Beau (In the Company of Snipers Book 18)

by Irish Winters

  “Two.”

  “God, I’m so sorry.”

  Beau nodded as the day came back to him in vivid flashes of soul-rending grief and mind-jolting pain.

  “It’s all your fault, you sniveling bastard!” Bass Jennings, the two-bit pimp of East Washington screamed like the demented asshole he was. “You killed my baby girl!”

  My. Baby. Girl. Bass’s declaration of love for his dead child, instead of one smattering of compassion for the still living, still breathing, still scared to death little boy who’d stood shattered and crying hysterically in front of him. Yet that screamed truth hadn’t hurt Beau in the least. By then he was numb to the bitter name-calling and the hate. He just stood there and took it like the daily beatings Bass handed out. Why fight it? Beau always knew he was nobody special.

  He grunted, not sure why life kept slapping him down. “Her name was AJ,” he told Maverick on a whisper. “AJ for Almond Joy. I think my mom killed her, though I’m sure she didn’t mean to. I know she loved AJ, but drug addicts don’t make good parents.” Talk about an understatement. “Neither do asshole fathers.” Another profound truth.

  Sucking in a breath, he gave life to the nightmare he’d survived. “It’s called the Cultural Corridor. It’s a poor neighborhood northeast of the Strip in Vegas, mostly full of illegals and immigrants from Mexico and South America. That’s where I grew up. Being called names I didn’t understand because I stood out, a brown baby stuck in white trash hell. But the day AJ was born… the day she died…” Beau swallowed hard, not sure he could go on.

  Not a day ever went by that he didn’t think of his sweet, angel sister. That he didn’t blame himself for the way she’d been forced to live, and the awful way she’d died. At the end of it, when the brutal sun had finally set on the worst day of his life, he’d crawled, beaten and bloody, on his hands and knees, into a dark alley between some casino and a parking terrace.

  Scared, alone, and in more pain than he ever dreamed imaginable, he’d curled into a ball and cried so hard that he’d made himself sick. He’d thrown up, but after the vicious beating he’d been dealt, he was too exhausted to move away from the mess. Instead, he’d lain there in it for the rest of the night like the pitiful loser he was. What difference would moving have made? He was the same as that vomit. Foul. Rank. Rejected.

  But there in that stinking alley, with his bloodied, sweaty cheek pressed to the concrete and the smell of his own puke in his nose, he’d also promised AJ that he’d never be weak again. He’d never cry, and he’d never let anyone hit him, either. Turned out that last promise was a tough son-of-a-bitch to keep.

  “It’s almost funny,” Beau said to no one in particular. Funny in a disgusting, surreal, macabre sort of way. “I’ve been accused of killing my men, my mother, and my baby sister, but I never did it. What kind of sick joke is that?”

  “Alex already knows you didn’t kill your men,” Maverick hissed as his hand clamped over Beau’s shoulder, his thumbnail digging hard into Beau’s collarbone. “And there’s no way a kid like you would’ve killed his mother or a little girl. I know you, Beau. You didn’t do it!”

  You know me? Beau’s head came up at that loud declaration. He hadn’t realized he’d been studying his boots as closely as he had until then. Ordinarily, being touched by another guy was enough to get Maverick punched in the face. Not today. For some ungodly reason, this time that death grip on Beau’s shoulder felt okay. He saw a brother in Maverick instead of an enemy. And he desperately needed a brother, because brothers might fight with each other, but they fought the world for each other, too.

  “I loved her,” he blurted out what he’d never told anyone before. “Jesus, I miss her. Every day. I do.”

  Something happened to Maverick’s face and lips Beau had only seen in combat when a guy’d been shot and writhed in pain. His features twisted. His lips thinned. He blinked like a son-of-a-bitch. He growled. His eyes brimmed. Then he jerked Beau into a crushing guy hug, his elbow around Beau’s stiff neck, and his scruffy cheek against Beau’s head like he meant to kill him. “I miss Darrell, too. Every. Fuckin’. Day.”

  Damn, this was embarrassing as hell. Yet Beau stood there, sucking in every last second of that rugged male contact like a sponge left too long in the desert. It felt so damned good. Maverick was no wimpy guy. He was a great big, grieving brother with a hole in his heart as deep and as black as the hole in Beau’s. It honestly felt weird, but Beau gave back what little comfort he could. Even as awkward as it was. Even to a guy he’d honestly thought he’d hated on sight the minute he’d joined The TEAM. Wasn’t Karma the ever-loving trickster to turn an asshole like Cowboy into a brother?

  But, okay. No. Enough already. Too much!

  Beau pushed away, but did it gently, and for a change, without profanity. Maverick didn’t feel as stupid as he did. “What a couple of pussies,” he grumbled, trying to add a smidgen of levity into this rare, depressing, but kind of wonderful moment—that would sure as hell never happen again. Beau didn’t like to be touched. Except by McKenna. That was different.

  Maverick stepped back, cleared his throat, and growled, “Sorry.”

  “I’m sorry for lots of things,” Beau admitted as he brushed the back of his hand across his eyes and sniffed at the cruelty of life. “But not for loving AJ.”

  “We need to go out one night when this is over. Throw back a few beers. Tell a few war stories. Reminisce, you know?”

  “Yeah, no.” Beau shook his head. All his war stories ended badly. He tried not to think about them.

  Maverick stiff-armed him again. “There’s all kinds of family, Beau. Some you’re born with. Some you pick up along the way.”

  “Like the gum some asshole spits on the sidewalk, then you come along and step in it?”

  “Yeah. Or dog shit. Some friends are just that good,” Maverick said as he smirked like a little kid.

  Beau did something he hadn’t done in—hell, he couldn’t remember how long. It felt good to talk with Maverick like he was. The corners of his mouth lifted. Well, one corner lifted. He damned near smiled.

  “You don’t have to say more, Beau. Tell Doc Fitz instead. She’s a good woman,” Maverick said evenly. “I know you care for her. Everyone does. She’s who you need to share your story with. She’ll understand.”

  Beau grimaced. McKenna was made out of the same stuff as Kelsey Stewart. Kindness. They were both saints as far as he was concerned. But he wasn’t so sure McKenna would forgive him after this last stunt he’d pulled. Yeah. He was an idiot.

  “Just don’t walk away like I did,” Maverick added. “Don’t give up, not when the best thing in your life might be standing in front of you.”

  “You really walked all the way to Wyoming?”

  “Yeah, but I flew back.”

  “But how’d you know…?” The question flew out of Beau’s mouth before he knew he’d asked it.

  “How’d I know what? That you’re an asshole?”

  Beau damned near smiled again. “No, ah…” How to ask this without making a bigger fool of himself? Dumb question. That cat was already out of the bag. He swallowed hard and pressed on. “How’d you know China was the one? The right one?”

  Maverick’s big, wide palm flattened over his chest. “You get a good feeling. Right here. Like you can’t breathe without her being in the same room with you. Like you don’t even want to try.”

  Oh, that. Shit. Then I’ve loved her since the second I laid eyes on her.

  “Thanks,” Beau said quietly. Just. Thanks.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “Damn, you’re good,” Maverick said.

  Beau grunted at that offhanded compliment even as he skillfully breached McKenna’s home computer. It was a little difficult with his one hand still swathed in gauze and tape, but it wasn’t impossible. Most people used familiar phrases and simple numerics for their passwords, and McKenna’s was easy to pop. Sanders123 and within just seconds, Beau
was in. Before he got into some serious hacking, though, he saved and closed the files she’d left open. Just in case this breach of ethics didn’t pan out like he hoped.

  “Why isn’t this comspec skill in your personnel file, Junior Agent?” Alex bit out.

  “There’s a lot of stuff not in my file,” Beau answered smoothly as he tapped into the secure—yeah, right—Alexandria, Virginia, traffic cam system. Then, just as easily, he hacked The TEAM’s exterior surveillance system, while Alex grunted his disapproval. “One, because I didn’t plan on working for you for long. Two, because hacking’s illegal, and I didn’t want to document anything that could land me behind bars. I didn’t know you from Adam, remember?”

  “I ought to kick your ass.”

  Yeah, well, take a number. “Probably,” Beau breathed as he easily circumvented the protocols Mother relied on to keep hackers like him out of The TEAM’s domain. She assumed she knew everything about the systems she’d built, but that was the fast-paced world of high technology for you. As soon as you thought you knew it all, along comes the younger generation to prove that you sure as hell did not.

  Beau relaxed as the skill he’d learned while in the Army brig flowed through his fingertips again. A hunter was only as good as his last intel, and since the debacle in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, Beau had learned everything he could about hacking to keep that intel current. Not that he’d ever breached Army records like Mother had, but he knew a few things.

  Only the two men hovering over his shoulder like vultures over a fresh kill were enough to drive him crazy. Linking the two devices he’d found lying on McKenna’s desktop with the laptop he was using, he handed them off to Maverick and Alex, with a, “Sorry, Gabe. You’ll have to buddy up with one of these guys if you want to know what’s going on.”

  Alex frowned at the device in his hand. “Great. Another tablet. What the hell am I looking for?”

  “Your screens will either display the view from the video cameras Mother insisted you install outside TEAM headquarters, or Alexandria’s traffic cams along King Street. Since I didn’t know exactly when you were at the office yesterday, Boss, I estimated an approximate time range, hoping we catch Montego casing the vicinity. Keep your eyes open for the real Catalina.”

  Alex settled cross-legged to the floor and assumed the position of grunts all over the world. Boredom. Maverick and Gabe did the same, which left Beau seated on McKenna’s chair, an oddly elevated position for the guy with the least seniority in the room.

  “This is going nowhere fast,” Gabe muttered after ten minutes of watching nothing but inconsequential pedestrian and vehicular traffic.

  “But it’s smart,” Alex admitted as he cast a wicked glare at Beau. “Wish I’d known we had another IT genius on my team.”

  Beau took the hit while he watched the same views of The TEAM’s headquarters building as his men. Hmmm. His men. My men. He actually liked the sound of that.

  After a few more minutes of nothing going on, Maverick ordered four pizzas and a barrel of wings from a local restaurant. Gabe took off on a beer run to go with the food. Once the pizza, wings, and beer disappeared as quickly as it arrived, Alex growled, “Son-of-a-bitch, got her.”

  “You’re right,” Beau said. He’d seen Montego at the same time.

  “Damn, she’s something,” Gabe growled as he peered over Maverick’s shoulder.

  “Something out of a nightmare,” Maverick agreed.

  They watched as the blonde woman in jeans and a glittery short-sleeved top, approached the glass entry doors at TEAM headquarters on King Street. When she couldn’t gain access, she stepped far enough back on the sidewalk, tipped her head back, and looked upward.

  Deftly, Beau manipulated The TEAM camera she had no idea had captured her image. Narrowing the shot, he caught an up close and personal view of her.

  “Man, that’s one nasty looking woman,” Maverick muttered.

  Beau had to admit, Catalina unleashed was entirely different from the chick he remembered at Boxster’s. Gone was the saucy smile. In its place, an evil sneer twisted her features.

  “She’s talking. Anyone know how to read lips?” Gabe asked.

  “She said ‘I know you’re up there, Stewart,’” Alex growled. “Damn, I wish I’d known she was down there. I’d have ended her.”

  “Why’s she hate you?” Beau asked.

  “Because I sent the man to Cuba who killed her brother.”

  That didn’t make sense. “But from the account I heard, she wasn’t there when Roland died. How’d she know Seth McCray was the one who’d actually ended her brother or that he works for you? And if she knew, why’d she come after me and not him?”

  “I have no idea,” Alex muttered, “but it’s the only thing that makes sense. Revenge. She wants to destroy me.”

  “Possibly,” Beau replied as Montego strutted across the sidewalk to the passenger loading zone, removed a palm-sized device that looked very much like a key fob from her front jeans pocket, and—

  “Son-of-a-bitch!” Alex hissed as they watched her jerk the rear door to his vehicle open, lean inside, then slam the door and walk away without a backward glance.

  “That’s when she planted that last finger,” Maverick said.

  “Do we know who it belongs to yet?” Gabe asked.

  “Not me,” Beau answered, wiggling the bandaged foursome on his left hand.

  Alex shook his head. “Haven’t heard back from the FBI yet, but damn. She opened my car like nothing.”

  “The latest techno gadgets are only good for a short time,” Beau told him. “Technology advances at the speed of light these days.”

  “But she could’ve planted a bomb instead of a finger,” Gabe muttered. “Shit, Boss, she could’ve taken out the whole block. You too.”

  “Why didn’t she? She knew I’d be back.”

  “Like you said, it’s not about killing, Boss. It’s about emotional suffering, and it looks like she wants you to suffer for a long, long time,” Beau replied.

  “She walked away like she’s done this before,” Maverick added. “Like she wasn’t afraid of being caught.”

  Alex growled softly. “She thinks she’s untouchable.”

  “Where’s she going now?” Gabe asked.

  Anticipating that question, Beau had already switched all devices to recorded footage from the traffic cams that ran along King Street from the Metro Station to the Potomac River. “Keep in mind, this is old footage, not live input.” To make viewing easier, he highlighted Montego with a blurred circle like the NFL did to players during Super Bowl. Two blocks east of TEAM headquarters, she stepped to the curb with one hand lifted as if hailing a cab.

  “I knew it,” Alex hissed. “She’s got help.”

  The men were silent as Beau jockeyed from one cam to the next, determined to catch not only the license plate on that late model sedan, but a good shot of the driver as well.

  “Who’s behind the wheel?” Maverick asked. “Can you—?”

  “Yes, I can,” Beau replied easily, his right-handed fingers flying over the keyboard, strengthening the pixels on Alexandria’s lowest bidder version of traffic cams. Jesus, the criminals that could be brought to justice if only every city and township would invest in top-of-the-line surveillance cameras instead of these budget gizmos. “Is that better?” he asked as he narrowed the view and enhanced the image.

  “Fuck!”

  Beau turned at his favorite curse word from—Alex? “You know who that is?”

  “That’s son-of-a-bitchin’ Aaron Pope.”

  “Your friend? Are you sure, Boss?” Gabe asked.

  Alex nodded, his eyes glazed, but only for a second. Pushing up from the floor, he rolled his neck like the true predator he was. “Break time’s over. Gear up. We’re going hunting.”

  “Whoa,” Maverick hissed. “Pan that camera back over that sedan again. Look at Pope’s hand, guys.”

  Beau di
d as directed, narrowing the city cam’s view down to the left-handed grip Pope had on the steering wheel. Closer. Closer. Until...

  “He’s got no fingers on that hand,” Gabe stated the obvious. “Just stumps.”

  “And a thumb,” Maverick added.

  “Like me,” Beau hissed as sympathy pains tweaked his reattached pinkie finger.

  “She tortured him,” Alex added, all three men now firmly on Beau’s six, watching his screen as Montego slid into the sedan. The car headed east on King Street. At Henry Street, it turned north, then right onto Pendleton a couple blocks north.

  “She headed for the GW,” Alex murmured, his hand on the back of Beau’s chair as he leaned over his right shoulder. The GW, aka the George Washington Memorial Parkway, wound through Crystal City and past Reagan National Airport before it turned northwest to follow the Potomac River.

  “She could be anywhere by now,” Gabe breathed.

  Beau shook his head, still engrossed in jumping from one traffic cam’s stored footage to the next, linking Montego’s day-old route to yet another app on the laptop as he went. “Statistically speaking, serial killers stick to a specific routine. A certain kind of victim. A set neighborhood.”

  “Which for Montego extends from Paris Island to the son-of-a-bitchin’ Shenandoahs,” Alex bit out. “Her only pattern is she goes after young military males, and they’re never seen again.”

  “Possibly,” Beau murmured as he craned his neck toward the monitor, watching the pre-recorded video clip as the sedan came to a traffic stop. “I mean, yeah, she seems to prefer young males…” As far as we know. “But I think her lair, the place where she does her real dirty work, is stationary. Don’t forget, I was the idiot on that table back at Congressman Ringer’s. It was a hastily thrown together POS. Whoever built it was no carpenter. Its legs weren’t balanced, and price tags were still stapled on the two-by-fours. That isn’t her primary lair. You saw it, didn’t you?”

  “I haven’t forgotten, Beau,” Alex said as he blew out a long, slow breath. “And yes, I saw the crime scene. You’re right. Guess it’s hard to pound nails without all five fingers.”