“I’m Special Agent Adrian Walker.” He pulled out the metal chair and sat. Motioned toward the woman leaning against the wall in the corner. “This is Megan Perkins. She’s consulting with the FBI on this case.”
Captain Charles St. Germaine—his mother was French—sat across the table. Street clothes, but pressed, despite living in FBI protective custody for the past three weeks. Pinched face, pale skin. Put him in a tailored suit and he’d fit perfectly in a board meeting—or at a dinner party with a cigarette in one hand.
On a Navy ship? Not so much. Despite his years of service, Adrian just didn’t get that feel from this guy. He was at least fifteen years older than Adrian, who was himself pushing late thirties. Megan looked younger than she was, which had played in her favor as an undercover agent. Now she was in his life permanently, and Adrian had a ring burning a hole in his suitcase back at the hotel.
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t ask her to marry him until this whole thing was resolved. She wasn’t safe right now, and neither was he. The man behind those who had terrorized her was still out there. And that wasn’t even their biggest problem right now.
Charles’s expression turned bored. He stared at his fingernails.
“You were targeted by Daniel Zimmerman, along with Rear Admiral Frampton,” Adrian said.
“And I’ve been stuck in protective custody ever since.” He didn’t lift his gaze, just kept looking at his nails.
“You’d rather be set loose where he can get to you again?”
“Zimmerman is dead.” Charles glanced up then. He shifted his hand to point at Adrian. “Didn’t you hit him with your car, or something?”
Adrian winced. It had been a split second decision, made before Zimmerman could bring down the plane Megan had been on. As it was, the aircraft had crashed. She was recovering still and used crutches most of the time—unless she was interviewing. It was why she leaned against the wall now. Though, he’d rather she sat.
Charles glanced between them.
“Why would he target you?” Adrian asked.
They knew the blackmailer wanted this man dead because of his involvement in an operation in Venezuela years ago. Besides the fact many people were killed, there wasn’t much they knew about the secret mission. It was all classified. Some of the details had been uncovered, but there wasn’t much not redacted past the code name given to the operation and the village where it happened.
A village the vice president had lived in with his missionary parents.
Which meant he’d been there.
It wasn’t conclusive proof he was the blackmailer, but it was as close as they had come so far to finding the source of so much carnage and destruction. What else could it be but some kind of revenge plot?
Charles sniffed. “How would I know?”
“Because you were there, Mr. St. Germaine.”
“Where?”
He insisted on playing it this way? “Venezuela in the eighties. Sebana to be precise. You must have been barely into your twenties, but we know that for some reason you were part of the planning for this mission. Maybe you didn’t join the op. Your entire military record is sealed, Captain. I have no idea your skill set or area of expertise. But I’m guessing you weren’t just the sous chef on the boat.”
“They are ships.”
“Whatever.” Adrian flipped open a folder and turned a photo around. “This is Special Agent Zimmerman’s wife and children. After they were found.”
All three had been shot.
Charles had the decency to wince at least. Adrian said, “This happened as a result of that operation in Sebana. People were murdered. I don’t know why but that much devastation does not go unnoticed, and yet no one even mentioned it. Until now. I’m asking you what happened back then. Why did the US undertake this mission on Venezuelan soil?”
He wanted to also demand the reason why someone would, so many years later, target those involved. Why they would also target the children of those people. He wanted to know what was so compelling that kids had been murdered. Why Megan and Rachel, and so many more, had been terrorized. But people like the blackmailer didn’t care about the fallout—or who got caught in it.
The vice president—Adrian could hardly believe it was him behind all this—had suffered some kind of traumatic event, right? Years later he’d been triggered into taking that trauma out on those responsible. Adrian still didn’t have a better answer than that as to why it was all happening now.
Most cases he’d investigated, Adrian didn’t care why. But this had affected Megan in a way he could feel just by looking at her.
He wanted answers.
Charles leaned back in his chair, still bored. “The country was destabilizing. The economy was tanking, and people didn’t like it. Used to be Venezuela was one of the richest countries in the world. Now?” He shrugged.
“And the mission?”
“Nothing that would cause someone to want me dead. Not that mission, anyway.”
“We think someone who was there on that day is after revenge,” Adrian said. “It would explain why he’s targeting those present as well as those who helped plan the mission. It was a joint venture, right? More than one branch of the military and the CIA? Feds?”
Charles said, “Lot of operations I was involved in were. CIA contact, military boots on the ground as backup.” He smiled, but the expression held nothing pleasant. “I have lived an interesting life.”
“I figured that kind of cooperation was scared into the higher-ups of every government agency and the military after 9/11. Didn’t know it happened even back then.”
Charles shrugged. “Didn’t say it was a friendly arrangement. Mostly one group show-boated because they thought they were better than everyone else.”
“And then civilians get caught in the middle. Innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“What do I care? You guys will find him and, until then, I don’t have to listen to my daughter whining about how I’m not a good enough grandpa. Like it’s my fault the kid doesn’t look like any of us.”
Adrian said, “You aren’t worried he might target her?”
“Do the world a favor.”
He didn’t react to that cold assessment. At least not outwardly. Inside, his stomach roiled. Who thought that about their own daughter and grandchild? Adrian needed to find them and make sure they were all right, not being used as some kind of leverage in this massive game. He wasn’t certain Charles would care.
They’d only just uncovered the playing pieces, and he wasn’t convinced they had all of them yet. What strategy the blackmailer utilized was another question entirely.
“What was the mission, Charles?”
He sneered. “Same as every other mission back then. Get the money, take out the opposition. Level the playing field.”
Like that was supposed to make sense. “Who was the opposition in this case?”
“Cartel. It’s always the cartel. Back then they were no better than feudal lords. Now it’s worse since the economy tanked and the whole country is nothing but a giant cesspit.” Charles brushed his hand across the table. “Don’t know why you care so much.”
“Maybe because innocent lives are in danger.”
Charles shrugged. “Probably deserve it.”
Adrian pointed to the photo. Zimmerman’s family. “Did they deserve this?”
The man across the table was a decorated military officer. By all accounts a hero. How he had even passed psychological evaluation was anyone’s guess.
“Maybe they did,” Charles said. “How am I supposed to know?”
“Who is behind all this carnage?” Adrian was convinced now that Charles St. Germaine knew the identity of the man. “He tried to have you killed. Who is he?”
“Wasn’t killed, was I?”
“Not for lack of him trying. He sent Zimmerman halfway across the country to destroy a building you’d have been in if I hadn’t sent word your life was in danger.”
“Yeah, heard about that. Another dirty FBI agent messing things up.” He glanced at Megan, then back at Adrian. “I figure one is just a sign that all of them are the same. Infected.”
“Not worried he’ll try again?”
Charles said, “I’ve made my peace. Maybe you should call Frampton and tell him to make his.”
Adrian folded the file shut and swept out the door, Megan right behind him. He said, “He doesn’t leave until I’m done,” to the Marshal standing beside the door. The man probably bristled at being given an order, but Adrian didn’t wait around to see. He went straight to the desk of the closest agent by a phone.
“I want a real-time check on Rear Admiral Frampton. I think the blackmailer is going to go at him again, try and kill him.”
“Okay.” The agent snapped up his phone and dialed a number written on one of the papers on his desk. After a few seconds he said, “No answer.”
He tried three different numbers, the agents on duty.
Adrian said, “Keep trying. Call local police if you have to and get them there.”
There were both Marshals and FBI agents on detail protecting Frampton at the safe house where he’d been stashed. Not even Adrian knew the location. They were either already dead, or at the least, they’d been pinned down and were unable to answer the phone.
He turned back to the interview room where Charles sat.
Through the glass of the window Adrian watched the man’s mouth turn up into a sick, humorless smile.
“Walker.”
He turned back to the agent at the phone. “What is it?”
“I had local cops dispatched to the scene. There was a unit a mile away.” His face was grim. As though he disliked the taste of what he was saying rolling off his tongue. “One of them answered the phone. He said it’s nothing but carnage. They’re all dead.”
Megan slipped her hand into his.
“He’s sending over pictures now. Says they were all shot twice, chest and head. Marshals, our agents and the Rear Admiral are all dead.”
“Professional hits.”
The agent nodded his agreement.
“He’s not messing around anymore,” Megan said. “He’s serious about taking out anyone who knows about him.”
Adrian squeezed her hand, but spoke to the agent, “If we get any evidence at all, it won’t point to anyone local. Likely it’ll be former military, maybe foreign.”
The agent’s eyebrows rose. “So how do we get evidence on this guy?”
Adrian had been forced to parse out information so far. If he said the words “vice president” he would get laughed out of this office—especially considering he had no proof. “The blackmailer has gone unchecked for this long because there has been little to no evidence on him, or anything he’s done. We have to figure out the answer to that question so we can nail him.”
The agent glanced over his shoulder at the captain, still in the interview room. A man who’d known this was going to happen. “But now we have someone connected to him in custody, right?”
Megan said, “He isn’t going to give up the blackmailer’s name, if he even knows it.”
Adrian said, “I have an idea about that.”
“Wha—”
He twisted to look over his shoulder at the marshal. He called out in an unmistakable, loud voice, “Cut that scum bag loose. I want him out of my sight.”
“Wait until I open your door.” Mint climbed out of the car he’d rented under an alias that couldn’t be connected to anything. He rounded the car and checked every angle on the street, then all rooftops.
Only then did he open her door, one hand close to the gun strapped to his hip.
“You’re doing it again.”
Mint scanned the area. He continued to do it as he shut the door behind her. When she started toward the bank, he laid one hand on the small of her back.
“Malone.”
Use of his real name was enough to catch his attention. Not his first name, which he’d told her his father used. “Yes, Emma?”
She ascended the huge marble steps to the front door of the bank. “Are you ever going to stop assuming a threat will, at any moment, spring from behind cover and take us out?”
“It’ll take you out.”
“Not if I dive at you and cover you.”
Mint didn’t even want to address the ridiculousness of that. Which one of them was trained former military anyway? “If you’re asking whether I’m going to stop protecting you from potential danger, the answer is no.”
“Even when this is done?” She stopped at the front door and glanced up at him.
“I’m thinking when we have kids I’ll need to hire a team. And it’ll be easier if we homeschool. Less variables.”
She swung around, tipped up on the balls of her feet and kissed him, square on the lips. “I love you.”
She didn’t argue with him. Didn’t make his life more difficult. She wanted to be part of the tactical decisions he made so that she could understand his motivations. What she didn’t do was tell him his fears were silly, or try to convince him to figure out how to turn them off.
“Love you too.” He glanced at her. The hand she’d placed on his cheek was her left. Her eyes strayed to it, as they often did these days when she pulled this exact move. Taking in the understated diamond on her left ring finger.
What followed was a softening of her gaze, the subtle shift of her lips. A fresh realization of exactly what that meant. To both of them.
But they were still out in the open. Exposed. He pulled the door open and ushered her in.
She shot him a smile. “Thank you, kind sir.”
He followed her into the bank, a smile tugging on his own lips. Mint hadn’t smiled all that much before she came into his life. There hadn’t been reason to, so why bother expending the energy it took to even pretend to be happy? Now there was reason.
She was teaching him to enjoy his life. Because she was a part of it now, it actually worked. Hopefully he was teaching her to be more cautious. More aware of her surroundings. They would get to self-defense and weapons training soon enough.
The bank manager was summoned.
Emma said, “I’d like access to my safety deposit box, please.”
The place she’d stashed all the communications she’d had from the blackmailer and everything else she’d thought relevant from that time. The files of recorded phone calls were with Aaron Jones. He was dead now, a patsy for the blackmailer. The financial records she kept were for a dead senator.
Pieces of this puzzle.
The manager checked her ID and confirmed she had the right passcode—which reassured Mint this place knew what they were doing. It was too easy to fake ID and steal a key.
He trailed her down hallways. Yes, he looked like a bodyguard, but did he care? She was alive. And she was going to stay that way until they were ninety-whatever and they died in their sleep at the same time. Corny, maybe. His life goal? Definitely. He didn’t care what it said about him. Mint was private security, and she was the most important client he would have for the rest of his life.
The manager used his own key. Emma used hers. The manager slid the long rectangular box out, and then moved out of the room. “Take your time.”
Emma watched over Mint’s shoulder until the man was gone. He put his hand on her shoulder, just because she’d appreciate it. And because he could. Having her was like winning the best prize he could have—
“Mint.”
He shook off the daze. She’d distracted him, and distractions were going to get her killed. He needed to focus. “What?”
Her eyebrows lifted.
He lowered his voice. “Sorry. What is it?”
“The box.” She tipped it in his direction. “It’s empty.”