Chapter Five #3
“I’ll stand the watch for you now, Soldier. Oohrah, Marine. I love you, and I’m going to miss you,” she said, dropping his dog tags over her head to keep them safe until she could put them on her wall at home.
Then, she did something no one expected.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out her badge. She unclipped the gold shield emblazoned with FBI and tucked it into his shirt pocket.
“Keep this safe and hold onto it for me. I won’t be needing it for the next few days—not until I find the man who leaked my location so you would die.
Trust and believe, there’s payback, and I’m going to be the one who deals it out.
Before, I was hesitant to cross that line.
Now, the line has been erased. I will get you justice. I promise.”
Then, she kissed him softly on the lips as her tears dripped onto his face.
When she stood up, she saluted him, and both Marines did the same beside her.
Then, and only then, she walked out, leaving Jet Donato, one of the Marines who had been with her since the beginning on that gurney in her friends’ hands.
And she went to find a place to pray.
Because Operation Hell’s Gate was about to open and begin.
And Destruction was coming.
For Devon Slater.
* * * The Blackhawks * * *
Thirty Minutes Later
Monday Morning
Well Past Midnight
What she needed was a few minutes to regroup and think this through. While she was in mourning for the loss of one of her Marines, she needed to deal with the big, pink elephant in the room.
The men who were back in Damascus, likely stressed the fuck out. With a few moments to spare, she’d face them.
Well, one of them in particular.
Pulling out her phone, she called Ethan back and handled that confrontation.
While he’d hurt her feelings, she knew that keeping that grudge was not helpful. In fact, she knew it would only do worse things.
So, she reached out to him.
And he answered on the second ring.
“Elizabeth?” he asked.
She began crying.
The second he saw her on the call and heard her sobs of distress, he wanted to be by her side. The bottom line was he knew he’d find her anywhere in the world.
“I’ll get to you,” he said. “Just tell me where you are, and I’ll get on the first flight to reach you.”
She stopped him.
“Please don’t. It’s likely what he wants. He knows what has happened by now. He’s waiting to see which one of you he can get. If you want to help me, don’t play into it. Stay where it’s safe.”
Ethan hated this.
God.
He hated this so much.
“I’m sorry for what I said to you. I was being an asshole, and you didn’t deserve that.
I’m scared and frustrated. When I lose my sanity, I say things I don’t mean.
Please know that I have faith, Lyzee. I’ve had faith since the day I saw you in Salem.
Since the day I said, ‘I do’. You’re the one thing that has never given me a reason not to have faith. ”
She sniffled.
“I know. It’s okay. I’m just tired, EJ. I’m beat so far down, I don’t know how to get back up this time. I don’t have any choice but to call in The Hunters. Gabe sanctioned it, and it’s now out of my hands.”
He let her talk.
“I stand for justice, but I just had to stare down into Jet’s face and say goodbye. How do I get him justice if I know that Devon Slater will buy his way out of this somehow? We all know that’s what will happen. Rich men don’t answer to the same rules. They can be corrupt and get away with it.”
He reassured her.
“They don’t get away with it for long. Every dog has its day, Lyzee, my love, and you’ll get him. I know you will.”
She laughed weakly.
“It hurt when you said you don’t have faith in me anymore, EJ. Jesus has fallen off the cross.”
It hit him hard.
This was exactly what he wanted to happen.
This was exactly what Devon had planned.
He’d studied them long and hard, and he likely saw their separation and how their marriage hit bumps. He knew all the secrets they kept locked away. The media shared everything with the public, and not all of it was false.
He went there.
“We have to do the opposite of what he assumes we’ll do, Elizabeth. We have to be strong. I was wrong. I have faith in you. I don’t have faith in me. I’m the problem, not you. He knows that, too. He’s definitely studied all of us.”
She cried more.
“All he did was pick us up,” she whispered. “All he did was show up to give us a ride, and he was so smiley and happy. You know Jet. He was in Johnny’s sports car, and he was in a good mood. The music was on, and he was just doing his job. He wanted to doggy nap a dog and just enjoy his life.”
Ethan pushed.
“So do your job. You have to do yours, Lyzee. You’re the best agent out there. He picked you because of that. Prove to the world why you are that badass in boots. Help us find him, and fight through this now. We need you to dig deep and find a little more in the tank.”
She tried.
“I don’t know where to look. He won’t follow the usual paths, and he has likely hidden his jet and some of his money. Even if we cut him off, we have issues.”
He clued her in.
“We brought in Gabby. Gene wants to find a thread, so when The Hunters get here, they can follow it.”
She let him talk.
Elizabeth needed to feel like they had a chance to solve this. It was all she had left.
“He likely knows about you and Chris being married first. He’s going to use that to damage us. We can’t let it happen. We have to fight, Baby. Again, and I know I just said it, but it bears repeating. I need you to dig in and find a little more strength for me.”
She was trying.
Really.
Ethan wasn’t done apologizing.
“I’m sorry I kept us here,” he admitted. “I was so selfish to want to be the Shaman. It’s clearly a mistake. Everything has gone to Hell because I made this decision.”
She was honest.
“You weren’t selfish. You were allowed to make that choice. They need you, too, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Your people need a Shaman.”
He was to the point.
“You need me. Let me come to you. I swear to God, Elizabeth, that I will ALWAYS find you. No matter what, I won’t let you slip away from me. You’re my soul.”
She was sobbing in that chapel.
Ethan kept talking to help pull her up. It was clear this leveled her. Devon had made a strike at her, and it worked.
He hit her where she was tender.
The Marines.
“We’re already digging in. We’re going to get you something, and you’re going to get him. I can feel it in my heart and gut.”
She was so tired.
“Are our kids okay?” she asked, not wanting to talk about it anymore.
It was eating away at her.
Jet’s death was a bridge almost too far.
All she wanted was for everyone to be safe, and then for her to have some peace and quiet for a while.
She.
Was.
Tired.
When her phone chimed, she pulled it out. It was the work one, and she saw a message appear on the screen.
“I need a favor,” she said, reading it.
He would do anything for her.
“What? Just ask. As long as it’s not to let you go because I won’t survive that.”
No, it wasn’t that.
Married people fought.
Married people also stayed.
“I just got an alert that the footlocker that we’re sending to The Hunters to look like it’s Hemmingway Seville’s is touching down in the UK. Can you get word to Merry or Jagger?” she asked. “I have a lot on my plate right now. I have to focus on this case.”
Oh, he could do that.
“Got it. What else do you need?”
She went there.
“I need a lot of money in cash ready to go,” she said. “If I need to go under for a while, to track him, I need money. I don’t want him to find me. We’re going to have to play dirty.”
He was making a list.
“Chris has cash accessible at all times. We’ll have it ready for when The Hunters arrive. Let me come with you.”
She wasn’t having it.
That wasn’t happening.
While Ethan could hold his own in a fight, this was not going to be that kind of battle. This was warfare, and he wasn’t that kind of a fighter.
He could play dirty in a fist fight.
She played dirty in a gunfight.
They weren’t built the same.
“I can’t,” she said. “You have to stay there and protect the family. Protect OUR family.”
He would do that.
“What are you expecting?” he asked.
She was to the point.
“There’s one more Russian spy, and at some point, the dead one won’t make rendezvous.
If she is watching the Dark Web, he might alert her.
I need that message. I need to find out where he is, and to do that, I need to know how he’s moving in the shadows.
He’s flying around, and we can’t track him.
HOW is he doing that? I can because of Gabe, but how is he getting from Corpus Christi to Washington DC unnoticed? ”
That he understood.
“I’ll have Gabby start monitoring it. And we’re sure he’s flying around and not driving?”
She nodded.
“I’ll know when I find the next drop. If it’s not for days, he might be driving. If it’s today,” she said, looking at her watch, “then he’s flying.”
As for Gabby…
“Have her call me if she finds anything. Directly to me. I don’t have time to track that information and hunt her down. I have Jack working on finding the bodies,” she admitted. “He’s sending out Quinn to look at churches.”
It made sense to him.
“The Christ is off the cross,” he said, understanding it now. “It’s not about three days, it’s a clue.”
She agreed.
“I thought it would be a countdown, but it won’t be. It’s the roadmap. The sacraments tell me more than he thinks. He has no clue how much he’s given me. One might say that he’s given me too much.”
Ethan hoped that was the case.
“And if you were to guess?” he asked.
Elizabeth continued.
“I’d bet that it’s going to be someone who was getting married.
He’s going to kill them next, or it was at a church where they were married.
I’m also thinking about why he went with Corpus Christi, and the Corpus Christi masses.
I think, but I could be wrong, that he’s telling me it won’t be a Catholic couple, but instead someone like me who didn’t get married in front of the eyes of God, or who whored herself out in front of God with disrespecting the sanctity of a church wedding. ”
About that.