by Sharon Sala
Caleb Carpenter was on a mission. The phone call he’d just received left him with a rather nasty task to perform. And while it was a bit unexpected, he had not argued with the man who’d given the order. It would seem that the father of the kidnap victim wasn’t being as pliable as they’d expected. He had demanded proof that his son was still alive and well, or they could all go to hell. Although they were on different sides of the war, there was a part of Caleb Carpenter that admired that kind of grit. What he had to do, however, was make sure that the kid didn’t give anything away, and that was what worried him. Jeff Kirby was acting more like an unhappy guest at a cut-rate motel, rather than a victim. Caleb shook his head in disgust as he headed toward the makeshift armory where Jeff was being held. It was a shame that their need for money to fund their program had thrown them in with such a despicable despot. Kidnapping wasn’t Caleb’s chosen method of protesting and in his opinion, there wasn’t one admirable thing about the man behind this mess. The Brotherhood of Blood operated on the age-old principles of the right to bear arms and a refusal to bow down to an oppressive government, while the man with the money seemed bent on nothing but personal revenge. It was not a trait Caleb found admirable or productive. But they’d taken the money and therefore, would do the job. He was not a man who went back on his word.
As he strode into the armory, two of the men on guard jumped to their feet.
“Morning, sir,” they said, and all but stood at attention.
He nodded, then pointed toward the locked door. “Open it and bring him out.”
They did as they were told, entering together, then coming out moments later with the young man clutched between them.
Caleb eyed the man’s wounds, judging them to be healing, then motioned for Jeff to come forward.
“You, come here,” he said.
“The name’s Jeff.”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. The kid was slick, he’d give him that. Being on a first-name basis was the first step in bonding. Maybe he thought it would make it easier to stay alive.
“You’ve got a phone call to make,” Caleb said. “And if you want your daddy to keep breathing, you won’t try to be a smart-mouth and give away something you shouldn’t, understand?”
Jeff’s pulse skittered, then settled. “You want me to talk to him?”
Caleb nodded.
“It seems he doesn’t trust our accommodations and wants to make sure we have clean sheets on the bed.”
To Caleb’s surprise, Jeff pulled his swollen lips into what passed as a grin, upping his admiration for the young man even more. Without giving away any of his thoughts, he dialed the number that had been given him, then waited for Easton Kirby to answer.
When the phone rang, East stiffened, then let it ring again.
Ally stared. “East?”
On the third ring, he answered, his voice deep and angry, his words clipped.
“This is Kirby.”
Caleb Carpenter shifted his stance, reminding himself that the man on the other end was not the one in control.
“You wanted to speak with your son, make it brief, and don’t forget I’ll be listening.” Then he thrust the phone at Jeff. “Remember what I said.”
Jeff took the phone. “Dad?”
East’s knees buckled, but there was no other indication of how deeply he was moved.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked.
“Not enough to count.”
East cursed. “Are they listening?”
“Like vultures.”
East sighed. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
“Yeah, I really crashed and burned this time, didn’t I, Dad? Unlike you, I won’t be able to walk out of this on my own.”
East’s pulse jumped. Jeff was trying to tell him something, but what?
“Don’t give up on me, boy. I’ll get you out. I swear to God, I’ll find a way.”
Caleb yanked the phone from Jeff’s hand. “Sorry, Daddy, but your change just ran out. Now I suggest you do as the big man ordered if you want your son back alive.”
He punched the button and disconnected.
East dropped the phone into his pocket and turned to face Ally.
“What did Jeff say?” she asked. “Is he all right? Did they hurt him?”
“I’ll tell you everything later. Now we call Jonah.”
She sighed. This was not how it was supposed to be. “In my room,” she said shortly.
He followed her toward the elevators, while hundreds of miles away, Caleb Carpenter was putting his own set of plans into motion. He turned to his men.
“It’s time,” he said, pointing toward Jeff. “Put him in the hole.”
The hole? Jeff spun, bracing himself for another unknown, but it was no use. He was surrounded by armed men and with nowhere to go but where he was led. They stopped about a hundred yards away from the main cluster of buildings and began moving aside a camouflage net lying across a stack of boxes. When Jeff saw the metal door beneath, he stifled a groan.
The door opened silently on well-oiled hinges, revealing a steep set of steps leading into a dark, ominous cavern.
Jeff frowned. Another dark hole? What is it with these people and lights?
“Get in,” Elmore said, and gave Jeff a sharp push.
He staggered forward, then took his first step down.
“Hurry up. We ain’t got all day.”
Jeff braced himself with both hands as he started down the stairs.
“Where’s the light?” he asked.
“You get a minute to orient yourself and then the door goes shut, so stop talking and start looking.”
Jeff’s heart skipped a beat as an old memory from his childhood suddenly surfaced. There was a man—an angry man—shoving him into a closet and slamming the door. He could remember the feel of old shoes beneath his hands and the scent of dust and leather.
Not this. God, not this.
But as Jeff reached the bottom of the steps and began to look around, it became all too obvious that this was real. There was a commode, a cot, a large water can, and a small, spindly table stacked with some sort of containers of non-perishable food inside a concrete-lined hole barely tall enough for him to stand. He caught a glimpse of a small, narrow tube poking through the ceiling and assumed it was an air vent, then saw a logo on one of the small containers just as the door began to shut. MRE—meals ready to eat. If it hadn’t been so dismal, he would have laughed. Again, his creature comforts were going to be compliments of army surplus and Uncle Sam. He wondered if his dad would get the clue that he’d been trying to send, and then they closed the door and everything went black.
East shut the door abruptly as they entered Ally’s room.
“How do you contact him?” he asked.
“Wait here,” Ally said, and dashed toward her bedroom, coming back moments later with the phone that Jonah had sent her. She pressed the Send button as instructed, let it ring two times, then disconnected.
“Now we wait,” she said.
East had worked too many years under Jonah to question the procedures. Instead, he began to pace.
“You don’t tell him what’s happened to Jeff.”
Ally’s mouth dropped. “But—”
“No!” East said, raising his voice. “If he knows, he’ll put somebody else on the case because it’s become too personal for me.”
“But isn’t it?” Ally asked.
“Hell, yes,” East said. “And that’s exactly why I’m doing it. Not for him. Not for Uncle Sam.”
“Then what do you tell him?” she asked. “And you’d better decide quickly, because he’ll be calling within the minute.”
“As far as you know, I have decided to help. You tell Jonah that, then let me talk. After that, you can go on to your next assignment and leave the rest of this mess to me.”
Ally’s face turned a quick, angry red. “Leave? Now? What kind of a person do you think I am?”
East paused, sur
prised by her vehemence. “This is no longer any of—”
“You can’t do this by yourself and you know it,” she snapped. “You’ve been out of the business too long. Besides, don’t forget my intelligence. Use it. Use me. However, whenever. Just let me help.”
East’s expression shifted. Not much, but enough to let Ally know that she’d gotten to him. For now, it was enough. Before they could go any further, the phone suddenly rang.
“Answer it,” East said. “Then tell him I want to talk.”
Ally put the phone to her ear. “Hello, this is Corbin.”
A deep, gravely voice rattled across Ally’s eardrum. “Talk to me.”
“He’s in.”
Ally heard a swift intake of breath, and then a moment of silence.
“Sir? Are you there? He wants to talk.”
“Yes. Of course. Put him on.”
She handed the phone to East.
“Jonah, you are a persuasive man.”
“I’m sorry it became necessary,” Jonah said.
East bit back an angry retort. “Yes, so am I,” he muttered. “However, down to business. I’ll need information on everything that has occurred to date. Get it to me. Also, I may need some vital information from you later. If so, I will track the transmissions in hopes of finding the source.”
Jonah frowned. This wasn’t what he had planned. “I don’t think—”
East interrupted. “You haven’t been successful so far, so why not try things my way?”
Silence lengthened into a quiet that began to make East nervous. If Jonah didn’t go for this, then how could he bargain with the kidnapper to buy Jeff some time?
“Done,” Jonah finally said. “But do you have the expertise to—”
“Your messenger. I’m keeping your messenger.”
This time, Jonah was silent for an even longer time. Finally, he spoke. “Why her?”
“You trusted her,” East said. “And so do I.”
“But she doesn’t know why she was sent to persuade you.”
“She will before we start, or it won’t work.”
Jonah’s hesitation was brief. “All right, but you know the drill.”
A cold smile broke the somberness of East’s expression, although Ally was the only one to see it.
“Oh yeah, I know the drill,” East said. “If caught or captured, it’s my head on a platter, not yours, because you do not exist.”
“I will be in touch,” Jonah said.
“By this phone?”
“Yes. Now put Agent Corbin back on the phone.”
East handed the phone to Ally. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Sir?”
“He needs help,” Jonah said. “Whatever he asks, whatever it takes, it’s his.”
“And that includes me?” Ally asked.
“Yes.”
Ally hid a quick sigh of relief. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Let it be enough,” Jonah said, and hung up.
Chapter 8
East moved through the dining area, then the lobby, heading toward his office with Ally in tow.
“Now tell me what Jeff said,” she demanded.
East lowered his voice as they continued to move down a hallway past a series of rooms.
“He said something odd about having crashed and burned, then added that he wouldn’t be able to walk out of it like I did. I think he was trying to tell me something, but I’m not sure what.”
“Crash and burn? Have you ever been in a wreck?”
“We’ll talk inside,” he said, as they reached his office. East opened the door, stepping aside, letting her enter first. Once the door was firmly shut, he strode toward his desk and picked up the phone.
“Stella, have all of the business calls routed to Foster’s office. I don’t want to be disturbed.”
“Yes, sir,” the operator said.
East hung up.
“Wrecks. We were talking about wrecks,” Ally prompted.
East sighed in frustration. “Yes, but which one? I’ve been in several car wrecks, a couple of plane wrecks, and even one train wreck.”
Ally stared. “What are you…your own bad luck charm? Good grief, it’s not that you’ve endured all that so much as you’re still here to tell the tale.”
East shrugged. “Occupational hazard.”
“So how many of those crashed and burned.”
A frown creased his forehead. “Maybe three…no four, counting that chopper that went down up north.”
She had confiscated a piece of paper from his desk and was furiously writing as he continued to speak.
“And of those, how many did you walk away from?” she asked.
East was beginning to appreciate the beauty of Ally Corbin’s mind.
“Two.”
“And they were where?”
“A car wreck in upstate New York and a chopper crash in southern Idaho.”
“New York and Idaho, two possibles,” Ally muttered.
“Those are far-fetched assumptions.”
“There’s no law against assuming,” she countered. “Besides, it’s more than you had five minutes ago.”
He shook his head and almost smiled. “What did Jonah tell you when he sent you here?”
“My mission was to persuade you to change your status with SPEAR from inactive to active.”
“He didn’t tell you why, or give you any deadlines?”
“No.”
East combed his fingers through his hair in frustration, then began to pace.
“Look,” Ally said. “I said I’d help, and I will. In fact I want to. I feel as if, in some way, my coming here has precipitated what has happened to your son.”
East shook his head. “No, it wasn’t just your appearance, although it’s a part of the whole. It started with the reason for Jonah’s request.”
“What reason?”
East hesitated, then shoved aside his reluctance to break his silence. Jonah’s situation was secondary to getting Jeff back safe and he’d do whatever it took to make that happen.
“Someone is trying to take Jonah down, and if they succeed, they’ll take SPEAR with him.”
Ally’s mouth dropped. “Oh my God, you can’t be serious!” Then she gave herself a quick thump on the forehead. “That’s a stupid thing to say. I’m sorry. Please continue.”
“A couple of weeks ago I got a phone call from Jonah. He told me of several recent incidents of people being arrested for treason that all pointed back to him.”
“Is this national or global?” Ally asked.
“I got the impression that it was global,” East said. “I’ll know more when I get the file on the incidents. I think it’s only a matter of time before his anonymity is blown and he’s arrested, unless he can find out who’s trying to discredit him. Because of the nature of the things that were being done, he had reason to suspect everyone, even the people within his organization.”
Ally’s expression lightened as understanding dawned. “And because you’ve been out of the loop, so to speak, he felt safe in assuming it wouldn’t be you.”
East nodded. “But I refused—for a number of reasons, not the least of which was this monkey of guilt I’ve had on my back for ten years. Back in my operative days, I accidentally killed a kid on a bike during a high-speed chase. It was ruled accidental, but it didn’t change the fact that the kid was dead. Just thinking about returning to that life made me sick to my stomach. I didn’t want to be responsible for another innocent’s death.”
Ally hurt for the pain she saw in his eyes and impulsively put her hand on his forearm. “I knew about that. Everyone in the department knows why you left and no one blames you. But you do know it wasn’t your fault.”
“Knowing and accepting are two different things. And there was Jeff. I’d adopted him after I’d taken this job. I couldn’t see jeopardizing what family life I have now to go back underground. Not even for Jonah.”
Ally sighed. “If I came acros
s too militant before, I apologize. I didn’t understand.”
“You were only doing your job and Jonah is desperate and with good reason. But the son of a bitch who wants Jonah is obviously willing to sacrifice anyone to get the job done. Somehow he found out that Jonah had come to me, and when you showed up a short while later, I suppose he assumed we’d be working together to track him. He said as much when he called.”
Ally shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense. There are less than half a dozen people within the entire government that even know of SPEAR’s existence. That should narrow the field.”
“You’re forgetting the people within the organization, itself. Add a good two hundred names to the list and we’re getting close.”
“But we don’t even know who Jonah is. How could anyone possibly have a grudge against a man we don’t know?”
“That’s just it,” East said. “Someone does know who he is, and that someone has a personal axe to grind. The problem is, he’s willing to bury anyone, including my son, to get what he wants.”
“How are you going to make this work? Won’t Jonah suspect something? And even worse, what about the kidnapper? If he thinks you’re trying to find Jeff…” She stopped. “You are going to look for your son, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yeah,” East said. “Him and him alone. If the kidnapper happens to fall into the path, then so much the better for Jonah. But I have no intention of trying to take down a faceless man to save another faceless man—not even for God and country. As for Jonah, he’s given me free rein, or at least he will, whether he knows it now or not. Bottom line…I’m going after Jeff, nothing more.”
Ally nodded. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
It was the word we that got to him. East hadn’t had anyone at his back for so long that the simple thought of not being alone brought him up short. He looked at Ally—really looked—for the first time since she’d revealed her true self, and saw, not the young, uncertain female she’d been, but a strong, confident woman willing to go the distance. This time it was he who reached out and touched. He cupped the side of her face with his palm, feeling the thread of a steady pulse beneath his thumb.
“Thank you.”
Ally’s heartbeat fluttered. She had to remind herself that this wasn’t a precursor to intimacy, but rather a gesture of thanks.
