All the King's Henchmen

by Morgan Kelley

  Oh, Ethan was aware.

  He was the damn Native who was nonstop placed in the fire.

  Ethan shrugged.

  “Maybe he just didn’t want to see us. Maybe he decided that we were going to tell him fuck off, and he was backing off.”

  Gabe looked at him.

  “I’ll have some of whatever you’re smoking.”

  Ethan laughed.

  “It’s peyote, and we use it for rituals. Party at my place,” he teased, not because he’d ever do drugs, but the mere idea freaked Gabe out.

  A guy had to have some fun.

  “Jesus! Now I have to drug test my deputy director! The world is going wacky.”

  Ethan found that all kinds of funny. He had time for a few things in his life.

  His job.

  His kids.

  And fornicating.

  He wasn’t taking drugs and missing out on any of those three things.

  “I was kidding. I’m just done dealing with the man’s jackassery. I can’t do it. It’s my sanity or his. I choose mine. He can do whatever he wants as long as he leaves me the hell alone. I don’t want to deal with it.”

  Yeah, Gabe didn’t blame him, but there was no freaking way he was willing to buy that Damian Dean would back off. In the next year, it would be him or them.

  The man was vicious.

  Gabe had been doing this twice as long as Ethan. He was in his fifties, and he knew when something stank in DC, there was usually a good reason.

  The president loved a good ass chewing.

  He loved humiliating anyone, and everyone, if they didn’t pucker up, kiss his ass, and fall in line.

  Gabe didn’t fall in line for anyone.

  And Ethan?

  Yeah, he’d say nothing as Elizabeth snuck up and knocked the president into the Potomac. Who were they kidding?

  Still, to ban them from the White House?

  There was no way he was giving up seeing them without a damn good reason.

  If there would be a room full of people as he dressed them down, insulted Ethan, and then fired them both, that was his idea of a full day.

  He knew the man.

  He was a big old bag of rotten dicks.

  This was his seventh year of being president, and the man was pretty good at making Federal employees miserable as freaking sin. That was going under his presidential portrait in the Smithsonian.

  ‘Damian Dean—the douchiest president who ever graced the Oval Office. He lived for hookers and making people miserable.’

  Yeah, something was going on.

  “Ethan, I’m telling you. Something is up. I can feel it in my gut.”

  Blackhawk didn’t doubt him. Gabe was good at this kind of thing, but he was too tired to try to play ‘guess what the president is up to’. The answer was likely illegal, and likely sex with half the women, who had the misfortune of working anywhere near him.

  Literally.

  That was exactly why Ethan wouldn’t let his wife within a five-mile radius without him.

  Gabe too.

  Damian Dean was a pervert.

  “You’ll figure it out,” he said, getting up to leave.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Uh, my wife and Chris should be back, so I was going to pop down to the Violent Crimes Unit, say hello and check on them. Then have a coffee before my next meeting. I can’t sit here all day and try to figure out what Damian Dean is planning. I have an office to run. I suggest you do the same. He’ll let us know what’s up when he’s good and ready.”

  Yeah, he was probably right.

  As Ethan was about to head out, Wilcox took that moment to come running in. He practically took the door off of the hinges and scared them to death.

  So much so, that both men went for their guns.

  “JESUS! There had better be a damn good reason for you coming in here like that! You should freaking know better!” Gabe barked.

  “Sir! Sorry! We have a problem!”

  Ethan knew his security didn’t get riled up too often unless Elizabeth was pulling some prank to make their lives hell.

  God!

  He hoped that wasn’t the case.

  It was Monday, and that made for a long, painful week when he had to soothe ruffled feathers. While he’d do it for her, he didn’t like it.

  “What?” Ethan asked.

  “Ivan’s tracker on his watch is going off. He’s sending his signal, and that means he’s compromised. We called him, thinking maybe he set it off accidentally, but he didn’t answer.”

  Ethan got that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  If Ivan was down…

  “Call my wife.”

  “Sir, we did. Neither she nor Doctor Leonard are answering. So we checked her GPS on her watch.”

  “And?”

  “It’s dead. Both of their signals are dead. Someone must have disabled theirs, but not Ivan’s!”

  Well, shit!

  That was going to be bad.

  “Where is he?”

  “His signal is still at the doctor’s office. He hasn’t moved in two hours. We called to see if Elizabeth had left, and they said she’d been gone for an hour.”

  And that made it worse.

  “Gabe, I have to go,” Ethan stated.

  The worst-case scenario made him want to puke. He thought about all of the people who would LOVE to get their hands on her.

  The top of the list?

  BONNIE.

  “I’ll call you when I get there!” he said, running out of the room with Wilcox right behind him.

  “Ethan, be careful!” he ordered as his deputy director and the man hustled ass. He would have gone, too, but someone had to hold down the fort.

  And there was something going on.

  He’d bet money on it.

  Blackhawk was in a panic.

  He needed to talk to his wife.

  To make sure she wasn’t screwing with his security, Ethan pulled out his phone and called her. While she’d duck security’s call, she’d never dodge him.

  NEVER.

  When it went to voicemail, he knew the truth. The cell phone was off.

  He called Chris, and he got the same thing.

  That was way off base. Chris never shut off his phone. EVER. Then add in that they left the doctor’s office an hour ago, and Ivan’s tracker was still showing he was there…

  Yeah, it made him sick.

  All of the possibilities freaked him out. The best-case scenario was she was hurt.

  The worse…dead.

  Downstairs, they blew past security, getting looks from just about everyone.

  Ethan didn’t leave the office often, but when he did, it was never like this.

  At their rides, they all jumped into the vehicles in the underground parking garage. Wilcox was driving, Johnny was riding shotgun, and there were two cars with agents behind them.

  Ethan began praying.

  If anything happened to his wife, he was going to lose his damn mind. He was going to be Hell on Earth.

  He was going to have to call Callen.

  Oh, shit.

  Oh, blessed baby Jesus lost in Jerusalem.

  Ethan was going to have to call his brother and tell him she was missing.

  That was bad.

  While he was freaked, his brother?

  Callen was going to have a stroke. He was in Chicago, and that was going to push the man over the edge. He hated leaving, well, now…he’d never leave again.

  His biggest fear was he’d go away, and Elizabeth would be hurt or something just like this.

  Oh, please let him find her.

  “We are one block from the tracker,” Johnny stated, watching it on the screen. “It’s still not moving. Wherever he is, he’s stationary.”

  They knew it was very possible that his watch was not with him. If something had happened, it could have been damaged, and that was why it was on.

  They knew that if Elizabeth’s was disabled, and Chris�
��s, too, then Ivan could be compromised.

  “What vehicle did they take today?” Ethan asked. He’d been driven in by the limo. Since they had been going in opposite directions, they took a car.

  “The Escalade is being serviced. They took one of the security cars. The Lincoln.”

  Ethan saw the parking lot, and there was a car there. Around it, there were other cars parked as patients went in and out of the building like nothing was happening.

  Something had to have gone down.

  They wouldn't leave the car.

  “Director, you have to stay in the car,” Johnny stated. “We’ll handle it,” he said as the car came to a stop. The newest member of the team met them at the door.

  “Saint! Find that tracker!” Ethan ordered.

  The man saluted, and they approached the vehicle. Ethan had his gun on his lap—just in case.

  He watched as they cleared the vehicle and pointed to the trunk.

  Oh, Christ!

  All he could think was not the trunk. It was about ninety out, and if she was in there…

  Trunk?

  Hot weather?

  Missing wife?

  He prayed to Timothy for some kind of intervention, and he even offered up his own life for hers.

  “Don’t let her be dead in that trunk,” he whispered. “Granddad, don’t let her be in there with Chris and Ivan.”

  He’d worked crimes like this.

  Ethan knew how many bodies could fit in a trunk because he’d pulled them out of them.

  Dead.

  Decaying.

  Destroyed.

  Blackhawk held his breath as the men opened the trunk and then waved over at the director.

  He got out, ignored the people watching him, and headed there. They were pulling a bright red, sweaty Ivan from the back and setting him free.

  He was drenched.

  They ungagged him.

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. They took me out first. She called, said she was on her way out. I was going to pull up and get her, and I was jumped.”

  “Jesus.”

  Yeah, that was NOT what he wanted to hear. It was making him want to lose his mind.

  Only, he had to stay calm.

  Ethan had to remain in control of the situation.

  “Her tracker,” Ivan began. “Is her tracker on?” he asked, really worried about her.

  Someone handed him some water as they freed his feet. Ivan gulped it down and then poured a second bottle on him to cool his core.

  “They disabled it,” Saint offered. “We tried to track it. The GPS was killed. They knew she was wearing it.”

  Well, that narrowed it down.

  Only so many people would know that.

  Ivan wanted to be sick.

  He needed to think. Immediately, he scanned the area, trying to find a way to help locate her.

  That’s when he saw it.

  “Cameras.”

  Saint knew what to do. He raced for the building to get copies of those recordings.

  “Director, I’m sorry,” Ivan stated. “I’m so sorry. I let her get taken.”

  He stopped him.

  Blackhawk couldn’t deal with this now. He had other things to handle. Ivan’s fears took a backseat.

  Ethan began pacing.

  He needed to think.

  Something was indeed wrong in DC. Why did the person or people who did this take Elizabeth and Chris? Why didn’t they leave him behind in the trunk with Ivan? As a profiler, he couldn’t possibly find a reason Chris would be the target.

  He dug in the dead.

  He was quiet.

  He couldn’t be the target.

  “Get me back to the office. NOW!”

  He stormed toward his ride, ignoring that there were people recording him, the team, and the man who was pulled out of the trunk.

  He had bigger issues.

  HUGE ones.

  His wife was missing, and she could be anywhere. They had an hour on them.

  Callen was going to flip his shit.

  All of the way home.

  To kill him.

  * * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *

  Another Non-Descript

  Room

  When she woke up this time, her head was in Chris’s lap, and he was stroking her cheek. He had his tie off, and he was using it to blot her nose and lip. He was lucky. His hands had been cuffed in front of him.

  Hers were trapped behind her.

  She moaned.

  Chris was worried.

  She’d taken a couple of shots to her with high voltage, and a few shots to her face. She was a mess.

  If they got out of there, there was going to be big time hell to pay.

  Ethan and Callen…

  They would be on the warpath.

  “Elizabeth, are you okay?” he asked. “Look at me so I can see your eyes. I need to evaluate you. You took a few hits to your head.”

  “I’m aware,” she muttered.

  She struggled to move her arms, and it sucked that she couldn’t get free. Chris looked like hell too. He had taken a shot to his face as well.

  Someone was going to die. She was not happy about any of this.

  “Are you okay?” he asked again, still waiting for her answer.

  “Well, I’ve felt better.”

  “Careful of my blood,” he whispered as her hand moved behind her and touched his leg. “Your hand is cut. I don’t want to risk you.”

  She closed her eyes.

  Yeah, that was the least of their problems. They were being held prisoner by the President of the United States.

  Holy shit!

  “When I get out of here, I’m going to burn this place to the ground,” she muttered. “How long have we been gone?” she asked. Elizabeth couldn’t feel her watch.

  Yeah, they’d take her tracker. The Secret Service also wore them in their watches—in case they had to move the president in the event of an emergency.

  Well, they had better be LoJacked because she was going to get to that man and make him want to run screaming back to Wisconsin.

  “About an hour. They took my watch, too, but I’m good with time. I wasn’t out for as long as you.”

  “They locked me in here and then you came in shortly afterward. I don’t know why they wanted to separate us.”

  Yeah, she knew why.

  Compliance.

  They wanted something, and unless you were dumb, deaf, or blind, you knew Chris was hers. They figured separating them would mean she’d behave.

  “They put us back together because I tore the place up,” she stated. “I broke some guys arm, and I destroyed some monster’s knee. Then, I ripped the camera out. They put me here because they knew I’d kill anyone who came near me in my attempt to get to you.”

  He kissed her on the top of her head where she wasn’t cut up.

  “Who is crazy enough to do this?” he asked.

  “It’s the Secret Service,” she whispered. “I saw the earpieces and the pins. They are wearing the ones that everyone in this administration wears. President Dean has to be behind this. The one baboon said I couldn’t be hurt.”

  Yeah, well, bullshit. They’d kicked the hell out of her. Already, her face was bruising, and a normal mother, at her age, wouldn’t still be on her feet.

  “Jesus! He had us abducted? Is he insane? This is going to start one hell of a war between the FBI and the White House.”

  Screw those two places.

  Ethan Blackhawk was going to go on a scalping spree, and Dean was a dead man. He’d never survive Ethan’s wrath. While he had to play nice, all bets were now off.

  The man had crossed the line.

  “There will be bloodshed.”

  Oh, she was aware.

  This was bad.

  “You need to stop getting the shit kicked out of you,” he whispered. “You’ve been knocked out how many times?”

  She tapped him twice on his leg with
her fingers because it hurt to talk.

  “Yeah, that’s two too many. Stay calm, and let’s see if we can talk our way out of this.”

  Yeah, well, that was damn hard to do when you were attacked in a parking lot, you didn’t know where your security guy was, and Chris was manhandled too.

  The time for talking was over.

  She was at a whole new level of unhappy. This had escalated to Elizabeth being a bitch.

  She was pissed.

  Someone’s head was going to roll. Before the day was out, she was going to hand someone their ass over all of this. If Ethan didn’t kill them, she would. That douchebag was a dead man walking.

  Enough was enough.

  When she heard the door, Elizabeth sat up, ready to go a third round to protect them.

  It was a new voice.

  A familiar one.

  Well, well, well. She knew this woman. They were attempting to get her to comply by trying to offer a familiar face.

  Yeah, no.

  She was three days past that.

  “Please stop fighting,” the woman stated. “Elizabeth, you’re going to get hurt.”

  Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. She was already hurt and running on adrenaline. When she crashed, this was going to be a bitch.

  “We need to talk.”

  That made her laugh.

  “What the hell, Alfie?” she asked as the woman tossed Chris a key to Elizabeth’s handcuffs.

  “Set her free but stop kicking everyone’s ass. You broke three agent’s arms, and you dislocated two agents’ knees. Their careers are shot.”

  Oh, too bad.

  “They cried like girls too,” she stated. “Recruit better people.”

  “Uh, you know her?” Chris asked as he freed her, and then she freed him.

  “You could say that.”

  “You made this a mess,” Alfie stated, pointing at the two of them. “We just wanted to talk.”

  “Oh, well, excuse me,” she said. “Maybe the Secret Service shouldn’t grab people in parking lots, and certainly not Feds who can fight.”

  Oh, Alfie was aware.

  She knew this was going to be a nightmare the second the vice president came up with this crazy-ass scheme.

  “We need to talk.”