Hotshot (16 page)

Why would they risk notice with something as high-profile as disrupting a congressional hearing?

She tried to pull her thoughts together, making mental notes for later when she could speak more freely. Thank goodness Jaworski was here to keep the peace if need be.

To make sure Vince didn’t throw himself in front of a bullet for her a second time.

Webber jogged down the cement steps leading to the cellar below a condemned brownstone, his ponytail slapping his back. He whistled the preselected top ten song of the day. He didn’t want his buddy in the cellar jumping him.

The late afternoon sun beat on his head like a powerful fist. Only twenty-four more hours, and this would be over.

At the bottom of the stairs, he pumped the handle, the heavy metal door squeaking on its hinges. His mouth dry, he licked his lips and kept whistling. The cooler air underground stank like mold and rotten food.

The slice of light from outside combined with the beams of a fat flashlight glowing in the corner. No shadows. Just one person.

Brody rolled to his feet. “Dude, I owe you.” He jogged across the cement floor and gave him a light one-two slug on the shoulder. “You really saved my ass out there. It was like something out of a movie the way you drove up just in time before those whacked out Apocalypse dudes laid into me.”

“No big thing.” He knelt to jam a brick against the door, propping it open. “I happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

“Funny coincidence.”

Not funny and not a coincidence. He’d been tracking Brody.

Webber stood, grabbed Brody’s hoodie, and slammed him against the concrete wall. “Who did you call?”

“What?” Brody squeaked.

“Come on, brother.” He twisted the sweatshirt tighter. “Speak up, or there’s nothing I can do for you.”

“Just Lewis,” he whispered.

“I know that much. He told me about the call.” Lewis had actually set up the whole thing to see if Brody would take a used cell phone. Webber was supposed to pretend to use a phone, toss it in the trash in clear sight of Brody, then wait and watch. Lewis was always looking for weak links, and Brody had already used up his second chances.

And now he’d forced Webber to betray his friend. A test for Webber, too.

He was walking on the edge here, trying to keep Amber and his mom safe. Shay Bassett, too. “You’re not supposed to call him. Only I am.” He was even keeping Brody alive. “Lewis wants to know who else you called and what you did with the phone.”

“No-nobody,” he stuttered, the lie written on his face.

Webber released his hold long enough to dip his hand in the front pocket of Brody’s sweaty hoodie. “This phone, I’m guessing. We’re supposed to toss ’em after we talk. You know that.”

“I will.” Brody reached to get the phone back, but Webber was quicker.

“It’s all old.” He turned it over and over in his hand. “Scratched up like. Used.” He knew, because he’d marked it ahead of time. “Where did you get it?”

“I found it.” He looked away.

“You just found it? Be straight with me, man. If I can tell, then Lewis is going to know for sure.” He squeezed his friend’s shoulder hard. “I’m trying to help you.”

“Just don’t tell him then.” Brody bucked up.

“The only way you’re going to survive this is to tell the truth.” A fact that scared him snotless, since he’d told his own lies to Lewis. Except Brody wasn’t smart enough to pull it off. Selfish lies showed most.

His foot sank into a soft pile of trash as he stepped closer. “Come on, brother, own up. You can trust me.”

Yeah, he was learning to lie well.

Brody dipped his head and whispered, “I saw you throw it away. It seemed like a waste.”

“What did you do with the money Lewis gave you?”

“Bought some food and stuff.”

Bull. He looked into his friend’s eyes, and yeah, Brody had done exactly what Lewis suspected.

“You bought blow.” Webber pinned him to the wall again, arm across his neck. He wasn’t risking Brody going ape shit on him. “Only question is, did you snort it or shoot up?” Coke or heroin, bad news either way. “Lewis is going to kill you if you don’t get yourself under control. I wouldn’t be surprised if somehow he already knew and sent those Apocalypse badasses to finish the job for him.”

“He wouldn’t do that.” Brody shook his head, his pupils wide, even for a dark cellar. “He’s with us.”

Webber wasn’t as certain.

He leaned in nose to nose. “Are you that much of a pin-head you don’t see he’s playing all sides, whatever brings him the biggest payoff?”

Brody started shaking. Hard. Worse than the time ten years ago when they’d gotten stuck in a snowdrift trying to sled down the drainage ditch. A long time ago.

They weren’t kids anymore.

Webber eased the choke hold and reached into his own deep pocket, his fist curling around brass warmed from his body. His throat hurt like when he used to get strep all the time, but he had to be a man and see this through. It was Brody’s only chance at staying alive.

That’s all he could do now, try to keep the people around him alive. He wasn’t sure exactly when he’d grown a set of balls and decided to do something other than just roll over and die. He only wished he didn’t feel so alone in seeing this out.

Webber waved his free hand out the door and snapped. Three long shadows stretched down the stairs. Drawing up in the entrance. Two brothers and a peewee looking to blood-in with the Mercenaries. All wearing the same brass knuckles he pulled out of his pocket.

Webber thumped Brody on his chest, lightly for now. “You know we have to put you in check.”

Tears pooled up in Brody’s eyes. “I won’t do it again, man. I’m your brother. You can trust me.”

Not anymore.

“Lewis has to see we take care of business, or he won’t be respecting us. You need to remember you ain’t nothing but a soldier.” He tapped Brody on the chest again with the brass knuckles: thump, thump, thump. If he didn’t lead this, someone else would do it. Much worse. “When you disre spected him, you dissed us all.”

Webber threw the first punch.

Before his fist met flesh, he shut down. He blocked the whimpers, the flailing, the pleading. He blocked it all. He was two people right now. Like two halves of a brain. Or two sides of nature. He had logic, the part that told him what he had to do, no matter how much it made him want to puke. And he had rage. Years of it bottled up with nowhere to go.

He let the fury pour out of him now, used it in a way that could bring some good. Brody would hurt like hell, but he wouldn’t end up with a bullet behind his ear. That counted for something. His fist slammed in time with the other arms pumping up and down, driving Brody to the floor.

Then it was over.

Brody lay limp on the ground, eyes closed. Webber knelt down to be sure, and yeah, his friend was still breathing. And groaning. They knew how to deliver a beat down that didn’t damage internal organs.

He swallowed back puke.

Webber reached in his pocket and pitched a wad of rolled bills to the other three. “Go party.” He nodded to the peewee who’d wanted his blood-in so bad. “You done good. You’re a brother now.”

Poor little fucker.

Whooping and high fiving, the three sprinted up the concrete steps. They faded away, high on the smell of blood and whatever they’d pumped into their veins.

Webber walked toward the flashlight and snatched it up, along with a bottle of water. He walked back and poured it all over his childhood friend’s face.

Brody moaned, rolled, and clutched his stomach.

Webber leaned low. “Lewis has a message for you. Quit screwing around and do what you’re told, or he’s going to make sure your sister’s nothing but a toss-up for every Apocalypse piece of shit to plow through.”

Brody cried. He just curled up and sobbed like a baby.

The puke fisted harder up his throat.

Fuck. Webber wanted to cry like a big baby, too. Like the pussy he was trying so hard not to be anymore. But he had to think about the money that would keep his mom and Amber from being tossed. God, these people knew how to find just where to hurt a guy. Lewis had sure found his weak spots fast enough.

He kept kneeling beside his friend and waited until Brody’s heaves slowed.

“I’m gonna take you to the emergency room now. Okay, dude? It’s over. You just gotta keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told. You need to remember you’re a foot soldier. Follow orders, and you’ll stay alive.”

Brody wasn’t half as smart as he thought, and that was dangerous.

Webber stood again. He’d taken a chance in planting a cell phone that actually
had
been used for Brody to “find.”

Lewis hadn’t counted on that. The older guy had told him to use a new one and fake out Brody. Risky thing, disobeying Lewis. Too easily Brody could have been the one delivering the beat down.

But Webber knew he was smarter. His planned disobedience had a purpose. For sure the cops had to be tracing calls after that bomb threat. Setting up Brody to use the cell phone that had been used for the bomb threat, hoping for a trace . . . it was their only chance at taking Lewis out.

And maybe even figuring out what else Lewis had going on that he wasn’t sharing.

Hope. He hated that feeling most of all.

Webber stuffed his hand in his pocket and shook off the brass knuckles. He extended a bloodstained hand.

Brody clasped on tight and tugged himself up, barely, leaning most of his weight. “Doesn’t seem fair I get the beat down when nothing happened to you for taking that bitch’s purse.”

“Life isn’t fair, and if you think it is, then you’re even dumber than I thought, my brother.”

Lewis had given him his orders and made the consequences clear. A suicide bomb explosion would have everyone looking for terrorists and paying less attention to jacking up gangbangers. Shutting up Shay would make for one less—very persuasive—do-gooder who’d somehow snagged big government attention.

And if Webber didn’t comply? Lewis would shoot Webber’s mama full of the coke she’d fought so hard to kick, then cut out Amber’s baby, leaving them both to bleed out.

All Webber needed to stop everything?

Do exactly what he’d threatened on the phone with Shay Bassett that first day he’d been told to call and get under her skin. He had to kill himself. Strap a bomb to his chest and blow himself up, along with an auditorium full of people.

All during a nationally televised congressional hearing.

FIFTEEN

Don wished the pieces of this investigation would come together faster. Instead, it seemed every time they figured something out, the puzzle expanded as wide as the web of cell phone numbers they’d collected by building networks from that banger’s call.

And they had less than twenty-four hours to complete the picture.

Their broadening scope of law enforcement now included the Cleveland Police Department, and the D.C. contingent had shifted to Ohio in preparation for the hearing. He’d been given full use of a station interrogation room for a secured meeting while Paulina settled the Congress members at the hotel.

Although it didn’t take much effort, given the California congressman’s aide seemed to have taken care of everything from a private guard to mints on the pillow.

Don glanced at his watch again, waiting for Vince, Vince’s commander, Shay, and Officer Jaworski. He needed work, in fact welcomed the chance to avoid Paulina and the discussion of a possible pregnancy. She had to have noticed the lack of a condom, but after their explosive sex, she’d hauled out of his place pronto. That was okay by him since he was still reeling at even the thought of a baby.

Another child.

Another chance to fail.

Something was cracking wide open inside him, and he was slapping emotional Band-Aids all over himself to keep from hemorrhaging out faster than coffee gurgled in that old coffeemaker in the corner. The hell of it all? He couldn’t figure out what else to do.

The door clicked open. He jolted to a stop. Whoa.

Officer L. Jaworski was truly and thoroughly torqued off. You’d think the guy would be happy they’d brought him into the loop. Of course, calling the baton-clutching cop had been a no-brainer when Vince had reported from the air about the attack launched on the boy. They’d followed Brody as long as they could until he slipped into a back alley. God only knew what had happened to the kid. Hopefully Shay could offer insights to help them.

Shay, Lieutenant Colonel Scanlon, and Vince followed the young officer who flexed his muscles like an action hero wannabe. The door snicked shut behind them.

“Thank you for meeting with us.” Don nodded a welcome to the familiar faces, shook hands all around. He’d billed himself as a part of Paulina’s team, since technically the CIA had no jurisdiction here. The role of “concerned father” wouldn’t get him the same level of attention. All the more reason to focus on the job at hand rather than checking how Shay was holding up. “We’re looking forward to working together to ensure everything goes smoothly tomorrow.”

“So I hear, Agent Bassett. Let’s get right to it.” Jaworski gestured for everyone to take a seat then set a digital photo frame on the table. He clicked to the first image. “Major Deluca tells me his technology indicates that the boy in this photo made a call today on the same cell phone that was used to place the bomb threat at the community center. It’s important that we be sure. Are you certain that’s Brody? I can’t make out anything from this.”

Vince waved for him to click to the next. “There are more here than she got to see on the printout.” He turned to Shay. “Brody’s the professor-looking one with the scraggly beard, right? ’Cause it appears there’s some facial hair on the chin.”

Shay leaned closer on her elbows, tucking her short brown hair behind her ears. She’d done that as a child when nervous. An image of her as that sweet little tomboy side-swiped Don with questions of what a kid of his with Paulina would look like.

His daughter rubbed the lock of hair between her thumb and forefinger. “Sure, but that’s not what tipped me off. Honestly, it’s just something about the way he’s standing.” She pointed to a tiny smudge on the kid’s neck. “And the head of a snake tattoo wrapping around.”

Jaworski and Vince nearly missed bumping heads looking back at the photo. Vince tapped the magnify feature to zoom in. “Sure enough, there it is.”

Jaworski spun the frame around to fully face him. “We’d have figured it out.”

Ungrateful ass. Don looked at his daughter to give her an atta-girl, then stopped. “You seem surprised by what you’re seeing, Shay.”

She was really working to make that hair stay behind her ear. “I just wouldn’t have thought he would be the one. Other than his drug use, he doesn’t fit the personality type of someone who’s suicidal.”

Suicide. Just the word slammed him back in his seat. He wasn’t sure he wanted this peek into his daughter’s psyche, but had to ask, “What do you mean?”

She tipped the frame toward her, tapping the zoom in on the partially revealed face. “Brody doesn’t seem depressed or isolated. The times I’ve spoken with him face-to-face, I didn’t pick up on any verbal cues. Of course, I could be wrong.”

What cues? Because God, he wished he’d known what to look for and couldn’t hide from the fact he might need to learn so he didn’t screw up again. “Could the hotline calls be a setup? Maybe the kid really doesn’t want to die.”

Maybe Shay hadn’t really meant for it to go so far back then, in spite of what the doctor had said.

Vince rested a hand on the back of her chair. “Your dad may be onto something. A setup to get to you somehow. Put you on edge. Maybe they plan to call right before the hearing. They’ve got you carting your cell phone around with you, taking calls from the kid no matter what’s going on. What would you do if a call came in right before the hearing?” He tapped her shoulder absently. “No need to answer.”

“Sure, it’s possible, but there was still such helplessness, desperation even, in this boy’s voice.” Shay pivoted toward Vince as she made her point.

Very close. Vince’s wrist was still draped over the back of her chair, almost touching her.

Don eyed the two, and sure enough, their body language spoke loud enough it didn’t take a trained agent to see something had shifted between them. Although he’d thought there was something between them years ago and had been dead wrong about that, too.

Shay traced the outline of the image with one finger. “Brody’s more reckless, in your face. When I caught him behind the Dumpster toking up during the bomb threat, he totally didn’t care.”

Jaworski tapped his club absently. “That could be the drugs talking.”

Don felt a tickle in the back of his brain. Something about the Dumpster . . . He shot upright in his seat. “The night I stumbled on the two bodies—Kevin and the student—I smelled marijuana by the Dumpster. There were stubs all around.”

Shay scooted her chair back, as if putting distance between herself and the image of Brody.

“Oh God.” She clapped her hand over her mouth.

Vince’s hand on the back of her seat slid to massage her neck lightly. “That evening of the bomb threat, Shay said something about Apocalypse being after the Mercenaries because of a tag getting dissed. Then there was Mercenary talk of that just being retaliation.”

The cop pulled his PDA back in front of him. “So let’s say Kevin disses a tag, signs his work. Mercenaries up the stakes by painting over Apocalypse art
and
killing the original tagger. The college student was just collateral damage.”

Don lined up the clues and events in his mind. “That feels right. All this activity makes me even more certain they still plan to go through with disrupting the hearing, even with one of their key players—Kevin—dead.”

Jaworski turned off the digital frame. “The time has come for me to pick up Brody for questioning. Maybe we can even get a DNA match off those blunts left at the Dumpster.”

“Just you?” Don could already imagine the steam rising off Paulina if she was shoved aside in the investigation. And if she was dismissed personally? He knew her temper well. They would have to talk soon. “We brought you this information. The murderer will pay in good time. For now our focus has to be security at the hearing.”

Jaworski snorted. “Don’t piss on my shoes, and I won’t piss on yours.”

Vince stepped in. “Officer, it doesn’t appear as clear-cut as picking up this Mercenary kid. Sure, the cell phone network my guys are putting together starts with Brody, but already we’re building a larger pool of numbers that includes far more Apocalypse members. The calls are each cryptic individually. Yet Brody’s the one who made the bomb threats. Both groups are clearly at work here. The question is, are they actually working toward the same end? Or are there two plans in motion?”

Jaworski’s eyes lit. “Then let’s start rounding them up—”

A cell phone interrupted the standoff, a generic ring that sent Jaworski unclipping his cell from his belt. “Excuse me for a moment.”

He flipped open the phone and tucked into a corner, mumbling low before he turned back around, scowling. Not good news.

“You win, Agent Bassett. That kid Brody is going to be a piece of cake to watch. He was just found in an ER waiting room, passed out and beaten to a pulp. He’s in surgery now.”

Still rattled, Shay curled up in the overstuffed chair in her hotel room, stroking her fingers back and forth along her laptop keyboard. She’d been reviewing her speech, but she wanted to be at the hospital. If life hadn’t gone so wildly insane with all this security, she
would
be there now checking on Brody, sneaking a peek at his medical chart.

Sitting in a hotel room with her butt nailed to this stupid chair made her want to scream.

Except that would freak out her current protector, Vince’s crewmate Smooth, otherwise known as Mason Randolph. The young sergeant was watching over her while Vince slept.

At least Smooth never lacked for anything to say. She just let him talk while her mind tumbled with confusion. She still tried to reconcile Brody’s face with the voice on those calls. It didn’t make sense. Of course, none of what these kids were doing made any real sense. Did they have any clue about the terrorist involvement, or were they so oblivious to what was going on they unquestioningly followed orders, no matter what the higher-ups requested?

Right now she was just grateful Brody hadn’t died.

Knowing the two Congress members leading the forum were only a few doors down made her all the more eager to scoop up her laptop and plead her case now.

Smooth snapped his fingers. “You still with me? Do you need a nap? I can stop talking.”

Go to sleep with him in the room? She trusted him, but ewww. She needed this fishbowl feeling to end. “I’m wide-awake.” In spite of the soothing mug of decaf tea in front of her. “So, Smooth . . . uh, do you prefer to be called Smooth or Mason? I never thought to ask.”

He flashed a grin. “Smooth or Mason, either is fine by me.”

“Okay, Mason.” Calling him by a real name made things feel more normal. “I’ve heard Vince called Vapor by the crew. I thought he and his friend Jimmy were Hotshot and Hotwire.”

“That’s more of a recent joke.” He stretched his legs out in front of him, penny loafers and jeans, bare ankles, seeming casual except for the tense flex of his shoulders and the way he always kept himself between her and the door. “For now anyway, his call sign is still officially Vapor, and Vapor it will stay, unless there’s a keg party renaming ceremony.”

“But why is he called Vapor?”

“A number of stories are out there. For a big guy, he walks spooky softly, like vaporizing from one place to solidify in another. Or when he’s had enough of the world he gets on his bike and roars out so fast there’s nothing but vapor left behind.”

“Enough of the world?” She cupped her mug with both hands, the AC chilling her back. “Vince has always been so easygoing.”

“He’s laid back, sure, and God knows there are days when his humor hauls us through. There are also days it’s impossible to joke. Some people think that when we watch through a camera, we’re distanced from what’s happening. Physically, that may be true.” He tapped his temple by a thick head of gorgeous hair that did absolutely nothing for her. “But when it comes to the head games? This isn’t like parking yourself in front of a television.”

She could only imagine what they’d seen in combat. Or worse yet, what they’d seen over a monitor and been powerless to intervene.

What her father had seen?

Her mother had said for years that he must have some form of PTSD. Shay had even mentioned it to the shrink who helped her put her life back together in college. Not that her dad had ever joined in a session for her to have a peek into what he might or might not feel.

She tuned back to Mason, grateful yet again that he liked to talk. Grateful for these insights into her father, who never spoke, and Vince, who joked so much it was tough to tell what he actually felt. Shay sipped her tea, inhaling the soothing minty smell, complete with three sugars.

“We all know this is real, the people are real. The stakes and dangers are real.” One of his penny loafers started to twitch. “People who’ve never even set foot in a church before will find God fast. Most folks get this impression of Vince because of the bike and tats, like he’s scary.”

She stared into her mug, guilt tweaking. She’d almost run screaming from him that first night he’d come back. “I know that bikers go to church, too.”

“Good. But the difference with Vince is that when he prays before combat, he’s not praying for himself.”