Dangerous Secrets

by Sidney Bristol

  “Carson’s still alive,” Vito said.

  “You don’t know that.” Ryan closed his eyes, but that was a mistake. He could see her with blood splattered on her clothes and face, her eyes wide and lifeless.

  “She’s still leverage. These people want something. Until they get it or the FBI get too close, they aren’t going to kill her. She’s smart.”

  “Are the feds willing to play ball at all?” Alec asked.

  “Depends, are we talking about Walker and his partner? Or the local feds?” The common problem seemed to be Walker’s investigation. Everyone else as part of the team.

  “Then we dig something up on Walker. Make him a team player.” Alec thumped his knuckles on Merida’s desk. “We bend him, we get to Carson and close this whole thing up.”

  He made it sound easy. Ryan wished it was that simple, but he had a bad feeling things wouldn’t turn out that well.

  KAWA WATCHED THE CLOCK tick toward the morning hours.

  He could hear the others talking softly. They didn’t want him to know they were awake.

  What were they talking about? Were they taking a vote?

  Kawa knew he’d lost the team’s confidence, and he couldn’t blame them. At every turn something had gone wrong.

  Were they doomed from the beginning? Was this some cosmic sign their bid for independence was doomed to fail?

  All he wanted was a safe place for his people, what little family he had left. That wasn’t too much to ask. It was what other countries had, so why not them?

  The satellite phone buzzed. He’d turned the ringer off because he knew he wouldn’t sleep until this call happened.

  He got up and swung the door shut before answering.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Kawa, this is not good news.”

  “President Farage, I am sorry.” He bowed his head even though the other man could not see him.

  “I sent you there to fix a problem, not to create more.” Farage’s tone was no longer that of the firm, understanding leader.

  “You did, and I failed you.”

  “How can you fix this? Or do I have to do that myself?”

  “No. No, sir. I can—”

  “Not on this line. Listen, Kawa, if you don’t fix this, don’t expect a warm welcome.”

  Kawa squeezed his eyes shut.

  The line clicked. Either President Farage had hung up on them or they were cut off, there was no way to tell and Kawa wasn’t going to call back to find out.

  He was stranded in a foreign country with no friends and few options.

  If he killed the girl and her family that did not stop the flow of information. Without the money or some kind of leverage, he couldn’t make good on his bargain with the senator, though he doubted that would help keep them out of the investigation into Aerospace Inc.

  Kawa needed that money back. With it, they could buy more bullets or perhaps bribe the right person to speak up on their behalf at the United Nations. Money could go a long way. Right now his only hope of getting the money was the girl and that meant trusting her.

  What he wouldn’t give for the chance to stand outside under the sun. But now he was a wanted man. The cargo ship’s captain had already told him to stay out of view from even the crew. They were confined to two lower decks using rooms that were intended for cargo. They were making do with air mattresses and pallets.

  He paced the room, rolling his options around.

  They could get the girl a computer and hope she pulled through for them. But what else? He needed a backup plan, something that would save his ass.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  Kawa steeled his nerves and opened it.

  The first mate stood on the other side. He wouldn’t look at Kawa directly as though if he didn’t make eye contact he could feign ignorance.

  “Someone on the docks for you,” the first mate said.

  “Who?” Kawa could think of no one that would come here looking for him. At least no one he wanted to see.

  The man waved him to follow.

  Kawa would rather remain where he was. He had enough problems on his plate without adding another. He released the catch on his holster and followed the man to a hatch that let down to the deck below.

  “Make him go away,” the man said before leaving.

  Kawa went to the rail and peered down.

  A man in a dark suit paced the dock under the staircase leading up to the exit.

  Fucking hell.

  How had he found them?

  Kawa didn’t dare leave the ship. So long as he was on it he was considered to be on Chinese soil and not subject to American law. He leaned on the railing.

  How the fuck had he found Kawa?

  “Good morning, friend,” he called out.

  Senator Neilson craned his neck and squinted up at Kawa. “Why the hell haven’t you returned my calls?”

  “You aren’t my only friend. Come up.” Kawa didn’t want to stand out here exposed having this conversation.

  The senator climbed the stairs to where Kawa stood waiting.

  “What happened to our deal?” Senator Neilson asked standing toe to toe with Kawa.

  “These things take time. We missed our window, I told you that if we—”

  “I’ll pay you and keep your name out of the investigation,” the senator said.

  Kawa closed his mouth and studied the man.

  Senator Neilson was desperate. Kawa hadn’t realized how until this moment.

  “What’s your price?”

  “An operation like this will be expensive.”

  “How expensive?”

  Kawa couldn’t get three million dollars out of the senator. That was an astronomical price, but he could recoup some of their losses.

  “Two hundred thousand, you keep Akkadia clear of involvement and put in a good word for us,” he said.

  “I can do that,” the senator said slowly. “The bank opens at eight. I can have it for you shortly after that.”

  Kawa turned his face toward the shore and the rising sun.

  There was still hope.

  Chapter 19

  Ryan cradled his head in his hands. The sounds of snoring and keystrokes mixed together. After hours without sleep it was difficult to feel completely human.

  He hadn’t seen Carson in going on seven hours.

  At seventeen minutes after eleven, she’d crawled down into a small craft.

  Ten minutes after that they’d lost both of the back-up trackers.

  The closest thing to a lead they had was that they hadn’t been able to find any evidence that the small boat had gone ashore, which meant the boat was most likely still in the water or they’d traveled farther than they could locate using the drones and what security cameras they could access without Zain’s magic touch.

  If they didn’t get a lead on Carson in the next five hours, the chances of her coming back alive diminished greatly. Kidnappings like this were different from Aegis Group’s normal gig, even the teams. While they specialized in bringing people home, it wasn’t usually a situation that was already headed for execution.

  Her death meant her parents and sister also were killed. And all of those lives were on him because he hadn’t kept her safe. Even though he’d been careful not to promise that, he’d always thought he could keep Carson out of harm’s way. And now he could lose her forever. Before they’d truly gotten to know each other.

  Alec thought Ryan was crazy for the way he felt about Carson. The Ryan he’d been two weeks ago wouldn’t have accepted this change. Even now he couldn’t explain it beyond that he and Carson were cut from the same cloth. He got her, and he hoped she was growing to understand him.

  Losing her meant never finding out what they could have.

  That wasn’t an option.

  The main line to the command room rang. It was the one phone that had to be answered at all hours because they had people in the field the world over who could need support at a moment’s not
ice.

  Ryan reached across the desk and grabbed the phone. It was probably Lepta Team checking in at the Egypt station. Those guys weren’t catching a break lately.

  “Command room, Ryan speaking,” he said.

  “Ryan?” Paxton’s voice was strained, the adrenaline coming through in that one word. “I’ve got him.”

  “Him? Who?” Ryan stood.

  Alec turned from where he sat at one of the terminals.

  “The guy—Kawa? He’s talking to a guy in a suit. I’ve got it on the drone, but the wind is picking up. Silas is getting the coordinates.”

  “Where are you?” Ryan tapped the button that put the call through the speakers.

  “The drone’s flying over the big commercial dockyard in Elliott Bay. That island. I’m all turned around from flying this thing. Shit.”

  “Harbour Island,” Alec said. “What pier though?”

  “What? What’s wrong?” Ryan braced his hand on the desk.

  “The guy in the suit is getting in a car. He’s leaving and Kawa is going back on this boat.”

  “Get the license plate,” Alec called out.

  “Snapping a picture now. Drone’s battery is almost dead.” The wind muffled Paxton’s side of the conversation a bit.

  “Do you have the ship’s identifier?” Alec asked.

  “I’ve got to bring the drone back. I took a lot of pictures and some video. I can figure out which one it is if I have to send another drone out.”

  “Send that to us as soon as you have it,” Ryan said.

  “What’s goin’ on?” Ian sat up rubbing his face.

  “I’ve got coordinates.” Ryan stared at the longitude and latitude Silas had texted him.

  “We just found our girl,” Alec said to Ian.

  Ian reached over and shook Vito awake.

  “Can you locate the car?” Ryan crossed to stand behind Alec.

  “I’m not Gavin. I don’t know how the fuck to do that shit.” He moved the mouse around a map, clicking into a few live stream cameras they could access, but they were too far away from the location of the drone footage.

  “I’ll call Owen, let him know we have a lead,” Ian said.

  “Should we do that?” Ryan stared at his friend.

  “It’s their investigation. We can’t get in the way.”

  “Even if they’d risk the lives of Carson and her whole family just to get the bigger fish?”

  Ian held up his hands. “It won’t be like that. Owen’s watchin’ our back.”

  “I trust Owen, but I can’t trust Walker. Did Owen look at the evidence? Did he see Carson’s laptop?” Ryan was still willing to bet the recordings she made were gone, but not the ones on her phone.

  “We can’t keep this to ourselves. If we do, it would jeopardize our contract with the DoD. Not to mention we’d be impeding a federal investigation. Sorry, man.” Ian shook his head.

  “Make the fucking call.” Ryan pulled out his phone, but there were no further messages.

  Except Paxton would be uploading them to the company server.

  Ryan sat down next to Alec and clicked through the file structure to a folder with a little gray circle that had a drop of blue in it.

  Files were uploading.

  He clicked into the folder. A dozen or so high quality images were there with two dozen more loading.

  “Look at this.” Ryan brought up an image of Kawa dressed in a suit standing face to face with an older gentleman with silvering blond hair.

  “Shit,” Ian spat.

  “Who is it?” Ryan didn’t recognize the man.

  “That’s Senator Neilson. He just won another term in congress.”

  The senator Walker was after. And here they had a picture of the meet going down.

  “Owen.” Ian held out his phone. “You’re on speaker. We just got a visual on our guy Kawa meetin’ with someone.”

  “We have it, too.” Owen didn’t sound thrilled about that.

  “What’s going on?” Ryan turned to focus on the phone.

  “I’m looking at the boat now, and it’s a Chinese freight ship,” Owen said.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Without saying too much, what I can tell you is that things with China aren’t good right now. Walker is on the phone with people in D.C. to authorize the Coast Guard to go on the boat to get them when it leaves, but I wouldn’t want to count on that.”

  They were in deep water. Whatever was going on between the countries on a global scale could tip the balance with what happened to Carson.

  “If you guys are going to do something, move fast,” Owen said, keeping his voice low.

  The call ended.

  For a moment no one spoke.

  Ian glanced at Ryan.

  “What do we do?” he asked.

  Ryan considered his options.

  His knee jerk reaction was to head to the boat, storm it and get Carson. But that could go poorly on all sides. Which left them with only one option.

  “The FBI want the senator, so we need to get to him first.” Ryan glanced around the room. “We have to kidnap a senator.”

  JOE’S FLIGHT WAS SCHEDULED to leave tonight. He’d flown here to find Kawa and figure out what the hell was going on with rescuing Jules. If he’d have known what a delay would mean to bringing her home, he wouldn’t have hesitated. This was the closest anyone had been to her in years.

  He stared out the front window of the coffee shop and wondered where had it all gone wrong?

  From the beginning he and his sister had been raised to put others first. He’d gone into politics while she needed to be closer to the action. She’d started out as a journalist then moved into documenting history as it happened. He still wasn’t entirely sure why she’d gone to Syria in the first place, but that was where she’d disappeared.

  He’d called on every favor he was owed in those first few months trying to get her returned safely, but each time he was told their hands were tied. Syria was a land where they had no reach. They were at a stalemate with the Russians over that one plot of land and they couldn’t even make an attempt to rescue her.

  She was out of luck.

  His friends were so very sorry.

  Their condolences had long since dried up leaving Joe full of regret.

  His children were growing up without their aunt.

  His wife had lost her best friend.

  The world was a darker place without his sister in it.

  So now he’d made a deal with the devil. After a long career of putting his state and country first, he was going to think about family.

  He downed the rest of his coffee.

  The bank would open and he’d have to do some creative explaining for why he wanted to withdraw that much cash. There would be questions and a waiting period, but soon enough he’d get his sister back.

  Joe returned the ceramic mug to the counter and pulled out his phone.

  His emails and messages from the staff back in D.C. beckoned him. He’d never dropped everything like this before. People were understandably curious, but he had no answers for them.

  There was no message from his banker yet.

  He exited the shop and turned left. Even with showing up early he’d still had to park around the corner and down the road a ways. At the corner he turned.

  Two men stood at the curb next to his car. One had his hand on his hip, his coat drawn back, revealing the badge and gun at his hip.

  Shit.

  Joe turned as the walk sign changed. He followed along with the foot traffic headed in the opposite direction from his car.

  Were they police? FBI? CIA?

  What Joe was doing, it was wrong, but no one else would save his sister.

  A man bumped into Joe, jostling him sideways.

  Joe stepped away from the man, but he moved with him.

  “Walk straight ahead with me if you don’t want the FBI to see you,” the man said in a low voice.

  Joe stumbled over the curb.

/>   What the hell was going on?

  He lived a life according to all the rules, and the one time he chose to break them this happened?

  “Your choice. Decide now,” the man said.

  The system had failed his sister. He couldn’t keep failing her, too.

  “Where are we going?” Joe asked.

  “Straight ahead. There’s an SUV four cars down. See it?”

  The big, blue SUV was hard not to notice.

  Did Joe trust this random man off the street?

  What options did he have?

  “Get in. Now,” the man snapped.

  The door to the SUV opened and Joe climbed in, sliding across the bench seat to the other side. The dark haired man climbed in after him.

  “Go,” the man in the passenger seat snapped before turning toward Joe. “Senator Neilson, my name is Ryan Scott. I’m hoping we can help each other.”

  Ryan offered Joe his hand.

  He felt the noose tighten a little more.

  Joe knew better than to accept help blindly. He’d been in politics long enough to know he needed all the facts before he accepted any assistance, even the most innocent.

  “I think I made a mistake. Stop the car.” He put his hand on the door.

  “Just hear me out, please? Five minutes?” Ryan picked up a cell phone from the center console between the two front seats. “Yesterday this woman—my girlfriend, Carson Adair—was kidnapped by the man you spoke to earlier this morning.”

  Joe’s mouth went dry at the image of him speaking with Kawa.

  “This man killed Carson’s boss in her apartment in front of her. They’ve kidnapped her and her whole family. We believe they are being held on the boat you were at this morning. The FBI agent in charge of this investigation doesn’t care about Carson, her family or capturing Kawa. They want you. You’re the big fish they’re after now.”

  They knew.

  Already?

  How had he failed so dismally?

  He dropped his face into his hands. He’d failed not only his sister, but his family and his country. There were others who could bend the rules and even break them when no one was looking, but not Joe. Not him.