Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

B ack in the warehouse, Quintus stood smoking a cigar, watching the clouds move in to disturb the perfectly clear evening sky. It matched his situation. His plans were all in place. A perfect chance to change the political fabric of the country, force the government to invest in alternate energy sources in which he was highly invested and launder drug money from the cartels for whom he'd helped build the network into the country. It was a beautifully clear plan, except now the storm of Zoe Edgars was marring the vision, just as the clouds were blocking the moonlight.

It was going to be up to him to silence her himself. He'd made the mistake of letting her live, not when he'd shot her on that mountainside, but years ago when he'd decided to reinvent himself into a more powerful and lucrative life. Before disappearing, he should've snuffed her out then.

Once everything was finished tomorrow, he'd go on the hunt for the bitch. After he left her townhouse, he researched a Zach Edgars, who turned out to be with the Navy currently in the Pacific. Where Zoe had little personal information anywhere on the internet or even in her files, he should know he'd been the one who recruited her, her twin brother's files were a treasure trove of details for family that Zoe could be hiding with. All he had to do was find and eliminate each one. He'd either find her or flush her out.

For the first time since he saw her holding that camera near the woods in Norfolk, he smiled. He always did love a good hunt.

The rattle of the warehouse door opening echoed through the cavernous building. Snuffing out his cigar, he drew his weapon and moved into the shadows.

"Quintus?"

"Back here Draper," he said, holstering his weapon and moving to the table where he had the map laid out. Once Draper and his ten men joined him, he began pointing out all the posts each would have.

"How big of a blast do you anticipate?" Draper asked.

"The gas lines are rigged to blow, so the blast radius is questionable. We need to be at least a hundred yards from the building when it goes. Your mission is simple. We don't let anyone leave alive."

"Yes, sir," they said as one.

"And we'll need to clear the area as soon as everyone is liquidated before the first responders and firefighters arrive."

He chose to leave out the detail of the President being at the meeting and her Secret Service people being an obstacle. They'd find out soon enough.

"No one leaves now that you know the objective. Get something to eat from the coolers, load up on ammo and catch some shut-eye. We leave at O-five-hundred hours."

?

Squatting in a copse of evergreens surrounding the mansion for the summit, Connor adjusted his ear bud that all the EIS team were using to communicate. Jake was inside a van with commanders from the Highway Patrol, local police, and FBI field agents. Two rings of outer perimeters were set up by the HP and local police to prevent anyone from entering or exiting the area once the operation commenced. The FBI agents were in a perimeter of the mansion along with Dave, Luke, Ben, Zoe and himself.

"How's it going in there, Katie?" Jake said in his ear.

Before dawn, she and Matt had slipped into the mansion with the aid of one of the Secret Service agents. At the meeting Jake and Castello had with both the FBI and Secret Service, it was decided that no way was the president going to be put at risk by attending the meeting this morning. But to give the illusion that no one was aware of the planned attack, Secret Service personnel would continue to function as if she were. An FBI bomb tech had also joined Katie and Matt. The trio were currently searching for where the explosive device, or devices, might be rigged on the gas lines inside the huge house.

"We've turned off the gas at the outdoor meter, so no new gas is coming into the building," Katie said. Now we're in the basement tracing the gas lines for the detonator or detonators."

Even though they'd turned off the main line to gas coming into the house, Katie told them there would still be danger a spark from the detonator could still ignite any gas already in the house lines and endanger anyone inside.

"The summit members are starting to arrive," Jake warned.

"There's hundreds of feet to these lines," Matt's irritated voice sounded in Connor's ear. "Gonna take us a while."

"Then get a move on it," Dave's voice said.

Zoe, seated beside him with her booted leg extended, pointed to her watch. He looked at it and nodded. They had thirty minutes before the presidential motorcade would pull up out front of the mansion. A female Secret Service agent would exit dressed as the president and quickly be escorted inside by male agents big enough to disguise who she really was.

Connor had to admit, the EIS team didn't go rushing into things half-cocked. They planned everything down to the exact detail, with contingencies in place. Including using the catering and florist vans that were now sitting in the back of the mansion to move the other attendees to an alternative facility miles away before the time the president was due to arrive. They were playing the odds that no operatives from the traitorous group were working inside the mansion because it would be a suicide assignment if they were. Everything depended on finding and neutralizing the devices Markus' people installed two days ago, before Markus could detonate it—Zoe assured them he'd be holding the detonator.

Turning to his left, he watched her as she studied the grounds around the mansion with her binoculars. Since her phone alarmed that someone was in her home, she'd gone quiet and focused.

"What's gong on with you?" he asked when they were alone. Jake and Castello off to meet with their contacts in the government agencies. Dave, Matt and Katie meeting with the local leos. Luke video chatting with his wife in the safe house's office.

"Markus was in my home," she said, her brows drawn down in concern.

When she' announced that, Connor and the cousins stood as if to charge to her townhouse to capture him until she assured them he'd be long gone before they got there.

"You don't know it was him," he said, draping his arm over the back of the leather sofa where they sat. "It could've been anyone."

She shot him a scathing look. "It was him. And I can't help but think I left something in my house that he could use against me."

"What do you mean?"

"My phone was with me and Castello took my laptop when he and Ben checked out my place."

"Why didn't your phone alarm you when they were inside?"

"It did. I saw the notification once I charged it, but I already knew they'd been there from the virtual call we made yesterday."

"Do you have files hidden there?"

She shook her head. "No. It's all stored in a storage locker and the electronic key's on my phone."

"Phones can do that now?" Even being out of prison for two years, he still hadn't adjusted to all the tech changes in the world.

"Yes," she said with a little lift to her lips. Not quite a smile, but a decrease in the tension surrounding her. "I keep all my personal information there and I rented it in my grandmother's maiden name. I wanted to be sure I protected my family."

"From Markus?"

"From anyone who might break my cover stories from any of my assignments."

He reached out and took her hand. "What do you have in your house? Anything personal?"

She stared off into space as if imagining what her home looked like. "Other than clothes, nothing." Pausing, her fingers tightened around his hand. "The pictures."

"Pictures?"

"I wanted something to remind me of who I am when I'm not undercover. So, I mounted two pictures in my living room. One is of my grandparents and their spy-chaser team in front of their boat the Folly ."

"Which is where you left a message for Luke?"

"Yes."

"And the other?"

"A picture of me and my twin brother, Zach…" She trailed off, her eyes going wide. "My grandmother always wrote names of who was in a picture on the back. If Markus looks there, he'll know I have a brother. He'll go after him to punish me."

That was why she was so adamant that they capture Markus. She feared he'd exact retribution on her through her family.

The rest of the Edgars were here to preserve the government. Zoe might've started this mission with the same goal or punishing the man who'd deceived that same government and her. Now? Now, she was focused on one thing, protecting her family.

And him?

He hadn't come off that mountain for the government. Hell, it and everyone working for it had betrayed him. Nah, he was here for one thing, and one thing only. Protecting Zoe.

"See anything?" he asked, leaning close to whisper. They needed to keep the comms open for the others.

"Nothing moving between us and the mansion," she whispered back.

"You say the sick bastard likes to watch his kills?"

She lowered the binoculars to look at him. "Yes. I always thought it was a bit psychopathic."

Pointing to her right, he said, "I'd search the timber line. He's more than likely going to be close enough to trigger the charge and see the explosion, but deep enough in cover to escape the blast and any shrapnel."

"Not to mention slither away like the snake he is," she said, turning her binoculars the direction he pointed.

When Jake had suggested she wait in the van with him, she'd flatly refused. She'd been walking around the safe house, with multiple trips up and down the steps to strengthen her muscles and acclimate her body to maneuvering with the walking boot. Aware of her motive to be the one to take down her former mentor, Connor hadn't questioned her actions, only insisted they work as a pair. Surprisingly, she hadn't refused. They hadn't known each other long, but he was positive stubborn was written in her DNA.

Ignoring the heavy weight of the gun in his right pocket, he pulled out his own binoculars from his left coat pocket and scanned the tree line the other direction. He hated the idea that so many lawmen were in the area and any one of them could send him back to prison for being armed. But for Zoe's protection, he'd take that risk.

?

"Where do you think they'd put the charges?" Matt asked, as he and Katie followed the gas lines along the basement ceiling of the mansion.

After Katie turned off the gas outside, they'd waited in the dark kitchen until daylight, keeping light discipline from anyone outside watching them.

When the catering vans arrived, they informed the staff that plans had changed. The food was to be refrigerated and no cooking would be taking place. As the guests arrived, they would be escorted to the catering and florist vans at the backdoor along with the serving staff. Everyone would be driven to another more secure location. The only ones left in the mansion for the arrival of the presidential motorcade would be Katie and Matt, their FBI bomb expert and the Secret Service agents on duty.

"If it was me," Katie said shining her light at the ceiling where the main gas line came into the house, as she slowly walked forward, "I'd put one near the furnace, one by the hot water tank and another up in the kitchen by the oven."

Tracing the gas lines with FBI special agent Kramer through the basement, they came to a stop at the furnace. She stepped closer.

"Yep, here it is."

Matt leaned in over her shoulder while Kramer went around the other side, their flashlights shining on a small box wired onto the valves connecting the gas line to the furnace. "This is going to cause a huge explosion?"

"It's a wireless setup similar to the ones used in mining," Kramer said. "There it would be hooked up to C-4 or other kind of explosive. The charge comes through the device that starts the reaction within the explosive."

"Hold this," Katie said, handing Matt her flashlight and digging a pair to wire cutters from her coat pocket. "But given this was hooked up to the gas line, the simple charge would cause the gas to ignite instead of C-4."

She moved to cut the wires.

"Wait," he said, with his hand on her shoulder.

"Why?"

"If we cut the connection, won't it alert our bad guys that it's been disarmed?"

She shook her head. "No. The wireless trigger is just one way. No signal will go back."

Kramer nodded in agreement. "The only way your perp is going to know this has been disconnected, is when he tries to trigger it and nothing happens."

Katie snipped all the wires and the little blinking green light died.

Matt exhaled the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. It always amazed him how calm his wife was around explosives. As a kid she'd been exposed to them by her father. Then her step-father, the leader of a cult, exploited that knowledge in forcing her to build bombs for his crazy plan to terrorize the government. But Katie turned the table on him and now used that skill to save lives when needed.

"So that's it?" he asked.

"For this one," she said, pocketing her cutters and reclaiming her flashlight. "Like I said, I'd post three charges at minimum."

"Why?" he asked as they walked over to the two large water heaters needed to provide hot water to all the floors of the mansion.

"Makes sense," Kramer said. "One charge might only cause part of the place to blow. Charges in various spots all igniting at once? Bigger boom."

"And more dead bodies. I get it."

Just like Katie predicted they found not one charge by the hot water tank, but two. She and Kramer quickly dispatched them. As she was pocketing her cutters, she looked up at the lines in the ceiling. He flashed his light up to where she was looking. The gas line split off in two directions.

"What are you thinking?" he asked, not liking the worried expression on her face.

"I'm thinking we need to check these lines to be sure they didn't add charges anywhere along them. They are people committed to killing the president and change the course of economics in the country."

"Wouldn't that be overkill?" Kramer asked.

"Not for fanatics or narcissists," she said, casting him a deadly serious look. "Trust me, I know what they're capable of doing."

Kramer didn't argue with her. "Okay. You take the short route up to the kitchen, since you're sure one will be by the ovens. I'll check all the lines down here and meet you up there."

Matt glanced at his watch. "We better get on with it. Less than fifteen minutes before the president's motorcade arrives."

?

Castello inched his way north through the woods west of the mansion, searching for any of the private army that lay in wait.

Two vehicles—an SUV and a van, both black—had passed one of the Highway Patrol units hidden on the outer perimeter about an hour ago. While Luke climbed into one of the trees on the southeast corner covering the drive and main entrance as sniper and spotter, their team of Zoe, Connor, Dave and Ben hid in the bushes as the van had approached and eleven men dressed in camouflage exited then scattered. Zoe confirmed that Markus wasn't among them. Which meant he was in the SUV that hadn't followed the van and he'd approached from a different direction.

They'd left Zoe and Connor a few yards from their own van. The woman should be back at the safe house with her foot up on a pillow, but she'd insisted she needed to be there to take down this Markus-Quintus guy. Once Connor said he'd be at her six the entire time, Jake agreed she would be a benefit for the team.

Something moved in the pine boughs five trees up ahead and to his left. Castello crouched down and watched. The boughs moved again, this time from wind and the silhouette of a man came into view.

The guy was focused on the mansion unaware he was in danger, probably because his assignment was to prevent anyone fleeing from it, not someone trying to stop them.

Time to reduce the odds in their favor.

Careful where he put his feet in the thankfully wet dead leaves, he circled up behind the intruder. Tensing his body, Castello jumped the man from behind, wrapping his arm around his neck. The guy instinctively arched his back, dropping his gun and clawing at Castello's arm as it cut off his airway. Frank dug his feet into the earth, tensing his legs to keep his balance as the man bucked wildly. He applied more pressure. The guy kept fighting.

Enough of this.

Grasping the other man's head with his free hand, he twisted and the man went limp. Castello quietly dropped the body to the ground. Bending over, he caught his breath.

Damn, he was getting old. Even though he worked out regularly in the gym and practiced defensive moves, actually going against a fit, younger opponent took way more effort than it should. Age was the one great equalizer.

Breathing normally, he pressed his mic. "One bogie down."

"Make that two," Ben's voice sounded in his ear. He'd deployed to the east of the building, while Dave took the northeast. Leaving Zoe and Connor to the southwest.

"There's two more at ten o'clock, Castello," Zoe whispered in his ear.

Pulling the dead man's body further beneath the pine boughs sweeping down to the ground, he shoved his automatic rifle in with him, then crouched to study the woods to his left. The clouds moved and the sun shone on that exact spot. Shiney metal glistened momentarily about fifty yards away, then disappeared when the clouds moved again.

Inching his way back into the woods, he went hunting for his next prey.

?

Sitting at the southeast corner of the mansion where he could keep an eye on the front entrance, in case any bad guys tried to do a running attack when the presidential motorcade pulled up, Luke rested his rifle on the split branch of the oak tree in front of him. Winter wasn't usually the best time to choose a deciduous tree for a sniper spot, but this particular one had probably been around for a century or two, had big thick branches and lots of smaller ones with clumps of dead oak leaves still clinging to them.

Adjusting the site, he started to his left where the main drive was and slowly moved to the right. There was no one in the thick shrubbery that lined the drive or the bushes in the fancy landscaping near the entrance. One by one he'd watched the summit attendees arrive and be escorted inside by the Secret Service manning the door. The plan Jake and Castello concocted was to limit the danger to innocent civilians by replacing the mansion's staff with agents from the Secret Service and FBI. Not a swarm of them, but just enough to escort dignitaries inside, through the house to the kitchen to await safe transport elsewhere. If everything went to schedule, they'd be out five minutes before the president's car arrived.

"Number three down," his brother Dave announced through the comms. Three down, seven minions and one master mind left to go.

As he shifted his gun further to the right, he caught movement behind some juniper bushes on the edge of the woods, rifle muzzle sticking out of the bush slightly.

"Got ya," he said and slowly squeezed the trigger. The nearly silent zing sounded seconds before the body fell back into the bushes.

"Four down."

"Heads up," Jake said in his ear. "Motorcade just cleared the first perimeter. Five minutes max. How we doing, Katie?"

"Just got to the kitchen. The summit people and catering staff are loading into the vans. We're moving stuff to get to the back of the stove. Gonna take me a few minutes."

"You have four. Then get the hell out of there," Jake ordered.

Luke closed his eyes and prayed a moment. Even though they'd cut off the gas and cleared the other detonators, the fear was if any gas remained in the lines that an igniting spark would still cause an explosion to destroy the place, if they didn't disarm all the detonators.

Katie and Matt needed to clear that place before Markus-Quintus sent the wireless signal.