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Blake pressed end on his phone and glanced across the park to where Stephanie was playing with Buddy. The dog park was surprisingly busy for Easter Sunday. Everyone had the same idea after eating a huge Easter brunch: get outside and try to burn some of it off. He grinned as Buddy suddenly reared up and threw his front paws onto Stephanie’s shoulders, throwing her backwards. His dog liked her, perhaps more than anyone else he’d introduced him to.
“Watch out!” Blake called, heading towards them. “He loves to push people over.”
“I’ve got him,” Stephanie replied, laughing. “Don’t I, boy? You can’t push me around!”
She looked up as Blake joined them, dropping Buddy’s paws down onto the ground again.
“Everything alright?” she asked.
“Yeah. They ID’d the guy from the video in my house,” Blake said, bending down to pick up a stick. “He’s a petty criminal, probably hired by someone else.”
“Did they pick him up?” Stephanie asked as Blake threw the stick and Buddy tore after it.
“Not yet. Tomorrow, it sounds like.” Blake glanced down at her. “Brunch was awesome. I’m so stuffed.”
“Me too,” Stephanie admitted. “That’s where we’re having the luncheon Tuesday after the funeral.”
“Good choice. I guess that’s how Angela got us into the brunch?”
“Yep. She’s very talented that way.” Stephanie watched Buddy gallop back with the stick in his mouth. “I hope she’s alright. I wish she’d come with us instead of going back home. I don’t like her being alone after last night.”
“She needed some sleep,” said Blake. “She’ll be fine.”
“But what if he comes back?”
“In broad daylight on Easter Sunday, after being stabbed with a four-inch stiletto? Not likely.”
Stephanie grinned.
“I guess you’re right. It would take a special kind of stupid to do that.”
“Exactly. Stop worrying.”
“What did Michael say when he called?” Stephanie asked suddenly as they walked along behind Buddy.
“He was on his way to his parents. He’ll stop by on his way back. He’s staying with the Black Widow.”
“Yes, she told me this morning when I talked to her. Any idea why he’s in Jersey?”
Blake shook his head.
“Not a single one. Last I talked to him, he was buried in work. I don’t know why he suddenly came up, unless it was just to do the Easter family thing.”
Stephanie glanced at him.
“Do you really believe that?” she demanded.
“No.”
“So?” she prompted.
“That doesn’t mean I know why he’s here.”
Stephanie was silent for a moment, her lips pressed together grimly. Blake glanced at her and raised an eyebrow.
“What is it?” he asked. “Spit it out. You know something.”
She glanced at him guiltily, a troubled frown between her brows.
“Lina said something this morning that has me worried, and now out of the blue here’s Michael. All we need is Mr. Hunk O’ Mysterious to show up and we’ll have a full cast.”
“Full cast for what?” Blake stopped and looked down at her. “And who the hell is Mr. Hunk O’ Mysterious?”
Stephanie chuckled.
“He’s a friend of Lina’s. Angela started calling him that and the name stuck. Michael’s met him. He was with us in Baltimore when...” her voice trailed off suddenly.
“When Regina Cummings sent an assassin to kill you?” Blake finished for her. He grinned at her shocked look. “I heard all about it. Michael failed to mention this other guy, though.”
“Well, he was there. He’s the one who stopped the assassin.” Stephanie shuddered involuntarily at the memory. “I hope to God I never see that side of him again,” she added. “I thought Viper was bad, but he’s much, much worse.”
Blake studied her for a minute.
“Worse how?”
“I don’t know. Heartless. It was like he had nothing inside him but ice.” Stephanie shook her head. “Viper was the same when she killed Regina. Maybe I just know her better. I know there’s a soul in there somewhere. Or at least, there used to be.”
“I’ve never met her, but I’m sure there still is,” Blake murmured, amused. “Souls don’t just disappear. This isn’t Supernatural.”
“You didn’t witness them in work mode,” she retorted. “It was horrible.”
“Steph, people who do that, they have to turn off human emotion,” Blake said slowly. “If they don’t, they can’t get the job done.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Blake reached out and stopped her from walking with a gentle hand on her arm. “I know what I’m talking about. When I was on active duty and deployed in war zones, I did things I would never dream of doing as a civilian. I had to. It was the job, and it was survival. I had to turn off a part of me that was naturally resistant to the training I’d received. Now I can be more understanding and humane about when I use lethal force. You have to realize that your friend is on active duty all the time. She’s not in a uniform, and she’s not in a battalion, but she is fighting a war and she is a soldier. She goes into war zones every day. She has to do what she has to do in order to survive. That doesn’t mean she’s heartless, or that she’s lost her soul. It just means she’s found a way to bury it to get the job done.”
“I know that,” Stephanie said. “I understand it. It’s just very jarring when you actually see it.”
“My guess is you were never meant to see it,” he said softly.
“No, I wasn’t.”
Buddy barked impatiently from a few yards away and they started walking again.
“So what did you mean by a full cast?” Blake asked after a moment of silence. “Full cast for what?”
“I don’t know, but it’s never good when we’re all in the same state,” Stephanie replied. “Look what happened the last time.”
“That turned out alright,” he said with a quick grin, “and it certainly wasn’t boring. What did she say this morning that has you worried?”
Stephanie glanced at him hesitantly.
“She said there’s a lot going on that I don’t know about. She doesn’t want Angela staying with her because she can’t guarantee her safety.”
Blake frowned.
“Can’t guarantee her safety? What the hell does that mean?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll talk to Mike when he stops by on his way back,” he said. “I’ll find out what’s going on.”
Stephanie grunted.
“Only if he knows,” she muttered. “Knowing Viper, he’s probably just as much in the dark as we are.”
Viper laid a Ruger SR40 down on the workbench next to its twin and reached into her cargo pocket for her phone.
“Yes?”
“Happy Easter,” Damon’s deep voice greeted her. “How goes it?”
She smiled.
“It goes. How are you? Do you get Easter dinner there?”
“I do, actually,” he said, surprising her. “The nurse was in earlier and asked if I like ham. What are you having?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t given it much thought. Not ham.”
“How’s the armory?”
“Coming along. I just finished one of my SR40s. How are you feeling?”
“Like hell. I slept for sixteen hours.”
“You need it. You’re healing. Trust the process.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one stuck in bed with nothing to do. Any progress on our shooter?”
Alina turned to leave her small armory, stepping through the door into her command center.
“Possibly. You know how Charlie wanted me to look for an ex-soldier in Singapore?” she asked, walking over to a chair and seating herself before one of the computers.
“Yes.”
“Well that search dug up quite a few possibilities, one of which is a name I recognized. He was in the same unit as Dave. In fact, Dave mentioned him in a couple of the emails to John.”
Silence greeted that. Alina typed on the keyboard, waiting for him to process the information.
“Do you mean to tell me that I was shot because of something that happened in Iraq twelve years ago?” Hawk finally demanded.
“Possibly.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“It gets better.”
“Of course it does,” he said sarcastically. “Tell me.”
“When he was honorably discharged, he disappeared. Went off grid,” said Alina, pulling up the record she was looking for. “He stayed underground for years, until he popped up last year in Madrid. That’s the first record of him since his discharge. He paid a few utility bills, then disappeared again. Ask me why that’s significant.”
“Why?”
“According to a graveyard in his hometown of Vinland, Kansas, he was buried the same year he was discharged. Killed in a car accident.”
“That explains the disappearance,” he said dryly. “So who paid utilities in Madrid? Our shooter?”
“That’s the question.” Alina sat back in her chair. “If the shooter did take his identity at some point, that might be what tipped Charlie off.”
“If he was killed in that car accident. Did you verify his death?”
“Of course I did. Death certificate is legit.”
“So it’s another dead end.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Someone certainly went through a lot of trouble to try to cover their tracks.”
“What did Dave’s emails say about him?” Hawk asked after a moment.
“Not much. They sometimes utilized him as an interpreter. He spoke the language like a native. Michael said he thinks his mother was an Iraqi immigrant. He was helping Dave, but how much he knew about what Dave was doing is obscure at best.”
“You told Michael all this?” he demanded.
“Of course not!” Viper frowned. “I just asked him what he remembered about him.”
“That’s still too much,” Hawk muttered. “Michael may be a Marine, but he’s not stupid. Asking him that much is enough to get him thinking.”
“Don’t worry about him,” she said. “I’m keeping an eye on him.”
“Oh?”
“I know you think I’m being reckless, but give me some credit. I’m not bringing anyone else into this mess.”
“Viper, there’s something that’s been bothering me,” said Damon slowly. “Since I’ve been lying here, I’ve had ample time to think.”
“About?”
“These emails from your brother,” he said unexpectedly. “Why are they just surfacing now?”
“What do you mean? You know why. John had them on a hidden drive in his laptop.”
“Exactly.”
Alina pressed her lips together thoughtfully.
“You think there’s something more to it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “If these emails and attachments are what they appear to be, why didn’t John tell you about them? You’ve been back for a year, but he never once mentioned them. That doesn’t strike you as odd?”
Alina was silent, staring at the overturned photo next to the monitor. He was right, of course. That was the infuriating thing about Hawk. He usually was.
“So what are you thinking?” she finally asked.
“If he was poking around in ancient history, why didn’t he come to you for help? Your security clearance is higher than his ever was, and you have access to outlets of information he didn’t. He knew that. Why not tell you, and have you work it as well?”
“Maybe he didn’t know how to,” Viper suggested, playing devil’s advocate half-heartedly. “Maybe he meant to but never got a chance. I came back a year ago, but I’ve hardly been a staple here. I’ve been gone more than I’ve been home.”
“That’s weak.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “It is.”
Damon was silent for a long moment. When he finally did speak, he sounded as if he was picking his words very carefully.
“I know you grew up with these people, and John was a big part of your life. All I’m asking is that you carefully evaluate all the information we have and acknowledge that someone close to you is not what they seem.”
“If John had an ulterior motive for not telling me about the emails, and that’s a pretty big if, what would it be? What would he have to gain? John didn’t know what we know. He didn’t even know my cover was blown in Damascus. There’s no possible way he could have known the person responsible for Dave’s death is even still alive. For all he knew, they were killed long ago. A lot can happen in twelve years.”
“Unless the attachments contained something that made John believe they were still active today,” Hawk pointed out.
“The attachments were destroyed in the fire along with everything else, so we’ll never know.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Damon said with a sigh. “Maybe it’s better not to know why John did what he did. It wouldn’t change the current situation. My only reason for mentioning it is to illustrate the point that you need to tread carefully up there. Be very careful about who you trust. We don’t know who else knows about the emails, or the attachments, or what they contain.”
“Well if John was doing something shady in the background, he would hardly tell anyone else about the emails,” Viper pointed out. “If he wasn’t doing anything sketchy, then he certainly knew better than to talk about it to anyone. I see where your concern is coming from though. Something isn’t adding up and until I find out what it is, I can’t take anything at face value. I’d already decided that.”
“Charlie isn’t happy with you there. I’m not happy with you there. Why stay? What are you trying to prove? Take Raven and go back to the cottage in Virginia. Go into the mountains. Hell, go to upstate New York if you want; anywhere but there.”
“Raven wouldn’t like it any further north,” Viper said matter-of-factly. “He doesn’t like it much here, but at least the winters aren’t too extreme for him. New York would kill him.”
“Then go south. Don’t you have property in North Carolina?”
“Not anymore. I sold it after it was compromised last summer.” Alina grinned despite herself. “I could always go to your ranch in Nowhere, USA.”
“Now there’s an idea!”
She laughed.
“Not gonna happen, Hawk. I’m staying here, at least until the funeral is over and I can get together enough information to act on. Kasim is still out there, and now there’s something going on with Angela.”
“What?” Damon asked sharply. “What does she have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know yet. Someone slashed her tire on Friday, and her house was broken into last night. The intruder went straight to her bedroom.”
“They didn’t search anything first?”
“Nope. He didn’t pass Go, didn’t collect $200. Just went straight for her.”
“That’s not good,” Hawk said grimly after a long silence. “What did he do?”
“He didn’t get the chance to do anything. She managed to fight him off with a stiletto heel. Stabbed him in the neck with it, apparently, and pushed him down the stairs.”
Hawk was surprised into a guffaw.
“You’re kidding!”
Alina grinned.
“Angie’s no joke when she’s threatened,” she said. Then she sobered again. “The question is who is he? And why now?”
“You don’t honestly think it has anything to do with...anything, do you?” Damon demanded. “How could Angela get mixed up in all this?”
“How did she get mixed up with North Korean terrorists last fall?” Alina countered. “How does she get into any of the messes she gets into?”
“Good Lord,” Damon groaned. “Why is it always so complicated with you?”
“I’m starting to wonder the same thing. Right now, the best place I can be is right here. I’m not stupid. I know the risks. I also know that the fastest way to sort all this out, with the highest rate of success, is to be right in the center where I can see everything.”
“And everything can see you,” he retorted. “Just remember the center is usually the kill box.”
Viper smiled coldly.
“Exactly.”