Marcus nodded. “Yeah, he should go. Jean-Luc, too, if he’s up for it.” The Cajun could also be damn scary when he had a knife in his hand, and the two of them would be more helpful protecting the lungs than standing around here. Plus, the Cajun had a weird way of keeping Ian’s worst impulses in check.
Ian grumbled under his breath, but that was the extent of his protest.
Lanie activated her comm with the tap of a button on her earpiece. “Harvard, I need you to find out where the lungs for Noah O’Keane are arriving from. Send the intel to Ian and Jean-Luc when you have it…”
While they hashed out the details, Marcus tuned them out and lifted his phone to his ear again. “Rick, if you let the kids go right now, we’ll send men to make sure nothing stops your son from getting his transplant tonight. Okay? We’re on your side here. We want everyone to live, including Noah. Send Maya and the boys down. They don’t need to be part of this.”
Silence.
Marcus told himself to breathe. The wait felt endless, but it was probably only a handful of seconds. Then he heard footsteps overhead. Jesse joined him in the foyer, medical bag in hand.
Dear Christ, he hoped none of the kids were hurt, but he was grateful for the medic’s presence. Just in case.
“Marcus?” a tiny voice said from the top of the stairs. Maya.
“I’m here, honey. Come on down. It’s okay.”
She appeared on the top step with her brothers tucked under each arm. Such a strong girl. He waved at them and tried for a smile.
“Thank you,” he said into the phone as the kids bolted down the stairs and threw themselves into his arms. Even as one knot of dread loosened in his stomach, another balled up tighter. The kids were safe, but that meant there was now no deterrent in that room to keep O’Keane from killing Leah.
After indulging in the hug for a moment, he pushed the kids away. They had splotches of blood on their clothes, but none of it appeared to be theirs. Still, he wanted them gone over with a magnifying glass. If O’Keane had so much as bruised them…
No. He couldn’t let his thoughts go down that dark path. O’Keane would hear it in his voice, and he needed the man’s trust if this plan was going to work.
“Go with Jesse,” he told the kids. “Your mom wants you out of this house where it’s safe.”
The boys backed up, each taking one of Jesse’s hands. But Maya held on, her thin arms tight around his neck.
“Don’t let her die,” she whispered next to his ear. “Please don’t let her die. Please.”
His heart tore into two bloody, jagged pieces. These kids had already gone through so much. It wasn’t fair that they now had to face this trauma. He loosened the girl’s arms from around his neck and cupped her face in his hands, thumbing away her tears. He held her gaze. “We won’t lose her. I promise you.”
She drew in a breath that caught on a sob. More tears spilled from her eyes. Jesse returned from leading the boys outside and held out a hand to her, but she didn’t move.
Marcus kissed her forehead. “You are so brave. No girl your age should have to be this brave, but you are. You are amazing, and I know your dad was so proud of you. Can you be brave for just a little bit longer? Can you go with Jesse and take care of your brothers?”
Maya swiped at her eyes and sniffled. Then she nodded and accepted Jesse’s hand.
Marcus waited until they were safely out of the house, then picked up the phone again. “That was a good thing you just did, Rick. Thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for them. I did it for Noah. Now you hold up your end of the deal. You make sure those lungs get to my son or I will kill Leah.” He hung up.
Marcus pulled the phone away from his ear and stared down at it, then rubbed a hand over his face. There was the tremble. And his heart was beating like he’d just run a marathon.
They had to protect those lungs at all costs.
Chapter Thirty
On the way to the airport, Jean-Luc called the medical courier service to let them know there may be someone looking to sabotage the delivery. When the service balked at the idea, he said he’d been hired by the patient’s family as extra security after the mishap last time. If they didn’t want a lawsuit, they needed to let him do his job. That shut them up and they forked over all of the information about the delivery so quickly they might have broken land speed records.
For once, Ian was glad to have the Cajun along. He wouldn’t have thought to call the company and even if he had, he wouldn’t have known what to say to get them to cooperate.
Still didn’t stop Jean-Luc’s constant stream-of-consciousness word vomit from annoying the fuck out of him while they waited for the courier to disembark the plane. Didn’t the guy ever shut up? And did he have to sing along with every song on the radio?
Just as Ian started seriously contemplating whether he could get away with murder, the courier emerged from the airport’s sliding doors. A skinny man and he couldn’t have been taller than five-three. Both Ian and Jean-Luc towered over him. Hell, Tank on his hind legs would tower over him.
The man skidded to a stop several feet from their vehicle and swallowed audibly. He hugged the cooler to his chest.
Ian pulled open the back door and raised an eyebrow.
The man shook his head. “This is all wrong. This isn’t how we do things. It’s…” He went on for a few moments about HIPPA and OSHA and chain-of-custody and blah, blah, blah until Ian had enough.
“Get in the car or I will knock you out and take the lungs myself.”
The man paled. He held the cooler tighter. “Nobody wanted this job. The last guy who had this route died. Badly.”
Ian clenched his teeth. They didn’t have time for this shit. “So will you if you don’t—”
An elbow landed in his ribs hard enough to force a grunt out of him. He glared at Jean-Luc, who strode toward the man, smile in place and hand outstretched. All down-home, country charm. He even put on a honeyed southern accent that matched the courier’s and was nothing like his usual Cajun. “You have every right to be concerned, my friend, which is why the family hired us. We’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen to you and these lungs get to where they need to be.”
Slick as a snake-oil salesman. Yeah, that’s what Jean-Luc was. In another life, he would’ve been successful selling overpriced used sports cars to suburban men in the midst of mid-life crises.
The courier visibly relaxed. He opened his mouth but never got the chance to say what was on his mind. Blood sprayed out instead. His eyes rounded in shock and then glazed over. He was dead before the next bullet hit him.
“Sniper!” Jean-Luc shouted and dove behind the SUV.
Ian ducked behind the back wheel.
All around them, people screamed and scattered. More shots rang out. More innocents fell to the pavement and didn’t move again.
“Fuck,” Ian said under his breath and met Jean-Luc’s gaze. “This is gonna draw all the cops in L.A. Homeland Security, the FBI, and every other alphabet soup bureaucracy in the city.”
The Cajun swore in French and peeked over the hood of the vehicle. “We need that cooler before they get here or Leah—”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. They both knew the stakes.
Goddammit to fucking hell.
“Cover me.” Ian darted out from behind the SUV. He heard Tank barking like a maniac inside. Dog was pissed. He wanted out to take a bite outta the bad guy, but Ian wasn’t about to put him in the sniper’s crosshairs. No way. The SUV was bulletproof, and Tank was staying tucked safely inside it. If he lost that animal, he’d lose the part of himself that was still human. He’d lose his conscience.
Ian ran in a crouch to the dead courier and shoved him off the cooler. He picked it up and turned to run back to the SUV…
And the fucking thing fell apart in his hand. Severa
l bullets had torn clear through it and an icy slurry spilled out of the holes. Ian wrenched the lid off and swore. He was no medical professional, but he was certain lungs didn’t work with a hole in them.
The organ was no longer viable.
A bullet struck the pavement less than a foot from him.
He dropped the cooler, sprinted back to the SUV, and dove in, swearing the whole time. Jean-Luc was already behind the wheel and got them out of there with the finesse of a race car driver. They hit the highway before the first police car even reached the scene.
Ian punched the dashboard until his knuckles ached.
Tank whimpered from the backseat.
“Ian,” Jean-Luc said in a soft, steady voice. “Take a breath.”
Shit, the Cajun was right. He wasn’t breathing. His lungs were too tight, and his throat burned. What the fuck was this? Emotion? He didn’t do emotion unless it was anger, but this felt like something bigger, something more dangerous.
Something he didn’t want.
He locked it down and forced himself to suck in air until his own lungs started functioning like they were supposed to.
And that made him think of the cooler, and the lifesaving organ it was supposed to have carried to that little boy. The feel of it slipping through his fingers, the squelching sound it had made when it hit the pavement at his feet.
The sound was going to haunt him for a long time.
And, fuck, he wasn’t breathing again.
He deliberately inhaled. Exhaled. And wondered if his lungs were a match for the kid. He’d rip them out of his own chest and hand them over if that was the case.
“This is fucked.” Even to his ears, his voice sounded hollow. This mission had wrung him out emotionally in a way no other ever had. He’d seen drugs, sexual slavery, all the atrocities of war. Yeah, whatever, those were just facts of life. But when you started fucking with kids or dogs, that was where he drew the line. And Clarence Hayes had not only crossed that line; he’d taken a big fucking leap over it and was now waving from another state.
Ian stared down at his hands. The skin on his knuckles was split and bleeding and his fingers trembled. Adrenaline, he told himself. And rage. “Cajun?”
Jean-Luc glanced over at him, jaw set, blue eyes spitting fire. He was just as pissed. “Yeah?”
“You did assassinations for the CIA?”
He said nothing. He didn’t have to. They shared that background, though Jean-Luc had done all of his atrocities for Uncle Sam, and the government had stopped footing Ian’s paychecks a long time ago.
“That fucker Hayes is going to get away with this. No matter what we think we have on him, he’ll make sure it disappears. Nothing’s going to stick.”
Still, Jean-Luc didn’t respond. Of all the times for the Cajun to be short on words.
So Ian filled the silence with all the reasons this had to happen. “He killed Danny. He killed all of those people in CAR. He’s willing to kill Noah O’Keane to keep Rick wiggling on his hook. The man is a fucking presidential nominee. Do you really trust the voting public not to put him in office?”
“We can do it,” Jean-Luc finally said. “Take him out. It’d be quick.”
“I know we can.”
“What about Leah?”
“If Hayes is dead, O’Keane has no reason to kill her. It’s the only way to ensure her and her kids will stay safe.”
After another beat of silence, Jean-Luc one-handedly dug his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. He put it on speakerphone.
“Harvard,” he said when the kid picked up. “Need a favor. Not at all legal and if we get caught, we’re toast. You in?”
“Since when do we worry about legal around here?” Harvard responded. “What do you need?”
“Hayes’s location.”
A pause. “Shit. Things went wrong with the transport.” A statement, not a question. Already in the background, his keyboard clacked as his fingers flew over it. “Hayes is scheduled to speak at a charity ball tonight, then he’s hired his usual car service to take him home—nope, wait, not home. To the Peninsula Beverly Hills.”
“He’d know if we tried to pull something with the car service,” Ian said and flexed his burning knuckles. “Too risky.”
“What about the Secret Service?” Jean-Luc asked.
“Not an issue,” Harvard said. “He declined it. It’s part of his campaign.”
“One less thing to worry about. Why is he going to the Peninsula?”
“It appears he’s hired a pricey escort service for the night. And it’s not his first time. Wouldn’t it be just too bad if an anonymous hacker sent all these dirty deeds to his wife?”
“I like where your head’s at, kid,” Jean-Luc said with a grin. “But hold off for a minute. We might be able to work with that.”
Ian leaned toward the phone. “The escort can’t show up.”
“Got it.” More clicking and clacking on Harvard’s end. “Huh. Would you look at that? Seems Hayes changed his plans. Bye-bye escort.”
“That’ll put a damper on his night,” Jean-Luc said.
“Won’t be the only thing,” Ian muttered.
A hint of suspicion crept into Harvard’s voice. “What exactly are you guys planning?”
“The less you know, the better,” Jean-Luc assured. Always the salesman. “Let’s keep this convo between us for now. If shit goes south, I don’t want to drag the team down with us.” He ended the call and slid a questioning glance toward Ian. “Snazzy place like the Peninsula will have top-notch security. We’re not getting in and out of there without being seen.”
“An escort would. Employees are well-paid to look the other way.”
“Mais, I know I’m pretty, but put a dress on me and I won’t pass as a woman.”
“What if Hayes’s preference is men?”
Jean-Luc tilted his head in consideration, much the same way Tank did when he was figuring out a problem. Then he nodded. “Could work. Especially if we have Harvard lay the digital trail for backstory. And I can rock the male escort look. Oui, okay. I’m listening. What’s the plan?”
…
“They’re up to something.” Harvard ended his call with Jean-Luc and Ian and shot a glance toward Lanie, who was standing on the front lawn, phone pressed to her ear. God bless her. No amount of money could convince Marcus to do her job—not only did she have to make sure none of the knuckleheads he called teammates got themselves killed, but she also had to juggle the politics of all the huge, complicated, international missions.
“I know exactly what they’re up to. You do, too.” He returned his attention to Harvard. “You were CIA once, too. You know better than anyone what Jean-Luc did for them before joining us.”
The kid looked worried. “We should tell her,” he said, nodding toward Lanie.
Marcus gazed up at the house. There were no front-facing bedroom windows, but he knew where the bedroom was located and imagined Leah in there with a gun pointed at her head.
He had bigger problems than Jean-Luc and Ian at the moment. Like how he’d get Leah out of there without bloodshed. Failing to protect the lungs was a breach of trust and could irreparably damage this negotiation. It may be the final straw for Rick, which meant Leah’s life was in imminent danger.
He activated his radio with a touch to his earbud. “Seth? Keep your rifle aimed at the master bedroom window. I’m going to put Rick in front of it. When I do, take the shot.”
“Copy,” Seth replied, no hint of emotion in his voice.
As Marcus strode across the lawn and entered the house, he wondered how the sniper was able to turn off his emotions with the flip of a mental switch. He wanted that ability. He didn’t want the flutter of nerves or the rock of sickness settling hard in his gut for what he was about to do.
“Marcus!” Lanie snapped
over his comms. “What the fuck are you doing?”
He tugged out the earbud, let it dangle down the front of his shirt. He couldn’t have her yelling in his head while he did this. He set his gun down on the table beside the broken picture of him, Leah, and Danny and paused for an instant, studying the image of his best friend’s face. A face he’d known since childhood. A face that was so familiar, but at the same time now looked like a stranger. He hated that his memory was fading. He could no longer conjure up Danny’s voice or laugh.
“I’ll keep her safe,” he told the photo, then continued up the stairs.
Chapter Thirty-One
A bead of sweat tickled Leah’s spine, but she didn’t dare move from her seat on the floor at the end of her bed. Hardly dared to breath. Rick was so taut with nerves she didn’t want to give him any reason to snap. She watched his every move, afraid to take her eyes off him. He paced the length of her bedroom for a long time, occasionally looking at the phone still clutched in his hand.
The phone rang, startling them both. Rick stared at it like he didn’t know what to do with it. “Hello?”
“Rick, it’s Marcus.” Leah could clearly hear Marcus’s voice, but it wasn’t from the phone. It was from the hallway. She glanced toward the door but realized Rick hadn’t heard the same thing and quickly averted her gaze. She didn’t dare draw his attention.
Rick’s hand tightened on the phone, his knuckles going white. “Something happened. What happened?”
“I’m going to come in and talk to you.”
“No!” He raised the gun and pointed it at her face. “I don’t want to see you. I’ll kill her. I swear I will.”
“Okay.” Marcus’s voice faded and his shadow under the door disappeared. She could hear only Rick’s side of the conversation after that, but she knew Marcus had bad news. Why else would he not want to talk over the phone?
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