Holiday Mountain Conspiracy

by Liz Shoaf

  From one second to the next, Ned’s body relaxed and he nodded at the sat phone in her lap. “I suggest you call your grandmother. Let her know we’re coming and make sure she’s okay.”

  Mary Grace’s heart almost exploded inside her chest when the meaning of his words sank in. “What do you mean, make sure she’s okay?” But deep down she knew what he meant and reprimanded herself for not thinking of it earlier. If the people after her and Bobby went to Georgia looking for them, they’d find Gram Ramsey.

  Fumbling, she almost dropped the phone before she got the number dialed. Her grandmother answered on the third ring and Mary Grace’s heart settled back into a regular rhythm. Gram was safe. For the moment.

  * * *

  Ned hardened his heart against Mary Grace’s apparent love for her grandmother. Just because she adored her gram didn’t mean she wouldn’t use him and his circumstances to further her career. He’d never been exposed to many reporters because he’d always stayed as far away from them as possible. He had a cache of hidden secrets, in both his personal and professional life, and he never ever wanted them exposed to the world.

  He only halfway listened to Mary Grace’s conversation with her grandmother and waited until she disconnected the call. “Everything okay?”

  Her tortured gaze met his. “For now. I tried to talk her into staying with one of her bridge partners until we arrive, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Said she’d spent every night in that house since Grampy died and no ill-mannered thugs were going to force her to leave.”

  “Sounds like your grandparents loved each other.”

  Her lips curled into a half smile and Ned wasn’t happy that his heart pinged in gladness when the worry lines on her forehead disappeared. Not a good sign.

  “They did. In their own way. Gram is the epitome of Georgian hospitality and tradition. I think my grandfather somewhat resented Gram’s family. She inherited her family home—the Hubert House—and they lived there after they got married.”

  “The Hubert House?” Mary Grace was turning out to be a fount of information. He grinned and it felt good. Too good.

  “Only the historic houses have names, and Hubert is Gram’s maiden name—the house has been in her family for generations, but back to Grampy. He wasn’t as high on the social ladder as Gram, and all those years ago, that was a big deal. It didn’t help that he couldn’t handle money well. Gram still lives in the house, but she really doesn’t have enough cash to keep it up as it should be.”

  Mary Grace went quiet for a moment and Ned caught a look of nostalgia on her face.

  “You still worried about your gram?”

  She shrugged, but Ned could tell something was bothering her. She peered out the side window of the plane and continued talking. “Gram was an only child. My mother was her only child and I’m Gram’s only blood-related grandchild.”

  “And?”

  When she turned around, the sadness in her gaze caught him off guard. He wanted to slay dragons if that’s what it took to remove that emotion.

  “Gram is leaving Hubert House to me. She doesn’t trust Mom not to sell it. She hopes I’ll get married one day and fill it with children and happiness.”

  His gut clenched at the thought of Mary Grace married with children, but he gritted his teeth and spoke as if no emotion had touched him. Something he was good at.

  “Maybe that’ll happen.”

  She turned away again. “Let’s just say I come from the epitome of a dysfunctional family and it hasn’t helped in the relationship department. But you don’t want to hear about my sordid childhood. All you’re interested in is locating Bobby and attaining whatever information he has.” She turned and gave him a hard look. “Right?”

  His heart wanted to protest her statement, but his brain conquered the momentary glitch.

  “Right.”

  “Well, hopefully we’ll find Bobby, you’ll see that he is completely innocent and I’ll be out of your hair for good.”

  Silence filled the cockpit and Ned’s curiosity got the best of him. He tried to convince himself that the more he knew about Mary Grace and Bobby, the better his interrogation of her brother would go, but he also had a burning desire to gather every tidbit of information he could muster from the woman sitting next to him.

  “You want to know more about me? How about we trade information?”

  Her golden eyes reflected the intensity of a tiger on the hunt and he almost regretted the offer. Almost. But he was a master at revealing vague information that could never be researched and analyzed.

  She fired a shot at him immediately and the question surprised him.

  “Which side of the family did you get your height from? You’re what, six and a half feet tall?”

  He held back a grin. At least she wasn’t worried about her grandmother for the moment.

  “Got my height from Dad’s side of the family, and yes, I’m six feet six inches. My turn.”

  She leaned back in her seat and grinned, anticipation of the verbal battle lighting her eyes. It was the first time he’d seen a genuine smile and he took a hard punch to the gut, but quickly tamped down the emotion.

  “Go for it. Unlike you, I have nothing to hide.”

  He fired a volley. “Exactly how many relationships have you tried that went bad?” He wanted to sew his mouth shut after the question passed his lips, but he really wanted to know why her relationships never worked out.

  “Three.”

  Ned didn’t miss the dispassionate way she answered. He detected a world of hurt hidden behind her short, clipped response.

  It was her turn to ask, “You don’t wear a ring. Are you, or have you ever been, married?”

  “That’s two questions, but the answer is no, and no. What made you want to become a journalist?”

  She paused and a thoughtful expression blanketed her face. He liked that she didn’t give a status quo answer.

  “I found my niche in high school when I joined the school newspaper. We published it once a month and I quickly became hooked. I discovered that the pen actually is mightier than the sword. I exposed bullies and all sorts of injustices that teenagers have to live with. I also got to report on the happier achievements of students. I loved it and still do.”

  Ned heard and greedily absorbed every detail of what she said, but he caught movement in the sky out of the corner of his eye.

  “We have company. Go to the back and buckle yourself into one of the seats.”

  “No can do, Mountain Man,” she said as she tightened the buckle on the copilot’s seat. “You might need me.”

  It didn’t surprise him that the spirited woman sitting next to him refused to take orders, but he didn’t have time to worry about it.

  “In that case, brace yourself. There’s a drone closing in on us and it’s locked and loaded.”

  Instead of doing what any normal person would have done to protect themselves, she chose to argue. “That’s impossible. I recently did a story on the rights of private citizens to shoot down drones that hover over their house, which, by the way, several states have now allowed, but there aren’t any drones on the market, even military ones, that can keep up with a jet.”

  Ned banked the jet hard to the right and gritted his teeth. He had no doubt the thing was going to shoot at them. “That’s because they’ve kept it a well-guarded secret. The Pentagon is close to releasing what they call the UTAP-22. The thing can fly seven hundred miles an hour and is loaded with a lethal mix of weapons. Looks like someone either stole the specs and built their own, or this thing we’re involved in goes all the way to the top of the food chain.”

  The drone caught up with them and was keeping pace with his side window. “Hold tight!” he yelled.

  SEVEN

  Mary Grace’s hands clenched the arms of her seat when the drone came alongside their jet. The t
hing was large but had a toylike appearance, at least until the bottom doors opened and a small bomb fell into the air.

  “Ned?” she choked out.

  He didn’t answer, but kept one hand on the yoke while typing furiously on the still-open laptop on the console with the other.

  “Ned!” she shrieked. “What are you doing? You’re typing and we’re about to be blown to smithereens.”

  “I have this,” he said calmly.

  She stared, mesmerized, as the small bomb chased them through the air and Ned banked the jet sharply to the right. The missile came within inches of hitting the plane before suddenly making a sharp turn back toward the drone. She held tight as Ned shifted their plane once again, and then understood why when the drone exploded into tiny little pieces.

  Everything happened so fast it took Mary Grace several seconds to come out of her frozen state. “Wh-what just happened?” She gazed into his electric green eyes, alive with the excitement of battle, and shivered again.

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  He sighed and gripped the yoke of the plane harder. “I’m just a man trying to survive and see that justice is done. Listen, I own this plane. I hacked into the drone and turned the missile back on itself.”

  Mary Grace closed her eyes, said a prayer of thanks for the good Lord sparing their lives, then turned and looked at Ned. It was time to play hardball. “Here’s the deal. We’re going to part ways when this airplane lands if you don’t tell me what’s going on, and I mean everything.” She held her breath and allowed her words to linger in the air.

  He stared at the clear blue sky in front of them before shifting his gaze to hers. His hands finally relaxed, as if he had come to a decision.

  “I’ll tell you everything on two conditions.”

  She took a hard swallow. This was going to be a tough one, she knew it in her gut. “I’m listening.”

  “First, anything you find out about my personal life and identity is to be kept private, and if your brother is culpable, in any way, you won’t interfere while I make sure he’s prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

  This was the warrior she’d caught glimpses of while at the cabin. His voice had hardened to a degree she hadn’t heard before and she knew he meant serious business. Well, so did she.

  “I have two conditions of my own,” she snapped back. “Before any authorities are called in, I insist you have rock-solid evidence that Bobby did something wrong. Also, if, and this is a big if, Bobby was somehow involved in what happened, someone could have set him up. I want you to listen to what he has to say, if we find him, and follow up on all the information he gives us before you make that final decision. And I also want your identity verified by someone official. Someone I can trust.”

  His lips curved upward at the sides and it threw her off guard.

  “I like your style, Mary Grace, and I admire your loyalty to your brother. I’ll give him every opportunity to prove his innocence.” He took the satellite phone from her hands and grinned before pressing a button. “This is Ned. I need to speak with her.”

  Curiosity was eating Mary Grace alive, but she stayed quiet and waited, a professional journalist at her best.

  Someone on the other end of the line must have picked up. “It’s Ned. I’ll fill you in later. I need you to verify to someone that I’m one of the good guys. You know her. Mary Grace Ramsey. She’s a White House press correspondent for FBC.”

  Mary Grace heard the person on the other end of the phone line raise their voice and she leaned close, straining to hear.

  Ned grinned at her and she snapped back in her seat.

  “She won’t be a problem. I’ll make sure of it.”

  He handed the phone to her and she grabbed it out of his hand before placing it close to her ear.

  “This is Mary Grace Ramsey,” she said in a crisp, professional voice.

  A woman chuckled on the other end of the line and it stunned Mary Grace for a moment. “I can tell from your tone you’ve been around Ned for too long. The boy has the social skills of a bull in a china shop.”

  A herd of wild horses kicked up a storm in her gut and Mary Grace swallowed the lump in her throat when she recognized the voice on the other end of the line. She had thrown more than her share of questions at CIA Director Madeline Cooper in her role as a journalist.

  “Ma’am I apologize for interrupting your day, but I’m in a situation here and I need to know I can trust the man sitting next to me.”

  A weary sigh reached her ears. “I have no idea what’s going on, but yes, you can trust Ned with your life.” Madeline Cooper cleared her throat and transformed into the powerful, no-nonsense leader she was widely known to be. “But I want to make one thing clear. There will be no cooperation from this department on a story unless it’s approved by me first due to potentially classified information. Do we have an understanding?”

  Mary Grace backed down, but she had one more question. “Yes, ma’am. Understood. One more thing. What’s Ned’s full name?”

  The CIA director laughed out loud. “You’re a journalist. I’ll leave that for you to discover,” she said, and the line went dead.

  Mary Grace mimicked Tinker Bell when she was in a bad mood, giving Ned the whale eye. “You could have warned me it was Madeline Cooper.”

  He laughed, and for some reason, Mary Grace got a toasty warm feeling because she had been the one to make him smile.

  “And spoil all the fun?” He glanced at her. “You satisfied?”

  She grinned back at him. “For the moment. And now that negotiations are complete, it’s time for you to fess up and tell me everything that’s going on.”

  That wiped the smile off his face. She mourned the loss for a moment, but reminded herself that Bobby’s freedom, and both their lives, were at stake.

  * * *

  “Aye, it’s time.” He hesitated, then gave her a rueful grin. “I’m not used to sharing information, so bear with me.”

  Mary Grace snorted. “You’re a regular vault, all locked up tight as a drum. Just tell me already. It’s not going to kill you.” Her curiosity was on overload.

  “You already know about my time in the army. After two years, I ended up in Special Forces and four years later, I’d had enough of the seedier side of human nature, so Krieger and I mustered out.”

  A thousand questions were already racing through her mind. “Did you have any trouble getting the dog out? I know a trained military dog is expensive.”

  The ferocious expression on his face had her leaning back in her seat.

  “I had to jump through a dozen hoops to get the dog released into my custody, but Krieger was coming home with me, regardless. He saved my life multiple times.”

  Ned’s love, passion and respect for Krieger shone in his eyes. Mary Grace didn’t doubt for a second that he would have done just about anything to keep his dog with him.

  “Let’s just say, I agreed to make a hefty donation to the dog training program and let it go at that.”

  She nodded and he went on. “My best friend, Finn Lachlan, joined the army when I did, and we worked well together. We were assigned to the same unit. My team made a name for ourselves within the military and political community. We handled a lot of dicey international situations the government wanted kept quiet. About six months after we both got out of the army, I received a call from the CIA director asking if Finn and I would come to work for her. We agreed as long as we could work together. Over a period of several years, we slipped in and out of places and gathered information. Nothing really dangerous.”

  “Why did she want you and your friend, Finn, so badly?” She was almost sure she heard his teeth grind.

  “I have dual citizenship. My mom is American and my dad is from Scotland. Due to my family’s vocation, we traveled all over the world and I learned to speak many lan
guages. I can move in and out of a lot of countries with ease.”

  That could mean anything from his being a military brat to the son of the rich and famous, which, by looking at him, she highly doubted, but the luxurious plane confused things. His appearance and presentation didn’t mesh with the jet.

  “And your family’s vocation is?”

  He raised a bushy brow, ignored her question and kept talking. “The last job Finn and I handled went bad. It took me a while to piece together what happened, but I finally realized we were set up. I have absolute trust in Madeline Cooper, who has nothing to gain by setting us up. We were given bad intel and were ambushed.” He gave her a dark look. “Intel, in part, given to us by your brother.”

  Shock reverberated through her. “Bobby doesn’t work with field agents. He’s a computer analyst. He gathers information and passes it on to his superiors.”

  He would wear his molars out at the rate he was grinding his teeth, but then he shot her a look of pity. Mary Grace seethed. She had gotten enough of those glances growing up when all the other kids in school teased her about her mother and stepfather.

  “Sounds to me like your sweet, innocent brother hasn’t shared everything with you.”

  Fury tore through her and her professionalism plummeted. Now she was gritting her teeth. “Maybe, just maybe, the CIA didn’t allow him to tell me what he was doing. You ever think of that? Bobby is innocent and I’ll prove it. Now tell me why Finn joined you at the CIA. Seems to me after years in the army, you both would have had enough of warfare.”

  He cast her a wary glance, then shrugged nonchalantly. Maybe a little too casually? Her gut told her he was only planning to reveal parts of the story, but she waited for his answer. She had learned a long time ago to give the interviewee time to trip themselves up, but it was obvious that Ned measured and weighed every tiny morsel of information he begrudgingly parted with.

  “Finn and I were a team. If she wanted my services, they included Finn, and Finn needed the money.”

  So now she knew Finn was financially insecure. She briefly wondered if Ned needed the income, too, but quickly discarded the idea based on what she knew of him.