Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“Found our hostage outside, running across the open field in the back. In another two minutes, she would have been long gone.” Ellis glanced around. “Where are the others?”
“Upstairs, trying to break down the door to Rayne’s room.” He turned his head and gave a loud whistle. “Kitchen. Now,” he called out.
Booted feet stomped down the stairs. Soon, four men joined them in the room. Gino’s team glared at her. The fourth man, Donovan Vance, showed no expression. He simply stared at her as if she were a bug under a microscope. Of all the men in the room, he scared her the most.
“How did you escape?” Barry demanded.
“You know how to escape zip ties. So do I.”
“We should have done what Ellis suggested,” Chase muttered.
Nice. Another soldier with zero honor.
“That’s enough.” Gino glanced at Ellis. “Secure her to one of these chairs. Do a good job this time.”
Rayne wrapped her hand over her tactical watch and pressed the button on the side, signaling Fortress she was in trouble and that they should keep communications open.
Ellis shoved Rayne into a chair and took the duct tape Gino handed him. “Hands behind your back. No funny stuff, or you’ll pay.”
The men were quiet while Ellis secured her to the back slats and legs of the chair. When he finished, Rex asked, “What are we going to do with her?”
“We stick to the plan,” Gino said. “She’s bait.”
“Are you sure they’ll come for her?” Barry asked.
“You saw Bowen,” Ellis said. “He’s nuts about her. As soon as he figures out where she is, he’ll come. You can count on it.”
“I don’t like this.” Chase looked from one to the other. “You know Echo unit’s reputation. They’ll come, and come hard. No way will they let this slide.”
“Listen to him,” Rayne said, voice soft. “Chase is right. Echo protects its own by any means necessary. Turn me loose and walk away before they arrive. If you do, you might survive to see the sun rise.”
He swallowed hard, exchanging glances with his teammates.
“Which of you killed Eileen?”
Rex stared hard at Ellis.
Rayne wasn’t surprised. Ellis seemed to enjoy hurting women. “I thought you would have asked Donovan to do the job.”
“He has his own agenda with other priorities.”
Echo unit. “He’s working with you?”
A shrug from Gino. “We’re friends.”
“Why is he killing the people who survived Red Dawn?”
Donovan straightened. “They deserved it,” he snapped. “They deserved to die.”
Oh, boy. He was obsessed with something. “What did they do, Donovan?”
“They set up my brother. The dishonorable men on that mission set Hal up to die. They’re all going to pay.”
Set him up? Why would anyone do that? From what she’d observed of Seth, he did everything in his power to get his men home alive from missions, putting himself in more danger than he should to make sure the men in his unit survived. “Why would they do that?”
“Hal was better than all the others. He was a top-notch soldier and refused to taint his honor.”
“Go on.”
“He saw something in the Sand Box he wasn’t meant to see, and the men involved set things in motion so Hal would die on the Red Dawn mission.”
Rayne pondered what he’d said and what he hadn’t. “He saw the other men do something illegal? Is that what you mean?”
A slight nod.
“How do you know this is true? How did you find out?” If Hal died in the mission, who told the grieving stepbrother what happened and why?
“Hal told me.”
She blinked. “How?” If he died on the battlefield, how could he inform Donovan about the details? The possibility that the sniper was delusional crossed her mind.
“He wrote me a letter before the Red Dawn mission and told me he was in trouble. He and Beau Reed had seen a group of men stealing artifacts from one of the Sand Box countries. The guys were stuffing valuables in their bags, taking them back to the US and selling them for a hefty profit. They’d been doing this for months.
It was their bad luck that Hal and Beau saw them. ”
“But Hal and Beau didn’t report them?”
“The men threatened Hal and Beau’s families if they talked. So they kept quiet. They made sure Hal died during Red Dawn. Beau was injured badly, but he survived. For a long time, they left him alone.” He shrugged. “I guess they felt he wasn’t a threat.”
“But he’s dead.”
Donovan’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t kill him. His traitorous wife took him out with Lawson’s help. You can’t lay the blame for his death on me.”
Rayne had a feeling she already knew the answer to her next question, but she wanted her questions and his answers, wrong or not, on record.
By sending a distress signal to Fortress, the communications tech had automatically started recording everything that came through her watch’s comm system.
“So, who were the men Hal and Beau saw?”
Donovan scowled. “I don’t know. Hal was afraid to identify them.”
Just like she’d thought. It was the only answer that made sense. Because he didn’t know who was to blame for his brother’s death, Donovan was systematically killing all the survivors.
But why were Gino and his merry band of thugs still alive and working with Donovan? Dread curled in her gut. She had a feeling she wouldn’t like the answer. “You’ve been killing survivors of Red Dawn to make sure you take out the people responsible for Hal’s death?”
He inclined his head.
Gino and his buddies exchanged grim glances but said nothing.
Rayne’s suspicions grew. “Really?” She tilted her head slightly. “What about Gino and his team?”
Donovan stiffened. “They have nothing to do with my brother’s death.”
“How do you know?”
“They’re my friends. They would never hurt me.”
She studied him for a moment, weighing whether it was safe to say what she suspected. Probably not. She settled for saying, “You’d be surprised what people will do to score a windfall.”
“Not these guys. Wouldn’t happen.”
“Does that mean you believe Echo unit stole antiquities and set up Hal and Beau to die?”
He shrugged.
“Have you ever known them to do something dishonorable?”
“Like you said, people will do almost anything for money.”
This wasn’t good. Donovan was refusing to question the men who were most likely guilty and insisting on blaming Echo unit. How could Grant and his friends prove their innocence twelve years after the incident? “Have you asked Seth about the missing antiquities?”
“All Special Forces soldiers are trained to lie and endure interrogation without revealing a thing. What good would it do?”
“When you see Seth, ask him for the truth. I’ve worked with these men for two months, and I’ve never seen them do anything dishonorable.
They’ve always been honest to a fault. Think about it, Donovan.
All five of them were cops. I was a cop.
Do you believe any of us would turn a blind eye to a crime? ”
Donovan blinked. “I hadn’t considered that.” He turned toward Gino, speculation growing in his eyes.
Good. Maybe he’d question his good buddies. Rayne had noticed the glances exchanged between the five men. It wouldn’t surprise her to find out they were guilty of antiquities theft. Even Rex wasn’t exactly broken up about the death of his wife.
“Hey, don’t believe a thing she says.” Ellis scowled at Rayne. “She’ll say anything to distract you from your purpose. She doesn’t want you to kill her boyfriend.”
“She’s lying, man,” Chase said.
“Is she?” Donovan asked, his voice cold. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“Ask Echo unit what they know about the thefts.” What else could she say to persuade him to consider that Seth and the others were telling the truth?
“You were Special Forces as well, weren’t you?
You’re trained to detect lies and can tell if Seth and the others are lying to you.
You’re an intelligent man, Donovan. A wise man would have to consider Echo unit might be innocent.
If they are innocent, that means someone else who was part of Red Dawn was guilty. ”
“You might have already killed the men who stole those artifacts,” Rex said.
“He’s right,” Barry said. “Maybe you should stop now, Donovan. It’s enough, right? You’ve made your point.”
“The guilty men don’t have the right to live their lives when Hal is lying in his grave,” Donovan snapped. “I have to be sure. I promised Hal I’d see justice done.”
Rayne swallowed hard. Oh, man. This wasn’t good. Donovan sounded as though he still planned to take out Echo unit in his quest to avenge his brother’s death. How could she stop him or at least distract him while tied to this chair?
She may not convince Donovan that Grant and his friends were innocent, but she could do something about the duct tape holding her to the chair.
Rayne wiggled her wrists as the men tried to persuade Donovan to give up his quest. She’d fisted her hands when Ellis taped her to the chair, and that gave her a little room to free one of her knives. If Ellis and Gino hadn’t found her wrist sheaths. That was the question.
She squared her shoulders. Only one way to find out. Pull her wrist away from the chair as much as possible and release the knife. She’d have to wait until the conversation cranked up in volume, though. Otherwise, they’d hear the mechanism release her knife.
Rayne listened to the ebb and flow of the conversation between the men, pleased to note Gino’s voice was becoming louder by the minute.
When she judged the argument between Gino and Donovan was at a high enough decibel level, she pressed the mechanism to release her knife.
She heard the familiar quiet snick and felt the cold steel blade of her knife against her palm.