Dark of Night (57 page)

And at that final confirmation of her own naive stupidity in dating the man in the first place, Tracy had escaped into the very same ladies’ room to cry.

She'd only been gone for maybe ninety seconds—just long enough to grieve and rage in private and then splash some cool water onto her face. She wasn't wearing any makeup, so there'd been nothing to fix after her tears. She'd come right back out.

She'd thought no one had seen her. Apparently, she was wrong. And now she was going to cry again, for an entirely different reason.

Decker had brought her coffee—and comfort.

“You were conned,” he now reminded her.

“Deck, I slept with this guy,” Tracy said.

“No you didn't,” he said quietly. “You slept with Michael. Who turned out to not be real. That's what you should be upset about. That your perfect man was an act.”

She had to smile at that. “Perfect, except for the part where he moved to Maine. That sucked.”

He smiled, too. “Perfection's overrated, anyway. If he was real, you'd've been bored in a month. No one to argue with.”

“I don't argue. I just sometimes disagree.”

“Vehemently,” he said.

“Passionately,” she corrected him again, and ooh, there it was. That look in his eyes that promised passion, indeed. But they couldn't go there, not here at her reception desk, out in the front lobby, although that was a lovely fantasy. Besides, he was listening—really listening—to her, so she told him the main reason she'd gone into the bathroom to cry.

“I feel as if I let Jimmy and the entire company down,” she admitted. “I was such an easy target. I didn't ask enough questions, I didn't—”

“It didn't matter,” Deck said with that absoluteness that she loved so much. “He would have figured out a way to play you, regardless of that. Don't beat yourself up for something that you didn't have the training to guard against. You're not going to make that same mistake again. And that picture you took? It's been vital.”

She sighed. “I guess. I just keep thinking about Dave.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “I do, too. Bad memories, huh?”

Tracy nodded. “I know what it's like to face this near-certainty that no one's going to find you and …” She knew precisely what it felt like to feel death's inevitable shadow and yet still hope and pray that help was on its way.

“We found you,” Decker told her. “And we're going to find Dave. Weren't you the one who said you had faith?”

She smiled at that. “In
you.”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “It's kind of crazy how much I love hearing you say that.”

Love.

He leaned closer, and speaking of crazy, for several totally insane seconds, Tracy was convinced that Deck was going to kiss her, right there in the front lobby. True, they were alone, but…

“Deck.” It was Jules. “Whoops, sorry, but it's important.”

“No.” Decker straightened up. “I was, um …” He cleared his throat. “What's up?”

“Yashi called,” the FBI agent said. “We've got an address for Gavin Michaelson. And we have good reason to believe that Dave is there.”

Alyssa and Jules didn't have to include him in the decision-making process. But Decker was grateful that they had. He stood with them at the front of the conference room as they laid out their plan—as vague as it was with their limited intel.

Limited intel, and seriously limited manpower.

“Sam will lead the take-down with Decker as his XO,” Alyssa had decided as Decker looked around the table. They had only a single SEAL for this op—Lopez. Cosmo was already gone, and Silverman and Gillman,
who were outside standing guard, were going to leave for the Navy base as soon as this meeting was over. “They'll pick their team after we get there and we have a chance to assess the situation.”

They had only five Troubleshooters—Alyssa, Sam, Decker, Lindsey, and Tess. FBI agent Jules Cassidy—and Lopez—brought their total up to seven.

Two other FBI agents had been working—off record—for Jules, but they were guarding Karen Michaelson, who'd provided the key information as to Dave's whereabouts. They couldn't let her go, or even bring her to the local FBI office—not without the risk that the Agency would get wind of their discovery.

They still didn't know if Agency head Doug Brendon was directly involved, or if Stafford's access to Agency information was something he'd set up, illegally, via their computer system before he'd left.

Whatever the case, it left the TS team completely unable to tap any law enforcement—the FBI or even local police—for additional assistance.

They had to rely on their own limited ranks. And hope that other TS team members, such as Jones, whose plane had yet to land due to morning fog, would eventually arrive, like the cavalry to the rescue.

“Who's staying behind with the civilians?” Lindsey asked. The civilians being the non-operatives, as in Tracy, Jo, and Sophia.

“Oh, no.” Sophia was quiet but certain. “I'm going.”

Alyssa opened her mouth to argue, which was when Deck stepped in.

“Let's take a surveillance van,” he suggested. Their vans had heavy-duty armor. Anyone inside would be safe. “That way no one has to stay behind to stand guard. We've got limited manpower as it is, and we have no idea what kind of army Stafford employs.”

Tess chimed in. “I don't think he's got an army. I think he's working with a small, tight group. Five, six … I've got seven possibles—former Agency operatives who have dropped off the map. Michaelson, by the way, previously worked out of the Agency office in Malaysia. My best guess is that he met Stafford through his connection to Hersek Khosa—the fifteen-million-dollar man.” She reeled in her tendency to distribute unnecessary information. “My point about this is that you can't be invisible, the way Stafford's been for so many years, if you've got a huge army.” Then she immediately countered herself. “But if we get there, and find out I'm wrong … ?”

“We're also not talking about leaving just one operative behind,”
Decker reminded Alyssa and Jules both. “And frankly? Even if we leave two guards back here,
I'm
not going to be comfortable with that. Yeah, we did it earlier with Lopez and Lindsey. But we've been here for hours now and—”

“Excuse me.” Tracy spoke up, ready as usual to argue and even interrupt. “But I don't think you should be worrying about unlikely scenarios. Take Sophia. I'll stay here with Jo. We'll lock the doors—”

“No.” Decker wasn't going to let that happen. “Stafford knows that we're here. It would piss me off royally if we got Dave back—only to lose Tracy or Dr. Heissman. And I do mean
lose.
And I don't believe it's an unlikely scenario. This is the man who blew up the Seaside Heights motel.”

With that, Tracy turned to tell Alyssa, “I agree with Deck—we definitely should come with, in one of the vans.”

Alyssa looked at Tess. “How do we move one of the surveillance vans without broadcasting that fact to Stafford?”

The vans were parked down at the back entrance to the building, where one of the pirated cameras was located.

Tess didn't look happy. “It'll take me, wow, at least forty minutes to find the footage I need to override that camera's signal.”

The plan, as it currently stood, was to leave all of their cars in the front lot, in case one of Stafford's gang did drive-by surveillance.

And as far as electronic surveillance via the pirated signal from the Troubleshooters security cameras, Tess had already used the magic of digital video editing to superimpose footage she'd found in their security archives of the sun rising—and the morning sunlight growing stronger as the fog dissipated—on the completely empty Troubleshooters parking lot, which included a clear shot of the building's main entrance. She'd glued that footage over a Photoshopped-to-include-daylight digital image of all of their vehicles, just sitting there. Stafford and his cohorts would see that and—hopefully—assume they were all still here, scrambling to figure out who'd taken Dave.

Meanwhile, as the camera sent that false information, the Trouble -shooters team would gear up and exit the building—as covertly as possible. They'd also be able to get back inside—undetected—if they needed to.

The plan was to move to the street, where they'd be met by Commander Koehl, who'd engineered the delivery of a passenger van from the base. He'd have his SUV, too.

“So we put the civilians in Koehl's SUV,” Sam suggested. “With luck, it has tinted glass. It's not optimal—”

“I don't like it.” Alyssa turned to Tess.
“Forty
minutes?”

Tess stood up. “It's the sunrise that's killing us. If it were midnight, I'd be set. But the sun's going to come up, and I've got to find footage that fits. A quiet, foggy morning, where all of the vans are in position right where they're currently parked, with no movement in or out of that back door. It's going to take me—”

“Send Lopez out for coffee,” Tracy spoke up again. She turned to the SEAL. “You can walk out the back door—let them see you go, let them watch you get into the van and drive away. The convenience store on the corner is open twenty-four hours; it's where I go when the Starbucks is closed. It'll take you three minutes to get there and back. You don't even need to get coffee—just grab the paper trays and cups and lids. Tell Ronnie, the guy who works the late shift, that you're a friend of mine and that I'll be by later to explain. Then, when you come back here, you can park on the street, out of range of the cameras. Stafford might wonder what you did with the van, but I'd bet his gang's more concerned with knowing where you are. And they'll see you come back in, carrying coffee. One man leaves, one man comes back.”

And they'd have access to that van. Decker nodded. “It's worth the gamble that Stafford doesn't have the manpower to come out to investigate.”

“I agree,” Jules said. He'd been quiet up to this point. “Way to rock it, Tracy.”

Decker nodded to her, too. “Good idea.”

Her smile was beautiful, and as she met Decker's eyes, there it was again. That spark, that warmth, that sense of faith that they
were
going to get Dave back, and then all would be right with the world.

Alyssa nodded at Lopez. “Three minutes. Go.”

Lindsey went, too, to secure the door behind him.

“I want body armor on everyone,” Alyssa announced. “And I mean
everyone.
Let's do it. Someone grab gear for Lopez.”

“Make sure your radio headset works,” Tess chimed in as they headed for the equipment locker, adding, “Double-check it, people.”

Alyssa shouted out assignments. “Lindsey and Tess with Tracy and Jo;
Deck, you've got Sophia. Get 'em into the van as quickly as possible. Lind-sey, I want you driving, Tess shotgun. Deck, catch up to Sam—I want you riding with him.”

Decker could see, over in the corner, that Lindsey was helping Tracy put on a bulletproof vest. As if feeling his eyes on her, Tracy looked up.

Stay in the van,
he told her, speaking clearly so that she could read his lips across the noisy room.

She pretended not to understand, giving him a big questioning face and mouthing,
What?

He shook his head at her. She knew exactly what he'd said.

Tracy smiled at him. And her certainty, her total conviction that they were going to get Dave and bring him home, lit her from within and made her shine. But that wasn't all she brought to the table. She had a resilience, a strength that he more than admired.

She wasn't afraid of him. And if things went south, if they didn't get Dave back, if the day didn't end as it should, Decker knew that Tracy would, without a doubt, wrestle him to the ground and make him process it, and deal with it, and yeah, even cry about it, if he had to. Just as she'd promised she would.

And what he did next was really just a test, to see if she really couldn't understand him. It was done on pure impulse. The words weren't even voiced. He just moved his lips very slightly.

I love you.

Decker wanted to turn away after he said it, because she froze, her eyes huge and almost frightened in her face. And in that moment, he was afraid, too—that maybe
she
would run from
him,
screaming. God knows he would run from himself if he could. But he wasn't a coward, so he made himself stand there and wait for her to respond.

His gift was the sweetest smile he'd ever seen in his entire life. But it was uncertain, as if she didn't quite believe what she'd seen. And she said, again,
What?

So he said it again—the thing that was most important for her to understand:
Stay in the van.

This time she nodded.
I will.

Jules tapped Deck's arm as he went past, startling him. “We're going to need you here, fully focused, Chief,” the FBI agent said. “Is Lopez back?
Because we're going to need medical supplies. I want to bring whatever we need to start IV antibiotics on Dave right away—even before an ambulance arrives.”

Deck knew that they couldn't have an ambulance waiting. Calling one in advance could well tip Stafford off.

“Oh, and someone grab Tracy's laptop,” Jules added, “in case Stafford decides that now's the time he wants to contact us.”

Dave inched his way across the cold concrete of the basement floor, exploring the limited area that he could reach, picking out names for the baby.

Be quiet…. Be quiet. …

He liked Marianne. Marianne Malkoff It sounded like the name of a woman who could become President someday. Of course, he had no idea if the baby truly was a girl. She could be a boy. In which case Marianne wouldn't work as well.

Be quiet. …

He didn't want to do that Dave Junior thing. He knew kids, growing up, who were saddled with their fathers’ names, and it had never seemed quite fair. More than half the time they went running to their mother, only to find out that she was calling their dad instead.

Of course, if their dad were dead? Then it could work.

Dave heard footsteps overhead, and he rolled back to the center of the floor where they'd left him. He closed his eyes, willing himself unconscious.

But it was not to be.

A bucket of water in his face—a refreshing change from having it jammed down his throat—made him gasp and cough.