Last Man Standing

by Cindy Gerard

  Would he always be this wounded, she wondered, worried for him.

  Would she always feel the need to heal him, she thought, worried for herself.

  She turned her head on the pillow, still feeling stunned at the depth of his need, still feeling a love so deep and abiding, she questioned if she’d have the courage of her convictions when push came to shove.

  Because she loved him, she had to stay strong. Because she loved him, she had to stay firm. He was worth the struggle. So was she. She just hoped he would realize it when the showdown came.

  Tomorrow’s problems would supersede everything else. Tomorrow they needed to figure out what to do about Dalmage.

  Exhaustion finally tugged her back to sleep . . . until her cell phone woke her again. She turned her head deeper into the pillow, determined to let it ring.

  Beside her, Joe stirred. “What the hell is that?” he mumbled.

  “My cell.” She snuggled closer to his side. “Ignore it.”

  “Not an option in my playbook.” With a grunt, he pushed himself up and out of bed.

  She heard him walk out of the room. Walk back. The bed dipped when he sat down and folded the cell phone into her hand.

  She forced herself up on an elbow as he turned on a bedside lamp. “Hello?”

  “It’s a girl! Finally.” It was Rafe. He sounded exalted, exhausted, and stunned. “She’s beautiful, Steph. Just . . . oh, my God, screaming, squalling, immaculately beautiful.”

  She smiled, caught up in Rafe’s joy. “Of course she’s beautiful. Look at her parents. How is B.J.?”

  “Amazing. She’s a goddess. A warrior.”

  “And now a mother,” Steph said softly and gave Joe a thumbs up. “Do we have a name yet?”

  “We want to get to know her a little better first. But it will be something strong. Something beautiful.”

  She laughed. “I think I’m hearing a theme here. I’m so happy for you, Rafe. Give them both a kiss for me. There’s someone else here who wants to congratulate you. Hold on.”

  She handed Joe her phone, then pulled the covers up to her chin again. B.J. was a momma, she thought, smiling as Joe softly congratulated his friend. She’d be lying if she didn’t admit that she’d always hoped to become a mother someday. She loved babies. Loved children. Loved the idea of creating a life so unique and magical. A little girl who might have her eyes. Or a boy who would have Joe’s.

  She stopped herself right there, as she always did when her thoughts strayed in that direction. Joe had never spoken about kids. Joe had never spoken about a future.

  She glanced at him now, realizing that somewhere during her woolgathering, the subject had changed. She felt victorious for Joe as he filled Rafe in on Dalmage’s involvement in Bryan’s death, and their theory that he’d been behind the murders of so many potential sec of state candidates.

  “Yeah. I know. It’s a lot to process,” Joe said gravely. “Don’t worry about it, man,” he added, and she understood that Rafe had just apologized for doubting him. Everyone had doubted him.

  A long silence filled the room as Joe listened, nodded, made sounds of understanding.

  “Let me know when the guys surface,” he said finally. “In the meantime, we’ve got it covered. You just take care of your woman and your baby, okay?”

  Another silence, then Joe handed her the phone. “He wants to talk to you again. No doubt he plans to warn you to warn me to reel myself in.”

  “Smart man,” she said, then told Rafe she was back on the line.

  “Don’t let him go off half-cocked, cara. Now that he’s safe, now that you’re both safe,” he added with a good dose of censure to remind her he was still upset with her for striking out on her own, “he needs to sit tight and wait for the team to get back. I expect them any day now. We’ll all figure out how to deal with Dalmage together. Nate will have some ideas.”

  “Exactly what I’ve been thinking,” she agreed. Nate Black was not only an amazing strategist, he also had contacts in high places. Much higher than her mother’s in the Department of Justice.

  “And I don’t think you have to worry about Joe going off half-cocked,” she added, meeting his scowling face and holding his gaze. “He knows you all want justice for Bryan. He knows this is a team mission.” After another round of well wishes, she disconnected.

  “Message received,” Joe said, lying down beside her again. “We wait.”

  “Thanks—”

  Before he could turn off the lamp her phone rang again.

  “Steph, it’s Rhonda. Turn on the TV,” she said with an edge in her voice that had Stephanie sitting straight up.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s your mom. Go turn on the TV,” she repeated, sounding agitated and anxious.

  “My mom? Oh, God. Something happened to my mom?” In full-blown panic mode, she flew out of bed and rushed into the living room, barely aware that Joe was following her.

  She searched frantically for the TV remote.

  “No. No. I didn’t mean to scare you. Nothing’s happened—not yet. Just turn it on. I’ll wait.”

  She found the remote, clicked on the set with trembling fingers, and started flipping through the channels. Blindly shoving the phone in Joe’s hand, she punched in a news channel, then stood shaking in front of the screen.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.” She glanced over her shoulder at Joe. He’d pulled on sweatpants. “Rhonda said Mom was on the news.”

  Her mom most definitely was on the news.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered when she found the footage that had apparently been playing since early evening yesterday when the news report had first broken.

  Joe’s big hands gripped her shoulders, supporting her as they watched.

  “While Ann Tompkins is a relative unknown in the D.C. political arena,” a weekend anchor reported from behind her desk, her long blond hair perfectly coiffed, her red dress stylish and vivid, “she’s no stranger to the bureaucracy or the political machine.

  “Tompkins—whose husband, Robert Tompkins, was a member of President Billings’s cabinet—has been in a power position at the Department of Justice since her appointment several years ago. Hers is the latest viable name tossed into the mix of potential replacements for Secretary of State Rydell, who will be stepping down at the end of the month. The only other true contender still in the running is Greer Dalmage, the current UWAN liaison, who has repeatedly made it clear that if appointed, he will be honored to serve.

  “Mrs. Tompkins is currently unavailable for comment, but sources who work with her speculate that she is worthy of the post and would make a fine appointee.”

  “Dalmage will go after her.” Stephanie could hardly get the words out. Her fingers had gone numb; her heart felt like it had short-wired. They should have turned on the TV yesterday. But they’d worked all day, so mired in uncovering Dalmage’s dirty laundry she’d never given the news a thought.

  She turned terrified eyes to Joe. “We have to warn her!”

  “Get her on the phone.”

  “I can’t. She and Dad are out of touch. No cell service, no land lines. They wanted complete privacy.”

  Which meant complete isolation. Total vulnerability.

  “Where the hell are they?”

  She told him about the remote cabin on Lake Kabetogama in northern Minnesota and he swore under his breath. The bleak look on his face pretty much summed up her feelings.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “Call the local police up there. Explain what’s going on.”

  “Explain what?” she asked, panicked. “That we have no way to prove it, but we think a high-level government official might order a hit squad to go to Minnesota and kill my mother? They’ll figure me for a whack job and hang up on me.”

  “Tell them it’s a medical emergency. Tell them to find your mom and dad and bring them into town and hang on to them until we get there.”


  “And what if they don’t buy it?”

  “Be convincing, Steph. I’ll call Brown and get him filing a flight plan.”

  Dalmage leaned back from his desk stunned into silence after listening to the taped conversations Wilson had provided. Not only was the content jarring; the fact that Joe Green was holed up with Ann Tompkins’s daughter was unbelievably opportune.

  Life was a study in ironies. Ann Tompkins’s daughter had been Green’s accomplice in Freetown. How absolutely fascinating. And now they were together in D.C. The tapes Wilson had procured were highly informational. They’d figured things out, right down to EXnergy, his carefully orchestrated culling of the secretary of state candidates, and his collusion with certain enemies of the state. He felt admiration for them for piecing it together, but Green was going to die anyway. Now the daughter would have to die, as well.

  He propped his elbow on the arm of his desk chair and rubbed his index finger back and forth over his upper lip, thinking . . . thinking . . . thinking. Everything he’d worked for—the power, the money, his legacy—was riding on how he handled this new twist in the game.

  He could have Wilson and his team move in now. Take Green and the daughter out immediately, here in D.C. But there were risks in such a blatant assassination. Questions would be raised. Conclusions could be drawn. Stephanie Tompkins had been in Freetown at the exact same time he had. She and Green had been making phone calls, digging into his life. Those records could be traced if their deaths prompted an investigation.

  He rose, paced to the window, and stared outside at the snow lying heavy on the shrubs bordering his front stoop. A plan began to formulate. Why not gather all the little chicks in the same roost? Why not let Stephanie Tompkins and Green go ahead and travel to Minnesota, reunite with her parents, and do away with them all at the same time? It would be a touching end.

  He envisioned the news lead: “The tragic accidental deaths of Ann and Robert Tompkins, their daughter, and a family friend in the wilderness of Minnesota, in a Northern weather-related accident, has shocked and saddened the Washington, D.C., community.”

  Yes, he liked the sound of that. Wilson was the master at creating “accidental” deaths, was he not? Perhaps they would break through the ice on their snowmobiles and drown. Perhaps they’d become lost and disoriented while cross-country skiing and die of exposure in sub-zero temperatures. Perhaps their wilderness cabin would catch fire and all would die inside.

  He had confidence that Wilson could handle it. Just as he had confidence that Green and Stephanie Tompkins’s discoveries would go to their grave with them, and he would emerge unscathed.

  But time was critical. Wilson needed to move out. His team had to be in place and contain Ann and Robert Tompkins before the lovebirds went north. Law enforcement officials had to be diverted. A murder in Duluth, perhaps? He’d leave the details up to Wilson, who was paid handsomely to think of these things for him.

  He glanced at his watch. Not yet seven a.m. There was still plenty of time.

  23

  “I’m only going to say this one more time.” Mike Brown’s face burned red; the anger in his voice reverberated through the small office in the maintenance hangar. “I am not asking you to drive to outer-fucking-Mongolia. It’s thirty freaking miles. Now get in your truck and bring that repair part over here pronto, because so help me God, if I have to drive over there and get it myself, you are not going to like my method of payment. Are we clear?”

  He paused for a heartbeat. “Good. You’ve got an hour.” He slammed down the receiver.

  “So glad you opted to use the catch-more-flies-with-honey approach,” Joe said dryly.

  “Oh, we are way past sweet talk.” Mike rocked back in the manager’s chair and crossed his feet on top of the desk. “First they told me they didn’t have the part. Then they said it was on the way. Then they said it was back-ordered. Then they miraculously found out they had it in stock after all! The bird could have been patched up and cleared for flight hours ago, if not for their total screwup.”

  Stephanie barely heard Mike’s tirade. She hugged her arms around herself and paced back and forth in the small office, feeling helpless and scared.

  First they couldn’t get the jet repaired. Now weather reports of a coming storm threatened to shut down all airports between Denver and D.C. And three hours after making contact with the International Falls police department, a deputy had finally called her back, apologetically explaining that since the lake where her parents were staying was in Voyageurs National Park, it was out of their jurisdiction and they couldn’t dispatch a car.

  “Let me give you the number of the St. Louis County sheriff’s office, ma’am,” the officer had said. “Give ’em a call. See if they can help you.”

  So she’d called. And yes, they could help. But since the St. Louis County seat was in Duluth, two and a half hours south of Lake Kabetogama in good weather conditions, it was going to be a while until they could make it. They were sorry. She was sorry. And half out of her mind with worry.

  She glanced out the office window at several small planes in various stages of repair. The tail section of the G-550’s fuselage gaped open, waiting for the part to arrive.

  “Flight plan’s filed and an FAA inspector is on standby,” Mike said, attempting to reassure her. “Once that part arrives it’ll take twenty minutes tops to install, another five for the inspector to okay it, and we’ll be ready to roll.”

  “What about the storm moving in?” she asked. “Can you even land at the airport up there?”

  “Not a problem. The International Falls airport has plenty of runway—7400 feet—and instrument approaches are good down to a two-hundred-foot ceiling and a half mile of visibility. This bird has EVS—an enhanced vision system—sort of like night vision goggles. It’ll let me drop to one hundred feet without actually seeing the runway.”

  Playing devil’s advocate, Joe asked, “And are they going to give us clearance here for takeoff, knowing a major storm is moving in?”

  “Yes, darlin’. As long as we’ve got an alternate with suitable weather within range of our fuel load—and with this bird, that’s most of the country and Canada—they’ll let us take off.”

  “And what if it is bad when we get there? What then?” Joe asked.

  “Jesus. When’d you get so mother-henny?” Brown groused. “Look—those guys on the ground crew know how to handle snow on the runway. It’s the frickin’ ice capital of the world up there, for God’s sake. As long as I can see the runway lights, I can land it.

  “Of course,” he added with his patented Primetime grin, “with a slippery runway and side winds, it can make stopping straight ahead a bit dicey. The most fun part of flying is landing in a twenty-five-knot crosswind and thirty-five-knot gusts. Throw in a snowstorm? Hell, it’s party time.

  “And before you even ask, our anti-icing system can handle most anything in-flight.”

  Ty walked into the office just then, his arms full of shopping bags. “He bragging again?”

  “Just telling it straight, little bro. What’d you bring me?”

  “Parka. Gloves and boots all around. I guessed on sizes.”

  Stephanie might have felt reassured by Brown’s banter and Ty’s foresight, but this lack of action was making her crazy. Not knowing if her mom and dad were safe was killing her.

  Joe, who was leaning against a wall, pushed away and reached for her hand when she paced by. “Look, Steph, we don’t even know if Dalmage is aware that Ann’s on the list,” he said, stopping her.

  “You don’t believe that,” she snapped. “Why else would he come back from Sierra Leone so quickly?”

  Rhonda had supplied them with that information earlier this morning: Dalmage had arrived in D.C. around four o’clock yesterday afternoon.

  “Because he’s looking for me?” Joe suggested.

  “Of course he’s looking for you. But you know he’s coming. You know what he’s capable of. Mom and Dad have no clue th
at their lives are in danger.”

  “Easy, Steph.” Joe rubbed his hand soothingly up and down her arm. “We’re not going to let anything happen to them.”

  “You can’t know that. You can’t promise that!”

  She stopped when she realized how high her voice had risen. Feeling horrible for acting so bitchy, she took a breath and got control of the panic that had knotted in her chest.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just . . .”

  “Afraid for them,” he finished, his eyes dark with empathy.

  She nodded, glanced at the wall clock, and barely suppressed a howl of frustration. It was 1:35 p.m.

  “We should have booked a commercial flight,” she muttered.

  “And we’d get there at ten tonight, if we’re lucky,” Mike pointed out. “International Falls is way off any main flight path—only one flight in and out a day this time of year. You’d have to connect in Minneapolis and wait out a five-hour layover—I checked. And with this snowstorm moving in, that flight could easily be canceled.”

  The airport in International Falls, Minnesota, was their only option. The town was set smack on the U.S.-Canadian border and was the closest airport to Lake Kabetogama, where her parents were staying in a secluded cabin, blissfully unaware that their lives could be in danger.

  “Look at it this way,” Mike said in an encouraging tone. “If we haven’t been able to get to them yet, no one else is going to be able to, either.”

  “Maybe they didn’t have repair issues and they’re already there,” she said bleakly.

  “Easy.” Joe took her into his arms and pulled her against his chest. “It’s going to be okay,” he assured her. “In the meantime, don’t take a hike on me, Steph. You need to keep it together.”

  She let the heat of his big body work its magic and settle her.

  “I’m sorry. It’s . . . just so frustrating.”

  “And scary,” he said with understanding.

  Yeah. It was. But she had a bad feeling that the really scary part hadn’t even started.