Rogue Alliance (52 page)

             
“Yes,
I know,” Shyla said,
“i
sn’t that great?”

             
“Well, yeah, but I want you to be here when he lets me out. Mom and Dad said they wanted to give me a little welcome home party. Nothing major. The doc says not too much excitement, but, you know…something cool. I want you to be there.”

             
“I pl
an on it. This thing I gotta do
shouldn’t take too long. I’m hoping to be home in two days
,
tops. By morning
,
even
,
so that if you do g
et out that day, I’ll be there.
Don’t worry
,
they aren’t going
to have a party without me
– I’m the life of the party!
Didn’t you know that?”

             
“Yeah,
”
Carmen giggled, “
I seen you party before, lady. You’re crazy when you’re drunk.”

             
Shyla’s grin sobered.

             
“I’m sorry you saw me like that, Carmen. I promise you won’t ever see me like that again.”

             
The intensity in her tone commanded Carmen’s attention. Her attitude changed.
             
“Okay,” she said,
“w
ell, I guess you can go on your trip. Be careful though. You gotta come back in time for cake and ice cream.”

             
“Cake and ice cream? Well, hell, why didn’t you mention that before? I’ll be there.
”

*

             
Tension hovered
, vibrating its unwelcome inevitability of closure. Ever since Brennan had made it known that he was walking away from the business after this last transaction, Victor had grown more and more agitated.

             
He’d said th
at he understood, b
ut Brennan knew that he was taking it personal
ly
, as a slight against the loyalty they had built the entire friendship on. In Victor’s mind, Brennan would forever be indebted to him. It didn’t help that Victor had strong suspicions about his feelings toward Shyla. That would be construed as nothing other than direct betrayal.

             
“There will be three people on the boat with the shipment,” Victor sai
d above the hum of the airplane, “n
o one is to step aboard until I have given notice. You and the rest of the men will stay behind and keep an eye out.”

             
Brennan was quiet as Victor went over the details of how the entire transaction would take place. When Victor changed the subject by tossing out a random question, it took him a moment to shift gears.

             
“What if I exposed you?
” Victor said,
“
What if I said that if you leave, I’ll turn you in and you’ll spend you last dying breath in another facility?”

             
The threat was so ca
sual that it was almost comical, but
Brennan didn’t laugh. He knew exactly how serious Victor was. He didn’t want to let go of his prodigy. Clenching his jaw, he gave Victor a cool stare.

             
“I’m just kidding,”
Victor chuckled, “
I wouldn’t do something like that. Listen, though, we can’t botch this transaction.”

             
J
ust like that
, he switched
back to the earlier conversation as if nothing had happened; no subtle threat interjected for the
sake of making a point.
With the
switch, something turned off in Brennan. All previous sense of obligation and allegiance was gone. He was free.

FIFTY-EIGHT

             
Shyla realized
she had been holding her breath and released it in one slow whoosh of air, wishing the overwhelming sense of dread would float out of her body with it. No such luck.

             
The docks were already cloaked in fog. She could taste it in the back of her throat; an odd mix of salty seawater and the fumes of the city squalor.

             
In street clothes, she crouched down on an empty boat, keeping an eye and ear out for any signs from the rest of the team that was spread out around the grounds. Eli had sent her a sizeable group of men and women to back her up.

             
This i
s it, she thought. They were finally going to nail Victor Champlain. She wasn’t nearly as thrilled with the concept as she’d alw
ays imagined she would be. It wasn’t
that she didn’t want the
closure, the justice. She did, b
ut it didn’t feel nearly as rewarding as she had anticipated.

             
Then again, the deal was yet to go down. A lot could happen over the course of the next half hour. With that thought in mind, she gripped her weapon with sweaty palms.

*

             
The docks were eerily silent as the cargo ship slipped through the waters of the port. Shyla could see there were three men perched at the bow, scanning the scene.

As the ship docked, Victor, Brennan, and three of his men seemed to appear out of nowhere from the far east side of the shipyard. As if by magic
,
the fog presented the small group. Brennan was tense. She could see it in the way he walked and held his head. Her heart was with him.

             
He paused and gave a quick look around. Could he feel her presence? His senses were
,
after all, more astute than everyone else’s. After a moment, he moved forward, joining Victor’s crew.

             
She imagined her team in their stations, just waiting for her to give the signal. She wouldn’t until Victor had made the transaction.

             
Victor and his men stopped halfway down the dock. He was giving orders. Then he left them there and walked the rest of the way by himself.
Shyla
was too far away to hear the interaction and the heavy fog made visibility tough. She had expected as much, which is why she had insisted on making the boat her station. Eli’s research had sh
own where the boat would dock and she’d chosen another
close by.

             
Information
wasn’t completely accurate. The
boat docked farther down than she had imagined. Now
,
she was between Brennan and Victors men, and Victor and the ship. Her entire team would have to take down Victor’s men at the end of the dock before they could get down to Victor and the ship. Immediately, she saw that as soon as she called the order, she’d have to bolt from her position and try to secure Victor for the arrest.
             
There would be a period of time between when her team could secure the men at the end of the dock and help her at the other end. She’d be on her own against four or five men. Those weren’t good odds
, b
ut she wasn’t about to call off the raid. They had come this far. Victor was going down.

             
Her gut clenched as Victor d
rew closer to her boat and
walked past it, toward
s
his destination. It was the first time she’d seen him since she arrested him. Her throat tightened. She could still feel the way her scarf had cut into her flesh and squeezed of her air
way when he had strangled her, and i
t was hard to resist the temptation to take in a sudden gulp of air.

             
Quietly, slowly, she repositioned herself to optimize her view. Victor reached the boat. A tall, gangly man stood at the edge looking down. They exchanged greetings. She could hear only a murmur.

             
Victor climbed aboard. The three men at the bow stood on vigilant guard as he and the captain disappeared into the cargo space. Twenty long, arduous minutes passed. Shyla’s muscles were cramping as she remained in her station, hunched, wary, and watchful.

             
S
he saw the three men leave their posts. Something was up. Unsure of how Victor planned to get his shipment out of port
,
she looked back down the docks. Brennan was making his way down. Victor must have contacted him. It was time. She couldn’t let Brennan make it down before she’d made her move.

             
With a push of the button on her two-way-radio, she spoke quickly and quietly.
             
“The exchange has been made. I’m going in. Go, go, go.”

             
In one swift motion
,
she tucked her radio onto her belt clip and leaped over the bow of the boat she’d been hiding in. With a solid thud, she hit the dock running. She didn’t look back, bu
t she suddenly heard shouting and
she imagined her team rushing Victor’s men
. A gun shot rang out, followed by
another
. S
he automatically hunched her
shoulders defensively as
sh
e ran forward,
praying for Brennan’s safety.

             
There was a ruckus on the boat as the men on board began to realize that things were not progressing as planned.

             
“It’s the police,”
she heard the captain shout, “w
hat the fuck, Victor?”

             
She was almost to the ship when Victor and two other men jumped down from the boat. Victor almost lost his footing. He stood crouched and ready to run. The other men were already scrambling; one leaped to another boat on the other side, and the other was sprinting straight toward her.

             
“Stop, Police!” she shouted, p
ointing her gun directly at Victor
.

             
The man running toward
s
her stopped dead in his tracks, wild-eyed and panicked. The other man was long gone, hopping from boat to boat into the murk of the fog. Victor was still as a statue, his stare cold and icy and boring into her with hate that was tangible.

It was all happening so fast. The commotion behind her was only background music filled with shouting and chaos.

             
Boot steps running hard and fast down the long length of the dock were closing in quickly behind her and she knew that Brennan was closing in fast.

             
The man that had been running toward her decided he had no other options. She saw the realization pass over his features a split second before he charged her. She took
her sight off
Victor and
prepared to shoot her attacker and
Victor made his decision. With almost a smirk on his face, he stood straight, reached behind his back and pulled out a revolver.

             
The reverberating echo of two shots fired one after the other pierced her ears just as the man leape
d for her. His body slumped to
the ground. Her shot had hit him in the center of his chest. The blood was already spreading like an oil spill across the breadth of his chest as he lay
,
dying
, a few
feet
away
from her.
             

             
Looking up
,
she
knew she
needed to know where the other shot had come from
,
and where it had ended. Victor was sti
ll standing in the same place, b
ut the look on his face was one of shock. His gun dangl
ed from his limp fingers. He dropped it
and fell to his knees
,
staring just behind Shyla with a small entrance point at the center of his throat, blood seeping out of the wound in a gruesome river.

             
She didn’t need to look to know that Brennan was behind her. He had shot Victor before he could shoot her.

             
Victor blinked and a gurgling sound escaped
when he opened his mouth. H
e fell face forward.

             
She turned. Brennan was standing with his gun still aimed at Victor, as if he was frozen there for eternity. His face was ghost white, but his expression was hard.

             
“Brennan,” she choked out on a sob.

             
H
e turned to her and seemed to shake out of his trance.