by Joni Hahn
“Robinson…” Austin warned under his breath.
“That’s rich,” Keegan said, moving close to stare up into his face. “Considering it’s your family that’s holding them.”
They stood nose to nose, their breath mingling, his heart pounding at her nearness. His frenzied mind scrambled for familiar, composed logic, while fury parlayed with hatred and a prevailing, acute need to just…screw her.
She searched his gaze, not backing down, not giving an inch of that damned, obstinate pride.
“You’re not going, Keegan. If I have to throw you into one of the security cells, I’ll do it.”
Taking a step back, she stared at him with narrowed eyes. “I don’t want to go, Clint. But, I can save a lot of lives by just giving Cyrus what he wants.”
“Come on, Keegan. Do you really think they’d just let them go?” He dismissed her by turning his back. “Don’t be a fool. You’d just end up with them.”
Clint realized she was counting on Cyrus wanting her bad enough. What she didn’t consider was that his mother may not—probably didn’t—feel the same way. Keegan wasn’t as valuable as she thought.
“I have clout.”
Turning back, he said, “The same clout that kept you locked away for over twenty years?” He balked with a wave of his hand.
This hostility was not like him but right now, it felt damned good.
“Go to hell, Clint.” Her words splashed across his back like scalding water.
“Great comeback, Meeks. God forbid, you don’t get in the last word.”
She twisted away. He caught her arm and whirled her back around.
“Don’t touch me.” The words slipped past her lips like the tongue of a hissing snake.
Clint knew she could very well put the hurt on him if he pushed her too far. Then again, he’d been pushed farther than ever before.
Breathing through his nose, he lowered his voice to a lethal rumble. “Cyrus is my younger brother, James.” The anger rose up again, a monster of resentment, a hulk of disgust. “The same brother I killed when I was a kid.”
Horror widened Keegan’s eyes as her body grew deathly still.
Disbelief laced Monica’s voice. “How can that be?”
Austin’s wide eyes and dawning expression told Clint he knew the answer. “Matheson’s family had access to time travel. Clint’s mother went back and saved him before he died.”
Clint nodded, his face feverish with blistering fury.
Monica’s gaze traveled over each of them, apparently searching for jest. No one laughed. “Are you serious?”
“How?” Keegan’s hard voice was spiked with patient curiosity.
“How did I figure it out?” Clint stared into her unusual eyes, marveling at her beauty.
She shook her head. “How did you kill him?”
The gloomy, dark scene clouded his mind as it had nearly every day since. It grabbed at his heart and squeezed, ruthless, gut-wrenching—and real. “I was ten at the time. I made money babysitting him while my mother worked in her home office. He wanted to ice skate on the pond behind our house. He wouldn’t quit whining so I took him outside. When we got there, he started taunting me about how easily he could manipulate me. I got mad and shoved him…”
“Kids do that,” Austin said, earning him a lethal glare.
Clint didn’t need excuses, didn’t buy them. He should’ve been smarter.
“James screamed when the ice broke.” Water splashed in the air before tiny islands of ice concealed him from view.
“For a second, I didn’t believe it. I thought he would come up.” He winced aloud, before turning away from Keegan. He couldn’t face her. “But, he didn’t.”
Squeezing his eyes shut, he said, “I dove in…” A shiver ran through him, remembering the bitter cold that penetrated his bones. “I looked for him, but it was dark.” His breathing hitched, his lungs tight like they were that day. “I spotted him near the bottom, against an old canoe we’d lost a year or two earlier. I grabbed his coat and tried to pull him up, but he was heavy.”
His hands clenched like they still held his collar. “I hauled him up with everything I had. When I broke the surface, my mother was there, on her knees, crying. I shoved him up, into her arms. She laid him aside and took my arm. She pulled me out, onto the ice and told me to run to the house and call nine one one.” He ran a hand down his face. “My face stung from the ice on my skin. I ran inside and the heat made it sting more. I called nine-one-one as I watched my mother do CPR through the window…” His voice dropped to a near whisper. “She knelt over him, her shoulders shaking as she wept.” Hanging his head, he said, “I couldn’t talk anymore. I dropped the phone and just stood there watching her cry over his body.”
Keegan was there. Her arms wrapped around his waist, holding him tight, her breasts soft, her body warm against his chest. He clung to her, his arms too tight, too needy around her.
Screw that, too. He needed her. Needed someone to believe him, believe in him. He’d rather have no one else.
“Damn, Robinson,” Austin said, the undertones of sympathy carrying his voice.
“How did you figure it out?” Monica’s question broke through the bitter memories and the peace of Keegan’s arms.
He spoke over Keegan’s head. “The earlier conversation with my mother. She was reading East of Eden. It’s one of her favorite books. Cyrus Trask is one of the characters.”
Pulling away from Keegan, he ran a hand through his hair and down his neck. “My brother and I were named after Nobel Prize winners in Physics. I was named for Clinton Davisson and he was named after James Chadwick. But, she couldn’t bring him back and call him by the same name, could she?” He looked back at them, bitterness thick in his throat. “So, why not pick a name out of her favorite book?”
Keegan crossed her arms over her middle. The gesture angered him all the more, a seeming reflection of his own isolation. Taking her hand, he peeled away her arms, one by one, his gaze glued to hers.
“So, where does the name Matheson come in?” she said, her hand folding into his as if they had done it thousands of times before.
Austin said, “You have to be related to Matheson on your mother’s side. Was Clay Matheson your grandfather? Uncle?”
“Robinson.”
Clint whipped around. Mitchell’s face appeared on the wall of monitors, a canopy of wild oaks at his back. “Mitchell,” he said, sitting down at the station again. “You made it.”
“Did Angela make it to HQ?”
Clint looked to Austin for confirmation. Rose glanced at the onsite fingerprint log and gave Clint a thumbs up.
“Yes, although I haven’t seen her yet.”
Mitchell said, “I encouraged her to rest when she arrived. I don’t want her to know what I’m doing until it’s over.”
Keegan shared a frown with him before he glanced back at the screen. “You know as well as I do that your wife has a mind of her own.”
He gave a quiet bark of laughter. “Don’t I know it.”
“So, what’s the plan, Mitchell?” Clint said.
“Your plan is to sit at that station and monitor my movements. I want this recorded so the team sees what they’re up against before they go in.”
Austin spoke beside Clint. “We had my video feed for that.”
Mitchell’s steady gaze stared back at them, littered with furtive intentions. “I’m going silent.”
Chapter 8
The impressive, D.I.R.E. operations center was empty, save for the four of them. All field agents were out looking for the women, while they sat knowing exactly where the women were located and unable to disclose their location. Headquarters was manned by science and medical personnel, a few kitchen and housekeeping staff, and only a handful of security agents. For all intents and purposes, D.I.R.E. was on full alert and they were the only people that truly knew what was going on. Mitchell had purposely left his top agents in the dark, while he went on some kind of suicide recon mission to
deduce what Cyrus and this Madam—Clint’s mother—had in their arsenal.
“I don’t understand this,” Monica said, as they watched Mitchell deactivate the electrical fence surrounding the perimeter and scale it like an agent half his age. “I told him what was stored at the farm.”
Austin chimed in, his eyes glued to the monitors. “He has another reason for going.”
“You don’t think he’d try to rescue them alone, do you?” Monica glanced at Clint, then Austin.
Clint shook his head as he adjusted the angle on Mitchell’s video feed. “No. He would never risk it. Austin’s right—he has something else up his sleeve.”
At least this kept Clint’s mind off of Cyrus. The revelation had exposed a side to the calm, logical scientist that she’d only seen in his brother. Not that she could blame him for the reaction. For a mother to allow her son to unnecessarily live with such a nightmare, sickened her. She wanted to go to the farm herself and serve up a few nightmares of her own for the woman.
After seeing Clint’s reaction, she had to deduce he was loyal to D.I.R.E. He may be related to Cyrus and his mother, but he didn’t share their demented lunacy. They had lied, stolen, cheated, betrayed and executed every other horrible sin against him.
Clint said his mother had left because of him. It proved to be a blessing in disguise. However, it also made her wonder if his father knew about Cyrus?
Watching Mitchell’s recon on the screen, she marveled at his ability to be right under a henchman’s nose and never be detected. He traveled the compound at will, scouring the medical building, kitchens, storage sheds and an auditorium without incident.
How…convenient.
While the farm appeared to be a massive compound, Austin’s ragtag rescue op a few days ago seemed to have eliminated many of the residents. There were still several men walking around, carrying guns. Some looked like local people, wearing cowboy hats and boots, while others wore sunglasses and dark suits, like formal security. It seemed an odd mix, but convincing, nonetheless.
Austin directed Mitchell to the side door of a large building. A sign beside it read Monroe Lab.
“As in Aidan Monroe?” Keegan said, looking at the screen before glancing at Clint.
Clint and Austin whipped around to look at her, their eyes round with astonishment. They both glanced back at the screen before Austin said, “Oh, shit…”
“What is it?” she said, watching Mitchell slip past some laboratory workers to reach a storage freezer.
Stepping inside, he looked around, his breathing more noticeable, with pants of frosted air clouding the feed.
Clint spoke low into his earpiece. “Mitchell, turn away when you breathe.”
He perused shelves of petri dishes and vials, his feed scaling past each and every name on each and every label. Who knew how many people they had kidnapped like Monica, robbing them of life and family?
“What is he looking for?” Monica mused aloud.
Going to a round, steel container in the far corner, he tried to twist open the top, to no avail. Turning it around, Mitchell found a keypad.
Monica said, “Tell him to try 080187.”
Clint’s brows rose on his forehead before he scowled. “James’s birthday. Mitchell try 080187.”
The clues were there all along, but it took all of them coming together to figure out the entire picture.
Pulling off his glove, Mitchell keyed in the numbers. The lid popped up, releasing the vacuum seal and emitting a liquid nitrogen fog. Vials rose from inside, held stable in some type of padding. Samples of what looked like saliva, blood and other substances were labeled with identifying marks. Turning the vials in his hand, Mitchell cursed low when he found the name.
Jim Monroe.
“Good God…” Clint squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.
Keegan lay a hand against his back, wishing somehow, she could soften the blow. Wishing she could handle it for him. His innocence made the revelations all the more fatal. They would change him forever.
Grabbing one of each, Mitchell stuffed them in a Velcro pocket inside his Kevlar vest. Replacing the container top, he placed it back in the corner as he found it.
“Okay, Mitchell,” Clint said, “get the hell out of there.”
Exiting the freezer, Mitchell stopped short inside the lab. A few feet away, a beautiful young woman stared at him, a smug smile on her face.
“Cindy.” Monica breathed the name on a note of anguish.
“Your sister?” Keegan said, noting the worry in Monica’s pinched eyes.
With a slight shake of her head, she said, “One of them is going to die. It’s the only way out. She won’t let him leave.”
“Find what you needed?” Cindy said, feigned sugar lacing her voice.
Mitchell’s breathing hitched up, but he didn’t respond. He remained stock still.
She started forward. “Are you-?”
A knife flew to her throat, slicing through her jugular with razor-sharp precision. Her eyes widened in shock, her hand slapping against the open wound dripping blood down her throat and onto her camo t-shirt.
The former SEAL C.O. wasted no time.
Monica’s anguished cry held a resigned note of inevitability. “No…Cindy…”
Austin wrapped an arm around her shoulders and turned her into his chest. The female assassins were the only family Monica had known. To watch a loved one die in front of her eyes…
It hit her then that they all had suffered at the hands of these people. None of them, not the super agents, the women, or the people in this room will find peace until they get through this. They all had a stake.
Mitchell raced past Cindy lying on the floor and stopped at the door. Pulling a gun from his waistband, he cracked open the door. They could hear voices outside, but couldn’t see anyone. Mitchell’s arm jolted twice before two men fell in the hallway, victims of the silencer that concealed his whereabouts.
Monica turned away from Austin. “Tell him to go to the barn. Any weapons we have will be stored there.”
Clint relayed her instructions to Mitchell, although Keegan felt sure Mitchell knew exactly what he was doing. The D.I.R.E. boss never did anything without a plan.
A wall of shattered windows with tape crossed over them shone in the afternoon sun, their fractures compliments of Austin Rose. Keegan smiled at him. “Good work, Rose.”
He kissed Monica’s forehead. “I should’ve done more.”
Clint whipped around to stare at him, his blue-grey eyes hard. “You went there to save her and you did it on your own, without much support. You killed it.”
The new D.I.R.E. agent had proven himself in more ways than one. Jaydan’s brother had set out to demonstrate his skills and had shown a workhorse.
Pressing back against the wall, Mitchell sprinted down the hallway to the side door he’d entered. He peeked around the corner of the building, toward the barn, the shadows of a guard tower the only cover between him and the red, wooden building.
He remained in place, looking around. “You still with me, Robinson?”
“Yes.” Clint smiled. “You still got it, boss.”
Mitchell’s voice held a note of humor. “Keep sick bay on alert.”
“Is that Mitchell?” Angela walked into the room, her heels echoing on the concrete floor.
They all turned around. Guilt ate at Keegan, knowing they watched Mitchell on a dangerous mission his wife knew nothing about.
“Yes,” Keegan said, as Angela drew close. “He’s at the farm.”
Without the slightest sign of anguish, Angela studied the screen. “Where’s Tristan and the others?”
Silence ensued before Clint spoke low. “He wanted to do a recon before we sent in the team.”
Her round eyes glittered then, as the truth settled into her face. “He went in alone.”
Keegan nodded. “Yes. But, he’s held his own against a trained assassin and two others.” She gave her an encouraging smile. “He’s
quite impressive.”
Angela’s smile was patronizing. “He always has been. He never settled for anything but perfection in himself. He was his own worst critic.”
Mitchell made his way around two buildings before taking the most direct approach across the yard to the back of the barn. Sidling along the west wall, between a large trailer loaded with some type of wooden bench wrapped in chains, he made it to the corner of the building, in plain sight of a small goat herd and anyone that might wander along. Voices could be heard nearby, before the slide of metal against metal, accompanied by the rustle of grass or straw.
“What was that, Monica?” Clint said, his gaze on the screen.
Frowning, she said, “I don’t know. There’s an underground weapons vault behind some wooden doors, but nothing like that.”
“Well, something’s inside there,” Angela stated, with what Keegan had decided was her usual, denigrating tone.
Mitchell moved beside the open barn doors and held out his wrist to capture an image of the interior.
The right side of the barn looked like any other barn, with horse stalls and hay bales and a lone milk cow in the corner.
The left side looked like something out of a Middle Ages torture chamber.
Shock straightened Keegan’s back. A corkboard wall panel contained blades of every shape and size, from small, handheld hatchets to large axes and machetes. The edges of some were stained a dark claret, while others appeared clean and shiny. Small, dark tools she didn’t recognize lay on a black cloth on top of a worktable.
“Is that what I think it is?” Keegan turned to Monica, afraid of her answer.
Her small voice could barely be heard in the otherwise silent room. “Yes.”
A shirtless, middle-aged man walked out from behind a wall, his build muscular and lean. Sweat glistened on his body, his brows furrowed in fixated concentration. He carried some clothing and what looked like body armor in a fist, before throwing it on top of the organized tools with a loud clang. Mitchell’s sharp intake of breath startled her.
“That’s Jim Monroe.” Angela’s shrill voice broke the ominous mood.
“No,” Monica said, turning to her. “That’s J.B. The Madam’s clone.”