Final Stand

by Lisa Phillips

  Did she want to change that? Of course. She’d always wanted things between them to be different. Now it was like this holding pattern had existed for so long they would just continue to circle each other, and the concept of a different kind of relationship, for…ever.

  Because the alternative was that she tell him the truth.

  After that, she wouldn’t even have the measure of Mark in her life that she had now. Because he would push her away for good.

  Done.

  Over.

  The van bumped them again.

  Maybe it was better that she die here. Then he would never find out.

  Genevieve shoved at her shoulder. “Focus.”

  Victoria realized another car was heading toward them. A silver compact. It, too, had multiple passengers. “They’re crowding us in.”

  The compact burned rubber on the road, then flipped around. A J-turn. “Sarge.”

  “What?”

  She ignored Genevieve’s question. “The cavalry.”

  “Is he worth this?”

  Mark was worth anything, and everything. He was certainly worth her telling him the truth. She just didn’t want to see the look on his face when he found out. She’d made a lot of choices in her life. He would question whether they were the right ones, even given the evidence of what she’d accomplished.

  The good always outweighed the means.

  Her priority was to keep him safe and alive, despite herself, and always over her own romantic entanglements. They both knew that. He might hate it if he found out she was protecting him. Probably he figured he didn’t need her to do that. But she wasn’t about to put him in danger any more than he would want her to be in danger.

  “Langdon is obviously pissed and lashing out.”

  “And he’s going to have you killed?” Victoria glanced at a woman she still considered a friend. A woman she’d tried to do right by, even while she still worked to maintain her integrity.

  “How do I know what Langdon has planned?”

  The two cars got in front and behind the van. Victoria let the silver vehicle get between her and her pursuers. They were going to take care of this for her?

  “He’s hiding out. Biding his time.” Victoria spoke her thought process as it formed. “He isn’t running, he’s fighting back and no one knows what he’s capable of, not like you do.”

  Genevieve shifted in her seat. The two cars had slowed, forcing the van to pull back with them.

  The other woman said, “I’ve always tried to…minimize the damage. Rein him in a little.” She glanced at Victoria, who couldn’t look at the expression on her face to see what that meant.

  She navigated the switchback while she thought it over. “That was you.”

  “What?”

  “South Africa.”

  Genevieve shifted again, muttering under her breath.

  “You got him to put me in prison instead of killing me, didn’t you?” Victoria wanted to pull over. To look this woman in the eyes and get the truth. Finally. “He wouldn’t have left me. He’d have dumped my body after I figured out it was the FBI. I fingered them, and the next thing I know, it’s all gone wrong and I’m waking up in South Africa. With a tattoo.” Of course, it made total sense. “It’s his insurance. In case you double cross him, or I come back to get him again.”

  “Tattoo?”

  “UV.” She shifted her elbow to flash the skin of her forearm. “Not normally visible. He put it there. It has to be his insurance policy. A way to implicate me if it goes wrong.”

  She needed to have the medical examiner look at Davies’s body under black light. See if he was part of the same group of thieves and con men. Bad guys masquerading as good.

  A group she would be at risk of being associated with anytime Langdon felt like throwing her under the bus in retaliation.

  Victoria wanted to think this through more, but there wasn’t time. There was just one thing she wasn’t clear on. One thing she needed an answer to now. “You were already in prison when it all happened. How is it that he came to make you this promise?”

  She didn’t really need Genevieve to answer the question.

  Victoria said, “He knows how to get in contact with you. Or you with him.”

  The fact they’d pulled it off was a credit to their skill and tenacity and might be commendable, if it wasn’t also seriously illegal subterfuge. The kind of custody Genevieve was in. Even those prison guards back there hadn’t known her real name.

  Genevieve held the gun loose on her lap, but her intention was clear. She was prepared to shoot Victoria. “There’s a guy. I do him…favors. He passes along messages.”

  Victoria shook her head. “Do the people interrogating you about their missing money know Langdon can still get to you?”

  She certainly hadn’t, considering she’d never have come here if she’d known.

  Genevieve shrugged one shoulder. “We all have to live with our choices. It’s not like it can ever get washed away.”

  Another gunshot blasted. Victoria ducked her head on a reflex. The two cars had engaged the van. It swerved to avoid the one in front, slowing down. They were trying to get the driver to pull over.

  She kept up her speed, winding around the bends in the road like she was on a British country road with their high speed limits instead of in France, like she was.

  The van collided with the car in front and seemed to push it aside. Victoria watched as the car spun out, careening across the road and off the side into a ditch. It blew through a fence into some pasture.

  Genevieve watched it go. While she was distracted, Victoria grabbed for the gun. She wound up with both hands on it, her knees lifted to hold the wheel straight. Feet off the pedals.

  She elbowed Genevieve in the nose and got the gun, then grabbed the wheel and hit the gas again. “You’re not going to shoot me.”

  “Guess not.”

  She didn’t want to know what this woman would have done if pressed into a corner. Victoria was going to ensure she went back into police custody. The lives she’d taken might not have been innocent, but murder was murder. Regardless of the quality of the person whose life had been lost, justice still needed to be served.

  A gunshot rang out.

  Before Victoria could figure out what had been hit, the car swerved. The steering got really sloppy. She couldn’t straighten out, no matter how hard she fought. A tire. They had to have shot out a tire.

  The second she realized this, they were already off the road. She narrowly avoided a sign post but couldn’t get back onto the street. Not without a miracle. She wasn’t someone those worked for, so she gritted her teeth and tried to minimize the damage.

  They bumped up an incline and into rows of wheat. The dirt was rutted, shifting the gun around in her lap. Genevieve’s head hit the ceiling and she grunted. Victoria hit the brake, but they kept going anyway. The smell of burning rubber filled the car.

  Genevieve grabbed the gun.

  The car stopped.

  Victoria blew out a breath, acknowledging that though dying might feel like a better alternative at the moment, the reality was she liked being alive. And she appreciated every day she got.

  “I didn’t want Langdon to kill you because I wanted to do it myself.”

  Victoria turned to look at her.

  The gun was pointed right at her face.

  “My life is already over. What do I have to lose by killing a spy no one but that sad-sack FBI guy will care is dead?”

  To be fair, Bear would probably miss her as well. Not just Mark.

  Then there was her former team. They’d care if she was killed, right? She thought so. At least Talia would show up at her funeral. She’d probably stand a distance away with a black umbrella so it would seem like Victoria was just mysterious—not lacking in the friend department.

  A bullet hit Genevieve’s right shoulder the second the glass of the passenger window splintered.

  She cried out and slumped in the seat.
>
  Victoria grabbed the gun from her. Then she realized it wasn’t Genevieve’s shoulder that had been hit. It was the side of her neck. Victoria pulled off her jacket and balled it against the woman’s neck. “What does Langdon have? What is he going to do?”

  Genevieve’s skin was pale, the blood coming too fast.

  “I’ll get you a doctor. Just tell me.” The door opened. She saw the sergeant, but kept her attention on Genevieve. “Tell me.”

  She gasped. Formed a couple of words with her mouth, no sound emerging from her lips. Until the last word. One that sent cold through Victoria’s whole being, straight to her soul.

  “Uranium.”

  She made a run for it.

  Chapter 14

  Bremerton, WA. Thursday 6.05p.m.

  Jakeman walked into the conference room, stowing his cell phone in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “She’s on her way home.”

  A good thing. Too bad Mark caught sight of the look on Jakeman’s face. The look of a worried father, concerned about where his daughter had been and what she’d been doing, never mind that she was safe.

  The man was at least fifteen years her senior. Mark appreciated the fact this guy cared about her, but it still kind of irritated him that Jakeman knew more about what was going on with Victoria than he did.

  “Thanks.” Josh nodded. Beside him, Dakota looked relieved.

  Talia sat in the corner, head bent over her laptop. Niall had disappeared to sit at his desk for a while.

  No one was ready to clock out for the day.

  “What was she doing?” The question came out far more irritated than he intended. Everyone looked at him, even Talia. He wanted to squirm but forced his body to remain still.

  Jakeman reached back and shut the door. “I know you’re her friends, but I have to temper that knowledge with the fact Victoria did not share any of this with you. She did not share her case with you. Nor did she share with you what happened to her in Austria.”

  “No, but without me,” Mark argued, “she’d still be in that South African prison.”

  Jakeman didn’t like that much.

  Dakota made a noise—like news of a prison was something she hadn’t known. Josh set his hand over hers on the table.

  Mark said, “I get that you need to keep this committee under wraps for security reasons, but he knows how to get to her. Langdon is like a trapped animal trying to claw his way out. He doesn’t care who is hurt in the process. So you need to read us in. That way we can keep Victoria and the people we care about safe.”

  Out the corner of his eye, Mark saw Josh nod.

  Jakeman turned to Talia. “You’re the NSA one, right?”

  “Yes.”

  He gave her a name to look up. Talia got her computer hooked up to the TV on the wall, and a photo came on screen.

  Dakota said, “Who is she?”

  “European socialite. Except that she upped her game from stealing from boutiques in Monaco to grifting on old, rich guys. Bankers. Businessmen. Last estimate is that she got at least five million in the span of eight months.”

  “Says here she’s in prison.” Talia clicked on her keyboard and brought up a report of the charges. “Twenty years for murder.”

  “The last guy. They’re still looking for his body.”

  Mark frowned. “She was convicted for murder, yet no one is certain the guy is actually dead?”

  Jakeman shrugged. “Europe has different rules, I guess. Anyway, Victoria had an assignment. Genevieve Moran was Langdon’s intermediary with buyers. She was the face of his operation for months, and the key to figuring out his identity.”

  Several people over the last few decades, high on the ten most wanted list, were only a persona, no photo. It wasn’t common, but it also wasn’t unheard of.

  Jakeman continued, “She got close to Genevieve. Made friends with her. Two socialites out on the town. Victoria was gathering her case together when Genevieve was busted by Interpol. She never told Victoria who Langdon really was. After that, we heard he was selling artifacts. Victoria got what she needed, went to the event, and the rest is history.” He pushed out a breath. “Near as we can tell, now that we know the FBI had serious corruption issues, is that it got back to Langdon that the CIA was running a mission. He took her out of play.”

  “And dumped her in a South African prison?” Dakota looked like she wanted to start throwing punches to make herself feel better.

  Josh said, “Who is this Langdon guy you think is your missing FBI agent?”

  Mark moved to his file, still thinking about what Victoria was doing in Europe right now. Meeting with that woman, getting herself into trouble. She might be okay right now, and heading home, but he couldn’t let this feeling fester. When it came, as it often did when he heard what she’d been doing, he had to process the retroactive fear and then set it aside. She wasn’t in danger now. She had been. She was fine.

  Until the next time.

  He flipped the file open and slid the photo of Langdon—Colin Pinton—toward the couple. “This is who we need to find. The man we now believe is Langdon.”

  Josh’s jaw muscle flexed.

  “Uh…” Dakota paused. “This is Oscar Langdon?”

  “Yes.”

  Josh looked at her and nodded.

  “What?” Mark folded his arms across his chest.

  Dakota said, “We’ve met this guy.”

  “I remember thinking he had a civil veneer, but it was pretty thin.” Josh scratched at his jaw. Mark waited, as did the rest of them, for him to explain. Josh said, “Earlier this year, in the course of our investigation into the source of some VX gas, we came upon a biker compound.”

  Talia said, “Wasn’t that when you guys met?”

  He nodded. “This guy—” He poked at the photo with his index finger. “—was one in a community of bikers who assisted us with escaped convicts from a local prison.”

  Mark nodded. They didn’t need every detail of what had been going on back then. He knew a lot about Clare Norton and the VX gas and the person she’d gotten it from—Malcom Kennowich. “Tell me about him.”

  “He seemed to be in charge,” Josh said. “The leader of this group of bikers. Helped us out, seemed to care about the rest of them being in danger. Determined to protect his family.”

  Mark flipped through papers in the file. “Colin Pinton worked undercover in a biker gang out of northern California two years ago.”

  “So, post Austria, pre-now.”

  Mark nodded to Jakeman. “He worked out of San Francisco, as did most of our corrupt agents. But Colin Pinton never turned anything up on the bikers. The undercover activity was shut down when it was clear he wasn’t going to come up with evidence.”

  Josh said, “So he formed a bond, got in as their leader, and then told his SAIC that he got nothing.”

  Mark shrugged. “That would be my guess. The special agent in charge probably wrote up a report. I’ll have to see what he said, but the guy in charge of the San Francisco office is one of our agents in jail now along with the others. He’s as corrupt as Pinton.”

  Josh blew out a breath. “So it was a cover up? A whole lot of work on paper but not much in the way of results.”

  Mark nodded. “Pinton had the freedom to work as Langdon behind the scenes. To keep both sides of his business going—working as an agent, and being a bad guy—because his boss covered for him.”

  “That explains how he’s been able to stay under the radar.” Dakota skimmed the pages. “He’s got a built in persona he can fall back on at any time. Playing both sides, though this would be a third one. The FBI, the world he inhabits as Langdon, and now this biker community.”

  “But you saw him in Washington, right? Not northern California.” Mark wasn’t sure it made sense how the guy could have been working out of San Francisco while living in the backwoods of Washington state.

  Dakota tipped her head to the side. “He had to have hooked up with them, and maybe the underc
over work took him all the way up here.”

  “I can look at the file from his undercover work and compare dates. Though, this whole thing was covered up so it’s not like it’ll be in the actual report of where he was and when.” Mark blew out a breath. “If you say it’s him, then it’s a good place to start looking.”

  “The compound is a fortress. We’ll never get eyes inside unless they invite us in,” Josh said.

  Dakota said, “I could—”

  “No.”

  She frowned, shifting in her seat.

  Mark figured she was willing to take a risk for the case. For Victoria.

  “Are you marrying me next month?” Josh kept his tone low.

  Dakota made a face. “I hope so.”

  “Then I need you to get there in one piece.”

  “Maybe I’ll just quit and be a stay-at-home dog mom.”

  “I’ll buy you an apron,” Josh said. “It’ll be nice. Not too many ruffles.”

  She chuckled, cracking a smile. “You do that, you’ll lose your partner.”

  “Deal.”

  Mark realized then that there was a whole lot more to what they were saying than the exchanged words. It seemed both of them were willing to take each other as they came. Faults, foibles, and fears.

  They had stuff to work through if they wanted a strong relationship but were willing to put in the effort to do it.

  Together.

  “Let’s go.” Dakota stood, pulling on her jacket.

  Josh shook Mark’s hand. “We’ll find out if he’s there, and if he isn’t, see if they know where Langdon might have gone.”

  Mark nodded.

  Dakota gave him a wave, and they moved past Jakeman out of the office. Josh followed to do whatever the secretary of defense did on a Thursday night at dinnertime. It would take most of the night to get that information, considering the drive out to where this compound was located. The two of them were dedicated to their jobs, and each other, in a way that seemed to incorporate a good balance of each.

  Partners in life, and work. After they were married, that bond would be even closer. Even stronger.

  Mark’s stomach rumbled. He needed to go home and make sure Bear was okay. He’d been working longer hours than usual lately, but that normally happened in the thick of a case. Especially one where every eye was on his office, making sure it was all above board.