by JL Terra
This world was all about how much you could trust the person at your back. None of them wanted to present what was vulnerable to someone they didn’t know fully. Mei had won Shadrach over, and Malachi could do the same with her. It was up to Malachi to do that.
Mei grabbed a donut, her face impassive.
Ben said, “We’re going to keep having the conversation until the day Malachi is either at this table with us, or we’ve formally let him know the job offer has been rescinded.”
Mei nodded, pink frosting at the corner of her mouth.
Remy raised a hand while she typed with the other. “Venezuelan police still haven’t found the body of Eric Tiller.”
Shadrach said, “Not exactly surprising. He was likely vaporized in the explosion.”
“True,” Remy said. “They’re looking for Mr. Tiller anyway. Though not by that name. They’re also trying to find whoever else was on the property before it blew up. Couple of bodies retrieved have yet to be identified. They’ve also officially stated it was a gas leak that caused the explosion and filed a complaint through secure channels to the US government. They want to know why an American team, and the military, acted on Venezuelan soil without informing them first.”
The government would deny all knowledge of the team, since Ben and his people hadn’t officially acted on their behalf. Who knew what they’d say about the UAV shooting a missile at a residential house. “Whoops” didn’t really cut it in international politics. That tended to start wars.
“And the flash drive?” Ben asked.
“I’m working on downloading the contents now.” Remy paused, her attention on her screen. “It’ll take time to wade through the info, and then we can get it back to the CIA. Officially—” She made a choking sound.
Shadrach jumped halfway out of his seat. “Are you okay?”
Remy nodded. She took a sip of water.
Ben leaned over. “What is it?” Her eyes darted about, not focusing on any one of them. He wasn’t going to like it, but she was better off just telling him. “Remy.”
She took a breath. “There’s nothing on this flash drive.”
Chapter 8
Chicago, IL. Monday, 10:16hrs CDT
“That’s what I’m saying.” Ben paced the office, the phone hot against his ear. “They played us. The CIA. Tiller. That team. One—or all of them—is behind this.”
“That isn’t good,” his brother, Grant, said.
Ben gritted his teeth, biting back a comment about Captain Obvious.
“It’s probably the CIA. I’ll bet they’re running some kind of test on you. Making sure you’re adhering to their rules.”
“Without telling me I’m wasting my time?”
“It wouldn’t be a true test if you knew what was going on.”
Ben squeezed his empty hand into a fist. “Heads will roll if that’s what’s happening. I don’t care who the CIA wants to kill. Don’t drag me into a pointless search for an empty flash drive after it’s done. I get them asking me to locate Tiller, but that team? Who were they?”
The sniper had been watching them. Peter Bayleigh could’ve reported back—though with the head wound Ben gave him, that might take a few days. Remy would find out who the rest were.
Grant said, “They would’ve known the drill.”
“Risking their lives just to test me?” Ben didn’t like this at all. He ran back over everything in his head. “They showed me what was on the flash drive, so the sale was part of the ruse. And I don’t doubt the CIA wanted Eric Tiller dead. I don’t think this team was part of it. I think they were running surveillance on me, learning how I work.”
“So not the CIA.”
“Someone else.” He let the idea fully coalesce. “I think someone’s targeting me.”
“So we find out who they are.”
Ben said, “Are you going to tell me not to worry?”
“I’m just saying you’ll take care of this,” Grant answered. “And I’ll find out for sure if the CIA was part of it.”
“Okay.” Ben stared at his sneakers. His big brother would help him figure this out. It shouldn’t matter so much when he was forty-six, but it did. It made him feel better. Thank you. He didn’t say it.
Mei slipped from the conference room into the women’s bathroom. Probably making a call on the cell phone she kept hidden in her boot. He should tell her about the file. The CIA wanted to dispatch Ben to find the woman who meant the most to both of them. Wherever she was, it was somewhere even he would have trouble locating. That was a certainty.
The distance kept both of them safe while Mei occupied the no-man’s-land in the middle of their standoff. The three of them were family—so long as the description was kept loose enough it covered every iteration of estrangement a person could come up with. Didn’t mean Ben wasn’t thinking of one or both of them at any moment. Didn’t mean he didn’t love them enough that it could be used to destroy him.
Which was why they hadn’t been in the same room together, the three of them. Not for so many years that he’d lost count. Mei had been young enough she probably didn’t even remember, while Ben recalled every second of it.
Grant said, “How long will you be at the office?”
“I need to get the flash drive back to the CIA. I have to play this out, see what the outcome is gonna be. I’m not looking forward to the conversation, but I need answers. Tiller sent me on a wild goose chase.”
“Just…watch your back.”
“We all have a shelf life.”
Grant chuckled. “I’m beginning to think I’ve hit mine. I might even be past it.”
Ben managed a laugh as well. Mei came out of the bathroom at that moment. She glanced over. A small smile played on her lips.
Ben said, “Sure you are, old man. I was at your fiftieth birthday party, remember?” Ribbing his older brother was second nature. His watch chimed, one minute fifty-seven. “Later.” He hung up before Grant could reply.
Three hours later he was on a commercial flight from Chicago to Charleston in first class, wearing Khaki slacks and a polo shirt. The waitress brought his Sprite, and Ben took a minute to actually relax. Just another businessman flying cross-country for work. He even read the inflight magazine.
Still, work stuff swirled in his mind. The chase for the flash drive had all been a ruse. Tiller was dead. Who pulled the strings here? Someone was in pursuit of his team. The idea rolled around his head like tennis shoes in a dryer. Clunk. Clunk. Whoever they were, they’d gotten all the way to Ben’s team with that meetup. They’d put themselves on Ben’s radar.
How was that a smart move? They’d exposed themselves.
There was no point worrying about who or what. Not until Remy had something solid. It could all be the CIA making sure he was still operating in a way they approved of. Right now only Grant’s feeling drove that idea.
Ben put stock in intuition, even if it meant he disagreed. It had saved his life many times over, that feeling of being in crosshairs he couldn’t see. It had led him to the sniper on the roof in Wichita, which gave them the location for the meet.
He probably should’ve killed that guy. Would have, if he’d known then he was being played.
A huge part of him had wanted to put a bullet in Peter Bayleigh’s brain. That desire was like a spreading infection. It stained his intuition. If he wasn’t careful, soon it would dictate even his gut reactions.
Ben had to avoid it poisoning him to that extent of control if he could. He didn’t want to turn into a mindless killer, though the urge was there inside him. That was why he’d given Peter Bayleigh a solid conk on the head. A change of clothes so he looked the part of a bum. Dropped him at a local homeless shelter to sleep off his latest binge, wondering what on earth had happened.
Ben’s eyelids were heavy. The seatbelt light wasn’t on, so he headed to the bathroom and did his business. The tiny room spun around him. He braced a hand on the counter and looked in the mirror. His blue eyes flashed bla
ck. A second later the color melted back to denim.
His chest burned. The sensation squeezed him like steel chains had banded around his torso.
Ben pulled down the collar of the polo and stared at his chest. It was on fire. The scar had been there since… He had no memory of the time he’d been missing from that camping trip with his dad and brothers. Wandered off into the trees. Two weeks later a state trooper had found him on the highway in his underwear.
The scar on his chest was an ugly mark halfway between a burn and a birthmark and light brown in color. A disfiguration. It had been there the day he was found, and no doctor had ever figured out what it was.
Ben’s head swam thinking of that time.
Black lines now snaked from the mark. Spider legs that spread across his chest three inches in all directions. Not as hot to his fingers as the raging fire inside him. The mark burned, but not the lines.
He stuck his hand under the faucet and splashed the water on his face. It hit his skin and boiled away to a steam. Ben gasped. Fever raged in him. He stared at the mark. Watched the lines. Would they spread now? Crawling out like a stream of ants across his chest.
He couldn’t think. Could hardly breathe. All Ben could do was feel the fire rage in his chest.
Sweat rolled down his face. He set both palms on the sink edge and hung his head, each breath an intake of hot air that scalded his lungs.
A fist pounded on the door. “Hurry it up.”
Ben couldn’t answer. Possibilities ran through his mind.
He never got sick. Poisoned?
His skull pounded like his brain had swelled, too big for the bone surrounding it. He ran through the list of poisons he knew. None could do this. He clutched his temples, each thump like a giant had stepped on his head. Pounding. Crushing.
Ben breathed through the pain. Finally, the feeling relented and the migraine turned to a steady headache instead.
The fist rapped the door. “Sir? Is everything okay?”
Ben put his sweaty shirt back on and popped the door open while the fire raged in his chest. “Think I ate something,” he said with a thick southern drawl. Emphasis on the drawl. “Must’ve been bad sushi last night.” He tried a wry smile for the flight attendant and stepped out.
The flight attendant moved aside like food poisoning was contagious.
Behind her a muscled thirty-something man with a military haircut motioned at Ben. “I’ll get my friend here back to his seat.”
Ben added an exaggerated stumble to his gait. He mumbled slurred words under his breath and touched his head.
The man pulled Ben’s arm around his shoulder and said, “And we’re moving.”
He acted like an orderly in a hospital with a confused patient. Ben took that as the cue he’d been drugged. Made the man do all the work moving him wherever they were going. He doubted it was back to his seat.
The man opened an interior door and shoved Ben inside. He hit the wall on the opposite side. His knee clipped the opening of a hatch. After that it was seven feet of air to the floor. His head bounced.
The man climbed down. Ben lay still; evidence that the drug—probably in his soda—had incapacitated him. He kept his eyes half open. The heat in his chest had subsided now. Worked its way out of his system? It took with it whatever caused his head to swim with dizziness.
The man grabbed Ben’s feet and pulled him along the floor, no matter that his head banged. He stopped at a black, hard-sided container as big as a large dog crate. Popped two latches and opened the lid. He deadlifted Ben’s body and dumped him inside, folding his legs in so Ben’s knee touched his nose. The face of Ben’s watch flashed with an incoming message. Probably Remy, wanting to know why his vitals had spiked on a plane flight that should’ve been uneventful.
Ben’s arm was turned. The buckle on the watch unsnapped. Three seconds later the man jerked and let out a squeak. He cursed and tossed the watch inside the crate. It landed on Ben’s hip.
He closed the lid and a lock clinked.
Ben frowned.
**
Colin settled back into his first-class seat for the duration of the flight. Ben Mason’s seat was empty now. He stared at it with the familiar satisfaction of a job well done. He’d much rather have simply killed the…whatever he was. It gave Colin the shivers just looking at him. He looked so normal. Not wearing the blank stare he’d seen all those years ago in Chicago. He’d never been able to get that dark gaze out of his mind.
He should have given Mason an entirely different substance. One to make it look like he’d had a heart attack. Sweet justice. But the order was to bring him in.
The sedative he paid the flight attendant to put in his drink would’ve knocked a horse out for most of the day. And the guy had been upright and talking. Must not have finished it. Or he had a crazy high metabolism.
That was a surprise. Ben Mason, career killer, was tougher than he looked. Even with those business-casual clothes. Colin snorted into his drink. What self-respecting man wore loafers? Hardly the attire of an assassin.
Colin tugged at his turtleneck.
After he took a short nap, the plane landed. No one noticed the missing man hadn’t returned to his seat. The attendants were all busy, and there were more than a few empty spots. Probably just assumed he had moved to an open spot by a window somewhere.
It seemed like forever as he stood by the carousel, waiting for the crate to slide around.
Thankfully it would be a short drive back to the house to present his prize. The man everyone was searching for. They had finally found him, and Colin had been handpicked to bring the monster to his final judgment.
This man—and his lackeys—had decimated the recon team. Peter was still missing. He was probably dead as well. Colin should have been picked for that mission. He wouldn’t have let any of them get away with harming his people. But, no. The Teacher had decreed they were to leave the two men and the woman alone. Their priority was Ben Mason.
He smiled just imagining the celebration that would take place when their task was finally accomplished. He would be honored. Claire would finally turn that sweet smile to him. Or he would simply ask the Teacher to give her to him. Together, forever.
The belt moved.
Minutes later the crate rounded the corner. A “Heavy” tag hung from one of the handles.
The padlock was missing.
Colin braced before lifting two of the handles, but there was no need. It was light. He set it down and flipped the latches.
Empty.
**
Ben memorized his face as the man stared into the empty crate. Then he walked out the side entrance with the CIA’s empty flash drive in his pocket. He’d have to get Remy to download airport security footage. Find out who this guy was.
A guy who’d tried to kidnap him and didn’t even pat him down? Going through airport security meant he’d carried no weapons. But not even checking for a cell phone? This man clearly wasn’t after the flash drive. Which meant he either had no idea it existed, or he knew it was a fake.
Ben glanced at his watch. No new messages beyond Remy’s initial inquiry into his health when his vitals had spiked. Again.
He paid cash for a cell phone from a store two blocks from the airport and reported to her what had happened. As soon as he hung up, he threw the phone into a trash can.
Then went to meet with his contact at the agency.
Chapter 9
Clear Spring, MD. Monday, 22:08hrs EDT
Ben pulled the rusted-out Jeep off the road at the gas station. There were only four pumps at this highway-dot town. One diesel. The overhead light was out. Remy had made sure the security cameras didn’t catch much. They’d be too blurry. Anyone looking wouldn’t be able to make out faces.
Ben scratched at the long dreadlocks of oily brown hair under his ball cap. He rounded the Jeep to the pump and swiped the stolen credit card he’d bought off the same guy who gave him the vehicle in exchange for three hundred bucks.
He leaned against the frame where the passenger door should’ve been. Air conditioning, the guy had said. Ben’s arms were still numb, as were his legs, bare below the knee from the shorts. The faded orange tank had a hole in it. He’d drawn the line at flip flops and opted instead for beat-up tennis shoes.
A couple minutes or so later, a Taurus pulled up on the other side of the pump. The man who got out had the look of a miner who’d stopped for a couple of drinks on his way home. He got his own gas pumping, then wandered to where they could see each other. “Evening.”
Ben lifted his chin.
“That is some getup. I almost didn’t recognize you.” Jeff continued his study of Ben’s outfit. “A tattoo would seal the deal. Something Celtic. Tribal.” He pointed to the lumberjack shirt over his bicep and cut a line horizontally across his arm.
“Maybe.” Ben had tried to get a tattoo. Twice. The ink soaked into his skin and left him with nothing but a two-day hangover. “How are you?”
Jeff tipped his head to the side in a kind of shrug. “Margie told us she’s pregnant. Can you believe that? I’m gonna be a grandpa at my age.” He blew out a breath. “You got kids?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.” It wasn’t a slight. Jeff knew the life. “They keep you moving, that’s for sure.” His voice peaked in tone. “‘Dad, can I borrow the car?’ ‘Dad, Austin wants to take me to prom. Can I have five hundred dollars?’”
Ben’s lips curled up.
“Car got totaled. Got Margie a new one. Erica put the wrong kind of gas in it, destroyed the engine. Now Margie’s pregnant, Erica decided she wants to become a cheerleader, and Thea is turning fourteen.” Jeff blew out another breath. “All those tours. Missions. Ops. Turns out my girls will be the death of me.”
Ben flashed his teeth, newly yellowed from a bag of honey-mustard pretzels. “Who knew?”
“Certainly caught me by surprise.” Jeff sobered. “Whatcha got for me?”