Crack.
It comes again. And I know it’s not an animal. It’s a footstep. It’s a human trying to be as silent as me.
I press my body closer to the wall, trying to hide any hint of shadow on the ground that could give me away. My hands reposition themselves around the gun and my sternum feels like it’s tearing apart. My lungs blister, but I’m too terrified to breathe.
Twenty feet. Fifteen feet. Ten feet. Five feet.
I reach the edge of the rickety structure, my shoulders rubbing against the weather-battered wood.
Crack.
Another step, just yards away from me now. My heart pumps, my palms, even my fingers are moist with sweat. I grip the pistol with both hands, readying my finger to pull the trigger.
I look at the ground, searching for a shadow in the moonlight, but they must be pressed up against the corner of the building as well.
Shoot or get shot. I ready myself, taking a final breath and counting down.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
My body pulls around the edge of the building, my gun pointed at the forehead of a face I recognize, her pistol just inches from my chin.
“Holy shit,” I reply, sucking in a breath.
“Jesus Christ, Reagan,” Victoria Browning says with a small smile, pulling down her pistol while lowering and grabbing the still-pointed gun from my hand.
“Harper, it’s okay,” I say, poking my head around the structure and inviting Harper to join us on the other side. “Harper, this is Victoria Browning. She’s a director within the Black Angels, Director Browning, my best friend Harper.”
Harper sticks out her hand, the impulse to always be polite deeply rooted in this Midwest girl, even while running for her life.
“We don’t have time for pleasantries,” Browning says firmly, putting her hands on both of our shoulders and pushing us deeper into the village. “Come on, I’ve got a car waiting. Let’s get you somewhere safe.”
Harper and I follow Victoria as she runs toward the other side of the village where an SUV is hidden behind one of the last battered homes.
“Get in, get in,” she orders, opening the back door. Harper and I both slide in and only when Browning climbs into the front seat and turns on the ignition do I take in my first truly relieved breath.
“Oh my God, Browning,” I say, putting my elbows on my knees, my body sinking forward, my head hanging between my two hands. “Thank you so much for finding us. Is my dad okay? Cam?”
“Everyone is fine,” Browning answers, looking back at us in the rearview mirror. “Let me just tell everyone I’ve got you.”
Browning puts her finger up to her ear and pushes the talk button on her two-way radio.
“Team two, I’ve got the girls,” she says, taking a right and heading back north, away from the compound. “Copy. We’ll see you at the meeting point.”
“How did you find us?” I ask, my legs now completely drained of their adrenaline, my calf and thigh muscles stinging like I’d just run one hundred miles.
“We had surveillance outside the compound,” Browning answers, glancing at us again in the mirror. “We were trying to get in to rescue you two, but with about fifteen minutes from our planned attempt, we heard the alarms and knew you guys must have escaped. So one team went south, I went north, and here we are. We figured you’d try to make it to one of the villages to look for help.”
“Well, thank God you got us before they did,” I reply, sinking back into the leather seat. “I thought we were going to die.”
“Me too,” Harper says, taking my hand into hers. “But I also thought you’d find a way to get us out.”
“Oh my God. I’m so tired,” I say with a small laugh, rubbing my face with my free hand. “I want to take a shower and eat something and go to bed for like two days.”
“You can rest on the jet back to DC,” Browning says, turning off the two-lane road and onto an even smaller dirt one. “We’ve just got to meet up and regroup with the team.”
Trees and shrubs, thick with leaves, hide whatever we’re driving toward. I squint my eyes searching for a home or warehouse or structure. Finally, a two-story building comes into view. We are the first car to arrive.
“Team two, we are at the meeting point. What’s your location?” Browning says into her earpiece. She releases the talk button, listening for instructions. She pulls past the building, parking in the back, out of sight from Fernando’s team who might drive past. She puts the car into park and nods her head, and I wonder who is speaking on the other side. She then turns around to us. “They’re still a few miles out. Your dad says to go ahead and wait inside.”
“My dad came down?” I ask, my voice brightening as I unbuckle my seat belt. “He hasn’t been on the ground for a mission since Mom died.”
“You’re his daughter,” Browning says, pushing open the driver-side door. “Of course he wanted to be a part of the team to rescue you.”
We slam the car doors and walk toward the structure. Browning takes a single key from her coat pocket, unlocking the deadbolt on the back door. She puts a hand on my back and shepherds us inside the lightless space.
She flicks on a light near the doorway and a few fluorescent bulbs two stories above my head buzz to life. In the dim glow, I can see shelves and shelves of aluminum and small tables set up in the middle of the building.
“What is this place?” I ask, turning around and taking it all in.
“They supply tin to local villages,” Browning answers, running her hands along the slick metal, stacked in dozens of thin sheets on one of the shelves. “We’ve used this building for missions before.”
“Missions with the Torres cartel?” I ask.
“Of course,” she answers. “Believe me, they are not hard to find. Here, sit down. You must be exhausted.”
Browning pulls two metal chairs away from the tables. They scrape along the concrete floors, and for some reason, the irritating sound causes the bile to surge in my stomach. I take in a breath, trying to quell the nausea that has taken over any sense of relief, and sit down next to Harper.
After a few seconds of silence, I hear the rumble of an engine and tires knocking against rocks on the dirt road.
“Who’s here?” I ask, my eyes widening and nerves beginning to fire. I look around the building, searching for a low window that looks out onto the driveway. But there is none.
Browning puts her finger to her ear, nodding at the conversation on the other side. “Copy,” she replies and shakes her head at me. “Don’t worry, it’s just the second team.”
Tears begin to gather in my throat at the thought of seeing my father in just a few seconds. But that nagging nausea won’t subside. Perhaps it’s just the unknown. The fear of getting to the airport without Fernando finding us. Luke’s face flashes in my mind and that sorrow comes roaring back. Maybe that’s it: guilt and sadness curling around my gut now that the adrenaline is gone, now that we’re safe.
I hear the car engine cut off and the sound of car doors slamming.
I breathe in again, a smile tickling the corners of my mouth as I think of the look on my father’s face when he walks through that door. Will we run to each other? Hug? Cry?
I hear the crunch of gravel, the sound of several footsteps. The door opens with a heavy whine. And my heart, my mouth, my stomach, all drop to the center of the earth.
“Hola, cariña,” Browning says, a wide and wicked smile spreading across her face. Hello, darling.
“Holy shit,” I whisper.
“You naughty, naughty girls,” he says as he walks toward us, his pace slow, his voice both teasing and menacing.
His boots clunk louder and louder against the concrete floors as he steps closer to us. After a few large steps, he’s standing over us, and my body begins to shake.
“What the hell is going on?” Harper asks, exasperated.
I look up into Fernando’s face and then back again at Victoria Browning, her arms outstretched, the gun
she so cleverly took out of my hands pointed at my face.
“She’s one of them,” I whisper to Harper.
That traitor. She’s one of them.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“Oh my God,” I whisper to no one, my heart constricting with mournful beats in my chest. Harper hangs her head next to me, tears silently falling down her face, the relief from our supposed rescue exchanged in a single second for unrelenting sorrow.
My hand reaches out for hers. She threads her fingers through mine, squeezing it hard, as I look around the building. Three guards stand near the back entrance, M4 carbines in each of their hands, just waiting for the command to kill us. One of the guards is the assassin I beat the shit out of. I’m sure he can’t wait to pull the trigger.
I take in a breath, quickly running through any possible martial arts move that could get us out of this. But it’s five against one. Five heavily armed and trained killers against one. And as I look up into Fernando’s chilling eyes, I know our fate is sealed. This is it. This is how we die.
Every curse word I know enters my mind in bursts. How could I be so wrong? How could I focus in on Sam so fast? She was never the mole. It was always Browning. And I never even considered her. How could I be so stupid?
My stomach twists but doesn’t knot. It twists and twists into one long and painful rope. My eyes look beyond Fernando and hold Victoria Browning’s gaze. I look for something in her gray eyes. A twinge of remorse. A hint of misgiving. But there is nothing but an icy, piercing stare.
“Why?” My mouth finally forms the simple question weighing down my tongue.
Victoria Browning’s lips separate into a slow, malicious smile. She keeps her gun pointed at my face as she speaks. “Bogotá” is all she says.
“Bogotá?” I repeat, my mind going over my last year at CORE for any memory of something happening in Colombia’s most populated city. But my mind is blank. I remember nothing about Bogotá. “I don’t understand.”
My eyes widen and I hope my curiosity will keep her talking. Browning takes in a breath and lowers my gun. She and I both know I’m not getting out of here alive. She takes a few steps toward us and Harper crushes my hand, terror manifested into a grasp.
“Yes, Bogotá,” she says again, the gun at her side, her finger still near the trigger. “Your parents are the reason that Santino was thrown out of the Black Angels. He didn’t leave on his own to run his business. That’s the story the agency crafted. The story they want everyone to believe so that he is the enemy. Your parents and a failed mission in Bogotá were the catalyst for all this.”
She waves her hands around the room, motioning toward Fernando, toward the guards with heavy artillery gripped in their meaty palms.
“I still don’t understand,” I say, narrowing my eyes at her.
“Just tell her, Vicki,” Fernando insists, the familiarity in his nickname knocking me hard in my gut. They’ve known each other for years.
“What does it matter?” Browning scoffs. “We’re going to kill her anyway.”
“If I’m going to die, I’d like to die with answers,” I say, my voice surprisingly calm. For the last twenty-four hours, my body has seesawed between all-consuming panic and deep determination. But now that I know there’s no way out, that there’s nothing I can do to save us, my limbs, my face, even my fingertips, have gone completely numb. My nausea has settled. The suffocating knot looped around my lungs has loosened. I feel unnervingly tranquil, settling into a paralyzing state of surrender.
Browning taps her foot on the concrete floors, its echo matching my staccato heartbeat. She stares at me, wondering what she should say, how much she should tell me. Finally, she shrugs, the corner of her mouth rising into a sick who-gives-a-shit smile. I’ll be dead soon. Might as well spill it all before I go.
“Santino Torres and I came into the Black Angels at the same time,” Browning begins, her voice almost wistful. “He was a foreign agent and I was an operative from the Special Activities Division in the CIA. We were stationed in South America together. On our way up the ranks. We were on a mission in Bogotá with your parents that got botched by them.”
“How so?” I ask, and she glares at me, clearly annoyed by my interruption.
“They had intel that a diplomat here was committing treason. He was killed,” she continues. “Murdered by your mother, in fact. But it turns out, their intel was wrong. Your parents wanted to be the big heroes and insisted on rushing this mission before we could do proper surveillance and find out if the intel was credible, which of course it was not.”
I narrow my eyes as Browning paces. I just can’t see my parents being so foolish, refusing to examine their intel with a fine-tooth comb. They were always overly cautious. But if this happened early in their career, perhaps that’s why they became that way.
“It could have turned into a political nightmare,” Browning continues, her pace slowing. “But it was out of our field office, so to help the State Department, Santino and I took the fall. Even though it was your parents who screwed up, they never ended up getting punished. We did. And we paid big. Santino was thrown out of the Black Angels. My dreams of becoming Secretary of Defense or the head of the CIA were over. Your parents, who were our friends, people we trusted, took no responsibility for their actions. They said nothing. They let us bury ourselves. So, we turned on everyone. Santino started his business. And I helped provide intel to keep him safe. That was until you came along. And killed him.”
Browning’s last three words rattle against her throat with restrained emotion. Her free hand clenches into an infuriated fist and I watch her gray eyes turn glassy. I never thought I’d ever see this glacial excuse of a human so emotional. Santino Torres was more than just her partner.
“You committed treason,” I say quietly. I stare up at Browning, someone who I always respected and thought of as the consummate leader, and feel disgusted by my admiration. “You fed a drug cartel information for what? For love? For money?”
“For both,” Browning answers, clearing the sudden sorrow from her throat. “And for revenge.”
“I understand being pissed at my parents, but you took an oath when you became a Black Angel. You turned your back on the United States government.”
“They turned their backs on us,” Browning says, pointing to herself, her finger coming to rest on the hollow spot in her neck. “We gave them everything. Santino and I dedicated our entire lives to the government, and for what? To be stuck in middle management the rest of my life? For a crappy salary and a windowless bedroom at CORE? I can’t take care of my ailing parents on what I make. So, yes. I helped Santino. I helped the people who were always loyal to me. Because the Black Angels were not.”
You think you know me. But you don’t know the half of it. You don’t know everything about your beloved Black Angels.
Those were some of Santino’s last words to me in the warehouse in Indonesia. I thought they were just the final manipulative plea of a desperate man. I had him pegged as a villain right from the start. Born with that rotten seed at his core. But perhaps I didn’t know the whole story. Maybe some monsters are not born, but made. Casualties of circumstance.
As I look up into Browning’s face, pained by memories of loss and betrayal, the pieces begin to fall into place. That’s why Santino always came after my family. That’s why he continued to come after the Black Angels. And Browning is how he knew how to get to us.
“That’s a long time to deceive people, Browning,” I finally say, nodding my head.
“Revenge is a long game,” Browning answers, picking up the pistol from her side, turning it around in her hand, studying it. “I wasn’t planning on killing you, you know. I don’t think you were even born during that botched mission. But then you got yourself involved. You killed Santino and changed the game. So I guess it’s time for me to put down my final chips. When you get to the other side, tell Santino I say hello.”
With those words, Browning points her gun at my
forehead. I close my eyes, my heart compressing painfully in my chest, my body bracing for the bullet. I hear Browning click off the safety and Harper begins to scream.
“No, no, no!” she shrieks.
Boom.
A gunshot. I feel something warm spray across my face. But I feel Harper’s hand, clasping down on mine and I realize, I’m still alive.
My eyes fly open in time to watch Victoria Browning collapse to the ground.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Bullets from several guns fly through the air, striking Fernando in the center of his chest, then all three guards in their foreheads.
Their bodies fall to the ground with a quartet of thuds, their blood pooling around each frame. And the warehouse falls silent. Air enters my lungs in thin, shaky gasps. My entire body, from my lips to my toes, begins to tremble. I slowly turn around in my metal chair to see where the gunfire is coming from and who just saved our lives. And from a shadowy corner, two figures step forward and into the light. My father. And Sam.
I want to run to them, to hug them, to jump up and down, but can’t. I tell my limbs to move but they refuse. I am frozen, cemented to this three-foot-by-three-foot spot in the middle-of-nowhere Colombia.
“Are you guys okay?” my father calls out as they rush toward us.
But before they can reach us, my muscles jolt, sliding my body from my chair, my knees slamming against the cement floor. My stomach heaves, folding my frame forward, my burning face settling against the freezing concrete. I feel my father’s hands on my shoulder, pulling me off the ground and into his arms. I claw at his chest, making sure he is real.
“I’m here, Reagan,” Dad says into my ear. “I’m here.”
I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him closer. And I cry. And I cry. And I cry.
TWENTY-EIGHT
My feet all but sprint down the Bethesda Naval Hospital hallway. My borrowed jeans slide down my hips and the shirt Sam gave me on the plane itches at the collar. I have yet to shower and still smell like dirt and sweat and blood. But I don’t care. As soon as we got off the plane, I begged them to bring me here. I had to see it for myself to believe it was true.
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