by CJ Lyons
“EZ?” Hollywood said. “No way. Never would have thought he had the balls. Hang on, here’s Celeste.”
“Based on my calculations and the computer simulations I’ve been running, there should be no risk once the toxin has disseminated in the tissue for more than a few minutes.”
“So, some coroner slices into this guy, he’s not gonna need extra precautions?”
“Best I can tell, no.”
“Good, because we can’t hang around.”
“Maybe leave a note or make an anonymous call?” she suggested. “Just to be on the safe side?”
Rose glanced at Billy and rolled her eyes. Civilians. She took the phone from him. “Doctor, this is Rose Prospero again. I know you’ve been exploring the theoretical possibilities of this toxin, but let me tell you what we’re facing. We’ve got a corpse laced with it. We have what looks like a dozen fifty-five-gallon barrels presumably filled with it, looks like they’re on a boat somewhere, and we have a credible threat that this toxin is going to be used in an assassination attempt on the president of the United States in,” she glanced at the overhead clock, “less than two hours. So let’s stop talking theoreticals and start talking facts.”
“She’s doing her best, Rose,” Hollywood protested.
The doctor didn’t back down. “I’m giving you all the facts I can with the little data that I have.”
She paused, and Rose heard Hollywood murmuring something to her in the background. She was beginning to wish she’d sent anyone else down to Atlanta, but who would have guessed that Hollywood of all people would have fallen for a decidedly unglamorous scientist?
“What’s our best shot at stopping this?” Rose asked.
“The body should be fine,” Rayburn finally answered. Rose nodded to Billy, and they began to move out. Time was short, and she couldn’t waste any babysitting a corpse if there was no threat. “You said the canisters appeared to be on a boat?”
“As best we can tell.”
“Sink it. Put them deep underwater and keep them sealed until proper decontamination can be performed. That’d be your safest, fastest bet.”
Billy exchanged glances with her. Rayburn couldn’t know it, but she’d just condemned Rose’s team. And Eve.
Chapter 29
Billy took the phone from Rose before it could slip through her fingers. He’d never seen her so pale.
“We’ll get back to you, Hollywood.” He hung up and led Rose back to the van. As he drove away from the nursing home, she pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them tight.
“Susan Payne was right,” she finally said. “I shouldn’t be leading the Team.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he said, dividing his attention between her and the traffic surrounding them. He had no idea where he was going, simply headed toward the bay since they were looking for a boat. But it was a hell of a big bay. With several rivers flowing into it. Not to mention the Atlantic Ocean. “No one could've stopped the Preacher except you.”
“You would have. You had him in custody. You would have interrogated him, gotten more intel. I’m the one who let him go. Let him die without telling us everything.”
“And saved thousands of lives. We might've had him in custody, but he would have won if those chlorine tankers had exploded last week.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do it, Billy. I can’t make the call.”
He didn’t have to ask. She meant deciding between her daughter’s life and the lives of civilians. Logic said the lives of thousands outweighed the life of one girl, but try telling that to a mother.
“You won’t have to. We’ll find them. Stop them.” Empty words, seeing as they had no leads, but she seemed to take comfort in them. She dragged in a deep breath, unfolded her body, and reached for the laptop.
“Let’s see if they left any clues at the cabin,” she said. “I have cameras there, but it was a compromise. I couldn’t have my security connected to my normal phone—what if someone took it or cloned it? They’d be able to access everything. So the system is set to send an email that looks like spam and isn’t traceable. But it meant there’d always be a delay before I saw any notifications.”
One thing certain to make Rose babble: guilt. “It’s not your fault that you couldn’t warn them. What I’d like to know is how did they track us there?”
“Did either of the kids have cell phones?”
“No. We were all using burners. Swapping them out as well. No one tailed us. No way they could have put a tracer on the van.”
“What about Chase’s vehicle?” Rose asked as she opened the laptop and went online.
“No. I swept it before we left your place in the city.” He found a small park overlooking the bay and pulled in. January, not exactly picnic weather, so they had the place to themselves. He turned to her, and she swung the laptop so they both could see the footage from the cabin.
“That’s Teresa. How’d she—” He watched in dismay as she approached the cabin, disappeared inside for a few minutes, then reappeared. With three men holding weapons on Chase, Jay, and Eve.
Rose swore under her breath as she flipped through the various cameras. “There are the men going in through the bedroom window while Teresa distracts Chase out front.”
“Guess EZ wasn’t our only traitor.”
She made a grunting sound, half disgust and half anger, and fast-forwarded. “And there’s our boat.”
She froze the frame on an image from the dock. Alongside Rose’s motorboat was a twenty-five-foot boat bearing the insignia of the US Coast Guard.
Billy sucked in his breath. “Susan Payne called in the Coast Guard to rescue KC from the explosion in Savannah. The Merriweather. It’s the same damn boat.”
“Maybe Teresa and EZ weren’t working alone?” Rose said. Billy took comfort in the fact that there was no trace of recrimination in her voice. She’d never liked or trusted Susan.
But he had. Damn it. How much had he told her? And with Susan’s security clearance, she’d have access to even more information than anything she learned from Billy. “Susan’s with the president and first lady at Norfolk. She’ll be on the grandstand with them when they commission the destroyer.”
“All it would take would be one tiny needle prick and the toxin—”
“Will kill the president. Live on national TV. In front of the entire country.” Exactly the kind of spectacle the Preacher lived for—had died for.
“We’ve got to get to the Secret Service,” she said.
“We’ve got to find that boat. The president isn’t all they have planned for that toxin.”
They stared at each other. It was so unfair. They’d just found each other, finally after everything they’d been through been able to make a real start.
And now they had no choice. They’d have to each go their own way.
“Divide and conquer,” Rose muttered. He wasn’t sure if she was vowing victory over the Preacher’s people or cursing the circumstances that were forcing them apart.
Probably both.
<><><>
Rose tackled the Secret Service while Billy worked the naval side of the equation. She called Jared Wright, the US Marshal guarding Lucky Cavanaugh.
“Rose Prospero, my favorite federal fugitive,” Jared answered. “You call to screw my career even further? Or to let me drag you in, get a commendation?”
“You believe what they’re saying?”
He blew out his breath. “No. Just messing with you—you still owe me for yesterday.”
“I do. And I always pay my debts. How’d you like to help stop an assassination attempt on the president?”
“Like hell. What do I have to do?”
“Put Lucky on, and after we’re done talking, let him make a phone call.”
“You’re shitting me. Who’s he going to call? Someone with their finger on a nuclear bomb or the like?”
“His big sister, Alice.”
There was a pause as Jared tried
and failed to dissect her motives. “When this is done, me and you, Rose, we’re gonna play some poker. Deal?”
“Deal.”
A moment later, Lucky came on the line. “Rose? Jared said something about Alice. Is she okay? Nothing happened, did it?”
“Not yet. But we have a situation brewing, and Alice is our only way to save the president.” Lucky’s entire family were law enforcement with Metro PD, except for him and his sister, Alice. He’d gone to work for the ATF, and Alice was in the Secret Service, the only woman on the president’s detail.
Rose quickly explained the situation. “Can you call her? Convince her to allow Billy onto the base? He knows how this toxin works, and if Susan Payne is involved, he can help bring her in quietly.”
“Yeah. Let me talk to her. I think she’ll go for it—although she and the rest of the family are still pretty pissed at you about last week.”
“Letting the baby of the family almost get himself killed? Or letting the Metro Bomb Squad take all the credit in the news?”
“Both. I think. But if Alice gives you or Billy any trouble, just tell her it’s payback for her telling me I could fly. She sent me off the garage roof when I was a kid, and I busted my arm in two places.”
“Guess I’m not the only one getting you into trouble. Thanks, Lucky.”
She hung up and turned to Billy, who was on with Hollywood. “So you can send that to Rose?” he was saying, typing on the laptop. “Yeah, I just sent you the invite to upload to her private cloud account. Wait, here she is.” He handed her his phone, and she gave him hers.
“Lucky’s sister should be calling in a minute with an invite to get you on base.”
“Hollywood has an ex-girlfriend who’s still on speaking terms with him and works with the base’s maritime security division. She can get us almost-real-time feeds of boat traffic. Said the Coast Guard does have a presence here since they helped secure the ships already in dock and are patrolling the bay, but she has no record of the Merriweather being assigned. Oh, and he and the good doctor are hopping a flight here in half an hour, just in case we need her expertise.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Rose said, taking his phone.
“Amen to that.” Her phone rang, and Billy answered it. “Special Agent Cavanaugh. We’ve got a problem, and I hear you’re the woman who can solve it. Ready to save the president’s life?”
<><><>
The Merriweather pulled alongside a large dredging operation anchored in a bay just west of Norfolk. Chase knew it was a bad omen when Teresa and her people didn’t care if he and the kids saw their faces, but the fact that they didn’t care if they knew exactly where they were…that made for an extremely short life expectancy.
From the way Jay and Eve clung to each other, they were figuring that out as well.
The dredger was large, at least seventy feet, with the hull of a boat but a flat foredeck that housed a cabin and the crane that lifted the cutting drill. In the rear of the ungainly vessel stood two large anchoring pylons attached to winches and wires to steer the cutting apparatus after it was lowered to the bottom of the bay. The cutter would chop up the sand from the bottom, suck it up via a high-pressure pump into a pipe, which traveled below decks along the length of the boat, driven into a flexible hose that would transport the slurry of sand and water and eject it at high speeds onto land several miles away.
He had to give Teresa credit for ingenuity. The dredger was simple to position and operate, would not stand out as a threat, especially not here in an area that required maintenance dredging, and it could deliver their toxin miles away, giving them ample time to escape. Genius.
And he had no way in hell of stopping them. His frustration must have shown in his expression because Teresa stopped on her way off the Coast Guard boat and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Cheer up, Chase. You’ll soon be with your lovely never-bride-to-be.”
She crossed over to the dredge and motioned for her men to bring him and the kids. “Put Chase and Jay downstairs with KC. I’m sure she’ll be wanting company by now.”
Jay balked at that. “No. I’m not going anywhere without Eve.”
Instead of hitting Jay, the nearest guard slammed the butt of his weapon against Chase’s injured ankle. Chase crumpled against the dredge’s railing, hopelessly off balance with one foot in the cast and his hands cuffed behind his back. He fell to his knees onto the grated metal deck.
“Stop it!” Eve screamed.
“No.” Chase grunted through the pain that blitzed his body. He somehow found the strength to raise his head and meet Eve’s eyes.
Jay stepped forward, placing himself between Eve and Teresa’s men. “She’s staying with us.”
Chase had never felt more proud of his brother. It should have been him standing there, weapons trained on him, protecting Eve. He pushed against his good leg, trying to somehow stand, tackle the men surrounding them.
Two of Teresa’s men hauled Chase up. Teresa stood before Chase, planting the muzzle of her pistol directly between his eyes. “Tell your little friends to stop being stupid.”
Past her, Chase saw another guard aim his own weapon at Jay’s head.
“It’s okay,” Eve said in a rush, stepping forward. “I’ll go with you. I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt them.”
Teresa smiled at that and crooked her finger for the girl to cross over and join her. Once Eve was beside her, Teresa wrapped an arm around her shoulders, running her fingers through her hair as if they were best friends. “I’m so glad to hear you say that, Eve. Because you and I, we’re going to have a long chat about your mother. You’re going to tell me all about Rose, and we’ll have a little surprise waiting for her when she gets here.”
Teresa led Eve away, the girl looking anxiously over her shoulder at Chase and Jay. Eve and Teresa climbed down the ladder to the deck below and vanished from sight.
The guards stood on either side of Chase, forcing him and Jay down the same ladder, their weapons nudging Chase anytime he slowed, his pain coming in unrelenting waves as he half-walked, half-hopped down the metal steps. Finally, both he and Jay were on the lower deck. There was a short corridor with several watertight hatches. The one directly across from the stairs had a window in it, and the sound of a pump engine coming from behind it. The machinery for the dredger, Chase guessed. There were also hatches leading to a maintenance room and one leading aft to the living quarters.
He couldn’t take it any longer. “KC!” he bellowed, throwing all his energy into it. “KC!”
Even if he never saw her again, she’d know he was here. That he came for her. That he’d never leave her behind.
The guards laughed and shoved them forward to a hatch in the bow, smaller than the others behind them. They undogged the latches locking the half-sized door and shoved Jay into the darkness inside. Chase heard a splash and a tiny cry.
KC! He didn’t need the guards’ urging to send him stumbling over the hatch and into the tiny, low-ceilinged compartment. In the scant light of the open hatchway, he saw KC huddled on the floor, surrounded by steel drums. Jay was sprawled out on the floor beside her, sputtering in the water that came up several inches.
Before Chase could reach either of them, the door slammed shut, and they were trapped in impenetrable blackness.
Chapter 30
Turned out the Secret Service got a bit anal when it came to a federal fugitive talking about a potential presidential assassination. But after a few minutes of Billy laying out his case, Alice Cavanaugh came on board.
“I’ve got to get the president off that grandstand,” she said.
“Of course. But we can’t be sure about Senator Payne’s involvement, and we can’t tip her off. Everything has to look normal up to the last minute. I’ll meet you at the gate.”
“I’ll get some additional chemical sniffers out into the field. Oh, and Price, you should know something about me.”
“What’s that?”
&nbs
p; “When it comes to the president’s safety, I shoot first and ask questions later. So one twitch that makes me think you’re up to something—”
“I’ll be sure to leave my twitches at home. See you in ten.” Billy hung up. “She’s some piece of work,” he told Rose. “Did you get everything you need from Hollywood?”
“Yes. His friend is going to check out any boats that match the Merriweather’s description—I guess they use a lot of that size here in port, so it might take awhile.” She slipped past him into the rear of the van and gathered gear for him into a Molle bag: a gas mask, antidote kit, and respirator with fifteen minutes of air. She hesitated and handed him a second antidote kit. “Keep this one on you.”
Billy exchanged his suit jacket for a tactical one and secured the kit into one of the inside pockets. “Hollywood’s friend understands the need for stealth? We can’t tip our hand or they’ll release the toxin.”
“Yeah, she got that. She’ll be calling in the SEALs to make the tactical strike. Tried to get me to turn myself in. When I refused, she suggested I stay put until everything’s over. The manhunt is still on, and I guess the buzz about me is that I’m armed, dangerous, unstable and pretty much should be shot on sight like a rabid dog.”
He knew how painful it was to sit on the sidelines, especially with her daughter’s life at stake. “She’s right, you know.”
“Careful or I’ll give you rabies.”
He wrapped an arm around her, pulled her tight, and kissed the top of her head. “You need to stay safe. So you can be there for Eve. I’ll stay in touch, let you know what’s happening.”
“This sucks, Billy.” Her voice was filled with uncharacteristic resignation. “It just really, really sucks.”
“I know. But it'll be all right. We’ve got the upper hand, now.”
She shuddered.
“What’s wrong?”
“Superstitious, I guess. Felt like someone walking on my grave.”
He tilted her face up to his and kissed her. “Better?”
