“I will.” He disconnected and stared into the family room, not focusing on anything as he tucked the phone into his hip pocket. Analysts had narrowed the search to nine possible ships heading into US waters right now, each of them with access to a major American port and from there by ground to a highly populated city like Atlanta or D.C. Robert had sounded calm but the man must be going apeshit right now with so many unknowns to contend with.
Stepping off the bottom stair onto the hardwood floor across from the kitchen, Wade paused and turned his head to look out the small square window in the top of the back door. He’d heard something, and it wasn’t the wind.
Striding to the kitchen for a better view outside, he pulled the radio from his pocket and turned up the volume before contacting the security team. The storm lashed the house and surrounding yard with torrents of rain, already standing in great puddles that covered the driveway. Peering outside into the gloom, he saw nothing moving but the branches of the newly-leafed trees waving wildly in the wind.
“Parker, come in,” he said, and released the button to await a reply.
Only silence answered.
He checked the volume and the channel again, and tried the other agent, tamping down the curl of dread in his gut.
Nothing.
His fingers tightened around the radio as he lowered it to his side. He didn’t like the feel of this, and there was no way the security team would abandon their posts without alerting him first. Not without a damn good reason.
That list of reasons put all his instincts on alert.
Heart drumming a hard tattoo against his ribs, Wade turned and raced back up the stairs. The moment he opened the bedroom door Erin woke and turned her head to look at him. “I need you to get up and get dressed,” he told her in a curt tone, wanting to convey his urgency without scaring the shit out of her.
Her eyes widened as she sat up and dragged the sheet up over her breasts. “What’s wrong?”
He reached into the top drawer of his bedside table and drew out both his Berettas, checked that the magazines were full. “Power’s out and the security team’s not answering me. I’m going out to check on them and the perimeter. Keep your radio with you, channel two. I’ll contact you before I come back in the house.” He handed her one of the pistols, thankful when she took it without protest. “Anyone else tries to get in while I’m gone, shoot them.”
Leaving her staring after him in stunned silence, Wade yanked on a shirt and jacket before he turned and stalked out of the room.
As he stepped cautiously out onto the back of the covered porch, all Wade’s senses sharpened. He was hyperaware of everything, each sound and movement around him. He had his phone in his pocket, the radio tucked into his waistband and his Beretta gripped tight in his hands. Already he felt too exposed. He’d called in his concerns to Robert, who was waiting for an update and arranging potential backup. For now, he and Erin were on their own. Normally he’d have barricaded them both in the old cellar beneath the house until backup arrived and they found out what the hell was going on, but he couldn’t risk trapping them both.
There was no cover here to offer him protection other than the corners of the house, and no concealment he could use whatsoever once he stepped off the porch. Though he hated leaving Erin here alone, he knew she could defend herself if necessary and he had to go find the security team and find out what the hell was going on.
Keeping his weapon up and ready, he scanned his surroundings before leaving the relative safety of the porch and vaulting over the side of the porch railing. His boots made slight crunching sounds on the wet gravel of the driveway as he hurried across it to the grassy front yard. The tire marks in the gravel weren’t fresh and he didn’t see any footprints in the sodden grass leading up to the house. He hated moving around in the open in the dawn light like this. Made him feel like he had a fucking bull’s eye tattooed across his chest. The back of his neck prickled, his subconscious verifying what the unease in his gut already told him—something was very wrong.
Rain pelted him as he hurried across the grass, the cold wind whipping around him and biting through his jacket. He raced for the thick stand of trees at the far end of the expansive lawn. If a sniper was hidden in there he’d be dead before he reached the trees, but it was the only cover around and he couldn’t afford to stay exposed like this.
He paused and pressed up against a thick tree trunk to get his bearings. The branches swayed and trembled in the wind, dripping more rain onto him. Then he smelled it. A faint whiff of iron over the underlying damp earth.
Blood.
Internal radar pinging like crazy, he eased his way around the tree trunk to look farther into the thicket. The tension is his gut remained but that prickling sensation at his nape eased as he stepped deeper into the trees. If anyone had him in their sights right now, he couldn’t tell. Walking deeper into the dense foliage, he moved carefully through the tangle of underbrush.
The iron smell grew stronger. Most people wouldn’t even have noticed it but he’d spent his entire adult life in combat zones and war-torn countries and he’d recognize that scent anywhere. Pausing behind another thick tree trunk, he reached his left hand down to key the radio. Sure enough, a corresponding squawk sounded off in the distance to his right, where the smell was coming from.
When he covered the remaining distance and peered through the underbrush, he spotted it. An arm lying outstretched on the ground, the hand palm up, the fallen radio lying mere inches from the motionless fingertips. Heart sinking, Wade scanned once more for threats and seeing none, stepped in to see who it was.
Parker. The thirty-one year old former Army lieutenant assigned to the security team. He lay face-down in the mud with his head turned to the side, the whole left side of it blown out. His eyes were half open, staring sightlessly at the forest floor. The blood hadn’t coagulated yet; there was no bruising around the wound and rigidity hadn’t set in yet. Which meant he’d likely been dead for less than an hour.
Clenching his jaw, Wade looked around for any evidence of who had shot him. He found two sets of footprints leading toward the spot where Parker lay. They began where the far side of the copse met a short grassy area that sloped down toward the ditch separating the property from the road. At the edge of the trees the footprints veered right, toward the driveway. He knew the security team’s schedule, but not always the details about who was posted where. Parker and whoever had been with him must have been dropped off by vehicle by some of the others, and headed to their observations posts on foot from there. So where the hell were the others? No one had answered his radio calls and they hadn’t alerted him of a channel or frequency change. And where was whoever was responsible for that other set of prints?
Either dead, or on the run after he’d murdered his fellow security agent in cold-blood.
Heart thudding, Wade cursed and hurried back through the trees, careful not to disturb the murder scene so the forensics guys could put the pieces together when they arrived. Whipping out his cell phone, he swiped his thumb across the screen and entered his security code. He paused just inside the tree line and brought the phone to his ear to report everything when he caught a flash of movement in his peripheral vision. He jerked the phone away from his ear and whirled around to see a shadowy figure approaching the east side of the house.
His heart dropped into his stomach.
Cursing, he shoved the phone away and burst from the trees, weapon aimed dead center mass on the fucker. But now he had to get close enough to use it.
He tore over the open ground, not caring about snipers or other threats, focused solely on stopping the intruder before he could get to the house and harm Erin. His boots dug into the soaked grass with every step, the dull thuds matching the frantic pounding of his heart. “Freeze!” he roared when he was within earshot.
The figure—a man wearing a black hoodie, he could see now—whipped around and froze when he saw Wade coming at him.
“Hands in the air, now!”
The man hesitated for a second, then slowly raised both hands in a non-threatening gesture. Wade wasn’t placated. “Get on the ground,” he snarled, slowing to circle the man cautiously.
Through the driving rain he could make out the tall, muscular build, the short dark hair as the man reluctantly got to his knees. Not one of the security guys. “Right down,” Wade growled, watching the bastard’s hands.
“For fuck sake, Sandberg, take it easy, it’s just me,” the man called back.
Surprise jolted through him. He stared in astonishment. “Schafer?”
“Yeah. Put that damn thing away, will ya?”
No way in hell.
What the fuck was he doing here? Wade stalked forward and stopped within killing range, the weapon’s aim never wavering. “How did you find us?”
Rather than looking cowed or helpless lying stretched out face-first on the soaking wet grass, Schafer turned his head and sent Wade a withering glare. “If you’d answer your fucking phone, you’d know why and you’d have been expecting me.”
Wade darted a quick glance around to ensure they were alone before pinning Schafer with his stare. “Who’s with you?”
“No one,” Schafer gritted out between clenched teeth.
“How did you get here?”
“Drove out.”
Wade frowned and risked a quick glance around. The timing was way too damn suspicious. Had he killed Parker? Wade didn’t want to believe it. “You alone?”
“Yeah. Now let me up.”
“Don’t you fucking move,” Wade warned, taking a menacing step forward.
Schafer let out a disgusted sigh. “The director released me this morning and said he’d tell you himself.”
“So?”
“And so, you should realize that since I’ve been cleared of any wrong doing in this mess, I’m not a threat to you.”
“Or you could have come here to settle the score personally,” Wade said, thinking about Parker’s body lying in those trees behind him. “Now how the fuck did you find us?” The place was way out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but farms and horse pastures for miles in every direction. No way he’d been able to follow them, and Wade couldn’t see anyone at Langley just handing Schafer the address, verified innocence or not.
“I overheard the address from someone. As soon as they released me I left headquarters and took a cab straight to a rental place, then drove out.”
Rage simmered in Wade’s blood. There was no way the security team would have let anyone get near here without stopping them or at least alerting him, which meant they were all either dead or dirty. His jaw tensed. If this fucker had killed Parker in the hopes of catching Wade and Erin off guard, he’d—
He forced himself to stop and take a slow, even breath to combat the rush of adrenaline in his veins. “So why are you here?”
“I have to tell you something.”
“You could’ve left a message.”
“No, man, not for this, and you know I wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of coming here in person if it wasn’t heart-attack-serious. Look, let me up, okay? I’ve got a piece in my waistband and a backup on my ankle, but I’m not gonna reach for either of them. I’ve gotta talk to you and the woman with you, A-fucking-SAP, and somewhere where no one else is gonna hear it. Feel me?”
Wade’s mind whirled as he walked around in an arc, keeping his body between Schafer and the house. If the bastard made a move to reach for one of his weapons, Wade would drop him without batting an eyelash. “Just say what you came to say.”
Schafer shot him a baleful glare, then gave in. “I came to warn you.”
That awful prickling sensation started up again at his nape. “Warn me about what?”
He shook his head once. “Not here, man. They might be listening.”
The driving rain would make that tough, even with a parabolic dish, and there were likely bugs inside that he hadn’t located. No, Schafer was going to have to come clean out here. “Fucking say it, asshole.”
Schafer’s jaw flexed. “I heard someone when I was at Langley, part of a conversation I wasn’t supposed to overhear. They said something about recent chatter regarding a possible attack on the safe house. That’s how I got the address.”
Wade stared at him, a chill skittering down his spine. If that part was true, then Bill and Robert both had to be aware of it. Which meant they either didn’t think it was credible enough to warrant alerting Wade, or Schafer was full of bullshit. “What?” he rasped, his pulse echoing in his ears.
Schafer nodded. “I overheard some guy talking on the phone.”
“Who and where?” If someone was going to have a potentially treasonous conversation like that, they wouldn’t do it at CIA headquarters. Schafer having “overheard” it at all was either a huge damn coincidence, or a bald-ass lie intending to make Wade let his guard down around him. Not happening. Wade wasn’t willing to bet his and Erin’s lives on either of those things.
“Dunno, I never saw his face. I don’t trust any of those fuckers and wanted to come tell you face to face. That’s why I came straight out here. I think you both need to get out of here.”
Wade didn’t know what to believe, but he couldn’t stand out here in plain view and keep interrogating Schafer. “Get up on your knees. Put your hands on the back of your head.”
Schafer did as he was told, pushing up onto his knees as he held his hands out of reach of his weapons, palms out. Wade rushed forward, keeping his own weapon trained on the man’s face. “Don’t you fucking move,” he warned as he stopped in front of him.
“I’m not gonna move,” Schafer snapped, but stayed very still as Wade pulled the Glock from his waistband and tucked it into his own, then reached for Schafer’s right ankle and took the backup.
“You carrying anything else?” Wade asked as he frisked him with one hand, watching for the smallest twitch of movement from the other man.
“No.” He waited until Wade gave a satisfied grunt and stepped back. “Can I get up now?”
Wade gave a grudging nod. “Yeah.” He motioned ahead of him with the barrel of his pistol. “Get in front of me and head toward the house.” He was soaked to the skin and already shivering. Whatever the fuck was going on, he needed to call Robert and report everything, and get Erin the hell out of here.