by Ronie Kendig
Another boom tugged her attention toward the street. Flames consumed two cars. Alarms screeched from a BMW, its lights flashing in panic against the intrusion of the explosions. Bombs? Had someone set a bomb?
She stepped up and her legs buckled. Téya steadied herself, her balance and orientation still off because her right ear was still plugged. She pressed her finger to it and felt a warm stickiness. “Great.” Pulled away, her finger was tipped in blood.
But the movement pushed her attention back to the pen. She lifted it and the light of a streetlamp caught the white lettering on the shaft. THE ROSE CLUB AND PUB. A single red rose snaked up the black body of the pen.
The Turk. Majid…
Téya’s heart thumped. Hair dangling in her eyes, she lifted her head. Looked up the steps she’d been thrown down. Glanced toward the street, where the large form had barreled into her. Smoke and flames roared into the sky from a burning car. Téya climbed the steps, holding her side. At the top, she scanned the park, searching for him.
She caught sight of a man jogging from Saint Francis onto Market. Téya gripped the pen tightly. She rushed forward, expectation pulsing hard through her veins.
A streetlight exposed the runner—Eric Goff. Panting hard, he shook his head, brow beaded with sweat. “I lost him.” He sucked in a loud breath. “I thought he went into the garage, but—” He gripped his knees.
Téya used the back of her hand to brush the hair from her face and look around. Ballenger was still free. And The Turk…
She scanned the levels of the parking garage. Most of it was dark. A few scattered lights mottled the darkness with a dull glow. Was he up there? Watching her even now?
Yes. She could almost feel his gaze on her. But was he in the garage or… She turned to the buildings. Condos. Office buildings. How did he manage to slip in and out of her life like that, so effortlessly? So stealthily?
Goff scowled as he crossed the green. “You’re bleeding.”
Somehow, she knew that Goff’s presence meant no Turk. He wouldn’t expose himself. He wouldn’t make his presence known. “It means I’m alive.”
Was she insane for wanting to see Majid again? Dangerous ground when she started thinking of a skilled assassin by his first name. Better to keep it business. The Turk. He’s a killer, you idiot!
A shadow shifted by a parked car. Téya snapped her attention toward it. Was it him?
“D’you see something?” Goff said, coming closer, watching in the same direction.
Téya flinched. She didn’t need this Special Forces operator tracking down The Turk. “Uh, no.” She pried her gaze from the car and glanced toward the burning car. “What happened over there?”
“Explosion of some kind. I saw it go up but didn’t see anything else.” He shifted and reached for her head, assessing her injury. “Did it hit you?”
Téya rolled the pen between her fingers. She’d been hit all right. But not by the explosion—well, at least not until after someone sent her flying. But if she hadn’t been knocked away, the explosion could’ve seriously injured or killed her. “No, I think…” She checked the amphitheater. Remembered tumbling to safety. The pen. She glanced at it. But by the time she’d regained her bearings, she’d been alone again. “I guess I didn’t see the first step.”
“Never took you for clumsy,” Goff teased.
“I like to keep them guessing.” Téya gave one more survey of the area, searching for The Turk. For Ballenger. He could easily just shoot her right here. Right now. Secretly, she hoped The Turk was here. That he crossed paths with Ballenger. It was a dark thought that only had one outcome—death.
Trace
Reston Town Center, Reston, Virginia
July 4 – 2022 Hours
Emergency medical services flooded into the square. Firemen checked the building for damage, removing the injured.
Trace stood watch as they loaded Nuala onto a stretcher, her neck in a brace and a strap securing her head so she didn’t aggravate whatever injury she sustained when Boone saved her life, plowing off the roof onto the lower balcony of the top floor.
She held Boone’s hand as he walked with the EMTs taking her to an ambulance. “I told them you didn’t betray us,” she whispered.
Boone smiled at her. “You always saw the best in me.”
“That’s because that’s all there is to see.”
Trace grunted. “I might lose my cookies,” he teased then looked at the EMT. “I think she hit her head harder than she realizes.”
As they loaded her up and locked her stretcher into place, Trace patted Boone on the shoulder. “You going with her?”
“No,” Nuala said, straining to look down the length of her body at them. “Stay. I’ll be back once they X-ray me and realize I’m telling the truth that I’m fine.”
Boone hesitated.
“I could use your help here,” Trace said.
“I’ll go with her,” came a female voice from the side.
Trace shifted, surprised to find Téya walking toward them, barefoot and escorted by Eric Goff. Dried blood clung to her sandy-colored hair and down her jawline. “You look like you could use some medical tending.”
“Why do you think I offered?” She climbed into the ambulance without a word. She sat and sighed, glancing down at something in her hand. As the doors closed, Trace caught sight of a pen.
“What happened?” he asked Goff.
Goff stood with his hands on his belt. “She took off like a bat out of hell. That’s when I saw Ballenger, so I went after her. Chased him all the way down to Saint Francis. An explosion blew up two cars—I think he led her down there intentionally. To kill her. The explosion blew her into the amphitheater. She said it didn’t, but I can’t see how it didn’t. I maintained pursuit of Ballenger. Lost him in a garage. Called in a team; they’re sweeping it now. I went back to find Two. She looked pretty rattled.”
“She’s tough. She’ll be okay.”
Goff nodded. “Noticed that.” He had an appreciative gleam in his eye. One Trace wasn’t sure he liked.
“Thanks for your help.” Trace turned away.
“Colonel?”
Trace stilled. Didn’t bother to correct the guy. He shot him a sidelong glance.
“If you put the team back together, I’d appreciate it if you’d consider me.”
Put the team back together? What was he? Humpty Dumpty? “Noted.” Trace couldn’t even fathom entering the war game again, not right now. Not as he stared down bloodied operatives, dead agents, and wounded civilians. Again. Trace keyed his mic. “Anyone got a twenty on General Solomon?”
Cantor came toward him. “Solomon’s car is missing. Batsakis and Stoffel are dead. Colonel Goff is in critical condition.”
Trace slid his gaze to Eric Goff. The man was unfazed by the news. And he wasn’t rushing off to be at his father’s side. “What don’t I know?” Trace asked them then pointed to Cantor. “You didn’t want me to protect Solomon. You wanted me to watch him. Because you knew. You knew he was dirty.”
Cantor sighed. “I came to you because—”
“It was me, sir,” Eric Goff said. “I learned of my father’s involvement in the weapons smuggling and approached General Cantor with the news.”
“Learned of it?” Trace challenged him.
“He paid attention,” Cantor said. “Look, Trace, I had information I couldn’t prove. I needed tonight to happen. Solomon and Goff made their move—tried to take out Nuala then Téya—right in front of our eyes. If we hadn’t had resources in place, this would’ve been a lot worse. What we weren’t counting on was Ballenger’s complicity and retaliation.”
“He killed them?”
Cantor nodded. “Hit Stoffel then used the panic of the crowd and the explosions to cover Batsakis and Goff.”
“Solomon?”
“I have teams hunting him down now.”
Over the general’s shoulder, Trace spotted Francesca Solomon. Tears made her eyes look like pools of l
iquid gold. Her dark eyebrows curled against her brown skin. She shook her head.
“Excuse me,” Trace said. He made his way over to her.
Francesca
Life imploding had a way of clearly establishing priorities, defining wrongs, and stirring a deep awareness of forgiveness owed. He owed her nothing. In fact, flipped on its head—she owed him everything. An apology. A begging of forgiveness. And eternal servitude. It was an unrealistic, archaic thought, but it just made it very clear to Frankie that Trace Weston had every right to hate her guts.
And yet here he came toward her, wearing a mask of sympathy. Empathy.
Frankie shook her head. She didn’t want that. Not from him. She didn’t deserve it. She took a step back.
“Hey.” His voice was soft in a way she’d never heard it before. He dragged an overturned chair toward them and hefted it upright then set it down. “Sit.”
Frankie resisted.
Trace took her by the shoulders and nudged her down. “We need to talk.”
Right. Of course. “I…” Words tangled amid her grief. She felt numb. Disbelief churned in the wake of her father’s betrayal. Frankie had watched Trace move from one injured person to another in the aftermath of the explosion and shoot-out. Talk with the operators. Confer with the emergency personnel. It became so clear to her then. So night-and-day obvious that she had Trace Weston all wrong.
The worst of it? There wasn’t anything she could ever do to make up for the way she’d actively torn his life apart.
Rather fitting that it was her life now that was torn apart.
Trace snagged another chair and sat on it, elbows on his knees. His hands were steepled as he sat with her. “You holding up okay?”
She half nodded, half shook her head.
“Yeah, I know that feeling.” Trace threaded his large hands, fingers edged with callouses and smeared with dirt from working the scene. “I don’t want to be insensitive, but do you have any idea where your father might have gone?”
Frankie heaved a thick breath that had a tinge of smoke and ash. Would he go home? Bring the danger to her mother? “I… I don’t know. My first thought was home, but I don’t think he’d go there because Mom is home.” She shoved her hand through her hair—only to have it get tangled. She grimaced. How could she forget she had her hair up? She freed the pins at the back and massaged her scalp. “I’m not sure if I’m the right person to ask. I”—her chin trembled and made it hard to talk—“I never saw this coming. I had no idea he…”
Trace nodded. “We have that in common.” Then he looked at her with a small smile crinkling the edges of his green eyes. “It’s to your credit that you saw the good in him. Loved him enough not to fathom he was capable of that.”
“And what does it say of me…what I did to you?” She didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to face the music.
Apparently, he didn’t want to look at her either. Once again, he steepled his fingers. Flexing them in and out, widening and shrinking the triangle formed. “That you’re tenacious and bullheaded?”
Stunned, Frankie stared at him.
Late thirties, a war hero, a warrior, but he had a soft side. He arched an eyebrow and smiled at her.
Frankie laughed. “I deserved that.”
He pushed back in his seat. “Yes. Yes, I believe you did.”
The laughter, the teasing—she needed it. Needed the chance to breathe in the midst of this avalanche that had swept her perfect, unrealistic notions away. “I’m sorry. Sorry for…everything. You didn’t deserve what I did to you. I wish I could undo it all—you didn’t deserve to lose your job.”
“Being uncooperative pushed that envelope over the edge.”
“I’ll never forget you shouting the Special Forces creed.”
“Neither will I,” he said, another smile tweaking his lips. “And what about you?”
Frankie frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
“I heard your place was trashed. You lost your job.”
She widened her eyes. “He told you?”
Trace nodded. “Not all of it, but I’m still connected to the intelligence community. Word gets around.”
The Pentatonix–Lindsey Stirling version of Radioactive belted into the night. With a gasp, Frankie dug in the small wristlet and retrieved her phone. Her heart tripped and fell when she saw the caller ID. “It’s my father.”
“Wait.” Trace placed a hand over hers and looked out at the pavilion. “Cantor, Goff!”
The general and captain hustled over to them.
Trace released her hand “Put it on speaker.”
Hand trembling, Frankie nodded. She answered it and immediately pressed the speaker option. “Daddy? Are you okay?” She couldn’t help but come to her feet. “It’s crazy here…”
Weston, Goff, and Cantor huddled around her. In minutes, there were more operators gathered, including Annie Palermo and a dark-haired man she’d referred to as Sam.
“Hey, Angel,” he said, using the pet name he’d given her. She’d wanted to be an angel for dress-up parties for years. But she could hear in his voice his grief and torment.
“Daddy, where are you?”
“No,” he said, his voice thick with emotion but also ferocity. “I know they’re there. I know they’re listening. But this isn’t for them. This is for you, Frankie. This is my apology to you.”
Feeling closed in, Francesca turned her back on the others and found herself staring at the brick wall of the Hyatt. “Daddy—”
“Just listen to me, Angel. You were right. All those things you said about Trace.”
Frankie froze. Her mind bungeeing through his words.
Trace
Trace held his peace. There was no way Solomon could pin this on him. Right now, Trace needed to be here for Francesca. The girl was taking a mortal blow to her lifetime hero—her father.
Her brownish-gold eyes bounced to him.
Trace didn’t react. Would Haym really do this? Shift the blame?
“But they were about me.”
Trace had to admit, he released the breath he’d held.
“Hey,” Cantor whispered as he touched his sleeve. “Eric called Solomon’s wife. She said he’s at the house. Showed up a few minutes ago and went to his office by the pool. Locked himself in.”
Trace tensed. “Get a team there.”
“Already en route,” Cantor said. “About four minutes out.”
“What you said about Trace—you should’ve been saying them about me,” Haym spoke through the phone. “I arranged for the weapons to be removed from U.S. custody. That warehouse had been our shipping point for years. But it wasn’t me, though—I’m not the one who put those kids there. That was Goff. He knew Cantor had gotten wind of it. He wanted the team out of the way. Wanted to send a message.”
“Daddy, let me come to you.” Tears slipped down Francesca’s face as she held Trace’s gaze, and he gave her a nod, communicating she was doing good. “We can talk. Turn yourself in.”
“No, no, that’s not how this will play out.” His voice trembled. And even in the din of the cleanup behind them and the shakiness of Francesca’s sniffling and words, the unmistakable sound of a slide racking.
Chambering a round.
Unfortunately, Francesca recognized the sound as well. She snapped her gaze to Trace, her mouth hanging open.
“Sir!” Trace bent closer. “Please. Let’s talk. It’s not worth your life.”
“Trace.” Haym’s voice wobbled through a sob. “I really did see you like a son. I tried—I tried so hard to keep you safe. It’s why I fought so hard after Misrata.”
“But you didn’t tell the truth, sir.” Trace figured if he could keep him talking, then the man was still alive. The team would get there and stop him. “You didn’t come clean. It would’ve been better, sir. We could’ve faced it.”
“Trace, you looking at my angel?”
Trace met Francesca’s gaze. “I am, sir.”
&nbs
p; “Coming clean would’ve destroyed her. And her mother, who was a saint putting up with me. My sons—they’re heroes, Trace. I couldn’t come clean without destroying all of their lives.”
“Daddy, please.”
“I love you, Angel. Always have. You make me proud.”
“Daddy!”
A loud noise snapped through the line. Shouts came for the general to put down the weapon. Francesca’s hope rose that they’d save him.
Crack!
Francesca screamed, her face contorted in agony, as she stared at the phone. “Daddy!” She flung her grief-riddled gaze at Trace.
Shouts carried through the line. A few curses. A woman’s scream.
Cantor spoke into a phone, his expression going dark. He met Trace’s gaze and shook his head. “A minute too late.”
The phone tumbled from Francesca’s grip. She stumbled backward, shaking her head in frozen torment.
Trace reached for her. “Fran—”
Her legs buckled.
Lunging, Trace caught her. She curled into his shoulder, her body tremoring as she sobbed.
Trace
Reston Town Center, Reston, Virginia
July 4 – 2330 Hours
The remnant of Zulu sat in the now-disassembled command center, debriefing. Trace leaned against a table along the wall. Nuala had returned a few minutes earlier, cleared of any breaks or internal injuries from the nosedive off the rooftop with Boone. With her, Téya had cleaned up and bore a butterfly stitch over her cheekbone. Annie and Sam sat across from each other in a pair of chairs opposite the sofa. Francesca sat between Nuala and Houston, who seemed to have developed puppy eyes over the attractive lieutenant. Trace wanted to slap the drool off the guy’s face. Behind the team, both figuratively and literally, Boone held up a wall behind a seating arrangement.
“Hard to believe,” Annie said quietly, glancing at her teammates, “that it’s over. That Misrata is settled.”
Francesca burrowed into herself, crossing her arms. She shivered, and from the few feet separating them, Trace could see the goose bumps on her arms. Probably leftover shock. He’d tried to get her to go home, but she wouldn’t leave. Said she needed some space and time. And yet she was here. With them.