Episode 8: Trouble Becomes Her
by Toni Walker
Mackenzie Gray was tired of all the side roads he's been made to take over the last few days. He had a mission and he was damn well going to complete it. His partner, Nikki Carpenter, would only slow him down, which was why he had handcuffed her to the bed earlier. The restraints wouldn't hold her for long. She always found inventive ways of getting herself out of complex situations.
The call went through fairly quickly considering it was an international call.
"Hello, Harry." Mac greeted his grandfather using his given name. Not out of disrespect, but because that was the way Harry preferred it.
"Bud? Is that you?" Harry said by way of a salutation. "Well, it's about time you called to let me know you were still alive. What in tarnation have you been doing?"
Mac knew better than revealing everything about a mission to someone close to him, but he trusted Harry implicitly.
"Oh, you know..." Mac said, off-handedly. "Saving the world. Or, at least, trying to."
Harry snickered trying to hold back his laugh.
***
John couldn't believe what he was hearing. His sister, Teryl Ellison, had just threatened to kill him. He could still feel the barrel of the gun pressed into his forehead. She had since been distracted by movement at the end of the cul-de-sac, thank God.
Thus far he had been able to keep his secret safe. As long as he remained calm and collected, he wouldn't tip Teryl off to his true mission in Athens. He used a handkerchief to mop his sweaty brow. This definitely had been the most nerve wracking job he had ever been on. It was almost serendipity that Victor Cross had asked him to write this story, when in fact he had been looking for a cover to keep him in Athens for a time.
He didn't have time for further reverie when Teryl jumped into the car and pointed to the end of the cul-de-sac. "Drive," she instructed.
John knew not to betray her, but in truth, he already had, big time. She might actually kill him if she figured out what was going on and who he was really working for. She would kill him just like she had killed their father four years ago, swiftly and deadly, without remorse.
***
Mackenzie Gray had been expecting a call from his Grandpa Harry, but he hadn't thought he would find out anything this soon.
"What's the good word?" Mac asked as he opened up his cell phone.
"Tonight the word is ‘confusing', Bud. Darn confusing."
Mac's brow furrowed. "Explain confusing."
"Well, I found out who your Angel is, but are you sure he's the one you're after?" Harry stalled, like Harry was known to do when trying to extract info from Mac.
"Stop beating around the bush, Harry," Mac said a little more forceful than normal. "I know you have something to say, so just say it."
"Well, Bud, I don't think this Angel is the one you're looking for. For one thing, he's a kid. Eight years old. I've taken a gander at his school record and even though he's autistic, he's never displayed the intelligence of a savant. To tell you the truth, I think the kid is a red herring, Bud."
"I'm only going on the intel Paul provided for me." Mac forked a hand through his already unruly hair. "Dammit!"
"Don't swear in front of your elders," Harry snapped. "Shows disrespect."
"Understood, sir," Mac replied as if by rote. "What else do you have?"
"How do you know I have anything else?"
"You're hedging. Almost like you're saving the best for last."
"Well, I do have something pretty juicy, if I do say so myself." He could hear Harry's smile through the phone line.
"What is it, Harry?"
"I'm gettin' to it. I'm gettin' to it. Let a man have a second to think."
"Harry!"
"All right! Angel isn't only the kid's name. It's also the name of a hacker. One smart enough to break your Immortal Code."
***
Lita Martinez stood in the doorway lurking like a shadowy crusader. Her eyes glittered with mischief. It had taken all her feminine wiles to seduce Pemberton, the butler, and then spike his drink with a sleeping pill. Now she had the available Mr. Victor Cross all to herself.
***
Victor Cross felt a tingling along his spine. Someone was watching him, but that was impossible. He had the most advanced security system money could buy.
"Pemberton!" he called. "Pemberton, get your ass in here right now!"
A minute passed and yet the butler had not appeared. That didn't bode well.
Victor could feel the eyes of someone on him. The sensation bore into him like a knife in the back.
"Who's there?" he called. "Come out, damn you!"
His entire mansion was cast in shadow making it seem all the more spooky. As he walked out of his room and descended the stairs slowly one by one, his eyes darted around looking for faceless monsters that could wield guns.
Many people wanted him dead. He hoped tonight was not his swan song.
***
The love song on the radio crackled, then sputtered into static.
As Rafe Martinez began to make love to Theresa Shea, he didn't notice the static on the radio. He also didn't notice the footsteps outside the cabin door before it was too late. Rafe never expected to be interrupted by a group of men wearing dark outfits and black masks. They burst into the cabin like something out of a James Bond movie. All five men were silent. They spoke by perfectly executed hand movements and nothing else.
Two of them grabbed Rafe before he realized they were even in the room.
"Hey, what the.... Let go of me!" Rafe struggled against them.
Theresa seemed to have known they were coming and merely sighed and began buttoning the shirt Rafe had discarded earlier.
Rafe was soon extracted from the building and one van roared away with him. Only then was the head of the tactical team ready to talk.
"Was all that really necessary, Shea?" Darien Wolfe was not a happy camper. "All you had to do was stay in the damn infirmary building after our operatives shot you with the sleeping dart. I had Alicia Scott staked out as we planned."
Darien paced back and forth scowling at Theresa.
"But we didn't plan on having Mr. Hard Body there walk into the morgue and see me waking up from the sleeping agent, did we? I had barely gained my bearings when he came walking inside. That was why I had to try and escape to meet you. Who knew that he would try and save me. I guess there are a few heroes left after all."
When Theresa could no longer hear the black van's engine, she became worried for Rafe's safety. "You're not going to kill him, are you?"
"I'm considering it, but since his mother works for the infirmary, she could send down on us ten kinds of hell and make a bigger stink than we need." Darien moved his black mask back and forth in his hands. "Lita Martinez is one woman you definitely don't want to mess with."
"That obviously means you're not going to kill him." Theresa game him her best pouty lip thrust. "So, why did you burst in here while I was having a little fun? Couldn't you have waited until I finished what I started with Rafe?"
"I'm not a man who waits for his operatives to decide when they're ready. We have a mission to complete."
"Ah, you're not any fun."
"You knew the dangers going in. You knew the life you had been living was about to change," Darien growled.
"I know," she said defensively. "That doesn't mean I can't get some sexual fulfillment before I hand my life over to you."
Darien shook his head. "You never change. Get moving. The van's waiting."
Theresa saluted. "Yes, sir."
***
Victor scowled when he eventually found Lita sitting in his kitchen making coffee.
"What are you doing here?"
"We have to talk. It's not happening fast enough." Lita sipped the black brew and motioned for him to sit across from her.
"I never understood why you were putting your own family under fire," Victor said.
"They aren't Rafe's children," she answered simply. "He only claims them as his own. Rafe's wife had an affair with a man from Europe a month before she met Rafe. He did the noble thing and married her. Those brats aren't his. Both of them are spawn of the earth from an even more evil spawn."
"And this 'man from Europe' is the same man we are trying to frame for breaking the encryption code?"
"You are very intelligent, Victor," Lita said. "I want my son to be completely free of that man and his bastard children. And I'll do anything to make that happen -- anything!"
***
Teryl was about to raise her gun and do away with Raven and her would-be British savior, but John's yelling interrupted her. His voice reigned her in.
"Victor wants to talk to you. It's important." He handed the cell phone to his sister.
"What do you want?" she bit out harshly. "I'm busy."
"We have a problem. And you have to solve it." Victor never did his own dirty work. Teryl was familiar with men like him. He never got his own hands dirty.
"When it rains, it pours," Teryl muttered.
"I need to explain to you a little about a man named Julian Black."
***
Harry clicked off his cell phone and was about to walk into Hummingbird's, his favorite restaurant, when he saw something he couldn't believe. He rubbed a hand over his face.
"These old man eyes must be playing tricks on me. Cause that can't be who I think it is."
Harry blinked, wandered closer and took another look.
"Damned if it ain't. Theresa Shea" He glanced down at the file folder he held in his hand and compared the photo he had downloaded to the woman across the street. They were definitely one in the same. "Dang girl, what have you gotten yourself into this time?"
He abandoned his need for an early dinner to head out after Theresa. He had to know how she had survived, and what the heck was really going on here.
Next Time....
Mackenzie Gray learns from Harry a startling truth.
Theresa and Darien begin their mission to invade the Black Council.
Evie flees from the tattooed man , only to be overcome, in more ways than one.
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