Secret Assignment

by Paula Graves

  “Pam and the other ladies will take good care of me,” Lydia said firmly when both Shannon and Gideon showed signs of sticking around the salon to wait for her. “Go show Shannon around town.”

  Shannon thought about arguing because the last thing she wanted to do was spend the day trying to pretend she didn’t find Gideon Stone maddeningly attractive. But she also had a fascination for small towns, taking any chance she got to explore them.

  “Okay, but you stay right here.”

  Gideon added. “Don’t budge from here until we come back.”

  Lydia’s exasperation shone from her bright eyes, but she agreed to stay put. “No need to hurry—I have a lot of catching up to do!”

  Shannon followed Gideon outside. They left the Caddy locked in front of the hair salon and walked up Main Street.

  “Terrebonne was originally a French settlement, stragglers who left Fort Louis before the flood and struck off on their own,” Gideon told her, his tone almost formal, as if he took his role as tour guide seriously. “In the early eighteenth century, most of the settlers fell in a battle with the Choctaw Indians, who took over Terrebonne for a while. Then, after the French abandoned flood-prone Fort Louis and built Fort Conde, more Frenchmen came through, this time armed and ready, and drove the Choctaws out.”

  Shannon looked around the pretty town. “What was the appeal?”

  “Good fishing on Terrebonne Bay. Good hunting in the woods north of town.” He quirked a smile at her. “Great place for smugglers to land by sea, unnoticed by the bigger settlement in Fort Conde.”

  “Ah,” she said with an answering smile. “Filthy lucre.”

  “Not so filthy when it stands between you and starvation, I suppose.”

  They walked a half mile or so down the main street, coming eventually to a small bookstore tucked in the middle of nowhere down a side street. “They probably won’t have cryptography books here,” he warned as he led her under the green awning over the front door, “but it won’t hurt to look.”

  Inside, the bookstore had the delightfully cluttered air of a real bibliophile’s lair. Old books, new books, tiny old rare books tucked into locked glass cabinets and large picture books for children lying open on tables, inviting little book lovers to browse.

  They looked around without luck for a book on cryptography, although the helpful clerk offered to order one for her. Shannon declined, but she made the clerk smile by picking up a couple of thrillers she’d been meaning to buy for weeks. They left the shop behind, dropped off the books at the Caddy and headed back to the hair salon to check on Lydia.

  Lydia was still waiting for her turn in one of the salon chairs, but she was clearly enjoying the chatty atmosphere of the salon, in no hurry to leave. “Take the Caddy and drive down the bay road,” she suggested to Gideon, who shook his head with a long-suffering smile and did as she asked.

  Shannon buckled herself into the front seat next to him, checking her phone for messages. She’d turned it off that morning because the office was apparently experiencing some IT trouble, and all the agents felt the need to copy her on any texts or emails they sent to her assistant. The constant beeps had been driving her crazy.

  She thumbed through the older messages, deleting most. When she reached the most recent, a text from her brother Rick, the stark message caught her by surprise. “Call me,” it said. “Important.”

  She hit her brother’s number on the speed dial. He answered on the second ring. “Shannon, where have you been? I messaged you an hour ago.” Rick’s gravelly voice was more impatient than panicked, making her relax a little bit. At least there didn’t seem to be a family emergency.

  “I was getting a boatload of texts about an IT problem I can’t deal with from here. Tell everyone to stop copying me!”

  “Okay, will do. Listen, Jesse told me about that boat Gideon Stone found at the Bay Pointe Marina.”

  “Right, Ahab’s Folly.” Gideon looked up at her words. The intensity of his gaze was unnerving. “Did you find out anything about it?” she asked Rick.

  “The registration number you sent is phony. It’s a Texas registration number, but not one in their system.”

  “Who’re you talking to?” Gideon asked, sounding suspicious.

  She covered the receiver. “My brother Rick. I sent the information about the Azimut to my brother Jesse to look into.”

  “You might have asked me.”

  “You were asleep.” She removed her hand. “I can’t say I’m surprised it’s a fake number,” she told her brother.

  “We also looked into AfterAssets,” Rick went on. “And this is where it gets kind of scary. AfterAssets, LLC, is registered to a firm in Farmville, Virginia. A firm that, as far as we can tell, consists of a single-room building in the middle of nowhere that doesn’t even seem to have electricity or a phone physically on the premises.”

  “A dummy company.”

  “Yeah, looks like it. But we did a little more digging, and guess who signed the LLC registration?”

  “Who?”

  “Our old friend Salvatore Beckett.”

  * * *

  “SALVATORE BECKETT?” THE hair on the back of Gideon’s neck crawled as Shannon ended her short summary of her brother’s call.

  “He was part of a secret, illegal section at a security company called MacLear Security,” Shannon began.

  “I know about the Special Services Unit,” he interrupted. “Beckett’s involved with AfterAssets, LLC? Isn’t he in jail?”

  “He wasn’t at the time of the company’s registration in Virginia,” Shannon answered, looking queasy. “If this company really is connected to the SSU—”

  “Was AfterAssets an offshoot of MacLear?” His gut was beginning to ache, tight with anxiety. If the SSU was behind what happened on Nightshade Island two nights ago, it explained a lot, including the yacht, the military-style RIB and the black-clad commandos.

  He was surprised they hadn’t just shot their way in. Was there a reason they’d been circumspect?

  “I don’t think so,” she answered. “It registered for business in January of last year, about two months after MacLear disbanded.”

  “AfterAssets,” he said aloud. “Assets after—”

  “After MacLear went belly-up.”

  “They probably hid the assets of their dirty jobs,” Gideon said with a grim nod. “And now they’re laundering that money and whatever new money they’re earning through AfterAssets.”

  “At least we know Barton Reid isn’t getting his hands on any of that money.” Shannon grimaced. “The courts froze his assets pending his trial, except for his legal fund.”

  Barton Reid. The man’s name was like poison in Gideon’s ears. The former State Department official had been implicated in a conspiracy to commit dozens of murders and attempted murders, many of which had dangerously escalated existing tensions in war-torn countries where American forces were involved in missions.

  He was a traitor as far as Gideon was concerned. Life in prison was too good for him.

  He stared out at the Gulf of Mexico, where the first stirring of whitecaps warned of the tropical storm roiling inexorably closer to the mainland. They had two days, maybe three, before the storm started making trouble. Evacuation from the island might even be necessary if the storm was powerful enough to threaten a storm surge.

  He didn’t know if it was safer to be on the island or stuck in a mainland motel riding it out, considering they had no idea who was behind the attacks on Nightshade Island. Or what, specifically, they were looking for.

  The general hadn’t lived to tell him that part of the tale.

  “You know something about this,” Shannon said, eerily perceptive.

  “About what?” he hedged.

  “You don’t seem surprised to hear that the SSU could be behind this mess. Why is that?”

  He didn’t look at her. “They’re a nasty bunch.”

  “So’s the South Boston mob, but I’d be pretty damned sur
prised to hear they were sending goons to infiltrate Nightshade Island,” she said flatly. “What do you know about the SSU? What do they want?”

  “I don’t know,” he said truthfully.

  “But you have some ideas.”

  He sighed. “Some,” he admitted.

  She didn’t say anything for an uncomfortably long moment. He sneaked a look at her and found her gazing out the windshield, her expression thoughtful. “Lydia said her son died saving your life.”

  Pain, edged with bitter regret, ripped another hole in his soul. “He did.”

  “She didn’t say so, but you must have come here not long afterward. Probably injured, right?”

  He didn’t answer, but he didn’t deny it.

  “Injured badly enough that you couldn’t go right back to the battlefield.” She looked at him, her gaze dropping to his chest. “You have a scar under your chest. A surgical scar, scary close to your heart.”

  He looked down, remembering those bleak days two years ago, after Ford Ross’s death, when he’d feared his friend’s sacrifice would have been for nothing at all. He’d been in intensive care at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center on the Ramstein Air Base, too unstable to be shipped home to Bethesda yet. That he’d made it out of Kaziristan to Ramstein at all had been a bloody miracle.

  “I lost crazy amounts of blood,” he said aloud, remembering the unreality of what his doctor had told him once he’d been on the mend. “Five times my body’s volume. They just kept pumping blood back inside me until they could repair the nick in my aorta.”

  He heard her murmur of dismay.

  “Shrapnel from the grenade,” he added. “A fluke, really.” Ford’s body armor had taken the brunt of the blast, but not all of it. “I already had a leg wound, so when the grenade landed on top of us, I couldn’t crawl away fast enough.”

  “And Ford threw himself on the grenade.” She sounded sick.

  “There was no time to think. He just acted.”

  He felt her soft fingers on his arm. He looked over at her and saw she was teary-eyed. “I’m sorry. For Ford and for you. What you do, the risks you take to protect this country—”

  “What we did,” he corrected gently. “By the time I was well enough to return to duty if I pushed it, General Ross had given me an assignment I couldn’t refuse.”

  “An assignment?”

  “I guess I should start at the beginning,” he said quietly, wondering if he was crazy to share what he was about to say with a woman who was a virtual stranger. “See, when I went into the marines, it was because I had literally nowhere else to go.” An image of his father’s blood-spattered face and hands filled Gideon’s mind, as horrific now as it had been the day he walked in on the scene. He heard his father’s words, flat and unemotional. “One day you’ll understand, son. You’ll see how she drove me to it, just to shut her up. You’re just like me, you know.”

  He shuddered, deep inside, but fought not to let Shannon see it. “I told you my father killed my mom—”

  “So you weren’t just saying that to shut me up?”

  Her words made him flinch, but he managed to look at her. “No.”

  Her fingers tightened on his arm. “I’m so sorry. What happened to your father?”

  “He was sent up—life without parole in a South Carolina state prison. I guess he’s still there. I haven’t seen him since I was sixteen.” He tried to keep his voice even. “I suppose someone would have called to let me know if he’d died.”

  “I can’t even imagine—” She blinked, and the tears welling on her lower lids spilled down her cheeks. “What happened to you? Did you have someone to take you in? Did you have any brothers and sisters?”

  “Just me,” he said flatly. “I’m glad of that. I wouldn’t wish the experience of being Buck Stone’s offspring on anyone else.”

  There were mornings, when he looked in the mirror bleary-eyed and unshaven, that Gideon saw his father’s face staring back at him. The same square jaw and cold blue eyes. The same barely leashed violence lurking behind the deceptively placid features.

  “Did you go to foster care?” The squeeze of Shannon’s hand on his arm drew him back from a dark internal place.

  “Stayed with my uncle until his fishing business went belly up and he couldn’t afford a second mouth to feed. Then I joined the marines.” And channeled his aggression in war against hardened, vicious enemies instead of innocent women and children.

  But now that he was a civilian again—

  “And then you were shot.”

  He nodded. “After I was stable enough to leave Landstuhl for the States, there was nobody waiting for me. Except General Ross.” One of his first memories, upon waking up in the hospital in Bethesda, was the general’s kind, time-worn face. Doctors told him later that the general had arrived before Gideon himself, informed through the military grapevine of the overseas transport bringing Gideon stateside. He’d made a point to be there, to greet the marine whose life his son’s heroic death had spared. “General Ross asked me to join him and his wife on Nightshade Island to recuperate. I thought then he might have wanted a substitute son, at least for a little while, to help ease the constant pain of losing Ford.”

  “That’s clearly how Lydia sees you.”

  He managed a smile. “I’ll never be Ford.”

  “I don’t think that’s what she wants from you.” Shannon’s voice was gentle. A little careful. “She would really like it if you called her Lydia instead of Mrs. Ross, you know.”

  “I can’t,” he said, regret shredding his insides.

  “Why?”

  He didn’t want to talk about what he felt. What he didn’t want to let himself feel. He didn’t want to talk at all, but he’d started this story.

  He had to finish it.

  “General Ross thought there was someone high in the government involved in manipulating world events to suit some unnamed purpose,” he said flatly. “Someone even higher than Barton Reid.”

  Shannon remained quiet. Too quiet. He dared a quick glance at her and saw her gazing through the windshield, her expression entirely unreadable. Her stillness unnerved him.

  “None of this is coming as any surprise to you.”

  “Her name was kept out of the papers,” she said after a moment. “But earlier this year, Barton Reid sent SSU assassins to kill my sister-in-law Amanda, who used to work for the CIA. And another group of the SSU went after my sister Megan when she was trying to prove ties between Reid and her husband’s death.”

  “Vince Randall,” he murmured, feeling sick. “I heard about that. But I didn’t know his wife was a Cooper.”

  “You think the island intruders were SSU agents, don’t you?”

  “I think they’re connected with them, yes,” he admitted. “They’re riding around in a boat owned by a company connected to Salvatore Beckett, who was a squad leader in the SSU. Their tactics and equipment are similar to what we know of the SSU.”

  “So what would the SSU want from Lydia?”

  “The only thing I can think of is the general’s papers. Or maybe even that journal you found.”

  “Is there some damning evidence against the SSU in there?”

  “I didn’t think so.” The general had let him in on a lot of his suspicions, but he’d always sensed the old soldier was keeping some things to himself. Maybe his theories were too volatile to see the light of day without a lot more proof behind them. General Ross had certainly shared his information with Gideon on a need-to-know basis.

  “The general brought you to Nightshade Island for more than just recuperation, didn’t he?”

  Her quick mind seemed to leap past the carefully vague things he told her to get right to the heart of the situation. “As it turns out, yes.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He wanted me to help him prove that the SSU launched the grenade that killed Ford.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Lydia doesn’t know the general had questions abo
ut Ford’s death.” Gideon slid his hand under Shannon’s elbow as they walked.

  She tried to ignore the fire his touch ignited and concentrated on his words. “I’m not sure it’s fair to keep that kind of information from her. You’re talking about her son.”

  “She’s lost so much already. What if the general was wrong?”

  “Do you think he was wrong?” Shannon looked up at him.

  He stopped walking, turning to face her fully. “I don’t know.”

  “Lydia has a right to know that her husband thought her son was murdered. You should tell her what you do know.”

  He looked miserable. “I’ll think about it.”

  She laid her hand on his chest. “Don’t wait too long.”

  He covered her hand with his palm. “I’ll think about it,” he repeated. He drew her hand away from his chest but didn’t let go. Hand in hand, they walked up the street toward the hair salon.

  “Why did the general think the SSU was behind Ford’s death?”

  “For three weeks before his death, Ford had been working a special assignment for the head of the Marine Corps forces in Kaziristan. General Ross couldn’t give me any details about the assignment, but he did tell me that intel agents for all four service branches had begun to suspect that there were rogue elements within MacLear. They were trying to put together a case to end all Defense Department contracts with the company.”

  “That would have bankrupted MacLear, wouldn’t it?” Shannon knew MacLear’s primary source of income had been its lucrative contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense.

  “Yes.”

  Shannon’s breath caught in her throat. “Oh, my God.”

  Gideon turned to look at her. “What?”

  “Vince,” she murmured. “My sister’s late-husband. What if the SSU thought his investigations were sanctioned by army intel? Could that be what got him killed?”

  “I don’t think any of the armed services were investigating MacLear that far back. Although—” Gideon frowned. “General Ross told me the questions about MacLear first arose about four years ago. “

  “So maybe Vince’s death got the ball rolling?”