Kill Shot (17 page)

“Then you’d better get started. Pull Kimball
back up.”

Ethan did as he was told, and Jack watched
Gabe, wondering what his friend saw that none of the rest of them
did. Gabe had a mind like a computer and could put pieces of the
puzzle together better than anyone he knew.

“Something about him—” Gabe broke off,
shaking his head. “If we’ve ever met, he was obviously in deep
cover. Who was Kimball’s handler at the CIA?” Gabe asked.

“Let’s see.” Ethan’s finger flew across the
desk as he hacked his way into CIA files. He whistled tunelessly
under his breath as he worked, and the computer screen filled with
jumbled numbers and letters before it cleared into an
understandable language.

Kimball, Shawn F.
popped up on the
screen, and Ethan tapped it with his finger, scrolling quickly
through the information.

“It looks like Assistant Deputy Director
Derrick Kyle with Weapons Intelligence.”

“Pull up Kyle’s file.”

Ethan worked more magic, and Derrick Kyle’s
bio popped up on the big screen with a full-color photo.

“Now that’s a face I do know,” Gabe said.
“He’s changed the shape of his face and hairline, but the eye shape
is the same. Frank Bennett told me there was another plant in
Tussad’s organization. I didn’t know who he was, but I suspected it
was a man named Umar Salleh, also known as Derrick Kyle. He’d been
undercover a couple of years already before I joined the op, but he
gave himself away with little things. I wasn’t there six months
before I had him pegged for an agent.”

“Tussad. That’s the guy you asked me about
earlier. I did some research while you and Grace were gone. He’s
one badass motherfucker.” Ethan’s brain caught up with the words
that were coming out of his mouth, and his eyes widened. “Holy
shit, you worked undercover for Kamir Tussad? And now you’re
actively searching for him? You’re going to get us all killed.”

“Focus, Ethan,” Jack said, smacking him on
the back of the head again. “One cluster fuck at a time.”

Ethan scowled and rubbed the back of his
head. “Someday, Jack, you’re going to be sorry you ever messed with
me.”

“I’m shaking, kid. It looks like you weren’t
the only one who figured Kyle out, Gabe. He was shipped back to the
U.S. in teeny-tiny pieces. Tussad practically gift wrapped the box
before mailing it to Langley.”

“He was killed just before—” Gabe shook his
head, clearing the thoughts that bombarded him. Ethan stared at him
with curiosity, and Jack put his hand on Gabe’s shoulder, either in
warning or comfort.

“Someone sold Kyle out,” Gabe finally said.
“The way this all connects is making my skin crawl. I’m right in
the middle of this whole mess. I’d like to have a talk with Shawn
Kimball.”

“Who did Kyle’s body get shipped to at
Langley?” Jack asked.

Ethan scrolled down a little further in the
file. “Man, the news just keeps getting better. Frank Bennett.
Bennett was Kyle’s immediate boss at the time he was sent
undercover.”

Gabe heard the elevator and knew Grace was
about to join them. “Take the file of Derrick Kyle down. Put it
away. Now.”

***

Grace knew something was up the minute she
stepped off the elevator. None of the three men in the room even
glanced at her, but she could feel the tension in the air
surrounding Ethan. He wasn’t as good at masking his feelings as
Jack and Gabe were. She wanted to laugh as she saw Jack look at
Ethan and shake his head.

She caught Gabe’s eye, but he didn’t glance
away. He’d tell her whatever news he’d discovered when he was ready
and not a minute before.

“Looks like I missed the party.”

She heard footsteps in the hallway, and her
hand went to the weapon at her hip as she stepped to the side of
the door. Logan came in and gave her an arched look when he saw
where her hand was, but he stayed silent. Grace’s curiosity piqued
every time she saw him. There was something about him that was
different. She wanted to know how he got the scars that puckered
across the back of his neck and seemed to go down even further, but
she wouldn’t ask Gabe, and she knew he wouldn’t volunteer the
information about another of his agents.

He wore a long-sleeved gray T-shirt and worn
jeans. Grace noticed he always wore long sleeves, leading her to
believe that the scars were all over his body. His hair was pulled
back in a leather thong and his face had two days’ worth of
stubble.

“So how was Mexico?” Gabe asked.

“Interesting.” Logan sat back in one of the
comfortable leather chairs and stretched out his legs. “The entire
tribe was dead by the time I left.” Logan’s accent was thick with
exhaustion and anger.

“But not by the time you got there?” Gabe
persisted.

“No. Whatever the hell is in that formula is
a sodding terrible way to die. It liquifies every organ. Slowly. I
was there for eight fucking hours, and all I could hear was the
screams of the dying, begging to be put out of their misery. The
WHO doctors who were trying to keep the site contained couldn’t
even go into the tents without casting up their stomachs.”

“Were any of them able to tell you
anything?”

“Jesus, Gabe, they were all dying,” Ethan
said angrily. “How could you even have him question them? ‘Rest in
peace’ should mean something.”

Gabe ignored Ethan and kept his gaze steady
on Logan. He could read the grief in Logan’s eyes. The job had been
a hard one, but it had been necessary.

“The man our initial witness had seen turned
out to be a missionary, so it was a dead end there. But everyone I
questioned, at least those who were able to talk, said they all
heard the same thing. A loud hissing sound and then the vibrations
from the aftershock as the missile hit its target. They didn’t
recall anything else unusual about the day until they all started
getting sick.”

“Did you find the shell casing for the
missile?”

A slight twitch at the corner of Logan’s
mouth was the only way to tell he was smiling. “I brought it back
with me. From what I could tell, and the location where I found the
casing, it looks like it was released from the south. That’s
guerilla territory. Any of those pilots could’ve been bought and
done the deed. Most of them are used to running drugs and guns, so
they wouldn’t have blinked at firing a missile over a peaceful
village. The formula was released as an aerosol, and obviously
found the DNA it was searching for. I found the casing buried in
the sand almost a thousand yards away.”

“Good work, Logan.” Gabe went to stand in
front of the wall screens where Ethan had information set up.

“You guys are a piece of work,” Ethan said,
pushing back from his console. He ran his fingers through his
shaggy hair, his face colored with anger and frustration. “It’s
like you’re all robots. Don’t you have any feelings? Sympathy? I
should not be the fucking voice of reason in this room.”

Gabe turned to face him and sighed tiredly.
“We are who we are, Ethan. There is not one person in this room,
one tribe, or even one goddamned country more important than the
whole. None of us have any illusions as to what we do. We’re
fighting a war that 99.9 percent of the population doesn’t even
know exists. They’re happy and clueless in their homes and with
their jobs. We will all do what it takes for the big picture. If
that means the torture of a captive or questioning an innocent who
is dying a terrible death, then that’s what we’ll do. It’s time to
grow up or get out.”

Ethan’s breath grew ragged, and Gabe could
tell the boy wanted nothing more than to plant his fist right in
Gabe’s face. “Fuck,” Ethan said, scrubbing his hands over his eyes.
“You should at least be sorry.”

“We’re all sorry, but it doesn’t change the
fact that the job has to be done.”

“So what now?” Jack asked, pulling the
attention away from Ethan and onto himself.

“The mass killing should be halted for a
while now that Allen Standridge is dead,” Gabe said. “It’s going to
take some time for whoever is behind this to line up a new
scientist and get a viable test product. We’ve got two goals to
achieve. The first is to get the rest of the formula that’s still
out there in Hitler’s paintings and destroy them. The second is to
flush out this man.”

Gabe turned and faced the picture and
dossier of Shawn Kimball that popped up on the screen. “Kimball’s
working for whoever is behind The Passover Project. He’s former
military, and he’s got CIA connections. I also have a feeling that
this is the man who killed Frank Bennett. If he did, then he had
the opportunity to search the personal files Frank kept at home. He
might know more about some of us than I’m comfortable with.”

Grace narrowed her eyes at Gabe as if trying
to read between the lines. There was something deeper here than
Kimball knowing about their private lives.

“How are we going to flush him out?” Ethan
asked. “He obviously knows where we are since he’s sending thugs
after Jack.”

“We won’t have to. He’ll come to us. He’s
got us under surveillance. We’re going to have to get rid of most
of his team before we can leave for Tehran and destroy the
painting, but we’ll leave one of them alive to deliver a
message.”

“We’ll be ready for him,” Jack said. “I’ve
got a little something of my own to deliver to Mr. Kimball.” He
rubbed at his sore ribs.

Ethan’s anger hadn’t dissipated, but he’d
gotten control over it for the most part. Gabe knew he was asking a
lot of the kid, but they’d all been young when they’d started, and
they’d each had to make certain adjustments to be comfortable with
the kind of people they’d become. The job wasn’t for everyone, and
he still wasn’t sure Ethan would be able to cut it.

“So, great. We’re going to save the world
and kill or torture everyone who deserves it. Just one question.
How the hell are we all supposed to get into Iran? There’s no way
we’re going to get in unnoticed with all the security checkpoints
they have.”

Gabe decided to let Jack handle this one
since he was already laughing at the kid’s naivety.

“Well, son, since you’ll be staying here, I
don’t think you’ll have to worry about it overmuch,” Jack said.
“Leave the hard part to the big boys.”

“The hell I’m not going,” he said, launching
himself at Jack and getting a quick punch in before Jack could
block him.

Jack’s eyes narrowed, and he shoved Ethan
back on the couch with barely any effort, dabbing at his split lip.
“Don’t touch me again, kid,” Jack growled. “It’s the only warning
you’ll get. If you want to be an adult, it’s time to start acting
like one. We’re a team. And you can’t get past your own pride and
immaturity to see that there are four other people whose lives
count on the trust of each other, and they’re all waiting on you to
grow up.”

Ethan deflated a little and said, “You need
my eyes inside the museum. What if something goes wrong?”

“Ethan,” he said. “It’s safer for all of us
with you here. Getting electronic equipment into the country is
always tricky. You can do everything you need to do from the
comfort of this room.” He kept going before Ethan had a chance to
argue. “The rest of us have covers already built and the paperwork
we need to get into the country without a hassle. It’s time you
started trusting the rest of us to do our jobs because we are all
trusting you to be our eyes and ears once we’re in. What do you
say, Ethan? How about being one of the team?”

Ethan stared at him a long time, and Gabe
wasn’t sure what answer the kid would give. He had a complicated
brain and a whole lot of baggage.

“Do I get to have a gun?” Ethan asked.

“Why don’t we work up to that?” Gabe said.
“I’m sure Jack would love to give you some lessons.”

Jack grimaced, and the others laughed as the
tension was finally broken.

“Let’s get to work,” Gabe said.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Grace said.
“This isn’t a date. We’re hunting.”

“I’ll take whatever I can get at this
point.” Gabe grabbed her hand and twined his fingers with hers.
“Have I ever told you I like feeling the callous on your trigger
finger? It’s a hell of a turn on.”

“I’m sure a therapist would have a field day
with that.”

“We both know exactly what we are Grace.
There’s never been any room for remorse in our line of work.
Sympathy and compassion, yes. But not remorse. Someone’s got to do
the dirty work. And only the best survive. We’re the best. I’d
think it’s perfectly normal for people like us to find a certain
skill set to be attractive to the opposite sex.”

“Your psychology minor is showing.”

“Wait till I get you on my couch.”

She laughed before she could help it. The
sound was rusty, and a part of her wanted to feel guilty. She
shouldn’t feel joy. Should she?

They strolled casually through the streets
of Westminster—a couple holding hands, both armed to the teeth. It
was midafternoon, and the sun was shining bright overhead, burning
off the perpetual gloominess of gray clouds that kept threatening
to fill the sky. There’d be more rain once the sun went down. They
had one goal only for their outing—to flush out Kimball’s men and
give them a message to give to their leader.

“What do you think?” Gabe asked.

“I spotted one on the roof of the building
across the street. He’s probably working as part of a two- or
three-man team on a rotation schedule. They could’ve rented the top
floor of the entire building. It’s what I would do.”

“Did you get that, Ethan?” Gabe asked.

“Loud and clear. I’m already checking.”

They were testing out the equipment they’d
use once they were in Iran. Ethan had developed a wireless
listening device that used satellite technology so the listener
could hear conversations thousands of miles away. The device fit
entirely inside the ear, so it was completely out of sight. They
could turn the device on and off with a touch of a button on the
watches they all wore. Gabe was still amazed at how clear the sound
quality was. It was like Ethan was in the same room with them.