Grissom (In the Company of Snipers #26)

Chapter One

“They won’t let me leave. They keep giving me drugs. Why won’t they let me go? I’ve got a job. I work for you. Get me out of here!” Grissom McCoy yelled from where he sat on the edge of his hospital bed, his gaze fixed on the floor between his feet.

Leaning forward from his chair at the foot of that bed, Murphy Finnegan studied the troubled agent fidgeting with the hem of the pale orange Shady Creek Asylum shirt he’d been wearing the past three days. If that ugly shirt hadn’t told Grissom anything, the over-sized orange flip-flops on his feet should’ve.

“Why do you think you’re here?” he asked gently.

Grissom shrugged. “I don’t know. Did I take one to the head? Is it a TBI? Am I dying? That why they won’t let me leave?”

“No, you don’t have a traumatic brain injury. You’re too tough to die, but you’re not well, son. You asked me to find your boys, remember?”

Grissom nodded, then slowly, like every other time Murphy had tried to jog his memory, the nod changed into a head shake. “No. I… ah… don’t remember asking… Shit. I don’t remember anything.” He scrubbed both hands over his bearded face, then up over his shaggy hair, as if searching for those elusive memories. “I think I got shot. Least, I know I was in a shootout or something… somewhere... But I can’t find any points of entry. Did I take one to my skull? Is a bullet still in my brain?” The tenor of his voice rose even as he avoided looking at Murphy. “Is that why I’m here? Who did it? Who shot me?”

“You weren’t shot, but—”

“Where’s my damned kids?” Grissom cut Murphy off, peering past him to the closed and locked door of his room. “If I asked you to find them, they gotta be missing. Where are they?”

Murphy’s chest lifted with anguish more than the relief he wished he were feeling. The wound Grissom remembered happened years ago, back when he’d been active duty before he’d joined The TEAM. It had nothing to do with this voluntary confinement. These newer wounds were inflicted by his wife, and they weren’t going away soon. “We’re still looking for them. You don’t remember, but—”

“Pam took my boys, didn’t she? She ran out on me and took Tanner and Luke and—”

“And half The TEAM’s looking for them.”

“Half’s not good enough! Get me out of here. I’ll find them. I will, and I’ll find Pamela, and when I do—”

“You’re not going to find her. Think, Grissom. Please, just stop and think. Try to remember what I’ve already told you.”

Grissom’s life had become a tragic rerun that wouldn’t stop playing. As many times as Murphy’d explained what his wife had done, Grissom kept asking. Always the same questions. Always the same answers. The truth wasn’t kind, and his brain wouldn’t let him accept it anyway. It was protecting him and doing a bang-up job of keeping him confused.

As for Pamela, she’d done Grissom dirty on so many levels. First, by cheating on him whenever he’d been OCONUS, while still active duty. Now, by taking Tanner and Luke with her when she’d fled to Central America with her boyfriend, Mike Estes.

Unfortunately for her, karma was a sneaky bitch. Murphy now knew Estes had made his living providing guided tours in one of the three Cessna’s he’d owned. Had being the key word. He was at the stick when his plane went down off Costa Rica’s west coast. Fortunately, Grissom’s boys hadn’t been on that tour. The former Mrs. McCoy had ditched them somewhere. Murphy knew for sure because the Costa Rican Coast Guard only pulled six bodies out of the Pacific: Pamela, Estes, and his four paying tourists.

Murphy still had no idea where Tanner and Luke were, which was the real problem. Between him and TEAM One’s top dog, Mark Houston, they had most TEAM agents working to locate the boys. Agent Leisha Warner had backtracked Pam’s activities to the morning she’d left the States. Pam’s neighbors had been helpful. The retired couple across the street from Grissom informed Leisha that every time he’d gone OCONUS, Estes had all but lived with Pam and his sons. The middle-aged couple who lived next to the McCoys confirmed the same ugly truth. Pamela had been a cheat and a liar. No surprise there.

Murphy could only hope those little boys were still alive. Pam couldn’t have been vindictive enough to have killed them to spite Grissom, could she? Or worse, sold them into the noxious flood of human trafficking sweeping the planet? The sex trade. Made Murphy’s gut tighten at the thought of how cruel that woman had been to Grissom. But was she cruel enough to destroy her own kids? Recent events told him, ‘Hell yeah.’ Was only months since Heston Contreras had ended the infamous Maeve Astor, with an assist from the well-known nature photographer, Miss Tuesday Smart. Astor hadn’t had a problem killing her children. Had Pam sunk as low?

“Oh… Oh, yeah.” Oddly, Grissom calmed as quickly as he’d escalated. “Sure. Robin’s good. My boys love her. She babysits for us.”

His breathing settled, which was great, but—us? Murphy had no idea who Grissom was talking about. “Robin…?”

“Yeah. My neighbor. Robin Singer. She’s a real good girl. Lives with her parents. My boys love her. She babysits for us.”

There was that ‘us’ word again.

Grissom pursed his lips as if forcing himself to breathe slowly, like a woman in labor. “I need to see ’em, Murph. You’ll make sure they come see me as soon as they get here, won’t you? Is Robin bringing them? That’d be nice.” He swiped a hand over his hair again, as if he wanted to look good for whoever Robin was.

“You’re injured.” Murphy pressed a hand to his sternum. “Here.” Mostly. “And you took quite a hit to the back of your skull, too.”

Grissom had yet to make direct eye contact, and that was troubling. “You sure? Cuz I gotta tell you, my head don’t hurt, and there’s no hole in my chest or belly that’s big enough to even stick my little finger in. I checked. I can’t find any wounds anywhere. No entries. No exits. Christ sakes, don’t you think I’d know if I was dying?” The longer he talked, the higher his voice crept back into hysteria.

This visit was going nowhere. It was time for Murphy to back off before Grissom lost what little equilibrium he had. Inhaling a gut full of regret, Murphy lifted to his feet.

Grissom jumped up, still staring at the door like he was waiting for someone to come save him. “Don’t go. Not yet. This place is killing me. All they wanna do here is talk, and I’m sick of it. I… I got a wife and kids to get home to… two kids… two little boys… Err, ah, don’t I? Pamela. That’s her na-a-a-m-m-me…” The nervous tone in his voice rapped down low into slow gear, like a vinyl record on a turntable losing power. “Pam-e-la,” he whispered, blinking. Still not facing Murphy. Not really seeing anything. “It’s not me, is it?” he asked. “It’s her. It’s Pam. She’s… she’s gone. She’s run off and took my boys and she…”

Died. Just say it, Grissom. Remember. That’s the only way you’re getting out of here.

Grissom’s hazel eyes went blank. His lips thinned.

Murphy sucked in a breath, knowing what was coming next.

Sure enough. Grissom blinked and then yawned, as if his poor brain had just rebooted, and he woke up in the middle of the same nightmare. “Well, hey, Murph. You come to win back the cash you lost playing poker with me last night?”

Interestingly, he still wouldn’t make eye contact. Murphy made a mental note to ask Grissom’s doctor what was going on and what that lack of eye contact meant. If anything.

“Just came for a visit. How are they treating you here?”

“Here?” Grissom blinked once again, his gaze on the door of the room that’d be his home for as long as it took for him to remember who he was and why he was there. Four cream-colored walls and a comfortable bed with a navy-blue comforter, a mostly empty closet, a dresser, and a desk. A private bath and a single window framing bullet-proof, unbreakable, polycarbonate glass. No one could get in and Grissom couldn’t get out. For now, the world was safe.

There were no pens or pencils on the desk. No paper clips either. The desk’s legs were bolted to the floor and the dresser’s drawers were painted on. The bed was bolted down as well, and the blinds on the windows were enclosed inside two more panes of polycarbonate. No drawstrings to hang himself with or to fashion a garrote. Nothing anywhere to fashion any sort of deadly weapon with. Which didn’t mean squat when the man inside this room was a trained killer.

“Where am I?” Grissom asked, for what seemed like the hundredth time in the last thirty minutes.

Murphy sucked in a bellyful of patience and sat back down. Grissom’s nerves were shot and his heart had been blown away with them. He just didn’t know it yet, and there was no way to help him understand. He’d lost touch with reality when he’d rear-ended that FedEx truck, and judging by the way this visit was going, he wasn’t coming back anytime soon.

But then…

I’ll be damned…

Grissom did something he hadn’t done since becoming a full-time resident of Shady Creek Asylum. His gaze scrolled from the door to Murphy. “She left me this time, didn’t she? Pam ran off with that guy who’s been hanging around my place. She doesn’t think I know, but I do. That’s what you’re telling me, isn’t it? She took my sons, and she dumped them somewhere in” —he closed his eyes and touched two fingertips to his right temple— “where, Murph?” His nostrils flared and his belly inflated with a deep breath.

Murphy could only guess that the pain of not knowing where his sons were had somehow gotten through. Grissom needed those boys. Good fathers always did. But the stark sadness in his voice was a knockout punch Murphy hadn’t seen coming. Neither did he expect Grissom to lift to his feet, plant them like he was ready to fight, and declare, “Help me find my boys or get the hell out of my way. I’m leaving.”

“Now hold on a minute.” Murphy put both palms forward, but he knew better. There was no way he could stop or placate a man the size of Grissom. He stood a good foot over Murphy. He was as tall as Agent Shane Hayes, bulkier than Agent Beau Villanueva, and his hazel eyes were two pissed-off death rays, mean for the first time in days. He leaned over Murphy like a dragon over the knight he meant to chew up and spit out. “I said move, old man.”

Murphy allowed a faint smile. Sass was a step in the right direction. Belligerence was better. “Call me old man again, and I won’t sign-off on them letting you out of here.”

“I don’t need you signing anything for me. I sign my own shit. Get out of my way.”

“You’re not going anywhere—”

“The fuck I’m not!”

Grissom’s roar blistered over the top of Murphy’s wispy combover. But rules were rules, and he could bellow, too. “Back off, buster! If you’d shut up and listen for a guldarned minute, you’d understand that you can’t go—” damned if this junior agent’s hands didn’t ball into fists “—ALONE! You big dummy!” Murphy yelled, before Grissom could cock that hammer-of-a-fist and knock him on his ass. “One is none and two is one! Remember? You’ve got to be smart about how you handle this. Take someone with you. Hell, take everyone. We’re all on your side, and you know better!”

Grissom’s chest heaved, and Murphy knew his time to reason with this bull moose of a man was running out. Either he got through to Grissom now, or he lost him for good. Righteous rage was one thing, but Grissom going rogue could get a lot of people killed. Including himself.

“Your mission, the one I’m giving you right now,” Murphy added hurriedly, “is to locate your sons without killing anyone, you hear me? Yes, Pam took Tanner and Luke to Central America. We’ve tracked them that far.”

An angry grunt was all he got for an answer. He kept talking, not sure if he should tell Grissom that Pam was dead or not. “Which agents do you want on your six?”

“Alex.”

Murphy shook his head. “No. He just retired, this time for good. Who else?” Alex would only remain retired until this shit hit the fan, but Murphy refused to let Grissom punch that ticket.

“Leisha Warner.”

“Not Leisha, sorry. She twisted her knee two nights ago. Can’t walk. Might be looking at surgery. Who else?”

“Cassidy Dancer.”

Murphy gulped at how Grissom’s tone kept wrapping higher. Maybe not everyone could support him. “She’s on maternity leave.” He seemed focused on female operators, so Murphy offered, “Phoenix Bond and Jenna Bates are already in Costa Rica. So are Everlee Yeager-Hayes, Izza Maher, Camilla Garner, and—”

“I want Taylor Armstrong, Cord Shepherd, and Walker Judge.”

At last, agents who were available. Murphy shrugged off the tension fisting the hell out of his shoulders. “They’re yours. They’ve been working with Mother, but they’ll be glad to go with you. Anyone else?”

Mother was the genius office assistant who managed all things technical, as well as most everyone’s personal business when she could get into it. Or so she thought. Sasha Kennedy hadn’t earned the moniker of Mother just because of her astute ability to hack federal and non-federal databases throughout the world. The woman was inherently nosy, but she was a genius, and, in her annoying way, she was motherly. Sort of.

“And Alex,” Grissom barked. “I want Alex!”

“No!” Murphy bellowed back at his hard-headed agent. It was time to draw a hard line.

“Yeah, Murph! Alex!” Grissom bellowed back. “Call him! He’ll come once he knows what I’m up against. He understands. I know he does!”

Of course, he would. Alex was a father and a hard-charging son of a gun who always—always—had his agents’ backs. Which was why Murphy refused to dial that number. “Think, Grissom! Guldarn it, think! Kelsey just survived a gunshot to her head, and she damned near drowned. She needs Alex a helluva lot more than you do.” And I’m in charge of TEAM Two, damn it. Not Alex. Not anymore.

Grissom shook his head, his brows furrowing into a dangerous V. Which told Murphy the man didn’t remember how close Kelsey had recently come to dying, or what nearly losing her had cost Alex. Obviously, Grissom didn’t recall that he’d been there the day both TEAMs had taken down the human trafficking ring of then-Secretary of State Tristan Obermeyer and his despicable buddies, Michael Keane, Lancaster Wirth, and his son, Miles Wirth.

It was Lancaster who’d put the hit on Kelsey; his son Miles who’d hired Ryan Malloy, Ireland’s best sniper, to do the ugly deed and wound, not kill her. Of the three main players, Obermeyer, Lancaster, or Miles—no one knew which had offed Malloy, then hired a couple local tough guys to kidnap London Wilde, now Heston’s fiancée. Heston had rescued London and, in the process, had righteously ended Obermeyer. With a heap of prejudice.

Murphy knew where that body was, but the FBI still considered Lancaster and Miles Wirth as missing. Not that Murphy cared what the Bureau thought. Even if he knew where the Wirths were buried, he’d never tell.

“You gotta call him,” Grissom ordered more calmly. “Please. Alex is the best.”

“Yes, he is, but if anyone’s going with you, it’s me, guldarn it.” Murphy stabbed his thumb into his chest for emphasis. “Let me make a few calls—”

“Then step on it! I gotta get gone, Boss. My boys need me!”

Grissom finally said the right word. He’d acknowledged who his first-line supervisor was.

“Understood. Grab a shower while I work on getting you released. Once that’s done, I’ll have Mother line up an Air Force bird out of JBA.” Joint Base Andrews. “Then I’ll make sure Taylor, Cord, and Walker meet us there.”

Most of the agents on both TEAMs were already searching for Grissom’s boys, either online from TEAM HQ or physically, boots on the ground in Costa Rica. Except for those with permanent stateside workloads: Mark Houston, Mother, Axel Cho, Harley Mortimer, Zack Lennox, David Tao, Maverick Carson, Tripp McClane, Jake Weylin, Cord Shepherd, and Beckam Garner.

Grissom turned for the head. “Grab me some decent clothes and boots. I ain’t wearing this orange shit. My go-bag and all my tactical gear, too. My vest. I need weapons, Murph. Get my knives and pistols. All of them.”

Murphy watched the bathroom door close behind Grissom. With any luck, his brain was finally mending. If not? Murphy was in for a helluva long flight to Central America.