Ben chuckled. “Genevieve. How’s your Saturday treating you?”
“It’ll be great just as soon as the CEO of Charm-Falken calls me back and accepts my buyout offer.”
Ben shrugged. “He will.”
“Benny.” She dragged his name out in a frustrated growl.
“You can thank me later. Get me another ugly painting for my bathroom.”
“That was a classic piece, and you know it.”
“It was purple.”
Her eyes narrowed. “It was lilac.” Her phone rang. “Argh.”
The brothers shared a smile. Daire had a completely blank expression on his face. Apparently family-time wasn’t his thing. “This is entertaining and all, but—”
Ben held up one finger. He touched the screen of his iPad again, and the TV rang.
The screen split, and on one side appeared a beautiful dark-haired woman and a little blonde boy. “Aw, man. We just got to the part where Emmett makes his double-decker couch.”
Ben’s laugh rumbled in his chest.
The screen flickered and the boy sat up, dislodging the image for a second. “Uncle Ben!”
“Hey, Pat. How are you?”
“I’m good.” The little boy—maybe ten, Sam didn’t know exactly—grinned. “How’s Uncle Nate?”
Grant answered from the other side of the screen. “He’s doing well, buddy. He had his surgery last week, and he’s out of the hospital. Resting up.”
The woman put her arm around Pat, hugging him close to her side. “He’ll be okay.”
“I know. I just miss him.”
Grant said, “I’ll get him to a place he can call you from soon, okay?”
The boy nodded.
“Or I’ll kidnap him and fly him in on a fighter jet for lunch.” Ben didn’t move or let go of his deadly serious expression.
“Yes!” The boy jumped from the woman’s arm, and she rolled her eyes.
“He’s not really going to do that, you know.”
Pat turned to her. “He could. You know Uncle Ben can do anything.” He turned to the camera. “I asked Miss Beth if I could write my English report—we’re supposed to do it on someone we admire. I asked if I could do it about you, but when I told her you catch bad guys and make them sleep with the fishes, she didn’t think it was a good idea.”
Ben chuckled, then turned and saw Sam’s expression. Sam’s chest had caught, hearing his wife’s name. Ben gave him a tiny nod. It was her.
These people were in the same town with Beth? He stepped forward.
The woman studied him. She shifted her gaze. “The SEAL?”
Ben nodded. On screen, Grant did the same.
“John is working.” She turned aside, grabbed a phone from off-screen and dialed three numbers.
Sam said, “Seems like your brothers are family men.”
Ben nodded.
Sam glanced down at Ben’s left hand, wondering if he was the type of man to wear a ring. “But you’re not married?”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t know what they feel.”
Sam studied him, but Ben didn’t say more.
On screen, Pat started talking, oblivious to what was going on with the adults. “Dad’s off trying to find a George Bush mask, since the man who broke into Miss Beth’s bedroom had one. He’s kinda mad, because she has a gun. But she didn’t shoot anyone, so it’s not like he has to arrest her—” The woman put her hand over his mouth.
She leaned down to the kid and mouthed something that looked like security clearance. Both Ben and Daire—who apparently wasn’t completely immune—chuckled. Sam didn’t smile. He wanted more information about the man who’d broken into Beth’s bedroom.
Then she spoke into her phone. “Yes. Your brothers are on the line.” She smiled, the intimate smile of a woman talking to the man who loved her. “Okay, I’ll tell them.”
When she’d hung up, she said, “John will be here in a couple of minutes.”
“Thanks, Andra.” Grant nodded to her. They made small talk, but Sam tuned it out and settled on the edge of the desk.
Ben stepped closer. “She’s okay. If she wasn’t, John would have called immediately.”
Sam didn’t want to voice the question out loud. If something happened to her because he was elsewhere, he would blame himself the rest of his short life.
“It’s your choice.” Ben paused. “Go there or stay here, there’s work to do either way. This whole thing has been a lot to take on. For both of you. Beth told John—he’s the sheriff of the town—that she wants you to make the choice for yourself to be there with her.”
“It’s not like I don’t want to go.”
“There’s more to tell you—if you can handle it. That should help with your decision.”
Sam nodded. Daire stepped up beside them and lifted his chin. “Ben and I can deal with things outside Sanctuary. You should go take care of your wife.”
“I thought the whole point of her being there was because it has adequate protection.”
“That’s not all she needs.”
Sam didn’t flinch. “Which is why my mom is there.”
Daire shrugged.
What was going on that Sam didn’t know about yet?
Ben’s expression didn’t change. “Wait for John. We’ll tell you everything, and then you can decide.”
Sam sat on the edge of the table. His body resonated with a low hum of pain, despite the meds. How much use would he be, here or in some town called Sanctuary, if he could barely stand for thirty minutes? Tommy was going to put him down fast—unless Sam got the jump on him.
He surveyed Ben and Daire. The two men were clearly trained, although possibly not by the US military. They were more than capable of bringing justice for Sam’s men, and for the president and Susan. But it was Sam’s duty to do both these things—for himself, his brothers’ memory, and for his wife. Whether he trusted these two men to be honorable or not, it didn’t take away from the fact that Sam’s job was here.
And in Sanctuary.
**
With each step Remy took, calculations ticked through in her head. It was like having an old printing calculator stuck there, constantly spewing out numbers on a strip of paper she could see in her mind—an endless stream.
Remy sucked down a mouthful of rich coffee from the diner. He’d tried to get her to eat something, but she’d been having serious sympathy nausea since she started regularly seeing Beth. She’d forced down eggs and toast and pretended it tasted good. Sam probably didn’t believe her. He recognized crap when it was being dished at him. It was his gift. But it wasn’t about the food.
When that thought ended, the numbers started up again. They ticked by with every step closer to her house. Although the one bedroom place was barely bigger than most apartments, it was still home.
Remy stopped at the end of the path to the front door. The flower pots—previously arranged yellow, yellow, red, green—were now red, yellow, green, yellow.
Her steps faltered, but she caught herself before she fell on her face.
He was here.
**
“Definitely a man. Short of doing a house-to-house search of all the homes in town, there’s not much I can do to figure out who it was. Besides, the mask could have been destroyed.” On the left side of the screen, John sighed. “I’m hesitant to do that, given the level of privacy these people have already given up.”
Sam leaned back in the chair. “Beth and my mom are okay?”
“Shaken up, but no more than from everything else that’s happened. I was actually pretty impressed with how much Beth was able to keep a cool head.”
Sam nodded. She was good at that, though the question was whether she was faking it really well, or if she was really okay.
“Which reminds me.” John glanced aside. “You want to tell me why Beth has a gun in my town? You know the only weapons are ones I know about.”
“She needed the reassurance she could protect herself,” Grant said.
“I figured she’d tell you herself when she got there.”
“Why not just tell me yourself? If she’d fired shots, everyone in town would know she has it. I’d have a riot on my hands, with half the town wanting their own guns. The other half would be locked up in their houses suffering PTSD flashbacks.” John paused. “You asked me to be the sheriff of your town. You can’t tie my hands like this.”
“It was an oversight. I seem to be having a lot of those lately. Thankfully this one didn’t get someone killed.”
Ben leaned forward, “Grant—”
“What else?” He shook his head.
Ben continued, “The news media still considers Sam a traitor. Senior Chief Tommy Locan is milking it for all it’s worth.”
Betrayal whipped through Sam’s gut for the thousandth time. “Are we certain what Tommy did is connected to Beth? I mean, what do we really know about why the president and Susan were killed?”
“It’s connected,” Grant said.
The three men shared a look—the same look—which was impressive, considering two were on the other end of a video call.
“How about you tell me everything.”
Grant nodded. “Beth and Susan originally traveled to Sanctuary because they were looking for something. The cover story was that they were in danger, and a Secret Service member who tried to kill them before they could leave provided adequate cover for the move. Not that I’d have wished that on anyone. We only embellished a little, along with staging an attack at Camp David that meant they had to be hidden where not even the Secret Service, or the military, would know where they were.
“Susan and Beth had to be sent to Sanctuary. The president knew that, it’s why we figured out this plan to provide them cover. Then Beth started to receive letters saying she was in danger, unless she brought a certain item back to someone who considers it theirs. Though Beth and Susan wouldn’t confirm it was actually in Sanctuary.”
Sam would be mad, too, if pertinent intel on an operation he was trying to lead was kept from him. “What is it?” Sam glanced between them, trying to figure out who knew what. “What do they want?”
“We don’t know, and the first family wouldn’t say. They believed they were being monitored closely, which fits with the betrayal by a Secret Service agent. They were afraid to mention it out loud. Even in private.”
“So what do we know?”
Grant said, “The notes were all signed with the same phrase. ‘Defaeco must be enacted. You will not stop us.’”
Sam frowned. “Defaeco?”
Ben turned to him. “It’s Latin. It means cleansing, like a purification. We found a reference online to Defaeco. It’s a treatise from the seventies, written by a doctor who believed that some people were immune compromised, and those who’d never been vaccinated dragged down the health of society at large—that the immune compromised should be ‘removed’ somehow. He wrote about a coming superbug and felt the spread of disease could be hindered by strengthening the health of the general population. Coupled with the ‘purification’ thing, and the fact his peers generally wrote off his ideas, we think he might have had a radical agenda. But we haven’t found anything else published under his name.”
Daire sat up straight in his chair, on the other side of Ben. “We’re working on tracking him down, but there’s not much to go on.”
Sam folded his arms. “These people killed my grandfather, my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, and my team. They’ve discredited me, and forced my wife into hiding. I want answers.”
Ben turned to him. “We’re working on it.”
“And I’m supposed to go to Sanctuary and sit around, waiting for you to do that?”
“I’ll field that question.”
They all turned to John, who braced. “Beth is pregnant.”
“What?” Grant’s reaction was immediate. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
John’s gaze refocused on one corner of his screen. “Why didn’t you tell me she had a gun?”
“I told you, I thought she would mention it. You’re supposed to thoroughly interview people. Dig it all out. Full disclosure.”
John’s eyebrows rose. “That’s what I’m giving you now.”
Sam stared at the table in front of him, listening to their back-and-forth. A movie reel of the last night he’d spent with his wife ran through his head. She’d been on birth control for years, not wanting to get pregnant while she was dancing. But she’d shown up in tears, relieved but also sad at what she’d given up. Being a ballerina had been her identity for so long. She’d decided to quit before anyone noticed she’d slowed down after ten years and crucified her for being human.
Had she quit taking the pill before she came to him?
He ran his hands down his face, about ready to cry at the idea. Or laugh at their colossally bad timing. Again. Pop would be busting a gut, wheezing between breaths that proverb about man’s plans and God’s direction.
Seriously, Lord? A baby? She’s in danger. My career is in the toilet. How are we going to raise a baby in the middle of that?
The realization he’d prayed without thinking about it surprised him. Pop had always been the instigator. He hadn’t considered doing it on his own now that Pop was gone. The old man would be proud of him.
“She had an ultrasound a few days ago and found out what the sex is. But she’s not telling anyone. Beth wants to tell you first, Sam.”
Sam lifted his head and looked at John—a former undercover deputy US marshal, but now the sheriff of a WITSEC town.
“Do you want me to arrange a call? It’s risky, but you’ll be able to talk to her.”
Sam didn’t answer.
“I’m not going to lie to you. I know you want to figure this out, to get revenge for your team. But she’s hanging on by a thread. It won’t be long before she hits the limit of what she can handle. And one of my best men, the most trained man in this town, is facing major surgery. I could use the help.”
Sam leaned forward and laid his head on the table. Three days ago he’d been halfway around the world, rotting in a dirt cell.
Beth was going to have to accept he couldn’t help her all that much, but he’d at least be there.
The idea of facing his mother wasn’t too pleasant. They’d never really connected on more than a basic familial level—their genetic bond and their love of the Navy. Beyond that, she hadn’t exactly been a big part of his life.
“If you do go,” Grant said, “you’ll need to get her to tell you what she and her mother went there looking for. We need to know what, or who, she went to Sanctuary to meet. I can’t get answers any other way, and if we’re going to figure this out, we need all the info we can get. You also need to ask her about Defaeco and if she’s aware they hired a sniper along with the team that killed President Sheraton.”
“You want me to interrogate my wife about a sniper that killed her parents?”
“I want you to get the information Ben needs to find the people who paid Tommy to kill your team.”
Sam pushed the chair back and got up. This whole thing was like waking up from a nightmare to find you were in a worse nightmare. Only this one was real, and there was no escape.
He wanted justice for his men, but that wasn’t going to come at the expense of his wife and child’s safety. Sam would protect them with his life. He was going to have to trust Ben and Daire. If the director of the Marshals had brought his brother in and trusted him with what was going on, that would have to be good enough for Sam. He’d have to put his faith in them.
Sam turned. “I guess one of you is going to have to find me a plane.”
Ben grinned.
The door flung open. The man from the computer room rushed in, flushed and grasping a tablet. “I found something.”
Daire and Ben both stood, but it was Ben who said, “What is it?”
“You know how you had me look into anything and everything related to this?”
Ben nodded.
“Abigail Myerson isn’t in Sanctuary.”
“Yes, she is.” John’s voice was adamant.
The IT guy shook his head. “That’s not possible. Not when she was abducted from the airport before she could get on a connecting flight to Denver on her way to Sanctuary.”
Sam glanced between him and the rest of the men. Daire didn’t seem the least bit surprised by the mention of Sanctuary. Did everyone here know about the secret town? These people had to have impressive security clearances.
Sam shook his head. “My mom would not have been abducted.”
The man pressed a button and held out the tablet. Sam’s mom entered a rest room, presumably at the airport he’d been talking about. Minutes later, a woman exited the bathroom. It looked a lot like his mom, and she was dressed exactly like her, but… “That’s not my mom.”
The man tapped the screen in quick succession. “This is the ‘Long Stay’ parking lot.”
A black van was parked in what looked like an underground lot. Three men in black cargoes shoved a woman, who was wearing the same outfit, toward the van. She rallied, kicking two and punching the third. One shot her with prongs that imbedded in her. She jerked with a burst of electric current and then fell to the floor.
“Your mother isn’t in Sanctuary.”
John’s voice came from the TV. “Well then who is?”
“That’s a real good question.”
Chapter 6
A Chinatown restaurant, New York City
Steam licked up from the dim sum laid out on the table. The chairman unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat at the head of the table. “Thank you all for coming.”
A younger man at the other end shifted in his chair. “Isn’t it dangerous to meet this way?”
The chairman gave a short, negative shake of his head. “Your identities are secure. Our security is comprehensive, as you should have ascertained from the lengthy journey we all took to get here.” He paused. “Your job is not to worry about those measures. Your job is to find our missing property and the scientist who stole it.”
Sanctuary Breached WITSEC Town Series Book 3 Page 6