Final Stand

by Lisa Phillips

  Yes, she was entirely capable of that. No matter that he didn’t want to believe she was. Life had proven him wrong too many times.

  She shrugged. “Do you have a better idea of what we can do on a Sunday morning?”

  “No, I do not.”

  She lifted her chin then, challenging him to turn down her offer of going to church with him. The last thing he wanted was for her to go for any other reason than genuine curiosity. Then again, did it matter the reason if she’d be there and listening?

  Mark held out his hand. “Let’s go.”

  Before she could take it, her phone rang. “Victoria Bramlyn.” She listened for a second, and then her face washed pale. “Pops?”

  Chapter 29

  Seattle, WA. Sunday 7.31a.m.

  “Who else would it be?” His voice was shaky and laced with pain, but he still managed to sound irritated.

  “Where are you?” Not to mention all the other questions she had. How was he? What had happened to him, and why was he calling her now?

  This wasn’t the time for him to guilt her into coming to Florida, but if she had to, then she would. If it was the right thing.

  No one wanted family life getting in the middle of a case. She hadn’t been given another choice when Langdon went after her grandfather and dragged him into the fray. She was going to have serious words with him when she caught up to him about making this personal when it never needed to be.

  Over the line she could hear a muttering. “First thing you’ve said that was actually helpful.”

  “Just tell me.” If he wanted to get to the point, then he should just do it. Calling him an “old coot” was much too affectionate.

  “A park.”

  “Local to St. Petersburg?” Either he’d have to get a whole lot more specific, or she needed to have Talia get GPS on his phone. And her friend was probably sleeping right now. Resting up so she would be ready for when they got another lead.

  She turned to Mark and saw him on the phone, quietly asking for a trace on her phone. If that wasn’t Talia, whoever he was talking to was going to have a hard enough time even finding her phone, let alone getting the number of the phone her grandfather was using to then trace it.

  “Stupid girl. I’m in Seattle.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him how she was supposed to know that. “Do you know which park?”

  “No. There’s a fountain. I’m cuffed to a gazebo.”

  “Does the fountain have one of those cupid babies in the center, shooting an arrow?”

  It was the same park she’d been at earlier…or was that yesterday? Maybe it was more than a day ago. She could hardly keep track of time right now and was desperately in need of sleep. Or at least an IV of coffee.

  Langdon had to have known she was there, or he wouldn’t have placed her grandfather there now. He had to be reaffirming the fact he knew her every move. She’d tried to draw him out but had been arrested instead.

  How was he with the scientist guy making the nuke and also out directing her grandfather’s location and movements? That could mean he still had allies. Or people he handed cash to which, although not as reliable, still got the job done.

  “Yes, I see the little angel.”

  “Okay, I know where that is.” She set off in the direction of the car they’d ridden there in with Niall. Did Mark even have the keys? She turned, glanced at him, and then turned back.

  Mark waved Niall’s keys at her. She followed him, mouthing the name of the park. Mark nodded and got on his phone again as they walked. Good, they needed as much backup as possible right now. Especially if Langdon was going to be there.

  Trying to draw them out.

  Was it a trap?

  “…even listening.”

  “I’m here, Pops.”

  “When a man’s telling you his last words, you pay attention girl.”

  She fisted her other hand. “Sorry. What do you mean, ‘last words’?” Her question made Mark hesitate. He glanced at her over the roof of the car, both their doors open. They needed to get in and go but, in that split second, just stared at each other.

  “Because I’m about to die.” Her grandfather let out a sound of frustration. “Are you stupid, or just too lazy to pay attention?”

  She climbed in the passenger seat. “I’m neither stupid nor lazy, Pops.”

  He huffed audibly.

  “I told Mark you’ve mellowed with age.” Mostly true, but not completely. “Don’t make a liar out of me.”

  He glanced at her, turned the key, and put the car in drive. Victoria didn’t meet his gaze. Instead, she listened to her grandfather launch into a scathing diatribe on his opinion of Mark Welvern.

  She cut him off midstream. “We’re on our way. Now tell me why you said you’re about to die.” Could be he was bleeding out, or about to die horribly some other way.

  “I’m strapped to a bomb. The phone has enough battery for one phone call, and it’s about to run out.”

  Victoria reached over and grasped Mark’s free hand as her grandfather continued, “As soon as the phone call ends, the bomb will start counting down.”

  “How much time?”

  “Until it starts, I have no idea. He seemed to think that was hilarious.”

  “I’m sorry.” She’d been gearing herself up for the closure of burying her grandfather as soon as the case was done, and she’d located where Langdon had dumped his body. Now he was here. Literally, on the phone and in town.

  He had no reply for her empathy, or her sorrow. She didn’t want to get bitter, not when she’d managed to keep that from happening all these years.

  “We’ll be there as soon as we can.” She tried to estimate travel time. “Ten minutes, tops. Okay?”

  “Not like I can go anywhere. I just hope I don’t blow up before you get here, I’d like to see your face when it happens.”

  His tone made her press her lips together.

  The phone went dead.

  She lowered it to her lap, trying to process. Mark squeezed her hand, the one she realized still gripped his. “What did he say?”

  “That he doesn’t want to die without seeing my face.”

  “That’s…nice.”

  “Yeah, except it was more like he wanted to rub my face in it.” She explained about the bomb and the timer.

  “So it could go off at any time.”

  She nodded, thankful he’d changed the subject away from the particulars of her grandfather’s way of dealing with her.

  “The nuke?”

  “He didn’t say.” She blew out a breath. “I have no idea.”

  Mark made another call, this time to a captain. Bomb squad—why didn’t she think to ask for them? She hadn’t had much in the way of backup with the CIA, but she could hardly blame that. Her team was solid. They could aid her.

  She just wasn’t sure she wanted them mixed up in her mess. Not when Langdon had made this personal. Too many chances for it to bleed out of her containment and hurt someone else.

  Enough blood had been spilled already.

  She flipped the phone over on her leg, wondering if she should wake Jakeman. After accounting for the time difference, she then wondered if he’d gone to church or stayed in the safe house this morning.

  He was devout enough to risk death for the sake of communing with the Lord, or whatever actually happened in a church service. She hadn’t gone for a very long time. She was surprised at her feelings of disappointment over missing the chance to go with Mark.

  As soon as he pulled up, she jumped out and ran to the gazebo. A cop car pulled up across the park, and she waved them over.

  When they neared her grandfather, sitting on the steps of the gazebo and handcuffed to the wood slat, the cop held his arm out in front of her. “Whoa.”

  How could she get her point across quickly? “I’m a state department director.” It didn’t exactly scream that she knew what she was doing.

  The other cop yelled out, “Hold up, sir
.”

  “I’m with her.” She glanced back to see Mark hold up his badge. “Assistant Director Welvern, FBI. And you could say it’s been a long night.”

  She took a couple of steps toward her grandfather. “It’s been a long week.”

  “I’ve wanted this to be over ever since you came to live with me.” His grizzled face had aged far past his years a long time ago. Now he looked like little more than a shell.

  “Sorry I ruined your life.”

  “Off saving the world, too good for the town you were raised in. The people who looked after you.”

  One of the cops tried to steer this around to the relevant topic. “Sir—”

  Her grandfather jerked his chin. “You want them to die, too? Just for fun?” He flashed his dentures at her, as though this was at all funny.

  “You guys need to back up.” She waved them off. All three of them. Not just the cops, but Welvern too. “How much time is left?”

  He tugged back his jacket with the hand not cuffed to the stair rail. The display looked like an old MP3 player, barely bigger than the gray screen with the scrolling digital numbers.

  2:39.

  2.38.

  2.37.

  “There isn’t much time.” The relief that this wasn’t the nuke nearly brought her to her knees.

  He said nothing.

  “Do you want to die?” She moved closer, assessing the wires. Probably if she broke the circuit and attempted to disconnect the trigger mechanism it would explode. She caught sight of a wire going up his arm. Into the thick black handcuffs she’d seen European cops use—no chain between the hands, this had a solid piece holding them steady. This one was wrapped in a wire. “If we get you free of the cuffs, it’ll blow?”

  Her grandfather lifted his chin, almost amused at the predicament he was in.

  Behind her, Mark said, “How long on the bomb squad?”

  She didn’t think he was talking to her. Victoria held her grandfather’s stony gaze. “Where is he going to set off the nuke?”

  One of the cops gasped. “Did she say nuke?”

  “That has to be the threat they were talking about at roll call.”

  Mark said, “Bomb squad is five minutes out.”

  Her grandfather said, “I guess this is it.”

  Victoria said, “You knew there was no way out. And you’re okay with this?”

  “Gotta go sometime. Why not take out a bandstand in the process? Get in the papers, make everyone wonder about the mystery instead of wasting away in a retirement home waiting to die.”

  “You told me you liked Florida.”

  “Is this what you’re going to talk about?”

  She ignored Mark’s question. “Where is he going to use the nuke, Pops?”

  “You think I’ll tell you?” His eyes flashed, and he motioned with the fingers of his free hand. “Come closer and I will.”

  “Just over a minute isn’t enough time for games.”

  “Hurry up then.”

  She took two steps, heard Mark’s warning, “Victoria,” and kept going. Her grandfather snagged her elbow in a crushing grip that a man his age shouldn’t be able to pull off. She hissed.

  He growled. “Your boyfriend might have his own ideas, but I do as well.”

  “Let go of me.” She didn’t let her eyes drift down to the timer. That wouldn’t slow it or help her get the information she needed. “Tell me where he’s going to hit?”

  “Victoria, forty-five seconds.”

  “Pops, please,” she pleaded. “He’s going to kill thousands.”

  He actually laughed. “And I’ll go down in history.”

  “Be a hero. Not one of the villains.” So far he’d been kidnapped but hadn’t done anything to actually get himself labeled as an accomplice. “For once in your life, do the right thing.” His grip on her arm brought tears to her eyes.

  “Look at you, getting all emotional.”

  If there was ever a time to do so, she figured that time was now. “Just tell me.”

  “Twenty-six seconds,” Mark said.

  She tugged on her arm, fully aware she needed time to run out of the blast zone. Other options included the bomb being a dud, or it being powerful enough it didn’t matter how fast she ran.

  “Let go of me if you’re not going to tell me where he’ll hit.”

  “Tell them I’m this great hero.”

  She waited, and he whispered three words in her ear. Victoria ripped her arm from his grip and turned, running for Mark before they raced away from the gazebo together. She looked over and saw that the two cops were faster.

  The bomb squad van pulled into the parking lot half a second before the bomb strapped to her grandfather exploded.

  Chapter 30

  Seattle, WA. Sunday 7.46a.m.

  Mark moved his head, his cheek mashed against grass. The world had descended into a dull rushing sound with only the hard ground beneath his body.

  He groaned but couldn’t hear the sound from his own throat.

  Victoria.

  Mark forced his body to move. He blinked and saw gray cloud cover. The bare limbs of trees. His arm moved, and he felt damp leaves beneath his fingers.

  It took a minute to push himself up. Even longer to realize one of the cops was talking to him. He was crouched over his partner, head turned in Mark’s direction. Mouth moving.

  The world surged, and it was as though his ears came into focus the way his vision might. Sirens.

  “…get to her.”

  Mark blinked.

  “Now.” The officer gave him no choice.

  Mark looked for Victoria. His gaze skittered over what was left of the gazebo, the debris. The carnage.

  Her grandfather had exploded into oblivion, almost taking Victoria with him. And he would have, if she was any semblance of the woman she once was. These days she understood the value of living to fight another day. Of not allowing personal feelings to cloud her judgment.

  The result was that he got another chance to talk over with her everything they needed to say.

  The cop said something else and pointed over to Mark’s left.

  Victoria.

  Mark tried to get up, stumbled, and wound up crawling over there on his hands and knees. It wasn’t far, but he realized several things hurt. Probably he’d have to deal with those things soon. At the hospital.

  But given the state Victoria was in, he’d be there anyway.

  Mark turned his head. Two police cars. Flashing lights. Ambulance. He sucked in a full breath and yelled, “We need help.”

  Coughing spasms overtook him, but he paid it no mind. Just gathered her to his chest and held her while he waited for the EMTs to run across the grass.

  He felt her move, her hands coming up between them. She grasped his arm and shoulder. He shifted to look down at her face as she looked up at him. Wound on her temple. Blood on the corner of her mouth. Still, she stared up at him like she was glad to see him.

  Mark leaned down, his cheek against hers. She turned to tuck her face in his neck, her grip on him tightening. Sweetest hug of his life.

  Why had he thought there would ever be another woman in his life that would ever evoke such all-encompassing feelings in him? His ex-wife, even in their “honeymoon phase,” hadn’t caused such depth of passion in him. He could consider it a cruel joke, God giving him the one thing he could never have.

  Mark should’ve let her go so many times before. By all rights, they should have drifted out of each other’s lives. But they hadn’t. For one simple reason.

  “I love you, you know.” Her hearing was as obliterated as his, so she probably didn’t hear him. But he felt the reflexive grip of her fingers.

  She moved then. Hands to his face, she tugged his head down until they were almost nose to nose, gazes locked. “I know. I love you.”

  “I’m sure you’ll hate me for interrupting.”

  Mark already did. He turned to the EMT and saw him crouch beside them.

&nbs
p; “But the both of you look like you need some help.”

  “Her first.” He made sure Victoria was going to get seen to. They both had so many scrapes, cuts, and injuries—old and new—that the EMT would likely have to figure out what was from the bomb and what wasn’t.

  “You guys cops?”

  Mark said, “I’m FBI. She’s state department.” He’d never been sure how to explain what she did. “Is the cop okay?”

  The EMT glanced aside where a colleague of his worked on the officer laying on the ground while his partner ran his hands through his hair. It didn’t look good. “I can find out, but we do this first.”

  Mark nodded.

  He looked over Victoria, asking questions as he went, and took her blood pressure. He shone a penlight in her eyes. “Was it really a bomb?”

  “My grandfather.”

  The EMT started. “Your…what?”

  Mark explained everything, though he had to be brief on how it related to Langdon, the corrupt FBI agents they’d exposed and arrested, and what was happening now. Victoria’s role in all of it was unclear, and this guy didn’t need to know how she fit in.

  “Huh.”

  Mark shrugged. He wasn’t going to explain more. That would be a breach of security. What they needed right now was someone on the other side who could breach Langdon’s operational security.

  A thought occurred to his sluggish brain. “Right before…” He blew up. “Your grandfather said something to you.”

  Victoria frowned. “You’re right.” A light illuminated in her eyes. “I need a phone.”

  The EMT cut him off before he could respond. “You need a hospital.”

  “And a phone.”

  Mark nearly laughed. “And that’s why they pay her the big bucks. She gets the job done.”

  “Yeah, being one of the good guys is lucrative.”

  The EMT laugh. “If it was, I probably wouldn’t have a second job hanging drywall on my days off.”

  “I renovate houses in the evenings and weekends.”

  “For real?”

  Mark nodded.

  The EMT slapped his thighs. “Okay, let’s load up.”