“Yeah. All good. My partner said Senator McKinley’s been calling. She’s taken at least three shouting phone calls from him.”
“Well, the man did just lose his daughter. I suppose he’s allowed that.”
“Yeah,” Lawson said as he picked up one of the AR pistols lying in the seat beside him. “I just hate that Cassie has to be the one to hear it, since I’m the one responsible for her not coming home.”
“You can’t think like that,” King said. “You did all you could. We are in the hornets’ nest right now, and it was a place Brittany never should have been. Pretty impressive you tracked her down at all.”
Lawson was moving the AR pistol around in his hand. “Speaking of impressive, these things are light as hell.”
King strained his eyes in the dark to see if the magazine was inserted. “Yeah, those make great truck guns. Light—only a 7.5-inch barrel, which is good for maneuverability. Depending on the setup and if it’s loaded, they’re usually only around six pounds.”
“Don’t think this one weighs six pounds,” Lawson said. Then he set it down and picked up the other AR pistol. “This one either.”
“Let me see?” King reached out his hand.
Lawson handed the semiautomatic AR to King, and as soon as Lawson let go of the gun, he could tell it was too light. He press-checked and found no round in the chamber. He then ejected the magazine and tilted it into the light.
“It’s empty, isn’t it?” Lawson said.
King nodded. “Hand me the other AR. Check the shotgun and the AK.”
King took the other AR from Lawson and knew before he checked that it, too, was empty. He did his best to keep his mind from jumping to conclusions, but his heart knew of only one. CIA agents don’t make mistakes like forgetting the ammo. He knew Lawson’s feeling had been right. José had turned on him. The only mistake made here was King’s, for trusting someone he barely knew.
“Both empty,” Lawson said. “Should we give him the benefit of the doubt? He did say the spare ammo was in the box you carried to the trunk.
“I trusted him. I never even checked it.”
“Shit,” Lawson said. “Sorry. I know you thought he was your guy.”
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I just got us both killed.”
“I still have my Sig and a spare mag,” Lawson said.
King stared at Lawson for a moment. Two things ran through his mind. First, Lawson wasn’t afraid of dying in the slightest. He could see that right through the man’s cold eyes. Two, and much more importantly, he thought about the box in the trunk, followed by José’s plan to leave the two of them alone in the car. Then it hit him.
“Get out!” King shouted as he grabbed his go bag and reached for the door handle. “Get out of the car and run!”
King bolted forward as soon as his shoes hit the pavement. Lawson wasn’t far behind. There was no reason to explain to the private investigator that the box in the trunk was a bomb. Lawson slid across the trunk of a nearby car at the same time King slid over its hood. As soon as they both hit the ground, a massive explosion boomed into the air. An orange cloud illuminated everything around them. King peeked back over the car they’d taken cover behind and watched as flames from the ruined Impala stretched toward the black sky above.
Lawson had been right.
José was a rat.
King knew without looking that José and a host of other gun-toting thugs were headed his way from the strip club. The only option now was to retreat. When King looked over at Lawson’s face with its fiery-orange glow, he could see the big guy had figured the same.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Lawson said.
“I’m right behind you.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
In the time that Sam and Kyle had been sitting in the parking lot, her phone had been ringing nonstop. Director Lucas was calling to talk her out of doing damage to the rogue FBI agent in the backseat. The same man who was still whimpering from the knife Sam had jammed into his leg.
“What’s the plan here, Sam? We really going to torture this guy right here in the truck?”
Sam looked over and held Kyle’s glare. “Yes. That’s exactly what we are going to do. Whatever it takes.”
Kyle shook his head. Sam knew what was coming. It was the speech she would normally give King for going off script.
“At some point we have to act like we work for the government,” Kyle said. “We do have rules we swore by. We aren’t above the law.”
Sam shifted in her seat toward him. “What do you want to do then, Kyle? How would you handle this, Mr. Secret Agent?”
“You don’t have to be sarcastic. I’m just trying to be the voice of reason.”
The usually hotheaded Kyle had changed in many ways. Sam wasn’t used to it, and honestly, she wasn’t sure she liked it.
“What happened to you, Kyle? Where’s that Hamilton spunk?”
“It died the day you told me my best friend died.”
Sam could feel the couple of years’ worth of pain shine through in that statement. But it didn’t soften her. “Yeah? Well, Xander’s alive, and you need to snap out of it. He did what he did to keep you safe—”
“Bullshit—”
“He did it to keep you safe!” she matched his rising tone. “Whether it was or was not the right thing to do, that was his intent. And you know it. So stop moping around and help me return the favor!”
Kyle was taken aback by the way she pressed him with such vigor.
Sam’s burner phone rang again. “What?” she shouted.
“Sam.” It was Director Lucas. “Bring Agent Richards here to headquarters, unharmed, right now.”
“Why, so you can drag this out for a few days, hold Kyle and me hostage, and then receive news of how Alexander King was killed in action because you won’t let me do what I do?”
“Sam, I am not asking. Bring him here. That is an order.”
Sam looked up at Kyle. He was clearly concerned, but what she hoped was really behind those eyes was a willingness to do whatever it took to get Xander. Sam glanced back at Agent Richards. She knew he was the only way she could possibly get some information that could move her at least a little closer to the person responsible for making King the most wanted man alive. And that wasn’t going to happen by following orders.
“Robert, you said it yourself, I am the fugitive here. Just let it be known that Kyle had nothing to do with this.”
She heard Director Lucas shout her name just as she ended the call. Agent Richards’s whimpering heightened.
“Things are different now, Sam,” Kyle said. “This isn’t like when we went after the man who killed Xander’s parents. I was just his buddy then. I am an agent now. I swore an oath to my country.”
Sam couldn’t believe her ears. This was the last thing she ever expected from Kyle. She knew how much he loved Xander, but she couldn’t fathom his current frame of mind. Maybe Xander not confiding in Kyle that he wasn’t really dead had actually broken something in Kyle. A trust and bond they’d had. Maybe Kyle felt so betrayed by being kept out of the loop that he couldn’t make his way back. Either way, Sam couldn’t let that affect what she needed to do. She was not going to be derailed.
Sam made sure Kyle was looking at her when she turned in her seat to face him. “Then get the hell out of the truck, Agent Hamilton.”
Sam could feel herself go cold. No matter what happened, she would never look at Kyle the same way again. He was dead to her.
“I said, get the hell out of the truck!”
Her shout was so loud that Kyle jerked back.
“Go! Now!”
He jerked again, then slid his hand down to the handle. Sam turned her attention to the man in the backseat as she once again grabbed ahold of the handle of the knife. “Who hired you? Tell me now or I will slowly and methodically drag this blade through your leg until every ounce of blood in your body is in a pool at your feet.”
The man bega
n breathing hard, but he did not speak.
Sam pulled the knife to her left. She could feel the blade tearing through muscle and flesh with each millimeter of movement. In her focus she vaguely heard the passenger-side door shut beside her. In her peripheral vision, she could see that the seat next to her was empty. Kyle was gone. But her resolve was not. The man screamed in pain. The blood began to pour freely from the open wound.
She continued to drag the knife as she spoke again. Her voice was cold and calm. “Give me a name, or you die.”
She moved the knife a little more.
“I’m running out of real estate.”
The man began groaning in pain. He spoke through gritted teeth. “Either way I’m dead, so what’s the use?”
Sam remained calm. “You may be right, but if you live now, you at least have a chance to disappear. You tell me who hired you and I promise you won’t die here.”
“Why should I believe you?” The man was at his wits’ end.
“I don’t care if you believe me or not. Your only chance at living is to talk.”
Along with continuing the steady movement toward the femoral artery, Sam slowly began to give the knife a twist.
“Okay! Stop! I’ll tell you everything I know, just stop!”
Sam let go of the knife. The inside of the SUV had become stifling. She flipped on the air conditioning, turned backed to Richards, and folded her arms—ready to listen.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The man stared at Sam folding her arms as he took a second to catch his breath. Sam let him. She didn’t want to miss a word. The SUV had the metallic smell of blood but had at least cooled a little since she upped the air conditioning.
Agent Richards finally spoke. “Just a couple of hours ago, when I went out to my car, there was an envelope on the console with ten grand and a burner phone in it. I opened it, and there was an unread text message. It was a picture of my daughter at her school. The text with it said I do everything I’m asked or she dies. Reply with yes. When I texted yes back to the number, I got a new text with the post office’s address and a PO box number. I wasn’t going to respond, but when the next text said that the key to the PO box is in my daughter’s dresser drawer in her room, I didn’t have a choice. Someone had been in my daughter’s room. What was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t care what you were supposed to do. I just want to know what you did and who the person was telling you to do it.”
Agent Richards took another deep breath as he looked down at his bloody leg. “There was an envelope in the PO box with three fake FBI credentials and directions on where to meet the three men you saw at the airport and what to do after I had you.”
“What were you supposed to do?”
The agent hesitated for a moment. “Full disclosure? I was supposed to kill you. But I swear to God I would never have done it.”
Sam laughed. “Yeah, well, I guess we’ll never know now, will we?”
The agent didn’t speak.
“So the instructions were to find me and kill me? How’d you find me?”
“Whoever was texting knew you’d go to the airport. And they must be well connected because they said they could coordinate with airport security to let us pass.”
Richards laid his head back against the headrest and stared at the ceiling. “Please don’t kill me. I just wanted to keep my daughter safe.” He looked at her. “You understand that, don’t you? Aren’t you just trying to keep someone safe?”
Sam bypassed the question. “I still haven’t heard you say who set all this up.”
“I have no idea. I promise you. Like I said, they must be well connected, but the texts were all the communication I had. Please. Check the phone in my pocket. The texts are still there.”
Sam reached into his left pocket and pulled out the phone. She opened it and moved to the messaging app. There was only one contact in the text threads. She clicked on it, and every text he talked about was there, exactly the way he had described them. Then the last text from whoever was in charge was telling Richards to confirm when the job was done.
Sam looked up at Richards. “Something isn’t adding up, Agent,” she said. “You went through all of this because of a little money and a threat sent by text?”
“And the key in my daughter’s room.”
“Okay, but you’re FBI. You know how to protect your daughter from this sort of threat. Why do all of this blind? There is something you aren’t telling me.”
Sam closed the messages app and tapped her finger on the green phone icon. There were no phone calls made. She tossed the phone back in the seat beside Richards and retook her grip on the knife in his leg. He screeched in pain.
“Tell me what you’re leaving out or you’re dead. I don’t have time for games.”
“Okay! Stop! It was nothing of consequence to you,” Richards said, then took in a deep breath. “It was just another picture. It was me with another woman. They sent it to my personal phone. That’s it. They were threatening to take my entire life from me. I didn’t have a choice!”
“There’s always a choice,” Sam said.
“Yeah, and I made mine to protect my family. If you can’t understand that, then go ahead and do what you’re going to do anyway. But I’m not the enemy. Whoever it is that wanted you, they are connected somewhere. FBI, CIA, DOJ, I don’t know, but somebody high up has a hard-on for you or whoever you’re trying to help. I’m just someone caught in the middle.”
Sam knew he was right, and when Richards said the acronym CIA, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. At no point had she suspected someone like Director Lucas was involved. But how things were playing out—Lucas detaining her, Richards explaining that this person pulling the strings was clearly connected—she had no choice but at least to take a second look. What didn’t make sense about Director Lucas—besides a lack of motive—was why would he go through a second party to stop Sam from getting on the plane? He could have had the real FBI do it.
There were a lot of questions and no clear answers. And that was terrible news seeing as how King was stuck in the thick of it down in Mexico City. She had to get there. She could worry about the rest once King was safe. Meanwhile, she was going to have to shake the fact that Kyle wasn’t the man she’d thought he was. She had no idea how she was going to tell Xander that Kyle had abandoned him.
Sam exited the SUV and went around to the agent’s door. She opened it and untied the mess of seat belt Kyle had used to subdue him. Richards got out without being told. She shut the door and went back to the driver’s side. She took a deep breath and looked up into the darkness beyond the parking lot’s light. Of all the things that had happened today, Kyle’s betrayal was the hardest to swallow. It affected her to her core.
She heard the burner phone ringing inside the SUV. She grabbed it and saw it was Kyle. She ignored the call and got inside. A text message followed immediately from him. It said, “Just call me, Sam. It’s not what you think.”
Sam hesitated, then did what he asked.
“Hello,” Kyle answered.
“Don’t waste my time.”
“Meet me at Montgomery County Airpark,” Kyle said. “Now.”
“I’m not meeting you anywhere.”
“Sam! Don’t be shortsighted. You know I would never leave X in the wind. Me leaving you in that car hedged our bets when you let Richards go. And you already did, didn’t you?”
Sam watched in her rearview mirror as Richards limped off into the dark of the parking lot.
“What are you getting at, Kyle?”
Sam couldn’t help but already feel a sense of relief, even though she had no idea what Kyle was going to say.
“I have an old King’s Ransom Bourbon corporate credit card that Xander gave me. I just chartered a plane with it under one of the fake passports you always told me to keep handy just in case. This is that ‘just in case.’ Let’s go get our friend out of trouble.”
Sam was nearly mov
ed to tears. She hadn’t heard sweeter words in quite some time.
“Good to have you back.”
“I never left. It was you and X who left me out.”
Sam was gutted for doubting him. And for advising Xander years ago not to let Kyle know he was alive. But she didn’t show it. “I’m on my way.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Alexander King and Lawson Raines had only been running for a couple of blocks when two cars skidded to a halt on the road in front of them, blocking their immediate path of escape. The fire had still been burning from the car explosion behind them, and just beyond that was a gang of Raúl Ortega’s men, heavily armed and being led by José Ramirez.
Clearly King had been wrong about him.
When the gunmen popped out of their two cars in front of them, King and Lawson were forced to run left down an alley. What King hadn’t expected was for that alley to be a dead end. The two of them took cover behind a large dumpster, then watched as the gang of drug and human traffickers entered the alley, essentially blocking them in.
“Special Ops teach you how to get out of a mess like this?” Lawson asked, his gun pointed around the dumpster at the men filing in.
“Of course,” King said.
“And?”
“Easy. Don’t get yourself in a situation like this.”
“Damn good training,” Lawson said. “Yet here we are.”
King felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. This was at least the third time it had rung since they’d avoided the bomb in the car. But he couldn’t worry about who it was right then. He had to concentrate on staying alive.
The alley was dimly lit by a few scattered lights from the windows of local residents. It was enough to see that there were at least ten or so men now taking root about fifty yards from them.
“I’ve got thirty rounds,” King said. “But I don’t think that’s going to be enough. We have no angle here.”
“I count maybe a dozen of them. They’ll drive back here first and use the car for cover. There’s a door about fifteen yards up on our left. Two more on our side here about ten and twenty feet. But we have no cover.”
Alexander King Thriller Series: Books 1-3 Page 56
