Heston (In the Company of Snipers #25)

Bonus Epilogue

“They won’t let me leave, Boss. 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!”

Murphy cocked his head, studying the troubled agent fidgeting with the hem of the gray Shady Creek Asylum t-shirt he’d been wearing the past three days. Sitting on the edge of his hospital bed, Grissom had both his gaze and his feet on the floor. Murphy leaned forward from the chair at the foot of the bed, wishing this agent would, just once, make eye contact. “Why do you think you’re here?”

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

“You’re too tough to die, but you’re not well. You asked me to find your boys, remember?”

Grissom nodded, then slowly, like every other time Murphy had tried to jog Grissom’s memory, the nod changed to head shake. “No. I… ah… don’t remember asking… anything.” He scrubbed both hands over his bearded face, then up over his shaggy hair as if searching for those elusive memories. “I … I got shot, recall that clear as a bell... I think. Least, I know I was in a shootout or something… somewhere... But I can’t find any point of entry. Was it my head? 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 what’s why I’m here? Who did it? Who shot me?”

“You weren’t shot, but—” That happened when Grissom was still active duty Air Force. It had nothing to do with this voluntary confinement.

“Where’s my damned kids?” Grissom cut Murphy off, peering around 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. “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—”

That sounded promising, as if Grissom was remembering. “And half The TEAM’s looking for them.”

“Half? 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. Please, just stop and think, remember what I told you.”

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

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. Then, by taking Tanner and Luke with her when she’d fled to South 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 owned. Had being the key word. He was the one flying the plane when it went down off Costa Rica’s west coast. Fortunately for Grissom, his boys weren’t part of that tour. But Costa Rican navy pulled Pamela, Estes, and four paying tourists out of the ocean.

Murphy still had no idea where Tanner and Luke were. Between him and TEAM One’s top dog, Mark Houston, they had a dozen TEAM agents working to locate the boys. From her home, where she was recovering from minor surgery, Agent Leisha Warner had backtracked Pam’s activities up to the morning she’d left the States. Pam’s neighbors had been just as 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. God, Murphy hoped those boys were still alive. Pam wouldn’t have been vindictive enough to have them, would she?

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

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

“My neighbor. Robin Dillon. She’s a real good girl. My boys love her. She babysits for us.” He pursed his lips, as if forcing himself to breathe, like a pregnant woman in labor, would help. “I need to see ’em, Murph. You’ll make sure they come see me as soon as they get here. Is Robin bringing them?” Grissom swiped a hand over his hair again, as if he wanted to look good for whoever Robin was.

“You’re injured, Gris.” Murphy pressed a hand to his sternum. “Here.”

Grissom had yet to make direct eye contact, and that was troubling. “You sure? Cuz I gotta tell you, there’s no hole in my chest or belly big enough to even stick my little finger into. 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 into hysteria.

This visit was going nowhere. It was time for Murphy to back off. Inhaling a gut full of regret, he lifted to his feet.

Grissom jumped up, staring past him to the door. “Don’t go. Please. This place is killing me. All they wanna do here is talk, and I’m fucking sick of it. I… I got a wife and kids to get home to… two kids… two little boys… err, 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. “Pamela,” he whispered, blinking but still not facing Murphy. “It’s not me, is it? 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 gray eyes went blank. His lips thinned.

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

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

“Just came for a visit,” Murphy replied softly. “How are they treating you here?”

“Here?” Grissom blinked again and once again, his gaze hit the exit door of the room that would be his home for as long as it took for him to remember. 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 picture 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 in the desk. No paper clips, either. The dresser was bolted to the floor and the drawers were painted on. The bed was bolted down, as well, and the blinds on the windows were enclosed inside two panes of that bullet-proof glass. No drawstrings. Nothing anywhere to fashion a weapon with. Which didn’t mean squat when the man inside this room was a trained killer.

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

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, and judging by the way this visit had gone, he wouldn’t be coming back anytime soon.

But then…

Grissom did something he hadn’t done since becoming a full-time resident of the Shady Creek Asylum. His gaze scrolled from the door and, without blinking, he stared Murphy dead in the eye. “She really left me this time, didn’t she?” he asked, his voice a rock in the middle of the shitstorm that was his life. “Pam ran off with that guy who’s been hanging around. That’s what you’ve been trying to tell 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— “fucking Costa Rica.”

His nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath and his belly inflated. Murphy could only guess that the pain and suffering Grissom was under had somehow freed his brain from its trauma. He needed his 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 both feet, plant them like he was ready to fight, and declare, “Help me find my boys or get the hell out of my way, Murph. Like it or not, I’m leaving.”

“Now hold on a minute.” Murphy put both palms forward, as if placating a man the size of Grissom would stop a father hellbent on finding his children.

Grissom stood a good foot over Murphy. He was as tall as Shane and bulkier than Beau. His eyes were mean for the first time in days, both dark brows narrowed over two pissed off steel-blue death rays. He leaned over Murphy, glared down at him, and hissed, “I said move, old man.”

Murphy allowed a faint smile. Sass was another step in the right direction. “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. I’m a man, damn it. Get the hell out of my way.”

“You’re not going anywhere—”

“The fuck I’m not!” Grissom’s roar blistered over the top of Murphy’s nearly bald head. But rules were rules.

“Back off, buster!” He could bellow, too. “If you’d shut up and listen for a guldarned minute, you’d understand 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. Take someone with you. Hell, take everyone. We’re all on your side, and you know better!”

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

“Yes, Pam took Tanner and Luke to Costa Rica. We’ve tracked them that far,” Murphy explained hurriedly. “Your mission is to locate your sons without killing anyone else, you understand?”

A grunt was all Murphy got for an answer. He kept talking. “Which agents do you want on your six?”

“Alex.”

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

“Leisha Warner.”

“Sorry, she twisted her knee playing volleyball two nights ago and can’t walk. Might be looking at surgery. Pick someone else.”

“Cassidy Dancer.”

Murphy gulped. Okay, not everyone could support Grissom. “She’s on maternity leave.” He seemed focused on female operators, so Murphy offered, “Phoenix Bond and Jenna Bates are available. So are Everlee Yeager-Hayes, Izza Maher, Camilla Garner, and—”

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

Murphy shrugged fisted knots of tension off his shoulders. “They’re yours. Anyone else?”

“Alex,” Grissom barked.

Damn it, this was where Murphy drew a hardline. “No,” he told his hard-headed agent again.

“Yeah, Murph. Alex’ll come if he knows what I’m up against. He’ll understand, I know he will.”

And he would. Alex was a father and a hard charging son of a gun who always had his agents’ backs. Which is why Murphy refused to call him. “Think, Grissom. Kelsey just survived a shot to the 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’s brows furrowed into a dangerous V. Which told Murphy the man in front of him didn’t remember how close Kelsey had recently come to death, or 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 buddies, Michael Keane, Lancaster and 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. One of the three main players, no one knew which, had then offed Malloy and hired a couple local tough guys to kidnap London Wilde, Heston’s fiancé. Heston had rescued London, and Murphy knew where Obermeyer’s body was. But the FBI still dutifully considered both Wirths missing and unaccounted for. Not like Murphy cared what the Bureau thought. Even if he knew where Alex buried the Wirths, he’d never tell.

“Call him,” Grissom ordered. “Alex is the best there is.”

“If anyone’s going with you, it’s me. Let me make a few calls—”

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

At last! Grissom called Murphy ‘Boss.’

“Understood. Grab a shower while I work on getting you released. Then we’ll call Mother to line up an Air Force bird out of Joint Base Andrews. Most of TEAM One’s already in Costa Rica searching for your boys.” All except agents managing permanent workloads: Mark, Harley, Zack, Maverick, Tripp, Jake, and Beckam.

Grissom headed for the head. “Grab me some decent clothes while you’re at it. My go-bag and tactical gear. My vest. And I need weapons, Murph. Get me my knife and my pistols.”

Murphy watched the bathroom door close on Grissom. With any luck, Grissom’s brain was finally on the mend. If not? Murphy blew out a sigh. He was in for one helluva flight to Costa Rica.