Final Stand

by Lisa Phillips

  Since that day, he’d been avoiding what was real, pretending that he only wanted a friendship with Victoria.

  Bear trotted to the back door and nudged the bell with his nose.

  Mark let him out and stood in the open doorway, long enough for his dog to take care of business and then meander back inside between Mark’s leg and the door. Mark just looked at the gray cover of clouds and the trees. Felt the movement of the breeze on his face.

  “Incoming!”

  He spun around, hand halfway to his gun before he realized whose voice that had been.

  Victoria’s former team had let themselves into his house, moving down the hall to where he stood off at the side of the kitchen. Actually, only part of the team.

  Talia dumped her giant, gold purse on the counter. “Shut the door, Welvern. It’s cold.”

  Mason moved to the coffee pot, lifted the lid and dumped the old grounds in the trash he found under the sink.

  Niall and Haley strode down the hall. A dog barked. Neema. Then his dog barked. Niall moved toward the noise, trailing after them. “Dakota is at the hospital with Josh. She asked us to watch their dog.”

  Mark held out his hand. “Let them figure it out.”

  He turned the corner to the living room. The two dogs had faced off with each other, but their heads were angled to sniff each other’s necks. Tails wagging. They danced around each other, and Mark observed enough butt licking—which wasn’t something he needed to watch—to know they would be fine.

  He turned back to the hall. “That’s nasty, Bear. She’s a lady.”

  Haley was grinning, holding an empty mug ready for a refill. Niall clapped him on the shoulder. “You look like crap.”

  Mark ignored that. “How is Josh?”

  “Not much in the way of change, but they say his body knows what to do. It’s all a waiting game now.”

  Mark followed Niall to the kitchen. He stood in the doorway because there wasn’t anywhere else to stand that wasn’t already occupied by another person. “Why does this feel like a party when it very much is not one?”

  Talia lifted the lid of her laptop and settled onto one of his barstools. “Because we have information you need to know.”

  “I should go upstairs,” Mark said. “Do a sweep.” He’d only just arrived home and hadn’t secured the whole house.

  Niall headed toward him. “I got it.”

  Soon as he’d passed Mark, Haley said, “He needs to move. He doesn’t like standing still, or sitting down, when one of our own is in danger.”

  Mark was pretty sure the last time he’d spoken to Haley she’d been mad at Victoria for all the secrets she’d kept from them. Now they were rallying to do what? Find her? He turned to Talia. “So tell me this information.”

  Haley was the one who said, “We’re just waiting on two more. Then the whole team will be here.”

  Mark rubbed the spot on his stomach where he’d been shot. Allyson and Sal were on their way?

  Haley said, “Do you need something? Ibuprofen?”

  He shook his head. What he needed was something much stronger, which he’d never take anyway because it was too risky, even just once. Just a personal choice based on his father’s tendency to become reliant on any and every substance he could get his hands on.

  Mark also figured he needed about forty-eight hours of sleep. But before that, he needed to know where Victoria was.

  The door opened. “Hola.” First in was Allyson Sanchez, formerly of the ATF. Though, judging by the glints on her finger, she may well already be Mrs. Salvador Alvarez.

  “They’re here!” Haley rushed to hug Allyson. “Was it amazing?”

  Allyson nodded. “So amazing.”

  Sal stepped in, shut the door behind him, and then petted both the dogs who insisted on sniffing his boots. Both he and Allyson did look more tanned than usual, and happier than he’d ever seen them.

  Sal clapped him on the shoulder. “In case you need honeymoon ideas, bro. Belize.” He squeezed Mark’s shoulder. “Trust me.”

  They congregated in the kitchen, Niall back from his sweep of upstairs. Mark called for the dogs, and let them outside.

  “Will somebody please now tell me where Victoria is?” Mark folded his arms on his chest. Then he had to unfold them because Mason handed him a steaming cup of black coffee.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Like, right now.”

  Mason turned to his fiancé. “Honey?”

  Talia paused typing on her computer. She clicked the mousepad and pulled up an image. “This, we believe, is Langdon.”

  Mark strode to her side and peered from close up at the screen. “Can’t tell if it is or not.”

  “Right.” She clicked again, and the image zoomed in. It focused and…

  “That’s Victoria.”

  “He has her tied up in the back of the ambulance.” She squeezed his forearm. “We weren’t sure what happened, so I was tasked with tracking it from when it left the scene of the explosion. Langdon disabled the GPS, but I followed them from surveillance. Traffic cameras. ATM cameras. That kind of thing. Found the side street where he shoved the EMT out of the back and then took off. Cops who showed up said he was already cold.”

  Cold. As in dead.

  Not something he ever wanted to be said about Victoria. Not if he could help it. God, help me.

  Mason squeezed his shoulder.

  “We need to get her back.”

  Talia nodded. “There’s more. Unfortunately. And you’re not going to like it.”

  “You dug something up.”

  He figured the information she’d dug up was likely the strings pulled to get him the FBI assistant director’s job. But it could easily be something else. He knew a lot about Victoria’s history, but nowhere near everything. They probably knew things he didn’t but maybe no one on earth knew everything.

  If she died today, all those secrets would die with her.

  “Genevieve Moran wasn’t just Victoria’s friend.” She pulled a picture of her up on her screen from whatever French authority had conducted a medical examination of her body.

  “Right,” Mark said. “She was Oscar Langdon’s woman.”

  “That’s what we all thought, and it’s true, but it’s still not the whole story.”

  “I was digging through everything I could get on Colin Pinton from the FBI’s files. That got me to a phone he had, not his work number but—”

  “You hacked his personal phone?”

  “NSA,” she said, as though that explained what the FBI hadn’t been able to get access to. Because they had no records of a personal cell phone that they’d found. “So I went through his phone records to see if anything popped. And let me say, something popped all right.” She took a breath, then continued with a wary expression on her face. “From what I can surmise, Colin Pinton began a relationship a few months before he transferred to California. With an employee of the state department.”

  “Victoria.”

  Talia nodded. “She dated Pinton before she…you know, dropped off the map or whatever.”

  “Before Langdon dumped her in that prison.” He scratched at his jaw, putting the puzzle pieces together and working the implications of a relationship. “So Colin and Victoria start to date around, or during, the time Victoria was actively trying to get close to Genevieve. Then when the operation to grab Langdon goes down, she’s dumped in South Africa. Because of Genevieve, or because of Langdon?”

  “Who cares?” Haley was probably as itching to get on the hunt for Victoria as he was.

  Mark shot her a look. “She never knew Pinton was Langdon, right? That means they dumped her in prison so she wouldn’t find out. Probably to safeguard whatever deal they had going down that night.” Save her life, but get rid of her. Maintain their secrets. “They should’ve killed her.”

  Haley pushed off the kitchen counter toward him. “Excuse me?”

  “They left her alive when they should have killed her. S
he came home and set up a committee specifically to nail this guy, and to have it done in an official and permanent way. To make sure he goes down for all of it.”

  “But he’s got her.”

  “And the tattoo on her arm,” Mark said, “that’s the final nail in the coffin of her career. He’s going to paint the picture that she turned and is now responsible as well. Or that the nuke was her idea all along, and he was the one coerced.”

  “They can’t do that!” Talia’s face reddened. “People will think she’s guilty!”

  As opposed to simply being a woman who had fallen for who she’d thought was a good man, had been betrayed, and now stood to lose everything she’d built? “I’m going to help her get free of this.” It was true. None of them had to hear him say it to know he would do whatever it took. “We all are. Isn’t that why you guys are here, so we can pool our skills and resources and do this together?”

  He couldn’t find her without their help. Mark knew there was a reason God had brought them into his life, probably for this. Right now. So they could help him get her back. Thank You. Seeing His hand in this, Mark felt like there was actually hope they’d be able to bring her home.

  Niall closed in, wound his arm around his fiancé’s shoulders and hugged her to him. He looked at Talia. “Mark is right.”

  “I know we’re going to find her.” She didn’t sound happy about it. “I just can’t believe he’ll make it so she’s blamed. So people doubt all the work she’s done and who she is. The good. For this country.”

  Niall nodded. “Me either.”

  “Seems like Langdon hedged his bets all around, hiding his identity as an FBI agent. Working both sides. Seems like he had contingencies ready and waiting so he could flick one thing and set something in motion wherever and whenever he needed.”

  Talia pointed her finger at him. “That’s good. I’m going to look into that.”

  “She knew where he was going to set off the nuke.” Mark squeezed the bridge of his nose again, and then ran his hands down his face. “Victoria is the only one alive who knew that.”

  They looked shell shocked. He felt the same, having been essentially blown up earlier that morning. His whole body felt like he’d been hit by a train, and he suddenly felt the urge to send a sympathy card to anyone who’d actually experienced that. Or family members who had lost someone that way.

  “Anderson.”

  They collectively turned to him as Mason turned away slightly to take his call. Probably all wondering, as Mark was, who it was on the phone. If it was related to Victoria’s abduction. Whether they would learn something from it, or get a lead.

  “Thank you.” He hung up. “Jakeman’s safe house was hit. There are unconfirmed reports coming in that everyone there is dead.”

  Chapter 33

  Seattle, WA. Sunday 10.57a.m.

  Victoria blinked. The rush of her inhale filled her ears and she looked around. Breezeblock walls, no window. Single bulb illuminating the room.

  That’s when you’ll know it’s the end.

  But she wasn’t dead. Yet.

  She tried to relieve the tension in her screaming shoulders but couldn’t move her hands. Rope bit into her wrists. Her feet were also bound to this metal folding chair. She gritted her teeth. Not a chair she could snap or bust out of. Nothing around her to cut the bonds.

  She didn’t have many options if she wanted to get out of here.

  The short clip of a person’s shoes on concrete tapped down whatever hallway lay on the far side of the closed door. It might as well be in Madagascar out there, for all that she could access it.

  The walker—a man, by the sound of it—passed the door without stopping. Without speaking. He continued down the hall, retreating from her ability to hear. About his business without paying her any mind.

  She blew out a breath. A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead, and she slumped down in the chair.

  She wasn’t going to get out of this. Not without him coming in here and her getting him to participate in the escape process. Easier said than done, but it wasn’t impossible.

  There weren’t a whole lot of options for her.

  He’d intended to kill her, but only as much as she had been intending on killing him. A stalemate, kind of like her in this chair. Then when he’d talked her into standing down, he’d whipped out a stun gun and zapped her.

  She was supposed to be finding out where that nuke was. What he planned on…

  She knew. Her grandfather had told her where Langdon intended on using it.

  Where Colin intended on setting it off.

  She shut her eyes then, forcing her mind—for the first time—to process the fact it was the same man. For as long as she’d been chasing him, Victoria had striven to separate them in her mind. She didn’t want to feel the jabbing knife of that betrayal. Not right now, not then, and hopefully not ever. But it wasn’t going to help her to do that anymore. It was time to fully embrace reality, not just the world the way she wanted to see it or believe it was.

  He’d lied to her.

  Victoria made a face, alone in the room. No one could see it. The truth was that he’d fooled her, and that hurt more. The reality that she hadn’t realized he was lying to her. Meaning, she cared about someone who didn’t even exist, which meant she hadn’t cared about him at all. To any degree. Mostly she’d been coming off a time when Mark had been lamenting the impending end of his marriage. Then, next phone call, he’d sounded excited because they’d been working on things. Patching it up.

  She’d responded like any warm-blooded woman in a long-term relationship with her job. Rebounding with the first guy she met that she thought was a good guy. A nice guy. The fact he’d been an FBI agent had been a gray area she’d not wanted to think about too much. Fact was, she was around government and federal types all the time because of her job. She’d been in Europe. It was an insular community.

  Mark had gotten a divorce. Victoria had run the mission and had woken up in South Africa. All around it had been a bad idea, hindsight being 20/20, and all that.

  The door handle rotated and was pushed open. She lifted her chin and watched as a familiar face came in. Not one she’d been intending to see.

  “Jakeman.” She cleared her throat and swallowed.

  He didn’t look happy to see her and stumbled into the room. Hands behind his back.

  Langdon followed him. Gun pointed at her friend. Folding chair in the other hand. He jerked it open and set the legs down, then shoved Jakeman to a sit. “Good. We can get started.”

  He set his foot on top of Jakeman’s shoe, holding it in place, and brought the butt of the gun down on his knee.

  Jakeman brought his head down right as Langdon straightened. Their skulls glanced off each other. Langdon roared. “I should put a bullet in you for that.”

  “So do it.” Jakeman spat blood onto the floor.

  “I’m trying to work. So just shut up.”

  “Am I invited to this party?” Victoria figured if she got his attention long enough, he’d give Jakeman a breather. With the added bonus that Langdon might forget to secure her friend to his chair. “Or is it just for the two of you?”

  “I don’t need your help.” Langdon swung the gun around. Now that she knew he wasn’t imminently going to use it, she could cross a few scenarios off her mental list of what might happen.

  “Why are we here?”

  She wanted to ask why Jakeman was here, too, but this would be a good start.

  Langdon sucked in a series of long breaths. Trying to calm, or compose, himself. “All who knew about me, and who caused all this, are done. Both of you being the ones left—you got voted to go down with the ship as it were.”

  “You’re going to blow us up with that nuke?” She had to know what Jakeman knew.

  He gasped. Evidently he’d been missing that part of the puzzle.

  “Right now?” She also had to know the timeline.

  “I’ll let you know when it’s
going to happen.” Langdon sneered at her. “You’ll know when that is because all of a sudden things will get really hot.”

  “And us?” She motioned to Jakeman with her head. “We just get obliterated while you run away?”

  Langdon shrugged one shoulder. “Seems like a decent plan to me. I’m just finalizing the particulars.”

  “And the scientist?”

  “I didn’t need him anymore.”

  “So he’s dead as well?”

  Langdon pushed out a breath. “Does it matter, Victoria? You’re going to be dead.”

  And he got to choose the time and place. This man thought he controlled the end of her life, with her powerless and tied to a chair.

  “And everyone in the world will think you and Jakeman couldn’t handle the secrets anymore. You were so tormented by your sordid relationship that you weren’t able to hold it in any longer. So you decided to end it all with a nuke. Blow up your whole world and let it all go down in flames so that your passion could live forever.”

  Cold prickled the skin on her arms.

  “Mark would never believe that.”

  She glanced at Jakeman.

  He shook his head. “Not just Mark. All of Victoria’s friends. And all my family.”

  Langdon took a step toward him. “You think I can’t fake a relationship? Like I’ve never done that before?” He laughed.

  Jakeman flinched and shifted away on the chair.

  Victoria bit her lip to keep from telling him not to make it too obvious that he wasn’t secured to it. “Don’t do this!”

  Langdon twisted back to her.

  “Don’t make it worse than it has to be. Just…go. Do you really need to set off this bomb and make up a bunch of lies, just to get away?”

  “Yes.”

  He walked to the door, stepped out, and threw it shut.

  Victoria started. Then she shut her eyes.

  “He’s really going to do this.”

  She looked at her friend. A man she had been very careful in her association with, as she was when connected to anyone of his caliber. There was zero point in a person like her, who strove to live under the radar, getting the spotlight shone on her entire life, just so the news could have a headline story.