by Abby Gordon
Ginny squeezed the pack harder and then realized Max’s hand covered hers and was nearly as tight as her grip on Charlie’s pack. Pulling a hand free, she laced their fingers. Max was with her and he seemed as determined to keep her safe as he was to find their son.
“Together?” she whispered.
“Together,” he confirmed softly.
The dark green SUV pulled up and a tall, lean blond man got out of the driver’s seat. Gray eyes swept over the small group.
“Traffic’s picking up on the beltway, chief,” he said to Max. “We might want to take the third route.”
“Good idea,” Max nodded, putting Ginny into the front seat and closing the door.
Mark, Zach, and Nia climbed into the backseat. Ginny glanced over her shoulder and then at Max as he got in. Around them other agents were dashing about, carrying equipment to vehicles, and climbing in.
A black SUV screeched up, blocking Max’s. Frank, Al, and a third agent climbed in and it went screeching off. Through the half-open windows, Ginny smelled rubber. She coughed slightly.
“You think they’re in a rush?” Mark muttered.
Two agents pounded on the doors of the SUV and yelled that they were supposed to be with Max. Locking the doors and rolling up the windows, Max ignored them and pulled away.
Once on the highway, Ginny touched his thigh. When he glanced at her, her eyes shifted to the rear seat and back to his face. He smiled, understanding her unspoken questions.
“Zach and Nia have been on my team the last three years. On my way to your place yesterday, I called and told them to be ready.”
“You did what?” Mark frowned. “I thought Frank had reassigned them to the militia case.”
Ginny was slack-jawed as she stared at Max. Grinning, he winked at her.
Stunned, she tried to keep her breathing normal. He hadn’t trusted Frank. Or the other two members of the team. She had automatically suspected Al simply because he had always treated her like crap. But Mark? She kept her eyes straight ahead as she realized there might be more going on than she knew. But why hadn’t Max said anything?
Biting her lower lip, she sat back and considered that. Despite the earliness of the morning, the traffic was already building up. So it wasn’t until they were pulling through the gate and waved through by the well-armed guard that she thought she had it figured out.
Just as she had been saying things to get reactions, so had Max. Max trusted her, but wasn’t sure about Mark or Al. Or Frank. He was using the reactions to her, and her reactions to them, to determine who he could trust. At least, she hoped he trusted her. After all, she’d had his son and…
She frowned, realizing he hadn’t known about Charlie before he’d reached the house. So, that took her back to the beginning. Sort of. Why had Max trusted her after he’d said what he had that last morning? And which words should she trust? The painful ones before the attack? Or the words telling her not to leave him, to not die?
With a shake of her head, she decided to focus on Charlie. She had taught him to be observant with all sorts of games. With more games, she had taught him how to talk to her with special words that they knew the meanings of but no one else could figure out what they were talking about. If, and she knew it was a big if, Polaris let her talk to Charlie she might be able to pick up some clues on where they were holding him.
They pulled into the Agency parking lot and Max went to his assigned spot. Showtime, she thought. She’d set the stage. Hopefully, Max picked up his cues and ad-libbed along with her.
“Ginny?” Max murmured, having opened her door. “Let’s go.”
She nodded and let him guide her past three rows of cars to the door. She registered that Mark moved ahead of them to open the door, and then they walked across the lobby to the elevator and along the corridors.
“Ginny? Are you all right?” asked Max as they turned the last corner.
She had been quiet too long. She had the backpack in a death-grip and now, as she looked up at him, there was a wild look in her eyes.
“All right?” she replied, her voice like a whip. She prayed he’d see through the hysteria and go along with the act. “How the hell can I be all right when my son is being held hostage by a monster?”
She saw the winces by Mark and Zach and the alarm and concern in Nia’s face. Down the hall, she could see Frank, Al, and several others sneer and smirk as she continued to rant. Max’s eyes narrowed.
“My little boy has been taken by someone with a grudge against this agency! And what am I, his mother, told to do? I’m patted on the head and told to be quiet until the men need someone to blame for a screwed up operation! But if this gets screwed up, it’s my son who pays for it!”
Her eyes had been sweeping the corridor taking in her audience. Until she reached the “screwed up” part. And gave him a sideways look. She was taking one helluva risk. She had to pray he understood he played a role. She was trying to set something up by pushing his buttons. And she nearly relaxed when he reacted as she was hoping he would.
“I never said you screwed up ten years ago!” He fired back at her. “I was in a coma. There’s no way in hell I could have said that.”
“Well, enough people knew that then and they knew they could get everyone to accept it,” she replied. “What did you say before that to make them accept it so readily?”
He stared at her, his jaw dropping.
“Whatever I might have said before that mission, it was not the way I thought after the mission. I’ve worked with women on nearly every operation since. I told you Nia’s been on my team three years. I was willing to change my opinion based on what I saw you do. Obviously you weren’t able to do the same,” he sneered slightly and began striding toward the conference room.
As he still had her arm, Ginny had to run to keep up with his long strides.
“Really? Change my mind about what?” she demanded. “Because of your words, or words attributed to you, none of the men in Ops wanted to work with me. What would I have changed my mind about?” She shook her arm free and jabbed a finger in his ribs. “Everything I went through simply verified what I heard. That Ops was full of male chauvinists and run by a bunch of Neanderthals.” She sent a scornful look at Frank. “Tell me again just what was supposed to change my mind?”
A tall burly man appeared in the doorway. As big as Frank was, the newcomer had three inches in height and easily thirty pounds of heft on the Ops Deputy.
“Ginny!” he thundered. “Stop being a prima donna and get in here!”
She practically snapped to attention. Max blinked as a look of meek obedience appeared on her face and she hurried to the man’s side. Without a word, she slipped into the room.
“Is that what you do to get her listen?” Max drawled.
“That about does it,” Vince nodded a bland expression on his face. “The call should be coming through in five.”
****
Max led Mark, Zach, and Nia past Frank and Al. Three steps into the room, he stopped and stared. Ginny had moved to the right and sat facing the door. But that wasn’t what captured the attention of the four agents following her.
Suddenly Max put the voices to faces. What he couldn’t figure out was how Ginny would have known how to contact them.
Clustered around a laptop at one end of the long table were six men who were legends in the agency. Five had come together as a team fourteen years ago and rarely worked with anyone else. The youngest had joined the team eight years ago. Max had worked with them once six and half years earlier and been stunned by how well they worked together. Like a well-oiled machine. They were the elite team. Instincts, training, and…
Over the top of the laptop, the black-haired leader met Max’s gaze. Max darted a look at where Ginny huddled in a chair two-thirds the length of the table away, then back. The only response was the slightest twitch of one corner of the mouth. The rest of the team simply gave Max a nod while their faces remained impassive. Each of the six had
nearly the same chin.
Impossible. No fucking way was that possible.
Silently, his brain spinning at the wild thoughts, Max moved to sit across from Ginny. Nia and Zach flanked him, while Mark sat to Ginny’s right. As everyone else settled down, the phone rang.
Vince reached out and pushed the speaker button. “Carboneli.”
“My name is Polaris,” came a voice.
Ginny’s head came up. She darted a look at Max who nodded. The voice was distorted by an electronic device.
“Let me go!” shrieked a young voice in the background.
Ginny was on her feet. Game time, she thought, praying they pulled it off.
“Charlie? Charlie! Oh, thank God,” she gushed, leaning toward the speaker. “Are you all right?”
Hyper alert, Max glanced at her.
“Hysterical,” Al muttered.
“Mom? Let me go, you jerk! You don’t scare me. Hey, Mom, this isn’t so bad. It’s like that game you don’t want me to play with all the stealing and the riots. It is soooo cool!”
“Charlie!” she protested, trying to focus on the moment. Now was not the time to jump up in the air and pump her fist. Her son was talking to her. Nine years old. Kidnapped. Held by people he knew were enemies of his parents and he had the presence of mind, the maturity, to pass on information. That and what he told her nearly made her forget what she needed to say. “That’s a totally inappropriate environment for someone your age. Polaris, really!”
There was a chuckle. “Like I really care what you think, Erickson.”
“Give me my son back,” she pleaded. Time to reassure her son. Tell him that everything would be all right. That she would come for him. “Please! I’m not in this anymore. I haven’t been for ten years. Just give me my son!”
“I don’t know,” Polaris replied with a chuckle. “He’s quite an enjoyable boy.”
“Please,” Ginny was sobbing for real now. She was scared. Stretched to the limit, maternal instinct came to the fore. “I want my son!”
“Shannon? I’m sure you’re there.”
Max was already on his feet, fists on the table as he leaned toward the conference phone in the center of the table.
“Polaris, you can be a real fucking sonuvabitch, you know that? When I get hold of you there won’t be enough left to identify the remains,” Max growled.
Ginny hoped Charlie could hear him. Hoped her son understood that both of his parents were there. That both of them would move heaven and hell to get him back.
“Of course,” came the smooth answer. “I’ll call again in five hours to give you instructions.”
“No,” Ginny screamed. “I want my son! Now! Not in five hours. Now.”
“Mom, chill,” Charlie’s voice chirped. “Everything’s all right. There’s no one telling me to brush my teeth or to keep all four legs of the chair on the floor. These guys are all right. For assholes,” he added with a harder edge.
“Charlie,” she whispered. God, her son was braver than she was. What he was telling her was more than she’d dared hope. “Polaris, please!”
“Ah, mother and son bonding,” chuckled Polaris. “Talk to you in five hours.”
As the dial tone sounded, Ginny sank back down in her chair. Dear God! Had she heard Charlie correctly? Tears rolled down her cheeks.
Frank shook his head in scorn. “Hysterical and useless. But what else can we expect?” he gestured at her. “All right, then,” he started. “Al…”
“Shannon.” The leader of the team at the end of the table stood as he spoke.
All eyes turned to him. Frank’s face, Ginny noted with some satisfaction, turned an interesting purplish red. Few team leaders, no matter what their seniority, interrupted the DDO and took over a briefing. This one would and not care what Frank thought. Out of the corner of her left eye, she saw a small smile on Vince’s face. The plot thickened, she mused, wondering what game he was playing. She pulled Charlie’s backpack off the table and wrapped her arms around it.
“Pick your people and join us in the room behind the black door down the hall.” The five members of his team stood quietly behind him. “Erickson, come with us.”
“Why her?” Frank demanded. “She’s falling apart! Just like a woman! You can’t count on them when the going gets tough.”
“Because once she calms down, she can help considerably,” came the cold voice. “Gordon, bring Erickson,” he told the agent to his left.
The leader turned and walked out. A blond man with the tall, lithe build of a runner or swimmer came down the length of the table to Ginny’s chair. Focused on her, he gently pulled her up from her chair. Without a protest, Ginny let herself be guided toward the door.
“Ginny, stop!” Max called out, striding toward them. Without hesitation, Ginny dug in her heels and resisted Gordon’s efforts to pull her from the room. Catching up to them, he put his hand on her shoulder. “Mark, Zach, and Nia. Let’s go.”
With alacrity, the three stood and hurried toward him. As he started out the door with Ginny and Gordon, Al broke free of his stupor.
“You bastard! You pick that whore over…”
“Stay with her,” Max shot at Gordon.
“Of course,” came the smooth nod as he moved between Ginny and everyone else.
Ginny craned her neck around as Max met Al in the middle of the room. Al was all set to bluster but Max clearly wasn’t in any mood to let him say a word. Drawing his fist back, he drilled it into Al’s face. Knocked off balance, Al landed on his ass.
Blood splurted out of the other agent’s nose as Max turned and went back to Ginny. Frank was fuming. Ginny bit her bottom lip to keep from smiling.
“You’re fired! You’re all fired! I’ll take away your clearance!”
Smiling, Vince waved them out of the room. “Go. I’ll deal with this.”
Ginny met her boss’s gaze and had to smile before letting Gordon and Max pull her from the room.
They followed Gordon out the door and down the hall. As they entered the room, the leader and two others were staring at their laptops.
“What took you so long?” the leader demanded, not looking up as they entered.
“Shannon decided to knock Stevenson on his ass with a bloody nose,” Gordon told him.
“Fuck! And I missed it?” muttered a man near the coffeepot.
Lifting his head, the leader ignored all of them, as his eyes fixed on Ginny. He stood and held out his arms.
“Gin?”
In a rush, she threw herself at him and burst into tears. No matter the past, he was important to her.
“Sh,” the leader crooned, holding her close and putting his cheek briefly on her head. Lifting his head, he tilted her chin up and smiled. “Excellent bit of hysteria back there. I could hear you in the hall and nearly believed it myself.”
For a moment, Ginny forgot everything but the moment itself. All her doubts. All her worries. Everything she’d gone through in the past ten years. It all faded for a moment.
“My baby boy,” she whispered. “Art, they’ve taken him!”
“We’ll get him back,” he promised, gently rubbing her back. “Paul and Ed are pulling down everything they can,” came the assurance.
The man at the coffeepot came over and handed her a foam cup of steaming liquid. He put a hand on her shoulder.
“Chin up, cuz,” he whispered.
“Thanks, Jason,” she murmured, wrapping her fingers around the cup. “The hysteria wasn’t a total act,” she whispered.
Max and his three agents inhaled sharply.
“Cousin?” Nia breathed.
The leader gave her a head to toe look and smiled. His gaze shifted to Max.
“Holy shit,” Max whispered. “I wasn’t sure but…you are, aren’t you?”
Glancing at the door to be sure it was closed, the leader gently gripped Ginny’s shoulders.
“I’m her half-brother. These men are our cousins. Our mothers are sisters.”
“I don’t believe this,” Mark whispered. He sat down heavily at the opposite end of the table from Art. “How the hell have you been able to keep that a secret?”
“Because we know how to keep our mouths shut,” Art replied. “What’s the transcript of the phone call say, Peter?”
Peter turned from the printer and shook his head. “Art, this is nonsense,” he reported. “We’re not going to get any intel out of this. He’s blathering about a damn video game and whining about Ginny making him brush his teeth.”
Art gave Ginny a level look. Slowly, the cousins followed his gaze.
“Shit,” Jason whispered. “She taught him something else.”
“Why the hell would you do that?” demanded Peter, shaking the print-out. “Why didn’t you follow the family codes?”
“All of you swear too much,” she said calmly. “As to your question, Peter, I didn’t follow the family codes because I didn’t feel as if I was part of the family.”
“Ginny,” Art spoke firmly. “What did Charlie tell you?”
Ginny glanced at Max and reached out a hand to him. He smiled, enveloping her fingers with his. Seating her, he sat next to her at the corner near the head of the table as the others settled around the table. As if to set himself apart, Art rose and got a cup of coffee. She took a sip of her own, carefully put the cup on the table, and looked at her brother.
“Polaris is a woman.”
Chapter Ten
Absolute silence greeted those words.
“No fucking way,” muttered Jason.
“That’s why Polaris had a scrambler,” Gordon nodded. “So we couldn’t tell.”
“Well, that puts a new twist in things,” Art frowned, sipping his coffee as he stared at a map of the Potomac region on the wall behind the credenza.
“How?” Ginny demanded, putting her hands flat on the table. “If you have trouble dealing with this, then just give me the information and I’ll get Charlie back on my own.”
