The Dark Side of Angels

by Steve Hadden

  Arrogance. That was the weakness Reed was looking for. He’d done enough setup. A tingle traversed from Reed’s chest and down both his arms. It was a signal that had never failed him—Lewis was hiding something. Lewis’s reaction to his next question would determine Reed’s level of suspicion. He delivered it quickly. “Dr. Covington’s daughter, Emily, is now missing. Were you aware of that?”

  Lewis’s eyes widened in surprise. “No. I wasn’t.” He wasn’t aware of it. While Lewis could be a master at lying, Reed didn’t think he could feign genuine surprise.

  Reed shifted his attention to Wagner. “Mr. Wagner, you were with the CIA?”

  “Yes. That’s correct.”

  “Are you familiar with another CIA officer by the name of Rosario Cordena?” Reed studied Wagner’s face. Not a muscle moved.

  “I’m sorry, Agent Reed. I can’t talk about any of my service in the CIA. I’m sure you can reach out to the agency and they’ll answer what they can.”

  Reed had what he needed. “Thank you both.” He looked at Owen, who quickly stood and said, “Gentlemen, thank you for your time.” They shook hands and made their way back outside.

  Once back in the car, Reed turned to Owen. “I don’t think they have Emily Covington, but something’s not right.”

  CHAPTER 59

  Artemis knew she was running out of time. The snowfall intensified as she watched her driver take the exit ramp in the foothills of the Cascades near Preston, thirty minutes outside Seattle. When they turned into the commercial park, she glanced at Forrest, who was seated next to her, and smiled. A flutter of anticipation coursed through her body, thinking about the beach that awaited them when this final mission was complete.

  The Preston Laboratory Supply building looked like the other dozen or so in the commercial park and sat at the far end overlooking the river. It had a separate entrance screened from I-90 and was surrounded on two sides by thick forest. On one side, beyond the trees, was a large soccer park. Box trucks occupied two of the three loading-dock bays at the end of the building. The remaining parking spaces were filled with vehicles of various makes and models, creating the appearance that Preston Laboratory Supply was running a seven-day-a-week operation.

  The two-story laboratory supply building would be the perfect place to end her career. She’d finally be out of the life. She’d been under the gun since she was a kid, and the anger never left. Her life had been driven by everyone except her: her father, the Navy, the Agency and her clients. Now her life would be lived on her own terms.

  They pulled into the open loading bay and Artemis led them into the warehouse. She eyed the fully stocked shelves of laboratory chemicals. They ran the front as a business with enough customers to have legitimacy. She walked to the door at the back of the building and was met by two armed men. With a nod from her, they opened the door. The Thermo Scientific laboratory refrigerators drew no suspicion, but as far as she was concerned, they now held the most valuable commodity on Earth. Satisfied that the treatments were secure, she left the storage room and headed for the makeshift cell housing her bait.

  The small room was in the center of the warehouse section of the building with one blacked-out window overlooking the warehouse. It was climate-controlled with a thick weather-sealed door that was nearly soundproof. The walls were lined with shelves full of smaller boxes containing the bottles of laboratory chemicals that had been their highest-margin best sellers. The profit from those alone gave the laboratory-supply front legitimacy. Another member of her team sat next to the door holding an MP5 submachine gun.

  “How’s she doing?” Artemis asked.

  “Scared,” the woman said. “We have her bound and hooded with the lights out. Water and bathroom breaks every two hours.”

  “Video?”

  “It’s set and ready. Just say the word.”

  “Don’t hurt her. No matter what. Not a mark.”

  The woman nodded.

  Artemis couldn’t risk damaging her trade bait. She needed Kayla Covington to come voluntarily. She spotted Forrest giving instruction to the driver. She pointed to the stairs to the second-floor offices and headed up. At the top of the stairs, she saw the conference room they’d converted to a command center and went inside. Two men and a woman wore headsets and eyed the screens in front of them. She felt Forrest behind her. The man at the center workstation saw Artemis and removed his headset.

  “What do you have for me?” she asked.

  “Not good news. FBI has identified both of you. They’ve issued statewide bulletins.”

  “Shit,” Forrest said. “Now they know we’re both alive. I thought we’d have more time.”

  “We’ll have to move things up,” Artemis said. She welcomed the shorter timeline. “Do you have a line on the reporter?”

  “Yes. We think we can access her through her mobile tablet,” the man said.

  “Good. Upload the video and let me know when you’re ready to go,” Artemis said.

  The man returned to his station and donned the headset.

  “We don’t have time for two exchanges,” Forrest said.

  Artemis had expected Forrest’s protest. She knew he was right to a degree. “Things are already in motion. We’ll compress the schedule.”

  “What if the FBI shows up at the first exchange?”

  “The plan is solid. Even if they show up, we’ve planned for that. We’ll easily have time to get back here and make the final exchange. Remember, this is our last job and they’ll never find us.”

  “We have a visitor,” the man with the headset said.

  Artemis walked to his station and leaned over his shoulder to see the screen. She recognized the man. “Goddamn it.” She pulled her Glock and cocked it. For the second time today, a heavy sadness cracked through her normal wall of indifference. She shunned that weakness and refused to let it weigh her down. He shouldn’t have shown up. He’d been the only one in the Agency she’d trusted. He was one of the few people in the world she actually liked. That rare feeling made this that much harder. He’d always been straightforward, and while her job always involved deadly risks and gray judgment calls, he never disavowed her. But that minuscule moment of benevolence was quickly overwhelmed by a searing urge to kill. She had a leak. “Stay here. He doesn’t need to see us both.”

  Forrest passed her on his way to the screen as she headed out the door. She leapt down the stairs and moved quickly to the front of the building. She entered the reception area and gathered herself. She hadn’t seen him since Paris. “He’s good. I know him,” she said to the men detaining Max Wagner. The two men stepped away but kept their eyes on Wagner and their hands on their guns. She knew they could spot a man who could handle himself.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” she said.

  As always, he looked relaxed and confident. “Nice to see you, Artemis.”

  “How did you find us?”

  “I have my ways.”

  “We can’t do this. You know that. You could have been followed.”

  “You really think an ex-chief of station would allow the FBI to follow him?” Suddenly, Wagner looked over her shoulder. “Remy Stone.”

  She glanced back and saw Forrest in the doorway. She could read him easily. She turned back to Wagner. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  Wagner tried to step around Artemis and she blocked his path. He eased back. “I’m here to make the deal.”

  “The deal is off. You’ll have your deposit back soon.”

  “I don’t want a deposit. I want the treatment and the rest of the data and Covington gone.” He softened his expression. “What will it take?”

  “Nothing,” Artemis said.

  “Wait a minute. Let’s hear him out,” Forrest said.

  Artemis channeled the energizing rush fueling her rage into one fluid motion and shot Wagner in the forehead.

  She holstered her Glock and turned to Forrest. “Let’s not.”

  CHAPTER 60

  Kayla k
new this was the right thing to do. But that didn’t mean she had to like it. She only had one thing on her mind: get Emily. It was just after 9 p.m. and snowing when they pulled into the secluded home on the edge of Fall City. It was owned by one of her father’s fellow programmers who’d poured his wealth into building vacation homes for the city dwellers in Seattle. She’d been here many times before with her father, and the code for the garage keypad was still the same. Her assumption that it would be empty in the middle of winter was spot-on.

  Her impatience turned and twisted in her gut and every muscle in her body revved, demanding action. She didn’t want to be here. She had wanted to go straight to Neville Lewis and beat the truth out of him. But Harrison convinced her they needed to develop a plan or risk getting Emily killed. Kayla had decided she had to respect his years of combat experience.

  She entered the sprawling redwood kitchen and tossed her duffel onto the long wooden table. She remembered all the times she’d sat at the table with her father. She pictured him now, sitting in his room at the nursing home, battling his tremors and struggling to speak as he worried about her and Emily. RGR would reverse Parkinson’s erosion of his body and mind, but that hope faded with every moment. It was one of the reasons she’d pressed so hard for the trial.

  She heard Harrison and Sienna enter from the garage.

  “This is beautiful,” Sienna said as she tossed her backpack onto the table across from Kayla’s duffel.

  Kayla surveyed the room, then settled her gaze on Harrison. He stared back and shook his head. “That stuff is remarkable.” He tossed his duffel onto the table and moved next to her.

  She could feel what Harrison saw. Every muscle felt tight and vibrated with energy. She turned and looked at her reflection in the sliding glass door that opened to the deck overlooking the river. Her skin was tight, her eyes alive. The wrinkles around her eyes had completely disappeared and her thinking was quick and sharp. As was her impatience. “Let’s get on with it.”

  Sienna was reading the guest card with the Wi-Fi code and typing it into her tablet.

  “Can you pull up the Lewis house?” Harrison asked. “Let’s look at Google Maps and any photos you can find.”

  “Get me in there and I’ll get him to talk,” Kayla said. They’d already discussed the option of getting the FBI involved. They all agreed they didn’t trust them, and the FBI could just as easily get Emily killed. The big advantage of doing it themselves was that they could use methods to get him to talk that the FBI couldn’t.

  “Here’s the map,” Sienna said as she pushed her tablet to the center of the table.

  Kayla recognized the area. “We could park here, just down the mountain. No roads go through, and anyone watching the house would never see us coming. There’s a network of trails on the mountain.” Kayla switched the view to satellite. “We could take this one.” She pointed. “Here.”

  “That’s good,” Harrison said. “We’ll do a little recon before we hop the fence.” He looked at Sienna. “Photos?”

  She nodded and spun the tablet back toward herself. “Here you go.” She pushed it to the center of the table. Harrison swiped through at least a dozen pictures she’d found. Kayla spotted cameras mounted on the corners of the house and at the front gate.

  “Those could be a problem,” Harrison said, pointing to one.

  Kayla thought for a moment. “I might be able to take one out.”

  “How?”

  “I saw those bikes in the garage. I can build a wrist rocket.”

  “A what?” Sienna said.

  “A type of slingshot,” Harrison said. He smiled at Kayla. “That could work. It would be quiet. Better than this.” He pulled out his Glock and laid it on the table.

  “What do you need to make it?” Sienna asked.

  “A metal hanger, rubber bands and an inner tube.”

  “Okay. We go in that way. I’ll see what we can find here to help us get inside,” Harrison said. “Don’t worry,” he said to Kayla. “You need to be prepared in case we’re wrong about him. What we have is pretty thin.”

  Harrison was right. But something inside, call it instinct or her gut, said he was somehow connected.

  Sienna’s phone vibrated. She checked the caller ID, then answered.

  “Yes,” she said, nodding. “Yes. That’s great, Malcolm.” She ended the call. “That was my contact at the Seattle Times. He has a tech guy he forwarded those e-mail messages to. They came from an IP address at the Lewises’ home.”

  “Lewis is sending them?” Harrison said.

  “No. That doesn’t make sense.” Kayla said. Then it hit her. “His wife.” Kayla pushed away from the table. “Let’s get what we need and go.”

  Sienna walked around the table and stood with Harrison.

  “Not you, Sienna,” Kayla said.

  “I’m going.”

  “No. You can’t.” Kayla walked to Sienna and put her hands around hers. “Someone has to live to tell the story—to Emily and to the world.”

  CHAPTER 61

  Reed walked into the Joint Operations Center at 9:22 p.m. and the atmosphere crackled with activity. They were close, but they were also running out of time. The conference room was packed and bustling and smelled of strong coffee. Agents, officers and specialists from every law enforcement agency on the task force frantically shared information and hypotheses, all focused on one goal: find the Covingtons. Covington had passed her expiration date and her daughter was being held by the person the CIA called their best paramilitary officer. In a matter of hours, the most remarkable medical breakthrough in human history could be in the hands of an unknown force. And the weight of that gargantuan responsibility to end that threat to the national security of the United States rested squarely on Reed’s shoulders.

  He spotted Owen and Garrity leaning into the monitor on Garrity’s station. Reed headed over and joined them. The image was dark and clearly from an overhead highway camera.

  Garrity spotted Reed first. “How’d it go?”

  “The ex-husband was just as advertised. Bitter and unforgiving as it related to Covington. Brokenhearted and full of threats relative to his daughter and her abductors. Connelly still has him in interrogation getting details about his daughter.”

  “What about the grandfather?” Owen asked.

  An odd sadness could be heard in Reed’s words as he began to answer. Wallace McIntyre was likable and honest. By the time he’d finished McIntyre’s interview, Reed had admired him as a father and a man. “It’s tough. We went to the nursing facility to meet with him. After he chewed me out for treating his daughter as a suspect at first, he was very cooperative and strong, considering both his daughter and granddaughter are in jeopardy. But he’s in bad shape. He has trouble forming his words, and you can see the battle raging in his eyes to get them out. He’s hard to understand, so we had to just take our time. He’s smart and knows what we’re up against, but he said both women are strong and they wouldn’t idly sit by and let someone take advantage of them. He’s convinced Covington was up here to set things right.” Reed looked at the monitor on Garrity’s desk. “What’s this?”

  “We’re not sure, but we think it could be Covington, Clarke and Fuller. It was taken on I-90 East at 8:39. The software flagged it and intelligence is working to enhance it and confirm identities.”

  “So she’s here?” Reed said.

  Garrity grabbed his mouse and pulled up a map. A red dot pulsed at the edge of the foothills east of Seattle. “This has her just outside of Preston.”

  The red dot wasn’t very far from Issaquah and the Lewis home.

  “Anything on Emily’s whereabouts?”

  “No. And Wagner shook our surveillance team.”

  “Shit,” Reed said. “I thought something wasn’t right with him. Way too calm. He’s tied in somehow. Did you get a warrant?”

  “Already searching his townhome. Nothing so far.”

  “Something wasn’t right with Lewis, either,”
Reed said. “He looked unsettled when Connelly got close to that urn on the mantel.”

  “And we wondered where his wife and kids were on a Sunday,” Owen said. “We ran her name and found that she and the kids crossed into Canada at around noon. She hasn’t returned yet. Our agents at the house and the offices say she hasn’t shown up.”

  A knot of suspicion formed. “So where is—”

  “ASAC Garrity?” The young female agent at a workstation marked Intelligence called out. “I think we found the other patient who died in the trial. You should see this.”

  Garrity headed to her, and Reed and Owen followed. The agent had the medical records on the screen.

  “The medical record was simply forged. Jane Crandall. There wasn’t a stolen identity in that name, and the Social Security number doesn’t match anyone. The trial was voluntary, and the billings not covered by Covington’s company were paid in cash.” The agent pulled up a grainy photo of a handsome, distinguished gray-haired woman. “I persuaded the hospital where the trial was held to release the photo they took upon check-in.” The agent pulled up a Washington State driver’s license with the same woman pictured in the photo. “It took a while because of the picture quality, but that’s her.”

  Reed immediately noticed the name on the license. “Who’s Penelope Gladwell?”

  The agent crossed her arms and looked at Reed. “It’s Neville Lewis’s mother. It’s her maiden name. Changed it back after her husband died.”

  Reed looked at Owen. “I want to be there with SWAT when we take him down.” He pivoted and headed out of the conference room to get Connelly. Over his shoulder, he said, “Have the surveillance team stop him if he tries to leave.”

  CHAPTER 62

  Kayla shivered as she left the trail and followed Harrison into the thick forest of tall pines, thick evergreens and leafless maples that sat between the Lewis home and the hiking trail below. The snow had intensified when they’d driven up the switchback. One reconnaissance trip past the house had identified one roving security guard. The flakes were large and heavy enough to provide a veil, making their detection more difficult on the Lewis security cameras. But they’d still see them if Lewis or his lone security guard looked hard enough. Still, she told herself it was the cold, and not her fear, making her shiver. She’d already convicted herself of the worst crime a mother could commit: selfishly putting her daughter in harm’s way. The best way to relieve those explosive rumblings trapped within her was to unleash that toxic energy on Emily’s captors.