EDGE OF SHADOWS: The Shadow Ops Finale (Shadow Ops, Book # 3)

by CJ Lyons

  He hoped to nudge EZ into divulging their plan. Instead, EZ merely grinned as he flicked off the monitors attached to the man in the coma.

  “It won’t be long now.” He stroked the man’s hair, then turned to Billy. “Part of being family is making the tough choices.”

  “Like using your own brother as bait?”

  “Exactly. I understand what’s most important. So does he.” EZ turned off the machine breathing for the comatose man.

  Billy lunged forward, but EZ waved him back with the pistol. “No one’s coming to help,” he said. “He’s DNR, and the nurse working this shift is one of our people.”

  He held the gun on Billy as the man gasped, fought for air, then slumped motionless.

  Billy looked on in horror. How the hell had he worked beside this man for two years and not seen the monster he was? Although, honestly, he hadn’t paid much attention to the computer tech. As long as he got the job done, there wasn’t much to pay attention to.

  “Our father taught us what’s most important.” EZ’s voice dropped as he turned his back on his dead brother. “What tough choice are you prepared to make, Billy? Will you do your duty and protect your president?” He paused. “Or will you save the life of the woman you love?”

  Chapter 27

  It didn’t take a genius-level IQ for Chase to figure out that one injured Marine was not going to be able to stand watch 24/7. Thankfully, Rose had the cabin equipped with exterior cameras and motion detectors hooked into the computer she’d left behind. Only the one thermal imaging scope, but that was understandable—thermal imagers ran about ten thousand dollars a pop.

  Still, a lot of money went into this place. And this wasn’t her only safe house. Plus the cash and diamonds they’d found in Rose’s Georgetown stash. Made you wonder…

  “You done with that?” Jay asked, his hand on the pot Chase had been eating out of. Why dirty more dishes than they had to?

  Chase pushed the food away. He’d had to force himself to eat, just as he was forcing himself to think of anything except KC.

  Like what approach he would take if he had the Preacher’s group’s unlimited manpower and resources and wanted to storm this cabin? A dozen scenarios immediately sprang to mind. Rose had planned for most of them, but there were a few holes in their defenses that remained.

  Motion on the camera aimed at the road snatched his attention back to the here and now. He knew that car. Teresa. Had Billy called her? No, he would've told Chase.

  “Positions,” he hollered to the kids washing dishes in the kitchen. They both looked at him like he was crazy, like they’d forgotten what he’d gone over with them just half an hour ago. “Now!”

  Eve dropped her towel, grabbed an AR-15, took Jay’s arm, and they retreated to the bedroom. Jay stood in the doorway, staring at Chase as Chase hobbled to cover the front of the house. “What is it?”

  “Less talking, more walking,” Chase snapped in a credible impression of his first drill sergeant. He settled himself in at the bookcase, used his crutch to open the door.

  Teresa had parked the car ten yards from the door and got out, hugging herself against the cold. She didn’t even wear a coat. “Hello?” she called tentatively, her voice cracking between syllables. “Anyone here?”

  “Stay right there, Teresa,” Chase shouted, running scenarios through his mind as fast as he could create them. None of them fit.

  “Rose told me if anything happened to come here,” she shouted back, tears streaming down her face. “I never dreamed—Chase, they tried to kill me! I didn’t know where else to…” She slumped against the car, burying her face in her hands.

  Chase hesitated. Teresa was the only civilian on the Team. She had no real-world experience or training. It would be totally like Rose to give her a safe harbor to flee to, just in case. But the same safe house she’d told Eve to come to?

  Much as it pained him, he’d just about decided to treat Teresa as an enemy combatant—after all, he had Jay and Eve to protect—when the decision was made for him.

  “Drop the gun,” a man said in a calm voice from the hallway behind him.

  Chase whirled. Three men held Jay and Eve at gunpoint. Eve had a bruise forming on her face, and Jay was rubbing the back of his head, head hung low as if this was all his fault.

  It wasn’t. Chase knew exactly whose fault it was. He raised his hands, standing awkwardly on one foot. One of the men expertly frisked him, relieving him of his backup weapons, then gestured to the door.

  Teresa entered, her hair flouncing as she beamed at Chase. “You always were such a sentimental sweetie pie.” She turned to the kids. “Hi, Jay. Who’s your friend?”

  “Leave them alone,” Chase said. “It’s me you want.”

  “Oh no, Chase. I want you all.”

  <><><>

  Rose heard EZ’s challenge to Billy. EZ didn’t know she’d escaped, thought his “brothers” still held her. Or maybe he knew everything, knew she was here, and it was another trap.

  She peered through the van’s tinted windows and didn’t see any extraordinary activity. In fact, there was no one moving in the nursing home’s parking lot. The closest person was a UPS man making a delivery to the office tower next door.

  Then another thought hit her. Maybe EZ wasn’t talking about her at all. Maybe he thought Billy was in love with Susan, just as she had.

  “What are you talking about?” Billy asked, trying to get her the info she needed.

  “Rose.” She could almost hear EZ’s smirk. “She’s not dead, Billy. You have one chance to save her and the rest of your precious team.”

  Billy’s acting chops were in full force. She heard his gasp, a rustle as if he’d tried to make a sudden movement, then he said, “I don’t believe you. Rose is dead. You saw to that.”

  “I saw to her capture. Right now, my brothers are finishing what Grigor started. Flaying her alive, an inch at a time. If you hurry, there might be enough left of her worth saving.”

  The sound of a scuffle followed by the crack of a hard blow. Rose cringed. Don’t overdo it, Billy.

  “What do you want from me?” his voice finally returned, choked and desperate. “You made me and my team fugitives. There’s nothing I can do to help you.”

  “We don’t need your help, Billy. We merely need you contained while we finish what our father began. You’ll be with the rest of your team, and Rose will see you.”

  Strange way to put it. But the men who grabbed Rose had clearly been taking her someplace different than where they held KC. And the one yesterday had promised that she’d live out her greatest fear: watch helplessly as the people she loved suffered.

  “My team? I won’t betray my team for you. They’re safe, and they’ll stay that way.”

  Nice work, Billy was playing to EZ’s ego, making him spill the beans to prove how much smarter he was than Billy.

  Silence for a moment. “There’s KC,” EZ’s voice returned. Rose decided he was showing Billy a picture or video. “Not locked up in a FBI debriefing.” He laughed at his own sick joke.

  “Where is she? What’s in those barrels? What have you done to her?”

  Okay. Wherever KC was, she was with barrels that Billy wasn’t too happy to see—the toxin? Then getting to KC’s location was the key.

  “You’ll have your answers soon enough.”

  “If I go with you, you’ll let her and Rose go?”

  “No, Billy. That’s not the deal.” Another pause. “Oh, and look who we have here. Chase, his little brother, and a girl, all going for a boat ride. Who’s the girl, Billy?”

  Rose almost dropped the phone as she leapt from the van, racing toward the nursing home entrance, ready to choke the truth from EZ.

  Eve. They had Eve.

  Chapter 28

  Chase was amazed by how well the kids had reacted. Jay and Eve both played it smart, not letting Teresa and her men push them around but also holding it together and not doing anything stupid.

  On
ly thing he would have changed was the way Jay and Eve kept protecting him. Even after the kids were shoved inside the boat’s small cabin, zip-tied and forced to sit on the deck, they protested when Chase was handcuffed standing to a strut.

  “Let him sit down,” Eve had said.

  “Can’t you see he’s injured?” Jay had joined in.

  Chase cut them a glare, trying to get them to shut up. But then he realized, no. This was good. Let Teresa and her men single him out as the weak link. Focus their attention on him. Then the kids might be spared.

  As a plan, it was flimsier than wet toilet paper, but better than nothing. Besides, his ankle throbbed and had swollen to the point where it felt like he was dragging around a fifty-pound cannonball. Even if he could maneuver his leg to the point of sitting down on the deck, there was no way in hell he’d be able to stand up again. Not without help.

  Better to stand and take it.

  The small Coast Guard boat, a twenty-five-foot Defender class, was fast, chopping over the water as they headed downstream toward the Chesapeake Bay. Big area to search, and a Coast Guard vessel in this heavily traveled port area wouldn’t stand out.

  He hated it when the bad guys played things smart.

  “How’d you find us?” he asked Teresa, ignoring the two men holding machine guns on him.

  She smiled at him. “I lose my bet. I told my brother you’d ask about KC first.”

  He’d wanted to. But knew he couldn’t talk about KC without losing it. And losing it in front of the kids, giving the bad guys the satisfaction of seeing that? Not going to happen.

  “I don’t have any questions about KC. Your man,” he nodded to the pilot at the wheel, “picked her up in Savannah and now you’re taking us to her. I know you wouldn’t hurt her—you want us alive. Besides, she’s too good of a bargaining chip. So, I’m asking. How’d you find us?”

  Her laughter was irritating as hell—meant to be that way, he was sure. She thought she held all the cards. But she didn’t know Rose was alive or that she and Billy were out there hunting EZ.

  Finally, she stopped laughing and considered him. “You, Chase. You were my little beacon of light in the darkness.”

  “Me?” What the hell was she talking about?

  “Remember that cute therapist who came by your hospital room before you left? She planted a tracker in your crutch. About killed me when you threw one away, but then I realized you’d kept the one with the tracker. Too bad we didn’t have time to get a real bug to her, but the way you went through that hospital equipment, we had to wait until you were discharged.”

  He slumped against the metal he was braced against. That was how she knew he was at the ER last night. He’d led them to Eve’s house and Rose’s…and then to the cabin.

  All because he’d been stupid enough to break his freaking leg.

  “Now that I’ve satisfied your curiosity, Chase, answer a question for me. Who’s the girl?”

  “Like Jay told you, she’s a friend of his from school. He wouldn’t leave DC without her.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You know how I hate puzzles. Don’t make me have to hurt someone to get the truth.”

  “Gave you the truth. I can’t change that. Ask her yourself. She’s some kind of art or theater major, something like that.”

  Her phone rang. She turned away, a hand pressed to her ear as she listened over the roar of the engines. The conversation must have been one-sided, because she said nothing, although her shoulders tightened and her spine straightened. When she finally turned back to face Chase again, her expression was blank.

  The bad kind of blank. The kind of blank he’d seen on men who’d just unloaded their weapons into a crowd of civilians and were ready to reload and start again. The kind of blank that meant there were no more rules.

  “Before I ask you again,” she said in a low tone, “I think you should know how far we’re prepared to go. That was EZ. He’s with the man Rose tried to kill in the tunnel, the man whose throat she slit.”

  “The one who got away.”

  “The one we rescued. Only it was too late. He’d lost too much blood and been without oxygen too long. Was basically brain-dead. I told EZ to use him as bait to lure Billy out of hiding. And once he had Billy, to kill our man.”

  Without warning, she kicked Chase’s good leg out from under him, sending all of his weight crashing down onto his broken ankle.

  It took everything Chase had not to give in to the pain—or give her the satisfaction.

  “That man was my husband, Chase,” Teresa went on, forcing one finger under his chin so that he looked directly into her eyes. Gone was the brownie-baking, mother hen who’d looked after his team. “If I can do that to my own husband, what do you think I’ll do to your KC?”

  <><><>

  It took every ounce of self-control not to rush in, but Rose forced herself to give Billy time, to follow protocol. After all, if they lost EZ, they lost any clues to where Eve and the others had been taken. Much less the location of the toxin.

  She listened as she sidled around to the rear of the building. There was a sad little empty courtyard, shrouded in shadows from the buildings bordering it, concrete slab instead of grass, a few containers with brown plants drooping from them. A pair of French doors led inside. Unlocked. Excellent.

  She made her way to the room EZ and Billy were in. “I don’t understand,” Billy was saying, buying her time while ferreting out any info he could, “you said I had to choose between my duty to the president or saving Rose. But you’re not giving me any show of goodwill. Take me to Chase and the others, let them go, and I’ll do whatever you want if it will save Rose. But I need to see them set free first.”

  “Jeezit, Billy,” EZ said. “You have to take every damn thing so literally? No, we’re not going to let anyone go. Ever hear of sarcasm? Your real choice is: Do you die here and now, or do you die with your team while Rose watches?”

  She held her breath, waiting for Billy to give her a hint. Was he in immediate danger or was EZ simply playing mind games with him? Billy would be a valuable hostage. Surely EZ wouldn’t kill him now?

  Billy was silent. Damn it, don’t play hero, she thought. She knew how his mind worked; he’d think that even if EZ killed him, EZ could still lead Rose to the others and the toxin in time to save the president. Damned man was logical that way, never considering that EZ and his people sure as hell hadn’t acted logically this whole time. They were driven by their need for vengeance just as the Preacher had been driven by his thirst for power.

  They were never going to get out of here by depending on logic.

  She was about ready to storm inside, take EZ down, when she realized where Billy had gone wrong—at the same time as EZ.

  “Why haven’t you asked to see Rose, Billy?” EZ’s voice grew serious. “I told you the woman you love is being tortured, and you haven’t asked for proof of life.”

  There was the sound of a scuffle. Rose crashed through the door just in time to see Billy slam EZ against the wall, twisting the pistol from his hand.

  “Why, it’s Rose Prospero as I live and breathe,” EZ said, grinning at her and ignoring the gun in Billy’s hand.

  She took in the scene. A man lay dead on the bed. Billy appeared unharmed, his suit a bit rumpled was all. And EZ…she couldn’t believe this was the man she’d worked with for two years. His eyes were wide, the whites showing all around them, his lips pulled back in a maniacal grin.

  Then, to her horror, the whites of his eyes blossomed red with burst blood vessels. Scarlet foam gushed from his mouth as he slumped to the floor. His hand rolled open, revealing a signet ring with a needle attached to it, a needle that he’d just injected into his palm.

  His body thudded as a seizure overtook him. Rose rushed to his side, but Billy pulled her back. “No. There’s nothing you can do. He’s gone.”

  “He knew where Eve is, where the toxin is?” she said. Too late, she realized her mistake.

  Gingerl
y, she patted down EZ’s body, slipping the ring from his finger and handing it to Billy who flushed it down the toilet. “A million gallons of sewage ought to make it safe.”

  She shook her head in warning before he could say anything more. Found EZ’s phone on the floor under the bed where it had fallen during the struggle. Still with an open line, just as she’d feared. She made note of the number and ended the call.

  “He wasn’t talking to the man on the bed,” she said, nodding to the corpse who shared the room with them. “He was talking to someone on the other end of the phone.”

  “He said there were three of them left. The Preacher’s children.” Billy looked down at EZ’s body. “Two, now. But we just lost our ace in the hole.” He glanced at her. “Now they know you’re still alive.”

  “Worse, they know Eve is important to me.” She cursed her weakness, saying Eve’s name out loud like that. “We’re going to have to move fast.”

  She scrolled through EZ’s contacts and glanced at the photos he’d shown Billy. KC, naked except for her underwear, unconscious on the floor of some metal-walled room, surrounded by unmarked fifty-five-gallon drums. Chase, Jay, and Eve all restrained, water in the background. They looked battered and bruised, but otherwise okay.

  As she removed the cell’s battery, SIM, and memory card, panic threatened to undo her. Once they realized who Eve was, once they knew that Rose had killed three more of their own… She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the panic to retreat.

  Billy’s hand on her shoulder was like an anchor, reminding her she wasn’t alone. She rested her cheek on his hand for one brief moment then stood up. “Is the body safe to leave? I don’t want some nurse or medical examiner to get exposed to the toxin.”

  “Dr. Rayburn said it had a short life span once exposed to air or water, but let’s check.” He called Hollywood. “We have a situation here. What’s the risk to civilians from a body injected with the toxin?” He quickly explained what EZ had done.