Suddenly a thought occurred to him. He didn’t really need to secure their release, all he needed was to get Emily free. She was damn good at her job. If anyone could get Kendra to safety, it was her, even with an injured arm and without weapons. Disarming one of the armed men that moved around would be no big deal for her, particularly because she looked so unassuming that it was easy to underestimate her.
Wayne chuckled at the thought of anyone underestimating Emily Silver. She was not a big girl. A little taller than average and stunning. With her beautiful eyes and hair and the slight air of damsel in distress, an opponent would be dead or completely neutralized before they even realized what was happening.
He nodded as the humor slowly faded. He had always been slightly resentful of this part of her. She’d always looked like she needed rescuing, but if anyone had even attempted to rescue her, she would have wasted no time in letting the person know just how capable she was. And she had included Wayne in that list. He had so badly wanted to protect her, but she had never given him the chance to do just that. And he had never fully appreciated just how capable his wife was. Even now, he had come charging in, eager to rescue her.
But Emily did not need a hero. She was a heroine all by herself. What she needed, what she’d always asked for, was a partner. The thought crossed his mind that if he had been a real partner to her seven years ago and had taken her into his confidence, things might have turned out very differently.
He had been such a fool. But no more.
He moved his hand closer to his face without taking his gaze off the females in the other room.
“Change of plans,” he said, speaking into the device and waited.
Drew’s voice responded almost immediately.
“Roger.”
**
8:00 p.m., the Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia
Time was running out and General Carter knew that they had just a little over twenty-four hours to apprehend the renegade Jack Chance and stop the mayhem he had planned without giving in to his demands. Whatever they needed to do had to be done before the convention in D.C.
The door to his office opened and Derek Copeland walked in.
“Any news on Mila Mayer?”
“She came into the country a couple of days back,” Derek replied.
“This is definitely not a coincidence,” Fabian Dakota said.
“Well, she heads the Center for Lethal Autonomous Robots in The Hague, so she would naturally be here for the convention,” Derek said.
“Is there any way we can legally arrest her?” The question came from James D. James.
Derek shook his head. “It’s doubtful. She had as clean record.”
“What if illegally?” General Carter asked. Derek cleared his throat and the general waved his hand, dismissing his own question. “We’ll put someone on her to ensure that we do not lose sight of her. I want to know who she meets, where she goes, when she sleeps and wakes up…every damn thing about her while she’s on United States soil.”
They were working late and the building should have been empty by that time of the night, but most people were working round the clock in an effort to neutralize the recent threat to the country.
“We need to know her connection to Jack Chance.”
“We’re still digging,” Derek said, making a note on his tablet. “We strongly believe, however, that this is solely for commercial gain. There does not seem to be any hidden ideology.”
Greed was also an ideology of its own and could be dangerous. The only advantage greed had was that it was possible to appeal to it, and once there was a better deal on the table, then the chances of success were higher. He did not say this out loud, though. He was not taking any chances. It was clear to him that someone at Homeland Security had sold out. He didn’t know for sure who it was, but it was definitely someone with a high-level security clearance, and he had his suspicions. In this game, General Carter decided to play his cards really close to his chest for the sake of his family who were being held hostage. He was not going to risk their safety for any reason whatsoever.
He glanced at his phone, trying to will it to ring. It remained silent. He needed to hear from Asher Banks. He needed to know what was going on. It was clear that they were going to spend the night at the office. He would not be able to sleep well until he knew Wayne’s family was safe.
“I’m going to call it a night,” Fabian said, rising to his feet. “You coming, Carter?”
“Nah, still got some stuff to go through,” he replied.
“Hold up, Dakota. I’m done here as well,” James said, joining the other man on his feet.
They took their leave, and then it was just Derek remaining in his office. The younger man sat focused on the laptop he had brought in with him earlier, probably peering through records.
At that precise moment, a lot of things were going through the mind of W.D. Carter. He could not get out of his head the compelling eyes that reminded him so strongly of his Stacey. Though she’d been gone over a decade, his memories of her were still fresh in his mind and seeing their only grandchild staring at him so defiantly, the way his wife used to, had brought back memories, making him feel nostalgic.
He didn’t know why seeing Kendra had affected him so strongly, but it had. True, he had seen pictures of her over the years, but nothing had prepared him for the compelling bond he’d felt when he’d met her or the sharp tug in his heart when she’d stared him down.
His granddaughter.
For the first time in his life, he felt like a great, big fool. He had put his passion and dedication to his work before everything else and had lost out of the most important things in life. Worse, he had deliberately endangered the lives of his family.
“With all due respect, Sir, this seems to be eating you up.”
He glanced up to find Derek looking at him with those impassive eyes that saw way too much.
“What are you talking about?” he asked the younger man.
“That’s your son, his wife and your granddaughter out there. It must be eating you up.”
He opened his mouth to give the man a brush off, but instead found himself saying something totally different.
“I only just met her for the first time, you know,” he said thoughtfully.
“When she came to your office.”
His gaze became sharp. “You already knew this.” It was a statement.
“It is my job to know everything,” Derek said.
“Everything?” He raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
“At least that’s what I tell myself every day,” Derek said with a slight smile.
General Carter found himself smiling back.
“Yeah. We tell ourselves several things in the course of our work.”
He had told himself all sorts of things. Looking back now, they seemed more like cop-outs. If anybody had told him that he was so focused on his work as a means of escape, he would have called the person out. At pathetic as it seemed now, facing the tension and crises from work was easier than facing the emotions that personal relationships elicited. Stacey had tried so hard to get him to connect more and even though he’d loved her with everything in him, it had not been enough because he did not even have the courage to let her know how much she meant to him. And after her death? He had retreated further and focused completely on work.
“This line of work has the capacity to consume you,” he said to Derek. “But if I can give you one piece of advice, son, it’s to make sure you live your life.”
“Work is my life, Sir.” Derek said in a matter-of-fact way.
“When you get to my age, you will discover that it’s a half-assed sort of life. Don’t ever neglect the people you love because of work. That would be a damn shame because when the work is no longer there, the people will be.”
When this was over, he was going to try damn hard to build a relationship with his son’s family. It wasn’t going to be easy, but he was damn well going to try.
>
“Mila Mayer just booked a flight for Dodge City, Kansas,” Derek said.
“When is the flight?”
“Later tonight.”
General Carter picked up his phone and made a call.
“Send some people to Dodge City. I’ll send you the details. Have them in position but do not move until my orders. There are hostages involved. Treat as critical.” Then in a softer voice he added, “It’s my family that’s being held hostage.”
He ended the call then swung his gaze to Derek, who had a frown on his face.
“What’s the matter?”
Derek lifted worried eyes to the older man. “She knows she’s being followed and is trying to shake off our man.
On hearing the words, he went still. That was not a good sign. It wasn’t a good sign at all.
“That’s not good.”
“It’s worse,” Derek said. “She got a phone call and that’s when she began acting funny.”
“There’s a mole.”
“Absolutely.”
“We need to flush that person out ASAP.” This just confirmed his suspicions. It had been obvious almost from the start that there was a mole, but he’d had no way of identifying just who that person was. Clearly, someone had been giving out information to the other side and whoever it was had top-level security clearance.
“I’m on it, Sir. We’ll get the person.”
W.D. Carter carefully did a mental scan of each member of the Homeland Security team. There was no one with any reason to turn traitor. They were each people of solid character. But he was experienced enough to know that people were exceptionally good at presenting only what they wanted you to see. It was his job to dig beneath the surface and it looked like he would need to carry out some extra digging. Whoever it was, they would get to the bottom of it.
Chapter Twenty
He got off the phone with the woman, then sat staring into the dimly lit parking area reserved for the top brass of the Pentagon. Things were going according to plan, but there was still so much that could go wrong, especially when Wayne Carter and Emily Silver were brought together. He wished there had been another way to reach his goals without putting those two on the same side. The Shadow Force was as deadly as they came, but Emily Silver’s Silver Shield Security team was rapidly gaining a reputation for delivering on a job. No matter how deadly it was, they always found a way to keep their target safe.
In this instance, the target was their daughter.
Just then his phone rang. He glanced at the screen, no caller ID. With a slight frown he placed it to his ear and waited.
“Who is this?”
“Chance.”
The man went still. “How did you get this number?”
“Forget that.”
The man drummed his fingers on the passenger seat. He had heard about Jack Chance…he had been there during the video call. But he had never had direct contact with the bastard for obvious reasons.
“What do you want?” Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
“I don’t want to deal with a middleman.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Mila Mayer.”
The words were spoken softly, but he could hear the barely concealed menace beneath them. Still, he needed to be sure that he correctly understood what the man was saying.
“Explain yourself,” he barked into the phone. He was not in the mood for bullshit.
“We settled for a certain amount as my fee, but I’ve been thinking.”
“Go ahead,” he said softly although he already had a good idea about where this was headed.
“You see, with the woman out of the way, I figured that I no longer have to settle for such a meager amount. I can do better.”
“How much are we talking about?”
“I’m thinking three times what is currently billed to come to me.”
Three times! The greed was astounding.
“You must be joking.”
“Do I sound like I’m joking?”
“Go to hell.” There was no way the greedy bastard was going to get a cent above what was initially agreed upon.
“Don’t be in such a hurry to dispatch me just yet.”
“You have nothing to say that I’m interested in hearing.”
“Really?” The word was drawn out and it struck a chill in his spine. “How is Evie these days? She must be enjoying the little sports car you got for her, right?
The man felt a combination of fury and frustration flow through his veins as Jack spoke. Evie was his life, his purpose for being. He could not afford for anything to happen to her. Just thinking about it was devastating.
“How do you know about Evie?”
There was a soft laugh. “Don’t underestimate me.”
“If you lay one finger on her, I will rip you to sheds!”
“Do you really think you can protect her from me?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He could feel himself trembling, whether it was from anger of from fear was what he couldn’t say.
“You seem to have forgotten one minor detail. Let me refresh your memory. I am the one currently in possession of CID. I can program CID to go anywhere, find anyone. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“What do you want?” he asked, his tone even without a trace of the emotions running through him.
“She’s on her way to Kansas.”
“So?”
“Fix it so she never gets here.”
“You are a damn son of a bitch.” How could a person be so cold? Mila had been the one to bring him in on the operation. She had scouted and recruited him, but that did not seem to stop him from turning against her.
“Save the compliments. I’ll be watching the news and I will be paying particular attention to the headlines.”
The line went dead.
He dropped the phone on the empty passenger seat and stared into the darkness. Things were getting complicated, but complications were to be expected. He had not foreseen this angle. Sure, he had expected to be double crossed, but he had thought it would come from Mila. Deliberately, he’d made sure that he had never had any contact with Jack Chance. As far as he knew, the boy should not have known about his existence. And yet he not only knew about him and how to contact him, he also knew about Evie.
That was scariest thing.
Seated in that car, he thought about his life. He had been through a lot of untenable situations in his life. He had been on the warfront. But the chill that ran through his spine when he thought about what could happen to Evie was unprecedented. However, he was not without resources. He was prepared.
He snatched up the phone and pressed one of the three numbers on speed dial. He waited till the line was picked up at the other side and said just two words.
“Code red.”
The person at the other end of the line got the message and quietly cut the call. There was no need for words. A series of actions had been set into motion.
He had one more call he needed to make. He ran his thumb over the screen of his phone. He did not know why he hesitated. In every war there was bound to be collateral damage and sometimes, the loss was not only from the other side. If he was going to win this, he would need to make the sacrifice. Still, he hesitated.
Then with a muffled curse he made the call.
Once he was done he turned on the car and placed it in drive. As he pulled out of the parking area and hit the highway for the short drive back to Washington D.C., he glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was almost ten p.m. He would be in D.C. before ten-thirty p.m., but he knew it would be hours before he got to his house. He had a lot of things to sort out and there were only a few hours before the inevitable meeting at the Oval Office the next day.
That office was always a reminder of everything he’d lost and all he still stood to lose. Sitting through a meeting there was always torture, but he did it. He sat through all the countless meetings that were unavo
idable. And the one taking place the next day would not be an exception. He had signed up for it and the president would be expecting him. But more than that, however, he needed access to intelligence and attending those meetings meant access to classified documents. That way, he could always remain a step ahead.
**
Tuesday, 7:00 a.m., Washington D.C.
“Welcome aboard, Ms. Mayer. We sincerely apologize for the delay. Hope you enjoy your trip.”
Mila smiled absently at the handsome pilot who welcomed her into the Phenom jet. His name tag said Travis Smith.
She took in the luxurious interior with a sigh of satisfaction. She was in a hurry. She needed to get to Kansas as soon as possible and had not appreciated the fifteen-minute delay. However, the jet more than made up for it. It was many times better than the one she had booked.
Settling into the lushness of the seats, she pulled out her phone and dialed the number she’d been trying throughout that day.
“Why isn’t he picking up my calls?” she muttered through gritted teeth. “If I find out that it’s because he’s with that damn technician I’m going to shoot off his balls.”
Damn Jack Chance!
If he wasn’t such an essential part of this operation she would have gotten rid of him a long time ago. The jerk was too damn arrogant. And he should not think that she hadn’t noticed his growing affection for the insipid woman.
With a sigh, she looked out the window as the plane taxied down the small runway and took off. Looking at her surroundings, Mila knew that she had come a long way and it had only been through sheer grit, vaulting ambition and hard work.
Silver Shield Security Box Set Page 118