Donovan didn't acknowledge her frivolity.
“Just so you know. I sent your dossier to someone I trust. Your secret is safeâunless something happens to me. And quit trying to buy me off. I'm sitting here with the poster boy to prove that money can't buy happiness. How has all that wealth worked out for you so far? Does it keep you warm at night and make the pain go away?”
Donovan felt the sting from Montero's words. She was no doubt flawed in more ways than he could count, but she wasn't greedy, and she didn't come across as a liar. She'd just turned down millions to continue her vendetta. She was, however, reckless and more than a little unbalanced. Donovan knew his job had just gotten far more difficult. He not only needed to go with her on her vigilante missionâhe had to keep her from getting herself killed.
“Well, what do you think?” William asked the moment Lauren closed the file.
Lauren shuffled the papers and slid them back in the folder, giving herself a moment to fully digest what she'd just read. “To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure. I get that this report is limited, and perhaps more than a little biased. I think you'll understand when you read it for yourself, but at face value, she's overcome a great deal in her life. She's either a role model in dealing with adversity or she's a manipulative bitch with no business carrying a gun. I'm really not sure which.”
“Go on,” William said, nodding thoughtfully.
“Don't get me wrong, she's certainly intelligent. She's a very capable woman, well trained, but there are issues, some serious psychological tendencies that probably make her dangerous as it pertains to the current situation. I wish Donovan had read this, it might have given him some ammunition going in to try and get the upper hand.”
“You're assuming he doesn't already have the upper hand?”
“Donovan will see some of this eventually, but I'm not sure that emotionally he's in the greatest shape right now. It may take him time to recognize this woman for who she isâtime he might not have.”
“Go on.”
“In broad strokes, the part that jumps out at me is that she doesn't hesitate to operate outside the system. More than once she's taken matters into her own hands and dealt with a perceived threat, or at the very least punished someone she felt had wronged
her. An example I find particularly troubling is a complaint filed against her that involved the blackmail and assault of an underage girl, a prostitute. The girl vanished soon thereafter and the charges were eventually dropped. Still, that strikes me as someone operating out of bounds, yet, she always seems to avoid the consequences of her actions.”
“My friend mentioned that something else happened recently. He told me that Montero is currently in some trouble with the FBI. Perhaps her conduct finally caught up with her?”
“Yeah. The last section references an investigation that somehow went awry. There were several fatalities, including an undercover agent. Montero was directly involved, she was assaulted and hospitalized and there's an ongoing internal investigation. She's been a FBI agent for ten years and she's killed four men in the line of duty. After each instance, she was cleared back to active duty. I know they're highly trained, I get that soldiers do that all the time, but I can't imagine killing someone.”
“She's not you,” William said. “Do you think Donovan is in physical danger?”
“In the present situation, I don't think her predisposition to violence is really the issue. She's not out to hurt Donovan. My guess is she either wants his help or his money. I'm more concerned with how easily she operates outside the system. That's the biggest problem. The report presents a brief forensic psychological profile, and the expert who put it together felt that Montero could be suffering from several unresolved issues. It's suggested that she has a problem with trust, especially in trusting superiors and maybe even the justice system itself. That's problematic, since she's a part of that system. This woman doesn't play well with others. It goes on to say that she's attractive and she knows it; she uses her looks as a weapon. She feels as if she can get away with anything, which she has done to a point, but she's also impulsive and reckless. The bottom line is that Montero is smart, street savvy, and, above all, highly manipulative. In fact, if you take the report at face value,
she defaults to that behavior. That's a lot for anyone, even Donovan, to pick up on in a short period of time.”
“In my experience,” William said, “it won't take him long to decide the best way to deal with this woman, and then, armed with more skills than most of us, he'll take care of the problem. When I first met Donovan, he wasn't much older than Abigail is now. He's always had to deal with the fact that he's expected to conduct himself at a higher standard because of the Huntington name. After his parents died and he came to live with me, his teenage years were especially difficult, his obstacles significant. He grappled with who he was and who he was supposed to be. The absence of a mother and a father made those questions loom even larger. He acted out, as young men will, and created some problems for himself. My God, was he a handful sometimes; nevertheless, as he matured, he developed and honed this exceptional mental acuity. He found that his considerable intelligence provided him with a rare ability to calculate situations far faster than most. You and I both know how impatient he appears at times. It's because he's already assessed the problem from multiple aspects, decided on the best course of action, and is ready to act. It's a gift few have. When you look at it closer, when was the last time he really screwed up?”
Lauren was once again caught off guard at hearing William speak this way about the man she'd married, and she had no ready response. “What if she's determined to expose him?”
“Then he'll assess the situation and do what's needed.”
“We're all living this intricate lie. One mistake and it's going to collapse from the weight of the deception itself.”
“Which is why we have to stay focused. We can't afford to make even the slightest offhand comment or innuendo. Do you have any idea how many wealthy people have had their loved ones kidnapped and held for ransom? Besides Meredith Barnes, there's Charles Lindberg, who lost his infant son. Patty Hearst was kidnapped. J. Paul Getty nearly lost his kidnapped son. The fashion designer Calvin Klein had his daughter, Marci, taken, and that's
just the short list. There are similar threats issued nearly every day. For Donovan, the mere thought of anything like that happening to you or Abigail is his worst nightmare.”
“Worst scenario, how much trouble is he in legally if the world finds out he's alive?”
“Not much, he wasn't a fugitive. Some will cry fraud, try to sue him for one thing or another, but in cases like that deeper pockets usually prevail, which in this case is Donovan. There's nothing that would constitute extraditable crimes. The worst backlash may come from the FAA. They may try and revoke his pilot's license for parachuting out of a perfectly good airplane.”
“So, it's just about her? All of this is about Meredith Barnes?”
William pursed his lips and nodded. “Meredith was more than a woman, she was an icon, and still is, more so now that she's gone. The passion behind this issue is what makes it so volatile. We live in a society that worships our heroes and canonizes them until the myth expands far beyond the reality. I saw the media attack him back then and it was brutal. The media today is far more complicated and voracious. It'll be a complete frenzy, and I'm not talking about for a week or two. I'm talking about a lifetimeâAbigail's lifetime as well. I promise you, it will never stop. That's what Donovan is trying to avert.”
Lauren nodded as she processed the magnitude of William's words and knew in her heart that he was right. She began to feel more than frustration at the present situation, more than her simple anger directed at Montero. Buried in the shifting complexities of their problems, Lauren couldn't ignore a different knot in the pit of her stomachâit was her first stab of real fear.
“Tell me about Alec,” Donovan asked.
“About five months ago I got an anonymous tip about some Venezuelans setting up shop in South Florida. The source fed us intelligence and it looked credible. These guys were up to something and we wanted to know what it was. The fact that we suspected they were from Venezuela made it even more curious. We wondered if they were organized crime out of Caracas, or if they were into human trafficking, money laundering, or maybe they were terrorists. We assembled a small unit and put these people under surveillance. I was one of the case agents and Alec worked for me.”
Montero began to pace slowly back and forth.
“How long had you known him?”
“Alec joined the Miami field office and was then assigned duties out of the West Palm Beach office about ten months ago. That's why Alec volunteered to go undercover. He'd transferred to Florida from Arizona and was a new face in town, so it made sense for him to go under. We put it together quickly, but it was an airtight operation. Miami worked up a background that showed Alec had been court-martialed out of the army for theft, insubordination, and assault. We made him into a real ex-army bad guy. He rented an out-of-the-way little house down in the Florida Keys not far from where the subjects were at the time. Then he hooked up with some of the local bad guys to see what he could learn.”
“Were you sleeping with him at this point?” Donovan asked point-blank, if nothing else, to judge her reaction.
“Yes. We were immediately drawn to each other. It was so
strange, he wasn't my type, he was younger, and, God, was he arrogant. I figured he was just another hormone-driven cowboy trying to get me into the sack. Turns out he wasn't like that at all, and it didn't take long for us to become involved. I still don't understand how it happened, but it did.”
“What happened then?”
“Alec was doing âsoft' surveillance. A few pictures, notes on the comings and goings of the men involved, very hands off, nothing that should have raised any eyebrows. He did find out that these guys were up to something. They had weapons. They made several reconnaissance trips to local airfields, shook down some locals, but beyond that, nothing. They mostly lay low like they were waiting for something or someone. We were being patient, and then it all went to hell.”
Montero's smooth edges began to unravel. Her words were less crisp; she was talking faster. She lowered her head. Her hand covered her mouth as if she could somehow hold her emotions inside her.
“Keep going.”
“We'd been apart for nearly three weeks. I hated it as much as he did. Alec finally convinced me that a woman spending the night with him wouldn't raise any eyebrows. I checked a car out of the impound lot and drove to the Keys. Alec and I stayed at his place and made dinner. He showed me the faces of a couple of unfamiliar people he'd photographed. I didn't recognize them, but he e-mailed them to me to run through the system when I went back to the office. After dinner, we had drinks on the deck and talked until the bugs started driving us crazy. We went inside and went to bed.”
Montero stopped and took a few quiet breaths to steady herself. A solitary tear raced down her cheek and she brushed it away. “It was later, after we'd gone to sleep, that they stormed the bedroom. It happened so fast neither one of us had a chance to fight back. It was over in a matter of seconds. Whoever they were, they were well trained.”
Donovan waited as she drew several deep breaths. There was
nothing about this that was easy for her. He noticed a vein in her neck pounding furiously, and her hands had the slightest of tremors.
“All I have to go on after that are the official reports. Police responded to a report of shots fired at the house the Venezuelans were using at 3:53 a.m. The initial responders discovered four bodies at the scene. Alec was one of them. One survivor was taken to the hospital.”
Donovan saw her eyes flood with tears. A muffled sob escaped her throat. She turned away from him, facing the sliding glass door, her shoulders shaking in silent grief.
“You do survive,” Donovan said, finally. “You'll never be the same, ever, and despite all of your wishes to the contraryâyou will survive. I learned a long time ago that dying is the easy partâit's surviving that's the real trick.”
Still facing the window, Montero said. “They found me in one of the bedrooms. I'd been drugged and was unconscious, tied naked to the headboard. The doctor told me there was evidence of intercourse, but then it could have been from earlier in the evening, with Alec. I don't remember anything. I'll never know what happened to us, to me, unless I find the people who were there.”
“It sounds to me like someone used the two of you to rid themselves of three drug smugglers.”
Montero sniffed and turned around. “That's exactly what happened. We were set up, big time. On the surface, it looked like an FBI agent in search of his kidnapped partner went on a rampage and murdered a houseful of people and was shot and killed in the process. According to ballistics, the bullets that were recovered from all three men's bodies came from Alec's Glock. A single slug hit Alec in the chest and he bled out in minutes. The preliminary assessment was that I was abducted and Alec charged in, guns blazing, and killed everyone in the house.”
“Did he?” Donovan asked. “Did he wake up and make a play to get to you?”
“Each of the three men was shot in the head, instantaneous kill
shots. In all my time with Alec on the range, I've never seen him do that. We're trained to aim for center mass. They weren't wearing Kevlar so the head shot makes no sense. In my mind someone else was doing the shooting.”