, she just wanted to know that it was over and that no one would come after her again. They still didn’t know a whole lot about who was behind this. But she trusted Axel to do his best to solve this because he was on her side and working his way toward solving the problem.
The fact that they’d found a couple Russians and had made their connection with Hostettler was huge. If they could just track down those Russian brothers and bring them in for questioning, that would be great. When her phone beeped, she picked it up and checked. It was Axel again. She
smiled at his message because a heart and a happy face emoji were beside it. Feeling like a schoolgirl with her first crush again, she chuckled and read the message.
Hey, aside from the fact that I miss you already, do you know the face below?
She scrolled up to see the photo, but it was small. When she brought it up full size on her phone, she stopped and stared. Instead of texting him back, she immediately phoned him. “I don’t know this face per se,” she said, “but he looks very similar to a man who worked on the submarine with us.”
“Who?” he asked.
“Rodney Grant,” she said. “The trouble is, my head is such a jumbled mess that I can’t picture him in my mind to compare this to right now. I don’t think they’re twins or anything, but they could be family. I’m pretty sure of the resemblance.”
“I’m on it,” he said. “That photo came from Interpol, and he’s a Russian spy on their watchlist. He was involved in a sabotage on a US destroyer. That’s how he was brought to our attention. If he looks or perhaps is this Rodney Grant guy, then we have a new angle to follow.” He hung up on that.
She tucked her phone beside her, thinking about that. Maybe Hostettler had been a diversion. Maybe that’s why he’d ended up trying to fight back and to sabotage them. Or maybe he was just as much of a fall guy as she had been. All of it just sucked. But, if Rodney Grant was involved, had his death also been planned? Or was it another case of backstabbing? The one thing she did know was that stealing the submarine required a few people. They could have planned to take over the sub once everyone was dead, but they just picked up the shooter and left instead. As she went over it all in her mind, she realized she hadn’t heard if the sub had been brought up and recovered or if they just removed the dead men. She sent Axel a text, asking. He replied right away, saying he’d find out.
Lying here with her leg aching and her head screaming wasn’t helping. But she really wanted to know when she would be a little more mobile. She had to go to the bathroom, and, using that simple task as a test, she made her way to the bathroom to see how she handled it. It went better than she thought. As she came out, after straightening her hair and washing her face, the doctor stood in the doorway, frowning at her.