“We live together.”
I nodded slowly, just realizing how deep the betrayal went. And it wasn’t just my betrayal.
“I want you to tell her that we’re flying to Wyoming in the morning. I want you to say that we’re planning on hitting the caravan as it passes—”
I stopped, crossing back to the desk to read that portion of the information Ash had gotten. I ran my finger down the words that were making little sense to me at the moment, forcing myself to focus.
“Tell her that we’re planning on hitting the caravan outside of Rock River.”
“Rock River?”
I nodded. “They will already have alerted the people at the prison in Rawlins that we’re coming for him, so the route will have changed. But I can guarantee that this information will spur them into having a group of Mahoney’s men waiting for us at Rock River.”
“What purpose will that serve?”
I tilted my head to one side. “There are only so many roads to Laramie, Jules. I can guess which they’ll use to transport him and hit him while his men are occupied at Rock River.” I sighed softly. “If we know we have a mole, we might as well use it to our advantage.”
“Are you really going to ambush Mahoney’s caravan? Are you really going to kill him in cold blood?”
“Can you think of a reason why I shouldn’t?”
Jules was quiet for a moment, then she slowly shook her head. “He has done some cruel things to you, Joss. But it’s not like you to kill someone like that.”
“Then you don’t know me very well, do you?”
Jules slowly picked herself up off the floor.
“When this is done, I’ll expect your resignation on my desk. But, until then, you will continue on like nothing has happened. It will seriously screw up our plan if your girlfriend figures out that we know who she is.”
Jules nodded. “I understand.”
“I’m sorry it had to go down this way, Jules. But you’ve got to understand how seriously we take these sorts of breaches in a business that provides security.”
She nodded again. “Of course.”
I watched her leave the room, feeling empty. I thought Jules was my friend, but I just realized that I knew very little about her. I hadn’t known she had a girlfriend, let alone that she was gay. How had I missed it? Was I really that determined to go about things alone, that determined to be the one with the perfect focus, that I wasn’t seeing what was around me? How long had I been like that?
How could I stop being like that?
***
I walked into Mike’s office the way he often did mine, flinging open the door and throwing myself down in a chair across from him. He looked up and smiled, unable to hide his pleasure at seeing my face.
“What are you doing here?”
“I need information.” I handed him a couple of sheets of paper. “Right now, if possible.”
He frowned as he read the names on the paper. “What is this?”
“People who worked for the governor before he took office and those who work for him now.”
“Why?”
“He works for Mahoney. I need to know who else on that list does as well.”
Mike looked sharply at me, high spots of color coming to his cheeks. “Do you understand the implication of that statement?”
“I do.”
“Are you sure you want to pursue this?”
“I need to know who my enemies are, Mike. We’re going to war here.”
Chapter 17
Carrington
I picked my wife up and pulled her down onto my lap, holding her close on the narrow couch in her old cottage. The place was small and we tripped over each other every morning when we were getting dressed, but it was kind of nice. We’d never had that kind of period in our marriage—living in a tiny apartment in the beginning while struggling and saving up for a real home, like most couples do. I already had a house and a child and a yard. And money. But this…as annoying as it could be, it was really nice.
“I talked to the girls. They’re having a blast in England. They love the castle and the grounds around it. McKelty is already picking up something of an accent and she spoke for fifteen minutes about the groundskeeper’s son.”
Joss chuckled. “Typical McKelty.”
“She’s at that age.”
“And Aidan?”
I could hear the stress in Joss’s voice at the mention of our youngest child. I tugged her slightly closer, slipping my hands under her shirt to touch her baby bump.
“She’s good. Talking a mile a minute and driving my mother crazy. She is your child.”
She laughed. “Good.”
I kissed the side of her neck, taking deep breaths of her scent. “You were busy today.”
“I’m still busy, you just can’t see what’s going on in my head.”
I brushed a hand over her forehead, moving her hair away from her eyes. “We fly out tomorrow, right?”
She tensed against me the moment the words were out of my mouth.
“We do.”
I kissed her neck, wanting the relaxed Joss to come back. “Then we have twelve hours to have a little alone time.”
“Not really.”
Almost as though he heard the words come out of her mouth, Kirkland arrived at the front door. I extricated myself from Joss and opened the screen door, moving aside for him to come in. As I stood there, I could see David and Donovan coming our way, too.
“Do I need to go hang out with the wives?” I asked, only half joking.
Joss got off the couch and came to me. “Not unless you want to.” She ran her hand up the front of my shirt, her fingers slipping into the spaces between the buttons. This was why I’d stopped wearing an undershirt beneath my dress shirts. I liked the feel of her fingers on my bare skin.
David and Donovan walked in, moving around us to take seats on the couch we’d just vacated. They were laughing, joking with each other the way they had a habit of doing. I remembered how annoyed I once was with their playful banter, especially Kirkland when it was aimed at Joss. But it was almost reassuring now.
Nothing bad could happen if everyone was that happy, right?
Joss was looking up at me, a question in her eyes.
“This is it, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “If you want to be a part of it…”
I brushed my hand against the side of her face. I’d argued against her fighting this battle alone and then I’d come to understand exactly who my wife was. She wasn’t a typical housewife, the kind of woman who could be content sitting around the house, watching the children grow and the chasing the dust from the furniture. She needed to be in control, needed to stop bad things from happening. She needed to be a protector. And it was my job to allow her that.
But now? Was it my job to let her go to war without me?
“For better or for worse, right?”
A soft smile touched her lips even as her eyes darkened with fear. “Exactly.”
“I’m with you no matter what.”
Chapter 18
Joss
Ash laid a map out on the table, his finger tracing the path he believed Mahoney’s caravan would take. We were at MidKnight, the ranch Sutherland Archer’s first husband had left her when he was killed in Afghanistan. It was a lovely ranch with thousands of acres that stretched out over prime real estate in south central Wyoming. Beyond the main house her husband’s ancestors had left behind for subsequent generations were the horse barn and the cattle runs, everything one would expect to find on a working cattle ranch. But there was also a bunkhouse that held a command center that held some of the most sophisticated technology available today.
MidKnight was the headquarters for another satellite office of Gray Wolf.
We were in one of the conference rooms—ironically enough, the same conference room where we debated over giving Mahoney two members of the MidKnight family a year ago in exchange for Ash. The Gray Wolf team gathered ar
ound, watching Ash study the map.
“We hit the convoy here,” he said, pointing to a spot twenty miles east of Rock River. “They should come through around three o’clock. We’ll be waiting.”
I glanced at Donovan. He was leaning against a far wall, a contemplative look on his face. David was beside him, Kipling on the other side. I wanted to tell them to quit looking so damn guilty, but I didn’t think it would do any good.
“There will be four vehicles, each one carrying four armed law enforcement officers. Mahoney will be in the third vehicle. We will use our own vehicles to separate his SUV out from the others and force them to pull over behind a barrier.” Ash gestured to the model set up in the center of the table in front of the map. On it were children’s toys that represented the structures in the area. A semi-truck was on its side to represent the truck we would be overturning after the third SUV passed. There would be another that would overturn in front of the same SUV giving us a window of about a minute to pull Mahoney free of the SUV. “We’ll have to move fast. We don’t want any injured.”
No one would be. We would fire stun grenades into all four SUVs once they were neutralized. The people inside would be knocked out for at least three minutes, maybe more. That would give us more than enough time to get in and out.
“I know we’ve gone over this a dozen times, but—”
“What is the plan after we have Mahoney?” Ryan asked.
“We bring him here.”
“For what purpose?”
Ash glanced at me. I pushed away from the wall. “We discussed this back at the compound. If you are not on board—”
“Why not just do it during the operation? Why bring him here?”
“We don’t want there to be any mistake about what’s going to happen.” I looked around the room. “We will not put anyone’s life, freedom, or career at risk. If we were to take him out during the operation, there could be witnesses. And we’d have to select a member of the team to do it, a person who will have to live with that on their conscience for the rest of their lives.” I moved back, resting against the wall again. “We bring him here and do it under controlled circumstances with more than one person pulling the trigger and we’ll rid ourselves of those issues.”
There was silence so heavy that it felt like we could all hear a pin drop. Cliché, but true.
“We’re really going to do this,” Alexander said softly.
“We do what we have to do to protect one of our own,” Donovan said, pushing forward into the room. “We at Gray Wolf work a dangerous job that requires us to always be on the defensive, that always requires us to wonder when we kiss our loved ones goodbye, that will truly be the last time.” He looked around the room, focusing on Alexander for a minute. “You have a sister who was brutally attacked, don’t you? Wouldn’t you do anything to protect her?”
Alexander nodded. “You better believe it.”
“And you.” He nodded toward Grainger. “And you have a mother-in-law who committed suicide. Wouldn’t you move heaven and earth if you could fix what happened to her?”
Grainger nodded slowly. “I would.”
Donovan looked around the room, his eyes stopping on each and every person. “This isn’t about one person. This is about our family. We are a family. We live a dangerous life and we have to be able to trust each other, to know that the man or woman beside you has your back. Although we all work in separate parts of the country with a different group of people, we are all one family. We do what we have to do to help all members of our family.”
There was a murmur that rose up briefly, but also a lot of nodding. Donovan stepped back and gestured to Ash to continue with his briefing.
“We will all be armed,” Ash announced. “There are rifles and tactical vests waiting for each of you. You will not fire your rifle unless you are given no choice. We do not want casualties.” He looked around the room. “I repeat: we do not want casualties.”
There were nods and smiles.
“Good. Everyone be safe and don’t get dead.”
The operatives broke into small groups, each faction going to their own people, their own family. Kirkland moved up behind me and slid his hands over my shoulders.
“You’re sure about this?” he asked softly against my ear.
I nodded. “Positive.”
***
We headed out a few minutes later, arriving at the chosen spot less than an hour before the convoy was due to arrive. It was just a blip on the map, a place where there had once been a town but now there were only abandoned buildings falling down along the side of the two-lane highway. We parked our vehicles behind a couple of the buildings, everyone taking positions within a half-mile radius.
I was up on the roof of one of the buildings, peering through a scope on the rifle I’d been given. I could see for miles in every direction with the scope, far enough to give them fair warning when the convoy approached. Lying on my stomach was more difficult than I remembered. I had to lay at a sort of angle due to my slight swell, causing the rifle to tilt a little to one side. It was good I probably wasn’t going to be required to fire my weapon.
The count off began in my ear, each operative confirming they were in position.
“Need a pillow or something, princess?”
I glanced over my shoulder. Kirkland was setting up his own rifle on the front side of the roof to provide cover once the SUV arrived.
“Would be nice.”
He tossed a piece of roofing tile at me. “When did you get so soft?”
“When did you stop being so soft?”
He shook his head, resting his rifle on the short tripod. “When Mabel told me to grow the fuck up.”
“I can’t imagine Mabel talking like that.”
“Oh, she didn’t say fuck. She used very pretty words as she’s wont to do. But that’s what she meant.”
“How did you end up with such a sweet girl, anyway?”
“I ask myself that every single day.”
I felt like we’d had this conversation before and, truth be told, we probably had. It was just nervous chatter while we waited for all hell to break loose even though we were both pretty sure things weren’t going to go as planned.
I was positive the prison changed the convoy’s chosen path. I was pretty sure they were going to be going south of our position. But I couldn’t be positive about it. Not as positive as I was that there would be an ambush waiting for us at Rock River.
All we could do was wait and see. This day, this moment, would confirm everything I suspected about Mahoney and his people. This moment would prove Rahul Rush right or wrong definitively.
I was hoping it proved him right because I couldn’t ask him again. He’d been found hanging in his jail cell back in Los Angeles just this morning. They’d finally gotten to him. But Anita and her baby were safe, for the time being. I was determined to keep my word and make sure they stayed that way.
“I have visual,” I spoke into the coms a few minutes later. “Four SUVs traveling east. They’re about two miles from our position.”
“Heads up, people. Here we go,” came Ash’s reply.
I pulled at the mask I’d kept folded up over the top of my head, tugging it into place. I glanced over at Kirkland just in time to see him do the same thing. If any of these cops caught sight of us, they wouldn’t be able to identify anyone. If they didn’t see us, they would just assume we were a faction of Mahoney’s men trying to free him from imprisonment.
Tension burned in my shoulders as I tried to ignore the fact that my baby bump was making it really hard to lie on my stomach. The gun was aimed perfectly now. I couldn’t let a little discomfort let my unit down.
The cars approached at a steady speed, probably just slightly under the local speed limit to keep from attracting attention. This road was a farm-to-market road, so it wasn’t as busy as the highway some twenty-five, thirty miles to the south. That was why it was chosen as Mahoney’s route. It was also why we c
hose it as a spot to hit his convoy. The chances of an innocent driver getting caught up in our activities were slim.
“Road clear in front and behind,” I reported.
“Donovan, Ryan, get ready.”
The engines of the two semis we’d borrowed from a trucking company in Casper suddenly roared to life. Tension increased in my shoulders as I waited for the SUVs to get close enough for the plan to go into action.
I don’t think I’d ever been this tightly wound before. If this didn’t go the way we planned, we could all be in pretty big trouble.
“They’re approaching.”
The first SUV passed the point of no return a second later, then the second, then the third. Ryan pulled the semi up onto the road from where it had been parked behind one of the abandoned buildings, the rumble of the engine sending vibrations through the roof I was lying on. I heard the screech of tires as the SUV driver tried desperately not to hit the trailer. At the same instant, Donovan pulled the other truck onto the road, blocking off the last SUV in the convoy.
I watched through the scope as someone fired concussion grenades into the SUV left behind while hearing the same sounds coming simultaneously from the place where the other three SUVs were stopped. I watched that last SUV closely, my finger on the trigger in anticipation of one of the vehicle’s occupants attempting to get out. We couldn’t have that. But after a few seconds, there was apparently no movement, the occupants apparently unconscious.
I crawled up onto my knees and moved around to the front of the building where Kirkland was still lying flat, staring down at the road through the scope of his own rifle. Down on my belly again, I could see the two vehicles that led the convoy. Both were pulled over some distance in front of the first semi, both filled with unconscious occupants. However, the driver and passenger doors were open on both cars. I could clearly see the occupants.
“I’ve got movement in the front car.”
“We’re at Mahoney’s car. Just two seconds.”
I listened to the hum of the radio, waiting for word. It seemed like the longest few minutes of my life. The driver of the front car woke, sitting up to rest on the steering wheel for a moment. Just as he straightened up, my radio crackled to life.
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