by Leigh Tudor
He steered the cart toward the car and opened the passenger door leaning down to peer inside.
“Could you stand outside with the kids while I put the car seats inside?”
“Car seats?” Trevor asked with raised eyebrows.
“Madame Garmond said not to drive any farther without putting the girls in car seats that meet all the necessary federal safety standards. The boy shouldn’t need one based on his age and weight.”
“This couldn’t wait until the kids were safe at the hotel and we were out of our tactical gear?”
“Look, I’ve learned it’s easier to do what Madame Garmond says than suffer the consequences. She’s a ballbuster, man.”
Trevor nodded. He actually knew that about her.
Nate chuckled in the back and muttered, “Ballbuster,” with a grin.
Progress, Trevor thought. He’d rather the kid make inappropriate comments than be scared witless.
Trevor opened the door, and Nate did the same after unbuckling Haley and then Marleigh while Trevor stood behind him holding the door open as if he were doing something useful.
Alec pulled a bag from the bottom of the cart and handed out coats to each of the small people. “Hope these fit, I had to guess at the sizes.”
Marleigh’s and Nate’s coats were too small, Nate’s showing about an inch of skin on each wrist. Haley’s was too big, making her look all the more small and vulnerable. It would have to do.
While Alec opened the boxes and flipped through the instructions, Trevor guided the children toward a grassy area with a parking lot lamp providing ample light. He sat on a concrete curb as Nate sat beside him, moving pebbles around with a stick. Marleigh twirled in circles singing a children’s rhyme while Haley stood no less than six feet in front of him, just staring at him with intense bottle-green eyes.
Airflow became impaired as Trevor coughed into his fist, and Haley continued her ongoing unearthly glower.
Maybe he should say something? Strike up a conversation?
What the hell did five-year-olds talk about anyway?
He scratched behind his ear and then lowered his head toward Nate, and whispered, “Why is she staring at me?”
Nate looked up. “She doesn’t talk much. She’s trying to decide if you’re trustworthy. Frankly, it’s not looking good.”
Trevor balked, rearranging his vest guard. “Why not? I can be trusted.”
“Nice try, she’s kinda like an empath. She feels things.” He looked up again at Haley who’s eyebrows were in a deep V. “And, dude, she’s not feeling you.”
“I just rescued her from the Center.”
“It’s not about what you do. It’s about what she feels.” Nate shrugged, swinging his stick at a rock like a golf club. “She’s also got an eidetic memory.”
“What kind of memory?”
Nate sighed and rolled his eyes as if he were conversing with a chimpanzee with less than desirable cognitive skills.
“Eidetic.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means she doesn’t forget anything.”
Trevor’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean she doesn’t forget anything?”
“I mean, she literally remembers everything. What happened on what day during what year. Oh, and what she was wearing.”
Haley continued to stare, stoic, appearing angry and a little ghoulish.
This is not what he expected when he dreamed of being reunited with his daughter. He thought she would hug him and cry with unbridled joy. But all she did was stare at him as if assessing the perfect place to bite into his carotid artery.
And then something incredible happened.
Haley spoke.
“A red and white dress,” she said, simply without inflection.
Trevor shook his head. “I . . . don’t understand.”
“That’s what I wore the last time I saw you.”
Chapter Eight
“Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.”
— Henri Frederic Amiel
Loren leaned her head against the window frame overlooking the parking lot across from the front entrance of the Center.
She checked the time on her phone. In a few hours Amado and his band of merry men would arrive, demanding payment for the botched role Jasper played while transporting Amado’s fleet of narco trucks.
Loren had her instructions. Which required she rely on others for success. A first for her, but the payoff was too compelling for her to pass up, assuming she lived through the altercation.
She’d done her homework, worked through a number of risk assessment analyses and identified the preferred mode of action. The calculation served her well over the years, requiring only a basic knowledge of rudimentary math.
During high stake missions, Loren found that being aware of the various probabilities and their outcomes brought about a sense of calm and centeredness to the process, ensuring success.
Until recently.
That whole process fell apart less than twenty-four hours ago when an unexpected variable in her equation showed up wearing Loren’s favorite pair of leather pants and popping her gum.
Risk factors were now completely skewed and screwed.
In the past, she might’ve been willing to accept the risk when the worst-case scenario affected her and her alone. But now her sister was involved. Her sister who was sick and suffering from a surgery that would’ve never happened if it weren’t for Loren’s poor judgment of one despicable man.
The same man who ordered Mercy’s and Cara’s fallopian tubes to be severed.
Perhaps hers as well? She recalled being sedated prior to Dr. Vielle removing an impacted wisdom tooth. Halstead could have easily made arrangements for her baby-makers to be yanked out as well.
She’d kill him all over again if given the chance. But this time, with her own hands instead of virulent sandwich meat condiments.
Loren sighed, the heat from her breath creating a fog on the window.
Mercy was a variable difficult to control and likely to create chaos. But the deal Loren struck was well underway, like a freight train reaching speeds that could no longer be stopped in time to account for unexpected disruptions.
There was nothing to do but wait.
To pass the time, she sat at her desk and fired up her keyboard and monitor and pulled up the CCTV feeds. She scrolled through the same camera feeds she sifted through earlier in the day when she came across a child in what looked to be an art studio. The room appeared eerily similar to the one where Mercy used to spend all of her time but in an entirely different annex of the facility.
As expected, the art studio was empty.
The next feed was the hybrid kitchenette and classroom. Again, no one was there, and she smiled with relief. Satisfied that Mercy was able to move the children out of the facility and to a safe place.
Now, if only she could keep her from returning, assuming she would return.
Loren huffed at the thought.
Of course she’d be back.
Mercy was nothing if not tenacious and immune to danger. Assigning the level of risk from her gut rather than a rational mathematical formula. And, as calculably expected, Mercy’s gut reactions were scarcely accurate, trending toward negligent, optimistic bias.
Recalling their earlier standoff, she thought about how Mercy stood up to her. How she was willing to fight her to protect the children.
She smiled at her sister’s trademark bravado.
Because, although Mercy was the faster and stronger opponent, Loren was more patient and strategic. And when sparring against one another, Loren often refrained from taking the upper hand, allowing Mercy to build more self-confidence.
Despite all that, Loren was intensely proud of Mercy. Proud that she had refused to be bullied or even swayed. Rather, she stood tall and refused to back down. Indefatigable in doing what was right. And unrelenting in denying Loren’s help.
She wasn’t going to lie.
The thing was, she would’ve done the same thing.
She stretched in her chair, yawning and sliding the mouse across the pad and perusing the feeds. She stopped at what looked like one of the sleeping units.
She shot out of her chair, leaning toward the screen as she viewed the dark-haired girl she had seen in the art studio earlier in the day, sleeping in one of the units.
Leaning forward, she squinted at the monitor, her heart pounding in her ears, and light-headed.
So Mercy didn’t get them out? Then where was Mercy?
Blood, alongside an octane-fueled adrenaline rush, pumped through her body. She was sifting through feeds when she should be hunting down Mercy and helping her evacuate the children before Amado and his men arrived.
She stood straight, running agitated fingers through her hair. The little girl was sound asleep, the clothes she wore that day draped over the chair.
Not an uncommon practice when Loren and her sisters were at the Center, as the orderlies would arrive the following day to swap the previous day’s clothes for freshly laundered ones.
But something caught her eye and triggered her memory.
Something was off.
There wasn’t a spec of paint on the girl’s clothes, and Loren vividly remembered the little girls’ pants being covered with paint despite protecting them with an oversized smock.
On screen, the clothing draped over the chair was spotless, a blue T-shirt opposed to the white one the little girl had worn while painting.
She checked the time stamp on the feed, and it matched the current time and day.
Sitting back in her chair, she blinked and turned her head to the side. The CCTV system had to have been compromised. Much like she had done to the system in the ambulance.
Was that Mercy’s doing?
Loren’s head jerked up as her door opened.
Jasper looked as if he had spent the night pulling at his three strands of hair, his white lab coat wrinkled and his tie askew.
Just looking at his thin face made Loren’s blood boil, unmitigated anger making a circuitous route through her body and landing in her gut.
The same place Mercy made all her fast-twitch decisions.
For the first time that Loren could remember, she wanted nothing more than to allow her emotions to overtake calculated risk.
But her hands were tied. The deal she brokered was to assist Birch in snagging Amado without damaging a strand of hair on the side-part of Jasper’s head.
If she could just manage to get through the next few hours without suffocating Jasper, then her sisters would be granted clemency, and Mercy would receive the medical attention she so desperately needed.
Jasper began to pace. “I can’t just sit around waiting for Amado to show up. Maybe we should leave? I’m telling you; we could be on a plane to Punta Cana in a few hours.” Like a cornered animal, his eyes were wide and his breathing erratic.
Shit, the last thing she needed was for Jasper to bolt.
She blew out a breath. “Sure, that’s an option. With about zero point zero zero zero four hundredths percentage points of assessed success.”
He stopped and stared at her.
“In other words, if you want to die a painful and gruesome death, by all means, bail on Amado. But fair warning, he’ll hunt you down.”
“You were able to escape the Center and you seem to be breathing fine.”
Loren bobbed her head up and down in agreement. “True, and if you think you have the necessary hacking skills to make yourself disappear for the foreseeable future, then yes, leave, and don’t let the mantrap hit you in the ass.
“That said,” she continued, swaying back and forth in her chair as Mercy did that morning, “If you stay and work a deal with Amado, you have a greater chance of living to a ripe old age while sipping mojitos on a remote island with all of this nastiness behind you. I can make that happen for you. So I suggest you dig deep, man up, and see this meeting through.”
She shrugged. “Or find yourself dipped in a barrel of acid.” She stopped her chair and leaned her elbows on her desk. “Without your head, of course. Because they’re going to need to cut that off to send to the next spineless moron who was personally responsible for the destruction of over fifteen narco trucks and several of Amado’s men and then was dumb enough to try to outrun one of the most brutal drug cartel bosses in history.”
Jasper’s lip curled. “You always were a heartless bitch.”
“The heartless bitch who’s never botched a single job and is your only chance for survival.” She sat back in her chair and laced her fingers in her lap. “Now, stop being a weak-ass piece of shit. Go back to your office, drink some scotch, and let me know when they arrive. And then, I’ll make this all go away.”
By putting your weak ass behind bars.
He sneered at her with his spiny fingers on his hips. “How do I know you won’t bail?”
“Because I’m doing this for the same reason I did every job forced upon me by Halstead. To protect my sisters.” She leaned forward. “Once we’re done here, you’re going to a remote tropical beach, and I’m going to find another place for my sisters and me to live a normal life.”
“Assuming Mercy’s tumor doesn’t kill her first.” This shit-for-brains just never knew when to stop.
Breathing exercises. Her only fallback, opposed to bludgeoning him in the head by either the concrete statue of Hippocrates on the shelf behind her or the paperweight sitting on her desk. Or maybe, wrapping the monitor’s power cord around his neck and pulling until his eyes bulged.
She took another four-count breath, willing herself to calm, turning her view toward the office window as a way to refrain from finding yet another way to kill Jasper Bancroft.
She glanced at the sky, fixating on a full moon peeking through the undulating curvatures of the clouds. The shapes began to move into triangles, the parking lights flickering on and off, fanning out into perfectly shaped circles and then just as quickly into subdividing triangles.
A stream of cars made their way into the lot, the images trailing one after the other like a stack of thumbed Polaroids.
And then the images moved back into their original state.
She was no longer in her spectral state of mind.
Amado had arrived.
Alec handed Trevor the marginally improved set of night vision binoculars.
“Looks like they’ve got company,” he said to his partner.
“Doesn’t appear to be a social visit, considering how heavily armed they are,” Trevor commented from where he lay on the ground and leaned on his elbows as he looked through the lens of the binoculars.
Alec agreed. He’d counted more than a dozen men carrying either AK-47s or AR-223s with FN-57 pistols holstered to their sides. Some pretty heavy artillery and manpower considering the number of people inside the facility.
“Recognize anyone?” Alec asked, in light of Trevor having surveilled the Center in the recent past.
Trevor lowered the binoculars and shook his head. “Never seen them before.”
“Loren and Mercy are sitting ducks.” Alec’s throat tightened at the thought.
“Assuming they’re still in there,” Trevor reasoned.
With the improved surveillance gear, the men found a remote hilltop and crawled to the edge of a ravine overlooking the Center, garnering them a clear view of a much larger expanse of the surrounding terrain.
A glint to Alec’s right caught his attention. It was about half a mile away on a neighboring ravine. He nudged Trevor. “Check out your two o’clock at about 750 yards . . .”
Trevor shifted his upper body, keeping the binoculars steady.
Alec saw another glint and some movement. “Backup?”
Trevor lowered the binoculars and gave Alec a confused shake of his head. “Feds.”
“Feds?” Alec repeated.
“With M2M.”
Trevor lifted his binoculars.
“What the fuck?” Alec said. “You know about this?”
Trevor shook his head, moving the goggles to scope the rest of the landscape and then stopped.
“What?” Alec asked, instinctively aware that he’d found something.
Trevor handed him the binoculars. “Look farther to your three o’clock on the ridge.”
Alec maneuvered the night vision goggles and sucked in. “There’s the backup.”
He lowered the goggles and looked at Trevor, confirming what they both knew.
Alec brought the lens back to his eyes to watch the hillside of men with more AK-47s and AR-223s, slowly following their prey, both parties unaware of the two men to their left, scoping their efforts.
Trevor commented, “Based on the men and their choice of rifles and pistols, I’m guessing they’re with a cartel.”
“Amado?” Alec asked.
“More than likely,” Trevor replied.
“I’m guessing,” Alec said with a heavy sigh, “that our crazy-ass target worked a deal with Birch and the feds to trap Amado, unaware that Amado would have planned ahead for it. And once the feds and M2M get close enough to snag Amado, Amado’s men would be in position for an ambush.” Alec ran his hand through his hair.
“The reverse of what Jasper Bancroft did to Amado’s men and the narco trucks.” Trevor added, “And the perfect revenge-scenario for one pissed-off drug lord.”
“Well,” Alec said, repositioning his body, “I guess we’re the unexpected backup for M2M and the feds who believe they’re about to pull off the drug cartel sting of the decade. But are more than likely to get massacred.”
“Pretty much,” Trevor said, nodding in agreement. “You know what we’re going to have to do.”
“Play sniper?”
Trevor shook his head. “With what? Mercy snagged our long-range rifles. All we have are Sigs.”
Alec stared at the Center and the goons sporting cop-killer pistols and bulletproof jackets. “What I wouldn’t give for my sniper rifle right now,” Alec said with longing. His gaze moved back to his right as Amado’s men were gaining on their colleagues. “I guess we’re doing this old school. Picking them off one at a time and taking their weapons.”
