Killing Time (One-Eyed Jacks), page 12
And, whoa. She’d called him Mike.
She’d never called him Mike before. Always Brown. He’d understood; it established a line of demarcation. We are not friends, it said clearly. We are merely working together by necessity.
But she’d just changed the game.
Like when he’d joined her and Gabe on the terrace after his shower. He’d thought then that he’d read more into her expression than was warranted. But no, he’d been right. She’d been glad to see him. And then she’d looked away. Probably as surprised by her reaction as he’d been.
“Sorry,” he said. Not the time. Not the place, and sure as hell not the woman to be bonding with. Sure, he wanted to take her to bed. Any man with a pulse would want her.
But he was smart enough to know that an entanglement with Eva Salinas would come to no good end. So, no. Never. No way. This woman had complication, complication, and had he mentioned complication? written all over her.
“Is that it?” he asked with a no-nonsense nod toward the monitor and the document she’d opened up.
“Yeah. That’s the first one of several.”
She scooted her chair to the side so he could move in close and start reading.
It was all there. Spelled out nice and neat and military sharp. I’s dotted. T’s double crossed. Just the facts—and they were all wrong. All lies.
He hadn’t realized he’d started to sweat until he felt a trickle of perspiration inch down his temple.
“Looks like a cut-and-dried case against me,” he said, closing out the first document and opening another. “No wonder you wanted me dead.”
She sighed heavily. “I wasn’t going to kill you.”
“Well, no, not after my boyish charm won you over.”
Crap. He could not flirt with her.
“Yeah. The way you stumbled across the dance floor and gagged me with your pisco breath made my heart go pitty pat,” she flirted back.
Not good. Not good at all.
He could see in her eyes that she’d realized it a split second after he had. She quickly nipped it in the bud with a sober scowl.
We are totally on the same page here, chica.
He cleared his throat, all business again, and leaned closer to the screen to put a little distance between them and that floral scent that made him crazy. Or maybe he was making himself crazy. He’d had plenty of practice in that area the past several years.
“I figured at the very least you were guilty of collusion with whoever had called the shots,” she said. “But I decided that until I could confront you face-to-face, I wasn’t taking any chances. That’s when I started digging past the file.”
He listened as he scrolled. Closed one document, opened another, not seeing anything he hadn’t known before.
“So who all did you bump about this?” he asked absently.
“It’s more like who didn’t I talk to.” She stared morosely at the screen over his shoulder. “So when doors started slamming shut in my face and I began to get the sense that I was being followed, I turned my focus in another direction. It didn’t make sense at that point that you were behind whoever was stonewalling or following me. You couldn’t have connections that reached that far.
“So the question was,” she continued, “who did that leave? That’s when I started giving serious thought to a cover-up.”
“Maybe that’s what your mysterious benefactor wanted when he gave you the flash drive,” he speculated, opening the next file. “For you to investigate the possibility.”
“I wondered the same thing. But no matter how I spun it, I hated the idea. I’ve spent my entire career in service. To believe that you were innocent was to believe that my own government had conspired against you. But to what end? Why throw a decorated Navy pilot under the bus?”
“Lots of questions,” he agreed absently and clicked on another file. The first thing to open was a photograph.
His heart stopped dead before his mind fully engaged. Then he leaned in close, taking a really long look, making sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him.
17
“I have no idea why his photo was included along with the OSD files,” Eva said over Mike’s shoulder. “But in case it wasn’t by accident, I checked him out anyway. His name is Joseph Lawson.” She hit the print button and waited for the printer to spit out the photograph. “I didn’t find any connection to him and Afghanistan or you or Ramon.”
Only when she turned back to him did it register how deadly quiet he’d become. So quiet, she knew something big was going on.
She watched his face as she handed him Lawson’s photograph. “You know him, don’t you?”
Several seconds ticked by while he read all the information she’d compiled on Joseph Lawson.
He stood abruptly. “We need to share this with Gabe.” Shouldering around her, he headed out of the office.
• • •
They found Gabe on the terrace talking on his cell. The minute he saw the look on Mike’s face, he said, “I’ve got to go, babe. Call you back later. Love you, too. Kiss Ali for me.” He ended the call. “What?”
Mike handed him Lawson’s picture without a word. Just as he hadn’t spoken another word to Eva after announcing that they needed to talk to Gabe.
Eva watched the exchange and shivered, sensing they were on the brink of a major breakthrough.
She breathed deep as Gabe studied the photograph. The July evening had cooled a little; that daylight was now a memory. Light from strategically placed sconces bathed the terrace in a soft glow. The fragrance of flowers spilling from a dozen planters scattered around the tile floor drifted on a soft breeze. But the soothing summer scents and colors did nothing to cut the tension that emanated from Mike in troubling waves.
She was worried about him. Which was crazy; he was a big boy. And while he wasn’t exactly her enemy, he wasn’t exactly her friend, either. Still, ever since he’d seen Lawson’s photograph, something had changed inside him. Something profound. Until that moment, she’d sensed he was only here because he’d felt he had no choice, not because he wanted answers.
There was no question that he was fully invested now.
Gabe’s expression was thoughtful as he squinted from the photo to Eva. “And?” Eva looked toward Mike for a clue.
“Tell him what you’ve got,” he said.
Eva turned back to Gabe. “That photo was included along with the OSD files. I didn’t understand why—still don’t understand why—since it didn’t seem to have any connection, but I ran it through the CIA database anyway.”
Gabe smiled. “See, you are a spy.”
“Because I’m an attorney,” she reminded him, “it’s in my nature to investigate all angles of any situation. Anyway, I got a hit. His name is Joseph Lawson.”
Gabe glanced at Mike. “Should the name sound familiar?”
Mike looked grim. “It’s going to.”
“I pulled as much intel on Lawson as I could find,” Eva continued. “And when I butted up against security clearance restrictions, I leaned on some of my friends in-house.”
“Let me guess—it was about that time your sources dried up and you started to sense you were being followed,” Gabe said.
“Now that I think about it, you’re right. That’s exactly when the stonewalling started. But not before I found out about the organization Joseph Lawson founded.”
“UWD. United We Denounce,” Mike filled in the blank when Gabe’s brows furrowed. “A radical militia survivalist group that denounces all allegiance to the U.S. government.”
Mike drew a deep breath and dropped down on a chair, his hands clasped together between his knees like he was physically attempting to get a grip, Eva thought, watching him.
Gabe held up a finger. “I remember now. Saw Lawson’s name on a government watch list several years ago. Has a big compound full of followers living somewhere in the mountains out west, right?”
Eva nodded. “UWD headquarters are in Idaho, at a commune on land Lawson’s parents left him when they died.”
“Perfect place to build a communal colony, isolate his followers from the outside world, and brainwash them,” Gabe said grimly and lifted a hand for Eva to continue.
“It’s estimated that between one hundred and one twenty-five UWD members and their families are in Idaho, but Lawson’s recently branched out. He’s started up smaller settlements in five or six states and over the past year the membership has multiplied like rabbits. UWD is now the fastest growing antigovernment group of the decade.”
“So what’s the background story on Lawson?” Gabe turned directly to Eva since Mike had grown quiet.
“Former Spec Ops. Gulf War veteran. Reports indicate he suffers from untreated PTSD with violent tendencies. Took to using his wife as a punching bag. Several years ago, when she finally filed a restraining order against him and left him, taking their only child with her, he turned radical zealot and started gathering disciples. His numbers are estimated to be pushing three hundred now.”
Gabe scratched his jaw. “So how much trouble have they stirred up?”
Eva shrugged. “They’ve actually been pretty quiet, so the FBI has been content to list them on their watch list as a cult and monitor their activities.”
When she fell silent, Gabe looked at Mike, then back to Eva. “I’m guessing that silence I hear precedes the sound of a shoe about to fall?”
She drew a deep breath. “Because of the escalating extremist rhetoric on his underground website, it’s now suspected that UWD is a front for a paramilitary operation. Recently, he was spotted in a surveillance photo meeting with a known member of the Juarez drug cartel’s La Linea.”
The Juarez organization had far-reaching tentacles, with contacts and suppliers all over the world. They were also ruthless. Too many headline stories showed crime scenes with the decapitated bodies of their victims. Recently, Acosta Hernandez had been sentenced to ten consecutive life sentences after pleading guilty to charges of racketeering, drug conspiracy, money laundering, firearms violations, murder, and conspiracy to kill in a foreign country. Hernandez had been linked to over 1,500 homicides in Mexico alone.
Gabe’s expression hardened. “So we’ve got a wacko running a cult tied to the Juarez cartel. Talk about a goatfuck.” He turned to Mike. “I still don’t get the connection to you.”
When Mike’s eyes met his friend’s, he looked haunted and hunted.
“He was in Afghanistan,” Mike finally said, his voice gruff with emotion. “The night OSD went down. I saw him. I saw Lawson. The sonofabitch was in the Mi-8 when it landed.”
• • •
Mike was low on sleep and high on fatigue. Yet as he stood alone on the terrace, he was as revved up as an Indy race car. Adrenaline, hate, and the need for revenge fueled him. His fingers were clamped so tightly around the terrace rail they ached, yet he couldn’t let go. Consumed by rage, he was afraid he might grab the first thing he could put his hands on and heave it over the side. Potted plants, furniture, he didn’t care. He wanted to throw something. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to destroy something.
His entire life had been kicked to the curb because of Lawson. For eight years, he’d told himself to forget what happened. Tried to “nut up” and carry on.
But he finally wanted his life back. He wanted payback. First, though, he needed answers.
They had to find out what Lawson had been doing in Afghanistan. Had he been gunrunning even then? The village had lit up like a bomb site when that ammo had started cooking off. Had the One-Eyed Jacks team stumbled onto one of Lawson’s weapons caches? Had he needed them all dead to keep from being discovered? Was that why he’d needed a fall guy when he’d found out there’d been witnesses—Mike, Taggart, and Cooper?
If that was the case, then Lawson had to have a pipeline directly to someone in the military to pull it off. Someone with clout. Someone who had been on board and on his payroll, who had driven the locomotive that ran Mike out of the service.
His mind spun in circles trying to figure it out. Maybe it had been something even bigger than an ammo dump or weapons cache. Their FOB in the Pashtun Helmand Province had been within a hundred kilometers of the epicenter of Afghanistan’s poppy and opium pipeline. Had Lawson been cashing in on the rampant opium trade? Had he been supplying the Taliban with weapons in exchange for the opium? Was he still supplying them, in addition to dealing with the Mexican drug cartel?
They’d get their answers eventually—including answers about who Lawson was in league with and had helped him with the cover-up.
Yeah. Now that they knew where to start, they would find out. Gabe had headed inside to his office over an hour ago and alerted the BOI team. All their resources were now invested in digging up every piece of intel that existed on Joseph Lawson and his known associates, and in finding out who leaked the OSD information to Eva, and why someone wanted her dead because of it.
He breathed deep. Willed his fingers to unclamp from the rail. He needed to chill. Needed to level himself out. This was far from over. It was just beginning, and this was about more than his own personal vendetta. Another deep breath.
Boom Boom Taggart and Hondo Cooper hadn’t merely been his OEJ teammates. They’d been his friends. His brothers. Like the Black Ops team were brothers.
He hadn’t allowed himself to miss them.
But he missed them tonight. Missed their trash talk. Missed them having his back, and him having theirs. He wanted desperately for them to know he hadn’t sold them out to save his own neck. Wanted things back to the way they had been between them.
Right. He might as well wish for world peace. Neither was going to happen.
“You okay?”
He hadn’t heard Eva step out onto the terrace. So he guessed that would be a no. No, he was not okay.
“I’m fine,” he lied. “You should turn in. Tomorrow’s bound to be a long day.”
Tomorrow they’d have enough intel to decide how to proceed. Mike already knew the basic game plan: Get Lawson. The man’s thin, ferret face and beady eyes had haunted him for too damn long. When he found him, Mike intended to make him squeal like a stuck pig, bleed him for information, then tear him limb from limb.
Eva joined him at the terrace rail. He should warn her away. Right here, right now, was not a good place for her to be. Not when he felt this raw and achy, in need of something to release the emotions that had built up inside him like white-hot steam.
But one look at her face and he knew he couldn’t send her away. He’d known her for . . . what? A little over twenty-four hours? And yet he could tell she was troubled.
She had something she wanted to say.
Exercising more patience than he thought he had left in him, he waited. Let her take her time.
“Lawson . . . knowing who he is, knowing he was in Afghanistan.” She glanced at him, then looked away again. “It’s a game changer for you.”
He pushed out a breath that sounded a little like a laugh, a lot like a groan. As understatements went, that was Guinness World Record–worthy. “Little bit, yeah.”
“I can’t . . .” She stopped and the emotion that clogged her voice made him turn toward her again. “I can’t imagine what you must be feeling.”
Her dark eyes glittered with tears that made it clear she could imagine the tumult of emotions inside him. This changed things for her, too. She now had a name and a face of the man who’d had a hand in her husband’s death.
Don’t do it, he warned himself. Do not touch her. Do not comfort her. Not unless you’re prepared to start something that she’s not going to want to finish.
He was so close to the edge right now, it was all he could do to keep himself together, to keep from howling at the moon, beating his chest and demanding the entire world look at him, listen to him, believe him. I did nothing wrong.
“I’m so, so sorry for what this has cost you.” The compassion in her voice rattled him.
She rattled him. He’d seen the way she’d been watching him since they’d connected Lawson to Afghanistan. She was worried about him. When had she started caring? And man, she shouldn’t. She had her own adjustments to make. Thinking her husband died on a mission was one thing. Knowing her husband had been betrayed by another American . . . that was no easy weight to bear. Not to mention, someone wanted her dead.
Do not touch her.
But he couldn’t stop himself. He lifted a hand, made the slightest contact with her shoulder. “Eva—”
And she moved into him.
18
Mike held his breath, finally giving in and drawing her against him. To comfort her. That’s all.
The breath left her in a sigh as her arms wrapped around his waist. She pressed her cheek against his chest and nestled against him, and God, oh, God, she felt small and fragile and so uncharacteristically vulnerable, it made his chest hurt.
“For years, I thought Ramon died because of his own careless mistake. He was a warrior. You’re a warrior. You understand. It wasn’t how he would have wanted to go out. And then I find out I was lied to. And lied to again.”
She stopped, worked at composing herself, and Mike wished he could feel something other than contempt for Ramon Salinas. She didn’t deserve what he’d done to her, and Salinas did not deserve Eva’s grief.
“But none of that is going to bring him back.” She lifted her head, tipped her face to his. “For you, though . . . everything changes for you. I lured you back here on the promise of a chance to clear your name, but I never really believed it was going to happen. I used you to get to the truth.”
He knew too much about feeling guilty. About how it made you feel about yourself, about how demoralizing it was. “Everybody uses, Eva. It’s the way of the world.”
A sad smile lifted one corner of her mouth. “Spoken like a man jaded by life.”
“Jaded? Resigned? Fine line. And it doesn’t matter how you got me here. I don’t care. The end result is that because of you I might get my life back. Whatever that might look like.”
