Point of No Return

by Rita Henuber

  She snorted, unable to remain quiet any longer. “So secret you and I were the only ones who know about it.”

  “What the fuck are you saying?”

  “I’m saying there was no secret investigation. The DIA orders are fake. No one is looking at Global for any reason.”

  “That’s, that’s . . . not true.”

  “I told you not to fuck with me, Paul.” Her tone was matter-of-fact.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Then what are you doing?”

  He moved around the edge of the island and looked at the gear spread on it as if it had suddenly materialized. He looked back to her. “What are you doing?”

  She said nothing.

  “You know where the O’Brien brat is.”

  Honey said nothing. A noise came from the darkened dining room to let Moore know she wasn’t alone.

  “Is O’Brien here?” He moved toward the door and when three figures ghosted into view, he stopped.

  “O’Brien isn’t here and if he was, it’s none of your business, sir.”

  Moore didn’t care what she was saying he concentrated on who was in the dining room. “Who’s in there?”

  Honey nodded and the three crowded the doorway.

  He whirled on her, bug-eyed with anger. “I told you no team. No backup.” His face contorted like he was lifting something heavy.

  “I know,” she said casually. “They’re my insurance. When I found who was dirty at Global I didn’t want you taking the credit for my work.” She leaned a hip against the counter and folded her arms over her chest. “Not this time.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. Global isn’t dirty. I made that up to . . .” He went still.

  “Go on,” she prompted. “You made that up to . . . ?”

  His angry expression morphed to an innocent ah, shucks, you caught me look that didn’t cut it.

  “Made it up to . . .” she encouraged.

  He glanced to the three in the dining room then back to her. He held out his arms, hands palms up. “Okay. I made the crap up about Global being dirty so we’d have an opportunity to work together again. Once we were working together again, I knew we’d get back, together.”

  Geesus, what a fucking asshole. She pushed off the counter, bile rising in her throat.

  “Settle down. Remember it was you who requested in on the investigation. I saw the coincidences with Global. All I did was make it seem like they could be into something illegal. You jumped all over it. I know they’re clean. They’ve been vetted in every investigation and review. I did it for us to have time together and we’d be . . .” He reached for her and she stepped back. This had been the reason at the top of her suspicions, but to hear him pronounce it with such arrogance was stunning.

  “You thought sending me in blind to deal with a murderer, a kidnapper, and international identity thieves would make me fall into your arms, into your bed?”

  Moore gaped at her.

  “Tell me you aren’t part of this Paul.”

  His thick eyebrows formed a unibrow. “There isn’t anything to be part of.”

  “I have proof Global is involved in cyber identity theft.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  She shook her head. “Substantial evidence, Paul. We were going to . . .” She paused. Had that only been this morning? “We were going to turn over the data to jurisdictional agencies this morning. Bristol took Ali to prevent us.” She didn’t want to get into who Bristol really was.

  “Bristol kidnapped that kid?” He made a dismissive sound. “That’s fucking bullshit. Whatever it is you’re doing here I’m ordering you to stand down.” He let his commanding officer persona rip. “All of you.” He pointed to Coop, Santiago, and Gunny. “Your asses are mine. I’m writing you up. Your careers are done.” He swiped at the gear on the counter, sending a knife and plastic cuffs clattering across the floor. “If nothing else I’ll turn you over to DC police for weapons possession.”

  Gunny took a threatening step and she shook her head in warning. Moore was hers.

  “And you.” More jabbed a finger at her. “I was willing to give you a chance. You wouldn’t need to stay in the Corps. I thought you were different. Together, with our DC connections, we’d be A-listers. But noo, you couldn’t behave.”

  Honey bristled. “Different? Behave?”

  “Yeah. In Cairo, you were on board. You allowed me to use your work. You understood a man’s career is more important than a woman’s.”

  Honey always felt everyone lived in two worlds. The real world and a world in our heads where we escape when that real world gets rough. Paul had been hanging out too long in his cerebral world. His brain had become a dim, addled place filled with echoing delusions of grandeur.

  “Now look at you,” Moore went on. “You’re like all the rest of them.” He jabbed his pointer finger in her direction. “You want to cut off a man’s balls and stick them in your pants.”

  In her peripheral vision she saw Santiago move and Gunny hold her in place. She scrutinized Moore’s handsome face. Traced her gaze over the body she’d willingly given her own to. He was a brilliant manipulator but the force field he’d erected to prevent her from seeing who he really was had vanished along with her hidden embarrassment at being taken in by him. He was nothing. He was lower than whale shit on the bottom of the ocean.

  “What’s the name of that narcissistic world you live in, Paul?” A purple eggplant color crept across his face. “Do you remember when you first ignored the military code? Sold out? Dishonored yourself and the Corps?”

  He lunged. “You cunt.”

  Her hand was nothing more than a streak cutting through the air as it went for a weapon on the counter. She palmed one, pointed it at Moore’s chest and pulled the trigger once, then twice. Moore howled, went rigid and rode the lightning down, arms and legs flailing. Getting tased won’t kill you but the fall and flapping around would have you hurting like hell in a few hours. Buck burst from the pantry, Kara close behind to join Coop, Santiago, and Gunny watch Moore jerk and twitch in the grip of a full-body charley horse.

  Coop took the Taser from her hand. “Well, we know it works.”

  The phone jangled. Heads jerked in the direction of the sound. “Keep him quiet,” Honey said.

  Santiago didn’t hesitate. She dropped one knee to his chest and the other across his throat, her hands over his mouth. The others followed, holding down arms and legs.

  “Make a sound and I will remove those balls you think so much of and put them in the disposal,” Santiago snarled.

  Kara crouched at Moore’s head, the knife he’d knocked to the floor in her hand. “If she doesn’t do it, I will.”

  Honey ended the call with Clare O’Brien, snagged her burn cell and texted SAFE in the training room to Jack’s burn cell to ease his worry about Ali.

  Clare ostensibly called Honey to thank her for bringing her son home from Tennessee. It was the signal the plan was in motion. Jack left, telling the FBI minder he was going to his apartment for clean clothes. In reality, he waited a street over for Clare to slip out of the house, navigate neighbors’ yards, and join him. From there it was Jack’s storage unit, then separate. Jack was going to Global and Clare was sheltering in the safest place Honey could think of, Theresa’s home. She’d asked her sister for a favor and without even hearing what it was, Theresa agreed. Muffled grunts behind her broke her low-grade paranoia over Theresa’s kindness. She turned her attention to the problem at hand. Moore.

  “Off,” she commanded. Gloria rose, yanking the tiny harpoons that had delivered the electric shock from Moore’s chest. Paul yelped, rubbed his chest, then attempted to sit.

  “What are we going to do with him?” Buck said.

  “Jail. I’m filing charges,” Moore yelled, waving an arm around as if asking for help to get up. “All going to jail.”

  “I have plans for him,” Honey said. The tranq pistol popped softly. Moore looked down at the dart with bright orange fluff stuck i
n his thigh. “Aw, fuck,” he said before his head lolled back.

  Coop stepped quickly and caught Moore to keep his head from splitting open on the tile. The ketamine would incapacitate him for six to eight hours. She crouched, dug in his pockets for his keys and was less than gentle cuffing his wrists and ankles with the plastic bands.

  “Is everyone ready to go but me?” They nodded, looking at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted neon purple hair. “Buck.” She pitched the keys to him. “Get his car into the garage.”

  “Then what?”

  “Put him in. We’re going to take a detour and drop him off close to Henderson Hall.”

  “Henderson Hall. The Marine Corps headquarters Henderson Hall?” Kara said.

  Buck snorted. “That’s the one.”

  Chapter 24

  Jack rammed the Passat through the employee parking gate bringing the chain link crashing to the hood, cracking the windshield and exploding the air bags. He slowed momentarily, slashing at the bags with the knife he’d brought for that purpose. Lead-footing it, he swerved until the length of wire mesh scraped and bounced off the passenger side. Twenty feet from the building he slowed, ten feet away he rolled from the moving car, got to his feet and sprinted to the door, swiping Honey’s card. The only sound in the empty corridor was the thud of his boots. At the first intersection he took a left and hauled ass until the next corner, where he came face-to-face with three long guns pointed at his head.

  The closest man shoved him into the wall and held him there while a second man stripped him of weapons.

  “We expected you sooner,” a voice drawled.

  The man pressing him to the wall released him and he turned toward the speaker. He had to look around a large man with a taped nose to see Nelson standing a comfortable distance away, drawing on a cigarette.

  “It’s over, Nelson. Let me take Ali out of here.”

  “Nelson?” His expression darkened and he took a deep drag on the cancer stick as if to calm himself. “My name is David Bristol.” He flicked the cigarette away. The man with the taped nose glanced over his shoulder and stepped aside as Nelson came closer. “And it isn’t over. You tried to ruin things for me. You think I’m just going to let you walk away? You and that fucking brat are going nooowhere.”

  Ali being spoken of that way chilled his blood and raised his anger. Nelson gave a nod. The man who’d shoved him against the wall took his arm and was rewarded with an elbow to the throat. In turn, he received a sound crack to his head with the stock of a long gun. His knees buckled, and on the way to the floor he was struck and kicked.

  “Bring him,” Nelson said, walking away. They grabbed his arms, lifting. He struggled but was too woozy to break their grip and allowed them to drag him the direction Nelson was going.

  Nelson stopped then turned. “The Marine Corps bitch. Will she be joining us?” he said in a condescending tone. “I’d like to have some fun with her.”

  “Sure,” he snarled, “the major will be arriving any time with a squad of Marines carrying RPGs to take you down.”

  Nelson nodded and the guy with the taped nose introduced into his fist to Jack’s stomach. His breath whistled out and he folded in half.

  “I asked . . . if the major . . . would be joining us,” Nelson said.

  He said nothing and took another hit and another. Through blurred vision he saw a clearly agitated redheaded woman and a muscular man approaching from behind Nelson. Had to be Porter and Mac, two of the porn stars Honey had told him about.

  “You fucking idiot.”

  Nelson turned as if addressed by name and took her fist to his face, staggering him back.

  Porter released a tirade of profanity. “You fucking, stupid asshole. I leave for a couple of days and you go ape-shit crazy. We just got clear of your other fuckup and you take a kid and bring him here?”

  Nelson swiped a hand over his face then looked at the blood smeared there . The woman had split his lip.

  Nelson’s men released Jack to sprawl painfully on the floor, and he expected them to step in to help their boss. They didn’t. Jack stayed prone, getting his wind back, watching.

  “Had to,” Nelson whined. “He knows.” He straightened, making a halfhearted attempt at being a man.

  “How do you know?” Porter growled as Mac joined her.

  Son of a bitch. Nelson was intimidated. He was a nobody. Porter and Mac had way more juice than he did.

  “I sent men. I . . .”

  “Proof,” Mac said, taking a threatening step. The three thugs retreated also.

  Nelson flinched. “They attacked the men I sent. They must have something.”

  Geesus. He had nothing. Ali was taken for no reason.

  Mac grabbed Nelson by the throat. “You clusterfuck . . . I should kill you now.”

  “Let him go. We need him,” Porter said, studying Jack as he rolled to a sit with his back against the wall. “What about the Marine? How does she play in this?”

  “They were together,” Nelson said. “What he knows, she knows.”

  The redhead came and squatted in front of him. “Does Thornton know you and the kid are here?”

  He didn’t answer and she popped him hard across the face with the back of her hand. “I asked you a fucking question.”

  He glared at her, swiped his tongue on the corner of his mouth and tasted blood. He spit, the spittle hitting one of her boots. “No.”

  She rose and rubbed the spit off her boot on his jeans. “Search him for a cell and electronics.”

  He was yanked up and roughly searched.

  “This is it,” the man said and handed his cell to her. He assumed she’d go through the calls log. She’d find nothing but his mother’s and Lee’s numbers. She looked at him through narrowed eyes, then cracked the phone open, dropped and stomped it.

  “We can shoot him now,” Nelson said.

  “Shut up,” Porter said. “I need to think.”

  “Mac . . . we can make him disappear,” Nelson tried another approach, but the man ignored him.

  “We need to find out what he knows,” Mac said.

  The redhead nodded. “Bring him.”

  As Jack was dragged and pushed down the hallway, he thought about where Nelson was in all this. A front man with no real authority. Global was a front for a crime organization. It was unlikely he and Bristol were recruited because of the aunt’s lottery win. More likely, they’d pitched the idea. Geesus. Which meant they’d been involved in illegal activities while in the Army and they’d also planned to kill the old lady.

  Fuck, thinking about it made his head hurt.

  “You have me. Let Ali go,” he demanded as they entered a room furnished with a few chairs, a small table, packing and cleaning supplies. Mac dragged a chair to the middle of the room, shoved Jack into it, then wound duct tape around him and the chair.

  Nelson sat, resting an elbow on the table, still dabbing at his lip. The three goons lingered by the door. The woman paced then stopped and tipped her head in his direction. “Soften him up.”

  The beating began.

  Chapter 25

  As predicted, the storm was violent. Lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and rain pounded the van as they made their way to Global. They sat wedged together on the floor listening to the engine hum and the murmur of heavy-duty tires on wet roads, watching real-time images of Nelson’s thugs punching and torturing Jack. Another iPad monitored a sleeping and safe Ali in the training classroom. She’d pulled out a mat, curled up with a stuffed bear and long ago fallen asleep. Honey wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her chin on her knees, her need for revenge growing with every passing second. They were going to pay. It was all she could do to keep from ordering Coop to put the van into warp speed. A speeding work truck, even one advertising twenty-four-hour roadside rescue, at this time of night was sure to be remembered.

  Coop parked the van a quarter mile from Global, came around and opened the back. The heavy rain didn’t prevent him from
launching into a stand-up comic routine. “Thank you for traveling with It’s a Good Day to Die Tours.” He saluted. “Before you exit the vehicle please make sure your dragon skin is in place, guns loaded, knives sharpened and you are in possession of backup ammo. Leaving these items behind will cause deep regret. Those of the Y chromosome persuasion, if you don’t have on your armored undies, be extra careful of your dangly parts. Have a good day.” He patted them on the shoulder as they exited.

  Honey was the last to step into the rain. “I know,” Coop said before she could speak. “First sign this is going south, I get Kara out of here.” He climbed into the back and turned. “It won’t go south.”

  She closed the door. Her hand flicked to her H&K sidearm, the sheath holding her knife, the extra ammo magazines, and joined the others. They double-timed to the hole Jack had opened in the fence and Coop’s voice came through her earbud for a sound check. “I fear no evil,” he said, “for the shadow is mine and so is the valley.”

  “No luck. Pure skill.” Rain stung her face and bounced off her waterproofed gear like tiny glistening bullets as she gave her radio check response.

  “Keep low. Move fast,” Gunny said.

  “Kill first. Die last,” Santiago said.

  “One shot. One kill,” Buck said.

  “Got ya all loud and clear,” he said and the van moved away.

  They approached the fence and slowed, looking for men protecting the gap. Santiago darted the lone guard. She and Santiago took a knee, watching for unwanted guests while Buck and Gunny attached the man to the fence with plastic cuffs to make it look as if he was standing and on watch. With the wind whipping his poncho and now frequent flashes of lightning, he looked more like a scarecrow in a horror movie.

  The storm cooperated perfectly with the plan and they slipped inside easily. They took positions as Honey had assigned. Crouched, close to the wall, advancing in unison in a perfectly orchestrated, much-practiced dance, they made their way to Ali. Using a duplicate card Coop had made, Honey swiped them through the doors. Coop watched the feeds, keeping them updated on location and movement of personnel in the building.