Heston (In the Company of Snipers #25)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Heston turned to the man he’d insulted. He’d been so worried about London, he hadn’t asked Alex about his wife. “Holy shit, I’m… I’m sorry, Boss. How… how is she?”

Alex looked haggard and weary, but still lethal. The man’s blue eyes were pits as dark, black ice and bleak as the unforgiving depths of the deepest ocean. His expression was carved from the same black ice. Sharp. Jagged. Damned deadly. Take one wrong step, and just like that ocean, he’d end your dumb ass and never look back.

Twin SIG pistols graced both cups of the worn leather holster strapped over the plates of his tactical vest. A damned evil knife lay at his hand on the counter. Odd. No sniper rifle, Alex’s strong suit, in sight. Which stood to reason. He was kitted out for close combat fighting. The killers who had London wouldn’t die by a shot they didn’t see coming. No. This was personal. Alex wanted the Irishman, whoever he was, Obermeyer or Keane, to know precisely who was killing them. What happened today would be lethal, up close, and gawddamned personal.

“No need to apologize. I’ve been in your shoes. Kelsey’s holding her own,” Alex replied evenly. “She’s not out of the woods yet, but—” he paused— “soon. You’ll see. She’ll come back to… to us.”

Christ, the man was wound as tightly as Heston. “What’s your plan?” he asked with as much patience as he could muster.

“For now, we’re waiting on more intel from Mother. She’s on her way up. Just—”

“Here! I’m here, Alex. I’m running as fast as I can. Don’t start without me,” Mother ordered, her heels clicking menacingly from the rear hall elevator to the portable tables Heston had just noticed along the wall behind the counter. “Where are the maps I asked for, people?”

He swallowed his OPSEC mistake down. He hadn’t heard the elevator. Hadn’t even heard its doors open or close. It’d been a damned long time since he’d lost track of situational awareness. It wouldn’t happen again.

Everyone in the lobby shifted to the tables. Heston took quick stock of the crowd. Mark and Harley stood at Alex’s left. David Tao, Connor and Izza Maher, Rory and Ember Dennison, Cassidy Dancer and her husband, Jude were there, too. Lee Hart and his wife Tess. Hunter Christian. Eric Reynolds. Beau Villanueva, of course, since his wife was attending to Kelsey.

Renner Graves stood alongside Beckam Garner, both with their arms folded across their chests. Jameson Tenney stood smartly at Alex’s right side, his hair combed as usual, dark glasses covering his eyes, white cane tucked firmly alongside his left leg. Tripp McClane and Jake Weylin looked ready to brawl, both grim and stiff across from Alex. Shane Hayes and Everlee Yeager, all but stood at attention with them. Even the agents who normally operated OCONUS, outside the continental United States, were present and accounted for: Walker and Persia Judge. Zack Lennox. Seth McCray. Cord Shepherd.

Heston didn’t recognize the older Black gentleman with Murphy, but they seemed to know each other so he let that lack of detail slide. Murphy’s secretary, Page Royal, stood at his elbow. Geeky Axel Cho, Mother’s technical assistant, and the guys and gals from TEAM Two were there, as well. Grissom McCoy, Phoenix Bond, Avery Branson, Jenna Bates, Cole Hemmingway, Leisha Warner, and Byron Shields. Asher Downey jerked his chin at Heston. Christ, everyone was there to support Alex and Kelsey. And now London.

Mother assumed a stern position alongside Jameson, then turned on him with a curt, “I know you pulled your own map. You know where she is.” Not questions. Outright declarations.

“Yes, Mom, I did and I do. Is everyone here so we can start?” Jameson asked, his head rotating as if he were surveying his audience. Which he absolutely wasn’t and would never do again.

Former Navy SEAL Jameson Tenney had lost his sight during a classified overseas combat mission gone wrong. But whereas many injured vets came home to drug addiction, homelessness, and suicide, Jameson threw himself into learning to live without seeing. First came Braille and learning how to maneuver in public with just a cane and his other senses. After accomplishing that, he’d tackled—and conquered—two extreme sports: parkour, the obstacle course that involved precision jumping, wall running, climbing vertical walls, and other seemingly impossible feats of daring; and Krav Maga, the extreme fighting system from Israeli Defense Forces that combined aikido, boxing, karate, and wrestling techniques. Somewhere amidst the incredible physical skills he’d acquired, Jameson had also become uncannily adept at profiling. A couple of TEAM agents swore he could read minds. Maybe he could. The son of a bitch could still nail the high-caliber, thousand-yard gong at the gun range. Maybe because his other senses were sharper now? Maybe because he simply listened better? Who the hell knew?

“Go ahead, Jameson,” Alex ordered.

Jameson nodded and began. “As we all know, Alex suspects that either Secretary of State Obermeyer or the proposed next ambassador to Ireland, Michael Keane, are behind the attempts on Alex’s and Kelsey’s lives. And now they’ve kidnapped” —his head rotated until his dark glasses aimed at Heston— “your friend, Hes. Former USFS Lieutenant London Wilde. Mother and Cho located security footage that show her abduction outside Le Petite Sunrise Sweets Confectionary, at zero three-hundred hours this morning. Three men were involved. Two slowed her run, the other came up behind and tranq’d her. She went down like a lamb. They stuffed her into the trunk of a black Lincoln town car. License plate came back as stolen, so that’s a dead end. But…”

He turned to Mother, who pointed the remote at her fingertips to the big screen and brought up another image. “A traffic camera across the street caught this image when the trunk was open.” The picture was shadowy and grainy, but there was enough morning light to reveal the stark white face and blank eyes, as well as the bullet hole in the forehead, of the deceased male stuffed into the right rear wheel well.

“That’s Ryan Malloy,” Heston declared.

His inner caveman roared to life. Protect London! Run! Now! Save woman!

“Who the fuck’s Ryan Malloy?” Beau Villanueva growled.

“Former Irish Ranger. Extraordinary sniper. Jack Malloy’s son,” Heston replied, his heart pounding at the obvious threat to London.

“Shit, he’s famous,” Beau hissed. “How’d anyone take out Ryan?”

“Who cares?” Izza Maher spoke up. “But I’m betting they took her over the bridge to Anacostia. Plenty of deserted derelict buildings over there to stash bodies.” Her dark eyes cut to Heston. “Sorry, but you know I’m right. Two dead drug addicts were found there just last week. It’s a valid dumping—”

“She’s not dead,” he bit out, pissed that Connor’s wife would go there so quickly. London couldn’t be dead. He’d know if they’d already killed her. He’d feel her sweet spirit leave the Earth. He would!

“The river’s not frozen, but it’s still damned cold this time of year,” Jake Weylin said quietly. He ought to know. He’d been pulled from the Potomac in the middle of a fierce winter storm a few years back. Almost died.

“Shut the fuck up,” Asher cut in before Heston could knock Jake on his ass. “London’s not dead and she’s not in the fuckin’ Potomac River! We’ll find her, gawddamn it. Where’d they stash her?” he barked at Jameson. “You oughta know.”

“At the tip of my finger, Ash, Hes,” Jameson replied evenly.

Swallowing hard, Heston glared down at the spot in the map where Jameson’s fingertip still rested. He leaned closer. Really looked this time. It wasn’t in the middle of the District. It was nearer the east end of the Tidal Basin, the man-made reservoir between the Potomac River and the Washington Channel in Washington DC. “They’ve taken her to the Jefferson Monument?”

Jameson’s dark glasses aimed at Heston as if he were truly seeing him. “East of the monument.”

“Why?” Heston asked, striving to—somehow—remain as calm as Jameson. Something about the blind guy inspired confidence. For the first time since he’d seen London’s battered image, hope lifted its weary head. Jameson believed London was still alive. Heston could feel it.

“We’re dealing with two alpha predators, Hes, not deadbeat addicts or brainless lowlifes who kill on the spur of the moment, then dump bodies wherever it’s convenient. Think about it. Obermeyer and Keane are both connected with powerful people in Congress, and they’re arrogant. They want Alex to suffer. They’re making a statement. They want him to understand, at least to think, they’re powerful enough to make him do what they want, whenever and anywhere they say. It’s early Saturday, and today, like every week until the middle of October, there’ll be a farmers’ market in the parking lot east of the monument. Right now, there are a hundred or so vendors setting up tents, E-Z Ups, and stands to sell produce and crafts. Before noon, the place will be crowded. Directly east of those vendor booths, between the parking lot and East Basin Drive Southwest, lies the District’s Inner-City Gardens, a green zone set aside to encourage inner-city families to raise their own produce. There you’ll find individual family plots, gardening sheds, and” —Jameson’s finger tapped the location he’d uncannily pointed out before— “three shipping containers repurposed as organic greenhouses. Keane owns them, and he’s made sure everyone knows the produce for his chain of pubs along the East Coast is grown there.”

Sounded plausible. Hes had seen Keane’s ads and billboards. He’d made quite the name for himself. And those were his much-touted, much-advertised containers lined up side-by-side with the fenced-in community gardens. What better place to stash London than in plain sight?

Jameson’s slender finger tapped again. “That’s where you’ll find her, in one of those containers.”

Heston agreed. “I think you’re right.”

“Keane and Obermeyer stashed her there because, sorry, Hes, Jake’s right, too. It’s close to the river. More importantly, Keane thinks he’s untouchable. With Obermeyer flying cover for him and campaigning for his ambassadorship, Keane believes he can get away with anything. Even murder.”

“Look at the photo again,” Alex said. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet for a man with a vendetta. “What do you see?”

The TEAM’s focus rotated back to the big screen, where Mother had once again displayed the shot of London, bound and gagged and—hanging by her poor arms. Heston’s eyes filled. It was damned near noon. She’d been missing for hours. Keane and Obermeyer’d had more than enough time to torture her. And worse. She wouldn’t last much longer.

“I see a flooded linoleum floor with a drain in the center,” Harley replied. “Plain metal walls. London barely standing on her toes and—! Look at her pant leg, Hes.”

Heston’s eyes jerked to the bloody symbols scrawled on the side of London’s thigh. Scribbles, really. But the Xs and Os were clear enough to make him panic all over again. She’d sent that message to him before she’d been strung up. Was that her way of telling him goodbye? Had she given up?

“Why’d they take her?!” Why not me?

Jameson breathed a drawn-out sigh. “When London outed Bates, she made it personal. Obermeyer’s carefully orchestrated plan to make Keane ambassador fell apart, as did their other plans.”

“Other plans?” Heston asked.

“Obermeyer and Keane own a warehouse full of containers just like these three, on a dock in Delaware,” Jameson replied soberly. “That’s where they stash the women and girls they’ve kidnapped before moving them to South America.”

“I’m still tracking the ship that left Delaware last night,” Axel piped up. “I’ll find those poor women. Don’t worry.”

“South America? This shitshow’s about human trafficking? That’s what Obermeyer and Keane are into?” Heston turned on Mark, ready to knock the guy’s head off at that despicable insight. “I knew there was a mole inside Stewart’s house. I abso-fuckin’-lutely told you! Who is it? Do you know? Have you even looked for the person who knew where the Stewarts were going? Didn’t you take me seriously?”

Mark was a big, broad bull of a man. Standing at six feet three inches tall and weighing around three hundred pounds, he could easily snap Heston’s neck if push ever came to shove. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and quietly replied, “I always take you seriously, Hes. You know that. You’re one of our best, and yes, we found the mole. Arlette Kramer is the Stewarts’ neighbor and one of Lexie’s friends. But she’s only six years old, and she had no idea that the nice man with the funny accent who fell off his bike in front of her house was pumping her for information. Of course she told him everything she knew. Ask any kid. Kids love talking to anyone who’ll listen. I’ve already chatted with her parents. They also knew where Lexie’s parents were going on their secret getaway.”

“Because my daughter can’t keep her mouth shut,” Alex added wearily.

Well, shit. Heston knew Lexie. She was her mother’s Mini-Me, but also so much like her father. He scrubbed his face, not sure how to ask, but going to ask anyway. “She has a photographic memory? Like you?”

“Not photographic,” Alex whispered. “Eidetic. Like you. Kelsey and I outlined our route on a Trails Illustrated map of Mount Rainier National Park. We put it away. Made sure we didn’t talk in front of Lexie. But obviously, she found it and shared it. Us. We’re the breach in TEAM OPSEC.”

“It’s not your fault,” Mark said. “Kids—”

“Yes, it is.” Alex cut him off. “I should’ve known better. When Lexie gets her little posse together, the whole damned house sounds like a son of a bitchin’ chicken coop.”

“But we don’t know for certain it was Lexie, Boss. Bates might’ve turned on Malloy,” Mark persisted.

“Not possible,” Heston said. “We turned him and Malloy over to Tucker Chase, and I doubt Tucker’d let him make any outgoing calls. How’d Obermeyer get Malloy?”

“Tuck had no choice but release Malloy when Obermeyer sent the Secret Service to Tucker’s boss with orders to collect him,” Murphy spoke up. “Gawddamned diplomatic immunity applies to that jackass.”

“How’d Obermeyer know Tuck had Malloy and Bates in custody?”

Murphy shrugged. “Might be the same way the Irishman knew where Kelsey’s been all this time.”

“Which tells me they had eyes on us every step of the way. We played into their hands. Where’s Obermeyer now?” Heston demanded to know. “Where’s Bates?”

“Obermeyer’s whereabouts are unknown,” Alex answered, “and Tuck has one of his best psychics working over Bates. We should get better intel soon. Listen up, people.” All eyes were already on Alex. “Deck and Adam will fly us into Reagan. From there, I’ve got a fleet of unmarked vehicles on standby that’ll move us to this location.”

His index stabbed a long, rectangular position just east of East Basin Drive Southwest. “This is Keane’s container one. Mark, hit it and hit it hard. Take whoever you need to make it happen with you.” He stabbed the next container. “Murphy and Roy, take container two. Take whoever you need. And Hes…” Roy had to be the older Black guy with Murphy.

Heston looked up into the deadly eyes of one weary, but pissed-off killer. “Bring your blowout bag, get an IFAK kit if you don’t already have one, and enough painkiller to keep London comfortable until medics arrive. You and Eric are with me.”

“Copy that,” Eric answered.

“You know which container she’s in,” Heston breathed.

“Of course he does. I’ve had drones in the air over those containers for weeks,” Mother cut in. “Just wish I’d known there were women in there, I’d have called the FBI. Speaking of which, the FBI will be on hand. Don’t ask me how they know—”

“Psychics,” Heston spat. “Tucker met us when we landed last night. Shit! He’s got intel he’s not sharing.”

“The Bureau has no need to share anything with us,” Murphy pointed out.

“Like hell they don’t!” Heston yelled. “If Tucker knew London was there—”

“He would’ve called me,” Alex said tiredly. “Damn it, Hes, they’re not omniscient and Tucker’s on our side. Trust me. His wife was kidnapped years ago. Nothing brings out the beast in him more than men who abuse women.”

Mother cut in with, “Things might get messy. FBI’s after Keane, too, so—”

“We’re going covert, Mother, not rogue,” Alex bit out. “We do this by the book, people. If the Bureau takes Obermeyer and Keane into custody, let them. But if anyone—any-gawddamned one—dares come after my wife or any of you again—in my house—on my land!—kill the sons of bitches!”

Heads nodded and The TEAM moved out. Heston, Eric, and Alex were at HQ’s entrance when Alex’s phone buzzed.

“Libby? What’s—?”

“You need to come down to Kelsey’s room. Now.”

Heston cocked his head at the loud, stern command coming from Mark Houston’s petite wife over the phone.

“Is she—?”

“She needs you, Alex. She’s trying to wake up, and the first person she needs to see is you. Hurry.”

“On my way.” Alex stuffed the phone in his pants pocket and turned to Heston. There was a spark in his tired blue eyes for the first time in days.

“Go, Boss. Your place is with Kelsey.”

“Kill them, Hes,” Alex bit out. “Kill them all. Make them bleed. Make those sons of bitches pay.”

“Yes, sir, I will. Now go. We’ve got this,” Heston answered with equal venom.

Alex turned for the elevator that would take him down three levels to The TEAM’s high-tech sickbay. Heston and Eric turned to the East, toward Washington DC and the Jefferson Monument. To London. Obermeyer, Keane, and that damned Irishman might think they were running this show, but they were dead-assed wrong. They’d made a fatal mistake. The biggest, baddest apex predator on the East Coast wasn’t Alex Stewart. It was Heston, a caveman at heart maybe, but a caveman who would damned well defend London to the death. Their bloody, painful-as-fuck deaths. Today—there would be blood.

“Stay strong, babe,” he projected across the distance between them. “I’m coming.”

And I’m bringing Hell with me.