Purpose (29 page)

C
LOTHES
waited for Will when he left the bathroom with a towel around his waist. Another tight, clingy outfit. For someone who didn’t want others to stare at him, Ryan didn’t help matters by insisting he wear what was set out.

“Why did you agree to meet Jake?” He dropped his towel and stepped into his boxer briefs.

“
We
agreed to take him to dinner for his birthday.” Ryan left his towel in the bathroom, walking naked into the bedroom.

Holding the shirt, Will stopped getting dressed to stare at his boyfriend. “You look so good naked. Are you sure we can’t stay here instead?”

Ryan blushed before laughing. “Where did that come from, and what did you do with Will?”

“Hey, before this thing took over my life, I wasn’t a monk.” Wiggling his eyebrows up and down, he ended by giving Ryan a wink.

Ryan moved closer, leaned in to kiss Will, then moved around the bed to retrieve his clothes. “No, we can’t stay in, but if you still feel that way later, I’ll gladly get naked for you.”

Shaking his head, Will pulled on the shirt. “Sure, tease a fella why don’t you.”

About to put his boxers on, Ryan stifled a laugh. “Fella? Where the hell did that come from? The fifties?”

“Probably.” A fake scowl on his face, Will turned his back to put on the pants Ryan had set out for him. “What’s wrong with fella? My grandfather used to call me that when I was a teenager.”

“You were a teenager in the late fifties and early sixties.” He paused for a moment as Will heard the shirt slide over his head. “This is 2010. No one says ‘fella’ anymore.”

“Didn’t we have this conversation before?” Keeping his “old” colloquialisms out of his vocabulary might be easier if he had been a part of the last three decades. “Can’t you just point out when I say something too old-fashioned, rather than ask me what decade that was from?”

It came out worse than he meant it. When he turned, Ryan was staring at the button on his jeans. “Sorry, Will. I didn’t mean to be a jerk.”

Yup, screwed up again. “You weren’t a jerk, and I wasn’t… am not, mad. I… well, I guess I still have a bit of work to do on my interpersonal skills. All I meant was, I need you to bring me up to date, but if you make a joke about it, I get self-conscious.”

Looking up, Ryan’s face showed his disbelief. “Self-conscious? You?”

He nodded. “Believe it or not, where you’re concerned, I am. You gave me, Will, not Gar, a reason to live again. I don’t want to screw that up.”

Will’s heart rate increased when a smile split Ryan’s face. Shaking his head, Ryan dropped his pants on the bed and moved closer to him. “Silly fella, you worry too much.”

Ryan quickly slipped his arm around his waist, pulling them closer. He kissed Ryan’s cheek and buried his face in his still damp hair. “No, I don’t. I just want to make you happy all the time.”

“No one’s happy all the time, but it’s a sweet thought.” Ryan tilted his head up and searched for Will’s lips with his own. When they met, the kiss was more passionate than Will wanted if they were still going out. Perhaps sensing things were going in the wrong direction, Ryan pulled back, drawing a deep breath. “Trust me. You make me happy, William Morgan the third.”

Words seemed wrong for the moment, so he kissed Ryan’s forehead before he returned to getting dressed. Maybe no one was happy all the time, but that didn’t mean he should stop trying.

“What time did you say you’d meet Detective Griffin?” Was Ryan trying to change the topic?

“After dinner.” Rather than call Ryan on it, he answered the question. “He’s working nights, so I told him to meet me near Union Station. Figure that’s random enough.”

“Do you think he’ll work with us?” His use of the word “us” wasn’t lost on Will.

“He should.” He ignored the “we” Ryan had slipped into his question. “The more cases I close for him, the better he looks.”

Ryan curled his lower lip inward, holding it between his teeth for a moment. “What if he doesn’t?”

“We’re not going to worry about that tonight.” Gently pushing Ryan out of their bedroom, he made sure he had enough cash for the evening. “We’ve got time. That little riot you incited has both Purposes well fed for the time being. If Griffin doesn’t want my help, we’ll figure out what to do then. No sense wasting brain power with what-if’s that might not happen.”

He left unspoken the probable alternative: kill the guilty. There would be time to figure out a plan “B” if they needed one.

S
OMETHING
was wrong, seriously wrong.

Scanning Massachusetts Avenue, all he saw was the steady stream of cars and a few people walking. Across North Capitol, beyond the Old Post Office, he spotted dozens of people milling about Union Station, but that wasn’t where his angst came from.

The stray thoughts he kept picking up told him “
they
were in position.” Whoever “they” were and what “position” they’d assumed.

Whispering so low that only Ryan’s enhanced hearing would pick it up, Will said, “Are you sure you don’t ‘feel’ anything?”

“Nothing.” Ryan’s lack of confirmation did nothing to ease his discomfort.

“Take Jake and get out of here.” Whatever “delayed” Griffin was no accident. “Please, don’t argue this time, just go.”

Before Ryan could do just that and argue, Will spotted Griffin’s car. He checked for anyone trailing the detective, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Despite a lack of evidence, his mind screamed trap. Was his Purpose trying to tell him something? After their conversation, if it was, why didn’t it just “say” so?

“I need you two to go. This still feels wrong.” He continued his search for the source of his discomfort

“Will, I can help.”

“Ryan! Stop trying to prove something and just listen to me!” Harsher than he wanted, but if he was right, something bad was about to go down. He noticed several heads, including Jake’s, looking their way. Lowering his voice, he hoped he didn’t need to “force” Ryan to leave again. That went so well last time. “I need you get Jake out of here. Hide your faces, if you’re not doing it already.”

“What’s going on?” The defiance was gone, replaced by concern.

“It’s a trap. Griffin’s being watched or tailed or something.” This had Barrington’s hands all over it. “They’re trying to catch me.”

Ryan turned toward Jake, who was still standing on the corner. “Please, go now. I’ll catch up when I get clear. Remember to hide yourselves, or at least your faces.”

Ryan hesitated again.

“
Go
!” Will added as strong a suggestion as he could to his word. Griffin’s car pulled up to the agreed-upon location at almost the same time as Ryan began walking away.

Another check revealed no new information, so he kept himself hidden as he walked toward the car. Even if they were tailing Griffin, if they couldn’t see him, it didn’t matter what they’d planned.

A few steps away from the Crown Victoria, he stopped. Telltale red laser dots covered the car and the detective. They were brief, an instant to gain a target lock, but he saw them, all of them. His enhanced sight allowed him to catch glimpses of the snipers ringing the vacant building they were in front of.

Periodically, the flash of red would confirm the target. Focusing harder than he could remember, he felt three different tags of light hit him
. Son of a bitch
. Even though they couldn’t see him, he’d been targeted. Once he made contact with Griffin, they’d know for sure they had the right target.

Closing the gap, he took control of Griffin’s mind, telling him to stay calm and not move. “You need to get back in the car and leave. Barrington knew we were meeting here, and he’s ringed the building with snipers.”

“What?” If Will hadn’t kept the man from moving, Griffin would have surveyed their surroundings, exactly what the agent wanted. It would announce Will’s presence.

“Evidently, you’re expendable.” Will released the hold he had on the detective enough for him to move his eyes. “See the flashes of red. Laser locks. The car, you, me. We’ve all been targeted.”

Had he anticipated this, it would have been easy enough to reconfigure his scrambler to trick the targeting light to lock on the object behind him. The key being
had
he anticipated it. Now he needed to get the detective out of the way.

“You’re a spirit. No one can see you. How can they lock on you?” Griffin struggled to move, but Will kept his hold.

Invisible wasn’t immaterial, but there wasn’t time to explain. “Suffice that they are using my proximity to you to get a general idea of where I am. I suspect once they’re sure I’m here, they’ll blanket the area with shots.”

“That’s crazy. There are dozens of people in the area. Innocent people will get hurt.”

“Like I said, you, they, everyone’s expendable.” Time to get the man away. “Just go. I’ll find a way to contact you tomorrow.”

Bullets tore into the empty car, piercing two tires and shattering the back window.

“Holy shit!” Griffin screamed, moving away because Will told his mind to run. Several more red dots started to sweep the area. They were trying to triangulate the locks to “find” him. Rather than run, he did the unexpected.

Behind him, the building at the corner of North Capitol and D Street NW had been gutted, the outer walls all removed. The concrete floor of the second level was a twelve-foot leap up and to his left. Checking the overhead clearance, the corner of his eye caught the two red dots against the back panel of the detective’s car just as he sprang upward. He was too late.

The second shot ignited the gas tank an instant after Will jumped. Off his feet, he couldn’t brace himself for the blast, and it sent him flying into the building. He slammed against a concrete support and had the wind knocked out of him for a moment.

After landing face-first on the dusty cement floor, he snapped into a crouch, scanning for his adversaries. This close to the Capitol, alarms went off in all directions. Confusion could be his ally as he waited quietly for a chance to leave.

Above the sirens and sound of the car burning, he could hear voices, but not what they were saying. Most of them were civilians trying to figure out what had happened. He was interested in what the FBI agents were saying, but it was impossible to hear with everything else happening.

He grazed the remains of the black box on his belt. Hopefully, it was damaged when he struck the column and not from the blast. If they’d seen him flung into the building, they’d be converging on his position rather than searching the street for a body.

Worse, once the flames died down, infrared sensors would now pick up his body heat. He hadn’t given off a heat signature before the explosion, so would they even be looking for one? Either way, he’d be better served among people, where he could blend in, rather than alone in the vacant building.

More sirens and a call for an ambulance forced his hand. No matter what else they expected, they couldn’t anticipate he wasn’t hurt by the blast. Using that advantage, he found an opening and leapt up to the second story.

From higher up, he could see heavily armed men in tactical gear advancing on the ground floor of the building. Their M-16 rifles—with infrared scopes—were trained on the ground floor, where he’d been moments before. He cursed himself for being too reliant on his technology. Next upgrade was going to include making it sturdier.

Much as he’d told Ryan he was indestructible, he didn’t know for sure if the more sensitive areas of his body could deflect a high-powered bullet. For all he knew, a well-placed shot to his eye, or maybe his nose or ear, could easily make its way into his brain. Maybe his gray matter could survive, but he didn’t want to find out with a live demonstration.

Using whatever cover he could find, he slowly climbed to the eighth floor. Each time he moved into the opening, he kept low, moved as fast as his enhanced abilities would take him, and quickly found cover the moment he reached the next level. The absence of shots or laser marks almost lulled him into thinking they hadn’t found him.

“Agent Barrington.” The voice echoed through the building, or it seemed that way to his hearing. “There’s marking in the dust on the first floor. Something hit a pole hard. There’s a body print in the dust.”

“Any direction?”

“None that we can see.”

Thankfully, he was able to jump up without having to walk to an opening. If they searched the other floors, and he knew they would now, they’d figure out what he was up to. By then, he’d be halfway home.

“Let’s get the dogs here.” Barrington’s voice held a hint of anticipation and glee. “We got him. This will get us a scent, and we can track him.”

Might be worth sticking around to see his face when no one was caught.

He crouched behind a cement barrier at the edge of the floor and peered down. Capitol police officers, assisted by dozens of units from the Metropolitan Police, were setting up a perimeter four blocks in all directions. This time he’d be more cautious.

He leaped across a small gap and landed on the roof of the Phoenix Park Hotel. Barrington was behind this attack; he was certain. How many lives had Barrington put at risk? Most importantly, he’d put Ryan in harm’s way. For that alone Will needed to put an end to Barrington’s operation.