Jameson (In the Company of Snipers Book 22)

by Irish Winters

  Ordinarily, those would’ve been fighting words. But now, they were just more proof of how quickly Mel was slipping into dementia, and how bad things were going to be for Alex and his family. If Mel’s reaction was just the middle stage of Alzheimer’s... Shit, Alex didn’t want to face the final stage. But he refused to push this familial responsibility, as distasteful as it was going to be, off on Kelsey. Yes, she’d surely take an active part in caring for Mel, but Alex wouldn’t expose her to his father’s twisted concept of civility.

  What an awful thing to watch someone lose their mind, even someone as irresponsible and thoughtless as Mel had always been. Seemed like things were only going to get worse, and damn it. Mel would not treat Alex’s family the way he’d been treated growing up. He had to stand between them and the abuse Mel was sure to dish out. Shifting from active operations to the more passive, laid back battle at home…

  Son of a bitch. It was like watching The TEAM die, only at a distance. Too far away to be actively engaged. Too far away to run into battle and save anyone. Anyone except his deadbeat father.

  Alex still held his cell in his hand, fighting the compulsion to run, to be with his TEAM. Wishing he could. Didn’t that make him the biggest chicken shit? To want to run into a war he knew he could win, but run away from the one he didn’t want to face. What made one battle better or greater than another? He honestly didn’t know. Alex only knew he adored Kelsey, and that she’d stuck by him through an awful lot of shitty times. He couldn’t dump his old man on her. Wouldn’t. It wasn’t her war.

  “Did you say Pops Delaney?” Mel murmured quietly behind Alex.

  Startled, he glared over his shoulder and quickly closed his bedroom door, denying his father a look at the treasures that lay within. “What are you doing prowling around? What do you want now?”

  Mel’s red, bulbous nose twitched as he scratched, then thumbed the end of it with his thumb, like he thought he was a prizefighter entering the ring. Which in a way, he was.

  Alex’s entire body stiffened. He’d been on the receiving end of that hand more times than he cared to recall. But if Mel tried any of that shit now, he’d be in a damned nursing home by sunset. Just try me.

  “Well, err, the thing is, err…Pops and me go way back. Maybe I can help, son.”

  “Like hell you can help, and stop calling me son. You burned that bridge a long time ago.”

  Mel blinked like he didn’t understand, and honestly, Alex didn’t expect him to. What could he possibly understand now? It was too damned late in so many ways.

  “Well, okay. Guess I, umm, could do that, Alex.” Sounded like that word got stuck in his throat. Mel had actually called him by his first name. Honestly, Alex was shocked he’d remembered it. “But I might could help if what you’re up against has anything to do with Pops Delaney. Just saying…” The old fart ran a wrinkled hand over his now clean-shaven chin. That was new. He’d shaved his beard off. And he hadn’t cut himself.

  Alex put Mel to the test. “What the fuck do you know about Delaney?”

  “That he’s a sneaky, lying son of a bitch. He runs guns outta Boston Harbor, sells them to the highest bidders, don’t matter if they’re American or not.”

  “Everyone knows that.”

  “That he holds court every Tuesday at noon at the Black Irish Rose Tavern on Boston Harbor. That’s when and where he dishes out orders and rewards. Hangings if someone’s got it coming. The rare promotion when earned.”

  The thought came without deliberation or reason. What if that medicine was working? What if Mel really knew something—helpful? What if he was telling the truth?

  “Prove it,” Alex dared him. “Give me one reason to believe you.”

  The bastard reached inside his brand-new white t-shirt and tugged out a medal on a ball-chain. “This here’s his token. No one gets in to see Pops without it.” He slipped the chain up over his head and handed it over. “Go on. Take it. You’re my kid. I ain’t got much, but it’s yours now.”

  Alex stared at the medallion swinging at the end of Mel’s gnarled finger. An inch square enameled green shamrock on one side, script etched in black on the other. “What’s it say?” he asked instead of accepting the thing that had all the makings of a peace offering.

  “Bráithreachas,” Mel whispered. “It’s Gaelic. Means brotherhood.”

  That word rang a long-forgotten bell, a memory of Gramps and Mel arguing like two Bighorn rams butting heads. Of Gramps bellowing that strange Irish word, cursing Mel to go to hell with it. Yelling it at the bastard whose liquor and friends had always meant more to him than his sickly wife and wee one. That he needed to crawl back to Hell, leave before he brought more death home with him. Of Mel yelling back at Gramps that he could burn in that Hell for all Mel cared. That some things were more important than a stupid, scrawny kid and a lying wife.

  Alex reached out and snagged the damned medallion. He was that stupid scrawny kid and the bell this medallion had rung had long been silent. “How did you get this? The truth, Mel. For once in your life, tell me the son of a bitchin’ truth.”

  “You sound just like your grandpa when you say that. Son of a bitch was always his favorite—”

  “The truth!” God, for once! Could he be straightforward and honest? Could he answer the damned question?

  “Okay, well, umm… Yeah. I ran with Pops back in the day. I was his second lieutenant,” Mel replied, his voice as steady as Alex had never heard before. “I was the one he conferred with when the coppers were breathing down our necks. I did what he needed getting done.”

  Coppers? Was this just a distorted memory from some old gangster movie?

  “You were his hired gun? His enforcer?” No way in hell.

  Mel nodded, a thin bead of sweat now dotting the space above his upper lip. He was breathing hard. Had all the signs of a man confessing his sins—if anyone was stupid enough to believe him.

  “I’m not falling for a word of it. Pops is dead. Want to guess who offed him? One of my people, Mel, and now his deranged daughter’s put a hit on that person. She set the whole fuckin’ charade up, now she set my TEAM up. So tell me again what a big man you were when you hung with that cold-blooded bastard, Delaney. Go on. Brag some more. I need another good goddamned fairytale shoved up my ass.”

  Shrugging, Mel spread his arms, his palms splayed as if he were an open book. Which he damned well was not. “Then tell me what you want me to do. You’re my son. My only kid. I know I messed up with Abigail and you, but I can’t go back in time and change nothing. All I can do is be a better man today and tomorrow. The next day. How can I convince you I’m serious? What do you need? Maybe I really can help.”

  “No. You. Can’t,” Alex breathed, his anger so old and so deep, that to turn his back on it now felt like he was being disloyal to Gramps and Gram and his mom. He’d nursed his rage and contempt for too many years to simply turn the other cheek and let bygones be bygones.

  “Not even if it helps?” Mel asked, almost plaintively. As if he cared. Which would be the first damned time in fuckin’ forever.

  “How long were you in the Navy?” Alex bit out.

  His old man blinked, then looked down. “I, ahh…”

  Exactly, you bastard. Lie to me like you always have. It’s what you do. Alex waited for the half-truths that would surely come. But he wouldn’t wait long. He had a wife and children to fix dinner for. They couldn’t snack on turkey leftovers forever. And he needed to check in with Eric and Harley. He’d have to transition from fulltime manager of a successful enterprise to fulltime husband and father and… shit! To the caretaker of a lying son of a bitch he didn’t even like!

  Mel’s chin tipped back up, and he stared Alex down, damned near eye to eye. “Not quite two years. Dishonorable discharge, but I guess you already know that.”

  “I know everything about you.”

  “Not about the Bráithreachas, you don’t. Listen, I’ve made a lot of mistake
s, I know that. I’ll admit to every one of them, but give me a chance to help. One last chance.” He cast his gaze to the door closed to him. “Do it for them.”

  Alex stood there outside his bedroom, his nostrils flared to detect the con, his heart frozen where all things Mel were concerned. But for the first time, he wondered if there wasn’t more to that fight between Gramps and Mel than he recalled. Nine-year-old grandsons who adored their hero-veteran-grandfathers were still just nine years old. By then Mel had racked up so many zeroes, it was hard to accept anything he said as true or decent. But if he’d really worked for Pops Delaney, some of his lies and cons made sense.

  At last Alex asked, “What is it you think you can do for me?”

  Mel shifted his bare feet and licked his bottom lip, then swallowed and licked it again. “Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, honest, but I heard you say something about Lucy Shade, and you didn’t sound too pleased when you said it. That wouldn’t be Lucy Delaney, Pops’ little girl, would it?”

  “One and the same.”

  “Well, damn. Umm, she’s a real piece of work. But I can get you in to see her.”

  “I don’t just want to see her. I’ve got a rogue agent on her way to kill Miss Shade, Lucy Delaney, or whatever she’s son of a bitchin’ calling herself today. I need to know precisely where Delaney is, and how to get to her before all hell breaks loose. I want my crosshairs in the center of her forehead, Dad. Can you do that for me? Can you wrap her up in a bow and mail her to me for Christmas like you did all the paychecks you sent Mom, but that she never received?”

  Even as he poured a lifetime of hurt and sarcasm into that poisonous attack, Alex knew he’d hit below the belt.

  Mel’s Adam’s apple bobbed along with his head. “I can,” he muttered as he avoided the final question. “Yeah, I can do that. I can get you into the Black Rose. Trust me.”

  Alex growled, wishing like hell he could trust his old man. But what then? Even if he believed all these new lies, should he dare travel all the way to Boston, only to put his TEAM at risk and be disappointed again? Christ, how many lies did it take before a son truly stopped hoping and believing?! Apparently one Goddamned more.

  “My private helo’s on standby,” he told his father with contempt. “If you’re lying… If any of my TEAM suffers because of you, so help me God, I’ll push you out of that helo and into the Atlantic on the flight home.”

  Damned if Mel didn’t brighten at the threat. “Well, good. Then let’s get going.”

  Alex held his breath, fully expecting to be called a worthless little runt, or something just as mean and belittling. But the insult didn’t come. Mel’s blue, blue eyes stared back at him. There were no fine tremors to his fingers like there’d been at the doctor’s office. His hands were steady. Could anything he’d just said be true?

  Sucking in his impatience, Alex rolled his shoulder in yet another useless attempt to get his latest migraine to back off. One of these days, he’d have to succumb to Kelsey’s plea for him to see her chiropractor. But not now.

  Staring at his old man, he lifted his cell, thumb-dialed the agent who lived closest to him, and put the phone to his ear.

  “Well, hey!” China Carson, Maverick’s wife, answered brightly. “How’s that brand-new little baby boy of yours? Kiri’s dying to meet him. I am, too.”

  “He’s good. I need a favor, and I’m sorry I’m calling when Maverick’s running an op for me but—”

  “Is Kelsey all right? What do you need, Alex? Tell me. I’m five minutes away. Kiri and I can be there in three.”

  Alex swallowed hard. “Kelsey’s fine, but something came up, and I have to leave. I don’t want her alone.”

  “On my way,” China said as she disconnected the call.

  “Are we good?” Mel asked, his tone rife with concern.

  “No,” Alex snapped. “We’re not good, and if you’re lying to me this time, I’m through.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then prove it!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jameson was thrilled to be on the ground in Boston, hopefully before Maddie’s flight touched down. The express flight had made good time, landed five minutes earlier than the flight that left just prior to this one. Maddie hadn’t been on either, and he hoped that meant he and his buddies had gotten ahead of the shitstorm headed her way.

  With no bags to claim, he, Eric, and Harley traversed the concourse at Logan International quickly. Eric had clapped a hand onto Jameson’s shoulder once they’d cleared the Jetway, ensuring he wouldn’t need his cane to maneuver the crowds. He kept it collapsed and tucked under one arm. From out of nowhere, Harley acquired a decent set of dark glasses for him. Round with wire frames. Lightweight. Almost perfect.

  Jameson felt like himself again. He’d dressed in TEAM black today, hoped Harley and Eric had, too. The second the express flight landed, that familiar spike of adrenaline before combat hit his bloodstream and amped up his senses. He was a SEAL again, two brothers at his side. This was who he was. This, he could do.

  Once outside the airport’s front entry, Jameson pointed his cane at the sidewalk, letting it extend to full length. The sounds of the busy metropolitan city wrapped around him. Harried passengers rushed by, seagulls screeched overhead, and a far-off train horn blared. The deep blast of a tugboat bellowed from nearby Boston Harbor. He lifted his head and his nostrils flared, scenting the briny Atlantic to the East, the bittersweet aromas of coffee, chocolate, and cinnamon from the barista just inside the terminal behind him, and the greasy call of fresh fish and chips on the air. The stringent sting of an over-indulgent splash of someone’s aftershave. Cotton candy and popcorn.

  His stomach growled. The last time he’d eaten was earlier, with Maddie. She’d saved some cinnamon rolls for him, then rewarmed them in the microwave. He’d thought then how adorably sweet she was to think of him. But now he worried what lay beneath all that sweetness.

  That she’d struck out on her own declared she might just own a set of brass balls beneath that gentle demeanor. Might also mean she was still trying to prove herself to her father. And to herself. While her motivations mattered, it bothered Jameson more that she’d ditched him. It was bad enough she hadn’t trusted Eric and Harley to let them in on her plan. But he’d assumed Maddie’s declaration of love automatically entailed trust and honest communication with him.

  Instead, she’d betrayed him, as well as her teammates. Bottom line: teams didn’t work without the skillsets of trust and communication. Team members coordinated ideas and plans, everything they did, said, or thought. They revolved around each other. Trusted each other. Had to. There was no ‘I’ in team for a time-proven reason. The lone wolf was as much a menace to successful missions as the predatory object of those missions. Maddie had a lot to learn.

  Eric had been on his cell the moment they’d landed, talking with Mother, aka Mom, while still aboard the express out of Reagan to Logan Airport. She’d supplied an address, although she hadn’t been sure Lucy Delaney would be there. With time as short as it was, that was where they were headed now.

  Eric waved down a cab. As he climbed inside, Jameson collapsed his cane, then spent the short trip keeping his ears open. He could only hope Maddie’s plane was late. Or that she’d had a change of heart and come to her senses, had at least re-evaluated her rash decision to take on Lucy by herself.

  They arrived at the address within twenty minutes, and the taxi left them on concrete that wasn’t sidewalk. Jameson paused a few seconds to get his bearings. Heavy machinery rumbled nearby, vibrating the ground beneath his feet. The air was brisk, full of salt, sea, diesel fumes, and commerce. Full of sound and the capitalistic heartbeat of America, the world of container storage. Of semi-trucks coming and going. Of train engines pushing and pulling. Of dock workers calling out orders and foul language.

  The steady rumbles were heavy-duty front-end loaders, forklifts, and massive industrial cranes, each assigned to mane
uver containers from here to wherever they were destined. Pushers that moved stacks of containers along railroad tracks, for transport or for safekeeping until their carriers arrived. These were the southern docks of the Port of Boston, and he was standing inside the high-tech container facility once known as Castle Island. Given the amount of time it took the taxi to travel here, and the lack of scenting anything the least bit edible on the breeze, he told Eric and Harley, “We’re at Conley Terminal in South Boston.”

  “Right on,” Harley replied. “Don’t know how you knew that, but keep your ears on. We do this together. We get in, get Maddie, get out.”

  By ears, Harley meant the wireless headset Jameson had secured over his head. Listening and interpreting audible data was his gift. Without asking or talking, he turned with his head up, his nose in the wind, and his new team at his side. Maddie was here. He’d never be able to explain how he knew, and it wasn’t because he could scent her like dogs scented missing humans. But he’d never been more positive. Somehow, she’d arrived before them.

  “She’s already here,” he told his teammates with confidence.

  A heavy hand cupped his elbow. “Then you lead,” Eric breathed, “and we’ll follow.”

  He’d no more than uttered that order when his phone chirped. Harley’s buzzed at the same time. Both men asked, “Yes, Boss?”

  Jameson had lost his cell after Delaney’s jet exploded, and he hadn’t thought to grab the burner from the safehouse before they’d charged out to rescue Maddie. He cocked his head now, listened, and prepared for the worst. Cell phones ringing in harmony always spelled trouble.

  He just didn’t expect Alex’s voice in stereo, bellowing, “Wait for me!”

  “What the hell?” Harley muttered. “Where are you, Boss?”

  Jameson sensed the direction of the shockwave rolling toward them. “He’s right there.” He almost told his teammates to, “Duck.”

  OhGodOhGodOhGod. Jameson is here? Eric and Harley, too? How’d they do that? How’d they know where I’d be? I didn’t even know where I was going until I called Nash’s loan shark.