Hell on Wheels (7 page)

“Did you give the photo to the Jacksonville Police?” Frank asked, wondering what the local PD had to say about the incident.

“I did.” She made a sound of disgust. “And when I laid out my theory linking the guy who’s been following me and the mugger, they paid me some pretty nice lip service. Secretly, I think they went in the other room and swirled their fingers around their temples. Look, I know the story is crazy, but I’m convinced I’m right. Those two men are linked. Everything that’s been happening is linked.”

She handed her phone to Ozzie who glanced at the screen before his fingers started flying over the keyboard again.

“It’s North Carolina plates. That last digit there,” she tapped her phone with one fingernail, “it looks like either a B or an R…or maybe a 3.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the kid said. “I can work with it.”

“You can?” Ali’s eyes brightened. “The Jacksonville police said it was too blurry to do anything with.”

“The Jacksonville police don’t have my image enhancement software,” Ozzie boasted, the excitement on his face making him look about twelve years old, which made Frank’s trick shoulder start to ache.

Thirty-nine certainly wasn’t headed for the rocking chair, but with the kind of life he’d led, closing out his fourth decade meant that there were aches…and pops…and shit that just didn’t work right anymore. His trick shoulder being the most annoying of all his current ailments.

He reached for the bottle of ibuprofen he kept in his hip pocket and quickly swallowed a couple of tablets without benefit of water before shoving the Dum Dum back in his mouth.

“Good job, by the way, “ Ozzie added.

“Thanks,” Ali accepted his offhand compliment and watched him jump up from the conference table with the same energy a child jumps out of bed on Christmas morning. The kid snagged his laptop along with her phone and scurried over to his domain. Pulling a long cord from a drawer, he attached it to the phone before jacking it into one of the main computers.

“Anyway,” Ali turned her attention back to the group at the conference table, “the whole incident spooked me, especially when the police didn’t believe me. And since I didn’t want to end up strapped to a wheelchair with my eyelids taped open, pumped full of drugs and falling down a staircase while screaming, “He’s flying!,” I immediately hopped in my car and drove straight here.”

“Be still my heart,” Ozzie swiveled in his desk chair, clutching his chest. “Marry me, Ali. Marry me right now.”

“What am I missing?” Dan asked.

“Come on, man. Mel Gibson?
Conspiracy Theory
? Do you
ever
go to the movies?”

“Ha!” Dan laughed, cocking his head and smoothing his tightly trimmed goatee. “Unlike some people I know, I haven’t spent the last ten years with my head buried in electronics. I’ve been busting my hump doing man’s work and—”

“Spare me one of your speeches,” Ozzie waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve heard them all before. And I don’t know why you’re always trying to shut me down, anyway. ‘Nobody puts baby in the corner.’”

Ozzie waited a beat and when Dan only raised a skeptical brow, he threw his hands in the air. “You’ve got to be kidding me!
Dirty
Dancing
? How can you never have seen
Dirty
Dancing
? It’s a classic!”

“Yeah,” Dan snorted, “a classic piece of shit.”

“Them’s fightin’ words, mister!” Ozzie howled, jumping up to dance from side to side like a boxer.

Dan snorted so loudly, Frank thought the guy might’ve swallowed his tongue which, considering Dan’s propensity toward slinging bullshit and provoking Ozzie, might not be such a bad thing.

The ex-SEALs on the team, Ozzie and Dan Man included, considered themselves to be the best of the best—which made them all cocky as hell. Of course, truth be told, each member of Black Knights Inc., ex-SEAL or not, was on the team because they were at the very tip-tipity top of their game.

Black Knights Inc. had nine guys—soon to be twelve, with the addition of the Mossad agent and the prospective helo pilot and communications specialist—who could go in, finish the job, and make tracks without a whiff of Uncle’s involvement.

The powers-that-be in the monster otherwise known as the U.S. government absolutely
loved
all those intricate little layers of plausible deniability. Didn’t matter that each man on the Black Knights’ payroll ultimately reported back to the Grand-Poobah himself,
El Jefe,
the good ol’ commander in chief. What mattered was that, should any of their missions be discovered, there was no way to trace that mission’s origination to anyone in the U.S. government—which was just fine by Frank. After the clusterfuck that prompted his decision to part ways with the Navy SEALs, he preferred to run his own show.

Then again, by running his own show without the benefit of military hierarchy and the inherent discipline therein, it meant he very often had to put up with these kinds of antics.

And not to be all Danny Glover cliché, but he was getting too old for this shit.

“Cut it out you two,” he growled and Ozzie flashed him a wink before retaking his seat.

“I wasn’t kidding about that proposal.” The kid wiggled his blond eyebrows at Ali.

“I’ll take it under consideration,” she said, smiling sweetly, and Frank noticed Ghost’s fists clench. “So anyway, like I said before the conversation took a crazy turn, I drove straight here. I only stopped to fill up on gas and caffeine. But I uh, God this is so crazy…I think maybe I saw the guy at a Phillips 66 along the way. Not my mugger. The other one. The shadowy one.”

“So for the question of the hour,” he said, “just what have you gotten yourself involved in?”

“That’s just it,” Ali threw her hands in the air, exhaustion and frustration making her voice crack. “I haven’t done anything. I’m a kindergarten teacher, for Pete’s sake. The most exciting thing to happen to me in recent months—apart from the stalking and mugging, that is—are the hardwood floors my landlord finally got around to installing. So, the more appropriate question is, what are
you
guys involved in, or perhaps more precisely, what was
Grigg
involved in that somebody thinks maybe I have something they want?”

There was a sudden oh-God-nobody-move tension in the air. A real deer-in-the-headlights moment.

Sheesh, they must think her completely blind or a total moron.

From the moment she’d set the bug-detector they had mounted out in the front hall screaming, she’d known without a shadow of a doubt they were
not
simply motorcycle mechanics.

Fed up with all of it, particularly with men who refused to believe she could keep a secret, she slammed her hands down on the conference table and stood. Her chair slid backward with a satisfying screech.

“Look, goddamnit!” Six pairs of eyes flew wide. They probably thought there was some national law against kindergarten teachers swearing. “I know this isn’t just some custom motorcycle shop. How stupid do you think I am?” She waved a hand to indicate the bank of state-of-the-art computers and shot them all a look of disgust. “Did you suppose I’d think it was routine for a bunch of motorcycle mechanics to equip their shop with bug-detection devices? Not to mention the fact that it’s obvious you’re all loaded for bear.”

Dan shifted in his chair, “Ali—”

“You’re wearing a knife in the top of your right boot and a handgun in the waistband of your jeans,” she cut him off. It was clear, given all the raised eyebrows around the table, she’d managed to surprise them again, this time with the accuracy of her observation. Somewhat vindicated, she continued, “Nate’s got the same setup, only he keeps his knife under his shirt in a clip by his right-front pants pocket.” She turned on Frank. “
You
aren’t carrying a firearm, but you’ve got at least two knives, one in your waistband and another strapped to your calf. I’m assuming there might be more in the careful way you arrange yourself when you take a seat, but I’m not totally sure.”

“Damn, give the girl a gold star,” Becky laughed and winked at her in approval. “Big brother obviously taught baby sister a thing or two.”

“You don’t even know the half of it,” she told Becky, feeling a smidge of camaraderie with the young woman. At least
someone
in the room seemed to be taking her seriously. “At least Ethan, er, Ozzie over there,” she hooked a thumb over her shoulder to indicate the man, “doesn’t attempt to conceal his weapons.”

“Call me Ozzie, doll,” he called back. He hunched over the keyboard like a starving man hunches over a plate of food. “And there’s no need to conceal my weapons. I figure everyone should see what’s in store for them should they attempt to fuck with me.”

“Oh man.” Dan groaned and rolled his eyes. “Next thing you know he’ll be coming to work shirtless with bandoliers strapped across his chest and a red bandana tied around his head.”

“Ah, so you
have
seen a movie or two.” Ozzie swiveled in his chair, his eyes sparkling with devilish glee. “
Rambo
, huh? I can give you Rambo.” He lowered his voice. “‘They drew first blood. Not me…’”

“What a crock of bullsh—uh, crap.” Dan scoffed.

“Are you sitting there dissing Stallone?” Ozzie demanded, making like he was about to stand in defense of the Italian Stallion.

“No. I’m sitting here dissing
you
, you stu—”

Were they really going to banter back and forth like this and completely ignore the fact that she was mere moments away from a meltdown of nuclear proportions?

“Look,” she jammed her finger into the table for emphasis. “Somebody better start coughing up some answers pretty darned quick, or…or I’m gonna scream!”

She was nearly shaking with fear and frustration and weariness.

It wasn’t every day she got mugged, nearly confronted her stalker, drove halfway across the country, discovered her brother really
had
been keeping secrets from her for years and, as a result, she’d somehow been targeted and bugged. She felt like her life had taken on the relative dimensions and kinetic energy of a tsunami, and she had nothing but her own two hands as protection against the coming onslaught. The kicker being that human palms had no hope of halting a monster wave. It’d just slam into her without stopping to notice the insignificance of her puny body.

And now, on top of all that, she was stuck in a room with Grigg’s closest friends and they seemed more intent on one-upping each other than helping her figure out just what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks was going on.

And crap!

She was on the verge of tears again.

“We are a very small shop of government defense contractors,” Frank said evenly, ignoring Dan and Ozzie’s continued bickering.

Say what, now?
The threatening tears dried up like a desert mirage as she turned to gape at Frank.

Well…that’d been…remarkably easy.

The slightly amused tilt to Frank’s storm-cloud gray eyes assured her he’d had every intention of giving her the answers to her questions from the very beginning.

Okay, so double crap. She’d indulged in a petulant outburst for no apparent reason, which was perfect. As if watching two men rifle through her underwear and being forced to hand over her dirty panties wasn’t humiliation enough for one day.

“All right…” she reached behind her for the chair, mentally shifting gears and shakily retaking her seat. The rush of adrenaline drained from her body, and she suddenly felt like a wet rag, limp and lifeless. So this was it. Finally…the truth—at least more of it than Grigg had been willing to share. Oh, triple crap! Now she
really
felt like crying. “You guys are like…what?” she sniffed and refused to give in to the need for a good ol’ fashioned bawl-a-thon. “
The
Expendables
?”

Ozzie barked with laughter, concluding his verbal sparring with Dan and rejoining the conversation. “I’m in love with you, woman. I swear I’ll make you the best husband ever. And yeah, we’re the Expendables. Just younger, better looking, with cooler bikes and
real
bullets.”

All righty then. So comparisons with
The
Expendables
were not appreciated. Message received. Loud and clear.

“I’m out of the loop again,” Dan groused.

“Dude, of course you are,” Ozzie said. “The movie is less than twenty years old—”

“So then you’re…spies?” she interrupted Ozzie before he and Dan could start going at it again.

Dan rolled his eyes and blew out a disgusted breath. “What is everyone’s fascination with spies? Of all our assignments, those including espionage are usually eye-crossingly dull. Lots of sitting around waiting for that perfect piece of information to land in your lap. No, thank you. Give me a rescue mission or target demolition any day.”

Sheesh, she obviously wasn’t making any friends by trying to categorize them. Thankfully, Frank came to her rescue.

“On occasion we do infiltrations to gather information—what you’d consider your typical espionage. Mostly, however, what we do is the stuff the U.S. government needs done but can’t afford to overtly do itself.”

So okay, he didn’t need to spell it out for her. She’d lived with Grigg working for the Marine Corps long enough to read between the not-so-subtle lines.

“O-
kay
,” she murmured, lifting her Coke toward her mouth, only to stop halfway and set it back down. “Okay,” she said again, a little louder, still having trouble grasping the fact that she’d been given the answer so easily. After years of speculation and waiting for Grigg to come clean, suddenly here she was, with the truth tossed out so matter-of-factly.

Why hadn’t Grigg just told her? Why hadn’t he trusted her to—

No.

Those types of questions weren’t going to get her anywhere. Particularly since the only person who could answer them was gone forever. She swallowed past the hurt and asked a question that
did
matter. “So what sort of assignments was Grigg working on? And what does it have to do with me?”

“Anyone?” Frank looked around the table.

“We disrupted that arms deal out of Brazil right before Grigg and Nate were slated to go to Syria,” Dan offered.

“Yeah,” Ozzie said, while back to rapidly typing on his keyboard, “but that was a clean job. No way anybody could’ve found out who was involved. It’s gotta be something else.”

“Ghost?” Frank asked. “Any way Grigg might’ve given up information that…I don’t know…that could’ve in some way given someone the idea Ali might be in possession of something of value?”

Ali watched Nate’s face harden until it was a wonder it didn’t just split right open.

“Never,” he ground out.

“Yeah,” Dan huffed, “but you weren’t actually in the room with him and, from your report, it must’ve been pretty fucking sick—”

Dan abruptly stopped talking, glancing up at her with a face that’d turned slightly green.

Ali was no dummy.

“What? What room weren’t you in with him?” She swung her attention to Nate. Now
he
was the one who looked ready to cry and,
oh God
, she was
really
getting scared.

“Nate?” her voice broke. “Dear God, what happened?”

He flicked a cold glance toward Dan, clearly telegraphing his intention to rip off the guy’s head.

This was bad. This was very, very—

Frank called her name, his deep voice firm.

Hesitating, searching Nate’s hard, impassive face, she finally dragged her eyes to the man at the head of the table.

“I’m the one who should answer that,” he informed her. “And it goes without saying, what I’m about to tell you can never go beyond this room. Never. Do you understand what that means?” His eyes were frighteningly intense.

If
I
tell
you, I might have to kill you
. That was a joke, wasn’t it? Or maybe not.

She gulped before nodding, aware that this was the turning point.

“Don’t, Boss.” Nate spat.

Frank turned to him, his expression darkly resigned and fiercely uncompromising. “She deserves to know, Ghost.”

Nate swore violently beneath his breath, then glued his eyes to the table.

Ali suddenly felt the need to throw up. A sick foreboding settled at the bottom of her stomach like a disease-encrusted rock.

“Nate and Grigg were on a mission to Syria.” Frank began. “Before they could complete their assignment, they were captured by tangos, uh, terrorists, and tortured for three days. Nate was able to make it out. Grigg wasn’t so lucky.”

He stopped there. Just stopped.

She frantically searched around for a trash can. No lie, she was going to hurl.

Becky must have recognized the look on her face, because the woman jumped up and before Ali could begin to heave, a plastic-lined waste basket was shoved under her nose.

The first wretch brought up the Coke she’d been drinking. The second one was all blue slushy.

As she looked down at the regurgitated Coke and slushy covered smattering of papers and discarded Post-its, she realized, despite her less than gracious response to the news, Frank had no doubt given her the short, clean version. If tales of torture could ever be short and clean.

Holy crap.

Saliva pooled hot and acrid in her mouth, but nothing else came up. Thank goodness. As if she hadn’t humiliated herself enough today, now she had to go and lose her lunch in front of these iron-willed, no doubt iron-stomached, men and women. They probably thought her a total wimp. They probably thought,
no
wonder
Grigg
never
told
her
the
truth. She’s got the backbone of a jellyfish.

Wonderful. Just…wonderful.

And maybe they were right. Maybe Grigg hadn’t trusted that she could handle the truth.

The urge to cry returned in earnest, but someone offered her a distraction when they handed her a bandana. Choking back her disgrace and horror, she wiped her lips before lowering the trash can.

Hesitantly, she returned her attention to the group and was simultaneously gratified and humbled to note there was no censure, no disappointment or disillusionment on any of their faces. In fact, most of them looked as torn-to-pieces as she felt and that just made the tears gather faster. She blinked rapidly and fervently wished for a moment of privacy. Unfortunately, privacy wouldn’t help her figure out what was going on. Sticking it out, hearing the rest of the story—no matter how awful—was the only thing that would help with that.

Dragging in a trembling breath, she folded the bandana into a neat square and asked the only question there was, “Why?”

“Why were they captured and tortured?” Frank replied calmly, as if he hadn’t spent the last couple of minutes watching her completely lose it.

She nodded, though part of her wanted to plug her fingers in her ears, shake her head, and sing
la-la-la
. Sometimes ignorance really was bliss, but she’d come too far to back out now. She wanted to know it all. She
needed
to know it all.

Frank dropped his reluctant gaze to his big hands, carefully folding them around his cup of coffee as he shook his head. “We don’t know. Wrong place at the wrong time, as far as we can tell. The terrorists who took them weren’t supposed to be operating in that region, considering Syria and Lebanon aren’t exactly cozy neighbors. All our sources indicate it was happenstance. Piss poor luck. Grigg and Nate were in transit to their target when their vehicle was ambushed by Hezbollah militants.”

She shivered and swung her teary gaze back to Nate. His square jaw was working hard enough to crush granite. Then she remembered. “Oh, my God, I
hit
you that day. You’d been tortured and I
hit
you. I…I’m so sorry, Nate. P-please forgive me.”