Chapter 2

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Amber quickly returned with water for Tesla and noted she had now been joined again by the other man. She struggled to remember his name, then it came to her. Jasper. Tesla had told Amber that he was family. As she handed the water to Tesla, she looked over at Jasper. "Anything?"

He nodded. "Yes, the base is on full lockdown now."

"Shouldn't that have been done already?" Amber asked.

"I think it probably was done, but the news may not have filtered out very quickly."

"Maybe," she murmured, thinking that had to be wrong. "Anyway, we haven't had any disturbance here, so it's not an issue."

"It's always an issue," Jasper clarified. "What we don't want is for whoever took out Mason to come here now for a second attempt."

She stared at him for a moment, then winced. "Do you think that's a possibility?"

"It's always a possibility. Those shots were well placed from a sniper atop a building hundreds of yards away."

"Oh, my God," she muttered, as she stared off in the distance. "Someone from the military then." Her voice was low.

His voice stayed equally low, as he studied her sharply and nodded. "One would expect so, with at least some good training."

Amber's eyes widened. "And yet whoever shot Mason was on base, surrounded by people, who also have had that training?"

"So, isn't that a great place to hide a lost sheep?" Jasper suggested.

She pondered his meaning and then nodded slowly. "I guess if that's what you wanted to do, that would make a whole lot more sense. You've got hundreds, if not thousands, of suspects."

"Exactly, so do me a favor. If you see anybody hanging around, anybody you don't like the look of, who isn't needed in the area, or who seems potentially troublesome in any way…" He let it hang there for a moment, then added, "Let me know."

"There hasn't been up until now," she stated hesitantly. "I only came on shift four hours ago, so I'm not sure what time frame you're looking at, but Mason was shot within the last, what? Sixty minutes?"

At that, Jasper nodded. "Exactly, but that doesn't mean somebody wasn't here beforehand, checking out the lay of the land, searching the hospital, wondering about an update on information, or looking at the layout, just in case a second attempt needs to be made."

"I can't imagine anybody with your training considering second attempts," she suggested. "You would go all-in the first time."

"All-in is the perfect situation in an op," he confirmed with firmness and a hint of disdain. "That doesn't mean a second man wasn't hanging around to check on Mason's condition when he arrived here."

"Oh, now that's a different story," she admitted, thinking back. "I had a second ambulance come in with a pregnant woman not long afterward.… As in ERs everywhere, an awful lot of chaos was happening when Mason arrived," she murmured. She frowned, thinking about who else might have been sitting in the emergency room.

"We did have a full ER waiting room," she noted, with a wince. She hesitated, then gave him a miserable look. "I can't start digging into it now, as I'm on shift. I'll keep it in mind though. Yet you may want to take a look yourself, once you get clearance," she stated. "Anybody here who's looking for assistance will go through the triage nurse."

"And yet, if they're just sitting here, with supposed friends and family, we won't know who is related and who isn't, right?"

"Unfortunately that is quite true," she replied, with a nod. "If somebody wanted to pretend to be with the family, they would just sit close by, and everybody else would assume that they were waiting for treatment or were somebody else's family member."

"Exactly," he agreed, nodding, as the sinking feeling settled in. "So, the question is,… was anybody just sitting with random people but not looking for treatment?"

"You mean, just looking for information?" she confirmed, her voice low, as she looked around at the full waiting room off to the side. "If that were the case, they would still be here."

"Maybe they are," Jasper stated, with half a smile. "I've been surreptitiously taking photos while I'm here, so I've caught everyone here."

She nodded. "Good. If I sense anything, I'll let you know." Just then the code alarm went off. "Got to go." And she bolted back to her station, preparing for the next emergency patient coming in by ambulance.

*

Jasper watched asAmber took off, racing to the ambulance doors, now opening to bring in a gurney with another patient needing help. He looked back at Tesla to watch her sipping water, huddled up in her seat. "I would love to take you home where you could rest, while you are still waiting for information, instead of keeping you here." She shot him a look, and he nodded. "That's what I expected, but anything that'll put you and the baby under further stress," he noted, "isn't a help."

"I know that," she agreed, as she considered his words. "On the other hand, if anything goes wrong with me or the baby, I'm already at the hospital."

He stared at her. "Please tell me that you didn't just say that."

"Of course I said that. Apparently another pregnant woman is already in one of these ER rooms right now, dealing with her own troubles."

"That's not the easiest thing in the world," he said.

"But forget about me.… Why are you staying?" she asked, looking at him sideways.

He gave her a nod. "For exactly the reason I just told her." He pointed to ER Nurse Amber. "Plus, I'm not officially a part of the team yet. I also want information on Mason's condition, and I also want to know if anybody else is here."

She looked around. "You think somebody is here who may have had something to do with the attack?"

"Or is being paid to find out what condition Mason is in," he replied, carefully wording his concern, as he looked around casually. "They won't wait for the news to come out. They'll want it firsthand."

"If they've hired somebody, that's hardly firsthand."

"It may not be firsthand, but it's probably as close as the shooter would dare to get. Although, if he were incredibly confident, which I'm sure he is, given the brazen attack on base, he may be here in person."

At that, she straightened up and suggested, "We should be sitting out in the main waiting room then."

"We're just off to the side, where we can at least have conversations privately," he pointed out, "and that's what we need. Plus everybody in there has to walk right past us."

She nodded. "I didn't think of that."

"That's because you don't do what I do," he explained. "I need you to trust that I will do everything I can to get to the bottom of this."

"I do trust you, Jasper," she stated. "I just can't imagine who would have done this."

"I'm hearing that from everybody. With this Mason investigation, it won't be easy. Everybody loves him. Everybody thinks he is a great guy."

"And yet he did handle a lot of men and women, and he had to move lots of guys off his units because they just weren't good enough."

He gave her a sharp glance. "If you know that much, I'll get you a piece of paper. I need names."

She nodded. "It will give me something else to focus on, instead of what's happening to him in surgery."

Jasper walked over to the reception desk and asked the woman there for some paper and a pen, but he didn't give her much choice or a chance to argue. Spying a small notepad off to the side, he snagged it. "This will work perfectly. Do you mind?"

She shook her head and watched, as he took a pen off the counter and returned to Tesla.

As he handed her the notepad and pen, she looked back at the woman and smiled her thanks. Then she faced Jasper and asked, "Did you terrorize her for this?"

"I don't know why anybody would think I terrorize people," he stated smoothly.

"Yeah, because that's on your record."

"When interrogating witnesses, that's not terrorizing."

"You're not terrorizing me," she admitted. "However, if I weren't family, and Mason weren't involved, how you would you treat me?"

"I would treat you with respect," he declared. "I don't understand why people always have the wrong impression of me."

She giggled. "I don't think it's a wrong impression. I'm just not sure where that hard-ass attitude gets directed."

"Never at you," he declared, with a smile, "never at you." She shifted uncomfortably. He watched as she slowly placed a hand on her back, pushed her back against the chair, and closed her eyes for a moment.

When she opened them again, she caught him staring at her, and she shook her head. "Don't even think about it. I'm fine."

"Sure you are. How about a cup of tea?" he asked, almost as an afterthought.

She smiled gratefully. "That would be lovely." Then she looked around and sagged back. "I know it's a very selfish thought, but I could use a cup."

Already in the act of getting up to see about her tea, he sat back down and asked Tesla, "What about Sebastian?" he asked quietly.

She nodded. "He's with my father," she said, with a small smile, "enjoying some grandparent time."

Jasper asked, "Have you told your father everything?"

She nodded. "I sent a text, so I am sure he's on full alert too."

"He would have been on full alert already," Jasper murmured, "because, of all the things that everybody here knows, when somebody like Mason gets shot, it puts everyone on high alert. We don't know whether assassination is the issue or something completely different."

At his use of the word assassination, Tesla gasped.

Jasper winced again. "See? I'm not used to sugarcoating words."

"Don't start now," she muttered. "I've always trusted you to tell me the truth, and I need that to continue."

"And that you will have." He leaned over, kissed her on the cheek, and added, "So tell me, what your gut is telling you right now?"

"If killing Mason didn't work the first time, that should make any second attempt on his life harder to do. So I would think our son's health would be in danger now. Mine too, if only to put added pressure on Mason or to use us as leverage. That alone might finish off Mason," she replied, shaking her head. "My father will protect Sebastian. However, since I'm here at the hospital, that makes me an easier target than my son. Hopefully they will come after me, not Sebastian. Plus I presume the shooter or his minions will be looking for me—or for anybody else—waiting for an update on Mason, right?"

The fact that she had thought such a thing meant that, somewhere along the line, she considered that a possibility. "Are you not telling me something?"

"No," she said. "Maybe over the years I've gotten jaded… or overly suspicious."

"Absolutely," Jasper agreed, "as you should. So, now you're not going anywhere without me, and you'll get a guard until we get to the bottom of this."

"Oh, as if I want that," she stated in horror.

"You brought it up," he pointed out, with a smile. "And Mason will have my hide if anything happens to you and his children, born and soon to be born."

"Will you stay with me?"

"I will," he confirmed, "unless I can't be here.… So we need somebody else assigned to just look after you and to check in on Sebastian, someone we trust. But more than that, I need an investigator to help me on this." He pulled out his phone, looked down at it for a long moment.

Tesla noted, "You don't even know who to call, do you?"

"No, in many ways I don't," he admitted, "because I don't know many people in this place. I'm not sure who can and cannot be trusted. Because the shooter was on base for this attack, I am more than a little concerned about having somebody from the base involved in the sniper shooting."

"Mason has a lot of men and a lot of teams who will be here in a heartbeat, and I'm surprised that they're not here already."

"That's because the front entrance to the hospital has been shut down," Jasper explained, "and your phone's off."

She shook her head. "I didn't shut it off."

"No, but I did," he declared, relaying those words with a hard look. "The last thing you need is to be bombarded by everybody asking how you are, where Sebastian is, and the latest updates on Mason."

She pulled out her phone and stared at it blankly. "That was pretty tricky of you."

He gave her a small smile. "Not to take control, by any means," he shared, "but to limit additional contact. Only so much you can handle. With your father watching Sebastian, just focus on Mason, you, and the coming baby. Now, do you know any men I can trust here to help me in this investigation?"

"Lots," she declared, "but, if you want somebody completely not connected to this base, you mentioned Masters. He's relatively new to Mason's team. He passed Mason's good judgment, at least at the time." She smiled. "Obviously you know I can name so many people, men Mason admires and who would bend over backwards to do whatever was needed."

"I'm sure, and I'll need them as backups; but, for my investigation team, I want faces that nobody has seen or who are new to the base."

"Won't new to the base make them suspicious?"

He smiled. "That's true." He put away his phone. "I'm heading out for a meeting right now, and I've contacted somebody who will look after you."

She stared at him. "You're leaving now?" Her voice rose into a small squawk.

"I am because I want to get on this investigation team," he stated, "and that means, I have to go in person to make my arguments."

She just nodded. A moment later, he pointed behind her. She turned, and there, waiting in the wings, were Markus and Evan. She smiled at the two men, who acknowledged her with a dip of their heads, before they turned to study their surroundings.

"So they were already here for me, weren't they?" Tesla sighed. "As I said, Mason has easily fifty men we could call on in a situation like this."

"Yeah, and a lot of them will be put on officially," Jasper noted, "but I also need some covert people for investigations, people nobody knows and who are here unofficially, but that's my problem to solve."

"Start with Masters," she suggested, "particularly if you already know him."

"I do. I haven't seen him in years, but he was always real back then."

"I know he passed Mason's radar test because he invited him to join one of the SEAL teams."

"Good enough for me." Jasper nodded at her. "I'll contact Masters. In the meantime, Markus and Evan are your bodyguards. They will be switched out on a regular basis, so everybody is fresh. Lots of people are pretty pissed off because you're right. At the end of the day, Mason was well loved." Then he winced, realizing that he'd used past tense. "Is well loved," he corrected.

She gave him a haunted look. "He has to survive," she whispered.

"He will," Jasper said. "Stand firm on that. Mason won't leave you now." She nodded, but the tears were evident in the corners of her eyes.

"Go do what you can do," she whispered. "I need to know that this asshole is caught and that Mason, the baby, Sebastian and I will be fine."

Jasper got up and walked over to where Markus leaned against one of the walls. "Two men you trust every four to six hours, set up in teams, don't care how. I'll get funding."

"You're leaving?" Markus asked.

"I'm off for a meeting right now," he shared, as the men measured him. Markus particularly studied him intently. "Yeah, you don't know me, and I don't know you," he admitted, understanding Markus's reluctance. "Tesla is my cousin. Mason and I go way back, and no way in hell I want anybody coming after Sebastian and Tesla and the baby, much less another attempt on Mason."

Markus nodded. "That ain't happening on our watch."

"Potentially somebody in the waiting room or hanging around here is looking for an update on Mason's condition and any other intel they can get. They may be blending into the crowd, as if seated among supposed family and friends," he noted. "If the job is done, maybe they are too, or they'll move on to a secondary target. And, if the job isn't done, the entire family is here right now, outside of Tesla's father, who has Sebastian. As you two probably already know, Mason's parents and his brother have passed away."

Markus nodded and surveyed the room quickly. "Where are you going?"

"I've got a meeting with the brass," Jasper shared. "I want this investigation to be mine."

Surprised, Markus asked, "Have you got the chops to make that happen?"

"Yes, if I want to force it, which right now I do," he stated succinctly. "I'm just hoping not to have to use pressure."

"Use it," Markus declared, looking at Tesla. "Nobody knows you, so you're an unknown face, who will be both suspicious and not."

"Yeah, true enough. What about Masters? Do you know him?"

"I do know him," Markus confirmed. "How do you know him?"

"From a few years back," Jasper said. "I'm hoping he's still on the straight and narrow because I need a couple people who are green here but still solid to add as investigators on my team."

Markus hesitated and then nodded. "Vet Masters," he suggested, "and, if you need somebody else, I might have a couple more names."

"Okay, I'll catch up with you in a bit," Jasper said. "First I'll get Tesla some tea, and then I've got to get to that meeting." He looked down at his phone and winced.

"I can get the tea," Evan offered.

Jasper nodded to him but said, "I'll deliver the tea. I want to ensure that she's covered. She's holding up, but then none of us would expect anything less."

"Exactly," Evan replied. "My wife is one of the doctors here."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, she's doing a stint here, training for some specialized surgical procedure," he explained, with a wave of his hand. "I can't even tell you what the hell it's all about, but she's up in the OR right now."

"That's good to know. So can you get some inside scoop for us?"

"I'll get all the scoop I can pry out of her," he said, with a grin. "She's a straight shooter, so if something can be shared, she'll say it. She won't sugarcoat the truth."

"None of us needs sugarcoating right now," Jasper agreed.

And, with that, he raced to the cafeteria area, grabbed a cup of tea, and picked up a little bit of food, knowing that Tesla probably wouldn't eat it, but the baby might need some nutrition.

When he rejoined Tesla, he handed her the muffin and tea. "Remember that the baby's blood sugar might need a boost."