33. Challenge and Password
Chapter 33
Challenge and Password
Griff
“Clear!” I said, as I swept another room, shooting anyone inside wearing a cut. Double tap. Heart, and head. I did not give a fuck about leaving anyone alive. “Where the fuck is she?”
The gunshot in my side throbbed, as the body armor rubbed and opened the stapled flesh. I could feel the moisture of blood dripping down my side, and pooling around my belt. Thank God our outfits were black, and no one noticed. Otherwise, they would have sent me to the back with the QRF.
“Clear!” Sierra said back, Veder right on her heels as they swept another room.
Top was right down the middle, handling everything as he slowly moved forward, his weapon at the high ready, pointed at the door to the staircase at the end of the hall.
He was directing us. We didn’t clear ahead of him, and kept in a single unified front, ready to attack anyone and anything.
Goose went into the next room first, with me right behind, and he shot at a guy hiding behind a TV screen, gun in hand. He might have had his palms out, trying to surrender, but I didn’t give a fuck. I shot him once as well, just to make sure he was truly dead.
“You, sir, have some rage you gotta figure out,” Goose said, as we exited the room, re-assuming our line in the strong front of the hall.
“Can it, Goose.” I loved the guys of Lucky 13. I really did. But I was not in the mood for their constant fucking jokes. I had forgotten their smart-assery on missions, and how I always had to wrestle them to take shit seriously.
Then again, I was uniquely qualified to deal with Sierra as a partner because of those guys.
A pounding happened on the door to the stairwell. Three hard knocks.
“Fuckers, it’s me!” The female voice on the other end said. “I’m coming out!”
Taz. It was Taz. I could have fallen on my knees at that moment, but it was too early for a victory lap.
“Come on through,” I said, my gun still at the high ready… because that’s what we did. We had to make sure she was alone, not under duress and… “Watch out!”
The door slowly pushed open, but she was definitely not alone.
Behind her was that piece of shit Cobra, his weapon raised. His black cut sentencing him to death by my fucking bullet.
“Don’t shoot!” Taz screamed, her hand up, trying to block the taller man from my gun fire.
“I come in peace!” Cobra’s hands were up and empty.
I looked down the barrel of the M4, ready to put one in his chest.
“Woah, woah, I'm one of you guys, okay? I’m undercover,” he said, his lifting up just an inch. “Paradigm.”
“Fat fucking chance,” I said, my finger itching to just brush the trigger and send it.
“I’m not what you think!” The hint of desperation in Cobra’s voice gave me pause, but not enough. These fuckers had Taz, and I was ready to scorch the earth. “Where the fuck is Charlotte?”
“The hell did you just say?” Top stepped forward.
“Charlotte knows me.” Cobra said again, “I’m with Paradigm!”
“I call bullshit,” I said, my gun trained on him.
“Griff, stop!” Taz threw her hands forward, reaching out to me with a pistol in each hand. Hell, I wanted to reach out to my woman as well, even as I felt the blood oozing from my side. “He shot Heath. He was supposed to shoot me, but he shot Heath instead. He’s my – he’s with us.”
“Not good enough,” I said, stepping forward. Sparks flew in the corner of my vision, and I knew I was about to go down for the count. But not until I knew who the fuck this guy was, and figured out if he deserved a bullet or not.
“Griff…” Taz’s voice steadied my hand, keeping the itchy trigger finger from pulling. “He’s Ghost.”
Her words felt like getting doused with a bucket of cold ice. I froze into place.
I felt the sting of the bullet wound in my abdomen throb with my pulse. Blood gushed from it now, the staples unable to keep me together.
“Kai,” her use of my first name kept me still. Her presence kept me upright, as my mind began to swim. The blood loss was overtaking the power of the adrenaline rush I’d been under.
She was safe. She was alive.
Relief robbed me of the tension that kept me laser focused.
“He’s my Dad, Kai.”
“Even if he is your Dad, he’s a fucking asshole. Where the fuck has he been for the last 30 birthdays, huh?” That fucking anger crawled up my throat again.
I took a deep breath, pushing out the darkness threatening to take me down.
“Kai, you’re hurt.” Taz was really being fucking distracting.
“Why should we trust you?” Top said, stepping to the side so we had the guy in the middle of an L shape, both of us able to shoot without hitting one another. “I’m gonna need proof before I even think about taking these sights off of you.”
“I get it,” Cobra said slowly. “I’m going to reach into my cut, and I’m going to pull out something that’ll prove who I am, got it?”
“Alright,” Top said, giving him a nod.
Just like he said, he went into his pocket, and slowly pulled out two large coins. With an open palm, he lopped two towards Top’s feet.
Top looked down, and called out what each one was.
“ shit,” Top said low, and quiet. “Paradigm, and POTUS.”
“Bullshit!” I didn’t believe it. “Who the fuck would have a coin from POTUS?”
Who, other than me, I meant.
“Well I do, boy .” Cobra’s lips curled up in a snarl.
My vision was getting less focused, unsteady like someone was shaking the camera. I was running out of time.
Top lowered his weapon, and knelt down, picking up the coins, and bouncing them in his hand.
“They’re all legit. The paradigm coin even has the initials BB.”
“Fucking Brett Bradley,” I said under my breath. Brett, one of the biggest assholes in the world, but also one of the world’s most brilliant spies.
Yeah, Sierra had given us the rundown on him, and even I had become a little bit of a fan.
“Fucking Brett Bradley,” Top said, shaking his head. “You guys don’t know this, but he was the one who cleaned up the farm after they went after Charlotte.”
“If you need more,” said Cobra, “I’ve got another.”
He slowly dropped his hand again into another pocket and pulled out a single coin between his fingers.
“A chit of my own,” he said, referencing a blood chit, which promised an unspecified reward to anyone who gave help. An IOU.
He pulled out a coin that even I recognized.
It was a legend. No one had it, and it was considered rarer than the Presidents, even if it didn’t rank as high.
It was a very, very specific challenge coin that would be known only to people like me and my father. It was a snake eating its own tail, with a three-pointed symbol in the middle.
My fucking heart fell to my feet as I saw what those three points were.
The ornate Celtic triangular cross that represented a Holy Trinity.
If I was even remotely skeptical before, I knew it now. He was Ghost.
It was as damning as a fucking DNA test. The man carried a symbol of his daughter and waved it under all our noses. His confession hidden in plain sight.
The Ghost was Trinity’s father.
Her father was a man who reported to the highest levels of government. A man with a direct line to the President of the United States. As soon as he hung up his cover, he could write his own ticket anywhere, at any time.
My vision tunneled as I swayed on my feet.
Without meaning too, I dropped my weapon, my hands giving out on me. The M4 weighed as much as an elephant as it was slung onto my plate carrier, and I went down with it.
“Griff!” Taz ran to me as the ground became the sky and I lost my battle with gravity.
I was staring at nothing but spackled ceiling, as it spun and blurred overhead.
“Kai!” Then her face was there. So were her hands. I would know them anywhere. “Kai, you’re bleeding,” she said, and her hands went to my abdomen, where I knew I had sprung a leak. “Baby, please, look at me.”
“I’m always looking at you,” I said, even as my eyes unfocused. But I could see her. She was right there in the center of my vision. “I’m always…”
I coughed, and the pain went everywhere. My chest, my hips, the leg from the last gunshot, and to my shoulder. The taste of copper filled my mouth.
“Get into my right breast pocket, Taz.”
“What?” she asked. “You shouldn’t talk.”
“I’ll talk less if you just start doing what I say,” I laughed, then coughed again.
“You’re not funny!” Then she shouted, “I need a rag. A bandage!”
“Just because I’m laughing doesn’t mean I’m joking,” I gasped out as she placed her hands over the wound and pushed down. “Jesus, woman, I’m attached to these six pack abs, baby. Go easy.”
She looked around frantically, her eyes pleading for help.
“Seriously, baby,” I said, summoning what Herculean strength I had to grab her wrist and put it over the pocket. “Grab it.”
Without letting up on the pressure over my wound, she stuck her blood-soaked fingers into my pocket.
“I got him,” Goose was finally off his lazy ass and doing his job as the team medic, putting pressure on the wound. Something wet, and heavy was put on it. “Paramedics are coming. Brett Bradley is sending helicopters.”
“Wish I had some of those in my back pocket,” Top grumbled.
“Seriously, what is Paradigm’s budget?” Veder asked.
“Depends on how Picasso, our financier, is doing,” Ghost answered. “She’s been pretty on point lately.”
“Tell me about the squid,” Sierra asked, seeming unconcerned that I was now on the ground.
They bickered for two seconds but I didn’t care. My eyes were on Taz. She was safe. She was here. She had my ring in her hand.
“Kai,” she said, her voice shaky as hell, and growing distant by the second. “What the hell is this?”
“I was going to wait until we were a bit more serious, and the timing was right.” I was fading fast. But I had to say it. “But if I’m gonna die, I want to die knowing you’re wearing it.”
Black was giving way to white light. Jesus, was this the end?
“Tell me you’ll wear it, Firefly.” I coughed, and that just made the light brighter.
I needed her to say it. I needed to hear it. If I didn't…
“Tell me you’ll wear it! Let me go out thinking that you’re mine. Don’t let me die without thinking that you’ll marry me.”
A tear streamed down her cheek.
I had made her cry a lot the past few days. Too many tears. And now, I wasn’t even strong enough to wipe them away.
But if I lived, I vowed that I would make sure that there were no more. I’d make her smile more. I’d make her laugh. I’d give her a family.
“Yes, I’ll wear it,” she whispered. “My answer’s yes.”
That would have been a perfect storybook ending to the last chapter of my existence. My woman, agreeing to be my wife. That would be amazing. But I knew she wouldn’t let me go quietly into the dark night.
My little Psycho leaned down, the loose strands of her hair grazing my face.
“If you die on me, so help me God, Kai Winchester Griffith, I will tell Kristin your last words were that she was the love of your life.”
“Don’t you dare, you fucking Psycho!”
Then everything went blank.