CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Mick had one of his innumerable Cadillac Escalades waiting for them when they landed at the Maryland airfield and he drove himself, Hammer, Amelia, and Ozzie – who sat shotgun on the front passenger seat beside Mick – to the Reiner home in North Potomac.

"Kind of ordinary-looking for a senator's house," Amelia noted as they rode up the long driveway that led to a two-story Colonial on a street with no other houses nearby.

Mick stopped at the end of the drive behind a Tesla and Ozzie got out and opened the back passenger door for his boss and boss's wife while Mick got out and walked around. Ozzie remained at the SUV as the others made their way to the front door.

"What if she doesn't let us in?" asked Amelia as they made their way up the steps.

"Hammer's here," Mick replied. "She's a senator's wife. Oh she'll open that door."

Amelia smiled. Even Hammer smiled, even though he doubted if Mick meant it as a compliment. That wasn't the nature of their relationship and it never would be. They were both too strong, too powerful, too testosterone-driven alphas to ever let the other one get any upper hand on them. And although they tolerated each other's professions, they weren't about to embrace it.

After Amelia knocked on the door, the woman Hammer knew as Shelia Reiner opened the door. "Director Reese? What brings you out here?"

"Hello Sheila. Is Darby in?"

"No. I was hoping you might have been here to tell me where I could find him. I haven't heard from him."

"May we come in? I need to speak with you regarding your husband's situation."

"His situation?"

"May we come in?" Hammer asked again.

"Well, I don't know if--"

"Thank you," Hammer said like the strongman Sheila Reiner knew him to be and walked on in with Amelia and Mick following him.

The middle-aged woman seemed flustered at first as she offered them a seat. But as Hammer asked her questions about Senator Reiner, it became clear to him, Amelia, and Mick, too, that something was wrong. Something was off. Reiner's widow wasn't flustered. She was terrified. And her terror wasn't because of their presence either. She kept cutting her eyes toward her right.

And all three acted in concert: While Amelia took over the questioning of Mrs. Reiner, Mick got up and went back outside. Hammer got up and headed toward the kitchen. And as soon as he rounded the kitchen, however, he saw the back door fly open and the figure of a man running out.

Hammer took off after the man and Amelia, hearing the sound of the door opening and Hammer running, stood up to go and see if he needed help. But just as she stood up, another man appeared out of a side door with a gun pointed at Amelia's back as he began walking toward her. "Hands in the air! Hands where I can see them!"

Amelia immediately put her hands up.

"Now turn around slowly."

She turned around slowly as he commanded, but as soon as she was halfway turned, she immediately did two things in rapid succession: she grabbed her Glock out of her blazer pocket as she was falling to the floor onto her back, and she was firing at the armed man as she was falling. He got off one errand shot. She got off several. He dropped like a sack.

But out of her peripheral vision, she saw yet another gunman appear at the top of the stairs. And he started firing at her.

Still on her back on the floor, she swerved her body around toward those stairs and with both hands on her gun she fired a volley of bullets at him too.

Outside, the gunman had hopped off of the back porch and was running toward the side of the house. But he ran right into Mick's rock-hard, stationary body and bounced off of it, falling on his ass.

"What's the rush?" Mick asked him.

But as soon as he asked that question, that was when they heard the gunfire from inside the house.

"Millie!" Hammer yelled as he took off back inside the house.

And Mick didn't hesitate either. His baby sister was in that house. He shot the fleeing felon in both legs to ensure his immobility, causing the young man to scream out in pain, and then Mick ran back inside too.

Ozzie, hearing the gunfire first inside the house and then on the backside of the house, decided to run around back. When he got to the side of the house and saw the young wounded man lying there, he pulled out his gun as he approached him.

By the time Hammer and then Mick made it inside the house, Amelia had taken out both gunmen and Sheila Reiner was knelt down on the floor, her head covered, her entire body shaking.

But Amelia, still in fight mode, was still aimed and ready, and even pointed her gun at Hammer when he first reentered the house. When she realized she had backup and it wasn't another fight to the death for her, she relaxed her gun-held hand to the side of her body and exhaled. Hammer rushed to her, asking if she was alright.

Mick looked at Sheila Reiner. "How many men were here?"

"Three," said Sheila. "But the young one in the kitchen is the boss."

"Some boss," said Mick. "He was getting out of Dodge without even alerting his guys." Then he looked at the two deceased gunmen and then looked at his kid sister. "Not bad, Millie," he said. Then he looked at the gunmen again. "Not bad at all."

But Hammer was holding her in his arms. He was terrified for Amelia. He knew how easily, once again, it could have gone the other way. And once again he wasn't there to protect her! And the DefSec had the nerve to question why he wanted out. This was why. This was fucking why!

Ozzie came in dragging behind him a bleeding, crying "boss." "This one of our trophies?" he asked. Then he saw the two dead bodies. "Well damn. How many bad guys were in this bitch?"

"Not counting us," said Mick, "three."

Ozzie smiled. He was surprised that Mick the Tick could have a sense of humor. And at the oddest of times. He'd always thought of him as a cold-blooded bastard who'd break your neck if you looked at him wrong. But you never really know people, Ozzie thought.

"Get a crew over here," Hammer ordered Ozzie as he helped Amelia to her feet.

"What about her?" Ozzie asked, motioning toward Shelia Reiner.

"Depends on how she answers our questions," said Hammer as he sat Amelia in a chair, and then knelt down beside that chair.

As Ozzie moved away to call in the government's version of a clean-up crew, Mick took a tour of the house: just in case.

When Mick returned with an all-clear, he knelt down at the supposed boss of the gang. "What's your name?"

"I need medical attention," cried the young man. "I could die over here!"

"You could die over here, over there, anywhere," said Mick. "Who gives a fuck? Just as long as you die. Now answer my question. What's your name?"

"Franks. Ethan Franks."

"Why are you here, Ethan?"

"Waiting for Darby Reiner."

"Why are you waiting for Senator Reiner?"

"To kill his ass."

"What for?"

"Because he owes me. Him and Stan Kucinich. We were supposed to be three-way partners. A third, a third, a third. But they got greedy. And that bitch right there was greedy right along with them."

Everybody looked at Sheila Reiner.

Mick stood up. "Get your ass up," he said to her.

She slowly got up and sat back on the sofa. She was still crying. Still shaking.

And it was Hammer's time to take over the questioning. "What's he talking about, Sheila?" Hammer asked her.

"Darby and Stan got hooked up with Ethan Franks and his gang. They showed up here the night Darby went to your wife's house."

Amelia moved to the edge of her seat. "Go on," she said.

"Ethan runs a sex trafficking ring for the well-connected. He sat up the women and they pay big money to play with these women in any way they see fit. I was against it from the start."

"Bullshit!" Ethan yelled, and then cried out in pain.

"I was against it," Sheila insisted.

"Who gives a shit," said Mick. "Just keep going."

"It was Kucinich who came up with the plan to knock Ethan out of the equation and let it just be him and Darby running things. But Darby went and told Ethan. And Ethan and Darby came up with their own plan. And since Beth hated her husband and wanted him dead anyway, they roped her into the plan too. Beth would get Stan's millions, and they would get Stan out of their way."

"What was the plan?"

"Beth was to hire you to threaten Stan and they were going to have it filmed."

"What film?" asked Amelia.

"Ethan was in an old parked car that nobody would pay any attention to filming the whole thing. Then he followed Stan afterwards, and when he crossed state lines into Delaware, he took him out. Then Darby drove up, he handed the bloody knife to Darby, and Darby went and broke into Amelia's home."

"How?"

"By disabling her security and entering with remote access."

"Who had that capability?"

"A guy in the organization. He used to work for NASA."

Hammer shook his head. "Darby broke into my wife's house to do what?"

"To blindfold her and plant evidence of Stan's murder in your home. Including the bloody murder weapon. Then Ethan and his men came here to wait on Darby. But Darby hasn't showed. We don't know what happened to him."

"Amelia happened to him," said Hammer. "Same as the other two gunmen in this house."

"But why target me?" asked Amelia.

"It wasn't about you," Sheila said. "It was about Hammer. If they were going to do this murder, they needed somebody to pin it on. Because Darby hated Hammer's popularity and believed Hammer was going to ride that popularity all the way to the White House someday, he saw Hammer as a direct threat to his future. Because Darby had presidential aspirations too. So he decided to kill two birds with one stone. They needed somebody to pin the murder on, and he needed Hammer out of the way."

"Why didn't he try to set Hammer up?"

"The President wouldn't stand for that. Hammer was her guy like he was the favorite of all those other presidents. It couldn't be Hammer. But Darby knew he had to get the kind of dirt on Hammer that you can't get off. And he had to do it before your divorce was final. A wife accused of murder was the kind of dirt you can't wash off. Not even you have that level of popularity in this country," Sheila said to Hammer.

"Why would he have been naked in my wife's house if all he wanted was to blindfold her, drug her, and then plant evidence on her?"

"He ran a sex trafficking ring," said Sheila. "He was a pervert. That's why he was naked. No way was he going to have a beautiful drugged woman without showing just how perverted he was. I hate his guts. He's an awful man."

Mick looked at Ethan. "Is she telling the truth?"

"About all of us, yes. But she was in it up to her eyebrows too. Don't fall for her bullshit. She's as guilty as the rest of us."

Mick got up and walked over to Sheila. He pulled out a gun and lifted her head, planting the gun beneath her chin. "I'm giving you five seconds to tell me the truth. Were you or were you not involved in the scheme?"

Sheila started to speak, but Mick made it clear. "I'm not asking you this because I don't already know. I'm asking you this because I already know. Lie to me and your face will be on the other side of this room."

Tears began to fall from Sheila's eyes. "Yes," she said. "Beth and I opened up an import/export business as a front company for the trafficking ring. But I didn't want anybody to die. I didn't want Stan to be killed."

"Who gives a fuck what you didn't want," Mick said. "You knew your husband was going to my sister's house to rape her and set her up for a murder she didn't commit. What part of that you expect to be okay with me?"

"I don't even know you. I had no idea she was your sister."

"Wrong answer," said Ozzie from across the room.

And he was right. Mick fired the shot that took her out.

Hammer reached to shield Amelia from her brother's violence, but Amelia didn't even flinch. "I'm okay. She knew what she was doing. I could have rotted in prison for the rest of my life and she wouldn't have lifted a finger to help me. I'm fine," she said with that steely determination that reminded Hammer that she was no shrinking violet. That Mick's father might have tried to kill her as a baby and it was Mick and Charles who saved her life, but she was a Sinatra through and through. Same mother. Different father than Mick and Charles. But she had that same instinct. A instinct that he knew would always keep him up at night. But at least he was going to be there to rope her back in.

And then Mick turned to Ethan. Hammer got up and went over to Mick. "Not so fast, Cowboy," he said to Mick, and then walked over to Ethan. "I've got a question."

He knelt down at the head of the still pain-stricken "boss." "There's no way in hell," Hammer said to him, "that you was able to rope in two senators and their wives and mastermind this whole thing. There's no way. Who's your boss?"

Amelia looked at Hammer. "You think there's another level?"

"I know there is," Hammer said, staring at Ethan. "I don't think for a second that he's it. He's muscle if he's anything. But he's not the brains behind something this big. And there's no way I'm going to ever believe that he and Darby Reiner roped Amelia into this. Now tell me what I need to know."

Ethan looked over at Mick, who had already proved to him just how trigger happy he could be. Then he looked at Hammer Reese, whom he knew had the entire backing of the United States government behind him if he needed it. He knew his goose was cooked.

"Who's the ringleader?" asked Hammer.

Ethan closed his eyes. "Wales," he said.

Mick was shocked to hear that name. So was Amelia. He had to mean somebody else.

Hammer was shocked too. But he had to be certain. "Wales? Who is that?"

"Atticus Wales," Ethan said and opened his eyes. "He's the ringleader. He's the one we answer to. Atticus Wales."

You could hear a feather drop in that house.

And then Mick finished off Ethan Franks.