“What stopped you?”
“Why? Are you disappointed?” I felt tears in my eyes again so I held my breath.
“Not at all. It’s a natural thought and tells me you’re grieving. I’m actually ashamed of the way I acted. I didn’t pull my head out of my ass until I started grieving White. I realize you’ve not had any of us to lean on to help you through this. White was my family and I can imagine your feelings run even deeper.”
A tear slipped down my cheek. I turned my face instead of wiping it away so he wouldn’t notice.
“I don’t want to talk to you about White,” I said.
“Fair enough.”
“Are we done yet?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Sorry. Not yet. I need to know a few more things. Have you killed anyone outside of a job?”
I huffed.
“Yes.”
He brought his head up quickly.
“Who?”
“Eric,” I said.
“That was self-defense?”
“Yes.”
“Any others?” His look was intent and worried.
“No.”
“I need you to give me a list of people you’ve eliminated since leaving the company,” he said.
I laughed. “No.”
“Okay, I need a list since the Admiral cut you lose. How many jobs did you take for Posner?”
“And why is that important?”
He pressed his lips together.
“Were you debriefed over at Mesa after each job?”
“No. If the job was done right they didn’t care,” I said defiantly.
“We always do a debriefing after a job. No matter what it is. There is more than one reason for this. It helps us to let go of what happened. This is a stressful job even when we don’t have to take lives, but even more so when we do. How about I compromise with you? You don’t have to give me specific details or names, just a brief explanation of your jobs. Think of it as a condensed briefing for each job. I swear this isn’t for me. But it is necessary before we’ll let you work with us again.”
They were considering letting me back in? Tears came to my eyes again and I couldn’t stop them this time. I didn’t know what was worse, them letting Red judge me or the fact that I didn’t know if I wanted to come back to them.
“Damn it!” I said and wiped the tears away.
“It’s a side effect of the drugs. They make you overly emotional as you come down.”
I didn’t know if he was telling me the truth, but I was grateful for the excuse.
“What if I don’t want to come back?”
“I’d like you to. We are better with you and we have something we’ll brief you on after you and I are done that I know you’ll want in on.”
I took a shaky breath and calmed the stream of drug-induced tears streaming down my face.
“Well, there was this drug dealer who held Jake at gunpoint. I took him out to protect Jake. I found out later it was staged to get me to take the shot.”
Red’s eyes widened for a second before he regained his doctor attitude.
“Okay. Do you want to go into any more detail?”
“Nope.”
“Next?”
“Let me see,” I said. “I took out eight guys while helping extract another team.”
Red nodded.
“Then there was the time I got thrown into one of Mesa’s jails. They kept me in there for two days and it drove me nuts.”
“So you don’t do well being contained?” Red grinned. “Imagine that.”
I couldn’t help myself, I smiled a little. Then I focused again on hating him.
“Uhm. I cut a guy’s femoral artery to send a message,” I said.
“At Club Crimson?”
“Yes.”
“Ha. Good for you. Tony is an asshole. Anything else?”
“Yes. I shot a guy who didn’t pay his bill. But, he owed for a hit on his wife to collect the insurance. And then there was the one with the guy in his house. He’d committed some atrocities in Sudan. And then Garcia.”
“Nothing since Garcia?”
“No. I have a contract but I can’t do it like this,” I said as my stomach turned with anger. I didn’t know if I could go through with it, even if my father did have something to do with White’s death.
“I don’t know if this’ll help you at all, but if you need to talk about that drug dealer, I’m here. Or the incarceration. Deceit seems to be pretty prevalent over there. I’m sorry you had to spend all that time with people you couldn’t fully trust.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Nope. All done,” he said as he stood from the chair.
“Did I pass?” I didn’t hide the contempt.
“Yes.” He turned around and opened the door.
Chapter Sixteen
I COULD HEAR THE MEN TALKING in the main room of my apartment, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. It was less than two minutes before I decided to make my way to the door to eavesdrop.
It took some doing to swing my legs off the bed without pain shooting through my shoulder. But after only a couple of bouts of pain induced dizziness I managed it.
All I was wearing was one of my t-shirts, a sling to hold my arm, and a pair of underwear. I hoped it’d been Janet in charge of dressing and undressing me. I felt my cheeks warming as I thought about Blue or one of the other men taking care of that task.
It took me longer to make my way to my dresser than it should have because I had to stop several times to regain my balance. Eventually, I managed to get a drawer open and pull out a pair of cargo pants. I went back to the bed and dropped heavily onto the edge and tried to get my pants on with just one arm to work with. It was more work than I anticipated and I couldn’t button them.
By now the tone coming from the other room had changed from a business like tone to one I’d heard every time we’d gone to the cabin as a group. It was lighthearted and easy.
I opened the door to find the men scattered around my kitchen. Black was cooking eggs and the rest of them were gathered around my bar.
“We were wondering how long it’d take you to get dressed with only one arm,” Brown said as if nothing had ever changed.
Blue made his way to my side and helped steady me when I was hit with another wave of weakness.
“You need to eat,” he said. “You lost a good deal of blood last night. That’s probably why you’re dizzy.”
I nodded and let him help me to a stool at my bar.
“We’ll eat and then go down to C.I.C. Get you up to speed. I’m not comfortable talking about sensitive issues in an unprotected room,” Green said.
Again I nodded.
“How’s your arm?” Blue asked.
“Painful,” I said.
“I have some stronger painkillers, but they’ll make you drowsy and loopy. Do you think you can hold off until we’ve had the chance to brief you?”
“Yes.”
I knew the men were, for some strange reason, trying to act as if nothing had happened between us. I just couldn't pretend like nothing had happened. I decided to remind them things were different.
“Has anyone heard anything about Jake?” I asked.
“He’s still out of it, but he’s still alive,” Blue said.
This turn in conversation quieted them all for a good five minutes then Black set a plate of food in front of me.
“Eat,” he said in a gruff tone.
I looked up expecting to see anger on his face. Instead, he looked concerned. I reached for the fork he held out for me and his hand enveloped mine. He held me tight for only a second, but it meant the world.
“Thank you,” I said and started to eat.
Black started handing out plates of food to each of the men and finally sat down with his own.
I pushed my food around and took a couple bites.
“The medicine we gave you might suppress your appetite, but you have to eat that, Alex. All of it. Even i
f you don't feel hungry. Your body is busy making new blood and it needs the fuel,” Blue said.
I was back to doing as I was told and forced it all down. The men talked as they waited for me to finish my food but as soon as I was done Brown gathered up all the dirty dishes and put them all in the dishwasher.
Blue came to my side and asked me if I felt any better yet.
I nodded.
He said, “Let’s get down to the war room then. There’s a lot you need to know.”
I only had one small moment of lightheadedness as we made our way down to White’s apartment.
When we stepped off the elevator, I had to fight not to break down. I suspected Red’s statement that my emotions were out of whack because of the meds was nothing but a lie. I didn’t feel drugged up, but all I wanted to do was cry. I faked being dizzy right before I stepped into the apartment to hide the fact that I didn’t know if I could go in without losing control.
When I stepped inside, I was hit with another rush of anguish. The apartment still smelled like him. This time I couldn’t contain it so I put my free hand to my face and rubbed my forehead until it subsided.
All of them had become solemn as soon as we walked in, so I wasn’t alone in my feelings of loss.
Green went over to the room that housed what they called the Central Intelligence Center and went in. The rest of the men waited for me to go in before they followed.
Green stood near the door and waited for all of us to take a seat then closed the door and began speaking.
“This meeting is strictly for your benefit, Ms. Grey.”
He sat near me.
“Let me just begin with an apology. We didn't want to cut you out of our investigation into White’s death, but I knew Posner had your phone bugged. He let us know that you belonged to him and any actions we took to change that would be met with some serious violence to you or someone else he’s been holding over us. I couldn’t come right out and tell you that because I didn't want Posner to know. That’s why I called you on your private line.” He looked a little ashamed as he said this. He knew using that phone was an intrusion.
“But, I didn't know if that phone was bugged too so I had to be careful. It was never our intention to cut you out. But there was no way to get to you after that. We tried looking for you but you’d disappeared and every time you surfaced you were with Jake.”
“White’s phone was bugged too. I threw it away,” I said.
Green nodded.
“This all started quite a while ago. Do you remember that surveillance job you did in Jamaica with White?”
“Yes?”
That was one of the last jobs I did for White and Associates and a long time ago. I remembered White had become upset after he saw the pictures I took but wouldn't tell me anything because I wasn’t on the need-to-know list.
“You took some surveillance photos of a man who has been wanted by the Navy. We’ve been looking for him for years. His name is Alan Posner.”
“Posner’s son?” I asked. “Are you really working with Posner to recover Alan from my father?”
Green’s eyebrow shot up.
“Yes. How did you know that?
“Posner told me. He said the Admiral has a grudge against him and is using Alan as a bartering chip to gain control of Mesa.”
“That’s not entirely true. Alan was a member of our SEAL team, along with Derrick Slade.”
“As in Master Chief Slade?”
“Yes. Derrick was his son.”
Chief Slade had been my instructor until I started working with White and Associates. I never knew he had a son.
My thoughts went back to a few days after White and I returned from Jamaica. My father and Master Chief Slade were at White’s office when I came down to talk to him about the Jamaican job. That was when White told me to disregard, this was a military matter and I didn’t need to know. It started to make more sense.
Green went on to explain that all of the colors were on the same SEALs team. That was something I already knew, but then he said Alan and Derrick were also members of the same team.
The last mission they did together had been in Afghanistan. The actual mission was of no importance to this conversation. All I needed to know was that White was the team leader and Alan disobeyed a direct order. This caused the mission failure and resulted in Blue being shot.
Having their medical officer shot wasn’t good, so they pulled out and tried to put some distance between themselves and the enemy. The team took refuge inside an abandoned building while Green confirmed the extraction point.
Alan had been distancing himself from the team for several months and disobeying a direct order wasn’t out of the ordinary. White had already talked with the rest of the men and they were going to request Alan be removed from the team after this mission.
“But,” Green said. “If we had known how that mission was going to play out we would have insisted on the breakup before we took him out with us. There’s no room for insubordination on a mission. Not when lives are at stake.”
Green said that, while inside the abandoned building, he confirmed the location of the extraction point and Black tended to Blue’s wounds while the rest of the men took up defensive positions throughout the building. Alan and Derrick ended up in the same room. Derrick was pissed off at Alan for getting them into this mess and said as much.
It got heated and some punches were thrown so Red went in to diffuse the situation. He didn’t want them to give up the team’s position.
Slade was telling Alan he was going to report him for defying an order and Alan didn’t appreciate it. It might have resulted in a court-martial for Alan.
“I watched Alan shoot Derrick in the face,” Red said.
His expression held nothing but hatred.
Blue cut in.
“He took off after that and we’ve not seen him since. At least not until you snapped those pictures of him. The Admiral has always suspected Mark was harboring him somewhere and to see him working a Mesa job confirmed it.”
“Why are you telling me this now? Was White really killed while trying to recover Alan from my father?”
Again Green's face gave away his shock.
“We aren’t sure. Where did you hear that?”
I felt my stomach drop. It was true. They suspected my father of having something to do with White’s death.
“Posner told me you’d figured out my father had White killed while trying to extract Alan. Of course, he didn’t tell me Alan had shot and killed Master Chief Slade’s son. Why didn’t you tell me you suspected my father?” I asked.
“Because we're still looking into it,” Green said.
“I could have been of some help. I could have moved back into the guest house to watch him, or anything else you needed,” I said.
“The Admiral and his involvement are not pressing matters right now,” Red said.
“How’s that? The way I see it, if the Admiral is going to betray White and Associates, and in the worst way possible, that should be at the top of the list.” I was flabbergasted. “How can you keep working with him if you suspect him of killing White? We need to find out for sure.”
“Alex,” Brown said. “We know where you’re coming from, but there’s more to it than that. We have one thing we are focusing on right now. And I think you’ll agree, confirming the Admiral’s guilt or innocence will wait.”
I couldn’t imagine what could be more important than that and I said so.
“If White was killed trying to recover Alan, the Admiral didn’t do anything wrong. White did,” Blue said. “Alan is a major threat and should be behind bars, or something more permanent.”
The men still believed White might have been trying to retrieve Alan, but I didn’t understand why he would. If Alan killed one of their teammates, and while White was the team leader, White would want nothing less than Alan being in custody, facing a trial.
“Why is this even a possibility? What does Posne
r have that would push White to try and recover Alan?” I asked.
“Will,” Black said.
My breath got caught in my chest for a couple seconds. When I’d shown up to give White the information about the drug refinery was when they informed me of White’s death. In that moment, Brown had told me White was convinced Will was alive and had gone looking for him. How could I have not put it together?
“Will’s alive? Posner is holding Will to trade for Alan?”
Black nodded.
“We’ve been looking for Alan since the day he disappeared in Afghanistan so we could turn him over to the Admiral. We knew Stanton had other teams on the same job. We didn’t care who got him first, just as long as we got him. The intel you acquired in Jamaica was a new jumping off point. We had a lead and gave it to the Admiral. One of his other teams happened to get there first,” Red said.
“We didn’t even know Stanton had Alan until Green told us about the deal White made with Mark,” Blue said.
“Why didn’t you ask for my help? I was inside Mesa. I could have dug around.” I said.
“White only brought me in on his plan, and right before he went missing,” Green said. “Of course, he didn’t tell me exactly what he planned. He only asked me to help him find Will. Then, he just went missing. None of us knew what happened to him until the Admiral contacted me. That’s when I got in touch with Mark to let him know I would take over where White left off. I’d find Alan and return him in exchange for Will.”
“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t reach out to me. I would have done anything to help you,” I said.
“You were out of country. Plus, Mark made mention of you. He said you were part of the deal. He wanted you, too. If we made any moves to bring you back in, he’d kill you.” Green’s eyes showed the hardship he’d been dealing with.
“We’ve always had a man on the inside over at Mesa,” Brown said. “We put that man on you to keep you safe. You were the easiest part of the equation because Posner wanted you for your skills. As long as you did what Posner wanted, you were safe.”
“Who’s your inside man?” I asked.
“Jake and Joe,” Black said.
“Both of them?”
“On different levels,” Red said. “Jake was White’s contact and is more of a free agent. Joe, on the other hand, works for us entirely. Neither of them knows of the other’s involvement. Jake trusts Joe so what he wasn’t telling us directly he was telling Joe.”
Edge of Grey Page 14
