Chapter Forty-One Ryder
Chapter Forty-One
Ryder
“Does this mean what I hope it means?” Seraphina asked after cleaning up and dressing so we could head into the bedroom.
I zipped up my jeans and smiled. “Batman.” Relief was still cycling through me as my mind played catch-up that Carter had come through for us even though we hadn’t been able to call him.
“He probably tapped into the same satellite feeds we were using and saw Beth and the others box us in.” I reached for her hand, lacing our fingers together. “Looks like he got ahold of Potus .”
“Doubt Beth went down easily after that call and simply passed off her phone to Alex.”
Yeah, I was with her on that. I opened the bathroom door, assuming Nate would be there with answers.
Nate had a peace offering in his hand in the form of my Glock. “Here.”
The comfortable weight of it felt damn good. I nodded my appreciation, tucking it at the back of my jeans, then took hold of her hand again.
So, what went down while we were having sex up against the wall? Sex I didn’t regret, not for a fucking second.
He cut to it. “The president should be calling back on a secure line in a few minutes.”
Good. There was time to fill us in first.
He tipped his head toward the door, and I noticed Alex hanging back, out in the hallway.
“My ex-wife is now the one in time-out,” Alex said with a shit-eating grin. “Along with two other operators who are part of her special team.”
About time we had things turn around.
“Courtesy of orders that came from the Commander in Chief himself. You should’ve seen her face when the CIA director called and he handed the phone over to Potus . Probably shit her pants.” The man was smiling like the Cheshire cat. Hell, at the news, I probably was, too. “Relieved of duty.”
“And she really surrendered?” Seraphina beat me to the question burning through my mind.
“Definitely not, so I had to restrain her when she gave me no choice but to do so.” He lifted one shoulder. “I’d never hurt a woman, but tie that one up? Without question.”
“Beth called out for help from the two operators on her team, but we handled them before they could get to her,” Nate added.
“What about Leo? The other operators? Whose side are they on?” I asked as we left the bedroom, following Alex to the main living area.
Alex glanced back at us. “The other guys are solid, on our side, but I don’t trust Leo, so he’s in time-out as well.”
“He give you hell, too?” I scanned the living room, counting the operators, who I hoped would become our temporary teammates while down here.
“Leo wasn’t a happy fucker,” Alex said. “Any excuse to deck him, though.”
“You Tasered the guy.” Nate laughed, and I’d swear his eyes already looked less jaded without Beth in charge.
“He had it coming,” Reed chimed in, joining us alongside Garrison.
I slung my arm behind Seraphina’s back, drawing her close to me, worried we still weren’t 100 percent in the clear even if Beth was behind a locked door.
“Apparently, it’s a small world.” Garrison shook my free hand. “We have a mutual friend outside of Reed.”
“Oh yeah? Who?” I asked as Alex offered me Seraphina’s phone, and I passed it over to her to hang on to.
“Wyatt Pierson’s wife, Natasha. Well, you’ve made the acquaintance of her stepdaughter, so I heard.
While you were, uh, in the bedroom ...
” Garrison cleared his throat. Did everyone know what had gone down five minutes ago?
“I learned you received an assist from Gwen. I used to protect Natasha back in the day.”
“Does that mean Natasha’s CIA?” Seraphina asked, her tone lowering.
“That’s classified.” Garrison smiled. “But not everyone at the Agency is a douche, I swear.”
“I’ll have to trust you on that one.” She gave him a hesitant smile, and I had a feeling she was still trying to wrap her head around the quick change of events. Going from hostages to back in charge thanks to Carter.
Before I had a chance to speak my mind, Garrison let me know the president was on the line. “He’s in the Situation Room.” He accepted the call, and I let go of Seraphina to take the phone, my mind reeling a bit at talking to the Commander in Chief himself.
“Mr. President.” My heartbeat doubled its rate as I turned from the others, grabbing hold of the back of my neck, working at the tension there.
“Lawson,” he greeted. “I was woken up in the middle of the night and alerted to your situation by a very persistent man.”
“Carter.” Because of Seraphina, a bat signal in the sky popped into my mind, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Sorry about that, Mr. President.”
“I should be apologizing to you, son. This should never have happened. I’ve regretted a few appointments I’ve made in my time in office, but Director Johnson’s deception stings the most.” He let his words sit for a minute, and I had no plans to speak until I was told to.
I wasn’t someone to idolize another person. My dad did a bang-up job fucking up the father role and all, but President Bennett was certainly a man I looked up to and admired.
“While I understand what Johnson set out to do in the beginning, which was to thwart Chinese influence and power over the US, the means and methods he used to go about it I don’t approve of.
” The man shared an uncanny resemblance to Denzel Washington, and I realized on the phone with him now, he even had the same soulful and deep voice.
“And it’s why Johnson’s special unit has been disbanded, and their operation will be shut down indefinitely. ”
Thank fuck. I’d keep the swearing to myself, given who I was speaking to. “How can I help, Mr. President?” I slowly faced the room, finding everyone’s attention set on me.
“Nina Sokolov is in CIA custody. I’m not sure if you’re yet aware of this, but she and her brother were recruited by the Agency over three years ago to help launch the operation .
..” The president continued speaking, sharing what my team had already figured out, and I listened to him as he verified and validated everything we’d assumed to be true, nodding along with every detail he shared.
“Yes, sir. We came to that conclusion ourselves,” I let him know after he finished his explanation.
“The woman you were charged to find by Homeland seems to be critical in helping us take out the Morales cartel while we have the chance, though, am I correct?” That was what I didn’t want to hear from him, but I knew it was coming.
I met Seraphina’s eyes, and the hand massaging the back of my neck dropped to my side.
“Yes, Mr. President. We’re under the assumption Ezra Sokolov isn’t aware he’s a pawn in all of this, and we believe he’s after Seraphina to protect himself, and the original plan was to draw out the Moraleses and—”
He went ahead and cut to the point. “I need this mess cleaned up, son. All of it. Do you understand? No ties to our government or military.”
Son? I missed being called son by a father figure. I’d happily be Potus ’s “son,” but not if he was asking me to use Seraphina to clean up the mess Director Johnson and Beth’s team had created.
“This is going to be an off-the-books operation.” He sounded as tired as I felt. “I have access to three elite special operations teams that don’t require Congress to ...” He let his words go, allowing me to catch the drift of what he couldn’t seem to say.
Yup, classified.
“I believe you already met the pilot for Bravo.”
Owen York works for you? Well, fuck.
“My son happens to be on his team. They’re presently on leave, but I’m pulling them in. They’ll be the ones to meet you in Costa Rica and spin up with you. I anticipate we can have them to you in eight hours.”
I let that news sink in. Floor me, actually. Your son, huh?
“My other two teams will be tasked with handling the suppliers and the trafficking routes. The intel we pulled from the files relating to this rogue special project has helped us put together one giant target package on everyone. We can wipe out this whole damn thing that never should’ve been started in the first place. ”
“And you want to hit everyone and everything at once? Does that mean you don’t want Ezra walking away from this alive, Mr. President?” Please say yes.
“That’s an affirmative.”
I immediately looked up at Seraphina, and she rested her hand over her heart at the nod I gave her, letting her know the president’s answer.
“We’re not giving up on the war on drugs, or from trying to keep our country safe from threats both foreign and domestic,” Potus began. “But this was never the moral or right way to go about it.”
“I agree, Mr. President.” But I can’t use Seraphina as bait. How the hell did I tell Potus to fuck off on that part?
“What are we doing with Beth?” Alex asked, catching my eye, so I repeated his question.
“Assign someone from the GRS team to stay back with her while you go out tonight, and my guys will bring her back to DC with them after the mission is complete.”
We could also use Hudson’s help as well. He could target what was left of Ezra’s operation in Miami, so I went ahead and gave that suggestion. After Potus agreed, I couldn’t help but ask, “And Carter? Where does he fit in?” I had to believe he’d juggled his plans around to help out.
“Since he’s on the other side of the globe, it makes more sense he lends a hand to my two teams that’ll be operating in Asia.”
“What about the rest of the cartel?” Seraphina asked. “Not all the Moraleses will be here. What if we also have them handled, too? So no new head of the snake can grow back.”
Good idea. I held the phone away from my ear for a moment. “Martín?”
She nodded. “Martín and his team can take down the rest of the cartel there while the others are here.”
That was a plan I could get on board with, and I had a feeling the president wouldn’t pass up that offer, either. I presented her idea to him, grateful that’d been a quick yes from him as well.
There were still a lot of moving pieces and unknowns, but if we were back in charge with the president in our corner, I was confident we’d make it work. Minus the one part. Minus Seraphina being placed in danger.
“It falls apart without me,” she whispered, reading my thoughts.
I closed my eyes, not able to look at her, or anyone, for that matter.
I had to think.
To find a way out of this that didn’t involve her.
But at the familiar sounds coming from outside, my eyes flashed open. We had company.
“Is that a helicopter?” she asked, beating me to it.
Alex was already on the move. Reed and the others as well.
“Sir, I’m going to have to call you back.” And I just hung up on Potus . Fuck. I chucked the phone at Garrison and, on instinct, pulled Seraphina behind me.
I made eye contact with the GRS team’s pilot, confirming he was in there with us, so it wasn’t him flying the helo.
He went over to the window and parted the blinds as I accepted a rifle from Nate. “Not our bird, and they’re fast-roping down. Prepare for a breach.”
“Beth. It has to be her. She must’ve had a backup plan in case her op was canked.” Alex immediately started for the second hallway, accepting a 9mm from Garrison on the way. “She had to have secretly texted someone,” was all I heard from him before he disappeared from view.
“We have them outnumbered,” Reed said, at the window now. “But it looks like they’re about to hit us with smoke or gas. They’re wearing masks.”
“What do we do?” Seraphina stepped around me, somehow managing to keep calm.
“We get the fuck out of here, is what,” Nate said for me. “Come on, there’s another way out.”
“They’re after Beth. We’ll go after her later.” First priority, get Seraphina to safety. I yelled out to Alex to get his ass back here and exfil with us.
“I’ve got him.” Reed waved me off. “Go. Get her out of here.”
I hesitated.
And I never hesitated.
But fuck.
I peered back and forth between Seraphina and Reed, becoming acutely aware of gunshots outside. The GRS operators patrolling the property were engaging, but I doubted they’d be able to hold off a helo overhead for long.
“Go, dammit,” Reed ordered, then went after Alex.
“I’ll go with him,” Garrison offered. “Nate and the others will get you two to safety. I’ll hold off as many as I can to buy you time.”
The last thing in the world I wanted was to leave without my teammates, but I couldn’t help anyone if we were knocked out by a gas agent.
“Yeah, okay.” With my free hand, I took the Glock at my back and offered it to her as we followed Nate and the others in the opposite direction from Beth’s room. “You said you know how to use one of these, right?”
She quickly accepted it. “Point and shoot,” she said as I patted her lower back, urging her to move faster. “I’ve got this.”
I hated this. That she was in danger. That my teammates were. And that I was leaving them behind. I hated this whole damn situation, but I soldiered the fuck on and focused up.
“And I’ve got you,” I promised.