Secret Agenda

by Paula Graves

  But it was a great relief, two and a half hours later, to read the sign telling them Wytheville was dead ahead.

  * * *

  EVAN TRIED TO KEEP HIS breathing calm and even as they exited the interstate and headed east toward the private airfield where J.D. Cooper and his brothers were waiting for their arrival. J.D. had texted over a set of detailed instructions that would take them from the interstate to the sprawling farm where his buddy kept his plane.

  He was doing the right thing. The only thing.

  “There’s the sign.” When Megan spoke, her voice sounded subdued. He knew his silent treatment was behind her reticence, but he hadn’t known what else to do.

  When she’d asked about ambition overcoming any need to settle down, the question had hit him like a gut punch. Not because it was any big revelation. He’d known for years that career drive was part of his trouble maintaining relationships.

  But for the first time he could remember, he felt a deep sense of dissatisfaction with the way he was living his life.

  He’d spent so long focused on his career path that only her questions, her challenges, had forced him to look outside his tunnel vision and realize what he was really doing.

  He wasn’t building a career. He was living another man’s life, the life his brother hadn’t survived to experience.

  His dreams, his ambitions—they were Nate’s dreams. Nate’s ambitions. Nate had wanted to be a lawyer. Nate had wanted to move to Washington, D.C. Nate had wanted to work at the Pentagon. Nate had wanted out of the hollows and hills of eastern Kentucky, and even the last act of his life, that last score for a big paycheck, had been all about getting out.

  Until Nate’s death, Evan had never even thought about living anywhere else. He’d loved the harsh, beautiful wilderness, the slow pace of life. He’d loved sitting on the front porch with his mother, shelling peas and shucking corn and listening to her fanciful tales of mountain life.

  He’d learned to play the mandolin at his uncle’s knee. Learned to ride horses from Delbert Meade, whose family inn had once owned a stable for visitors, back in the day.

  He’d followed another man’s dream so long, he’d nearly lost sight of his own. Thanks to Megan Randall, he’d begun to realize just what he’d left behind. What he wanted back.

  What he was about to throw away.

  “There it is.” Megan pointed toward a sleek gray helicopter sitting in the middle of a flat, paved square about fifty yards from a modest ranch-style house. Several men milled around the chopper. Evan thought he could make out J.D. Cooper towering over the others.

  He released a breath and pulled the truck to a stop about twenty yards from the helicopter. Before he’d cut the engine, Megan had grabbed her duffel from the backseat and was out the door, jogging toward the helicopter.

  It was the chance he’d been waiting for. She had everything she’d brought onto this journey with her. She was safely out the door, on her way to her cousins, who would protect her with their lives.

  It was time.

  He watched her longer than he should have, unable to drag his gaze from her trim figure, the waves of auburn hair shining like molten copper in the morning sunlight.

  She wouldn’t understand his choice. He wouldn’t, if he were in her position.

  He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.

  Then he turned the key in the ignition and jammed the truck in Reverse, peeling back out of the gate and onto the access road, raising a cloud of dust that mercifully hid Megan and her cousins from his rearview mirror.

  He pulled out the cell phone and pushed the speed dial button he’d set up last night before going to bed.

  Major Gantry answered on the first ring, sounding as if he hadn’t slept all night. “Are you in North Carolina yet?”

  “Nearly.” Out of caution, he hadn’t told Gantry anything about Megan being with him or their planned stop in Wytheville. It was vital that she get away cleanly.

  “How long will it take for you to get to our meeting place?” Gantry’s tight voice was starting to make Evan’s shoulder muscles bunch in sympathy.

  “Another hour. Maybe a little longer.” He checked the rearview mirror again, half expecting to see Megan racing down the road after him, gunning for his blood. But the road was, so far, empty of vehicles in both directions.

  “You haven’t told anyone where you’re going, have you?”

  “No,” he said. As far as Megan and her cousins knew, he was headed to Fort Bragg in Fayetteville. “What about you?”

  “Are you crazy?”

  It wasn’t a particularly comforting reply, but it would have to do, Evan thought. “Do you really have information about Vince Randall’s death, or are you just running me around North Carolina for no good reason?”

  “I do. I have everything you want to know and more.”

  The farther he got from Megan, the more the doubts began to creep past his resolve, twisting around his conscience like a kudzu vine. “How do you know what I want to know?”

  “You think what goes on at the Pentagon doesn’t trickle down to the officers? I know your suspicions. The questions you’ve been asking haven’t exactly endeared me to my superiors.”

  “You got a promotion.”

  “I got shot to get that.” For the first time on this call, Elmore Gantry sounded like the fiery young captain Evan remembered. “Just meet me in an hour where I told you to go. I’ll answer all your questions then.” Gantry hung up the phone.

  Evan gazed forward, his gut aching. He was taking a huge risk, going alone to meet Gantry. Especially since he’d just left behind four able-bodied Cooper men and a tough as nails Cooper woman who had even more incentive than he did to get to the truth about Vince Randall’s death.

  It had seemed the thing to do just five minutes ago, but now it just looked like a stupid decision.

  What are you really running away from, Pike?

  * * *

  STARING OPEN-MOUTHED AT the pickup truck disappearing in a cloud of dust, Megan had absolutely no idea how to feel. Angry? As a wet hen. Hurt? Like she’d just been kicked in the stomach. Betrayed?

  Yeah. She felt betrayed.

  “Um, is that—”

  She looked up at her cousin Gabe, trying not to cry. “He just ditched us.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  The only reason she could think of, the only one that made any sense, was that he wanted to keep her out of any potential ambush he might be heading into. Which was utterly stupid, because if he was actually heading into an ambush, he was doing it alone, without the aid of her big, strapping cousins, including a former marine major and a navy chopper pilot roughly the size of a grizzly bear.

  Would he really take such a risky chance just to keep her out of danger?

  Yes, he would, her heart told her, and she felt some of her anger melting away.

  Some of it. Not all of it.

  Because there was also a pretty good chance that he had fled to keep from dealing with the attraction that kept cropping up between them no matter how hard they both tried to ignore it.

  Maybe he’d just ditched her to keep from having to deal with her.

  “What do you want to do?” J.D. asked, his blue eyes gentle. “We’re gassed up and ready to fly. We can go back home if you want us to. Or do we go after him?”

  “We have to go after him,” she said flatly. “He could be heading into an ambush alone, the idiot.” And if anyone is going to kill him, she added silently, it’s going to be me.

  “You think he’s still headed to Fayetteville?” J.D. asked as they got into the Bell 206L.

  She thought about it for a second as she settled into the forward facing seat near the back. “No,” she said finally. “But he thinks that’s where we’ll think he’s going.”

  Gabe arched his eyebrows. “That’s mighty convoluted.”

  “Yeah, well, that appears to be how he thinks.”

  “We could try to spot him from the air,”
J.D. suggested, settling in the cockpit. Luke sat in the seat next to her, while Gabe and Jake sat in the seats facing them.

  “Does Shane’s truck have a GPS tracker in it?” she asked J.D., getting angry all over again. Evan had not only ditched her. He’d ditched her in a truck they’d borrowed from her cousin’s good-natured new boyfriend.

  “Probably not. I can call Cissy and find out—”

  Gabe’s cell phone rang. He looked at the display. “Alicia.” He answered. “Hey, there. What’s up?”

  As Gabe listened to whatever his wife was telling him, Megan felt something digging into her hip. Shifting, she pulled out the offending cell phone, gazing at the darkened display.

  If she called Evan, would he answer?

  “I’ll tell them,” Gabe said and closed the phone. Megan could tell from his grim look that whatever he’d learned, it was bad. “Alicia was doing some digging for your brother—about this Major Gantry. She came across some details about his tour of duty in Kaziristan four years ago when Vince was killed. Turns out he had a special duty while he was there.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Liaison with MacLear Security.”

  Megan’s gut rolled. “So he could be in the SSU’s pocket.”

  Next to her, Luke spat a fierce profanity. Luke had experienced the ruthlessness of the SSU personally, when Barton Reid had sent his private army of thugs after Abby Chandler, going so far as to threaten her two-year-old son’s life in order to get her to cooperate.

  A two-year-old who turned out to be Luke’s son, as well.

  The ordeal may have brought Abby, Luke and little Stevie together as a family, but not before SSU agents had kidnapped the little boy and nearly gotten him killed.

  As far as Luke was concerned, Megan knew, Barton Reid and the SSU had to go down. As soon and as permanently as possible.

  And Evan Pike believed he was going to see the man who could make that happen. Had he already made different arrangements to meet Major Gantry?

  Was he driving straight into an ambush?

  “Would Evan know about Gantry’s connection to MacLear?” she asked aloud.

  Gabe shook his head. “Alicia said it wasn’t widely known beyond Gantry’s superiors. Apparently Gantry was specially requested by MacLear and didn’t want it getting around the base in case his men thought he was choosing the private contractors’ interests over theirs.”

  “But was he?” Megan asked, disturbed by the thought. Had he set up Vince’s murder for MacLear?

  She turned on the phone and tried Evan’s cell number. As she had expected, the call went to voice mail.

  “Evan, it’s Megan. Don’t hang up until you hear this. You have to call me back.” She waved toward the helicopter’s onboard satellite phone. Gabe read her the number and she repeated it over the cell phone, then continued. “Major Gantry was a special liaison to MacLear Security. They requested him specially for the job. I don’t think he’s on the up and up. If you’re heading to meet him, don’t do it. You could be walking into an—

  The phone beeped. She’d exceeded the voice mail time limit.

  “Ambush,” she finished, her heart in her throat.

  * * *

  EVAN GLANCED AT THE CELL PHONE, wondering if he’d made yet another mistake by ignoring Megan’s phone call. Though nearly an hour had passed since her call, he hadn’t yet had the nerve to hear what she had to say.

  But what if she and her cousins were in trouble? What if they needed his help?

  With a growl of frustration, he grabbed the phone and checked for a voice mail. There it was, Megan’s voice, low and intense as she told him about Elmore Gantry’s connection to MacLear Security.

  Which made Evan’s decision to meet Gantry alone look even more stupid than it did already.

  She’d left a phone number for him to call. She answered on the first ring, talking loud to be heard over the roar of the helicopter’s engine. “Evan?”

  “Are you in flight? You’re not supposed to be on a cell—”

  “This bird has a satellite air phone. Listen—”

  “I have to meet him, Megan. This could be our best chance to get to the truth.” Unless he was ambushed first.

  “You’re probably walking into an ambush.” Megan sounded frantic with worry.

  “Maybe. Probably,” he conceded. “But I have to meet him. If I don’t, everything we’ve gone through the past few days could be for nothing.”

  “Let us back you up,” she pleaded.

  He thought about it. Nothing had changed, really. His reasons for keeping her out of this mess remained.

  But most of those reasons were selfish, weren’t they? If their theories about MacLear were right, Gantry could have facilitated Vince’s murder.

  Megan deserved the chance to confront him, even if it was dangerous.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m meeting Gantry east of Pilot Mountain, North Carolina. Near Flat Rock. Right now, I’m heading south on I-74. Think you can find me?”

  There was a brief pause in which he could hear nothing over the roar of the helicopter engine. Then Megan was back. “Luke says we’re about twenty minutes away. Keep heading there and we’ll catch up. You’ll hear us before we see you, so when you do, pull over on the shoulder and get out so we know it’s you.”

  “Okay. See you soon.” He hung up the phone and prayed he was doing the right thing.

  Like it or not, he needed Megan with him. She seemed to fill up the holes in him, help him stay focused. He was stronger with her than without her.

  But would it be enough to keep them both alive?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Megan peered through the port window of the Bell LongRanger, trying to pick out the black truck from the flow of interstate traffic a mile below. Suddenly, the helicopter swept right, taking them over a lush wooded area west of the highway. “Where are we going?” she said into the headset.

  J.D. answered, his voice tinny through the earphones. “There’s another bird in the area—we’re getting too close.”

  “Do you have visual on the other bird?” Luke asked. Megan could hear his tense tone even over the speaker. She glanced at him and saw him peering through the windows, looking for the other helicopter.

  “Not now, but I caught sight of it about a minute ago, heading south,” J.D. answered. “Dark green Sikorsky. Probably an S-76.”

  “Does that mean anything to you?” Megan asked Luke, whose frown had deepened.

  “That’s what MacLear used. They sold off their assets after the company went down, but—”

  Megan’s gut clenched. “We need to let Evan know. What if he hears that helicopter and pulls over?”

  “If that’s the SSU out there, could they have picked up Megan’s sat phone call?” Jake asked.

  “I’m not sure anyone outside the NSA could at this point,” Luke said. “It’s worth risking a call to warn him.”

  Megan grabbed the satellite phone again and made the call. As soon as Evan answered, she told him about the other helicopter. “It may be nothing—”

  “Or it may be the bad guys,” Evan finished grimly. “Okay, the pulling over idea isn’t going to work. I can’t get a visual on it without running off the road.”

  “We proceed to the rendezvous,” she said, her tone equally bleak. “J.D.’s already found us a place to set down—meet us there.” She gave him directions. “We can scout out the location Gantry gave you to meet him.”

  “I should have let us surprise him in Fayetteville,” Evan said. “I’m sorry. Calling him was a stupid move.”

  “It was,” she agreed, keeping her tone soft. “I’ve made a few of those in my life. It happens. See you when you get there.” She hung up the phone, struck by how bereft she felt without Evan’s voice in her ear.

  He’d become a fixture in her life. How had that happened?

  “We’ll be there in twenty minutes,” J.D. said. “You might want to check your weapons now. Not sure what we’ll run into
once we touch down.”

  Trust J.D. to be the pragmatic one, Megan thought. The eldest of her cousins, he’d also been through hell and back more times than she wanted to think about. Losing his wife, nearly losing his son to a ruthless drug boss willing to use the boy to get his revenge on the Coopers—she supposed to J.D., dealing with a helicopter full of crooked mercenaries probably seemed more like a vacation.

  She wished she could be as calm. By now, she was as convinced as Evan that the SSU had been behind her husband’s murder. Someone—Gantry, maybe?—had made sure Barton Reid knew about what Vince had witnessed in Tablis. Knowing Vince, he’d probably even made a point to track Reid and his terrorist contact through Tablis, which explained why he’d been spending time in the capital in the days leading up to his death.

  If the SSU would kill an American soldier in cold blood in the middle of a peacekeeping mission, what compunction would they have about killing a civilian in the middle of Nowhere, North Carolina?

  “He’s tougher than his civilian background would suggest, Megan.” Luke spoke with gentle understanding. “I did a little looking into his background. He did some combat training before he went over to Kaziristan. He’s also put in extra training time since—he was supposed to go over to Afghanistan with a Pentagon team right before he resigned from his job. My friend at the Pentagon said Pike took what he did pretty seriously. Turned out to be a damned good marksman.”

  She looked at Luke, managing a smile. “This your way of telling me he can take care of himself?”

  “Nobody can really take care of himself,” he answered. “But lucky for him, he has you. And you have us.”

  She reached over and squeezed his hand. “Have I told you lately how glad I am you finally got your backside home where you belong?”

  He grinned at her. “Glad to be home.”

  The landing site was a relatively flat patch of farmland just east of Pilot Mountain. J.D.’s friend in Wytheville knew the land owner and had arranged things for J.D.

  The farmer came out to meet them as soon as the blades stopped turning. He was younger than Megan expected, a hard-bodied man in his early thirties who introduced himself as Duncan McElroy. “Nice bird.”