by Ronie Kendig
“Quiet, sir.”
With a nod, Lance entered the office.
A gray steel desk anchored a spot in front of a window. Behind it, the chair swiveled around. Admiral Kuhn rose and saluted. “General Burnett.”
Lance gave a stiff response, lowered his hand, then huffed. “At ease.” He strolled to the window where cheap plastic blinds served as a flimsy barrier against the miserable Djibouti sun and its heat. He’d been baking since he stepped off the aircraft.
And he wasn’t the only thing baking. “For cryin’ out loud, Mack.”
He turned to him. “Well? What do you have to say?”
“Shouldn’t I have a lawyer?”
“Do you need one?”
Kuhn pointed to the doors, to Hastings, and the security team. “You brought yours.” He grunted then dropped back into his chair. “Ya know, I’m glad.”
Lance frowned.
“I’m glad it’s over.” He removed the stars from his uniform and thrust them on the table. “Hendricks put my nose to the fire, threatened me with punitive action if I didn’t look the other way, then he vanishes.”
“Vanishes?” Lance couldn’t digest the information fast enough. “Punitive—so, you’re willing to testify?”
“Absolutely. The man yanked my career out of my hands.”
“I think you did that, sir,” Hastings spoke up. “You are the one who acted.”
“Tell you what, Lieutenant,” Kuhn said, “when you’re out here baking your assets off and nobody gives a rip if you live or die except one man willing to make you dead—well, lines get a little fuzzy.”
Lance planted himself in the chair and mopped his sweaty brow. “You said Hendricks vanished?”
“Yeah. Nobody knows where he is. Haven’t seen in him…well, since your man showed up.”
“Cardinal.”
“That’s the one. Payne flew down here, and they rode off into the sunset together.” Kuhn shrugged. “The people here are oppressed enough. They don’t need American power mongers making it worse.”
“Yet you helped make it worse.” Lance pushed to his feet and motioned the security forces toward Kuhn. “While I clean up your mess, it’s your turn to ride off into the sunset.”
“Don’t even move.”
Shedding the Neil Crane persona and returning to his original identity, his birth identity, felt incredibly freeing. Head pounding like a bass drum still, Austin focused on the two men who held him at gunpoint. They had good reason. Anger vibrated through him.
“That’s my sister, you moron!”
“Yeah. Well, this is my M4.” The man with a dark blond beard hefted it a little higher, nearly blotting out the beard.
Austin growled. “If she dies—”
“Stop him! Somebody—stop him!”
Austin peered over the shoulders of the two men.
A storm swept in named Cardinal. Eerily calm. Striding straight toward—Me!
One of the nearby men swore. Took a step back.
So did Austin—when he saw the weapon Cardinal held low.
Fury darkened the man’s face. Something inside Austin curled up and died. He’d never seen that expression on Cardinal. In the mirror—yeah, a lot. On others. But not on Cardinal, the guy calm as a tranquility pool.
“He’s got a gun!”
Boots thudded as two men raced up behind Cardinal.
Austin’s feet seemed to have turned to cement. He couldn’t move. Saw it coming. Saw the future in one heartbeat—Cardinal was going to stuff that Glock in Austin’s mouth and make him eat a bullet.
He’s blaming me for Aspen.
“I didn’t do this.” Austin stepped between the two men who had shifted from guarding him to protecting his life. Not that he’d put his life in their hands. He wouldn’t. Wouldn’t trust anyone on that level. Never again. He held up his hands.
“Where is she?” Cardinal demanded. Two men hooked Cardinal’s arms, hauling him backward. He wrestled against them, seemingly possessing supernatural strength because he came forward several paces. “Tell me!”
With the tangling and wrangling of arms and legs, it looked like an octopus writhing before him.
The Glock slid across the room.
Grab it. Maybe he should.
A brunette lifted it from the ground and stuffed it at the small of her back.
Austin let himself draw in a breath, steadying his nerves. This man had mentored him. Taught him so much. Then betrayed him. “Even if I knew,” Austin injected as much disdain into his voice as possible, “I wouldn’t trust you with that information.”
Though Cardinal tried to wrest himself from the two men, their restraint held. Cardinal again attempted to jerk free before slumping back, looking defeated, as he said, “The gun’s gone. What can I do?”
Watterboy gave a nod.
“No!” Austin’s shout mixed with another. Apparently someone else saw what Austin did—Cardinal’s body language belied the fury roiling off the man. Loose, Cardinal would kill him.
Seconds took on supernatural length. Cardinal shot forward. His foot swept Austin off his feet. He landed with a thud. Cardinal was on top of him, pinning him with his knee. His fist rammed like a ball-peen hammer. Right into Austin’s face.
Shouts and a series of pops erupted.
Lance hesitated, glancing back to Hastings, whose eyes had widened. He shoved himself through the building. Through one door. Another. He burst into the safe house, drenched in sweat after the quick ride out from FOB Kendall.
Two men wrestled a third beneath them. Legs and arms thrashed.
Another was laid out cold, blood snaking out his nose and down his neck.
Scrip dug through a sack on the floor.
Suddenly, the writhing mass of bodies stilled.
“Get off me,” came a familiar voice.
“Not liking that idea,” Candyman countered.
“What in Sam Hill is going on?” Lance demanded.
Candyman and Watterboy shifted toward Lance. Slowly eased off the third—Cardinal. The man pushed back on his legs and stayed on the floor. Lance never fully realized how big that guy’s shoulders and fists were.
“Cardinal?” He hated that name.
The man pushed onto his haunches. Then stood.
Watterboy and Candyman stepped back, and Lance noticed they seemed to be guarding the body on the floor. Watterboy’s gaze skidded to Lance, and he gave a nod. “General.”
“What’s going on?” He sounded like a broken record, but considering nobody had answered, he didn’t care.
Cardinal swung toward him.
Instinct pushed Lance back a step. He bumped into someone.
Hastings muttered an apology as she shifted aside, her gaze locked on Cardinal. “Da—Markoski?”
Death lurked in that man’s eyes as he stalked out of the room.
Lance took a step forward. “Hey—”
Cardinal held up a staying hand but didn’t look back. “No.” He hung his head. Took a breath then walked out.
Silence drenched the tension that seeped through every pore and crack in this crumbling former storefront. Hastings started after Dane.
“Leave him, Lieutenant.” Lance had never seen that look on Cardinal before. And he had this feeling the guy just needed some time. “Watters—fill me in.”
The man nodded, glanced to the man on the floor, then crossed the room. “We got hit not ten minutes ago. That guy showed up with a team, Russians. They put us in lockdown, while he came in here with Aspen and Markoski.”
“Lockdown?”
Candyman muttered something as he paced.
“Yes, sir. They held us at gunpoint, but thanks to Scrip”—he nodded to the man on the floor, who now slumped against the wall—“we subdued the captors and blew out the door. When we got in here, he”—another indication, this time to the unconscious man—“had Aspen and Dane at gunpoint. Two minutes later, someone lobbed a flash-bang in here. By the time we were able to sort out what
happened, Aspen was gone.”
“Gone?”
Watters’s expression tightened. “They took her. Markoski sprinted after them. Candyman went with him. Me and the team tried to hold the other guy down—we don’t know who he is.”
Lance strode over to the man and squatted in front of him. “Russian, huh? And nobody’s ID’d him?”
“No, but Markoski came back in—”
“Took my Glock right out of my holster.” Candyman grunted. Disgust shaded his features. “Did it so fast, I didn’t know till I saw the gun in his hand.”
“He came storming in here and was about to kill that guy.”
“If Markoski says he’s a threat, then he is. Hogtie the heck out of him.” Lance straightened, his mind racing as Candyman and Rocket went to work zip-tying the man. “Pops, get on the horn. Notify the embassy that an American has been kidnapped. Leak her information to everyone.”
He stormed out of the room, biting back curses. Hating that he didn’t have a single Dr Pepper handy.
Hastings stood in the open area at the back, eyes on the upper level.
Lance took the cue and headed toward the stairs that lacked a banister or other support.
Behind him he heard steps. Over his shoulder he saw Hastings and Smith trailing him. “Stay with the team. Get a game plan. Wake that man up and find out who he is.”
Hastings paused, her gaze tracing the upper level again. He’d have to be blind not to know she was smitten with Cardinal.
“Go on. Get it done, Lieutenant.”
With a reluctant nod, she turned.
As he continued up, he wondered if the entire thing would collapse without a guardrail. Plaster dribbled. Three doors presented themselves. He pushed open the first door. His body swayed and swooped—straight toward the ten-foot drop. He grabbed the doorjamb and yanked himself back. His heart dropped with the gaping emptiness. Only half the room still existed. The other half, blown out with whatever relegated this building to abandonment. Hauling his stomach and courage back, he eased the door closed. Whispered a prayer of thanks to his maker.
As he made his way along the narrow ledge, he tried to avoid looking to the right, the drop to the lower level. The next door, he decided, sat too close to the previous one, so it most likely had its space missing, too. Lance tried the last door. Darkness spread its venom. He scanned the black void. Nothing.
As he turned away, a shape caught his eye.
He whipped back to it. Strained against the darkness to figure out what snagged his attention. There, in the corner…“Cardinal?”
Whispering wind was the only response.
Lance stepped in, embraced by the shadows as his eyes slowly adjusted. Sure enough. There sat Cardinal. In the corner, each shoulder blade pressed against an adjacent wall. Legs bent and pulled close, he rested his arms over his knees.
This wasn’t the time for booming sarcasm. Nor for biting wit. What he’d seen down there, Cardinal completely unglued, required delicate and precise wording. An arrow to aim right at this man’s steel-barricaded heart. Cardinal would like Lance to believe he didn’t have a heart so he couldn’t do any damage. But Lance held the firm belief that every person had a soft spot. The trick was finding it.
“I want you to know,” Lance said, treading a thin line, “whatever’s going on”—his mind ping-ponged over the facts, over the past, over his knowledge of this über-skilled operative he’d recruited right out from under the nose of the Russians, right out from under the man’s father— “I’ve got your back.”
“It is a nice sentiment but unrealistic and therefore false.” Cardinal’s sigh carried heavily through the dank room. “And if you knew the price of that statement, you’d backpedal so fast…”
There was entirely too much truth in that statement. Already, thanks to Payne, Cardinal’s role within DIA hung in jeopardy. Lance’s own position there could be compromised.
“I know what the price is,” Lance said. “I also know you’re probably the single best asset we’ve ever had.”
“Again, nice sentiment, but it’s not true.”
“What’s going on, Cardinal?” Ominous quiet rankled Lance. Something huge had shifted in the man before him. Left Lance with a bad taste in his mouth. He knew the whole marriage thing to Aspen would push the man, but he’d really thought it would make him work better, harder. Had he been wrong? “If this is about the marriage—”
“When you walk out of here, you’ll never see me again.”
Thirty-Four
Cardinal never thought this day would come. But that was foolhardy. Expecting to live this life—to actually have a life. To think his father would never find him…
“Cardinal—you can’t.”
“I can.” He drew himself off the ground. “I should have done this a dozen years ago.”
“Done what?” An edge had crept into Burnett’s voice that marked him as angry.
“Vanished. Disappeared.”
“You did that. Became Cardinal.”
The man was trying to talk him out of it. “Good-bye, General.”
“So, that’s it? You walk out of here. What happens to Aspen? Someone took her.”
“Then you should stop arguing with me and find her. You have the resources.”
“You and I both know finding her is next to impossible without a lead.”
Cardinal steadied his breathing. Was the general implying he didn’t know where she was? That…surely he knew.
Wait. Of course he knew. Had to. “You’re baiting me.”
Darkness worked wonders to conceal facial expressions. The general hadn’t had as much experience as he in detecting silent signals.
“She needs you, Cardinal.”
“No.” His heart ka-thumped through the next few beats. “She needs to be saved so she can live a long, happy, healthy life.”
“Word has it, you and her hit it off.”
He would not be goaded.
“Real well. In fact, someone suggested you made that marriage legitimate.”
Guilt harangued him. He hadn’t crossed ethical lines. Perhaps succumbed to weakness. Made a foolish error in judgment. Let his feelings get the better of him. “You’re wasting breath and time, General.”
Cardinal walked out of the room, across the lip, and down the stairs. He spotted Hastings.
“Dane.”
He held up a hand, and apparently more of his foul mood showed in his body language because that slight signal was enough to stay her response.
“What’s he doing?” someone—it sounded like Candyman—asked.
“Leaving.” Burnett stomped down the steps.
“Hey!” Candyman shouted.
Cardinal kept walking. Reached the door.
Boots thudded behind him.
“Hey, you sorry piece of crap!”
The door squeaked closed. Cardinal let it. Let it shut on the guilt they wanted to heap on him. The weight that oppressed him.
Thap!
“You sorry son of a—”
Cardinal glanced back.
A fist collided with his jaw.
He stumbled back, but there was no fight left in him. Not after what happened. Not after feeling disembodied as he watched the demon of a man within him take over. The one that was so like his father he couldn’t tell the difference between that man and the colonel.
Chin up, he swiped the blood from his lip. Eyed Candyman.
“She loved you!” Candyman’s tension radiated a nuclear yield. “She gave you everything, trusted you. And this—this!—is how you repay that?”
Cardinal took the blow. Turned. Started walking.
“I see. It’s only a game to you. You’re a spook, so you screw people over and move on, is that it? All Aspen was to you was a warm body?”
The words twisted around his heart. He slowed. Hung his head.
“You’re unbelievable. Walking away knowing full well she could be dead by nightfall.”
“She won’t be dead.�
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“That’s right. Because she’s already dead, thanks to you.”
Cardinal stretched his neck. “If they wanted her dead, they wouldn’t have kidnapped her. She won’t die.”
“That’s right. She won’t die,” Candyman said, his nostrils flaring, “because some of us actually care about her. Some of us are willing to fight to the death for one of our own. Because some of us didn’t play a beautiful, innocent woman’s affections.”
“I did not play her.” Can’t go there…can’t…open…that…
Angel headstone. Glass shattering. Screaming. Flash. Bright light. The sickeningly hollow flap of her clothes as she fell to her death.
Cardinal flinched. Clenched his eyes. He raised a hand as if to ward off the jumbled thoughts. What’s happening to me?
“Hey.” Candyman’s voice changed. “You okay, man?”
Cardinal met the ironclad gaze of the special operator. A man who’d been an ally. Cardinal glanced down the road where he’d seen that vehicle tear off with Aspen inside. He’d known then, hadn’t he, what happened? Who took her? Even though he unleashed on Austin, he knew. The beating he’d given her brother was pent-up rage. He’d been found. He’d been cornered. Trapped. And they had bait.
“Look, whatever spooked you, I get it. But she needs you. And right now, you’re the only one primed to do this.” Candyman’s left eyebrow dipped. “In fact, by that look on your face, I’m thinking you have a good guess about what happened.”
Cardinal said nothing. Didn’t want to give voice to the demons rising up from the past to consume him, his life, his soul.
“Who?” Candyman stood a couple inches shorter, but the man measured feet above the rest in courage. “Who did this?”
The second Cardinal’s mind started to answer, he shut it down. He rerouted his thoughts to a solution. “Take the dog. Go to Russia.” With that, he started walking.
“Dude, in case you missed the news flash, Russia’s big. That’s not helpful. And by the time we figure out where to go, she could be dead.”
At the gate, Cardinal muttered, “She won’t be dead.”
Because he wants me to come for her. But he couldn’t. Wouldn’t go there, literally or mentally. Could not enter that psychological war zone again. He’d escaped it twenty years ago.