by Rebecca York
“I’m going to hang up,” she warned.
“All right.” He gave her a number, and she wrote it down, then clicked the off button.
“You did good,” Brady told her, reaching out to wrap his arms around her trembling body.
“I was terrified.”
When Brady got up and started pulling on his clothes, Grace did the same.
A knock at the door made her jump, until the visitor identified himself as Hunter.
“That was Hancock,” Brady called out to him.
“Yeah. I figured.”
“We’ll be dressed in minutes.”
Both of them continued to pull on clothes. When she was wearing jeans and a tee shirt, she opened the door.
Hunter was standing in the hall, holding a cell phone. “This one’s secure. You can call him back without worrying about his tracing the call.”
She wished she could be as sure.
Chapter Seventeen
“If he finds you, he finds me,” Hunter told her as a way to reassure Grace and calm her fears. “So I’m betting my life on it.”
Grace nodded.
“Let’s go down to the living room, where we can all sit and be comfortable.”
“Okay,” she answered, glad that she had a few more minutes before she had to speak to the man again.
They went downstairs where she and Brady took the sofa. Hunter pulled up a nearby chair. Max continued to man the surveillance center.
Trying to keep her hand from shaking, she glanced at Brady. He put his arm around her and squeezed her shoulder.
“He thinks he has the advantage. He thinks he tracked us down. He doesn’t know it was a setup and that Lydia was supposed to give him our phone number.”
“I hope she’s all right.”
“She is. We’ve got a man at her house,” Hunter said. “There was a video camera in the bedroom. He would have rushed in there if she was in danger.”
Grace nodded.
“So just feed Hancock the information we agreed on.”
She wanted to ask, “What if I screw up?” But she didn’t voice her doubts.
“We’ll be right here,” Brady said. “Just make sure he doesn’t know that you know his name. At least not until we’re ready to spring that on him.”
“Right.” She dialed, then waited while the phone rang. After three rings, Hancock answered.
“Hello,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t sound too shaky. When she glanced at Brady, he nodded, indicating that the volume was loud enough for him to hear. Max did the same.
“I can’t tell where this call is coming from,” Hancock said in an annoyed voice.
“That’s the idea.”
His tone turned threatening. “You may think that you can avoid me, but I’ll find you eventually.”
She took a deep breath and said, “That’s what I’m afraid of. After you called, I started thinking, maybe we can make a trade with you.”
“What can you possibly have that I want?” he asked.
“I have the names of the clones.”
“I don’t need the names. I have the trackers.”
“Except on the most dangerous ones. The central committee. Karen knew about the trackers. She warned her inner circle to have them removed.”
“If that’s true, why didn’t she give you that information? Why didn’t she take hers out?”
“We had to take that risk, so you wouldn’t know about the others. You might have noticed that I got away.”
“Not Karen.”
“You didn’t use the transmitter to find her. You knew the Ridgeway Consortium had her. And you took her away from them—so you could kill her at that house in Frederick. And also me and Brady.”
There was long silence on the other end of the line. “All right,” he finally said. “I’ll trade you the names for your own safety. Spill.”
“We have to meet in person.”
“I’m not willing to do that,” he snapped.
“Then you can sit around wondering when the remaining members of her group will find you.”
“You don’t know who I am.”
She gave Brady a parody of a smile before continuing. “Like you said, it’s a matter of time before they figure it out. You can think of them as a suicide squad. They’ll do what it takes to get to you.”
Again, he was silent for several heartbeats. Finally he said, “I’ll meet you at the George Washington Masonic Monument in Virginia.”
“So you can set a trap for me?”
“No.”
“I’m not going anywhere you pick,” she said, looking at Brady. He gave her a thumbs-up sign and mouthed, “you’re doing great.”
She switched her focus back to the call as he asked, “What would you suggest?”
Did his voice sound a bit less confident?
“Somewhere we can both feel secure. A location where you can’t have your men swoop down on me, and I can’t do it to you.”
“Like where?”
“What about Chain Bridge? That’s open territory. You can come from the Virginia side. And I’ll come from the Maryland side. Or we can switch directions. I don’t care who comes from where, but we’ll meet in the middle.”
“How do I know you aren’t setting a trap for me?”
She forced a laugh. “Oh come on. How could I? You just called me a few minutes ago. I don’t even know who you are.”
“True,” he said smugly. “But you’ll have your bodyguard, Brady Lockwood, lurking about.”
“So what? We haven’t had time to prepare anything. You can send your men to start monitoring the bridge right now. I can do the same.”
“And when do you propose that we meet—now that we’ve agreed on a location?”
“Tomorrow morning. At two a.m. That way, neither of us has an advantage. We each have less than twenty-four hours to prepare.” Her pulse pounded while she waited for him to reply.
“All right,” he agreed. “You come from Virginia. Is that inconvenient? Are you in Maryland?”
Although her chest was tight with tension, she laughed again. “Nice try.”
“We’ll set up roadblocks to close off the bridge. At that hour, there won’t be much traffic. Flash your lights to let me know you’ve arrived. I’ll do the same. Then get out and come alone. We walk across the bridge. I give you the names, and you give me a signed paper saying that you’ll leave me alone.”
“Why would you trust me?”
“Because I’ll put the paper in my safe-deposit box—to be sent to the FBI if I’m killed. Not only the paper, but everything I know about your whole scheme. Even if you sign a false name, they’ll be looking for you. And you won’t be safe. So we’ll have a hold on each other.”
“All right,” he snapped, then hung up.
She clicked the phone off and looked at Brady. “How did I do?”
“Fantastically. He thinks he’s the one who initiated the contact, so he feels safe with your suggestion about the bridge.”
“Now we have make sure you don’t get killed,” Hunter said drily.
Grace’s head snapped toward him and she looked at him, her eyes filled with fear.
“Nice way to put it,” Brady said.
“I’m just being realistic about the danger.”
“But we have a hidden advantage because we actually started setting things up at the bridge a couple of days ago,” Brady said.
Grace hoped he was right. She had no illusions about her role in this, but she was willing to do it, just like she’d been willing to be Karen’s lookout. She’d had her reasons for helping Karen. Her motivation was different now. She had no real future unless they took care of Charles Hancock. And she was also thinking that this meeting with the Paladin would atone for her role in John Ridgeway’s death.
“We’d better go into planning mode,” Hunter said. “Once Hancock is out of the way, we can get into his computer, get the names of the other clones and deactivate their transmitters.”
She nodded, knowing how much was riding on their scheme. Still, she wished she’d had a little more time with Brady this morning, wished she had that time now.
“The rest of the team is standing by,” Hunter said. “Including some of Wickers’s men.”
“They know why we’re going up against Charles Hancock?”
“They don’t know his name, but they know that he’s the cause of John Ridgeway’s murder.”
“Not the direct cause,” Grace reminded him, feeling the need to be absolutely honest.
“It’s the direct result of his diabolical clone scheme,” Brady snapped.
“But—”
“Let’s not argue about it,” Hunter suggested. “We’ve got to focus on making sure we’re prepared.”
“Yeah,” Brady agreed. He turned to Grace. “That means I have to leave now.”
“I understand.”
He took her in his arms and hugged her fiercely, and she clung to him just as tightly, not even embarrassed that someone was watching them.
“It’s a little hard to give up my bodyguard role,” Brady whispered.
“I know why you can’t stay with me.”
“I’ll see you as soon as this is all over.”
“Yes,” she whispered, praying that both of them came through the coming confrontation.
The whole scheme was dangerous—as dangerous for him as it was for her.
He stepped away, then headed for the front hall, where his gear was already packed.
As she watched him go, she had to fight the urge to hug him one last time.
THE NEXT TWENTY-FOUR hours were a period of frantic preparation for Grace, even more than her previous training with Karen.
The Light Street team had already made some vital preparations for her meeting with the Paladin, but the intensity revved up when they knew they had Hancock on the hook.
Still, it seemed like only a moment since she’d put down the phone before they were crossing the Potomac on the Fourteenth Street Bridge and approaching from the south, toward Chain Bridge, where she was either going to save her brothers and sisters…or die.
“Are you ready?” Hunter asked as he slowed the car.
“I hope so.”
“You don’t want to get out on that bridge and suddenly realize there’s nowhere to go except over the side.”
Hunter never pulled any punches. The blunt observation made her shiver as she pictured the rushing water and sharp rocks far below. Depending on the recent rainfall the rocks would either be hidden or exposed.
Hunter pulled up just inside the barrier where a fake road crew of Light Street and Randolph Security men had blocked access to the bridge. The few motorists who wanted to cross at this hour in the morning would be angry, but that was better than getting caught in the cross fire.
As she stared out at the darkened landscape, she thought again of Brady. He had his own dangerous part to play in this carefully scripted drama, and she hadn’t seen him since his hasty departure from the safe house.
Hunter flashed his lights several times. Answering lights flashed from the Maryland shoreline.
The Paladin had already arrived. If it was really him.
Beside her, Ian Wickers shifted in his seat. She didn’t like him, but he’d agreed to work with the Light Street men, and she’d known he was loyal to John Ridgeway. Maybe he was doing this for his former boss, but she suspected that he had his own reasons for joining the team. Probably thwarting Barbara Frazier was high up on his list.
Both Hunter and Wickers wished her luck as she climbed out of the car. She was going to need it, but she didn’t voice her doubts to either of them. As she wiped her sweaty hands on the sides of her jeans, she was thinking about what she had to do.
Peering into the darkness ahead, she saw the bulk of the bridge looming over the river. She knew that they were on a rocky stretch of the Potomac called Little Falls, to distinguish it from the mighty Great Falls which was farther upstream.
This was near the site of the first bridge across the Potomac because the river was narrower here than closer to the city. The structure had been replaced when previous bridges had either collapsed or been washed away. But the present one was built on stone pilings dating back to the 1870s.
It was too dark to see the river below, but she felt the crosscurrents of wind grabbing at her hair and clothing. She reached to steady herself by grasping one of the bars of the five-foot-high railing, then quickly drew her hand back as her fingers plunged into spiderwebs.
Her heart was pounding now as she strained her eyes into the darkness, trying to make out a lone figure coming from the other side.
Although she couldn’t see Hancock, she could imagine him walking relentlessly forward. Was he nervous? Or had he put his confidence in some plan that the Light Street men hadn’t anticipated?
“Don’t think about that,” she muttered as she kept walking.
She and the Paladin hadn’t agreed on flashlights, but she’d brought one. Stopping for a moment, she switched on the light and played it on the pavement in front of her, then began walking forward again, willing herself to stand straight and tall.
In the darkness, another light blinked on, and she pictured the Paladin with a flashlight in his hand. She couldn’t tell how far away he was, but she saw the light coming toward her at a steady pace. As if he was out for a stroll on a fine evening.
The wind tugged at her again, and she fought a feeling of disorientation. Still, she kept walking, her heart pounding as the gap narrowed between the two lights.
Once they’d discovered Hancock’s identity, they’d found pictures of him. He was in his sixties with a head of curly salt-and-pepper hair, but he looked a decade younger than his age. She wondered if that was because he’d received organ transplants. She didn’t know, but she was certain that he’d had clones made. Why not? It didn’t cost him anything. Maybe he had a whole army of them.
A sickening thought struck her. What if he wasn’t the one here? What if he’d sent a clone instead?
But this was an entirely different situation than capturing a copy of yourself and putting him to death. This was a mission that required skill and cunning. Like Kevin Parsons impersonating John Ridgeway. The person would have to want to do it. And why would he cooperate with Hancock?
For money? Because he thought he was the man’s long-lost son?
She tried to shut off that line of speculation, knowing it was only going to distract her.
But her mind kept working away on the problem. One thing she knew about Hancock was that he’d been treated for arthritis. That was something a clone wasn’t going to fix, unless he started having limbs amputated and replaced.
She shuddered, wishing her thoughts weren’t taking such repulsive leaps. But she couldn’t help it, not when she knew these might be the last few minutes of her life. She wasn’t going to fool herself. This could be a suicide mission, no matter how well the Light Street team had prepared.
As Hancock closed the distance between them, she studied his gait. To her relief, she could tell that it hurt him to walk. Either he was really Hancock, or he was faking leg pain. But why would he bother to do that since he was sure she didn’t know his true identity?
When ten feet separated them, she stopped and tried to penetrate the darkness. She couldn’t make out much, except that he was a bulky man wearing a sport coat.
“Let me see you,” she called out over the sound of the wind.
“Why?”
“Curiosity. You masterminded this whole scheme. I’d like to get a look at your face.”
“That shouldn’t do any harm,” he said, his tone smug, as he raised the light so that it illuminated his features from below, giving him a horror-movie quality. But she’d thought that about him all along.
“Who are you?” she called out.
“A man with a mission.” Lowering the flashlight, he asked, “Did you bring the names?”
“Yes. Did you bring a p
iece of paper swearing that you won’t go after me?”
“Yes. Hand over the names.”
“Hand over the safe conduct.”
“I don’t have any objections to going first,” he said, his voice confident as he reached inside the pocket of his sport coat and brought out a piece of paper, which he held toward her.
She reached into the pocket of her jean jacket and pulled out her own paper. It was a list of ten names, but they weren’t clones, so far as she knew. The Light Street men had made them up, plucked them at random from tombstones in several Baltimore graveyards, so that nobody would get hurt if this all went the wrong way.
But it wouldn’t, she told herself fiercely as she and Hancock stepped toward each other, each holding what they’d brought. She was close enough to kiss him, she thought, if the contact wouldn’t have made her sick.
He took the paper from her and unfolded it, shining the light on the list.
“Thank you,” he said, more loudly than he needed to, and she was pretty sure that was a signal to the men who were waiting to get him out of this situation. “You think the FBI could find me if you died, but I’m planning to disappear. Nobody will be able to find me because I have the resources to create a whole new identity.”
“But you haven’t disappeared, and you’re Charles Hancock,” she answered.
To her satisfaction, he sucked in a sharp breath. “Where did you get my name?” he demanded in a voice that had lost some of its smugness.
“We’ve had it. We just weren’t prepared to tell you—until now.”
“I was careful.”
“Yes. But we’re not as stupid as you think we are.”
“It won’t do you any good,” he answered sharply, and she knew he was scrambling desperately to wrest back control of the situation. He’d come here because he thought he had her completely boxed in. Now he was finding out that he’d made some dangerous assumptions.
Still, he intended to be the winner of this contest. “I’ll be leaving here soon, and you won’t,” he added, pulling a gun from under his sport coat.
Chapter Eighteen
In the distance Grace could hear the drone of helicopter blades, the sound making her scalp prickle. That couldn’t be the Light Street men. It must be Hancock’s team coming in for the kill. Fighting the impulse to turn and run, she kept her tone even as she said, “Before you shoot me, you might want to know a few things.”
