Chapter Forty-Five
Phoenix
I went through my son’s belongings.
It was incomparably worse than searching Isla’s pack a month ago on the Paragon.
My son had less. Far less.
Two pairs of jeans, three T-shirts, four pairs of boxers, one sweatshirt, one pair of trainers. All worn. But none as worn as the photos in an envelope. They’d all been handled so many times, the edges were bent and frayed, and fingerprints smudged every glossy image.
Each picture was of Lincoln and his mother.
From birth until what looked like half a year ago. The last image was of his mother in a hospital chair, hooked up to an IV, with Lincoln bending over to put his arm around her shoulders. They both smiled for the camera.
Minus his smile, he didn’t look a thing like his mother.
Minus her smile, she didn’t look at all like the young coed I vaguely remembered.
The woman in the picture was gaunt, her head was covered with a scarf, and her eyes had the same death stare I’d seen countless times in the military.
When the photo was taken, she knew she was dying, but she was still fighting.
It was a hard image to look at. Harder still to reconcile the respect and anger I had for her fight. I wanted to be mad at a woman who’d kept my son from me for fifteen years. I was enraged that she’d fallen for whatever fucked-up narrative the Vice Admiral had fed her, especially for so long.
But I knew firsthand how manipulative and convincing that bastard had been.
I’d also pieced together enough intel from hacking WITSEC’s records two months ago, then combing through SAC’s files for shit I hadn’t known to look for the first time I hacked my own background.
All of it was now wiped, but the picture was clear.
Lincoln’s mom never had a choice. Disappear with her newborn or else.
Not ironically, I was proud of her for going at it alone.
Ironically, I was fucking astounded she’d managed to keep her one lifeline from the Vice Admiral, which turned out to be my drunken hero complex back then.
I’d given her my cell number.
She’d been sweet, innocent. Young. I’d told her if she’d ever needed backup or someone’s ass kicked, to call me.
I hadn’t promised her a repeat performance or given my name—that’d never been my MO.
But I did give her my call sign, and she’d known the address of Alpha’s apartment in VA Beach.
I’d always crashed with Alpha when we were on leave, and that was where I’d taken her that night.
By the time she’d left a letter at Alpha’s, I was mid-deployment.
Unbeknownst to me, the Vice Admiral had been monitoring the place.
Intercepting the mail, he’d taken action.
Five years later, the Vice Admiral was dead from an aneurysm, but it was already too late.
Every plan he’d set in motion was running off the rails like a freight train.
I had no idea a woman I’d slept with once had tried to get a hold of me.
She’d had no idea a single letter would put her in WITSEC.
I never would’ve gone along with the career choices the Vice Admiral had put in play if I’d known. And I sure as hell wouldn’t have let my son grow up without me—not intentionally. Who knew what Lincoln’s mother would’ve done if she’d had choices. Not that any of it mattered now.
Conjecture didn’t change the past, and I had a mission to execute.
It was past time for me and Lincoln Granger to meet.
Focusing up, I packed my son’s few belongings, making a mental note of everything he didn’t have. Then I did a final sweep of the place and was exfilling the house when Judas spoke through comms.
“Nix, copy?”
“Affirmative.” I got back in the rental. “Sitrep?”
“They’re still in the parking lot of the restaurant.”
That modicum of guilt grew. I was in a Michelin star restaurant last night, and my son was having his last meal with his great-grandmother in a fucking parking lot of a fast-food joint. “Copy.”
Judas asked what he hadn’t this morning when I’d given him minimum intel. “What do I need to know about the Marshals?”
All I’d told Judas at the airstrip this morning was that this was an extraction of a minor, potential government agencies involved, including USMS. I was going to speak to the guardian, and Judas was to keep the minor in his sights. Then we’d extract and exfil.
I read Judas in. “Both Marshals dirty, both with ties to the Zamora Cartel. They showed up at the house last night. Interrogated Lincoln. Before his mother passed three months ago, she told Lincoln about me and gave him a cell with my number. Two months ago, he started using it.”
Judas zeroed in on a germane fact. “Zamora Cartel was decimated.”
Thanks to one of Alpha’s men. “Which is why they’re probably looking for a payout from me in the form of blackmail.”
“Probably?” Judas asked.
“Most likely scenario.” I’d been in a five-figure-a-night penthouse suite for the past month with my sixty-five-meter yacht anchored offshore, making zero attempt to cover my digital footprint.
The Marshals had access to their USMS database.
Lincoln’s cell was unencrypted. I was inferring the rest. Not that it mattered.
After my son was secure, I’d handle both Marshals.
“Understood,” Judas replied. “Looks like they’re wrapping it up.”
“Copy. Sitrep when they’re Oscar Mike.” Once the woman pulled back into her driveway, I was going to intercept.
“Roger that,” Judas confirmed.
Pulling out my burner, I ran the trace on the Marshals’ cell phones again. Still pinging at the USMS Eastern Virginia district office in Alexandria, they hadn’t moved since late last night.
I was scanning the street and the old woman’s house when my burner vibrated with a new text.
Intruse: You should know, I hate cell phones.
Christ. Last night was a different life. One I had no right to hold on to, and yet the thought of the woman instantly took me to a place I never imagined I’d be. Wanting. The fucking rapacity for it had its own zip code. Hell, time zone. Except I was here.
I needed my son. Full stop.
But that little intruse? God, I wanted her.
Swiping across the screen, against my better judgment, I texted back.
Me: Understood. A necessary evil.
Paradoxically, as someone whose entire existence had relied on never being seen, not forming any close bonds, and staying perpetually off grid, I wasn’t a fan of cell phones either. The impersonalism. I was, however, inextricably attached to the well-being of a trespasser.
I typed again.
Me: How sore are you?
Intruse: Why? Are you going to come back and make me more sore?
“Sitrep,” Judas spoke through comms. “They’re Oscar Mike, but the woman didn’t head toward the house.”
Dropping the cell in the center console, I threw the SUV into gear. “Directional heading?”
“East on Northampton Boulevard toward Wesleyan Drive.”
The college campus. Fuck. “Copy.” I floored it.