Conspiracy of Silence

by Ronie Kendig

  With practiced calm and precision, the sailor interrupted Tox’s stare. He seemed familiar. “You came in for a reason. Knew Nigeria was a trap.”

  Everything’s a trap.

  “But I imagine with your training, you know everything’s a trap.” He folded his arms and tucked his hands under his armpits. “Attaway says you were free out there in Nigeria.”

  As free as a dog on a leash.

  “But since they had your location, we both know you weren’t free.”

  In the place that had been his home for the last three years, Tox had learned to sit for hours, thinking. Searching for what eluded him: peace. Talking didn’t bring it. Fighting didn’t bring it. Family sure didn’t bring it. Now he could stand for as long as necessary in silence. A comfortable silence that would annoy the crud out of these interviewers.

  “I think you came for a reason. A purpose.” The sailor stood less than four feet away. Just far enough back in case Tox chose to test the durability of the chains anchoring his wrist and ankles to large hooks in the floor. “I think you’re here because we ticked you off in Nigeria.”

  Knew he looked familiar. He was the commander of the team who’d tried to capture Tox. Tried. Failed. But wanted Tox to know it was him. Interesting.

  “Your vitals are normal. You’re not agitated. You’re not demanding to see your brother.” The sailor squared his shoulders. “So what do you want, Sergeant Russell?”

  Sergeant Russell died three years ago.

  “You’re not leaving this room until we get answers.”

  Wholly untrue. Tox didn’t need to look into his eyes to detect the lie so easily carried in his posture and words. They were baiting him. Again.

  Shouldering in, the sailor caught the steel bar bracing Tox’s hands. “How’d you get them to set you free?”

  The words burned his conscience. Tox still denied his gaze to the sailor, even as the fool leaned closer.

  “Because of you, the president and villagers died—and SEALs.”

  Few knew what really happened three years ago in Kafr al-Ayn, a village south of Damascus, Syria. Tox had been roped into the black op to rescue then-President Montrose, held hostage by a terrorist wielding a relic that gave him a god complex and a truckload of insanity. The relic emitted a toxin that resulted in the deaths of dozens of villagers. When U.S. forces dropped a couple of bombs on the terrorists, the president had been a casualty. The world wanted someone to pay. Tox and his team were the lucky fools. His team lost their careers to life in a federal pen. Tox lost his freedom. Regret was Tox’s first, middle, and last name.

  But then . . . then came an opportunity. One that should’ve made this impossible.

  Clank. Clank. Hisssss. Clank.

  The sailor gave a slight shove against Tox’s restraints and stepped back. Planted himself against the wall. Tox held his gaze, noting in his periphery the soldiers entering.

  “Commander MacIver,” one said, “we need you to clear the room, sir.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Taking him to another location.” The guard motioned to the corridor. Four more guards entered, long poles extended between chains. So much for the freedom promised him for carrying out “one final mission.” He knew better than to believe back-office deals made in the dead of night. But this . . . this was Tox’s chance to settle a score with Barry Attaway.

  And the chief of staff knew that.

  They led him by leash and collar to another cement cage. As they entered, Tox took in the room. In the center, a raised cement dais boasted a cement block. His place to stand trial, he guessed. A plexiglass wall separated him from the other half of the room, which sported a rectangular conference table with twelve comfy leather chairs. Eight of them occupied.

  A faint buzz sounded. The chains slumped to the ground. Guards backed out. Tox stood alone, steel weight pulling against his arms and ankles. Only as he dragged his feet toward the dais did he realize the steel links were resisting. Then he noticed the subtle thrum.

  “The floor and walls are magnetized.” A voice reverberated throughout the tank.

  Tox slid his gaze to his audience and, behind the glass, found Barry Attaway beneath the glare of a fluorescent light panel that drowned the room behind him in darkness. Try as he might, Tox could not keep the animosity and unquenchable thirst to kill that man from his eyes. “We made a deal, Attaway,” he growled.

  Barry removed his glasses and motioned to the cement block. “Have a seat, Russell.”

  Tox squinted to make out the shapes skulking in the half-darkened room. Commander MacIver entered, allowing a brief glimpse of light to stretch over the others. A couple of suits and two women. FBI—the guy looked familiar. And—

  He hesitated. Attaway’s spotlight struck a shoulder—he noted the uniform, the star on the shoulder, then the face eased from the darkness. “Major General Rodriguez.” So he’d gotten a promotion since their last encounter three years ago when Rod had sent Tox’s team after the relic-wielding terrorist.

  “Please, Sergeant Russell,” another voice said, “we should get on with this.”

  Tox rotated his wrists as much as he could with his restraints. “What are we getting on with? Last I was told, I had a get-out-of-jail-free card.” Zeroing his gaze on Attaway didn’t help his annoyance. “Why am I here?”

  “You came to us.”

  His muscles constricted involuntarily. “I don’t take kindly to my niece being used as bait. If you wanted me, you obviously knew how to contact me.”

  “And you would’ve come?” MacIver asked. “If we’d simply asked?”

  Tox weighed the man’s question and the challenge therein.

  “Sergeant Russell,” said one of the women, “quite frankly, we need your expertise.”

  “What expertise is that, ma’am?” He squinted, trying to make out her face in the darkness. Her voice was older, experienced. “Who am I talking to?”

  “It’s best we keep names out of this” came a male voice.

  He’d been right. “So this isn’t about my experience.” He eyeballed each shape around the table. “You want me to put my butt on the line, but you won’t tell me your names or let me see your faces. You trust me to do this mission, but you don’t trust me to stand before you without killing you.”

  “Without compromising us.” Light bloomed through the rest of the room. A man in a suit stood. “You’re right, Sergeant Russell. I’m Rick Hamer, director of—”

  “Special Activities Division.” Tox knew the name because, though he might have vanished from the grid, he hadn’t been a stranger to it either. They should be glad they’d cuffed him. SAD was the same organization that’d ordered the bomb for Kafr al-Ayn, killed the president, and engulfed Tox in a fireball.

  The man hesitated before pointing to his right. “My colleague, Dru Iliescu.”

  CIA. DoD. The White House.

  Hamer focused a hard stare on Tox. “We’re coordinating this effort through a small branch under our purview.”

  “You mean, it doesn’t officially exist.”

  “Just as you don’t.”

  Tox gritted his teeth and slid his gaze to the slimeball in the room. “This is smelling a lot like another ambush, Attaway.”

  “Sergeant Russell—”

  “Died three years ago,” Tox growled to Hamer.

  With a nod, the director acquiesced. “There is a situation that desperately needs your skill set.”

  “Stop lying to me.”

  Hamer walked around the table and stood with his toes to the bulletproof and shatterproof glass. “I get it. They screwed you over. Broke promises. It’s a crappy mess they handed you.”

  Placating. Establishing a relationship with the target. Almost as bad as baiting. Possibly the same thing.

  “Russell, we need you. We need you to do something nobody else can do.”

  “Bull.”

  Confusion flickered through Hamer’s gaze. “Sorry?”

  “Don�
��t feed me some pile of manure about how I’m the only one who can do this.” Tox nodded to the sailor who’d nearly taken him in Nigeria. “He has the skills. Heck, even that suit next to you might have the skills.” Easy, easy . . . There was no question why they wanted him. “But the only qualifications you really need are expendability and deniability. That’s me. Right?”

  Hamer swiped a finger down his nose.

  Yeah. Thought so. “Forget it. Let me go or put me back in prison.” No more baiting. No more collars or leashes. “Or kill me. I don’t care.”

  “What about a full, legitimate pardon?”

  Whoever had spoken had a voice like warm honey. Or hot oil. He wasn’t sure which. One was great for baiting flies. Another for boiling. Either way the flies ended up dead.

  His gaze skipped around the table. A young blonde pushed to her feet. The FBI agent caught her arm, but she tugged free with a reassuring word to the suit. Athletic but thin, she had a presence all her own. Everyone in the room had locked onto her. Including Tox. Especially after those words—a pardon.

  Words too sweet to be honey. Therefore, oil.

  They were out of their minds if they thought throwing an attractive, naïve woman at his feet would coerce him into their game.

  She smoothed her tan slacks as she drew in a breath. “President Russell has requested that a full pardon be granted to you upon completion of this mission. Upon my recommendation.”

  9

  — Day 6 —

  Washington, DC

  The way he drilled holes through every morsel of her courage made her tremble. Cole owned the room. And everyone, including Kasey, knew it. Raw intensity rolled off him, even though he was chained to a cement tank.

  That was the power of Cole Russell. That was the reason she’d fallen hard for him as a teen. In fact, standing here in front of him wasn’t much different than the days when he’d dated Brooke. Though he might look at her, he still looked through her. As if she didn’t exist.

  Clasping her hands in front of her, Kasey ignored the urge to cower. She moved to the glass. “Did you hear me, Mr. Russell?” It felt strange to speak to him formally, but she’d honor Galen’s wishes. For now.

  Though he hadn’t answered, he also hadn’t told her off. She’d expected that from him, not this stony silence. Icy. Chilling.

  His jaw muscle flexed and popped. Blue eyes narrowed.

  Her stomach flipped. Then flopped. What was he thinking? Would he reject the offer?

  “Is this the golden ticket?”

  Hearing him speak the same words Levi used knotted her stomach. “I’m sor—”

  “Attaway, you send a hot chick to do the work you weren’t man enough—”

  “That’s not what’s going on here,” Barry said from the corner. “You know that, if you think about it.”

  Cole turned his steely gaze back to her. “How long have you worked for the pardon attorney’s office?”

  Whiplashed by his change of topic, Kasey blinked. “I don’t.”

  He snorted. “FBI.” He’d always had an uncanny ability to gauge a situation and person. “How long?”

  “I started a year ago.”

  “One year.” The words came out crisp and sharp. “And these wolves bring you into the den with me?”

  He still had that raw intensity she’d seen as a kid, but now it was amplified a thousand times. Levi was right. She didn’t know Cole anymore. In a few words, he’d managed to destroy her Pollyanna view of him.

  She wouldn’t look at Barry or Levi. This was her and Cole. If she couldn’t sell it, then he wouldn’t have a chance at freedom. “What does it matter who comes in here as long as you get what you want, Mr. Russell?”

  “It matters, Miss—”

  “Mrs. Cortes,” she said quickly, then corrected herself. “Agent Cortes.”

  “Mrs. Cortes, it matters because if you don’t have the power to deliver the goods, we’re wasting time and money.”

  “Is that what matters to you, time and money?”

  “It matters to them.”

  “But not to you.”

  He stared. “Can you deliver, Mrs. Cortes?”

  “Would I be here if I couldn’t?”

  “Do you have a record that supports your claim?”

  She had to prove herself. How? Feeling the familiar ache of her shoulder injury, she folded her arms over her chest, knowing he’d misread it.

  “Am I making you defensive, Mrs. Cortes?”

  She shot him a smile. “What? Folded arms?”

  “Universal sign of deception.”

  “Wrong,” she said forcefully. “There are no universal signs of deception. Folded arms could mean the person is cold or, as in my case, has a shoulder injury.”

  He shifted on his cement chair, leaned slightly to the side, and scratched his chin. Good.

  “Am I making you defensive, Mr. Russell?”

  His cheek twitched beneath probing blue eyes. “Annoyed.”

  “This whole thing, you believing this is all about you, is annoying.” She took a measured breath before going on. “We have a situation. You have skills. Is it hard to believe we need your help?”

  “When there are hundreds of black baggers around the globe who could handle this situation, yeah. It’s hard to buy.” A flicker shot through his brow. “Where’d you go to college?”

  Kasey tried to lasso the question that came out of nowhere. “George Mason.”

  “Cum laude?”

  “Summa,” she responded, caught in his web that easily plucked answers from her.

  “Impressive.” He gave a slow nod, his gaze burning through every reserve she had. And having to prove herself every day in a man’s world, as an FBI agent, she’d created some hefty reserves. “Expert in deception?”

  She refused to move.

  “Does he know her?” someone at the table whispered.

  A grunt from another. “His questions are probing.”

  Crows feet scratched at his eyes. Amusement. He enjoyed this. Enjoyed making them nervous. Making her sweat.

  “I don’t like the way he’s looking at her,” someone else whispered.

  Cole cocked his head. “Family? Lovers?”

  “We’re getting off task,” Levi said, his reflection sliding up into her periphery as he came to his feet behind her. The flurry of conversation blended into the thrum of the A/C system. She flashed a palm to silence the men barking orders but not reclaiming the control Cole had stolen.

  Cole was probing. For what, she didn’t know. Why was he asking so many personal questions? Had he figured out her identity already?

  Levi joined her. “Back on track, Russell.”

  “I see you brought an attack dog, Mrs. Cortes.” Cole’s gaze lazily shifted between Kasey and Levi. “Most married women don’t make it a habit to bring a lover into the game.”

  Kasey stepped back. “Lover—”

  “Hey!” Levi barked at the same time.

  “But then, you aren’t married any longer, are you, Mrs. Cortes?”

  How could he possibly know that?

  “In fact, you weren’t married very long at all.”

  “Get her out of here,” an officer snapped.

  A presence loomed at her side—Levi, no doubt. “Kasey—”

  “I’m fine.” When hands clamped onto her shoulders and tugged her back, she wrested free. “I’m not a mule you need to drag around.”

  “Relax.” Levi guided her out of the limelight. “He’s agitating you—”

  “He’s not, actually.”

  “Please, Agent Cortes,” Barry said, “it’s best if you leave. Your presence isn’t necessary at this point.”

  “If Mrs. Cortes leaves, I leave.” The finality of Cole’s words crackled through the room with chilling severity.

  The team turned to him, their minds no doubt churning and tumbling over his threat. Would he truly not cooperate if she left?

  “What are the terms?” Cole’s voice bounced of
f the walls and bulletproof glass. “What’s the mission?” He paused. “What do you want me to do that nobody else can do?”

  10

  — Day 6 —

  Jebel al-Lawz

  Three men in hazardous materials suits lifted the thick black bag containing the body of Basil Hamilton. Another bag conveyed the remains of a second man, a local worker. Bulbous protrusions from his neck and groin had made it hard for Tzivia to look before they sealed the bag. Knowing his wife and six children were outside made it harder. The hazmat team rolled the bodies through a series of chambers designed to keep the contaminated separate from the uncontaminated.

  Two weeks. Ten men, so far, had succumbed. And still they were no closer to figuring out how this had happened. Was the room they’d uncovered infected with something? Or perhaps something in the chest that fell apart? The cloth . . . she remembered a cloth the censers were wrapped in. If they were from the Bronze Age, plagues were as common as today’s cold, coming and going almost at will.

  Her dig was a disaster again. Just like Kafr. And now the Ministry of Health and the UN were rushing in with soldiers and regulations, locking the site down until whatever happened could be determined, contained, or stopped.

  Tzivia shuddered a breath, looking at the dozen men still in isolation chambers, unconscious. Disfigured by disease. Dying.

  “It’s gone!”

  Tzivia pivoted toward Noel, her stomach plummeting. “What?”

  “Number two.”

  She sagged in defeat. The second censer they’d found. She’d sent the fourth with Dr. Cathey, thankfully. And she’d been working with number three. “You’re sure?” Did a missing relic really matter when people were dying?

  “Absolutely. You’re sure you secured it?”

  “Of course I did.” She glowered.

  He widened his eyes.

  Tzivia regretted her sharp tone. “I’m sorry. I just . . . I can’t believe this is happening.” She wandered back to the main room and glanced around, gingerly touching the sorting table. “I placed it there and locked it.” But she remembered seeing a worker lingering . . . “Bhavin.” She cupped her forehead. “Bhavin Narang was hanging around. I couldn’t figure out why.”