Critical Doubt

by Barbara Freethy

  "Anything happening?" she asked.

  "I haven't seen any movement. There's a Jeep in the driveway. Is the FBI on the way?"

  "I didn't call Parisa until I was almost here. She's on her way, but it will be close to a half hour before she can get here. Oh, and they think they have a beat on Vance. They're sending a team to check out a warehouse in Bethesda. It's only about five miles from Spear. There's a chance the exchange is going on there."

  He could see the hope in her eyes, but he didn't buy it. Even though he hadn't seen anyone yet, every instinct he had said this was the right place. "This is a better spot. It's remote. It's controllable. No witnesses nearby. No cameras."

  "I don't disagree, just telling you what's going on." She pulled a pair of binoculars from a small duffel bag. "I found these in Parisa's car. She lent it to me earlier today when I went to meet my father."

  "I do want to hear about that sometime."

  "I have a lot to tell you." She peered through the binoculars. "There's movement now. I see someone."

  She handed him the glasses. A man came around the corner of the barn with a semi-automatic in his hands. He was alone. As he walked back and forth, he checked his watch, pulled out his phone, and then walked toward the front.

  "He's waiting for someone," he murmured, looking at Savannah now.

  "Probably Vance. You're right. The weapons have to be in the barn."

  "Along with Leo and Hank and God knows who else," he said grimly.

  "What's the play? This is your show. Make the call."

  He appreciated the respect she was giving him, and that trust gave him even more determination. "We need to get that guy's attention, draw him away from the barn, take him out quietly."

  She nodded. "I'll be the decoy."

  "I'll set up over there," he said, waving toward a line of trees near the barn. "Savannah, if this goes south, run like hell. Do not come after me."

  She stared back at him with her amazing green eyes and said, "You know I won't do that."

  "I want you to. I've made a lot of mistakes the past nine months. I don't want to make the biggest one now by putting you in danger." He grabbed her by the shoulders. "I love you, Savannah."

  Her lips parted in shock.

  "I need you to stay alive," he continued. "I do not want you to die for me. I want you to live for me. Do you understand?"

  "No one is going to die. We're going to do this together," she said, a desperate note in her voice.

  "You're not hearing me."

  "I am hearing you. But you can't tell someone you love them and push them away."

  "I can when their life is on the line. If you can't make that promise, then we'll both walk away. We'll wait for the team."

  "No. Let's do this now," she said. "We may have only a small window of opportunity to get into that barn before everyone arrives."

  "Do you promise?"

  "You're going to have to trust me to do the right thing, Ryker." She opened the duffel bag, pulled out a zip tie and handed it to him. "Take that guy out."

  He took the tie and then gave her a hard, emotion-filled kiss, hoping it wouldn't be the last. He moved into the shadow of trees that was only twenty feet from the side of the barn. The guard was walking toward him, but he was more interested in checking what was on his phone than his surroundings. And then a cascade of rocks drew his head up. The man looked in Savannah's direction. He walked straight toward the trees where Ryker was waiting.

  As soon as the man moved in front of him, he crept up behind him and put him in a chokehold before he could react. A second later, the man slid to the ground. He tied the guard's hands behind his back and pulled him into the woods. Then he grabbed the semi-automatic, sliding his own gun into the waistband of his jeans.

  He saw no further movement in the area, so he motioned Savannah forward. She joined him in the cover of the trees.

  "I'm going through the back door of the barn," he told her.

  "I'll cover you. And then I'll be right behind you."

  He didn't waste time arguing. He ran toward the open door and slid inside. He could hear two men talking. They were arguing. He moved down the hall, past a stable office and around a corner. And there in the middle of the barn was a green van. Next to it were two men he used to know as well as he knew himself.

  "Why didn't you tell us you were alive, Leo?" Hank demanded. "I thought Mason was running the show. I thought his surgery was just a fake-out. But it's been you all along, hasn't it?"

  An odd sense of relief ran through him. He wasn't the only one who hadn't known that Leo was alive.

  "Mason and I needed to keep the circle small. He's having surgery so he couldn't be implicated, and we can continue to use his connections."

  "You said this was a one-time thing. Then we disappear. We start over in new lives."

  "You won't want to stop after you get the cash," Leo told Hank.

  "I don't like this. Where have you been? What have you been doing? How the hell did you get out of Afghanistan?"

  Ryker wanted to know the answers to those questions, too, but before Leo could say a word, they heard the sound of an engine.

  "That's Vance," Leo said. "Keep it together, Morgan. Everything goes as planned, and we walk away rich men."

  Ryker moved behind the wall of a stall as Vance entered the barn. He was accompanied by a heavily armed younger man, but he waved him toward the door once he saw Hank and Leo in the barn. In Vance's hand was a laptop computer. The payment was going to be a wire transfer, Ryker realized, and probably untraceable.

  "Open the van," Vance told Leo, not acting at all surprised that Leo was alive or in charge.

  Leo motioned for Hank to do the honors.

  "Half of the shipment is there," Leo said. "The other half will be yours when the transfer goes through."

  "I need it all now or no deal," Vance said, anger in his voice. "Don't fuck with me, Leo."

  "You're not in charge anymore," Leo replied. "I'm not your errand boy. This is my deal. And I've been waiting a long time to collect."

  "You won't get away with this."

  "Of course I will. I'm already dead. No one can touch me. And it's all because of you. You tried to take me out and you failed. But in doing so, you gave me great cover."

  "Wait a second," Hank interrupted. "Vance took us out?"

  "He sold us out to the insurgents," Leo said. "Did you really just figure that out, Morgan? I forgot how stupid you can be."

  "You set us up?" Hank turned on Vance. "You killed Carlos?"

  "He was collateral damage. The target was Leo," Vance said, without a trace of remorse in his voice. "He was trying to blackmail me to get a bigger cut. I had to take him out."

  "Carlos was a hell of a lot more than collateral damage." Hank turned to Leo. "Does Mason know that Vance is the reason he lost his leg?"

  "He didn't need to know. Keep your eye on the prize. This is how we take care of everyone, remember?"

  "Carlos is dead because of you," Hank repeated. "Everything that happened to us is because of you."

  "Because of him," Leo said, tipping his head to Vance. "I wasn't the mole; he was."

  "But you were working with him in Afghanistan."

  "That doesn't matter. Let's do this. Make the transfer, Vance."

  Ryker moved slightly to get a better view of the unfolding scene.

  Hank was shifting from one foot to the other, fury stiffening every muscle in his body. He was going to blow, but he was clearly waiting for the transfer to go through. He wanted that cash. But he also didn't want to let Vance walk away.

  Vance must have sensed the changing mood, his gaze moving back and forth between Leo and Hank.

  "No," Vance said suddenly, closing his computer. "This isn't happening."

  "It's happening. Make the transfer," Leo bit out. "Do it now."

  Vance started to back away and Hank snapped. He took one shot, hitting Vance square in the chest. Vance fell backward, blood spurting out of
his chest, shock in his eyes. His guard ran in, but Hank was too quick for him, sending him face-first into the ground with a bullet to the head. Then he swung his gun toward Leo. Before Hank could shoot again, a bullet hit him in the leg, and he squealed as he crumbled.

  The shot had come from the loft, and he knew who had taken it—Savannah!

  Leo ran toward the back of the barn, and Ryker stepped out in front of him, taking his own shot, hitting Leo in the arm. The gun slipped out of Leo's hand as he fell to his knees.

  "That was for Carlos," Ryker said coldly.

  Leo stared back at him, no trace of surprise in his gaze. "I knew you would get in the way. How did you figure it out?"

  "You're not as clever as you thought."

  "What are you going to do—kill me? I'm already dead."

  "Dying the second time might be more painful." He saw Savannah moving up behind Leo, but she held back, letting him play this out.

  "Carlos's death was on Vance," Leo said. "He set up the ambush."

  "Because of you. And you knew it. That's why you disappeared."

  "I played dead, because I thought he might try again. It was self-preservation."

  "How did you get Mason involved in this?"

  "I showed him how we could take care of Carlos's family and the rest of the team. He bought it."

  "But Paul found out, didn't he? You shot him."

  "I didn't even know he was in Chesapeake Beach until he stepped in front of you."

  "And you shot him."

  "That bullet was meant for you, but he got in the way."

  "Why did you want to kill me?"

  "You were asking too many questions and you got the FBI involved. I had no choice."

  There was no remorse in Leo's voice or in his eyes. "How did you turn into this?" he asked in bewilderment. "How did you become a monster, a man willing to betray his brothers, his country?"

  "How? You don't know? You were there for every minute. We were the ones doing the dirty work while people like Vance were making millions. Why shouldn't we have had some of it? The guns he was selling were the same weapons that were taking out our troops."

  "You could have stopped him, but instead you decided to profit from him."

  "So, kill me. It's what you want to do." Leo gave him a scornful look. "But you've never been as cold as everyone thought you were. You like to believe in people. You saw me at the church with Buthanu, but you let it go. You bought my explanation, because you wanted to."

  "Because you were my brother. But you used all of us."

  "And I'll keep using you. I'll take everyone down with me. Or you can shoot me and call it self-defense. No one would blame you."

  For a split second, he was tempted, more than he'd ever been tempted in his life. There was a blinding rage running through him. He wanted revenge for Carlos, for Paul, even for Mason and Hank and Todd, who had been blinded by Leo's evil. But he couldn't pull the trigger. He couldn't cross that line.

  He heard engines roaring, the pounding of feet. Savannah went out front to meet her team.

  "You're lucky," he told Leo. "You're not going to die today."

  "You call that luck?" Leo asked, finally defeated. "I was so close to having it all."

  "And then what? You would have only wanted more. It would have never been enough."

  "I could have gotten more. You never appreciated how good I was."

  "Or how bad." He stepped back as the agents came down the hall. It gave him great satisfaction to see Leo cuffed and led away. He might be going to the hospital first, but then he'd be headed to jail, where he would hopefully stay for a very long time.

  As he moved back into the main part of the barn, he saw Hank being loaded onto a stretcher. Hank asked the paramedics to give him one second and waved Ryker over.

  "I'm sorry," Hank said. "I didn't know about Leo. I swear I didn't know about him and Vance. I didn't know they were the reason Carlos died. You have to believe me, Ryker."

  "Why does it matter?"

  "Because I'm not like Leo. I was doing this to help the families. I shot Vance because he's the reason Carlos's kids don't have a father. I just wish Leo was dead, too. He did all this. I don't believe Mason knew the whole story, either. Leo suckered us all. You have to help us, Ryker. Get Savannah to use her connections. Please."

  "We need to go," the paramedic interrupted.

  "Then go." He didn't have anything else to say to Hank. He'd gotten the answers he'd come for, but they didn't make him feel better. Leo and Vance were traitors and probably Mason, too. He supposed it was good to know that Hank, Todd, and Paul had not known about Leo or Vance. They had bought into a plan that didn't involve selling weapons to the enemy, but they had still been incredibly stupid, and they would pay heavily for what they'd done.

  As Savannah walked toward him, he realized he was happy about something. She was alive. She was safe. And that was the most important thing of all. He wanted to put his arms around her and hold her tight, but the FBI, police and agents from the ATF were swarming the barn.

  She gave him a searching look. "What did Hank say?"

  "He was sorry. He didn't know about Leo and Vance."

  "That was pretty clear from their exchange." She paused. "I'm not going to ask if you're all right, but how do you feel?"

  "I don't know yet. I'm processing everything. Nice shooting, by the way. I don’t even know how you got into the loft."

  "I was very quiet, and once Hank and Leo started arguing, no one was paying me much attention. I was, however, surprised when Hank shot Vance."

  "I knew he was about to blow. I just didn't know who he was going to take out first."

  "I only shot Hank because—"

  "You had to," he said, cutting her off. "It was the right move. And your shot sent Leo running straight toward me. There was a part of me that wanted to kill him, Savannah."

  "But you didn't. That’s not who you are."

  "I just hope he gets a life sentence."

  "We'll do everything we can to make that happen. Unfortunately, some of the other guys will probably go to prison, too."

  "I know. They faked their deaths to take care of their families, and now their families will see them go to jail. It's hard to see the justice, even though I know it's there. At one time, they were good men, Savannah. They were patriots."

  "Maybe they'll have a chance to do something good with the rest of their lives, even if they are in jail."

  "I hope so. I hope this wasn't all for nothing, but I'm afraid it was."

  Ryker's statement rang through Savannah's head for hours, but she had no chance to talk to him about it. After returning to the DC field office, they were separated for a more thorough debriefing. It was almost eight o'clock at night before she was done. She walked back into the now almost-empty operations center. Most of the agents had gone home for the night, but Parisa was still at her desk.

  "I hope you didn't stay for me," she told her, sinking into the chair next to her desk.

  "I had a lot of reports to do. Ryker just finished talking to Paxton. He's in the restroom now."

  "He must be exhausted."

  "I'm sure. You look tired, too."

  "The adrenaline rush has finally receded. Have I missed anything while I've been going over and over the same facts for the past hour?"

  "A few things. Mason Wrigley was officially arrested at the hospital and informed of the failed plan. He's not talking. He requested a lawyer."

  "He's going to need a good one. He was right in the middle of this."

  "Hank Morgan will spend the night in the hospital and then go to jail. He's facing homicide charges for Vance and his security guard."

  "I'm sure he thinks the killings were justified, because of what Vance did in Afghanistan."

  "Well, he'll get to tell his story to a jury," Parisa said. "Todd Davis is talking up a storm now. Once he realized Leo Romano was alive, and he'd been sold a false narrative, he was much more interested in making a deal. He
was probably lucky that they decided to cut him out at the last minute. He wasn't involved in the theft of the weapons or the shootings, and he'll probably face much less severe charges for his part in the conspiracy."

  "I hope the same will be true for Paul."

  "I also checked in with your friend Abby. Paul is awake and he's also talking. We sent an agent down to Chesapeake Beach to take his statement and to officially put him under arrest."

  "That must have been difficult for Abby to see," she said, her heart going out once more to her friend.

  "She told me that she understands Paul could be in trouble, but she's glad he's going to live. Beyond that, she isn't sure what's happening with their relationship, although he's very apologetic and remorseful."

  "She doesn't owe Paul anything. I hope she takes her time in deciding what she wants to do."

  "So do I. By the way, I also removed her security. I don't believe she's in any further danger, and she was fine with that."

  "Thank you for taking care of all these details, Parisa. I know there's a lot to sort out."

  "This case has a lot of layers to it," Parisa said. "I suspect Ryker will be riding an emotional roller coaster for a while. Are you going to be riding with him?"

  She wished she knew the answer to that question. Ryker had told her he loved her, but that had been in the heat of the moment. How could she hold him to it? How could she even believe it?

  But she wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe there was a chance for them. But she just didn't know what would happen when everything settled.

  "Savannah?" Parisa gently prodded.

  She shrugged. "I don't know. We'll see."

  "If I can just give you one word of advice?"

  "Can you really stop at one word?" she asked lightly.

  "Geography. That's the word. But you're right, I can't stop. Don't let geography be the deciding factor. You could work closer to the Chesapeake Bay. You could work here."

  "Oh, yeah, Agent Paxton is my greatest fan."

  "He's not so bad when you get to know him. At the end of the day, you made a big case. You kept a truckload of weapons from being sold to terrorists. You helped unravel an illegal arms network. Trust me, by the time he's done telling his bosses about it, you will have been his secret weapon."