The Current Between Us (42 page)

“
Yes, I can.”

“
And if it turns out you’re wrong?” Porter asked. A moment of silence followed where Gage just stared down the general.

“
I still want them untouched,” he said.

“
Now, Synclair,” Porter hedged.

“
It’s the deal. Your choice,” Gage said. The general sat there, drumming his fingers on the table, looking at Gage, and he stared back passively watching the other man.

“
And this report’s worth that kind of unverified guarantee from our government?”

“
Absolutely,” Gage said, nodding.

“
What if I don’t give it?”

“
I’ll take this to Europe and move the family there. They’ll do it in a heartbeat, and they’re waiting now to be transported. I’m just giving my home team the first chance at doing the right thing,” Gage said.

“
Will you still do the report?” Porter asked and sat back in his seat.

“
Not if we keep it here. I’m giving it to you to handle discreetly and confidentially. Which is what you want, you just don’t know it yet,” Gage said, still sitting in the same position as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

“
So you’re giving up the report, turning it over to us, for the guarantee we won’t involve one family?”

“
Well, that’s part one.”

“
What’s the other?” Porter asked.

“
You move in this morning to capture the suspect, and I want a meeting with him. You can be present, no one else,” Gage said. The general sat silently thinking over it all, his eyes narrowed and he never let his gaze slip from Gage. Gage kept a tight rein on the emotions threatening to bubble free, offering nothing more than a return stare while drinking his coffee.

“
Why are you doing this?”

“
I’ll give you a small amount of background after you agree.” It took another few minutes before Porter spoke again.

“
I want you for the next twenty-four hours in DC, available to us. Then I want you on call and on notice for the future until this is resolved.”

“
All right, do we have a deal?” Gage asked.

“
Yes, against my better judgment, I’ll agree,” General Porter nodded.

“
I want it from the top,” Gage immediately said.

“
My word’s enough.”

“
I understand, but this is too important. I need it backed by the top,” Gage said.

“
It’s seven in the fucking morning, Synclair. He’s jogging.” Gage sat there a minute and drained his coffee, staring again.

“
Synclair, you’re a trying, frustrating man,” Porter said.

“
Yeah, yeah, compliments won’t help.” Porter palmed his phone, calling the president. As the phone rang, Gage’s heart began to pound. He was seconds from the final confirmation he needed to keep Trent and the children safe. As he watched the general on the phone, emotion rose to the surface. He hid the pounding of his heart and the deep breaths he took by rising to get another cup of coffee.

“
Mr. President, I’m sorry to bother you this morning. I’m in Chicago with Gage Synclair. He has agreed to turn his next report over to us, step out of it completely, if we agree to keep an American family out of the case. He assures us there is no involvement on their part, and the case is big enough, we will want it regardless of their involvement,” Porter said quickly into the phone while on speaker.

“
General Porter, what did you decide?” the president asked.

“
I agreed to his terms,” he said, looking at Gage as he came back to the table.

“
Then why are you calling me?” the president asked.

“
Sir, he wants to hear it from you.”

“
Synclair, his word is my word. It’s seven in the morning. You don’t need to hear it from me.”

“
Sir,” Gage said.

“
Do not sir me. If he says it’s a go, it’s a go.”

“
Thank you,” Gage said and finally smiled. The relief was too much to hide it anymore. The first part was complete. The second would begin soon and then Trent would be safe. Gage found himself saying a prayer of thanks as they finished the call.

“
General, I want a report on my desk by eight. If Synclair’s already this far in the game, I want whatever this is to be taken care of by ten, with a full briefing by eleven. I don’t want this hanging over me today, got it?”

“
Yes, sir.” The phone disconnected. Gage slid the file folder closer and started from the beginning, explaining it all. It took forty-five minutes to get through it with all the forensic evidence tying Abdulla to every single case Gage brought to Porter. Gage started his laptop, showing all the bank accounts, video surveillance, and eye witness testimony of Abdulla being in every situation Gage connected him with. He also showed how Abdulla infiltrated the different government’s military, gained access to the sites he targeted, and faked his own death time and time again. There were even links to his bombing plots in the United Kingdom and France with surveillance of him dropping packages along the way.

Porter stayed quiet, looking at the information, checking facts occasionally on the government laptop he
’d brought into the office with him. After a time, Porter stopped Gage. “We need to know it all, but this is enough to bring him in. Where is he?”

“
An abandoned mission in La Popa Basin, Mexico,” Gage said.

“
Why there?” Porter asked, and the question surprised Gage.

“
Unsure, he hasn’t left there for two months. He’s staying quiet, it’s reported he took a vow of silence,” Gage said.

“
Really?”

“
So they’re saying. We caught up with him the day he landed there. Up until then, we were always one step behind him,” Gage said, sitting back in his seat.

“
What was your plan going in? And how do we know your men?” Porter typed in his computer as he asked questions, Gage assumed preparing the briefing to the president, or perhaps getting the troops to the area. Who knew for sure; the man liked his mystery.

“
My men will stand down if you’re involved,” Gage said. The general nodded. He typed on his computer for several minutes, and then fed paper into the machine, scanning Gage’s work.

“
Now, tell me about the family you’re protecting while I’m awaiting confirmation the teams are being assembled,” Porter said. Gage looked down, weighing his words, but the general stopped him.

“
I need you to be honest with me. You have your guarantee, and it’s off the record, but I need to know if anything comes up that implicates them or surprises us.” Gage flipped his personal file folder around and turned several photos over until he got to one of Trent with the children standing in front of the gallery. It was a great shot. The kids and Trent faced the camera while talking to Sophia. They didn’t know they were being photographed, and their beauty shone through in the candid nature. An all-American, home-grown beauty kind of shot. Gage stopped and looked at the picture for several moments before he spoke.

“
You brought him to your opening?” Porter said. “Is that right?”

“
Yes…?” Gage responded, his eyes snapped up.

“
It was everywhere, plus I have to keep my eye on you, Synclair. We know you’re working something. But did you know he was involved?” Porter said as he lifted the photo for a closer look. “Is he wearing a tool belt?”

“
I didn’t know of his involvement. It’s a long story, but he didn’t know either. He’s the electrician on the gallery remodel. These are his sister’s kids. The best I can tell, she didn’t know, but they’re both Abdulla’s children. He wasn’t around much. He died when Lynn got pregnant with Emalynn, the little girl in the picture.”

“
How did you meet him?”

“
Like I said, he was the electrician on this remodel,” Gage said, pulling the picture back in the file.

“
You just randomly met him?” Porter asked.

“
Yes.” Gage nodded.

“
You’re giving up a lot here, Synclair, for someone you’ve known a few weeks.”

“
His sister died giving birth. He adopted the children and raised them virtually by himself. He’s a good man, one I’m lucky to know. He doesn’t deserve any of this,” Gage said, closing his laptop and shoving the papers back in the files on the table. This part of the conversation took an awkward personal turn, one he wasn’t sure he wanted to take.

“
Does he know what you’ve given up?”

“
No, but he will. I want him kept safe at all cost,” Gage said, as the government computer dinged and Porter looked down.

“
It looks like we’re a go. You ready?” the general said, closing his laptop.

“
Let me get my duffle.”

Chapter 23

For the first time in Gage’s life he took a backseat to the events unfolding around him. Gage stayed in the background, close to General Porter, answering questions as needed, but that became his entire roll in the capture of Ahmed Abdulla. The last six years of his life had been dedicated to apprehending Ahmed Abdulla. He’d spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to track every movement of the guy to this moment. Now, as the military worked, he stood back, watching, his arms crossed over his chest, his legs spread apart, his back straight, and his head held high. He watched everything going on around them.

From this side, it was interesting how the military worked. Gage had only watched them in panic mode after one of his reports, while they were playing catch up. Since he turned this all over to them before the report, he got to watch them work as a well-oiled machine, and he was honestly impressed as hell. They never faltered. There was no indecisiveness, just clear decision and immediate action by some of the best trained people he had ever seen.

They now stood in a makeshift command post, about an hour north of the infiltrated church. Gage watched all the video feeds from the ten or so LCD monitors stacked on top of one another against a wall. They were connected to video cameras, attached to helmets of the Special Forces teams currently raining down a bunch of whoop ass on the unsuspecting church. It looked like a bad ass, sci-fi, military based movie from where Gage stood, but the intel he’d shared had been dead on. They followed his maps and it didn’t take much for them to know exactly how to proceed into the church yard.

The helicopters swooped in, troops descended from every direction, even those strategically hiding in the basin ridge area. Gage
’s men laid down their weapons, and everyone in the church compound surrendered to the forces. One of Gage’s contacts had discovered weapons onsite only hours earlier, but they weren’t used. Abdulla did the same as every other person in the compound and bent to his knees, spread out on the floor, and waited to be arrested. There was no fight against the incoming troops. Not one round of gunfire took place.

Gage watched as they took Abdulla into custody. He willingly put his hands behind his head and allowed himself to be cuffed. His ankles and wrist were chained and he was carried out of the compound to a waiting helicopter without one word said. Abdulla was the only one removed, and it didn
’t take long. Not more than a few minutes after landing were they circling back into the air with Abdulla in custody. And just like that, his last report completed, and he wasn’t involved at all. It surprised him how okay he really was about it all. Now, he needed to get in front of the guy and make sure he never said a word about Emalynn and Hunter for the rest of his life, however long that may be.

“
Synclair, thank you,” the general said, and smacked him on the back with a good hard whack. “It went off exactly like you said. The information on the structure was dead on. Good job, son. Like you being on this side so much better!”

Gage stood there, his arms still crossed over his chest, watching the screens as the helicopters faded off into the sun and the on-ground troops faded back into the dense, dry forestry surrounding the old mission. It was a dusty, dry area in the middle of the morning, during the summer. It looked hot on the video and sweat trickled down Gage
’s back to prove the point. He wore his normal investigative attire: an old, worn T-shirt, and khaki walking shorts, and a bandana tied around his neck in easy reach to help keep the flying dust from his nose and mouth. His eyes never left the screen and he watched everything, making sure nothing happened to the helicopter until he couldn’t see it any longer.

“
Where are they taking him? You agreed to a meeting,” Gage said as his eyes left the screen to focus on the general.

“
El Paso. We’ll leave in a few minutes. We need to get out of here.” As he spoke, they folded the command center back up and had everything completely dismantled within minutes. The whole operation, from the time they’d landed in Mexico, had taken less than two hours.