Talia was squished between the hacker and one of the gunmen in the middle row of seats. She didn’t even have room to move her elbows, but she glanced back. Tried to spot her purse on the side of the road. When she couldn’t see it, she turned around again.
Nausea rolled through her, and she tried to pray. All she could think were broken phrases. Mixtures of pleading and scripture phrases came to mind. Pieces. Like her life, a collection of dissonant fragments she hadn’t been able to put together since her captivity in that basement.
“Where are we going?” The question fell from her lips, despite the fact the man who sat in the front passenger seat had told her to keep quiet.
The hacker glanced at her. “Does it matter? Do what you’re told, and you might keep this from getting even worse.”
Like she was going to believe that? No way. The minute she was no longer useful, Talia figured, they would kill her. Toss her out on the side of the road like her purse. Discarded. Or she would be sold again.
Who cared what they did to her? She wasn’t going to do any job.
Questions rolled through her mind like a shopping list. Why her? What was the job? He hadn’t answered her as to where they were going. Turned out it mattered to her very much.
“Who was that guy, the bank robber?” He’d known her name. And while in Secret Service custody, he’d killed himself.
The hacker shrugged.
She turned to him and hissed, “How would you feel, dying with no answers and a whole bunch of questions?”
His gaze came to hers. “Like I said, keep your mouth shut.”
“Or I’ll end up like that guy, dead in an interrogation room? Was he some kind of collateral damage, dying for the cause?”
His mouth shifted. “You think I want to be here?”
“I think you owe me an explanation. After all, you practically destroyed my life.” In some ways, he’d succeeded. It wasn’t until she’d met Mason that the idea of being safe had become a possibility again.
Now all that had shattered. Like an illusion.
The hacker winced. He felt bad?
“Gonna apologize to me?” Rhetorical. It was more like a taunt. The edge of bitterness in his tone, even in just the few things he had said to her, made her want to stop, but what good would that do?
“That wasn’t my doing.”
“So who was behind it? You’re just the hired help and it was who…Cerium?” That had been the name on the wall at the lab, at the college where Niall’s life had been turned upside down. Niall had learned that Cerium was the money behind the research. Could the same person have hired this hacker to be part of his work? Maybe she’d gotten too close, and so they’d made her “disappear.” Or they’d tried to.
“So you know more than I thought.” He shrugged. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”
“Who is it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t even know. All I know is I got orders, and then they stopped. Pretty sure I got fired, considering it seems I’ve been contracted out to this Yewell guy now.”
“The son of the Secretary of State.”
The gunman on her other side shifted.
She didn’t look to see what his issue was with her knowing that, or the fact she stated it out loud. “Why target me?”
“You can do this. It’ll take both of us.”
“And when I’m done, they’ll kill me.”
“Or you could make a deal,” he suggested. “Keep working.”
“I already have a job I like. Or I did, until you ruined that as well. Now I’ve got to get my reputation back. If Stanton doesn’t make it so Victoria has to fire me. Because of you.”
He made a face like he didn’t care either way what happened to her professionally. “I saw your work. He wanted you gone.” The hacker paused. “I didn’t want to get rid of you in that deal, but he hired those guys. I had no choice.” He swallowed. “I didn’t like it. I…have a sister. But there was nothing I could do.”
“And the bank money transfer? That smart house setup?”
“New boss. New job.” He lifted one shoulder, considerably less animated now. In fact, he almost looked forlorn. Because he’d been fired? Far worse than that had been done to her. Did she complain?
Okay, yes. She had. She’d pretty much buried her face in the sand. Retreated to lick her wounds. All those expressions that meant she’d pulled away from the team to live in a place of fear. Not in the knowledge that God had held her in His hands the whole time. That He’d sent rescue.
That He had saved her from fear and filled her with His perfect love.
“You think I’m going to feel sorry for you?” She tried to make her tone sound hard. Inside, she was shaking. And beginning to feel the first stirrings of empathy. No. She couldn’t feel sorry for him.
No way.
Not after what he’d done to her.
God, help me.
Hearing it had been someone else’s idea didn’t make her feel better. It made her feel worse. This guy, she’d have been able to get over her fear of him. Take him down, and he would never be able to do anything else to her.
Now there was someone else? Whoever pointed Niall toward Cerium had set them on the right track.
Knowing that wasn’t going to help her here. It wouldn’t get her out of this, if they were “working” for Yewell now. The son of the Secretary of State had a plan. He had to. Now she was, apparently, part of that plan. Because the hacker had known she was capable? Not the kind of referral she was interested in.
She figured that whole thing about the smart house was all to draw her out. Just like the whole bank assignment, the money transfer, and the bank robber had all been to get her to the Secret Service office. She’d been targeted. But not for any of the reasons she’d thought. All along, ever since the bank, it had been about Yewell’s plan.
She turned to the hacker then. “What are we going to do?”
It had to be a hack. One that would take both of their combined skills to pull off. Which didn’t give her any ideas on what it might be.
He actually shuddered. “You don’t want to know.”
Except that she did, which was why she’d asked. Talia wasn’t interested in being shoved aside or placated.
Before Talia could ask again, the guy in the passenger seat twisted around. “Shut up. Both of you.” His gaze moved to the hacker. Didn’t hold the guy in high esteem.
The hacker shifted. It had seemed before like he called the shots here. When he’d been commanding gunmen to hold her team at bay so he could take her. Threatening their lives to force her cooperation. Not now, though. He was almost on her level at this point. Someone they needed, but who didn’t matter more than gum on the bottom of a shoe.
And wherever they were going, the team had no way to track her.
No way to find her.
. . .
Mason stood in front of Stanton’s desk. Beside him, Dakota had her arms folded. Victoria was on speaker on his boss’s phone. Josh had made the decision to get Neema checked out by a vet, just to be safe and make sure there was no lasting damage from her getting stunned.
Sitting in the chair on the other side of Dakota was the shrink who’d met with Yewell during his “incarceration” in a Secret Service safe house. The only person still alive who’d had any contact with him recently.
Stanton leaned back in his chair. “So it’ll be fast, then? He’s working his plan.”
“He’s had several plans in the past. It’s just a case of which one makes the most sense now.” The woman had gray hair pulled back into a tight bun that pulled at the skin of her forehead.
How Yewell had taken her seriously, Mason didn’t know. But evidently he had. Enough she’d gotten a handle on the man’s state of mind.
“Great.” Mason squeezed the back of his neck, then let his hand drop to his side again. “So we have no idea what he’ll do.” He shrugged. “The President called off his visit. What if Yewell goes to ground? We’ll never find him.”
Her gaze shifted, and she eyed him over the rims of her glasses, her pointy nose angled down. “Given how angry he is, I feel that is unlikely. He wants to make a statement. It will be both notable and the action that causes the most amount of damage.”
“And his network of soldiers?” Stanton folded his hands on his desk.
“Loyal subjects of their king. He has their allegiance, and they will be ready to die for him at a moment’s notice. After all, that’s what they rescued him for.”
Mason tried to figure out what they were going to do about a guy who had a savior complex and his own private army. The Secret Service didn’t know where he was, or what he was going to do. Was Alvarez really going to be able to get them actionable intelligence?
Stanton thanked the doctor, and she scurried out. Dakota shot Mason a look that told him all he needed to know about how she viewed shrinks. “Don’t put much stock in psycho-therapy?”
“Psychos don’t need therapy.” She shrugged. “And it’s not my job to give it to them. It’s my job to hunt them down and put them down.” Dakota turned to Stanton. “How does us being here get Talia back?”
Mason wanted to know the answer to that same question. They’d been called back here to the office. With no other leads, they’d had to answer that call.
Dakota said, “We have no idea what Yewell is going to do, and you all have no idea where he is.”
Mason had been about to say that, maybe not in exact terms. He was kind of glad she’d done it first, though. Aches and pains from the bank robber’s attack on him were perking up again. He needed pain meds—maybe an ice pack—and then he needed to get on the search for Talia.
“It’s all connected.” He slumped into one of the chairs and motioned for Dakota to do the same. “The hacker who took Talia is working for Yewell, right?”
“You’re theorizing. You have no evidence. If you did, maybe you’d know where he took her.”
She was really worried about her friend. Mason wanted to reach out and squeeze her hand, but doubted she would accept his small attempt at comfort. “True.”
It grated on him that they’d essentially come up with nothing, and neither had the Secret Service. No one had seen Yewell.
Stanton’s phone rang. He answered it, his face quickly blanching. “You cannot be serious.” He gaped. “Hold on.” The assistant director hit a button and replaced the handset. “You’re on speaker with Agent Armstrong and Special Agent Pierce.”
On the phone, Victoria said, “I’m afraid I’m being perfectly serious. I wouldn’t kid about something like this. In fact, the Secretary of State suggested I ride with him on the plane back to Seattle.”
Stanton looked like he wanted to throw up. “He’s really going ahead with it.”
“He’s going to do the rally in the President’s place.”
Dakota glanced at Mason, and they shared a look. Mason felt his brows lift. “You can’t be serious,” before he realized that was exactly what his boss had said.
“He can’t think taking the President’s place at this rally will be a good idea.” Dakota waved a hand in the direction of the phone. “He’s putting himself and all his people in danger by coming here. Not to mention those planning to attend.”
“I tried to convince him to cancel the whole thing.”
Dakota leaned forward, closer to the phone. “I thought they already had.”
“I explained the threat, he asked me why I thought I needed to explain the threat. Considering it’s his son, I guess that was valid. But he’s clearly not thinking straight. There’s no way this is going to go well. Evidently he’s well aware, and still considers it acceptable to do exactly as you said.” Victoria sighed, out of breath as though she’d been walking quickly. “Unless he thinks his son will make the approach before the rally and he can deal with it—or we will—so no one else is under threat.”
“If he is thinking that, he needs to tell us,” Mason said. “That way we can make preparations.”
Dakota nodded. “And apparently the son is angry. According to the shrink.”
“She’s probably right.” Victoria sighed, loud enough they all heard it. “He’s going to do something. If we can’t figure out precisely what it is, then the Secretary of State isn’t going to change his plans. He said the rally is too important to miss.”
“People’s lives are too important,” Mason said. But they were still constrained by the powers that be. If the administration said jump, they jumped.
Dakota shook her head. “There’s no way his son will pass up the opportunity to make a statement. The Secretary is trying to draw him out. On purpose.”
“As soon as he lands,” Stanton put in, “I’ll sit him down and make him tell me all of it. I can’t in good conscience allow him to put all those people in danger. Maybe I can change his mind.”
Victoria said, “You may not have a choice but to keep him safe. He’s been ordering around his staff, getting emails out to everyone. He wants full protection, and if that means getting military personnel in to help with security, then he wants it done.”
Stanton blew out a breath. “I’m expected to coordinate all that in the middle of a manhunt? Or does he not care that we apprehend his son without loss of life?”
“That would be the goal.” Victoria paused. “Keep me apprised.” She hung up.
Dakota sat back in her chair and blew out a breath. “He can’t seriously think this is a good idea.”
Stanton turned back to his computer. “I suggest the two of you find a lead as to what he’s up to. Fast. If you don’t want to be dragged into security detail for a political rally.”
Dakota was up and out of the chair before Mason could even formulate a response.
Mason said, “Pierce. One more thing.”
She turned back, already at the door. “Make it fast.” Evidently she had somewhere to be.
“What about Alvarez? Have any of you heard from him?” Last they’d known, he was inside with Yewell and had an undercover guy with him. Whether he was safe, or not, they had no idea.
“I’ll find out.”
Mason nodded, and she left. Then he turned back to Stanton. “I need to be on the hunt for Talia, try to find a way to locate where she was taken. That will lead me to Yewell.” It was a stretch, but he was pretty sure he was right.
The idea of her being back in that nightmare situation was like a rock in his stomach.
Stanton glanced over, the same frown on his face he’d had when he stared at his computer. “Then you’d better make it fast. You’ve been retasked.”
“Sir?”
“It’s all hands on deck, Mason. The rally starts at six tonight, and you will be there.”
“Sir—”
“That’s an order. What you do between now and five p.m. when you’re to report to the stadium, is up to you.”
That meant he had some time left to find her.
Three hours, to be exact.