Into the Crossfire (4 page)

The last time Sam had seen Amanda she'd been perched, trembling and

terrified, on the edge of the client chair. A pretty girl, or at least he imagined she

was pretty under all the bruising, and if you could ignore the puffy black eye and

swollen jaw. One arm had been in a cast. The hand on the other arm clutched the

arm of the chair with white-knuckled intensity. The uninjured arm was slender,

with a delicate wrist. An enraged man would find it really easy to snap that arm,

and an enraged man had. Her boyfriend, who terrified her.

Soon, it wouldn't be snapping a slender, delicate wrist. It would be a

slender, delicate neck. Sam knew that. His two brothers, Harry and Mike, knew

that. All three of them had grown up with men who loved nothing more than to

beat the shit out of those weaker than themselves. Women and children top of the

list.

As always, with Amanda, Sam had hidden his feelings under a businesslike mask but inside he was seething with rage at the idea of her fuckhead

boyfriend beating her to a pulp. The boyfriend was six one, two ten, gym strong,

and now in jail. He'd screamed threats to Amanda every step of the way from

arrest through booking to the moment when the barred door clicked shut behind

him.

Mike had observed him carefully, then had contacted Sam.

Mike had then had a quiet talk with a terrified Amanda at the downtown

station and given her a heads-up. The boyfriend had money and was going to

make bail. She wasn't going to survive another round of Boyfriend TLC, so Mike

quietly sent her to him.

This was what Sam loved doing. It was what he lived for. His brothers,

Harry and Mike, too. The runaway success of Reston Security was gratifying. He

couldn't have asked for a better outcome. He was his own boss and he was making

money hand over fist.

But by God, what he and Harry and Mike got their rocks off on was this.

His very own underground railroad. Having the money and the power and the

knowledge to subtract women, often with their kids, from the brutal equation of

violence.

Simply whisk them away to somewhere else where they could have a shot

at living a life undarkened by terror. Man, it was a good feeling. The best.

The women came to him in trickles. Some brought by Mike, who was in

Violence Central there at the SDPD headquarters. Most by word of mouth. The

women were tall, short, blonde, brunette, pretty and plain. But they all had the

exact same terrified expression and underlying hopelessness. As if they'd already

been beaten to death and were just waiting for life to catch up.

Sometimes they were on their own, sometimes--tragically--with a kid or

two in tow. Often the kid would be in a cast, or have blue-purple bruises or burns.

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And Sam would put on his expressionless mask and talk schedules and places and

plans. While inside he was a beserker just dying to deal with whoever had broken

the thin childish arm or put out a cigarette on tender flesh or swung a fist at a

child.

You want to beat up on someone, fuckhead? Why don't you try me instead

of a forty-pound child? Except I have spent a lifetime studying martial arts and I

will rip your fucking heart out of your fucking body and feed it to you without

breaking a sweat. Not so brave now, eh?

Sam never, ever allowed what he was feeling to show on his face. These

women and kids had seen enough violence to last them a lifetime. So he quietly

helped them disappear and reappear with a new life.

For Sam, it was as if the world had huge holes punched into it by monsters.

He spent a lot of time and effort trying to close those holes.

Sam had set Amanda up with a new identity and carefully wiped her trail

clean. If she kept her nose clean, she was home safe and free.

Setting her up in her new life with new ID had cost $10,000 and Sam had

given her $5,000 in cash as start-up money.

Nightingale, in her new home and new life, had joined dove, falcon, finch,

flamingo, gull, heron, hummingbird, ibis, macaw and mockingbird in theirs so far

this year. Eleven women and seven kids, safe, because Sam had been able to

provide that safety.

His clients funded it. They could all afford it.

Sam opened the file on his ship-owner client and added $15,000 in

expenses with a great deal of satisfaction. He'd saved the ship owner more than

$10 million; the ship owner could fucking well give something back.

Corporate America, via the US government, had spent millions of dollars

training him, including SERE school. The US government had made him an expert

at escape and evasion.

It gave him enormous pleasure to make corporate America pay for the lost

ones, the weak ones, the ones who slipped through the cracks, the ones no one

cared about.

Oh yeah, that felt good.

Man, Nightingale had landed, scumbags were going to prison forever and

he had a date with Nicole Pearce. All was right with the world.

"Wow. Sam Reston, smiling. Jesus, break out the beer. What happened?

You get word that Colonel Stewart got his balls caught in a thresher?" Colonel

Roland Stewart, the sadistic son of a bitch who had been Sam's commanding

officer for one and a half years of hell, had left a trail of hatred behind him as he

slimed his way up the promotion ladder. Stewart getting his balls caught in a

thresher would definitely qualify for a smile.

"I wish. Son of a bitch's in the Pentagon now, balls secure."

His other brother, Harry Bolt, placed two crutches against the wall and

leaned his trembling right shoulder against the door of Sam's office. Sam watched

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and said nothing. It had all been said before, over and over, loudly, by both Sam

and Mike.

Harry had no business trying to stand without crutches. He had no business

standing at all, since the last orthopaedic surgeon had said he had to stay in the

wheelchair for at least another month while his bones knitted.

Harry was his own worst enemy. Sam had found him a small apartment in

his own building in Coronado Shores so he could make sure Harry didn't do

something terminally stupid.

Harry had come back from Afghanistan with a broken body and demons in

his head only whiskey and, lately, some jazz singer he listened to endlessly in the

dark could keep at bay. He couldn't be trusted with his own health. The more the

doctors told him to take it easy, the more he rebelled. He'd already fallen badly

twice, setting his recovery back by months.

Finally, in exasperation, Sam had asked him to come in to the office,

simply so he could keep an eye on him. If Harry fell, at least Sam would be there

to catch him.

Reston Security was expanding fast and it sounded natural for Sam to say

he needed a hand. But then Harry turned out to be more than just an extra pair of

hands--he was an enormous asset to the company. He was better with computers

than Sam, a goddamned genius actually, and he had more patience with dumb

clients than Sam did, so he was seconded to the array of latest-generation

computers in a quiet room off Sam's office and to the Asshole Client Detail.

Harry tried looking nonchalant, bony shoulder pressed hard against the

doorjamb for balance, but his legs were trembling.

Sam knew better than to protest. His brother had a head as hard as the steel

that held his hip, right thigh and left shoulder together.

Harry ragging on him was brand new, though. Maybe it meant he was

healing some. He'd come back from Afghanistan with barely a pulse, and had

completely lost his sense of humor.

Sam and Mike were Harry's only family, down in Harry's file as the persons

to contact in case of death. When Sam and Mike had flown to Ramstein to take

him home, Harry had been more dead than alive.

Worse than the damage to his body had been the damage to his spirit. Like

Sam and like Mike, Harry had come through a brutal childhood intact. Whatever

had happened in Afghanistan--and so far he wasn't talking--had crushed his spirit.

So Harry taking the piss out of him was new and good.

Sam sat up, shuffled papers, wiped the smile off his face. "Wasn't smiling,"

he muttered. He rarely smiled. No one knew that better than his brother.

"Was, too."

Sam looked up into his brother's light brown eyes, as fierce as an eagle's

and just as warm. "Was not."

"Was, too."

"Was not." Sam's jaw clenched at how childish they sounded. "Don't you

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have work to do? Weren't you supposed to prepare the McIntosh report?"

"Mmm." A corner of Harry's mouth lifted. "Did that last night, while you

were having fun along the docks."

A joking Harry was good, but there were limits. "It wasn't fun," Sam

snapped.

Harry's slight smile faded. He knew how heavily this two-week wait had

weighed on Sam and he knew the reason why. Who knew how many girls were

being hurt while Sam had to wait? "No," Harry said soberly. "I know it wasn't. I

was just trying to get a rise out of you, God knows why. You've been walking

around looking like the Grim Reaper lately."

"Not anymore," Sam said. "Job's done. I notified the client, who's already

contacted the authorities. I'll write up the report today. It's over."

"Christ." Harry straightened. He put his crutches under his arms and

hobbled into the room. "Wow, that's...that's great news. Did you get the evidence

to back you up?"

"Damn straight," Sam said with satisfaction. "Photos and digital recordings

and even some paperwork. Put those fuckers away for the rest of their natural

lives. Which I suspect will be cut tragically short by a shank between the ribs in

the prison showers. Nobody likes child rapists."

"Hey, man. Congrats. I'll call Mike and we can go celebrate tonight. On me.

Bonus on that sucker'll keep us in tall corn for the next quarter."

"Can't." Sam's eyes slid to the computer monitor, staring into it. There was

nothing there he had to see right now, but it kept his face away from Harry's

intelligent, perceptive eyes. "Busy tonight."

"So cancel. The three of us need to celebrate."

Sam didn't share blood with Harry, or with Mike, but they were his brothers

in every sense of the term. That didn't mean he'd miss his shot at dinner out with

Nicole Pearce for Harry or Mike. Tonight was off-limits.

"Can't," he said, bending his head over a piece of paper, pretending to

scrutinize it like it was a peace treaty between warring tribes. "Not tonight."

Harry jerked the paper out from under his hands and held it up. "Okay, I get

it, you can't talk because you're way too busy with"--he glanced at the

paper--"orders for paper and photocopy toner. Uh-huh. Okay, what's going on

tonight that's so special?"

Sam glared at him. His very special Death Glare, guaranteed to terrify

recruits.

Harry put his crutches to one side and carefully sat on the corner of the desk

and looked at him, eyebrows lifted. Sam crossed his arms and set his jaw.

"Not talking, eh?" A corner of Harry's mouth lifted, Harry body language

for a full-out grin. "That means I'll have to guess. Okay. I like guessing games. It's

obviously not work-related, or you'd have told me all about it, so we're talking a

date with a dame. And just as obviously that dame's someone you don't want to

blow off, but if you don't want to talk about it, that means it's..." He snapped his

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fingers. "I know! That looker across the hall! The one you've been mooning over.

Christ, how'd you swing that one? Who'd you have to kill?"

Damn! Sam hated it that Harry was so smart. He hunkered down in his

chair, knowing he couldn't take Harry on. Harry's bones were just now resetting,

Sam couldn't go breaking any new ones.

But, shit, he didn't want to talk about this. He'd never been one to blab

about his sex life, mostly because there'd never been much to talk about. He had

sex--lots of it in fact, though lately, work had gotten in the way--but it was never

with anyone special. The sex he had was mainly a way to scratch an itch, like

eating when hungry. Who wanted to talk about food once you'd eaten your fill?

Mostly, one woman was just like another. They satisfied an appetite, and that was

about it.

But...Nicole Pearce was different. He couldn't really get a handle on why,

but there it was. And he wasn't talking about it.

They stared at each other mutely, Sam not talking, Harry trying to crack

him open but failing. Finally, Harry gave a big martyred sigh.

"Okay. This is what's going to happen. Right now, you look like a

dockworker who's been scamming goods and you smell like one, too. No way in

hell you're gonna get lucky with that babe looking and smelling like that. So you're

going to get a shave and a haircut and take a long shower. Two of 'em, because

man--" He waved the air in front of him as if someone had just let rip a massive

fart. "You read me? And I'm going to go out with Mike for a beer and we're gonna

wait for your report tomorrow morning on your evening out with Ms. Luscious."

"Out," Sam growled, rolling his eyes. "Get out now before I break your

bones all over again, and I'll do a better job of it than some fucking Afghani RPG,