by Mark Stone
“That’s why she was moving away, wasn’t it?” Marcus asked. “She told me it was because of a office job, because the synthetics company she worked for wanted to relocate her to Boston, but—”
“It was because of us,” Natasha assured the man. “We found her, we vetted her, and we gave her the opportunity to protect her country and, with it, freedom all over the world. She’s a good woman, Marcus. She didn’t say no.”
“But Mikey?” Marcus asked, sighing.
“She didn’t want to involve him in it,” Natasha said. “Lying to a father is one thing. If you thought she was in Boston, all she’d have to do is see you on Christmas and Easter.” Natasha blinked, looking back at me for an instant. “But a husband is a completely different story. That would be everyday. She wasn’t willing to do that to Marcus and, since they weren’t going to be married, he wasn’t qualified to know what was actually going on with her. She told him what she told you, that she wanted a new start, that she didn’t want him in it.”
“And it drove him crazy,” I said, glaring at Nat.
“He didn’t take it well,” she confirmed. “Of course, even I didn’t think he would go as far as he did. When I went to see him at the bar that night, it was to feel him out. I thought I could flirt with him a little, show him the world wasn’t over because some girl didn’t want to be with him anymore. I had no idea what he had planned, none of us did.” She looked down at the floor. “When he gave the Scorpions Tanya’s alarm system codes to ensure they wouldn’t be caught when taking her, it took me all of two hours to find out where they were keeping her.” She shook her head. “Not because I’m a better detective than either of you, but because there was a tracker in her tooth.”
I watched Marcus shudder at the knowledge and felt a pang of sympathy for him. He was listening to truth about his daughter, a truth that likely shook him to the core.
“It’s standard practice,” Natasha said. “She received the tracker a few days ago and, when I found her, I sprung her quickly.” She looked back at me. “She’s a good woman though. She puts other people before herself. After being kidnapped, she learned of the human trafficking going on. I called it in and we were given a new mission, Tanya’s first. I was to pose as a makeshift crime lord. I was to have found Tanya and offer to sell her back to the Scorpions. From there, we would track Tanya to the base of operations for this syndicate and take them down.” She shook her head. “But she lost her tooth in the melee, the tooth with her tracker in it.”
“And now she’s gone for real,” Marcus said. “My daughter is at the mercy or slave traders.”
“She’s strong,” Natasha said. “Stronger than you know.”
“We’ll find her,” I chimed in.
“Shut up!” he hissed, looking over at me. “All of this is happening because of you. You told me to leave. You convinced me it would be in my daughter’s best interest for me not to be there, for my clouded judgment not to affect what you had to do.” He huffed. “And then you screwed it up, and now she’s gone. So don’t you dare try and tell me this will be okay. Do you understand me?”
I looked at him for a moment. He wasn’t wrong. Of course, he wasn’t exactly right either. I had done the best I could, and him being there would have only served to put him in danger. He was in shock though. He was a father living through his worst nightmare, and I wasn’t going to add to that by giving him lip.
“I understand you, sir,” I said.
“Good,” he muttered. “You know, when she was a teenager, my daughter used to surf all day and off into the evening. Sometimes, she wouldn’t get back before the sun would go down. So I used to go out onto that beach and look for her, across that dark water praying that she hadn’t gotten caught in the surf. What I wouldn’t give for that to be my biggest problem right now.”
“It’s alright, Marcus,” Natasha said. “I’ll be face to face with Tanya before the end of the night.”
“How can you be so sure?” Marcus asked.
“Because, as far as they know, I know all of their secrets,” she said. “And they just screwed me. They’re not going to want me to go to the police. They’re going to want to stop me, which means—”
“They’ll come for you,” I finished.
“And when they do,” she said. “I’ll make them tell me where she is.”
“No, you won’t,” I said, standing and shaking my head. “We will.” I glared at the woman. “You and I, we have business to finish.”
Chapter 29
The night was clear in Vero Beach tonight, stars studding an already achingly beautiful sky. It was the dead of night now. The sun would be up in a few hours and, under normal circumstances, I would be sound asleep, dreaming of things a lot more pleasant than what I was facing now.
“This is taking too long,” I said gruffly, cutting my eyes over to Natasha. She was wearing the same coat she had on when I saw her in the interrogation room, the same coat I had slipped the key tracker my grandfather gifted me with into.
Her steps were deliberate and quick, and her face was tight, laced with stress lines. It was a good thing her hair was already dyed silver because, after a day like today, I knew I was probably going to be be counting a few more grays.
“It won’t be much longer,” she assured me, sighing loudly.
We had walked all over town thus far, roaming the brightly lit (even at this time) city streets and ducking into the less populated back alleys and fringes. It was all in an attempt to make ourselves known, to let the Scorpions know we were out. Nat was there because she was the bait. She had the intel, the information the Scorpions desperately wanted to keep hidden. And I was the rod, the badge wearing threat walking in step with her; a promise that the Scorpions worst fears might very well become reality.
“Things are spinning right now,” she answered. “Things went terribly wrong back there and they need just a minute to get it together. As soon as they get in touch with their boss though, I have little doubt he or she will send them after me. And he’ll give them deadly incentive to find me.”
“Any idea who these bastards are working for?” I asked, hands in my pocket.
“I’m sure they do,” Natasha answered. “I don’t have clearance for all of their intel.”
Finally, I looked over at her. “I never thought I’d live to see the day when you were worried about something like clearance.”
“You’re telling me,” she scoffed, shaking her head.
“What happened, Nat?” I asked, swallowing hard. “Was it always like this? When you were with me, were you—”
“I was lost when I was with you,” she answered. “My life has never been easy, Stormy. But, when I was growing up, it was especially difficult. I ran from place to place, just trying to survive. Finally, I ran to someone who thought they could use my specific set of skills.”
“You mean lying and manipulating?” I asked, blinking at her.
“Among other things, but yeah,” she said. “It wasn’t too long before I made a name for myself in that world and, soon enough, that name led me to you.”
“I know that part of the story,” I said, turning away from her.
“You really don’t though,” she said. “I did lie to you, Stormy. I did steal from you, and break your trust. I destroyed a case that was probably very important to you.” She shook her head. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t care about you.”
“Don’t do this,” I said curtly.
“I need to,” she said. “I have to. It’s been weighing on me for way too long.”
“And how do you think I feel, Nat?” I asked, pulling to a stop and turning my body toward her completely. “I was going to marry you, for Christ’s sake! I was going to give you my grandmother's wedding ring! A ring you stole, by the way!” I stopped short of screaming, running hands through my hair before continuing. “I think that was the worst part. It wasn’t losing my stuff, or even the hell I caught after the case fell apart. The worst part was having to
go to my grandfather and tell him how stupid I’d been. The worst part was feeling like I had been so damned ridiculous.” I nodded. “I believed it, you know. I believed every bit of it was true.”
“That’s because a lot of it was,” she answered.
“Lord in Heaven,” I muttered, frustrated. “Don’t lie to me again.”
“I’m through with lying to you, Stormy,” she said. “I only lie for the government now. The truth is, you got to me. I’m not going to do you the disservice of calling it love or of saying that what you felt and what I felt was the same thing. I will say that, after I did what I did to you, it got much harder to do it to someone else.” She looked at the ground. “You didn’t make me a better person, but you made me want to be one. I think that might be as close to love as someone like me is capable of.”
I stared at her for a few instances. For the first time in forever, I saw a glimpse of the woman I thought she had been in there.
“What did make you a better person, Nat?” I finally asked. “How did you get where you are now?”
“I got caught,” she said simply. “What can I say? You made me hesitant, and you made me sloppy.”
“So you’re blaming me?” I asked, a slight and hesitant smile inching across the edges of my mouth.
“I’m giving you credit actually,” she answered. “When I got caught, I spent awhile in jail. I finally had time for myself, time when I didn’t have to pretend to be someone else. The truth was, I didn’t like the person I had been. Luckily for me, I got an offer to change all that.”
“The FBI pulled you from prison?” I asked.
“An offshoot branch but, yeah. More or less,” she said. “After that, I was still lying, still manipulating. I was doing it for the good guys now. I was doing it to protect our country and her people. I finally felt like I had found the place in this world where I belonged. I finally felt like I knew what it was I had been born to do. That’s all because of you, Stormy, because you lit that fire in me.”
My eyes widened as I noticed a figure in the distance.
I pulled Natasha close, wrapping her in a hug.
“Wow,” she muttered. “I didn’t realize you were going to take this so well.”
“Shut up, Nat,” I said, breathing heavy. The man behind her lifted his hand and, when he did, two headlights popped on, illuminating the darkness. They roared toward us, a pair of twin bikes.
“They’re here,” I said. “The Scorpions are here.”
Chapter 30
Natasha pulled away from me and, insanely, there was a huge smile stretching her beautiful features. I understood why she wanted us to be found. After all, this was the only way we’d be able to find Tanya. What was more, the clock was ticking. If the Scorpions got away with her, then she’d likely be lost forever, thanks to the loss of her tracking device.
Still, the look on Natasha’s face was more than just the relief that came with the pieces of a plan falling into place. This was sheer excitement, glee the likes of which might be reserved for a kid on Christmas day who figured he had been really good all year. Natasha was going to enjoy this and, though I wasn’t quite as keen, I was probably going to enjoy it too.
I spun, hearing the cycles roar toward us. The Scorpions were likely armed and, once they got us in their sights clearly enough to get an ID on the pair of us, they’re probably start firing. They wanted us both dead. So there was very little need in stopping to have a conversation. This wasn’t a movie. They weren’t going to stop and tell us their fiendish plan in a dramatic fashion. They were going to plow us down in the middle of this alley without even bothering to slow down.
Or, at least, that was how they thought this was going to go down. In reality, we were ready for them.
“You want the two on the bikes or the one in the distance?” Natasha asked me, exhilaration dancing across her eyes.
Damn, she was too excited about this.
“The more, the merrier,” I said, nodding at her. I mean, seriously. What would my grandfather say if I let a lady take down two bikers while I twiddled my thumbs dealing with one? Whatever it was, I would never have to hear it. Natasha nodded her agreement.
“Good,” she said, looking past me, presumably at her imminent prey. “I really want to focus my energies.”
“God help him,” I muttered as the noise of the bikes got too loud to ignore.
“Got it?” Nat asked.
“I got it,” I answered.
Turning around, Natasha and I both pulled out a bagged circle she’d given me before we started this little tour of Vero Beach.
She gave me the name; some sort of illuminant she was given as part of her ‘FBI grab bag’ or whatever it is spies get when they go out on missions. I didn’t remember it though. In the end, I decided to call it a big ass bang snap. As Nat and I threw them on the ground at the bikers simultaneously, I realized that name was pretty spot on.
The big ass bang snaps create a huge burst of light in front of the bikers. It was loud, abrasive and, more importantly, blinding. The bikers skidded off in different directions, both slamming hard against the walls of the alleyway.
I pulled out my gun as Nat rushed toward the man in the distance.
“Be careful,” I said, but she was already gone. “That’s a familiar sensation,” I muttered, turning back to the two ruined bikes and their riders.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your asses on the ground,” I said.
Of course, they did not know what was good for them. They both struggled to get up. I went to the one who looked to be in better shape, a pale man with a Mohawk, as he struggled to reach his feet.
Giving him a hard kick in the gut, I slapped a cuff on his right hand and tossed the other along the alley’s railing. Then, for good measure, I gave the bastard another kick to the throat.
Spinning, I put my attention squarely on the man who looked to be more hurt by the crash. He was a shorter man with long hair and gold in his teeth. I turned my gun on him but, before I could really make sense of what he was doing, he thrust his hand toward me. It wasn’t until he was almost at me that I saw the knife.
With visions of the last time I got stabbed (not nearly long ago enough to suit me) I threw myself toward the ground. Landing hard on my shoulder, I turned so my gun didn’t hit the ground as well. The last thing I needed was for my gun to accidentally discharge. It would probably shoot me in the chest and leave me a shaking mess on the ground.
Turning up, I kicked at the man’s hand, knocking the knife away.
“Freeze!” I screamed, pointing my gun at him.
He did as I asked, freezing where he stood…but only for a second. Blinking hard, he darted off in the opposite direction, running away from us. He was going to get away. He was going to run back and tell Coin that we had dashed their murderous attempts. I couldn’t have that. Our plan to get Tanya back relied on it.
I stood quickly. The thought that I should shoot him ran through my mind. I knocked it out. Though I could have shot him in the leg to take him down but leave him breathing, it wouldn’t have been ethical. He might have been a degenerate who wished to profit off the sale of women, but he wasn't going to turn me into someone who fired his gun when he had another choice.
Besides, the crash had left its mark. He was limping.
I ran toward him, slamming into him, shoulder first. Knocking him down, I dove atop him, punching him in the back of the head.
“Dammitit,” I muttered, realizing my cuffs were in use with the other man. Luckily, I had standard issue ties; ties I used to fasten him to the same railing his partner was; albeit far enough down so the two couldn’t get to each other.
I pulled the phones from both their pockets and tossed them far away. I couldn’t have them calling Coin before the backup I was about to send for got here to cart them off to jail. Normally I would have watched them, but there was a third man, and I’d just realized I hadn’t seen Natasha bring him back yet.
I ran off toward the darkness Natasha had disappeared into, in search of the man.
When I got there, I saw that he had been no match for her. He was on his knees, tears streaming down his face. As I looked upward, I saw why.
Natasha stood behind him, a knife in her hand pressed firmly to the man’s throat.
“Nat!” I screamed, my heart leaping so hard in my chest I was afraid it would pull me off the ground. “What the hell are you doing?”
“This is the only way, Stormy!” she cried out. “How did you think this was going to go? This sort of trash doesn’t like to talk. You have to make him.” She pulled his hair hard with the hand not holding the knife. “Or make sure he pays for it.”
“Nat, you will not do this!” I said, realizing I still had my gun in my hand. “I can’t allow it. I’m a cop, Nat. I can’t just stand here and watch something like this!”
“Then turn around,” she said. “Because, if this bastard doesn’t tell me exactly where they’re taking Tanya in three seconds, I’m about to slit his throat!”
The man jerked in fear. He wasn’t exactly the most hardcore of bikers.
Nat looked up at me and, for the first time since I’d known her, her unreadable eyes were an open book.
Wide and clear, she nodded slightly at me, and I knew I had misread this. This was a trick, a ploy to get the man to talk. For it to work, I needed to help sell it too.
Slowly, I put my gun away.
“That’s not necessary, Nat,” I said, though I was looking at the man. “Is it?”
I knelt in front of him, so close I could have wiped his tears away if I would have chosen to.
“Look. This chick is crazy,” I said, my jaw tensing. “She’s really big into the whole revenge thing. See, she really wants to cut you. Like, really wants to cut you. I would stop her but, like I said, she’s big into revenge and- come to think of it- I don't need her turning that on me. So, unfortunately, you’re kind of on your own.”