by Ed James
Holliday stood by the computer desk, hands in pockets. He clocked Carter and his eyes bulged. Carter put a finger to his lips, narrowed his eyes to reinforce the message.
Youngblood walked across the room and snatched a document off the printer. He took a few seconds to flick through it, then walked back over and dumped it on the desktop. “Here. We done?”
“Thank you.” Mason started reading, letting Carter shift closer, inch by inch. Maybe twenty feet away? He narrowed the gap to fifteen, then ten.
Mason pistol-whipped Youngblood, knocking him to the floor. “You killed him, didn’t you?”
Holliday darted over, but the gun pointing in his face stopped him dead.
Mason put the gun against Youngblood’s forehead. “You killed him!”
Holliday looked genuinely surprised. And he seemed to have forgotten all about Carter, especially when Mason trained the gun on him. “Come on…”
Youngblood kicked out and cracked Mason in the knee. He pushed into a shoulder charge, crashing Mason into the giant TV screen, sending both of them tumbling over.
Carter couldn’t see them. He raced over.
A gunshot burst around the room, stinging his ears.
Youngblood lay on the floor, mouth hanging open, a giant hole in his chest. A thin spray of blood spattered the floor behind him, lumps of bone like islands.
Carter aimed his gun at Mason. “Stay right where you are!”
Mason stood over the body, his face hidden from the overhead lights. “It was an accident, I swear!”
Carter walked over to the body and crouched low, keeping his gun trained on Mason as he reached for Youngblood’s neck. He searched for a pulse, holding it until he felt a weak throb through his fingers. He looked down at Youngblood, crimson bubbling in his mouth.
Glass smashed somewhere.
A pair of French doors sat between granite kitchen units. The left-side curtain flapped in the wind.
No sign of Mason. Or Holliday.
A hard choice—stay with Youngblood or go after Mason.
One man’s life versus a child’s safety.
No choice to make.
“Elisha, stay with him!” Carter raced over to the doors. The glass was smashed, looked like a wolf’s mouth, all sharp and gnarled. Both doors were locked. He stepped through onto a back patio.
The yard ran downhill toward a high wall, same as out front but twice the height. Holliday was on top, reaching an arm down. Mason climbed up toward him.
Carter fired into the air then aimed at Mason, low, going for his left thigh, enough to send him falling to the ground.
The wall’s bricks puffed inches to the left.
Missed.
Holliday glanced around, eyes wide.
Carter adjusted his aim and squeezed the trigger. A shout, then the climbing man fell to the ground. The wall splattered where he’d been.
Missed again.
Holliday disappeared over the top.
Carter ran, still clutching his gun as he thundered downhill.
A gunshot blasted out, echoing around the yard.
Carter hit the deck, going prone. Another shot. He looked up, scanning the wall. No movement.
He pushed himself up and raced down the hill, stopping at the foot of the wall.
Where he expected one, there was no body.
They got away.
And Carter knew he had to save Youngblood’s life.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mason
I sprint behind Holliday, through the mud and the discarded branches, our feet splashing as we go. My arm’s on fire. I look down at it. Delgado’s jacket is burst open and soaking, blood pouring down my arm. Not the first time I’ve been shot, but it—
The pain only hits when you realize. A searing rush of agony, burning up my arm to my shoulder, into my neck and up into my brain. I wobble and almost hit a tree. I push it to the back of my mind.
The feds can’t follow my blood trail with all the rain, can they? Shit, I don’t know.
Where is Holliday?
I stop and listen. Just rain hitting the trees. Nothing from behind yet, but they’re seconds away at best.
Something rattles.
Through the trees, Holliday stands in front of a chain-link fence. He rattles it again.
“Shit.” I catch up with him and grab hold of it, but there’s no getting through this. Tall, maybe twenty feet with coiled barbwire at the top, like they’re protecting a prison.
Holliday looks at the fence, inspecting it closely like he can just pass through it or something.
I’m more concerned about the noises coming from behind us now. Multiple footsteps, multiple people. All FBI.
It isn’t going to end like this. It can’t.
I walk along the fence, grabbing the metal and shaking. There. A few feet along, there’s a hole, no doubt some kids cutting a way to get in to escape the pressures of school and parents, just taking time out to smoke a joint and have fun.
I nod for Holliday to go first. He isn’t going to try to get away from me. He knows the stakes, knows they just got even higher. I follow him through and stitch the fence back together, not as carefully as I’d like, but it’ll do. Another flash of pain burns my arm, but I ignore it and set off through more woods, thicker now, and planted purposefully, in a grid pattern.
Then we burst out onto a street.
Holliday’s ahead of me, swinging around, taking in the houses like he’s looking for refuge.
Wrong move.
A VW camper van sits outside an apartment building. Old school. Easy to steal. I make my way for it, checking left and right as I take it slow, my breath misting in the rain.
No cars on the road, yet, but the shouting from behind is getting louder and closer. The FBI are almost here.
I try the passenger door, and it’s unlocked. BINGO. I shuffle along the bench until I’m behind the wheel, then reach down.
Shit.
They’ve upgraded it. Brand-new engine, brand-new tamper-proof ignition.
Through the woods, flashlights scan along the fence, looking for a way through, close to the hole we came through.
Almost on us. Shit, shit, shit.
Holliday flips down my sun visor like he expects my stupidity. Nothing. Then the visor on his side. Keys flop into his lap.
A stroke of luck. Finally.
“Here.” He tosses them to me.
I catch them and stick the key in. The engine growls. A serious upgrade.
“You didn’t—” Holliday’s eyes bulge. “You’re bleeding!”
“You drive.” I shift along the bench seat, letting him climb over me.
Holliday sticks it in gear and shoots off, tearing through the neighborhood, putting distance between us and the feds. He puts his seatbelt on and pretty soon we’re spitting distance from the freeway.
“Did anyone see us?”
“Don’t think so.” Holliday’s looking behind, keeping his eyes peeled. He turns onto the freeway and heads south, away from Redmond and Youngblood’s mansion.
My arm is throbbing now. “You saved me.”
Holliday is still checking out back. “What?”
“Back there, climbing the wall. You warned me and I dropped down. The brick exploded. You saved me. I caught a round in the arm, but it would’ve been worse.”
“Don’t think I’m doing it for you or your cause.”
I don’t even need to point a gun at this guy. Layla’s a genius.
“You’ve got your information.” Holliday slumps back on the seat. “When do I get Avery back?”
“This isn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.”
“Come on. You got your answers. You don’t need me anymore. Let her go.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Carter
Carter stood on top of the wall, staring into the frigid woods, branches dripping with rainwater. No signs of movement other than his own agents getting deeper and deeper in. Not even any obvious foot
prints to track in among all the mud.
He’d let Mason go. The kidnapper was here and he let him go, a split-second decision over Youngblood’s life.
And Holliday was definitely with him. Probably helped him escape.
He let himself down slowly and hopped onto the pristine lawn, the late-afternoon sun burning off the rain with the tang of ozone.
Elisha joined him, but her expression betrayed how good the news was. “Two units heading around the far side of the woods. Seattle PD are sending half their cops over, but…” She bit her lip, like she always did when she had bad news.
“Ten agents combing the area, and nothing?” Carter forced himself to look at her, letting out a deep breath. “And Youngblood’s dead. I couldn’t save him.” He thumbed behind them at the house. “This Mason guy has escalated from child abduction to murder. We’ve got a dead man and we lost our suspect by inches. I lost him.”
“Max, you’ve seen him now. You’ve confirmed our hypothesis. Our guy has Avery and is using her as leverage against Holliday.”
Carter made his way back up to the house, forcing an agent to sidestep clear.
“Max, Avery isn’t with them. So he must have an accomplice.”
“Avery could be dead. Could be locked up somewhere. Could be walking the streets, or lost in the woods somewhere. Any of them fit.” Carter settled down on a patio chair, didn’t care about the rain soaking his pants. “We’re still no closer to knowing why he’s doing this.” He looked around, searching for hope amid the deflated agents, then replaying Holliday standing on the top, the kidnapper climbing up to him. “When I aimed my gun, Holliday shouted something. Next thing I know, the guy drops down. Then there’s a gunshot. Holliday saved the man who’s kidnapped his children. Could be because Avery’s life is at risk, but Holliday’s lied to us, and he ran away from the hospital.”
“Max, you’d do anything you could to save Kirsty, wouldn’t you?”
Carter could only nod. She was right. Again. “We need to let the field office manage the crime scene.” He took in the scene again. All those agents and cops, here because they’d let someone slip off, let a senator help the man who’d abducted his daughter. “But we still have to find Holliday.”
What were they looking for?
Mason, that’s what Delgado said his name was. John Mason.
If Mason was just going to murder Harry Youngblood, why bring Holliday? What does he add?
But maybe Delgado was the key.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Mason
I take a look at him as we pass a slow-moving Ford. “You’re right, I don’t need you. I should just kill you now, dump you by the side of the road.”
“Like you killed Harry Youngblood?”
I haven’t had a chance to even think about it. The first death I’ve been involved in since Basra. He was going for my gun. He was going to kill me. It was an accident, not that any court would believe me. Nothing more, nothing less.
Did Youngblood deserve it? Does it matter?
Rage flashes across my face, down my spine.
He deserved it. Boy, did he deserve it.
He keeps looking at my arm, shaking his head. “Take me to her!”
I take a few seconds to think it all through, what I’ve gained, what I’ve lost, which assumptions are blown apart.
Was Harry Youngblood just a front man, taking cash from disreputable sources and funneling it through GrayBox to his own accounts? Or was he smack-dab in the middle, in charge of everything?
If he was, then he’s paid for what he did.
But he said it was Franklin Vance who ran it. But these guys lie worse than politicians. Everything they did was to line their own pockets. All the lies they told, all the truths they hid.
So, did Vance kill my boy?
Only one way to find out.
“We need to meet this Franklin Vance. You do know him, right?”
Holliday clenches his jaw again.
“Chris, I know when you’re lying, so don’t even think about it, okay?” I lean back and check the back for anything to fix up my wound. There’s a cable lying there, a long beige ethernet. Useful for torture, so I grab it. There’s a towel on the floor. It’ll have to do. I shrug off the sodden jacket and roll up my sleeve to check my arm. Looks way worse than it is. Just a flesh wound, a bullet grazing my arm as I fell. Still hurts worse than if it’d caused internal bleeding or got trapped inside. I tear the towel in half in one long cut, and wrap one half around my arm, getting it nice and tight. I hold it there, let it soak up the blood, let it thicken and coagulate, then I’ll be good.
I rifle through the glovebox for some Tylenol or something. Just Vicodin. Shit, I can’t take that while I’m in this situation, can’t afford to lose any focus or control. I pocket the pills and sit back, trying to control the pain mentally. Just block it out. “What did Harry mean about you being corrupt, Senator?”
Holliday laughs, his jaw clenching like crazy. “Nothing. He’s playing you.”
“Come on.” I grimace as pain sears my upper arm. “I know you’re lying. You got inside his McMansion pretty easily. You’ve got something on him. Tell me what.”
“There’s nothing, I swear.”
“Sounds like bullshit to me.”
“What would you know? You’ve kept this from me all along. If you’d told me it was your son—”
I lose it. Hard. I grab his throat and push him back against the headrest, squeezing and pointing the gun at his side. “You tell me now, or so help me—”
“Okay, okay.” His words are gurgles, so I let go. He grits his teeth, rubs at his neck, and looks a lot more genuine now. “A few years back, Harry tried buying me. The shit he pulls with GrayBox is bad enough, but he’s always looking for other opportunities. Off-the-books deals.”
“You mean behind Olson’s back?”
“And then some. Old army buddy of mine works in the CIA now. Told me a thing or two about Youngblood over a couple beers. GrayBox were involved in some disappearances during the Bush administration. Operations on US soil, working for the CIA.”
Have to admit it, he’s snared my interest. “Who did they take?”
“Wouldn’t say. Just some persons of interest, you know how it is. Plausible deniability and all that jazz.” Holliday flips the bird at a black Audi roaring past, too close to us. “Anyway. I confronted him at a fundraiser, told him I knew, that I’d get an investigation into it. He thought he could shut me up with money. I explained that it’s blackmail.”
“Did you take the bribe?”
“I refused his money, but he still thought he could buy me. He gave a couple hundred grand to a PAC in my name.”
“PAC?”
“Political Action Committee. When you’re in my world, you forget how most people don’t know the terms. They act independently of you, but support your campaign through advertising mainly. You don’t get elected without them.”
“So why didn’t you report him?”
“Because I needed the money. My campaign was floundering. The things I say, it pisses off the powers that be.” Holliday stopped. “They don’t fund me as much as they should, but I still won the primary. People like me and my image. But I still needed their money, so I sat on the info, waiting for a time it’d become useful. Didn’t think it’d be to save my daughter’s life.”
“You seem to be in tight with these GrayBox punks. Every one that crops up, you’ve got their number memorized.”
Holliday punches the steering wheel. “I’m a politician. You don’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”
Blood drips down my forearm. Shit. I take the first wrapping off and toss the rag into the back. Takes longer to tie the second one. The blood flow is slowing, if nothing else, but still hurts like a bastard. Maybe I should take that Vicodin. “Tell me about Franklin Vance.”
“You don’t need to worry about how we handle him.”
There’s got to be a reason that our old friend B
ob Smith put us on to Holliday in the first place.
As Holliday drives, I put the battery in the smartphone and power it up. The screen flashes, and I open “Signal”.
No new messages, but Bob Smith is online. So I type out a message:
Spoke to Youngblood.
Interesting. He works at GB?
Did.
Fired this morning.
Fired again this afternoon.
He’s dead?
Deserved it too. He authorized the mission. Took money for it.
OK. What did he say?
Franklin Vance ran the operation.
Know him?
Ex-CIA.
Bad dude.
Did Youngblood mention CIA?
Didn’t ask.
Didn’t have time.
He went for my gun. Him or me.
He lost.
And that’s the truth. My finger slipped as we went over. I should’ve got more out of him.
Bob Smith goes quiet again. Makes me feel like a stupid kid. If he wanted me to ask Youngblood some specific questions, he should’ve told me.
The road hurtles by, Holliday keeps looking at me, my arm keeps throbbing. All I can think about is the Vicodin bottle in my pocket.
FBI turned up.
Escaped by skin of our teeth.
OK.
Holliday says Youngblood runs ops for CIA.
That sound right?
I wait for a few seconds, but he’s quiet again. I hate it.
OK. Been digging. GrayBox running a CIA op makes sense. Long history of it. Back to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld. Black sites. Bad stuff.
So Holliday’s story checks out. I type again, having to correct my spelling that even the autocorrect has no hope of fixing.
