Hell on Wheels (26 page)

Mystery Man?

“What the…?”

He didn’t get a chance to finish the question before Mystery Man was discharging his weapon, ducking down behind the building’s rooftop air-conditioning unit when he was met with rapid return fire.

Then the bullets suddenly stopped flying. In the aftermath, the silence in the street was thick and heavy as Phantom’s chassis. The quiet
tick-tick-tick
of motorcycle’s stalled engine almost obscenely loud in comparison.

Nate was scouring the opposite rooftop for another glimpse of Mystery Man when a muffled cry had him turning in time to see the men of Black Knights Inc. barreling toward them, loaded for bear, weapons held at the ready.

And then—

“Oh my God!” Ali whispered, her eyes wide with horror as she glanced through the partially opened wrought-iron gate into the compound beyond. “Is that Patti?”

“No,” he groaned, his chest squeezing so tight it was a wonder he was able to draw breath. “Sweet Christ, no!”

But no amount of denial would change the fact that Patti lay sprawled on the pavement not six feet from the gate, the dark pool of blood beneath her slowly spreading out to form a macabre circle. A bunch of…

Lord, it looked like she’d been carrying a tray of chocolate chip cookies when she’d been cut down. They were strewn about her body like some sort of horrific confetti.

One minute Dan was kneeling beside his wife, the next he was barreling toward the barely open gate, screaming like a berserker. He frantically wiggled and squirmed and finally squeezed himself between the two halves, only to break into a madcap dash, muscular arms pumping, big thighs churning and then he—

Holy shit!

He slammed himself into Mystery Man, who was clamoring down the bagel shop’s fire escape. The kinetic force of Dan’s one hundred ninety-five pound body sent both men flying, rolling, weapons lost and forgotten in the battle for supremacy. And then, in the blink of an eye, Dan was on top, sitting on Mr. Mystery’s chest and pummeling the guy’s face with both fists.

“Dan!” Nate yelled, scrambling over to the grappling men. “He’s not the one!”

But Dan couldn’t hear him. In his rage and grief, Dan was deranged and deaf to everything but the awful urge for vengeance.

Nate hooked his arms around Dan’s chest, taking a hard elbow to the ear that nearly knocked him senseless, and hauled the screaming, sobbing Dan up and off Mystery Man. No easy task even though Nate outweighed Dan by a good twenty pounds, because Dan had uncontrollable fury racing like fire through his veins, giving him the strength of about ten men.

“He’s not the one!” Nate roared straight into Dan’s ear, struggling with everything he had to hold on to kicking, hissing sonofabitch. “He’s not the one who shot Patti!”

“You stupid fuck!” Mystery Man yelled and oh, great, that’s just what Nate
didn’t
need as Dan suddenly stilled. He could feel Dan’s whole body coil, and he tightened his grip, waiting for Dan to try to explode out of his hold. Only that’s not what happened. The stupid fuck—yep, at least Mystery Man had that part right—snapped his head back, slamming Nate’s nose so hard bright yellow stars danced cheerfully in front of his vision. He lost his grip as hot blood poured down over his mouth and chin.

Dan took advantage of his momentary shock to ram into Mystery Man just as the guy was pushing himself to his feet. They hit the pavement with a sickening thud, Dan retaining his superior position. Only this time Dan wasn’t punching Mr. Mystery. Oh, no. This time he wrapped is hands around guy’s throat and squeezed so hard the tendons in his forearms stood out like garden hoses.

“He’s…get…ting…a…way,” Mystery Man choked, his face turning crimson as his eyes began to bulge out of their sockets.

Dan couldn’t hear the guy above his own horrible choking sobs, nor could he see Mystery Man struggling to speak through the tears and snot running in a terrible mess down his contorted face.

“Dan,” Nate ignored the blood flowing into his mouth as he squatted beside the two men. “You’ve gotta listen to me now, buddy. This guy didn’t shoot Patti. He was helpin’ us,” Nate glanced down at Mystery Man to see the guy’s eyes start to roll back in his head. “Let go, now.” He placed a heavy hand on Dan’s shoulder. The guy was shaking so hard Nate thought he might just rattle his bones to dust.

Then Dan sucked in a tortured breath and met Nate’s eyes, clarity slowly returning through the haze of temporary madness.

“Let go,” he repeated. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”

Dan glanced down at Mystery Man, whose fingers were clawing at his wrists, leaving deep, bloody furrows.

“You hear me talkin’ to you, soldier?” Nate yelled, shaking Dan’s shoulder, because he had to get through now, like,
right
now
or Mystery Man was toast. “You’re killin’ an innocent man!”

Dan suddenly unclenched his hands, rolling off Mystery Man to scramble to his feet. He stumbled back over to his dead wife, hoarsely wailing his agony the entire way.

Jesus.
Jesus.

Nate blew out a ragged breath and wiped the back of his arm over his mouth and chin. Mystery Man was lying in the middle of the street, sucking in great gulping lungfuls of sweet, life-giving O
2
.

Well, at least Nate’d been able to save one life today.

He spat bright red blood onto the pavement before he turned to see Ali take the shirt that Ozzie ripped over his head. She quickly pressed it onto the bleeding wound in Manus’s big chest. Manus grimaced and moaned, but his eyes were steady on Ali’s face as she leaned down to say something Nate couldn’t hear over the sirens wailing in the distance.

Unbelievable.

The guy was still alive.

And he might just stay that way if that was an ambulance headed in their direction which, by the look of Boss’s vigorous gesturing and the sound of him barking orders into his cell phone, chances were pretty good it was.

A strangled wail that echoed above the approaching sirens had him glancing back through the gates—which was a mistake. Because the awful sight that met his eyes was one that’d stay with him the rest of his life.

Dan was sitting in that big pool of dark blood, surrounded by that awful arrangement of chocolate chip cookies, his wife’s lifeless body cradled in his arms. The guy was rocking and sobbing, his face wet with tears and contorted with grief.

Patti.
God.
Nate didn’t want to believe it.

She was the mother of the group. The one who made sure they all ate. The one who made sure they were wearing clean clothes. The one who made sure there was always beer in the fridge and beef jerky in the cabinets. She was the cool voice of rationality when too much testosterone inevitably had heads getting hot and mouths running hotter.

And now she was gone.

In the blink of an eye, and one madman’s careless barrage of bullets, her sweet light was extinguished forever.

“Sonofabitch!” he cursed and scrubbed a hand over his moist eyes.

What the hell was she doing by the gatehouse anyway? Everyone was supposed to stay secured inside until he and Ali and the damned zip drive were safely back in the shop and they—

“Where do’y’think you’re goin’?” he pointed his .45 at Mystery Man as the guy took a step down the road.

“The second gunman is getting away,” Mystery Man rasped as he raised his hands, palm out. Purple bruises were already popping out around the guy’s abused throat.

“He’s already gone, man,” Nate told him, refusing to lower his weapon, still unsure just whose side ol’ Mr. Mystery was playing on. In the gun battle, he’d been on the side of the Knights, but that didn’t mean the man was gonna stay there. “You know that as well as I do.”

“But I might—”

“Nuh-uh. You’re not leavin’ my sight until we figure out just what the hell is goin’ on here, and just who the hell you are.”

Mystery Man’s split, swollen lips twisted into a dark grimace. “Well, I’m Dagan Zoelner, former CIA. And as for what’s going on here? I think I might be able to shed a little light on that.”

Ali sat on a hard folding chair in the conference room at Black Knights Inc., watching dazedly while Ozzie connected the zip drive to one of his computers.

She felt like she was dreaming. She
had
to be dreaming.

The past two hours weren’t real, were they?

She hadn’t really been in the middle of an all-out gunfight, lovable Patti wasn’t really dead, the gatehouse guard wasn’t really in the middle of a grueling surgery with very little chance of survival, and the Chicago Police Department wasn’t really covering up the whole thing and calling it a “gang-related” incident—via the strict instructions of someone
very
high up in the national government.

As she glanced around at the grim faces of Nate, Frank, Ozzie, and Mystery Man/Dagan Zoelner, she shook her head. She couldn’t deny that,
yes
, this
was
reality. She
had
been in a gunfight, Patti
was
dead, the CPD
had
covered it all up, and Manus—she’d learned the guard was Big Red’s brother—
was
having the damage to his chest repaired right at this very moment.

This very
real
moment.

To make matters worse, if that was even possible, she was about to find out if her brother really had stolen highly classified files to sell on the black market, as former Agent Zoelner claimed.

“We’re in,” Ozzie announced, his broad, agile fingers flying over the keyboard. “Looks like a bunch of Excel spreadsheets and a…wait…there seems to be a video file.”

“Play it,” Frank grumbled, rotating one heavy shoulder and grimacing. “Maybe it’ll tell us just what the fuck this has all been about.”

She glanced up at the big man. His rough face was lined with grief and worry, but he seemed to be holding it together. Despite the horrific tragedy of the last few hours, despite the fact that there might be more terrible tragedy to come if Manus died on the operating table and they learned Grigg really
had
turned traitor, he was holding it together remarkably well.

She supposed that’s what hard men like him did in tough situations.

They held it all together so folks like her could go on living the American Dream. Free and peaceful and…so oblivious.

For some reason, the thought struck her as particularly awful and that, combined with a horrid flash of Patti lying pale and lifeless in a huge puddle of blood and chocolate chip cookies, had her suddenly fighting the urge to puke.

She’d never eat a chocolate chip cookie ever,
ever
again. Just the thought…

“Erp,” she put two fingers to her mouth as she searched the room.

There was a plastic trash can over by the door to Frank’s office, wasn’t there? So if she had to spew, she thought she could just about make it to…

Oh, crapola.

She wasn’t thinking of blood or chocolate chip cookies or plastic trash cans or
anything
any longer, because her lovable brother’s face popped up on Ozzie’s huge monitor and the breath froze in her lungs like two solid blocks of ice. The blood in her veins ran cold as goose bumps pebbled her skin.

“Hey, Ozzie,” Grigg said, the sound of his wonderfully familiar voice choking her.

“Breathe, Ali,” Nate’s strong fingers squeezed her trembling shoulder. “Just breathe, sugar.”

Yeah, breathing was good, especially so that
something
would continue to function while her heart was breaking all over again and bleeding out onto her already unreliable stomach.

“Good job on breaking my code,” Grigg continued, his marvelous face looking just as she remembered it. Handsome, dependable, a little bit ornery…Okay, a
lot
ornery. “Not that it was too much of a stretch for you, I’m sure,” he chuckled, and the sweet sound was like a sharp arrow to her aching heart and crumbling control.

“So,” Grigg’s video image leaned closer to the screen and she caught her breath, “if you’re watching this, it means Ghost is there with you. Hi, buddy,” he waved.

“Jesus,” Nate muttered, his voice hoarse with emotion.

“And I’m probably dead.” Grigg’s image grimaced, his nose doing that wonderful wrinkly thing Ali so loved. “Sorry about that.”

“Christ, man,” Nate choked and turned away, and that was the last straw for Ali. The tears that’d been hovering spilled over to streak, hot and salty, down her cheeks.

A handkerchief suddenly appeared in her hands. She used it to assert a small measure of control over her leaking face.

“Anyway…” Grigg persisted. “I guess that means the shit has hit the fan, you’ve found out about my little off-the-books assignment, and Ali remembered this zip drive that arrived at her house at an unusual time.

“So, let me see if I can clear some things up. I got a call yesterday from Special Agent Delaney of the FBI. I, uh, I met him a while back when Wild Bill and I infiltrated that loony religious sect that was cooking more meth than a thousand-unit trailer park. You remember, Nate? He’s the one I told you about. The one who liked to wear Prada sunglasses and Gucci loafers?”

“Shit,” Nate spat, and Ozzie hit pause on the video as the group gathered around the monitor turned toward Nate. He raked an agitated hand over his face, the bristles on his chin sounding like sandpaper against his rough palm. “I didn’t remember the name Delaney ’cause Grigg always referred t’the guy as GQ.”

“What do you remember now?” Frank urged, gray eyes bloodshot but fiercely alert.

“Nothin’ much,” Nate shook his head regretfully, cursing under his breath. “Just that Grigg was as impressed with the guy’s skill as he was with his fashion sense.”

“Hmph,” Frank grunted, obviously supremely
un
impressed with any man who gave a fig for fashion. As a group, they turned back to the computer screen. Ozzie restarted the video.

“…So Delaney calls me and says he’s got a job only I can do since he can’t trust anyone in his own office or any of the other alphabet soup outfits. He says it’s crucial I don’t reveal the mission to anyone, even to you guys. Claims it’s highly dangerous and there are elements at play he can’t control and he wants to restrict the danger to as few folks as possible. Now,” Grigg shook his head and grinned his wonderful, devil-may-care grin, “I know you’re all cursing me right now, but Delaney wouldn’t have tapped me if he wasn’t in a real bind, which,” Grigg’s grin twisted into another grimace, “turns out he is…uh,
was
. Shit, I’ll get to that part later.

“So anyway, I agreed to the job and met Delaney yesterday evening in DC. There he tells me he suspects a certain senator, a Mr. Alan Aldus, has been selling illegal weapons to some pretty extreme Pakistani tribesmen—big no-no in anyone’s book. Only up to this point, Delaney hasn’t been able to get the evidence he needs to have the good senator arrested. Long story short, Delaney got his hands on Senator Aldus’s computer password and the codenames for the files of the weapons sales. He needed me to go in during the senator’s shindig last night under the guise of a bullet-catcher and copy the files. And no, Ozzie, the senator’s system couldn’t be hacked from the outside. I specifically asked Delaney that question. I also asked him why he didn’t just do it himself, and he started acting all spooked and shit, said he was convinced the senator was on to him and there were folks within his own agency who knew about the deal and were covering for Aldus. Delaney said he was being watched, followed. You know, your typical government-employee paranoia. Still, I was impressed with the guy’s skills in New Mexico, so I agreed to help him and we shook hands and parted ways.

“The job was simple, went off without a hitch. Then, after the party, Delaney failed to show at the drop, and what do you know? Come to find out, the guy’s dead. Supposedly fell asleep at the wheel and dunked his car in the river,” Grigg rolled his beautiful brown eyes.

“Now here I am stuck with my thumb up my butt. I have no clue who I should send these files to. Obviously this thing goes deep and is dangerous as hell, considering Delaney’s convenient sleep apnea episode. I don’t know who’s involved, but it’s gotta be some folks pretty high up. On top of all that, Ghost, you and I are tasked to fly out to Istanbul at oh-three-hundred, which is,” Grigg glanced at his watch, “in exactly two flippin’ hours.

“So,” he puffed out a breath. “Here’s the deal. I’m sending this zip drive along with all the information to Ali. She’ll think it’s just the same-ol’-same-ol’. I’m hoping I come back from this job to nab the zip drive and figure out just what the hell I’m supposed to do with it. But like I said in the beginning, if you’re watching this, I’m probably dead, the shit has hit the fan, and I couldn’t be more sorry about the whole stinkin’ mess.

“That’s it,” Grigg frowned, his usually grinning face lined with harsh worry, “except for one last thing…Ghost, Nate, brother of my heart, I’m gonna need you to watch over Ali. Just…make sure she’s all right, okay?”

They all watched breathlessly as Grigg’s video image leaned forward, and then the screen dissolved to blackness.

“Fuck me,” Frank cursed as Ali quietly sobbed into the soggy handkerchief.

Oh, Grigg.
My
sweet, crazy, dauntless brother.

“So, I guess that blows your theory of Grigg trying to sell black-market files right out of the water,” Ali heard Ozzie say to the CIA guy, Zoelner.

She lifted her head—the thing weighed about a million pounds—and sniffed back her tears in time to see Zoelner make a face.

“Yeah well, like I said, I’d already determined Aldus was completely full of shit.”

“What was in it for you?” Frank asked, his craggy face particularly harsh. “Money?”

“Look,” Zoelner spat, wincing when it stretched his split lip. Dan Man had really done a job on the guy’s face. One eye was swollen almost completely shut while the other sported a pretty nasty gash right below the eyebrow. The ruined skin was hastily closed with a butterfly bandage but not cleaned. Crusty blood clung to the wound. “I don’t have to explain anything to you. Yes, Aldus hired me to track down and secure files for him. Files he told me were highly classified and in danger of being sold to the highest bidder. Yes, I ghosted Miss Morgan here for months, no doubt scaring her to death. Yes, I hung around here, trying to find out just what the hell was going on. But the minute, I mean the very
minute
I became convinced the senator was full of shit, I stopped taking his money. So fuck you and that high horse you’re riding on!”

Zoelner jumped from the metal folding chair he was sitting in, sending the thing toppling over with a loud clang. Without another word, he started toward the stairway leading down to the first floor.

“Hold it,” Frank barked at the guy’s retreating back. Zoelner swung around to face the group, blowing like a winded bull.

“Calm down, for fuck’s sake!” Frank bellowed, doing a pretty good raging bull impression himself. “I’m not accusing you of anything, you sensitive prick. I’m just trying to figure out everyone’s motives here.”

Zoelner pinned his one semi-good eye on Frank’s angrily flushed face. “My motives are my own,” he growled.

“Fine,” Frank threw his wide palms in the air. “Whatever. Keep your damned motives to yourself. But you’re not leaving here. You’re coming with us.”

Zoelner’s jaw sawed back and forth, but he managed to ask calmly, “Going with you where?”

“DC,” Frank informed him, his tone sufficiently broadcasting there would be no ifs, ands, or buts. “The president and his Joint Chiefs are going to be awfully interested in the information on this zip drive, and they’re going want to talk to you about your association with Aldus.”

“How do you know the Joint Chiefs aren’t part of Aldus’s little party?” Zoelner demanded. “You could be leading us all into the lion’s den.”

“Experience,” Frank said, his tone absolute. “And the fact that I personally
know
the Joint Chiefs. They’re a bunch of assholes on a good day, but there’s not a one of them who’d be involved in this.”

“Shit!” Zoelner spat, then winced again and lifted a finger to wipe at the drop of blood that welled on his lower lip.

Oh, crapola, they were leaving. They were going to leave her here as they jetted off to Washington and she…

Well, there was only one thing she was going to do.

“I’m coming with you,” she declared, sniffing back her tears and thrusting out her chin as she glanced around at each of their hard, weary faces. Oh yeah, she was daring any of them to tell her otherwise, because if they did…well, she’d just make sure they didn’t. “I deserve to see this through to the end.”

“Ali—” Nate began but was interrupted by Frank’s harsh tone.

“All right, Ali,” the big man growled, accurately reading her adamant, no-way-I’m-capitulating expression or, more likely, he was simply unwilling to take the time to argue. “Grab whatever you need. The military transport we’re hopping out of Great Lakes Naval Station departs in ninety minutes.”

She nodded and slowly stood from the chair, studiously avoiding Nate’s worried, belligerent gaze. She knew he wanted to argue, bully her into staying where it was safe. But she wasn’t in the mood to be bullied. And right now, she didn’t give a darn about safety.

***

“Their lobbyists say they’ve only got to swing two more votes and then we’ll be on the mark to take—”

Whatever Ron Dunn, the senator from New Jersey, was about to say got cut off when two guys in severe black suits burst into Senator Alan Aldus’s office, closely followed by his harried secretary of twenty years.

“I’m so sorry Senator Aldus,” she gushed, wringing her veiny hands before pushing her trifocals up the long bridge of her nose. “I told them you were in a meeting, but they just pushed past me.”

“It’s okay, Janice,” Aldus assured her, though by the looks of the men striding toward him it was anything but.

Secret Service?

That’s sure as hell what the guys looked like, with their matching dark suits and those clear, plastic wires snaking up from their starched white collars to disappear unobtrusively into the shells of their ears. The Men in Black, up close and in person.