Forged in Fire (23 page)

The storage facility made a perfect rendezvous point. The place was ringed with steel units, which shielded the interior from outside eyes. While the owner claimed the property was protected by state-of-the-art security, in truth, the only protection offered was the fence surrounding it. The video cameras so visible throughout the interior were nothing more than shells, meant to convince the patrons their valuables were being watched over. None of the cameras actually worked. Which suited Russ fine, as did the facility’s seclusion.

The space he’d rented was at the very back, which meant he had to pass all ten rows of units. By the time his SUV rounded the last corner and crunched its way down the gravel lane, he knew the place was empty.

As expected.

Also, as expected, a green four-door sedan blocked the driveway in front of him. Two of his crew members leaned against the trunk. Willie, the one on the left, tossed down the glowing butt of a cigarette. The back seat of the sedan was empty.

A spurt of frustrated fury heated his veins. Was it too much to ask that one thing go right today? Just one fucking thing?

He stomped on the Expedition’s brake and shoved the gearshift into park. Without Marion Simcosky, he had no way of forcing SEAL Team 7 to hand over Chastain’s family.

Without Chastain’s wife and kids, he had no leverage with which to force Mr. Fucking Agent-in-Charge to hand over the passengers on the bosses’ ‘must have’ list.

Which meant his neck was on the fucking chopping block.

The barrel of the Smith & Wesson dug into his spine as his feet hit the gravel.

Maybe it was time to distance himself from this mess. He had enough money squirreled away to last him, Jilly and the kids a good long time. They could hole up somewhere. Wait things out.

The unanswered calls to Jilly flitted through his mind, and his heart skipped a beat.

“Marion Simcosky better be in that trunk,” he said.

The two incompetent assholes glanced at each other, all superior and smug. Exactly the kind of attitude that got a person in trouble.

Willie straightened from his slouch. “We had some trouble—”

Enough with the excuses
. Russ reached back, palmed the Smith & Wesson, and in one smooth move, he nailed the motherfucker right between the eyes.

As the body teetered and fell backwards onto the trunk, his second man jerked upright.“Are you a fucking moron?” Russ snapped as the asshole’s hand dived beneath his bomber jacket. “You’ll be dead before you can draw the damn thing.”

The guy froze, and withdrew his hand in slow motion.

“Good choice. Now let’s try this again. Where the fuck is Marion Simcosky?”

Flat, cautious eyes moved from Russ’s gun, up to his face. “We didn’t get a chance to grab her. She had a visitor.”

“You had MP5s. There were two of you. Unless her visitor was ST7, you aren’t doing yourself any favors.”

“The other woman was looking out the window when I came around the corner. She saw me. It gave them time to run.”

The news gave Russ pause. His finger loosened on the trigger. “What did she look like?”

“How ‘bout you point that thing somewhere else and we’ll talk about her?”

That was the whole problem with alpha personalities; they were constantly trying to take charge. Russ dropped the barrel of the gun and pulled the trigger. The round plowed into the bastard’s right shoulder. He dropped the barrel again, this time shattering his right hand and waited for the screaming to stop.

“How about we talk about her now?” he asked affably as the shrieks diminished to throaty moans. “What did this other woman look like?”

Blood welled between the fingers the driver had clamped over his shattered right hand. He ungritted his jaw long enough to force the description out. “Blond. Slender. Late twenties.”

Ah, Miss Beth Brown.

Of course they’d drop her at Marion Simcosky’s house. Winters would want her someplace safe while they fucked up Russ’s operation. As the widow of a cop and the mother of a SEAL, Mrs. Simcosky probably had weapons stashed all over the place. “Thank you.” Russ smiled. “You’ve been most helpful.”

He shifted the muzzle toward the bastard’s sternum, and squeezed the trigger. The guy dropped like a saturated log, dead before he hit the gravel.

Russ backtracked to the SUV and pulled a pair of leather driving gloves from the glove compartment. He popped the trunk on the sedan and carefully heaved the bodies inside, making sure he didn’t smear himself with blood in the process. After parking the sedan in the rental space, he kicked a mound of gravel over the pools of blood.

No sense in advertising what had happened here. The bodies would alert people soon enough. It might take a couple of days, but someone would eventually question the smell. Decomposing flesh left a pungent calling card. But he’d be long gone by then. He’d leased the unit under Russ Branson and as of this moment, Branson no longer existed.

He’d never abandoned a mission before, but this disaster had all the earmarks of a massive clusterfuck. His hostages had to be free. If Tyler had saved the day, he would have heard from him by now.

Which meant he’d lost all but one of the cogs he’d set in place. And the one FBI agent still in place was a psychotic powder keg on the verge of blowing. Besides, without Chastain, the man was of no use to him. He wasn’t high enough up the food chain to step into Chastain’s position and transfer those fucking passengers over. It was time to cut and run. He’d have to start over, but he’d done it before. He could do it again.

He’d have to be very careful, though. The bastards he worked for had long memories and held nasty grudges.

He climbed in the SUV, picked up the phone and highlighted Jilly’s number again. His sister was not going to be happy with him. In fact, he suspected the adjectives most likely to describe her reaction to his news would be “seriously pissed.”

This time the call was picked up immediately. He breathed a sigh of relief.

“Hello, Russell Remburg.”

The relief was short-lived. The voice was not his sister’s. Every muscle in Russ’s body spasmed. His stomach plummeted and tightened in dread.

“Manheim.” He said tightly. “Where’s Jilly?”

“Your twin is fine.” A cold pause chilled the line. “For now. You seemed quite concerned over her. Six calls in just over an hour?” A
tsk-tsk
echoed. “It’s best you concentrate on the matter we hired you for. We’ll keep an eye on your sister.”

Russ unlocked his jaw. “I want to talk to her.”

“That wouldn’t be advisable. We wouldn’t want to upset you.”

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

Russ took a shallow, raw breath. “I’m warning you, Manheim, if you hurt her, if you hurt any of them—”

“You, of all people, should know how useless such threats are. Let’s dispense with them, shall we? We want what you promised. Once we have it, you’ll get your sister and her family back—minus one of the children.”

The line went dead.

Jesus. Jesus
.

Russ’s hand went numb. He dropped the phone.

Minus one of the children?
Had those fucking bastards killed one of the kids? Which child? Which one had they taken from him? Little Lizzy with her mischievous, toothy grin? Wes, more solemn, but the spitting image of what he’d looked like as a child? Brianna and her bossy mothering? Collin with—Russ forced the march of faces and names aside. He couldn’t afford the distraction. And he sure as fuck couldn’t afford this panic.

He scrubbed shaking hands down his face and held his breath, forcing the panic deep. There was nothing he could do about what had already taken place. But to stop it from happening again, he had to get hold of those fucking passengers.

His mind circled back to Chastain’s family. Considering the ordeal the women had survived, they’d take them to a hospital. But which one?

He frowned, letting the question roll around in his mind. There would have been casualties, too. As good as those four SEALs were, they’d gone up against trained professionals armed with MP5s. Someone would have taken lead. So while the women could have been taken anywhere, serious injuries would be rushed to the nearest emergency room. Odds were good that they’d take the hostages with them.

He snatched his phone off the floor and did a Google search for the closest E.R. to his Enumclaw setup. Google identified the hospital as Sacred Hearts. He called the number listed for information and hit paydirt with the first person he talked to.

Two gunshot victims had been admitted within the last hour.

Okay, so he had a starting point to salvage something from this fucking mess. He just needed to infiltrate Sacred Hearts and grab Amy Chastain. He could still manage this. Still get his hands on those passengers the bosses were so twitchy about.

Unless… unless that unstable bastard shadowing Chastain moved too early. Hell, if he took Chastain out, Russ would lose any chance of getting Jilly and the kids back alive. Sweating, he called the intermediary number and hung up. The agent would call back as soon as he freed some time, which happened to be five minutes later.

“What the hell’s going on?” his contact snapped. “Chastain’s getting nosy. We need to move on him now.”

“Negative,” Russ stressed, sharply. “We still need him. He is not to be taken out yet. Do you understand?”

The breathing on the other end of the line turned choppy. “Amy Chastain?”

Russ’s fingers cramped around the phone. He drew a careful breath. “There’s a possibility she’s been freed.”

Silence descended. No breathing. Nothing.

“Her kids?”

Russ ran a rigid hand over his heart. “I don’t know.”

“You promised—” The tone climbed. Broke in mid-pitch.

The guy’s tone sent a chill down Russ’s spine. “I have every intention of keeping my promise.”

“If you kept your promises, they’d be dead.”

The dial tone buzzed.

Shit
.

Russ dialed the intermediary number again, his heart rattling the insides of his ribcage. To trust his sister’s life, the lives of his nieces and nephews to that maniac….

Maybe he should head back to the airport. Put a bullet in the freak’s brain. To demand the lives of innocent children in order to satisfy some perverted sense of retribution…. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to take the sick bastard out. But then he didn’t need to actually kill the guy, did he? Exposing him would work just as well. Without hesitation, he highlighted Chastain’s phone number.

The call went straight to voicemail.

Chapter Seventeen

For one long moment after Amy hung up, John Chastain simply sat there, the phone still clutched in his hand. The feel of the plastic grounded him, centered him, proved to him the conversation hadn’t taken place in some wistful fantasy.

Amy really was free. The boys… alive.

Except, it didn’t feel real. It felt foggy and insubstantial. Dream-like. He waited for the relief to hit, a shot of euphoria, but nothing stirred within the leaden weight of his chest.

Over the past week, he’d imagined every possible scenario in the rescuing of his family. Or so he’d thought. What he hadn’t imagined was getting the news over the phone, miles away, unable to touch them, to verify with his own skin and eyes that the nightmare really was over.

When his lungs started burning, he realized he’d been holding his breath; as though exhaling might pop the bubble and he’d find himself awake. The rescue no more than a dream. His life still stolen from him.

That first inhalation singed his throat, but the second came easier. Slowly, emotion inundated the numbness. But the feeling wasn’t one he’d expected. He’d expected joy, relief, thankfulness. Instead, shame spread through him. It burst from his heart and spread out in ripples.

He’d failed them. Everyone. Amy. The boys. The agency. All the passengers on that fucked-up flight. He’d failed every last one of them.

His mind skittered to that video … skittered away again.

What they’d done to her. Amy. His beautiful, strong Amy. What he’d let them do to her.

A thick, hot pressure clotted in his chest.

He’d failed his second wife, his second family, his second chance at happiness, as terribly as he’d failed his first.

As his neck bent, his burning eyes fell on a piece of paper lying on the mahogany desk. A list of names. Seven first-class passengers. John frowned and dragged the paper closer. What the hell was so important about these seven people that someone would go to the trouble of hijacking an entire plane to get hold of them? It would have been easier to kidnap them individually. Why try to take the whole plane? Why kidnap families to perpetuate the hijacking?

From the intel he’d gathered, the seven passengers were scientists on their way to Hawaii to present their research at Dynamic Enterprises’ annual show and tell in the hope of procuring funding. Information on the exact nature of their research was sketchy. Something to do with cutting-edge technology. Nanotechnology, to be specific.

With a shake of his head, he pushed the list of names aside. No doubt somebody would contact Dynamic Enterprises, but it wouldn’t be him. As of this moment, he was off the case.His fingers were steady as he highlighted the phone number for the director of the West Coast division of the FBI. When the guard dog who manned the secretarial desk refused to patch him through, he broke in with the emergency code. Seconds later, he was explaining the exact nature of the emergency to his silent superior.

“Why the
hell
didn’t you come to me with this when they were first taken?” a tight voice asked.

John thought back to the beginning, to his attempt to contact his director. In a concise, flat voice he brought his superior up to date.

Absolute silence greeted the account. Then— “How many? How many on your team are compromised?”

“I don’t know. But he knew what I was doing, where I was at, who I was with. Someone is passing along the intel. Someone on the inside.”

Swearing echoed down the line. “Goddamn it, John. You should have come to me immediately.”

Except, he had. And look how well that had turned out. He held his tongue.“When’s the last time this bastard made contact?”

“When he sent the list of names.” John thought back to the unknown number flashing across his caller ID. “He’s called several times since. I’ve been stalling.”

More silence. “These seven passengers. Who’s with them now?”

“All the passengers, with the exception of Beth Brown and the three from HQ1, have been quarantined. The seven from the list included. DHS is wading through them.”

“What about your team?”

“They’re conducting interviews.”

“Pull them off. Who’s in charge of the DHS team?”

“Michael Brita.” John rattled off the agent’s phone number.

“Is his team compromised?”

“I don’t know.” He waited, listening to the heavy breathing on the other end of the line. “I’ll turn in my badge and weapon after I see Amy and the boys.”

Tense silence pulsed down the line.

“These frogs, can they be counted on to keep their mouths shut?”

John straightened in his chair. “This can’t be swept under the carpet.”

A terse snort. “The hell it can’t. Damned if I’m going to sit back and do
nothing
while one of my best agents gets railroaded into early retirement—or worse—because of some scum-sucking, blackmailing son of a bitch. If those frogs will keep their traps shut, we can spin this how we want. Present it as though we’d played it by the book, but held the cards tight to our chests because of suspicions about the rest of the team.” A long tense pause followed. “You don’t need to go down for this.”

John was surprised by his lack of relief, but then, keeping his job wasn’t his top priority. “I need to get to Amy. The boys.” His voice broke.

“Go,” the director said. “The chief of the Enumclaw station is an old Army buddy. I’ll ask him to route some guard dogs to the hospital. And John? I know you. Keep that damn honor in check. You don’t need to burn for this. Let me handle damage control.”

Honor? He swallowed a bitter laugh as he disconnected the call. There had been no honor in what he’d done, in what he’d let happen. His mind jerked back to the video, to his beautiful Amy, bruised and spread and helpless. How was he going to look her in the eyes knowing how horribly he’d failed her?

How were they going to get through this, past it, emerge whole on the other side?

Amy was a strong woman. The strongest he’d ever known. She’d had to be to drag him out of that soul-sucking pit she’d found him in. To ignore his brusqueness and self-pity and drag him back into the land of the living. But was Amy strong enough to get past this? Was she strong enough to forgive him? To give him another chance?

He scrubbed shaking hands down his face and rose to his feet. He wouldn’t find out by cowering in his chair. She’d fought for him once. It was time to step up and fight for her. He’d make it crystal clear that what those bastards had done didn’t affect his feelings for her. He’d help her work through the aftermath. Those bastards had taken enough from them. He wasn’t letting them take one second of their future.

With new purpose, he headed for the door. He needed a vehicle since he’d loaned his car to Mackenzie. He rang his second in command, and ordered the immediate relinquishment of the investigation to Homeland Security.

Shocked objections spilled down the line. Chastain broke in. “The director’s informing Brita now. It’s done. Pass along anything pertinent and pull out.” He dragged open the office door and headed down the hall. “I need your car. Meet me at the escalator with the keys.” He hung up on a second round of objections.

He’d just passed a partially open door with an
Authorized Personnel Only
placard when a sharp, minty whiff of cologne drifted over to him. Men’s cologne. He frowned, already turning, the familiarity of that aftershave raising questions. But before caution had a chance to prickle, a body closed in behind him, and an arm snaked around his neck.

John reacted instantly, instinctively—his elbow slammed back, connecting with muscle. He heard a grunt. And then icy agony exploded in his back, swept through his ribcage and settled in his chest.

He tried to scream. Only a wet burble emerged. He tried to struggle, but couldn’t move.

Hard arms dragged him backwards. A door slammed. A sucking sound, tied to a wrenching tug in his back and another whirlpool of agony.

A knife. It had to be a knife.

Another vicious, breath-stealing stab.

More sucking sounds. Another stab. Only this time John didn’t feel it. Strong arms eased him to the floor.

Through fading vision he recognized the face leaning over him. Recognized the blue eyes watching with cold satisfaction. The gleam of the red hair. Those same eyes had smiled across the dinner table more times than he could count. The same hand casually wiping the knife on John’s suit jacket had cradled Brendan as a child. Of all the names, of all the people he’d ran through his mind, this one hadn’t even made the list.

“Why?” He wasn’t sure if he spoke the word aloud.

“You know why.” Blue eyes watched him clinically. “You took everything from me. I’m taking it back.”

John’s vision went dark. “Take? What did I…?”

Was that his voice? So weak. So shallow. So breathless.

“For starters, how about that promotion?”

A promotion? This was about a job?

“And then there’s Amy. You should have left her alone, John.”

Ah, Jesus, Amy
. She’d never suspect. And if she ever did… the knowledge would destroy her.

He tried to speak, but his lips were numb. So was his face, his arms, his legs. Jesus. A tunnel cracked open inside him and he could feel himself falling, falling through the shell of his body. It was the oddest sensation—to be falling… up… bathed in a bright, warm light.

As he floated toward the ceiling, that warm silvery glow engulfing him, his last thought was of Amy and their boys.

And how this was his cruelest failure of all.

* * *

Swearing, Zane hit redial and plastered the cell phone against his ear. It rang and rang, but Beth didn’t pick up.

“Goddamn it.” He snapped the phone shut.

“My mom says swearing is a sign of unintelligence,” a young voice said from behind him.

Zane swung around, studying the boy sitting on one of the blue upholstered benches strewn throughout the waiting room. The kid had his right arm around the shoulders of another child—a younger version of himself—in a clasp both protective and comforting, and far too adult for a child of his years. But then the kid’s dark eyes were too old for the thin face too. Almost ancient.

What age had Chastain said his son was? Nine? Ten? Old enough to know what those bastards had done to his mother. Old enough for the knowledge to haunt him.

“That was smart thinking, leaving your note in the crack of the gun’s stock,” Zane told him, glancing toward the emergency room’s pneumatic doors and then down the white hall to the left. “Without it, we would never have found you.”

“It was Mom’s idea.” Brendan Chastain said, with absolutely no inflection in his voice.

“She couldn’t have known about the crack on the stock. Hiding it there showed initiative. So did taking that gun from Ginny. By stepping up, you saved everyone’s life in that room.”

The kid didn’t respond, just watched him with those too old, too dark eyes.

Uncertain what to say, Zane lifted his hand, started to rake it through his hair, but a flash of red stopped him. He froze, focusing. His hand was stained crimson, crusted with Cosky’s blood.

He lifted his right hand—the one still clamped around his cell phone—and stared, the blood a dark blur beneath his burning eyes. His mind flashed back.
The breathless grunt as that first bullet stuck… Cosky lurching forward… the wet thwack, thwack, thwack as round after round struck… the twitch of dying muscles… the blood… so much fucking blood.

Jesus, not Cosky.

Not Cos.

When his hands started to shake, he forced them to stillness.

By the time they’d reached the ambulance, the backseat of the Chrysler had been spongy with blood. Cosky’s face had bleached to bone, gaunt as death.

“Is your friend going to die?” Brendan asked, in his oddly adult voice.

Zane didn’t bother lying. The kid would see right through it.

“Yeah.” He forced the admission through the lead pipe stuck in his throat, surprised at how badly the admission burned. He’d thought he’d accepted the inevitability of Cosky’s death during that endless race to rendezvous with the ambulance.

Nobody could lose that much blood and survive. Not even Cosky, the stubborn son of a bitch. It was a testament to Cosky’s stubbornness he’d had a pulse when they’d wheeled him into the E.R. But stubbornness could only carry a person so far. Human frailty had the final say. And the human body could not lose over half its blood volume and survive.

He’d lost friends before. Watched them bleed out on scorching foreign sands, or in tangled jungles fighting other peoples’ problems.

But this wasn’t the same. Cosky was more than a friend. He was a brother in every way that mattered. This was like losing a piece of himself. A piece that could never be patched. An emptiness he’d carry inside him until the day he followed Cos into the grave.

“My grandpa died when I was little. After a while you don’t miss them so much.”

Hell, if that didn’t beat it all. The kid was trying to comfort
him
.

Zane took a deep breath, staring at the blood crusted on his hands. He needed to clean up before Beth arrived with Marion Simcosky. He’d hit the restroom as soon as Rawls returned.

For the first time, he took a good hard look at himself. His bare chest looked like some weird Rorschach test in patterns of crimson and bronze. His jeans were stiff with drying blood. Hell, even his boots were spattered with red. It would take more than a stint at the sink to get the blood off. Plus, he needed a change of clothing. Maybe he could borrow a pair of scrubs.

Rawls, he discovered a few minutes later, had had the same idea. Zane straightened against the wall, watching his lieutenant walk toward him, blond hair gleaming damply beneath the fluorescent lights, blood noticeably absent from hands and arms, a fresh pair of green scrubs hanging loosely from his shoulders and hips.

“Where did you shower?” he asked as Rawls joined him in the mouth of the waiting room.

“The emergency room has a guest shower. Ask the nurse at the kiosk. She’ll find you a pair of scrubs.” Rawls scanned the waiting room, his gaze settling on the two children cuddled together on the blue bench. “Any word?”