EDGE OF SHADOWS: The Shadow Ops Finale (Shadow Ops, Book # 3) (28 page)

They were never going to get out of here by depending on logic.

She was about ready to storm inside, take EZ down, when she realized where Billy had gone wrong—at the same time as EZ.

“Why haven’t you asked to see Rose, Billy?” EZ’s voice grew serious. “I told you the woman you love is being tortured, and you haven’t asked for proof of life.”

There was the sound of a scuffle. Rose crashed through the door just in time to see Billy slam EZ against the wall, twisting the pistol from his hand.

“Why, it’s Rose Prospero as I live and breathe,” EZ said, grinning at her and ignoring the gun in Billy’s hand.

She took in the scene. A man lay dead on the bed. Billy appeared unharmed, his suit a bit rumpled was all. And EZ…she couldn’t believe this was the man she’d worked with for two years. His eyes were wide, the whites showing all around them, his lips pulled back in a maniacal grin.

Then, to her horror, the whites of his eyes blossomed red with burst blood vessels. Scarlet foam gushed from his mouth as he slumped to the floor. His hand rolled open, revealing a signet ring with a needle attached to it, a needle that he’d just injected into his palm.

His body thudded as a seizure overtook him. Rose rushed to his side, but Billy pulled her back. “No. There’s nothing you can do. He’s gone.”

“He knew where Eve is, where the toxin is?” she said. Too late, she realized her mistake.

Gingerly, she patted down EZ’s body, slipping the ring from his finger and handing it to Billy who flushed it down the toilet. “A million gallons of sewage ought to make it safe.”

She shook her head in warning before he could say anything more. Found EZ’s phone on the floor under the bed where it had fallen during the struggle. Still with an open line, just as she’d feared. She made note of the number and ended the call.

“He wasn’t talking to the man on the bed,” she said, nodding to the corpse who shared the room with them. “He was talking to someone on the other end of the phone.”

“He said there were three of them left. The Preacher’s children.” Billy looked down at EZ’s body. “Two, now. But we just lost our ace in the hole.” He glanced at her. “Now they know you’re still alive.”

“Worse, they know Eve is important to me.” She cursed her weakness, saying Eve’s name out loud like that. “We’re going to have to move fast.”

She scrolled through EZ’s contacts and glanced at the photos he’d shown Billy. KC, naked except for her underwear, unconscious on the floor of some metal-walled room, surrounded by unmarked fifty-five-gallon drums. Chase, Jay, and Eve all restrained, water in the background. They looked battered and bruised, but otherwise okay.

As she removed the cell’s battery, SIM, and memory card, panic threatened to undo her. Once they realized who Eve was, once they knew that Rose had killed three more of their own… She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the panic to retreat.

Billy’s hand on her shoulder was like an anchor, reminding her she wasn’t alone. She rested her cheek on his hand for one brief moment then stood up. “Is the body safe to leave? I don’t want some nurse or medical examiner to get exposed to the toxin.”

“Dr. Rayburn said it had a short life span once exposed to air or water, but let’s check.” He called Hollywood. “We have a situation here. What’s the risk to civilians from a body injected with the toxin?” He quickly explained what EZ had done.

“EZ?” Hollywood said. “No way. Never would have thought he had the balls. Hang on, here’s Celeste.”

“Based on my calculations and the computer simulations I’ve been running, there should be no risk once the toxin has disseminated in the tissue for more than a few minutes.”

“So, some coroner slices into this guy, he’s not gonna need extra precautions?”

“Best I can tell, no.”

“Good, because we can’t hang around.”

“Maybe leave a note or make an anonymous call?” she suggested. “Just to be on the safe side?”

Rose glanced at Billy and rolled her eyes. Civilians. She took the phone from him. “Doctor, this is Rose Prospero again. I know you’ve been exploring the theoretical possibilities of this toxin, but let me tell you what we’re facing. We’ve got a corpse laced with it. We have what looks like a dozen fifty-five-gallon barrels presumably filled with it, looks like they’re on a boat somewhere, and we have a credible threat that this toxin is going to be used in an assassination attempt on the president of the United States in,” she glanced at the overhead clock, “less than two hours. So let’s stop talking theoreticals and start talking facts.”

“She’s doing her best, Rose,” Hollywood protested.

The doctor didn’t back down. “I’m giving you all the facts I can with the little data that I have.”

She paused, and Rose heard Hollywood murmuring something to her in the background. She was beginning to wish she’d sent anyone else down to Atlanta, but who would have guessed that Hollywood of all people would have fallen for a decidedly unglamorous scientist?

“What’s our best shot at stopping this?” Rose asked.

“The body should be fine,” Rayburn finally answered. Rose nodded to Billy, and they began to move out. Time was short, and she couldn’t waste any babysitting a corpse if there was no threat. “You said the canisters appeared to be on a boat?”

“As best we can tell.”

“Sink it. Put them deep underwater and keep them sealed until proper decontamination can be performed. That’d be your safest, fastest bet.”

Billy exchanged glances with her. Rayburn couldn’t know it, but she’d just condemned Rose’s team. And Eve.

Chapter 29

Billy took the phone from Rose before it could slip through her fingers. He’d never seen her so pale.

“We’ll get back to you, Hollywood.” He hung up and led Rose back to the van. As he drove away from the nursing home, she pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them tight.

“Susan Payne was right,” she finally said. “I shouldn’t be leading the Team.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he said, dividing his attention between her and the traffic surrounding them. He had no idea where he was going, simply headed toward the bay since they were looking for a boat. But it was a hell of a big bay. With several rivers flowing into it. Not to mention the Atlantic Ocean. “No one could've stopped the Preacher except you.”

“You would have. You had him in custody. You would have interrogated him, gotten more intel. I’m the one who let him go. Let him die without telling us everything.”

“And saved thousands of lives. We might've had him in custody, but he would have won if those chlorine tankers had exploded last week.”

She shook her head. “I can’t do it, Billy. I can’t make the call.”

He didn’t have to ask. She meant deciding between her daughter’s life and the lives of civilians. Logic said the lives of thousands outweighed the life of one girl, but try telling that to a mother.

“You won’t have to. We’ll find them. Stop them.” Empty words, seeing as they had no leads, but she seemed to take comfort in them. She dragged in a deep breath, unfolded her body, and reached for the laptop.

“Let’s see if they left any clues at the cabin,” she said. “I have cameras there, but it was a compromise. I couldn’t have my security connected to my normal phone—what if someone took it or cloned it? They’d be able to access everything. So the system is set to send an email that looks like spam and isn’t traceable. But it meant there’d always be a delay before I saw any notifications.”

One thing certain to make Rose babble: guilt. “It’s not your fault that you couldn’t warn them. What I’d like to know is how did they track us there?”

“Did either of the kids have cell phones?”

“No. We were all using burners. Swapping them out as well. No one tailed us. No way they could have put a tracer on the van.”

“What about Chase’s vehicle?” Rose asked as she opened the laptop and went online.

“No. I swept it before we left your place in the city.” He found a small park overlooking the bay and pulled in. January, not exactly picnic weather, so they had the place to themselves. He turned to her, and she swung the laptop so they both could see the footage from the cabin.

“That’s Teresa. How’d she—” He watched in dismay as she approached the cabin, disappeared inside for a few minutes, then reappeared. With three men holding weapons on Chase, Jay, and Eve.

Rose swore under her breath as she flipped through the various cameras. “There are the men going in through the bedroom window while Teresa distracts Chase out front.”

“Guess EZ wasn’t our only traitor.”

She made a grunting sound, half disgust and half anger, and fast-forwarded. “And there’s our boat.”

She froze the frame on an image from the dock. Alongside Rose’s motorboat was a twenty-five-foot boat bearing the insignia of the US Coast Guard.

Billy sucked in his breath. “Susan Payne called in the Coast Guard to rescue KC from the explosion in Savannah. The
Merriweather
. It’s the same damn boat.”

“Maybe Teresa and EZ weren’t working alone?” Rose said. Billy took comfort in the fact that there was no trace of recrimination in her voice. She’d never liked or trusted Susan.

But he had. Damn it. How much had he told her? And with Susan’s security clearance, she’d have access to even more information than anything she learned from Billy. “Susan’s with the president and first lady at Norfolk. She’ll be on the grandstand with them when they commission the destroyer.”

“All it would take would be one tiny needle prick and the toxin—”

“Will kill the president. Live on national TV. In front of the entire country.” Exactly the kind of spectacle the Preacher lived for—had died for.

“We’ve got to get to the Secret Service,” she said.

“We’ve got to find that boat. The president isn’t all they have planned for that toxin.”

They stared at each other. It was so unfair. They’d just found each other, finally after everything they’d been through been able to make a real start.

And now they had no choice. They’d have to each go their own way.

“Divide and conquer,” Rose muttered. He wasn’t sure if she was vowing victory over the Preacher’s people or cursing the circumstances that were forcing them apart.

Probably both.

<><><>

Rose tackled the Secret Service while Billy worked the naval side of the equation. She called Jared Wright, the US Marshal guarding Lucky Cavanaugh.

“Rose Prospero, my favorite federal fugitive,” Jared answered. “You call to screw my career even further? Or to let me drag you in, get a commendation?”

“You believe what they’re saying?”

He blew out his breath. “No. Just messing with you—you still owe me for yesterday.”

“I do. And I always pay my debts. How’d you like to help stop an assassination attempt on the president?”

“Like hell. What do I have to do?”

“Put Lucky on, and after we’re done talking, let him make a phone call.”

“You’re shitting me. Who’s he going to call? Someone with their finger on a nuclear bomb or the like?”

“His big sister, Alice.”

There was a pause as Jared tried and failed to dissect her motives. “When this is done, me and you, Rose, we’re gonna play some poker. Deal?”

“Deal.”

A moment later, Lucky came on the line. “Rose? Jared said something about Alice. Is she okay? Nothing happened, did it?”

“Not yet. But we have a situation brewing, and Alice is our only way to save the president.” Lucky’s entire family were law enforcement with Metro PD, except for him and his sister, Alice. He’d gone to work for the ATF, and Alice was in the Secret Service, the only woman on the president’s detail.

Rose quickly explained the situation. “Can you call her? Convince her to allow Billy onto the base? He knows how this toxin works, and if Susan Payne is involved, he can help bring her in quietly.”

“Yeah. Let me talk to her. I think she’ll go for it—although she and the rest of the family are still pretty pissed at you about last week.”

“Letting the baby of the family almost get himself killed? Or letting the Metro Bomb Squad take all the credit in the news?”

“Both. I think. But if Alice gives you or Billy any trouble, just tell her it’s payback for her telling me I could fly. She sent me off the garage roof when I was a kid, and I busted my arm in two places.”

“Guess I’m not the only one getting you into trouble. Thanks, Lucky.”

She hung up and turned to Billy, who was on with Hollywood. “So you can send that to Rose?” he was saying, typing on the laptop. “Yeah, I just sent you the invite to upload to her private cloud account. Wait, here she is.” He handed her his phone, and she gave him hers.

“Lucky’s sister should be calling in a minute with an invite to get you on base.”

“Hollywood has an ex-girlfriend who’s still on speaking terms with him and works with the base’s maritime security division. She can get us almost-real-time feeds of boat traffic. Said the Coast Guard does have a presence here since they helped secure the ships already in dock and are patrolling the bay, but she has no record of the
Merriweather
being assigned. Oh, and he and the good doctor are hopping a flight here in half an hour, just in case we need her expertise.”