by Angela Foxxe
“When?”
“Not now?”
“Why not?”
“Because right now, we have some shopping to do.”
CHAPTER TEN
It was late in the afternoon when Decker’s phone range on his desk, the caller ID showing Agent Frost’s number.
“Did you find it?” Decker said without preamble.
“We did,” Frost said, his voice filled with excitement. “It is a long tunnel, but it is easily followed above ground, and we were able to get close enough to the border to see that it’s not well protected.”
“The hunter said he opened the door to guns in his face.”
“Yes, I’m sure he did. But, he wasn’t us. We have a few options for gaining entry without any of the five or so men sounding the alarm and warning the others. We’re sitting down right now to discuss our best strategy, and we’re gathering up what we need to make it work. We plan on going in after midnight.”
“Well, keep me posted on your progress, and update me when you have a plan. Make sure that you don’t leave any loose ends.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And Agent Frost.”
“Yes?”
“Be prepared to take Sabrina down. She’s on their side now, or else she wouldn’t be where she is. She’s a rogue agent, and we can’t have her running around, telling people about LEO and trying to convince the general public that shifters are good. I don’t know what got into her, but I’m sure it’s some more of their magic.”
“I understand, Sir. I’m hoping to take out a few of them myself. Your daughter was a wonderful young woman, and her loss angers me to this day. I’m looking forward to getting a little revenge for you. It’s the least you deserve after all you’ve been through.”
“Thank you, Agent Frost,” Decker said, a little taken aback by the man’s kind words. “How did the other thing go?”
“What other thing?”
“The hunter? Is everything good on that end?”
“Oh, yes. Of course,” Frost said. “I’m sending you a picture right now, in case you need it. I made corrections where it was necessary.”
“Corrections? I don’t understand.”
“The picture is on your cellphone,” Frost said.
Decker put the landline between his shoulder and chin, opening the phone and looking at the photo that had come across.
“It’s a map,” Decker said.
“It is. It’s the map of the woods. I had to make some corrections, but we managed to find the little cabin in the woods where the tunnel comes out despite the mistakes.”
Decker held the cellphone in his hand, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
“Where did this map come from?” he asked, but he was afraid that he already knew the answer.
“From the hunter, I guess. It got sent to my phone this morning.”
“And where is the hunter now?” Decker asked, his voice low and measured.
“Agent Noble took care of him,” Frost said.
“How did Agent Noble get involved in this?”
“He flew the chopper that brought the hunter here?” Frost said, his tone suggesting that he was more than a little confused.
“Are you sure it was Noble? He’s supposed to be on vacation in the tropics.”
“I’m one hundred percent positive it was him, Sir. The message originated from his phone.”
Decker was starting to panic. Why had Noble returned from vacation early? He had only been on vacation for a week and he had three weeks put in. It didn’t make sense to Decker that Noble, his most trusted agent, would just show up at work without checking in and without explanation. And what purpose would the map serve? How had Noble ended up flying the chopper? That’s not who Decker had on chopper duty, but he hadn’t verified that the person he had selected was there working.
He didn’t think he would have to. Decker was used to things running smoothly, and this was definitely a wrench in his plans.
“Are you still there?” Frost asked, his voice nervous. He didn’t know what he had done wrong, but he had worked for Decker for a long time, and Decker knew that it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out when he was angry.
“Did the map lead you to the hidden cabin?” Decker asked, trying to keep his composure, though his hands were trembling violently.
“It did, but not really,” Frost said.
“Don’t leave me in suspense,” Decker said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
“We found the place where the hunter missed them with the bullets, but the map told us to go south. If it wasn’t for Agent Pierce trying to lead the way and getting lost, we would have never stumbled upon the cabin. That man could get lost inside a paper bag.”
Decker’s eyes were closed, his stomach clenching as his anxiety rose. He didn’t give a damn about some foolish agent who couldn’t read a map, but had somehow stumbled upon the very thing he was looking for.
“And what did Noble say about how he took care of the hunter?”
“When he sent me the map, I sent him a text asking about the hunter and he said ‘all taken care of’.”
“Did you ask him specifically if he killed the hunter?”
“No,” Frost said, his voice getting quiet suddenly. “No Sir, I did not.”
Decker slammed the phone down on the cradle, but the action didn’t give him the satisfaction that it normally did. He looked at the clock, relieved to see that it was a few minutes before five. He opened the web browser on his computer, signing into his bank account and cursing when he saw that a check had cleared the day before.
“Impossible,” he breathed out in an angry whisper.
He picked the phone up, dialing the bank manager and waiting impatiently for him to pick up.
“Fidelity Mutual, this is-”
“Get me the manager!” Decker barked into the phone.
“I am the manager,” the woman said calmly. “How can I help you, Sir?”
“Where is Stanley?” he Demanded.
“Parker Stanley no longer works with us. I would be happy to help you-”
He cut her off again.
“I had a check go through, yesterday. I need to stop payment on that check.”
He heard fingers flying over a keyboard, as he angrily recited his bank account number for the woman. There were a few more clicks of the mouse, then the woman came back on the line.
“That check was cashed here and turned into a cashier’s check. I’m sorry, Mr. Decker, but there’s nothing that can be done.”
“Lies!” he hissed. “Stanley would have gotten this done for me.”
“I’m sorry, Sir. The check is already cashed and the money is out of our system. The check passed the three-step test and one of your agents flew the recipient here in an HLF chopper, and he had the proper ID. It was quite disruptive to our parking lot, but we managed. I’m sorry, Sir, but even Stanley couldn’t fix this for you. The money simply isn’t there.”
Her insinuation was clear, and Decker realized that Stanley had likely lost his job for the help he had given Decker and other wealthy patrons like him. There was a certain amount of loyalty that a billionaire could buy from even the most trustworthy souls. But that had apparently caught up with Stanley, right when Decker needed him the most.
“So, the money is gone,” he said, his anger crushing him and quieting his voice.
“Unless you can get the gentleman to return with the cashier’s check, there is no way.”
“Has the cashier’s check been cashed?”
“I have no way of knowing that until it is presented to our bank for funds. It’s not like a check; I can’t track it.”
Decker dropped the phone into the cradle, then picked the receiver up and smashed it into the cradle over and over again until plastic pieces started flying off of it. The world around him dropped away and all he could hear, feel and see was that phone, flying apart in his hands as he smashed away at it.
When he blinked, he was across the room, pacing across the carpet and muttering to himself. He had no idea how he’d gotten there or how long he had been there, but judging by the sweat trailing down his face in rivers, he had been pacing frantically for quite some time.
He stopped, staring at his reflection in the mirror and seeing the stark confusion reflected in his eyes. He looked at the clock, stepping backward in shock when he saw that almost an hour had passed since he first called the bank.
Had he been pacing and muttering like a madman that entire time?
He went to his bathroom in the back of the office, splashing cold water on his face repeatedly until he started to feel in control again. Taking one of the premium Egyptian cotton towels out of the linen cabinet, he patted his face dry and looked at himself in the mirror. He used the toiletries he kept in his office to fix his disheveled hair, brush his teeth and added some antiperspirant for good measure. He was finally feeling like himself again when he left the bathroom and went to his desk.
He hit the speakerphone option, dialing the secretary and waiting for Cheri to pick up. An unfamiliar voice answered, but he didn’t have time to deal with anything else today.
“Send another phone to my office,” he said tersely.
“Yes, Sir,” the woman said, her voice meek and almost childish.
Decker instantly disliked her.
“What kind of phone, Sir? A cellphone?”
“No, you twit. A landline. Like the one I had on my desk.”
“You’re calling me from the landline phone,” the woman said softly.
“I know that, you imbecile. I would like another one. Can you handle that? Where is Cheri?”
“She went home sick yesterday,” the woman said. “I’m the temp.”
“Good. Send someone with a phone and call your temp agency and tell them that you’re fired.”
“I will, Sir,” the woman said quietly, not even bothering to try to save her job.
“And grow a damn backbone,” he said, pushing the speakerphone button so hard that it reopened the line before it could hang up and he had to push it again to disconnect.
He sat down in his, trying to calm his mind so he could think. Closing his eyes, he took deep, calming breaths and thought about the problem at hand. Well, there were a few problems. He was out fifteen million dollars unless he could find the hunter and get the money back. Then, he had to kill the guy.
Then, there was Noble. Agent Noble had been one of his first hires, and had been loyal to a fault. In fact, Richard Noble had been the one to take care of Annie for Decker when he had caught his own daughter conspiring against him. He had been hurt and angry, but Annie was headstrong and fearless like her mother.
It didn’t matter how much Tom threatened her, Annie Decker was going to blow the lid off everything and expose Tom’s plans. He couldn’t allow that, and when he had turned to Richard Noble to take her away and dispose of her body somewhere where she would be found someday and her death would be blamed on the WereLions, Noble had accepted the task with a heavy heart, but he had done what he promised.
There was a knock on the door, and Decker was about to send them away when he remembered that they were bringing him a new landline to replace the one that was all but shattered on his desk. In fact, the only part that wasn’t damaged was the speakerphone, which was now flashing erratically as if it were a twitching spider dying on the desk.
“Come in,” Decker said tersely.
An agent walked in, looking with troubled interest at the destroyed phone on the desk.
“I have a phone for you, Sir. Would you like me to set it up?”
“No,” Decker bit back. “I’m not a worthless child, I can plug it in myself. I want you to find my chopper.”
“Which one, Sir?”
“The one that Noble flew out yesterday.”
“Okay,” the man said, not moving.
“Well, go, now. I need you to find it, right now.”
“I already know where it is, Sir.”
Decker stared at him.
“Where is it?”
“It’s in the parking lot, on a flatbed truck. Apparently, it was left on the side of the highway last night, just on the other side of the Nebraska border.”
Decker took a deep breath, too exhausted by his earlier rage to muster up the anger that he knew was appropriate in this situation. The world was collapsing around him, and nothing was going his way. Decker’s HLF chopper had been left by the side of the road the night before. That meant that Noble and the hunter could be anywhere, and Decker was willing to bet that the hunter’s wife was with them, too.
“There was an envelope in the cabin of the helicopter, Sir,” the agent said softly, almost as if he didn’t want to be the bearer of any news, let alone news that would probably push Decker over the edge.
“Do you have it with you?”
“Of course,” the man said, handing it over and stepping back.
“You can leave,” Decker said. “It’s clearly addressed to me and I don’t need an audience to open my mail.”
“Very good, Sir,” the man said, starting to bow and then stopping himself before he all but ran out of the room.
Decker shook his head in disgust.
“I’m surrounded by imbeciles,” he muttered, opening the envelope and pulling the carefully folded paper.
When he opened it, the handwriting was immediately recognizable. His stomach did flip flops inside of him as he sat down hard, reading the note over and over again.
Father,
You will never win this war. I will not stop until the world knows the truth, no matter what it takes. By the time you read this, Mr. and Mrs. Davies will be in Canada and out of your reach. They are thankful for the money needed to give Mrs. Davies the life-saving medical treatment that she needs.
I’ll never stop fighting for what’s right in this world, even if you try to kill me again. Watch your back, because we’re coming for you.
P.S. You have a grandson, and he has your eyes. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that he doesn’t end up with your wicked soul.
There was a picture folded up in the note. Decker sucked in a breath, looking at the woman that he had raised, and the beautiful, bright blue-eyed baby in her arms.
And standing behind her, with a smug smile on his face, arms wrapped around his family, was none other than Richard Noble. Decker stared at the picture for an eternity before he finally crumpled it up and gritted his teeth until his head ached. His most trusted agent had double-crossed him, and he was the only one on the team that Decker didn’t know was secretly a WereLion.
Looking at the man now, Decker didn’t know how he had missed it; the taller than average height, and the chiseled body. Even though his eyes were bright green instead of the honey-colored hazel that many of the WereLions had, Decker still should have known. Now that he knew that Noble was one of them, everything made sense.
The sudden realization that the shifters knew that there was an attack planned startled him. They would be ready for an attack tonight, or in the next two days. His men didn’t stand a chance. Part of him wanted to let it go, to let the men who had failed him so thoroughly since the night at the hotel, die for their mistakes. But Decker’s agents were dropping like flies, and he didn’t have enough men to get what he needed done if he sacrificed a few just to ease his anger. He didn’t know how he would punish those that had failed him, but now was not the time.
He dialed Frost and spoke quickly before the man even got a chance to say hello.
“They know that we’re coming,” he said.
“Impossible.”
“Don’t be a fool, Frost. Noble is one of them. You cannot go tonight and attack. They will be waiting for you tonight and tomorrow and your men will all die without getting through the border. It’s a pointless waste of effort and they need some time to believe that you never found their secret. Gather your men and come back to Denver.”
“Sir?”
“We’re going to give things a few days to die down. And when they think that the time has come and gone, then we’ll attack. They don’t know that you found the cabin, right? None of you men made contact?”
“No Sir,” Frost reassured him. “None of the men got close enough.”
Finally, he thought, they managed to do something right.
“Good. Keep it that way. Pull your guys in like you’ve given up and head back this way. Instruct your men to get some rest, because when we go in, we’re going in hot and heavy and I want them ready. Understood?”
“Yes, Si-”
Decker hung up the phone before the man could finish his sentence. He was done talking to the fool. He didn’t have anything left in him, and he wasn’t interested in the friendly banter that Frost was known for. There was nothing funny about this mission, and Decker couldn’t tolerate any more of the man’s optimistic bent.
He sat back, his thoughts going back to that fateful day that he had decided that Annie needed to go.
When he had sent Richard to deal with Annie, he’d put in for time off, to be started when he completed the job. It worked for Decker, because it was easiest if his right-hand man was out of the picture and not available for questioning and not considered a suspect. Decker had thought it a brilliant plan at the time, but it was clear as he looked at the crumpled paper in his hand that it had been a brilliant plan for Annie and Richard. They had played him for a fool.
Had Annie known the last night that she lived in the Decker home that she was about to be a victim to an unfortunate “kidnapping” and subsequent murder plot? Decker thought back to that night, and how his daughter had acted completely normal, even kissing him on the cheek to wish him goodnight. She had been so perfect that he had felt something that he was pretty sure was guilt and considered calling off her demise. But in the end, he had done what was right for the movement, and Annie had disappeared on her jog the next morning just before sunrise.
Decker had cried real tears then, not knowing that his darling daughter was shacking up with a WereLion behind his back and planned to run away all along. She had fooled him, and so had Richard Noble. When he found them, he was going to kill them both with his bare hands.
