Collateral Damage (2 page)

If everything had gone right with the rescue, all of Israel would be singing the US’s praises, but it hadn’t. Now Meir and every other Mossad agent thought they could have made a difference if they’d been there. Hell, Jack had been there and even he felt the same way.

“You know, it’s still not making sense to me.” Jack rubbed the ache in his temple.

“What?”

“That the terrorists blew up the fucking world at the last moment. I clearly remember the second floor was on fire. We were on the third. They could have waited, and picked us off as we climbed out of the windows. The whole suicide scenario of them blowing up us and themselves doesn’t mesh.”

“With Beck’s team on the perimeter, maybe they didn’t think they had any other option. Who can ever really understand the suicide mindset?” Weston shrugged, dismissing the subject. “Listen and take a chill pill. Every agency with an acronym from A to Z has men on the job and you’re a long way away from getting back into the fray.”

Jack exhaled at the force of the frustration ripping at him. How could he just do nothing? “Have you found out anything about the blue-eyed blond son of a bitch who hid in the armoire?”

“We’ve been through this a dozen times. There’s no record of the guy. No blond men in the photos of dead. Nobody in rescue and recovery remembers seeing a blond man. Rico and Pecos don’t remember seeing him. Maybe you’re confusing him with someone else—”

“Rico doesn’t remember anything after the initial assault into the building. Pecos was in the other room, he never saw the blond. And no, I am not confusing anything. He was there and I killed him. I’d bet my life that not only was he American but Jihad wasn’t even a whisper in his mind. Something more than a Holy War might be behind the kidnappings.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve run every available avenue into the ground.” Weston turned and raked his fingers through his longish hair. Delta didn’t follow regulations. “For now, just let it go, DT. Okay? Put the mission behind you and give yourself time to heal. Why don’t you take a vacation? You wanted to hit Montana last year and had to cancel for a mission. Why not go now?”

Jack closed his eyes and counted, making sure his response sounded damn reasonable. “Take a vacation? Neil’s dead, and I doubt his wife is holding her own. My best friend is on a on a major bender and won’t even talk to me, something that has never happened in all of the years that I’ve known Beck. Pecos is blind and struggling. Rico is in about the same shape as I am and chomping to get back on the team. These are my men. Not some Joe-Blows off the street. I can’t abandon them right now. And let’s not forget to mention the entire world is on the verge of war over al-Qaeda’s latest. Considering all of that, I can’t believe you’re telling me to go play tourist. To go take pictures of what? Yellowstone?”

“You’re in no shape for active duty and no amount of treadmill running will change that for a while,” Weston shot back. “So let the al-Qaeda shit go. There are plenty of us picking up the fight. I’m helping Mari since Neil died and I’ve been keeping tabs on Beck, Rico and Pecos while you were out of it. They can make do with me until you get some down time. Why don’t you tell Jill off and go see Livy. The daughter you were frantic for when you thought you were dying. The one you’re always saying you don’t see enough.”

Jack exhaled as if sucker punched. He didn’t remember the pleading for Livy part, but he didn’t doubt it was true. Livy was the only good thing about his seven-year marriage to Jill. But he’d only seen his daughter twice a year for the last four years thanks to Jill’s manipulations and move from Fayetteville to Asheville, North Carolina.

Everything regarding their joint custody was spelled out in their divorce agreement, which Jill completely ignored. Jack saw Livy only when it was convenient for Jill and that was on Father’s Day and Christmas. Up until the divorce when Livy was six, Livy had been Jack’s joy. Jill had used that to rip his heart out. The divorce had been bitter and things hadn’t improved much since despite her remarriage.

He could have taken Jill to court and fought for his rights, but then he had no doubt Jill’s animosity level and the poison she fed Livy about him and his career would only increase. Besides, things were better off the way they were. He really sucked at relationships and he never knew when and where he’d be called to duty.

The last time he’d seen Livy had been on Father’s Day. She’d asked him why he was a killer. She’d bought into her mother’s views, who only watched news that covered those protesting the US’s involvement in the war on terror and those opposed to America’s hands on the stabilization of several Middle Eastern countries instead of getting a balanced view by considering the other side of the issue. The growing threat to Western Civilization by radical ideology could not be ignored. It was not going to go away and it had to be met head on at full speed to stop the flood. Anything less would result in failure.

Weston continued, “Beck’s having trouble dealing with what happened but he’ll snap out of it. You can’t help Rico or Pecos right now because you’re in the same boat as they are. Until we know if there’s permanent damage from your injuries all of you are going to have to chill. I’ve been to see Neil’s wife several times, she’s doing okay.” He looked away as if bracing for a blow. “But there’s something you need to know. She has something of Neil to hold on to. She’s pregnant.”

Jack’s knotted insides wrangled tighter. Neil and Mari had been trying for kids since marrying a couple of years ago. “Damn. Life never fails to deliver, does it?”

“Yeah. So why the hell are you making it worse? You keep driving yourself like this and you won’t be around to see the kid born or help us stop al-Qaeda’s bandwagon. The doctors say you’ll be well enough to leave the hospital shortly and do outpatient PT. We can arrange for that at the Medical Center in Asheville. Go see Livy and give yourself time to heal.”

“I’ll think about it,” Jack said. But once he looked in the mirror after Weston left, he knew he wouldn’t be seeing his daughter. He looked as rough as Weston had described. Livy already thought Jack was a monster and right now with the demons eating at him over the failed mission in Lebanon and the world’s situation, his daughter’s assessment wouldn’t be too far from the truth.

Chapter Two

Buford, Georgia

“We must take this to the police.” Thomas Ettinger’s voice over the cell phone held a hint of panic to it. “Bill might be in real trouble. He’s not answering his cell and I get nothing but voice mail at his home. God, he could even be dead.”

Ya think
? Conrad Gardner clenched his teeth, stifling his sarcastic retort as he restrained himself from throwing his cell phone in frustration. Instead, he stomped on the gas pedal—several times—but barely shot forward. With the sputtering AC on, his clunker was already at top speed.

It amazed him that Thomas even considered Bill might be alive. Posthumously would be the
only
way Conrad would reveal where he’d stashed five million.

Well, semi-revealed. According to the short and sweet letter that arrived less than two hours ago, Conrad had part of the puzzle.

Con,

You’re receiving this because something has gone seriously wrong. I won’t be making Forbes list but maybe my buds can. There’s a million each waiting for you guys for nailing the man in the yellow hat for his international crimes. Bring him down for me. Lauren holds the keys to the evidence and the formula. But in case that blows up in your faces, I’ve written a clue to each of you on where cash is hidden. Con, yours is first, then Thomas, Edward, Ray and Bob’s. Don’t fail me.

There once lived a king…

Bill

Conrad’s current dilemma was that Thomas didn’t want to have any part of what might be shady dealings and dirty money. The idiot wanted to turn everything over to the police.

Conrad wasn’t interested in nailing anyone, yellow hat or not, but he was damn well getting his hands on the money. And sometime this century would be nice. He’d been arguing with Thomas for over an hour now. The cities and exits skirting Georgia’s Interstate 85 had passed in a blur as Conrad had made record time from his South Carolina home off Lake Hartwell to Thomas’s Buford, Georgia estate north of Atlanta

When it came to the law, Thomas was as narrow minded as a needle eye and as unyielding as his extra-starched Armani dress shirts. By keeping the prig on the phone, Conrad was assuring himself that the man couldn’t screw things up by singing his righteous song to the cops or any of their other so called friends. Last year in Vegas Bill, Edward, Ray and Bob had embarrassed the hell out of Conrad by making fun of him in front of a chick Conrad was well on his way to nailing. Friends didn’t screw friends out of a great screw. They’d always razzed him about shit, a joke here or there that Conrad always let pass with a laugh just to be “in” with the rich crowd. But this time had been different, and his ass still burned every time he thought about it. The others didn’t deserve the money. They didn’t need the money and it pissed him off that Bill had included them.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes and we’ll work it out,” Conrad told Thomas, putting as much assurance as he could muster into his voice. “Bill entrusted us. If he’d wanted this information in police hands, he would have sent it to them.”

“Which is exactly my point,” Thomas replied. “Because he didn’t means the money is not on the up and up. I hate saying this, but he may have stolen it from the man in the yellow hat. Two wrongs don’t make a right. If that man is a criminal then let the police handle it.”

“Hold on.” Conrad avoided hitting a semi then sharply cut across the lanes to make the right exit. Conrad argued with Thomas another ten minutes as he ate up the roads. The more he thought about the unfairness of it all, the more pissed he became.

His ass should be living on a multi-million dollar estate like the rest of the guys instead of in a rundown double-wide. The moment Conrad had shown up at Clemson on a football scholarship years ago, he’d realized he was destined to be rich. And it all would have been his too, if he hadn’t blown his knee in his junior year. His name and the Heisman had been buzzing in the same sentence and the scouts had him pegged for the top NFL teams.

Now he sold security systems and repaired boat engines while all his college buds lived the high life. Every time they made their annual trip to Vegas over the past twelve years, he’d heard the stories of their luxurious lives. They threw cash about like Mardi Gras beads while his credit card debt mounted into the thousands. This was his chance to change all of that and Thomas’s self-righteous bullshit wasn’t going to screw him out of it. And the more he thought about it, the more determined he became to keep all of the money for himself. He deserved it.

“Open the gate for me. I’m coming up the drive now.”

Thomas agreed and hung up the phone.

When Conrad arrived, they knocked knuckles as usual and went to the back deck of the three story mansion for a beer. Thomas’s wife had left him a few years back. Ran off with her tennis instructor and reamed Thomas for half of everything, but the man was still rich. It boggled Conrad’s mind. Both the wealth Thomas must have and the fact that he’d let the bitch take any of it.

If it had been Conrad, he would have figured out a way to keep what was his no matter what. Far below the deck, Lake Lanier’s green waters rippled with boats and jet skies. Tree tops swayed in the pine-scented breeze and the late afternoon-evening sun bored holes in his head. His blood pressure rose with every word Thomas spoke until he thought he would explode as they argued more about Bill’s letter and the waiting fortune.

Forty minutes and three beers later, Thomas had completely entrenched himself in doing the right thing. But before calling the police, Conrad had talked Thomas into calling the others—Ray, Edward and Bob—to get their opinion about it. The numerous calls were met by voice mail and completely dashed Conrad’s hope of swaying Thomas to keep the cops out of it. The dirty-cop bastards would likely keep the money for themselves.

Head pounding, Conrad raged inside as the thought of five million escaping his grasp edged him closer toward desperation. He studied Thomas intently, wondering if the asshole was waiting for him to beg. Out of all of the men in their group, he’d always thought Thomas the most compassionate. The others often teased Thomas too, just not as often or as bad as they did Conrad.

“At least let me look at the letter Bill sent before we call the cops.” Conrad wiped the sweat from his brow, his fist clenched with rage. “How do we know this isn’t another one of Bill or the other guys’ pranks? The shits are always making me or you the brunt of a joke.”

Thomas’s eyes widened as doubt hit and he pulled a folded letter from his back pocket. He went to hand the letter over, but then shook his head and jerked the note back. “No. This just goes too far for Bill or even the others. And if you read my part of the clue for the money then you’ll take off and end up in trouble. Believe me, Con, I’m doing this for your good as well as my own.”

“To hell with that. This is millions you’re pissing away with your righteous dick.” Conrad snatched the letter, moved back from Thomas, and held his friend at bay as he skimmed the letter. His six-two height made keeping it out of five-nine Thomas’s reach doable. Still, Thomas kept jumping and yelling for the letter until he’d backed Conrad to the deck’s rail. Conrad was in the middle of reading the clue for the hidden money when Thomas caught the bottom of the letter and ripped it.

Roaring in anger, Conrad lashed out and slammed his fist into Thomas’s face then watched in disbelief as his friend pitched through the splintering rail to the rocky ground thirty feet below. Conrad quickly grabbed the rail post and regained his balance, keeping himself from the same fate. He had to take several deep breaths before he could look down. Thomas must have landed on his head because he lay unmoving with his neck at an odd angle. His eyes stared blankly up toward the sky as blood flowed from his nose and busted lip.