Dark Deceptions (18 page)

“He’s fine. I think he’s more worried about you than anything else. That was some leap the two of you took.”

“We had a little help,” Nash said, reaching down to lift her up. “For the first time in my life I think I really understand
the concept of the booster rocket.”

“So where is he?” she asked, leaning against Nash for support.

“Don’t worry. He’s with Tyler and Emmett.”

“Famous last words,” Nash quipped as they slowly limped forward. “But I guess that means reinforcements arrived.”

“Yeah. A little late if you ask me,” Drake said, tipping his head toward the group huddled in front of a couple of SUVs. “If
for no other reason than they missed all the fun.”

“I can think of better ways to spend an afternoon,” Annie said, searching the assembled group for signs of her son.

“Mom,” Adam cried, breaking into a dead run at the sight of her.

“Careful,” Nash said, catching his shoulders as he tried to throw himself at his mother. “You’ve got to be gentle. She’s got
some battle wounds.”

“From flying,” Adam said, his voice quavering. “I saw you both.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Annie said, reaching for her son. “I’m all right. And besides, you know I’d never turn down a hug from you.”

Over her shoulder, she mouthed the words
thank you
as Adam nestled his head against her waist. There really weren’t words to express her gratitude toward Nash—toward all of
A-Tac. They’d given her back her son.

The nightmare was over.

She released Adam, the two of them turning to head for the cars at the end of the drive. But as she lifted her foot to move
forward, an alarm sounded in her head, her body sensing what she could neither see nor hear.

“Get down,” Nash yelled, already diving forward, his big body sending them crashing to the ground. Behind her, Annie heard
the bullet splintering wood as it embedded itself in a tree directly behind where they’d been standing, the ricochet echoing
through the suddenly quiet farmyard.

Drake and the others, instantly on alert, moved in the direction of the sniper, guns drawn. But the woods stayed silent.

“You okay?” Annie asked, searching her son’s face for signs that he’d been injured.

“I think so.” He nodded, his voice a whisper, his eyes as round as saucers. “Is the bad man out there?” He shot a look at
the woods, his mouth trembling.

“It’s all right,” Nash said, his mouth tight with anger, as he searched the tree line for signs of danger. “No one is going
to hurt you.”

As if to mock his words, Rivon’s phone vibrated against Annie’s thigh. In all the excitement, she’d forgotten it was in her
pocket. Careful not to alarm Adam, she pulled the cell free, flipping it open as her gaze met Nash’s.

He nodded, and she forced herself to talk. “Gallagher.”

“Consider that a warning,” the disembodied voice said, the sound sending a shiver of dread racing down her spine. “I can get
to you any place—any time. So enjoy this moment with your son because, I promise you, unless you complete your end of our
bargain, it isn’t going to last.”

She opened her mouth to argue, to tell him exactly where he could put his threats, but her effort was wasted—the line had
gone dead.

The cold wind howled as it moved through the wreckage of the farmhouse, the wailing monotone underscoring the fact that she’d
been wrong. The nightmare wasn’t over—it had only just begun.

A
ll right, people,” Avery said, his voice carrying over the chatter in the room, “settle down.”

Nash pulled up a chair, straddling it, as the rest of the team found seats in the war room. Avery had called everyone back
to Sunderland for debriefing, dispatching a forensics team to secure the scene. Annie, much to her frustration, had been sent
to medical along with Adam, with Lara assigned to check them both out and keep watch. Annie hadn’t been thrilled at being
left out of the briefing, but Avery hadn’t been interested in her arguments.

In light of everything that had happened, Nash was conflicted about Avery’s decision to keep Annie out of the loop. To some
extent, at least, she deserved to be in on their findings. But that didn’t negate the fact that she remained a wild card,
and that the only thing stopping her from taking matters into her own hands was being sequestered here at Sunderland.

Avery was just doing his job.

“So someone want to tell me what went wrong out there?” Avery asked, his tone probing.

“A hell of a lot went right,” Drake protested. “We rescued the kid.”

“True.” Avery nodded, his expression resolute. “But you and Nash almost got killed, and the farmhouse was blown to smithereens.
Not to mention the sniper and the phone call. So humor me and let’s start at the first sign of trouble. Why did we lose satellite
communication?”

“It wasn’t my system,” Emmett said. “I ran every conceivable diagnostics program and everything checked out.”

“You said the same thing about the communications failure in Southeast Asia,” Nash reminded him.

“Yeah, well this is different. In Southeast Asia, the whole system went down. This time it was interference. And there’s no
way we were the source.”

“I can vouch for that,” Hannah said. “The interference was definitely external. Which means that either they tapped into our
communications and jammed us, or there was some kind of satellite snafu.”

“Any way to know for sure?” Avery asked.

“Not at this point.” Emmett shook his head. “There are feedback reports filed on all our satellites, but the data isn’t available
in real time. Anyway, considering there was no way to verify the source, Hannah and Jason followed the proper protocol. They
went dark at the first evidence of trouble.”

“If the kidnappers were jamming us, it wasn’t from the farmhouse,” Nash said. “I didn’t see any kind of satellite linkup.
Did they find anything on the bodies?”

“A couple of short-range two-way radios and a cell phone,” Emmett said. “I’ve got people pulling information off them now.
But nothing that could account for the interference.”

“Well, I’m not sure it’s relevant now other than as part of the postmortem,” Avery observed. “But I want all the systems double-checked
again. Never hurts to be overly cautious.”

Emmett nodded, making a notation in his BlackBerry.

“Which brings us to the weapons malfunction.” Avery looked down at the paper he held in his hand. “Nash, you said that the
firing mechanism jammed.”

“Yeah, although it shouldn’t have. I’ve turned it over to ballistics. They should be able to identify the source of the problem.
But I can tell you one thing for certain, it wasn’t me. I always make it a point to clean my guns after I use them. And I
always check everything before going into a mission.”

“Anyone else have an opportunity to handle it?”

“No one…” he trailed off, an ugly thought filling his head.

“What?”

“It’s nothing,” he said, regretting he’d said anything out loud. “Really. Just that the gun was in the bag with the other
gear for the operation. And I gave it to Annie.”

“But Annie had more reason than anyone to want us to succeed,” Drake said. “Doesn’t make sense that she’d try to sabotage
things.”

“And besides,” Nash said, his brain still turning over the idea, “Annie saved our asses. Hell, guns jam all the time. It was
probably just an accident.”

“We’ll wait to see what ballistics has to say.” Avery nodded. “And in the meantime, everybody be extra-careful about checking
weapons. Tyler, where are we with the bomb?”

“Still a ways to go. But we’ll know more once my team sifts through the rubble.” She hit a button and the screen was filled
with a shot of the explosion, the scattered debris underscoring the reality of how close they’d come to getting blown to bits.
“We know that the epicenter of the explosion was the dining room.”

“Which is perfect placement for taking out the whole house,” Drake said.

“And everything else in the vicinity.” Tyler switched to a second photograph. “This is the device Nash found on Rivon. It’s
definitely the trigger. A remote one at that. Which seems to support the supposition that Rivon triggered it by accident.
Or maybe after Annie shot him. He’d have known it was over. And taking out the compound is a hell of an endgame.”

“I’d agree with that,” Hannah mused, studying the photograph. “Rivon doesn’t really strike me as the type to sacrifice himself
unless there were no alternatives.”

“Well, it definitely fits the MO of a religious zealot,” Drake said, “but I agree, not Rivon. He was definitely more about
self-preservation than self-sacrifice.”

“I don’t think the idea was to blow himself up.” Avery frowned. “I think it was more about destroying evidence once the operation
had played through.”

“You don’t think they were planning to release Adam.” Jason leaned back in his chair, his expression grim.

“Doesn’t follow with the facts.” Avery shook his head. “There appeared to be no attempt to hide their identities. And if he’d
seen them all, then he could identify them.”

“Which means they had to take him out.” Drake’s eyes narrowed as he considered the idea. “My guess is that after Annie took
out Dominico—”

“Assuming she’d have actually gone through with it,” Nash interrupted, anger flashing.

“Don’t kid yourself, Nash. I’ve seen her in action. If she thought her kid’s life depended on it—she’d have done it.” Drake
shrugged, apologetically. “Anyway, the point is, I think they were planning to take out Annie, the kid, and any evidence,
all in one fell swoop.”

“We just got in the way. And then when Annie shot him, Rivon triggered the bomb.”

“But what was he doing with it in the first place? I mean, where was the guy in charge?” Emmett asked. “The one who called
Annie?”

“Maybe he was on his way. Or maybe there was going to be some kind of remote contact,” Hannah said. “There’s really no way
to know for sure.”

“So what else do we have?” Avery asked, bringing everyone’s attention back to Tyler.

“As I said, there isn’t much. It’s still early. But on first pass, I did find three frags from the bomb. I’ll need to run
tests to make definitive conclusions, but there are a few things I can be fairly certain of, one being that the bomb wasn’t
of Arabic design. Particularly not something I’d have expected from Ashad. They’re fond of duct tape and homemade pipe bombs.
This was far more sophisticated.”

“But you said you only had fragments,” Hannah said. “How can you tell so much from so little?”

Tyler smiled, clearly in her element. “It’s amazing how much you can discern if you know what you’re looking for. One of the
pieces we found was the corner of a circuit board. Probably part of the electrical detonator on the bomb itself. It’s far
more advanced than the kind of thing Ashad usually uses. Plus at least two of the components were American made.”

“So maybe they used locals,” Avery said.

“Anything’s possible.” She shrugged. “But if I had to call it, I’d say Ashad wasn’t behind the bomb.”

“What about the prisoner?” Avery asked. “He said anything?”

“I interrogated him,” Drake said. “But he isn’t exactly a font of information.”

“Maybe we need to turn things up a notch,” Emmett suggested.

“Not the problem.” Drake shook his head. “He’s just not part of the inner circle. Says Rivon hired them to watch over the
kid. Didn’t know about the kidnapping or that there was a bomb. Scared the shit out of him when the thing blew. Anyway, his
name is Eduardo Montez. Basically just a thug for hire. He’s worked for Rivon before.”

“Fingerprints verify his ID,” Hannah confirmed. “He’s got a jacket as long as my arm. Armed robbery, assault, and trafficking
stolen goods. But nothing political.”

“What about the dead men?”

“Same thing. Lowlifes with a record for penny-ante stuff. Nothing that would flag them as working with terrorists. And certainly
nothing international.”

“Hired guns?” Jason queried.

“Maybe.” Hannah shrugged. “But if I were smart enough to get to Annie to take out a key government official, it seems to me
that I’d be able to pull in higher-level people for the operation. Mercenaries at the very least. Like Drake said, these guys
were just thugs.”

“So how is that different from most terrorists?” Emmett asked.

“It’s not. I mean, you’re right, most terrorists are thugs,” Hannah admitted. “But usually there are commonalities. Ideology
if nothing else. And at least with the dead guys we’ve got nothing connecting them to each other. They’re from different parts
of the country. They’ve all got varied backgrounds. And none of them has ever done anything that could remotely be considered
extremist behavior.”

“I’m assuming they’re all Americans?” Avery asked.

“Yes.” Hannah nodded. “As I said, with long records. But nothing that makes me think there’s a link to Ashad. Or to Rivon,
for that matter.”

“And we’ve got nothing on the shooter?”

“No.” Tyler shook her head. “Of course we’ll go over it again. But whoever it was, they knew what they were doing. We worked
off trajectory and covered the immediate area where the sniper would have been but there was nothing.”

“How the hell did he get past you, anyway?” Avery’s expression was thunderous.

“There wasn’t time to cordon off the area. The explosion happened just as we got there, and our attention was on making sure
that Nash and Drake came out of it alive. Not to mention Annie and her son.”

“We’ve got people canvassing the area now. Maybe someone nearby saw something,” Emmett said. “The area’s pretty deserted,
but there’s a trailer park about a half mile away. And another farmhouse about a mile to the east.”

“So what about the kidnapper’s threat?” Avery said. “Anything there that might give us a clue to who this guy is?”

“Nada,” Jason said, shaking his head. “Annie gave me the transcript. Which you all have a copy of. There was no time to do
a trace, and nothing in his words to give us anything to go on except that he obviously still expects Annie to do something.
His exact words were ‘complete your end of our bargain.’”