Hell on Wheels (38 page)

“So,” he puffed out a breath. “Here’s the deal. I’m sending this zip drive along with all the information to Ali. She’ll think it’s just the same-ol’-same-ol’. I’m hoping I come back from this job to nab the zip drive and figure out just what the hell I’m supposed to do with it. But like I said in the beginning, if you’re watching this, I’m probably dead, the shit has hit the fan, and I couldn’t be more sorry about the whole stinkin’ mess.

“That’s it,” Grigg frowned, his usually grinning face lined with harsh worry, “except for one last thing…Ghost, Nate, brother of my heart, I’m gonna need you to watch over Ali. Just…make sure she’s all right, okay?”

They all watched breathlessly as Grigg’s video image leaned forward, and then the screen dissolved to blackness.

“Fuck me,” Frank cursed as Ali quietly sobbed into the soggy handkerchief.

Oh, Grigg.
My
sweet, crazy, dauntless brother.

“So, I guess that blows your theory of Grigg trying to sell black-market files right out of the water,” Ali heard Ozzie say to the CIA guy, Zoelner.

She lifted her head—the thing weighed about a million pounds—and sniffed back her tears in time to see Zoelner make a face.

“Yeah well, like I said, I’d already determined Aldus was completely full of shit.”

“What was in it for you?” Frank asked, his craggy face particularly harsh. “Money?”

“Look,” Zoelner spat, wincing when it stretched his split lip. Dan Man had really done a job on the guy’s face. One eye was swollen almost completely shut while the other sported a pretty nasty gash right below the eyebrow. The ruined skin was hastily closed with a butterfly bandage but not cleaned. Crusty blood clung to the wound. “I don’t have to explain anything to you. Yes, Aldus hired me to track down and secure files for him. Files he told me were highly classified and in danger of being sold to the highest bidder. Yes, I ghosted Miss Morgan here for months, no doubt scaring her to death. Yes, I hung around here, trying to find out just what the hell was going on. But the minute, I mean the very
minute
I became convinced the senator was full of shit, I stopped taking his money. So fuck you and that high horse you’re riding on!”

Zoelner jumped from the metal folding chair he was sitting in, sending the thing toppling over with a loud clang. Without another word, he started toward the stairway leading down to the first floor.

“Hold it,” Frank barked at the guy’s retreating back. Zoelner swung around to face the group, blowing like a winded bull.

“Calm down, for fuck’s sake!” Frank bellowed, doing a pretty good raging bull impression himself. “I’m not accusing you of anything, you sensitive prick. I’m just trying to figure out everyone’s motives here.”

Zoelner pinned his one semi-good eye on Frank’s angrily flushed face. “My motives are my own,” he growled.

“Fine,” Frank threw his wide palms in the air. “Whatever. Keep your damned motives to yourself. But you’re not leaving here. You’re coming with us.”

Zoelner’s jaw sawed back and forth, but he managed to ask calmly, “Going with you where?”

“DC,” Frank informed him, his tone sufficiently broadcasting there would be no ifs, ands, or buts. “The president and his Joint Chiefs are going to be awfully interested in the information on this zip drive, and they’re going want to talk to you about your association with Aldus.”

“How do you know the Joint Chiefs aren’t part of Aldus’s little party?” Zoelner demanded. “You could be leading us all into the lion’s den.”

“Experience,” Frank said, his tone absolute. “And the fact that I personally
know
the Joint Chiefs. They’re a bunch of assholes on a good day, but there’s not a one of them who’d be involved in this.”

“Shit!” Zoelner spat, then winced again and lifted a finger to wipe at the drop of blood that welled on his lower lip.

Oh, crapola, they were leaving. They were going to leave her here as they jetted off to Washington and she…

Well, there was only one thing she was going to do.

“I’m coming with you,” she declared, sniffing back her tears and thrusting out her chin as she glanced around at each of their hard, weary faces. Oh yeah, she was daring any of them to tell her otherwise, because if they did…well, she’d just make sure they didn’t. “I deserve to see this through to the end.”

“Ali—” Nate began but was interrupted by Frank’s harsh tone.

“All right, Ali,” the big man growled, accurately reading her adamant, no-way-I’m-capitulating expression or, more likely, he was simply unwilling to take the time to argue. “Grab whatever you need. The military transport we’re hopping out of Great Lakes Naval Station departs in ninety minutes.”

She nodded and slowly stood from the chair, studiously avoiding Nate’s worried, belligerent gaze. She knew he wanted to argue, bully her into staying where it was safe. But she wasn’t in the mood to be bullied. And right now, she didn’t give a darn about safety.

***

“Their lobbyists say they’ve only got to swing two more votes and then we’ll be on the mark to take—”

Whatever Ron Dunn, the senator from New Jersey, was about to say got cut off when two guys in severe black suits burst into Senator Alan Aldus’s office, closely followed by his harried secretary of twenty years.

“I’m so sorry Senator Aldus,” she gushed, wringing her veiny hands before pushing her trifocals up the long bridge of her nose. “I told them you were in a meeting, but they just pushed past me.”

“It’s okay, Janice,” Aldus assured her, though by the looks of the men striding toward him it was anything but.

Secret Service?

That’s sure as hell what the guys looked like, with their matching dark suits and those clear, plastic wires snaking up from their starched white collars to disappear unobtrusively into the shells of their ears. The Men in Black, up close and in person.

“Senator Aldus,” one of the men said in an accent that was no accent at all, “you need to come with us now.”

“Ron,” Aldus turned toward the blatantly curious man seated across from him. He was very careful to keep his own expression bland. “We’ll have to discuss this later.”

“Er…sure,” the New Jersey senator scrambled to his feet, making no attempt to hide his nosiness as he eyed the two automatons who were moving in to flank Aldus.

He waited patiently until Ron left with Janice close on his heels before standing, and slowly and carefully closing the double buttons on his ultra tailored, Hugo Boss suit. Shooting his gold-linked cuffs, he regarded his stoic companions with all the audacity of a U.S. senator.

“Gentlemen,” he said, his tone not-so-slightly condescending, “just what the hell do you think you’re doing barging in here and ordering me to—”

He thought the vein in his temple was going to explode when Man in Black I interrupted him. “We’ve been instructed, senator,” was it his imagination or was that a sneer on the guy’s face when he used that title? “to escort you to the White House immediately.”

He opened his mouth, and it was then that Man in Black II decided to pipe up. “You should know, sir, we’ve also been instructed to take you forcibly, in handcuffs, if you refuse to come peaceably.”

Cold sweat instantly popped out on his forehead and dampened the armpits of his shirt beneath his suit jacket, more slid nauseatingly down the small of his back. Despite that, there was a definite chill spreading through his veins.

“What is this in regard to?” he asked, but could think of only one thing that would bring the Secret Service to his door with orders to escort him, forcibly if need be, to the White House.

Those
fucking
files.

He hadn’t heard from Johnny since they’d learned of Rocco’s death, but he hadn’t really expected to until tonight. Johnny had promised that Miss Morgan and former sergeant Weller were as good as dead. With the menacing tone of vengeance ringing in Johnny’s rough voice, Aldus had believed him.

Now, he felt the weight of the prepaid phone like a lead brick inside his jacket pocket.

Was it possible Johnny had failed? Had the files been found?

It was the only thing that made sense. And for the first time in Alan Aldus’s entire gilded life, the threat of personal doom loomed like a poison-fanged monster in front of him.

***

Frank glanced around the Oval Office and shook his head.

Not only had he never thought to be sitting in this room with its antique furniture, plaster reliefs, and genuine oil painting of, you guessed it, that’d be the original GW, George Washington, he certainly hadn’t thought to be sitting in this room with the strange amalgamation of folks surrounding him.

President Thompson was seated at his desk, looking very stern and powerful. His Joint Chiefs, including General Fuller, were arranged here and there. Some seated on the sofas in the center of the room, some standing along the walls. General Fuller was actually pacing, looking mad enough to take the entire country to DEFCON 1.

Ex-CIA agent Dagan Zoelner was beside the door. He’d unflinchingly answered the questions the president and Joint Chiefs had thrown at him, his personal integrity evident in every well-thought-out word. Now, Zoelner was looking for all the world like he’d rather be any place but there, and his position indicated he’d take the first opportunity to vamoose himself. Frank noticed the man’s one good eye never stayed still, constantly darting about. It caught every subtle move, every vague facial expression on everyone in the room. The guy was certainly wound tight, like most spooks, but Frank had to admit to being a little intrigued. Zoelner’s file—he’d read it on the flight to DC—was something of a page-turner.

Then there was Ghost, leaning against the back wall, still dressed in his biker leathers with dried blood streaking down his shirt, looking completely out of place. Not that Frank was all that tidy, but,
shit
, the least Ghost could’ve done before meeting the
president
was change his fucking shirt. Of course, he supposed the guy wasn’t all that concerned with his current lack of hygiene.

Ghost had something entirely different plaguing his sleep-deprived brain, and Frank was sure he had a pretty good idea just what that was as he caught the guy sneaking another surreptitious glance at Ali—who was doing her level best not to slide right off the stiff little high-backed chair she was sitting in. The woman had been through hell and back in the last couple of days. She’d been mugged, shot at on two separate occasions, bruised, battered, and all of that was on top of losing her brother.

After learning of her situation, the commander-in-chief demanded to hear the details from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, which had earned her a place at this meeting.

Frank was grateful to the president for allowing her to take part, because the poor woman deserved to see Senator Aldus brought to his fucking knees more than any of them.

And speaking of…

A loud knock heralded the senator’s much-anticipated arrival.

“Come in,” President Thompson commanded, his voice smooth and authoritative. No doubt that tone helped inspire confidence among the people of the nation. Frank had to admit, it even worked for him.

When two Secret Service agents escorted a tall, middle-aged man into the room, he forgot all about Zoelner and Ghost and Ali, because he instantly recognized the senator. He’d seen Alan Aldus on the nightly news a time or two, extolling this or that accomplishment or, more often, ranting about the failings of the opposing party.

He remembered thinking even then that the guy looked just a bit too slick for comfort. Turns out, his instincts were right on the mark. Senator Aldus was nothing more than an arrogant asshole with good diction and a fancy suit.

Frank hated guys like that.

“Senator Aldus,” President Thompson said, “we have a few questions to ask you.”

“I’m not saying anything!” Aldus barked, jerking his arms free of the agents’ grasps. “I want my lawyer!”

“Oh, you’ll get your lawyer,” General Fuller hissed, his voice as harsh and gravelly as Thompson’s was calm and smooth. Right at that moment, Fuller looked very much like the badass commando he’d once been. “In fact, I bet you’ll be spending so much time with your lawyer over the next few months you’ll get sick and tired of the man’s face and beg for one glimpse of our ugly mugs.”

Aldus’s ugly mug turned a very abrupt shade of crimson, and Frank wondered idly if the man was going to have a coronary right on the spot.

He hoped not. That would be too easy. Aldus deserved to pay for what he’d done.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to talk,” President Thompson soothed, steepling his long fingers under his very presidential looking chin. “We don’t really need you to, considering we’ve got all the evidence we need to bring you up on charges of treason.”

“Treason!” Aldus sputtered, white spittle gathered at the corners of his mouth, standing out like two truce flags against his cherry-red face. “How dare you! I
love
my country!”

“You love your country so much you sold illegal weapons to its enemies?” President Thompson looked genuinely perplexed. “I’d hate to see what you would’ve done had you
hated
your country.”