As though she hadn’t had plenty of experience with that from her father.
Never good enough. Never fast enough.
But she had to believe she’d done her best in this. She couldn’t lose faith in herself and in the strength of her mind.
“What is it?”
Louis’s question brought her attention to the screen and the image of the ranch house. A man made his way to the front door and inside. Hal pointed to a different image, and they saw him stride down a hallway, arms by his sides.
If he was there to kill them, he didn’t know he couldn’t get in the room. And where was his gun anyway? Sheriff Mason always wore his where everyone could see it.
“Who is that?”
Louis shot her a look.
Hal answered, “I have no idea.”
Sam Tura walked over to them, followed by Beth and Michael. Sonny appeared on her other side.
Beth squinted at the screen. “I’ve never seen that man before. It’s not Tommy.”
Sonny shook his head, as did Sam.
“Great.” Hal leaned back in his chair.
The man reached the basement door, trotted down the steps like this was a fun day out, and reached for the key-pad.
“No.” Hal’s voice was interrupted by the beep of the security pad.
The lock disengaged and the door swung open. The man’s weapon appeared first. His hands gripped it, knuckles white, his strong arms stretched out.
They all stepped back. Sam Tura put Beth behind him.
Leather jacket sleeve. A shoulder, a leg. Then his torso and head.
Four shots rang through the room—a muted pop, pop, pop.
Sonny, Hal, and Tura went down. The last two shots both went into the big boxer. Louis rushed the intruder. The man fired again, and Louis’s next two steps ended in a drop to the floor.
Beth squealed.
“I’m not going to tranq a pregnant woman, so calm down.” He strode past her, grabbed Remy’s arm, and pulled.
“Hey.” She broke free of the shock. “What are you doing?”
He hauled her to the door. “Taking care of business.” He stopped to glance back at Beth. “They’ll be awake in short order. I wanna hear this door lock behind me. Got it?”
Beth stared wide eyed, nodding her head.
Remy squirmed to pull from his grip using the weakest point between his thumb and fingers, but his hand was so big it wrapped around her wrist and then some. She yanked on her arm again and again.
He shut the door. “You do that much more, and you’ll pull all the muscles in your arm. Not fun—but no skin off my nose.”
He could not be serious.
Remy slapped him. Then she punched him. Then she tried to kick him in important places he probably liked. He fended off every move. By the time she’d tired he was chuckling. Remy let out a muted scream of frustration.
The door clicked. The red light above the door illuminated.
He hauled her up the stairs. “My life certainly isn’t boring.” There was a frosting of British in his accent.
“Who are you?”
“Doesn’t matter. What matters is this thing you have hidden somewhere in town. I want the compound and then the warhead, in that order. Then you and I are out of here, while John and Sam take care of Tommy Locan.”
“You can’t interrogate me into telling you where it is. I won’t break.”
He stopped at the front door. “I have no intention of interrogating you. You’re simply going to tell me where it is.” There was no give in his eyes, no let-up in his voice. Cut from the same cloth as Louis, this was a man definitely unused to people defying him even in the smallest ways, and especially not when he was this determined.
He looked out the window, holding her back behind him so she couldn’t see the view.
“Is someone out there?”
“Doesn’t matter if they are. I’ll take care of it.” He turned to her. “You’re safe with me, and so is the device.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you?”
“My name is Daire O’Callahan. I work for Ben Mason.”
“I’ve never liked that guy,” Remy said. “He skulks everywhere. And I’m pretty sure, when he was here in the fall, he put the Mayor in the hospital.”
Daire’s lips curled up. “Good for him.” His expression dead-panned. “Now where is the compound?”
“I’m. Not. Telling. You.” She stared him down. “Get that through your head.”
“Oh, well then. I’ll leave you here for the Senior Chief. Did you know his specialty is a knife? I’m sure you’ll start singing when he starts cutting.”
“Threatening me isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
“Because you’re so tough, little girl?”
She gasped. “I’m a doctor!”
“Is that supposed to impress me? You made something that could kill a whole lot more people than I can shoot in my lifetime.” He got in her face again. “Now where is it?”
Remy looked at the hall. What would Beth say if she just gave up the location and split with the device? Thomas and Susan hadn’t ever been exactly proud of her—or disappointed, for that matter. They simply didn’t understand. Could she make amends now that the worst had happened? Maybe it was for the best that this Daire guy got her and the weapon out of town. Beth could go on without Remy messing up her life any more than she already had.
Remy bit her lip and looked back at him. He seemed capable enough, and he did work for Ben Mason. Despite the fact he scared her, it couldn’t be denied the man got results. Who else was there to help?
“Okay,” she said. “If you take me with you, I’ll tell you.”
**
Daire has Remy.
Shadrach didn’t move from his spot on the floor. The call had come from Beth, over that Matthias-guy’s radio. Whoever this “Daire” was, Shadrach wasn’t going to let him harm Remy in any way.
Nadia’s eyes caught his. There wasn’t much he could do without her reading his intention first. Not even when he’d bought her the streamers she’d wanted for her bike and tried to hide them. She’d pestered him until he cracked and told her where they were hidden. After that he never bought her birthday present until the day of her birthday, so she had no opportunity to break him like a cold sweat.
She was so good, the instructors who had tried to break him weren’t even a match for her. Verbal pressure did next to nothing. And when they’d tried physical measures, all he’d thought about was Nadia sitting on him and tickling him until he squealed. The officers in charge of that part of his training claimed they’d never had anyone laugh.
Shadrach stretched out of his spot against the wall. His legs protested against being straight, so he moved to get the blood flowing and stretch them out some.
Matthias turned to him. Andra. A couple of older men, including one who had the air of an officer…and the stare. Shadrach’s hands were still cuffed in front, so he could use them. Would he have to fight his way out to go help Remy? The kids had been occupied with their game, but they were getting restless after hours of stimulation. An older woman, Olympia, was cooking something that made him want to weep for a taste of it, but there was no time.
Shadrach moved to the door. There was a code to get in, but no code to get out. This wasn’t a jail cell.
Matthias had his gun up and ready.
Shadrach turned to him. “Don’t do it, kid.”
There wasn’t much age difference between them, but there was innocence written all over Matthias. Despite the training evident in his stance and the way he held the sidearm, he’d probably lived in Sanctuary his whole life. “I can’t let you leave.”
Shadrach reached for the latch.
“I will shoot you.”
Murmurs erupted around the room.
“Do it.”
“Don’t do it.”
A child started to cry.
Shadrach fought the urge to glance at his sister. “Don’t Matthias. Once
you kill someone…there’s no coming back from that.”
When the man didn’t respond, Shadrach pulled the door open. The hall was clear.
“Shadrach.”
He looked back. It was Andra, the sheriff’s wife. “Daire is one of the good guys.”
**
Bolton’s walkie-talkie crackled. “—to me.” Someone cleared their throat. “Hello? Bolton? Are you there?”
He frowned, his eyes on the expanse of night sky above the ring of mountains. He pressed the button to answer. “Nadia?”
“Shadrach just left. Matthias tried to stop him, but he’s gone.”
Bolton got up. He and Diego and Sean scanned the road around the Meeting House for the sniper leaving. The yellow glow of street lamps hid plenty of corners. “We’ll keep an eye out.”
“He’s gone. He went after Remy.”
Bolton couldn’t leave the roof. They were to watch the Meeting House for anyone coming and going who shouldn’t be there. “I still don’t see him.”
“He left.” She sounded close to tears. “I had to let him go, and he just left.”
**
Grant slipped the last suit into the garment bag and zipped it up. Gen had locked herself in the bathroom, crying. The sound of it still got to him, even though it shouldn’t have. Not to mention the fact he needed to get in there.
He banged on the door. “I need my shaving stuff and my toothbrush.”
The lock clicked.
Grant sighed and opened the door. Gen was curled into herself on the closed lid of the toilet, a scrunched up tissue in her hand. Her mascara had made two black trails down her cheeks. Earrings discarded. Hair mussed.
He moved to the cupboard and collected his things, putting them in the wash bag he used when he traveled.
“I was trying to help us. I was trying to keep the girls safe.”
Grant shut the shower door and dropped his body wash into the open bag on the counter.
“He would have hurt them. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Grant zipped the wash bag. At the door, he turned back. “There are hundreds of people in this country I’ve worked with over the past twenty-five years. All of whom I’ve kept safe when there was someone threatening them—threatening the people they love. Each one of them, when I sat down and looked them in the eye, when I told them that I was going to keep them safe, they believed me. But not my own wife.”
“He had pictures of them. He said I couldn’t tell anyone.” Her eyes were bright with fear still, and he didn’t doubt it was true. “He was going to hurt them.”
“I didn’t know that. Did I? Because you trusted his word more than you trusted mine.”
Grant put the wash bag in his suitcase and zipped it. Genevieve could cry all she wanted. The reality was she had robbed him of the opportunity to know, even before all this had started, that something was going on. Lives could have been saved. If Genevieve had come to him, he’d have been able to make a plan with Ben. Find out who this guy was and his role in the syndicate. Now that chance was gone.
Grant climbed in his Mercedes and gripped the steering wheel. God, don’t let anything happen to John and Pat, or Andra. Or any of them. Keep Sanctuary safe. Great, now he was praying. He’d stooped to a new low if that was the only option he had left. As he pulled out of his garage onto the road, Grant used voice commands to call his brother.
“Yep?”
Grant told him what Genevieve had done.
“Brother…”
“I’m on my way to you.”
“Actually, I’m in your neck of the woods.” Ben gave him an address that was probably a forty-five-minute drive, even with night traffic. “I’ll see you soon?” The edge to his voice said he was focused on something.
“What is this place? What’s your op?”
“The suicide. The call Abigail made? My guy got something off her computer. Apparently she wasn’t as good at hiding it as she’d thought.” Ben paused long enough for Grant to absorb the information. “I got a couple of locations of meets, dates, and some interesting coincidences. I think I’m onto something. I hit the first one this morning to poke around, see who remembered what. Hole-in-the-wall Chinese place in New York. Got a couple of maybe’s and a whole lot of evasion, but this cost them the family who ran the place. Now I’m headed for an office building where I think another meeting of this syndicate took place.”
Grant took the on-ramp for the freeway. “I’ll meet you there. What’s the latest from Daire?”
“Last update was he’s headed to some kind of cave where Doctor Wilder buried the compound. He’ll secure it and then get the missile. When he has both, I have a chopper standing by to get them and it out of there.”
“And if Tommy gets his hands on the bomb?”
“He won’t. Daire did his job, got on the team. The other two are dead. John and Sam will take care of the Senior Chief.”
Grant shook his head to the dark interior of the car. “So you’re not worried at all? It’s all plain sailing from here, far as you’re concerned?”
“Didn’t say that. There are always variables at play. You experienced that first hand today.”
“True.”
Grant hung up and made the drive in short order, meeting Ben outside. It was unfamiliar to draw his weapon and perform a room-by-room search of the office building. He hadn’t been in the field for a long time. And if he’d been willing to admit it to himself, he missed it.
“Clear.”
“Clear.” Grant lowered his weapon but didn’t put it away. There could still be someone here. He didn’t fancy getting shot just because he let his guard slip.
Inside a conference room, halfway down the hall, the table was covered in papers. Maps. Geological survey papers. Red X in the corner. “This is Sanctuary.”
Ben pointed at the mountainside. “This is the location of the cave Daire said they were headed to.”
The X was positioned on the opposite side of the town, up in the hills. “Does that make this the location of the missile?”
Ben studied the papers. “That would be my guess.”
“So why would they be targeting that and not the other?”
Ben didn’t move or speak. He ran his finger across the map in a wide arc—like a protractor—that encompassed half the town. “This could be bad.”
“What is it?” Grant didn’t speak spy, and for once he wished he did. And Ben wasn’t exactly a true spy, anyway, though he had done some freelance work in that arena. He reined in his thoughts. “What does this mean?”
“Maybe nothing. But it could be something.” Ben straightened and looked at him. “If they’re planning on locating the warhead and maybe even detonating it in retaliation, or to get Doctor Wilder to hand over the compound, then we have a big problem.”
“You think?”
“Half the town could be wiped out, and that’s if they blow it where it is. If Tommy brings it to the center of town, the basin is sunk.”
“But John and Sam will catch him.”
“One man, yes. But this syndicate has out-maneuvered us from the start. Who knows what they have up their sleeves.”
**
The General entered the room. Darren Hall tossed the licorice whip on the desk and sat up. The monitors were all clear; they had been since this experiment started. Not that he’d signed on to the Air Force to babysit a science project. Still. He slept well, and his wife didn’t have to know the stories about his dangerous covert missions weren’t exactly truth. She was pressuring him to give them up for the family she wanted to start. He’d give it a couple of weeks then pretend to cave.
“Good morning, Sir.”
“The experiment has been concluded, Ensign.”
Chapter 22
“Right here.” The clearing was empty. A patch of grass surrounded by trees with no sign of Tommy. Sam crept out from cover, his weapon drawn and his flashlight beam along the same path. There was nothing here but a hole in the gro
und.
John came up beside him and shined his own flashlight. “Is that what I think it is?”
“He got to it.” The ground had been overturned and then discarded in a pile beside an empty hole, easily the size of a suitcase. “Tommy got to half of it.”
“The missile or the compound?”
Sam shook his head. “Only Tommy and Remy know the answer to that.”
Would they run into Daire and Remy out here? Or Shadrach? Part of him wanted to leave John to the search for Tommy and go be with his wife, who was stuck in the ranch house basement by herself with a bunch of tranquilized men. His finger twitched toward his radio, but there was no time. The trail was hot.
“Let’s keep moving.” John scanned the ground with his light. “Looks like he went that way. Steps are heavier; he’s weighed down. He’ll move slower now.”
That was good. Sam was ready to catch up.
Tommy’s tracks led back down the mountain. They’d been chasing him for hours. “How long do we have left?”
“Eight hours.”
John had explained emergency protocol meant the Air Force would cut off their water supply and their power rather than allow insurgents to take over the town.
They would starve out the attackers while the residents hid with two weeks’ worth of supplies. It was unlikely Tommy had that much fresh water.
Sam led the sprint down the mountain path. Pain fired to his hip with every step. At some point they’d need rest, but Sam wasn’t going to be the first to admit it. They were both good—trained. But they were also still human.
John spoke into his radio. “Beth, this is John. Come in.”
Silence.
John tried again. “Beth? Hal? Come in. This is John.”
“John?”
Sam hit the button on the wire that hung from his right ear. “Bethy, are you okay?”
“Everyone’s still asleep.” Her voice was brittle…about to shatter. “He said he wouldn’t tranq me because I’m pregnant. How did he know that?”
Sanctuary Breached WITSEC Town Series Book 3 Page 24