5. Choosing Sides
5
CHOOSING SIDES
Maya’s hand hovered over her phone as she cruised the dark streets, her father’s voice echoing in her head: Trust your gut, baby girl.
Exactly why she’d left LAPD. Lawrence Chen’s shoot-from-the-hip style might have made him a legend, but it had left a trail of chaos in his wake.
And not only for the teenage daughter he’d raised after her mother quietly left them both. Chen, as the entire LAPD called him, had a legendary arrest record. And a disciplinary file only a few pages shorter.
She’d spent her whole career doing things by the book just to prove she wasn’t him.
But something about Commander Phillips’s tone when he’d called them out here nagged at her. Handle this quietly, Agent Chen.
Quietly. She’d heard that enough times in LA to know what it really meant: Someone high up wanted this contained. Dad would already be breaking every rule in the book, charging in without backup. That’s what had gotten his first partner killed.
Not a great plan.
Benson should have reached the Thirty-second Street Naval Station by now—it was a straight shot down Harbor Drive. She tried his cell again. Straight to voicemail. The digital clock on her dash read 2:47 a.m. Half an hour since they’d separated. Time enough to process Quinn and Reinhardt through the main gate, start the paperwork ...
Time enough for a lot of other things too.
A black Audi appeared in her rearview mirror, three cars back. Just like the one from the crime scene. Or maybe not—in the pre-dawn darkness every dark sedan looked suspicious. She took the next right. The Audi continued straight.
Paranoid, Chen. Get it together.
Her phone buzzed. Text from an unknown number.
STAY AWAY FROM THE HARBOR .
Seriously? No way she’d stay away now.
She hung a right at the first entrance to the harbor parking lot.
Her pulse quickened. She killed her headlights and turned toward the massive commercial pier. The structure stretched before her, empty and dark. Salty air mixed with diesel fumes and rotting seaweed. The orange glow of ancient sodium vapor lights glinted off chain-link fencing, stacked shipping containers, and abandoned forklifts, throwing long shadows. Everything felt wrong—no security guards, no dock workers, no early-morning fishing boats.
Just Tom’s official vehicle, parked at an angle down near the seawall.
From this angle, the vehicle looked empty.
She drew her weapon, using her car door as cover. From here to the SUV—forty feet of exposed concrete. No cover except for a rusted forklift about halfway. The silence pressed against her eardrums, broken only by the soft lap of water against concrete and the distant hum of the city.
Maya swept her tactical light in a slow arc. The beam caught silver threads of fishing line strung between pylons, abandoned nets swaying in the breeze. Perfect place for an ambush.
But why? Killing her would help nothing. If Quinn and Reinhardt wanted to escape, they’d be long gone now.
Unless this was about more than escape. Sullivan had accessed their personnel files right before he died. Now Benson was missing. And someone high enough to contact base security wanted her to stay away.
She knew exactly what would happen if this went sideways. Internal Affairs would crucify her. Agent Chen demonstrated a pattern of reckless behavior consistent with her father’s record ... The comparisons she’d spent her whole career avoiding would finally stick. Everything she’d built at NCIS, all her careful work to establish herself as her own person, would evaporate. And that assumed she survived whatever was waiting down there.
But Tom might be down there, injured.
Three months as partners wasn’t long, but it was long enough to know he was a good man. The kind who brought her coffee without being asked. The kind who’d backed her play with the brass twice already, no questions asked. The kind who deserved better than dying alone because his partner was worried about her career.
She eased around her car door, staying low. The forklift threw distorted shadows across her path. Every scrape of her boots against concrete echoed too loud in the stillness.
Standard procedure said wait for backup. But she had no time. If they’d left Tom alive, seconds counted.
Twenty feet to the vehicle now. The driver’s door gaped open like a mouth. No movement inside. Her tactical light caught the interior—empty coffee cup in the holder, case files scattered across the passenger seat.
No sign of Quinn or Reinhardt. Or her partner.
Ten feet. Close enough now to see the keys dangling from the ignition, swaying slightly in the pre-dawn breeze.
Maya pressed her back against the car’s rear panel, breathing in the familiar scent of leather and gun oil. She reached around carefully, sweeping the back seat with her light. Empty. The tactical gear Benson always kept behind his seat was gone.
The beam of her light caught something else as she moved forward. Dark streaks on the pavement, leading away from the driver’s side. Too dark to be oil. Too fresh to be rust.
Her heart hammering against her ribs, she followed the trail toward the edge of the pier. Each step felt like an invitation for a bullet. The streaks grew wider, interrupted by scuff marks. Signs of a struggle. Or something being dragged.
Just before the seawall, the trail ended in a larger stain. Maya forced herself to look over the edge.
Something bobbed in the water. The flashlight beam caught pale flesh, dark fabric. The tide tugged gently at Tom Benson’s body, rocking it against the pier’s supports. His service weapon was gone. His hands showed defensive wounds.
Her fingers found the small cross at her neck—her mother’s parting gift. The same one she’d sworn she’d never take off, even after Maria Chen walked out. “Please, Lord, watch over him,” she whispered, the prayer automatic. Like muscle memory. Her father had scoffed at faith, called it a crutch. But right now, staring at her partner’s body, Maya needed something to hold onto.
Her phone buzzed in her hand. The same unknown number. This time, she answered.
“I told you to stay away.” Quinn’s voice, tight with urgency.
Her weapon was already up, scanning rooflines, shadows. Every exposed position where a shooter might set up. This was exactly the kind of situation her father thrived on—outmanned, outgunned, running on instinct and adrenaline. The thought should have bothered her more than it did. “You and Reinhardt killed him.”
“No, we didn’t. Why would I be warning you? We’d be halfway to Mexico if we offed him.”
Terror for Tom. And for herself, swamped her brain. She couldn’t think.
“We need to get you out of here,” Quinn continued, his voice low yet commanding.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” That, at least, she knew.
Quinn made a frustrated sound. “The men who shot your partner are still watching. Black Audi, government plates. They’re waiting for orders, just like they waited for orders on Marcus. But they won’t wait long.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because if I had killed Benson, there’s no way I’d be talking to you right now.”
A very good point.
His voice carried that same assured competence she’d sensed at the condo. The kind that came from absolute certainty in one’s abilities. The kind her father possessed. The kind that usually preceded someone else getting hurt.
“Agent Chen. Maya. Listen. Please. I wish I had time to draw you a flowchart, but things are about to get insane. In thirty seconds, the men in that Audi are going to get those orders I mentioned. And then you’ll be dead too unless you do exactly what I say.”
Maya’s light caught Tom’s face, half-submerged. His empty eyes stared back at her, accusing. All those times she’d ignored her instincts in favor of procedure. All those times she’d refused to be her father’s daughter.
She’d built her career on being the anti-Lawrence-Chen. Following rules. Building cases methodically. Being everything her father wasn’t. But Tom’s dead eyes seemed to ask, “Where did all that careful procedure get you?”
Maybe that had been her real failure. Fighting so hard against becoming him, she’d forgotten why he’d broken all those rules in the first place. Sometimes procedure wasn’t enough. Sometimes justice demanded more.
Tom’s body bobbed gently against the pier. Another partner lost. Another failure to protect. She squeezed the cross until its edges bit into her palm, remembering all those Sunday mornings her mother had dragged her to church while her father worked cases. All those prayers that hadn’t kept their family together.
The harbor stretched dark and still around her. Dad’s voice one last time: Sometimes you have to choose between being right and being alive.
Time to choose.
Her mother’s words came to her: Sometimes faith means jumping without seeing the landing.
She had spent years ensuring she always saw exactly where she’d land. But Tom’s body in the harbor reminded her that sometimes you ran out of safe choices.