The Asset

by Anna del Mar

  “He could bite on the lure,” Ash said. “If he goes after the decoy, if he sends his underlings, then you’ll be in the perfect position to catch him as he strikes and to prove he has broken his bail terms. You can throw him in jail where he belongs even before the trial begins.”

  “A decoy and a trap.” Steiner tucked the cigarette back in the box then slid the box in his front pocket. “It could work. What if there’s no mole? Or what if Red decides not to go after the decoy?”

  “Then we know his plan of attack for sure,” Ash said.

  Steiner’s smirk sobered. “The courthouse.”

  Ash nodded. My stomach roiled some more. The thought of facing Red made me want to vomit on the spot. The thought of Red harming Ash and the guys brought me to the verge of hyperventilating.

  “You’re good.” Ash rubbed my back in little circles. “No need to get stressed yet.”

  “I’m good,” I repeated like a freaking robot. “I’m good.”

  “The courthouse will be a complex target to defend,” Steiner said.

  “But you’d have enormous resources to deploy,” Ash pointed out.

  “We could set up the perfect trap,” Steiner said.

  “We could,” Ash said. “But you have to be prepared to get Lia in and out safely.”

  “We can do that.”

  Right. More promises from Steiner. As if I could believe him.

  “Your preparations should include me as well,” Ash said. “I’m coming with Lia.”

  “No way.” I fisted my hands on my lap. “Absolutely not. That’s not part of the deal.”

  Ash looked to Steiner. “It’s either both of us or none of us.”

  “Ash Hunter,” I said, digging my nails into my palms. “You’re not coming to the courthouse, so help me God.”

  “Us,” Everest repeated, intractable. “Steiner, are you game?”

  “Do I really have a choice?” Steiner said.

  Ash handed him a prepaid phone. Steiner dialed a number and talked to his boss. He was factual and to the point and he didn’t let any of the details regarding my location slip out. There was some heated back and forth, but when he hung up after a long conversation, his boss had agreed to our plan.

  A silent countdown began in my mind. I was resigned to this plan, but I was also terrified, because failure would be catastrophic, not only for me, but for Ash and his friends. I worried that despite Ash’s best precautions, he was still underestimating Red’s capabilities. But this was also my only chance to defeat Red and make sure Dad, Adam and my baby hadn’t died for nothing. If the worst happened, I was going to go down fighting to the end.

  “The decoy will be set up and running by tonight,” Steiner reported. “My boss will be monitoring the staff, looking for leaks. The legal team has been advised that the witness will be present.”

  Ash called in the rest of the guys. “He’s in,” he said.

  Manny put a radio on the table along with a headset.

  Steiner admired the headset. “Good stuff. Expensive too. How the hell did you get your hands on these?”

  “None of your business,” Manny said.

  Steiner cocked an eyebrow. “Is that how it’s going to be?”

  “That’s exactly how it’s gonna be,” Manny said.

  Wang handed Steiner’s gun over to Ash.

  Ash slid it across the table. “Do you remember how to use this?”

  Steiner caught it. “I’ve used it before, a time or two.”

  “Those situations are the only reason you have your gun back.”

  “Wait.” Steiner glared. “How did you get into my personnel files?”

  The guys’ faces were as blank as a beige wall.

  “I see.” Steiner smirked. “Top-of-the-line equipment, professional-grade weapons and the attitude to match. You were all Special ops, weren’t you?”

  Nobody spoke.

  “Don’t get overly confident,” Steiner said. “You people better be on alert. You better listen to me.”

  “I’m a good listener,” Ash said. “I hope you are too. My watch. My rules. If you break my rules, Lia’s gone. Clear?”

  “Crystal.” Steiner holstered his gun. “At least you trust me with this.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Ash said. “Trust is something you earn around here. Or...”

  “Or what?” Steiner said.

  “Or perhaps this cowboy is convinced that he can draw faster than you.”

  * * *

  The sleet slapped a steady beat on the barn’s roof. The atmosphere of the gray, soggy day exuded ozone and the scents of wet loam and pine forest. The aspens had long lost their leaves and the weather was squarely in winter’s quarter. I raked some fresh straw into Ike’s stall. The work helped me cope with the anxiety and so did the guys.

  Ash’s friends were a good bunch. The men of Manny’s family had served in the Navy for six generations. Manny hated that the streak had come to an end with him in a wheelchair. Wang was the youngest of seven brothers. He’d enlisted at seventeen and served five back-to-back tours in Afghanistan. Will had a toddler son he adored, but his girlfriend had asked him to leave because the child got scared every time his father had an outburst.

  They made for a very efficient unit. They took turns monitoring the equipment, patrolling the property and keeping eyes on me. Most of the time, Ash stuck with me, but today he and Wang had gone to check a malfunctioning camera on the property’s east boundary while Manny monitored the computers. Will, who shared my fascination for animals, stood in the next stall, brushing Ivy’s coat into a high polish. I flashed him a quick smile.

  “Eh—sexy lady!” He broke out into “Gangnam Style.” He pressed his hand against his mouth and looked startled, but he continued to sing at the top of his lungs, driven by his odd compulsion. “Eh—sexy lady, oh oh oh oh.”

  He was embarrassed, but I wasn’t going to allow this sweet and gentle genius to be humiliated by his condition.

  “Man, you’re good.” I danced to his song. “Keep going. I like the way you sing.”

  His horrified expression transformed into a cautious grin. He let it all out, dancing with me, adding some pretty cool sound effects. I swung my hips as together we tried to remember the steps. We were having a grand old time, when Steiner barged in.

  “What the hell are you two doing?” He stood by the barn doors, glaring, the kind of look that took the fun out of the moment, embarrassed Will to no end and wilted my dancing into a self-conscious shuffle.

  “We were just dancing,” I said. “It’s not a crime, you know.”

  “Right.” Steiner drew on the cigarette in his hand, expelling a toxic cloud of smoke.

  “It’s better than sharing your cancer with the world.” I shot him a reproving look. “No cigarettes in the barn. Fire hazard. And don’t even think about leaving the butts lying around. Nicotine filters can kill animals if ingested.”

  He was about to make what I was sure would be a snide remark, when the radio came online.

  “Base here,” Manny announced over the radio. “Contact approaching. Over.”

  “Base this is Zulu,” Ash’s voice crackled over the radio. “ID? Over.”

  “Stand by,” Manny said.

  Will grabbed his tablet and pulled up the camera angles, imitating the sounds of a submarine pinging under the sea. Steiner put out his cigarette and joined us. I looked at the screen, laughed and, taking the radio from Will, clicked it on.

  “Finally,” I said. “If it isn’t the elusive Fish and Wildlife. See the markings on the truck? I must have called them—oh, I don’t know—fifty times?”

  “Sexy lady?” Will retrieved the radio from me. “That’s, like, very bad radio form.”

  “Oh.” I leaned over the radio an
d pressed on Will’s thumb. “Sorry.”

  “Base, this is Zulu,” Ash’s voice came again. “Requesting confirmation. Come in, base.”

  “Base here,” Manny replied. “That’s affirmative. Plates check, ID verified, over.”

  Steiner’s eyebrows rose in a question. “Fish and Wildlife?”

  “We had a mountain lion prowling around a while back,” I explained.

  “Simba.” Will pulled up some pictures of the animal on the screen, most of them grainy and green since they were taken through the cameras’ night vision lenses. “Hakuna matata.”

  Steiner groaned. “Settle down, will you?”

  “Lay off him,” I said. “He can’t help it.” I turned to Will. “You guys didn’t tell me the mountain lion was back.”

  “Ash’s rules of engagement,” Will said. “If it wasn’t bothering you or your animals, we were not to interfere.”

  “Right.” I looked at the live feed of the Fish and Wildlife truck. “Well, here come the experts.”

  “Base, we’re headed to intercept,” Ash’s voice announced.

  “Roger that,” Manny said.

  Steiner took the radio from Will. “Zulu, this is Romeo, over.”

  “Come in, Romeo.”

  “Recommend alternative course of action,” he said. “We don’t want to stir the hive.”

  Steiner was right. We didn’t want to attract attention or compromise our cover when we only had a few more days to go before scrambling for the courthouse.

  “Stand by.” I could almost hear Ash calculating the probabilities and weighing the options. “Base, can you verify additional contacts, over?”

  Manny took a moment to reply, probably to check all his monitors. “No additional contacts to report, over.”

  “ETA?”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Roger that,” Ash said. “Heading for the crib. Out.”

  “Let’s see.” Steiner glanced at his watch. “Ash and Wang are about two miles out. Bets anyone? How fast can the cripple run?”

  Will snapped and began to sing “Let It Go” at the top of his lungs.

  “See what you did?” I glared. “Were you raised by gorillas?”

  “You liked me fine when I first approached you as a teacher’s assistant,” Steiner said. “And after that, when I was your only real friend.”

  “You were my lifeline for a while,” I said over Will’s racket. “That’s true.”

  “Are you ever going to forgive me for what happened to Adam?”

  I looked him straight in the eye. “Probably not.”

  Will’s song suddenly cut out. I turned around. My heart stopped. His face froze into a rigid mask, his eyes rolled to the back of his head and his body shuddered like a man possessed as he crashed on the ground. I ran over to him.

  Steiner’s gun was out and he was casing the barn, the doors, the windows, looking for an assailant. “Stay down.”

  Terror jabbed at me from all directions. Steiner’s aim swung toward me. I shrank back, grappling for my little Beretta. For a full four seconds I knew that Steiner was in Red’s pocket. Hands shaking, I struggled to click off the gun’s safety.

  He lunged for the radio. “This is Romeo, we’ve got a man down, I repeat, man down.” He took a knee by the barn doors and scanned the pasture. “Is the kid hurt?” he said. “Is he bleeding?”

  I set my Beretta aside and checked on Will. His body rattled as if he was being electrocuted, but I couldn’t see any signs of wounds or bleeding.

  “I don’t think he’s been shot,” I said, trying to hold him still. “Will? Are you okay?”

  Across the pasture, the back door of the cottage flung open. I spotted Manny rolling his wheelchair through the kitchen door with an automatic rifle on his lap. But as soon as he made it over the pavement, the chair got stuck in the mud.

  “What a clusterfuck.” Steiner stole across the barn. “Are you sure he’s not hit?”

  “I think he’s having a seizure.”

  Steiner examined Will. “You’re right.” He turned Will on his side. “Come on, kid. You’re going to be okay.”

  “Shouldn’t we put something between his teeth or something?”

  “That’s an old myth.” Steiner cradled Will’s head, holding him in place while stroking his back. “Work through it, Will. You can do it.”

  I gawked at this new Steiner I hadn’t met before. The tremors racking Will were subsiding. His arms twitched, his eyes closed, his body relaxed.

  “My little brother had seizures.” Steiner folded his coat and tucked it beneath Will’s head. “He died when he was twelve.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Nothing to do about it,” Steiner said. “Some of us were born to suffer. There now. It’s done.”

  “Is he going to be all right?” I asked.

  “In a few hours,” Steiner said, “after he sleeps it off.”

  He raised his gun again as Wang sneaked in through the back window and Ash stole quietly through the front doors.

  “Stand down.” Steiner lifted his hands in the air. “False alarm.”

  Gripping both his cane and his weapon, Ash leaned against the barn door and took his weight off his bad foot. “Wang, go help Manny.” He caught his breath and whistled.

  Only then did Neil enter the barn, greeting us excitedly, bouncing, barking and panting with his long tongue hanging out of his mouth.

  “What the hell happened?” Ash said.

  “Will had a seizure.” I said, trying to keep Neil from licking and sniffing Will on the ground. “How’s your foot?”

  “Fine,” he rasped, but I could tell he was in pain.

  Steiner made a show of looking at his watch. “Two miles in eight minutes and forty-two seconds. Not too shabby. You’re still holding yourself to SEAL standards. Honestly? I didn’t think you had it in you, cowboy.”

  “Next time,” Ash said, “I’ll call in the false alarm and you run.”

  * * *

  The Fish and Wildlife officers were courteous, efficient and knowledgeable. They took our statements, walked the property and asked lots of questions. Ash gave them a detailed description of the mountain lion, down to the distinctive white butterfly markings on its chin.

  “That’s the one,” the officer said. “A rancher reported that it’s been feeding on his sheep. We think it’s best to relocate it. We’d like to set up a trap on your property, if you don’t mind.”

  Ash agreed to the officer’s request and so did I. I wanted my animals safe and the lion relocated. It would be helpful all around...if I survived my visit to the courthouse. Promising to return soon to set up the trap, the officers left. Based on their workload and on how long it had taken to get them out here, I didn’t expect them to come back until next summer.

  As soon as the truck drove away, I spotted Steiner and Wang carrying Will to the RV.

  “Steiner says he’s going to be fine,” I said. “Should we take him to the hospital?”

  “He doesn’t want to be in the hospital,” Ash said.

  I glanced at him. “He reminds me of someone I met once.”

  The grim lines on Ash’s face deepened. “There’s nothing they can do for him anyway.”

  “The seizures can’t be controlled?”

  “Will’s best hope is that, in time, his brain will stabilize and the seizures will decrease in frequency.”

  It really sucked that there was nothing we could do to help him. I ached for Will.

  “Come on.” I hooked Ash’s arm around my shoulders and made for the kitchen. “Let’s take care of you.”

  “I’m fine,” he said, but he allowed a portion of his weight to lean on me and signaled for Neil to follow.

  “Well
, I’m not fine.” I kneaded my chest. “My heart just about gave out. That didn’t go according to plan.”

  “When the shit hits the fan, it never goes according to plan.” He kissed the top of my head. “Remember that, Lia. That’s why we have to be fluid.”

  “Fluid, sure.” I opened the kitchen door. “I about peed in my pants.”

  He had the gall to laugh.

  “Sit and take off your boot,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I dumped all the ice trays I kept in the freezer in a bucket, added water and dragged it over to the kitchen table. Neil immediately stuck his muzzle in and tried to drink the water.

  I nudged the dog aside. “I’ll get to you in a sec.” I pointed at Ash. “You, in goes the foot.”

  Ash grimaced when he tested the water. “Brrr.” He shivered, but he shoved his foot in the ice bucket anyway.

  “Ashton Hunter, I swear, if you fractured, fissured or otherwise hurt even the smallest bone in your pinkie toe, I’m going to be one pissed-off broad.” I knelt next to him, dipped my hands into the freezing water and gently rubbed his foot.

  He flashed me one of his fake-innocence looks. “Why so set on terrorizing me?”

  “I don’t want you to undo your healing,” I said. “You didn’t have to run so hard and fast.”

  “I tightened the brace,” he said, as if that should make a huge difference. “It was good training. We faced several contingencies at the same time and we had to hustle.”

  He’d tightened the brace. Right. As if that was going to keep him from hurting. For a bright guy, sometimes, he had no sense at all.

  My fingers tripped on a couple of stitches that hadn’t been there before. “What’s this?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” Ash waved dismissively. “I cut my foot the other day when we were working at the ranch, but don’t worry, Jordan was there. He disinfected the cut and stitched it up for me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want you fussing all over me.”

  “Hmm.” I inspected his foot, looking for signs of infection. “Looks clean, but I’m sure it bothered you when you ran today.”

  “Some,” he admitted. “I may have been able to run faster without the cut or the cane.”