Crash & Burn

  Nick sneered at him, but he was fighting just to stay aware.

  Tanner examined him speculatively. “I can’t decide if you’re worth keeping around, or if I should leave you for Tyler to find. I’m not sure we want to put that fire under him. Not yet.”

  Nick sagged against the men holding him, his vision blurring as the pain began to win the battle for his consciousness. “They’ll kill you. He’ll kill you.”

  Tanner narrowed his eyes.

  Nick’s strength gave out. He had no more fight in him. His knees buckled. His vision darkened and he cursed himself for giving in, for letting them win. But his body was broken and his mind was tired.

  “What should we do with him, Wilkins?” Tanner asked one of his trainees.

  “Kill him, sir.”

  Tanner smiled at Nick. “He’s the best student I’ve had since Tyler came through.”

  Ty sat in the passenger seat, eating a chicken sandwich he wasn’t entirely confident in, staring through the falling snow at the expanse of deserted parking lot around them.

  They’d used a map to pick a town that seemed like it might be halfway for everyone, deciding to meet up in Winchester, Virginia, at a place called Apple Blossom Mall. It was big enough that their group wouldn’t look too suspicious, and Ty and Zane had managed to find a corner of the parking lot that was out of the way of the security cameras.

  “Heard from Cross yet?” Zane asked after a few minutes of silence.

  Ty had to fight to swallow, and he shook his head. “I told him we were scattering, we’d be in touch when we hit the ground again. So I called him when we left the house, told him to meet us here. He should be here soon with a shitload of supplies.”

  Zane nodded, eyes on the moonlit parking lot. Ty wrapped up his questionable sandwich and stuffed it into his bag, placing it on the floorboard. “If I die, the chicken did it,” he grumbled, earning a snort from Zane and nothing more.

  Kelly sat in the backseat, bundled in a coat with a furry lining he was apparently having issues with, because he’d been threatening to hack it off with his knife all day long. “Told you to skip the fast food.”

  Ty rolled his eyes, sighing heavily. Kelly had been damn near impossible to deal with on their trip to Bluefield, and Ty just wasn’t used to him being like this. Owen, sure. Hell, even Nick sometimes. Himself? Yeah, Ty was usually the one sitting in the backseat making people murderous with his comments. But he didn’t know how to handle Kelly like this. They needed him, though. The house is Bluefield was a proven risk. Ty had made the call and Zane had backed him.

  Ty glanced at Zane. He had assumed a position of leadership with their ragtag little band, whether it was giving orders himself or backing Ty’s, and that suited him beautifully.

  Zane obviously felt eyes on him, because he turned and winked at Ty, a smile flitting across his lips.

  “They uploaded the photos, right?” Kelly asked. “Both teams?”

  “Yeah, and we don’t have any distress signals. We’re okay, Doc,” Zane assured him.

  Nearly an hour later, headlights pierced through the snow, aiming toward them. The car came into view and pulled up beside theirs. Ty rolled down his window, raising an eyebrow at Owen and Digger. “You good?”

  Both men nodded. “You?” Digger asked.

  “We ran into leftover issues, but we handled it.”

  “Damn,” Digger snarled, and he dug around in his pocket, pulling out a twenty-dollar bill and slapping it into Owen’s waiting hand. “Why can’t you assholes ever do nothing easy? God damn, son.”

  Ty grinned, glancing over to find his husband with his head lowered, rubbing his eyes with one hand.

  Digger and Owen both got out of their car and climbed into the back of the SUV with Kelly, huddling in the chilly night.

  “We get all three?” Owen asked.

  Zane nodded, holding up his iPad. They’d forwarded the photos to Preston’s contact at the CIA, and they were being graced with a live stream of the decoding so they could run with it if they figured it out before it was done.

  “This fucking code word of his better not be ‘password’ or some shit; I’ll throw down,” Digger grunted. Kelly snorted as he huddled between them, arms crossed, looking mutinous.

  “So far, we know it’s six letters. That’s as far as they’ve gotten,” Zane told them.

  “Hey Six, you knew the guy. You got any ideas yet?” Owen asked.

  Ty shook his head forlornly. “I didn’t know him at all.”

  Headlights blinked from several sections over, and Ty could feel Kelly shifting around in the backseat, peering through the window. The car came to a stop on Zane’s side, and he rolled down the window so they could see past the ice accumulating. Liam was in the driver’s seat, his head lowered. He was alone.

  “No,” Kelly snarled. “No!”

  Liam rolled his window down, sighing as he shook his head. “There were men waiting in the house,” he told them. “We thought it was one, I went outside to get the transmission through, Irish stayed in to handle it. Turns out there were three.”

  Ty’s breath left him in a rush so painful he had to grab at his chest.

  “I saw them carry him out,” Liam continued solemnly. “He wasn’t fighting.”

  The backseat was as quiet as a crypt. The only sound in the car was Zane breathing.

  “I had no clear shot, so I followed them. But I lost them in the city,” Liam admitted. “I’m sorry.”

  Zane took a deep breath before he glanced at Ty, expressionless.

  “Six,” Digger whispered. “We got to go after him.”

  Ty nodded, but he wasn’t actually hearing anything but the blood rushing through his ears.

  “Ty,” Zane finally whispered.

  As they sat in the heavy silence, Zane’s iPad beeped at them. He picked it up, catching his breath. “We have three of the letters.”

  Ty’s skin pricked as he realized he had to make the decision. Go after the money, save himself and Zane, prevent the CIA and NIA from going to war, and get the Vega cartel off Zane’s back for good. Or go back for Nick, who may well have been dead before he left that house.

  He swallowed hard, looking over the backseat at Kelly.

  “No!” Kelly shouted, and began struggling to get past Owen and out the door. “Fuck you!”

  There was a lot of tussling in the backseat, and Kelly finally managed to get out of the SUV, taking Owen with him as he did. He rounded the car, slamming both fists against the hood of Liam’s sedan. “You came to him for help! He was the only one who trusted you to have his back, and you left him alone!”

  Ty was leaning over the console, watching Kelly, eyes widening the more Kelly shouted. He huffed angrily and moved to join Owen, who was standing behind Kelly, watching him rant.

  “He trusted you!” Kelly shouted at Liam, who was still in his car. Kelly pointed at him, turning to Ty. “He’s after the money, nothing more. Everything he’s told us, we can’t fucking believe it. Anything he’s told you, anything, you fucking forget he ever said it!”

  As they stood in the beams of Liam’s headlights, another car approached. The crunching tires and Kelly’s heaving breaths were the only sounds in the snow.

  Julian and Preston got out, both men warily examining the scene. Finally, Julian nodded at Kelly. “What’s up, Doc?”

  Kelly turned to Ty and Owen defiantly, as if that had been the absolute last straw. Ty put his hands up to ward off whatever Kelly had in mind, but Kelly moved to Owen, palm out.

  “Keys!”

  “Where’s the detective?” Julian asked.

  “He was taken,” Ty answered.

  “And I’m assuming the Doc is going to go rampage after him,” Julian said. “Well, then.”

  “Doc, stop!” Owen cried as he tried to fend Kelly off, who was patting him down to find the keys to the other car. “We’re going with you!”

  Liam opened his door, but Zane reached through the window and shut it in his fa
ce as he tried to get out. “Stay.”

  Kelly turned on Ty then, jaw set, eyes flashing. “You have to go find that money to save the man you love, I get that.” Then he pointed to his own chest. “But I’ve got to do the same thing. I’m going to find Nick. I’m done.”

  Ty felt the world spin a little as he tried to come to terms with the fact he was considering letting anyone else go rescue his best friend without him. “Fuck this!” he finally huffed. He brushed past Kelly, heading for the driver’s side door of the SUV. “Zane.”

  Zane was nodding. “Let’s go get him.”

  Ty’s heart clenched. “Are you sure?”

  Zane smiled softly. “What good is it to save ourselves if we sacrifice who we love along the way?”

  Ty puffed out a relieved breath.

  “I’m not coming with you, though,” Zane added.

  “What, why?”

  “I want to go to Quantico, talk to Jack Tanner. I think I can read him better than Nick. A day out of the way, then I’ll join you.”

  “But going alone—”

  “Ty, I’ll be okay for twelve hours.”

  Ty was skeptical, but he nodded. “We’ll find Nick. You question Tanner. We’ll meet in the middle.”

  A face swam above Zane’s vision, blinking in and out as he fought his way back to consciousness.

  “First lesson I ever taught you, boy,” Jack Tanner said with a shake of his head. “Never trust anyone.”

  “What?” Zane whispered, and he squeezed his eyes closed to fight back the nausea and confusion.

  What the hell had happened? He remembered leaving the other boys to their search for Nick and driving toward Quantico. He vaguely remembered trying to find the right address to talk to Jack Tanner, and he remembered being excited to see the man again. The one man in the academy who’d believed in him, who’d seen something in him to push for. He wasn’t ashamed to admit he was looking forward to Tanner seeing him now, seeing what he’d made of himself.

  But after that, he had no memory of anything. Had he been jumped? Had he had an accident? Why the hell did his head hurt so much?

  “I hit you in the head, son,” Tanner told him, sounding almost amused. “Wilkins. You two idiots come hold him before he gets his senses back.”

  Rough hands dragged him off the ground. Zane was battling to remember, to understand. He’d been welcomed into Tanner’s home and offered coffee, and then . . . This was not how he remembered Tanner’s coffee.

  He shook away the confusion and the blurriness, meeting Tanner’s eyes as two other men held his arms and propped him up on wobbly legs.

  “Always did have a hard head, didn’t you, Zane?” Tanner asked. “Where’s Dick’s money?”

  “What?”

  Tanner waved a photo in Zane’s face. It was the one of Ty and Nick that had been hanging in their living room. There was blood smeared over the corner of it. “I know you and your boys are looking for the money Dick stole. You got into that safe, didn’t you?”

  “You were the one after it?”

  “Neighbors called the law on me before I could get it open. Richard and I were partners. The information in that safe is rightfully mine. What was in it?”

  Zane struggled to pull in breaths, trying not to react too violently to the photo or to Tanner’s betrayal. Pain burned through him, making things hazy, blurring his vision. Blood was pounding through his head at warp speed, and he could feel it trickling down his neck.

  “Why not just kill them when they came to you?” he asked Tanner roughly, though deep down he knew the answer. If he could stall, though, maybe Ty would realize he was in danger, or he’d find an opening to attack. “Why the act?”

  “Because when your idiot friends showed up at my door, I realized you and Grady knew where the last pieces of Richard’s little puzzle were hidden. He tried to screw me.” Tanner stood up, shoving the picture of Ty and Nick in Zane’s shirt pocket. “And really, Garrett, I just need you. Not Grady. Certainly not any of your friends. All I need is the information from that safe. And I know you can get it for me.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I thought that might be your answer.” Tanner held up one of Zane’s knives in a hand with a brand-new cast. “I can get it from your husband.”

  Zane couldn’t hide the stark fear that came over him. He tensed his shoulders and yanked at the men holding him, almost pulling the smaller of the two off his feet.

  Tanner laughed and then hit Zane with a sharp left hook, leaving his cohorts to shore Zane up. Zane used the leverage and kicked out with both feet, hooking one ankle around Tanner’s neck. When Tanner ducked and bowed his head under the weight, Zane got the other foot against his neck and tightened his feet together like a vise.

  Tanner flailed and pushed ineffectually at Zane’s foot, hitting his leg with the plaster cast. A little more torque and Zane thought he might be able to snap the man’s neck. He pushed his toes against Tanner’s chin. Tanner gasped and motioned wildly at his lackeys, who both simply stepped back and let Zane go, removing his leverage. But Zane refused to release Tanner, even as he lost the support from behind.

  The thin rug didn’t do anything to pad his fall, and the hard landing stunned him once more as pain lanced through every joint in his body. He lost his grip on Tanner’s neck, and a heavy, booted foot pressed down on his throat before he could recover his senses. He gasped and grabbed at the ankle, receiving an angry kick to the ribs for his trouble.

  “Always were a persistent little shit,” Tanner hissed breathlessly. He was on his knees, and he gestured to his men as he climbed back to his feet. “Get the bastard up. And hold him this time!”

  The rookie agents bent obediently to haul Zane up, cursing at him under their breath.

  Tanner took a syringe from his back pocket, holding it up as they struggled with Zane to bare his arm. Zane twisted and fought, even biting down on an arm that came too close to his mouth. But the needle burned into his skin, flooding his body with ice.

  Tanner sneered at him as his vision wavered. “We’ll see how fucking tough you are when you’re watching your friend bleed out in front of you.”

  “I’ll kill you,” Zane whispered.

  “You can sure as hell try, boy.”

  Zane woke so fast it stole his breath. It was dim when he opened his eyes, and what little he could see in the room was blurry.

  He blinked the haziness away, trying to focus on something. It was long, painful minutes before he truly trusted what he was seeing. An old ceiling fan was spinning lazily above him, and Zane’s eyes followed the waffle-knit pattern on the stained blades.

  The motion of the fan began to make him queasy, and he turned his head before he could think better of it. He hadn’t meant to alert anyone until he could discern where he was, but he’d fucked that up. He must have been hit harder than he’d thought.

  Movement in the room made him tense, and he kept his eyes shut, trying to fake sleep. Chains clanked.

  “Garrett?” someone whispered.

  Zane’s eyes popped open.

  Nick was hunched across the room, watching him. He breathed out in relief when Zane revealed he was conscious. “Thank Christ.”

  “O’Flaherty?” The word came out slurred and mangled. He closed his eyes and tried to clear the cobwebs left in his head.

  “You been out a long time. Take it slow.”

  “How long?”

  “Twelve hours. Maybe longer.”

  “Shit. Oh God, my head.” Zane tried to reach up to check for a knot or blood. Neither hand moved.

  “You apparently have a habit of fighting in your sleep. Didn’t bother with handcuffs after you decked him.”

  Whoever had tied him up had wrapped a nylon rope around him, securing his hands behind him. He looked across the room at Nick. “Tanner?”

  “He’s after the money.”

  Zane blinked, and Nick nodded, smiling grimly.

  “Hijo de puta,” Zane snarled. He remembered
now. He remembered everything. “Why the hell didn’t we make that connection earlier? I walked right into his fucking house and asked for coffee.”

  “Too much shit blowing up.”

  Zane tried to turn so he could see Nick’s condition better. His face was bruised and bloodied. He’d ripped his shirt into long strips and tied them around his ribs and his knee like he was trying to stabilize a break or dislocation. He was in awful shape, but he was alive. “We thought you were dead.”

  Nick shrugged one shoulder and looked pointedly around the room. “Close enough. Don’t eat the food, by the way. It’s drugged.”

  They stared at each other, and Zane could guess what was going through Nick’s mind: flashes of a tiny cell and orders shouted in Pashto like Ty had told him about.

  “O’Flaherty.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Garrett, I’m okay.” Nick smiled tiredly, tapping his temple.

  Zane returned the smile with a glimmer of hope. Between the two of them, they’d be resourceful enough to get out of here. Right?

  “How far have you gotten?” Zane asked him.

  “Made it to the front door. One of his little cockmuppets took me down with a Taser.”

  Zane had to smile. Of course they had Tasers. “What’s the structure?”

  “Trail cabin, maybe. Definitely in the middle of nowhere. No one to hear you scream.”

  “Jack Tanner had a hunting cabin in northern Virginia.”

  Nick adjusted the way he was sitting on his thin mattress. A bed just like Zane’s had obviously once been there. Zane wondered what Nick had done to get it taken away. He leaned against the wall with his hands in his lap. He was handcuffed and chained to a bolt that appeared to have been hastily drilled into the subfloor beneath the hardwood.

  “Can you get out of those?” Zane asked, hope sparking in his chest.

  “Yeah, Garrett. I’ve just been sitting here wearing them because they bring out the stainless steel in my eyes.”