"On the count of three," Peters" slick voice ordered. "One."
Zack tensed, all his energy ready to propel him off his chair.
"Two."
Time had run out. Zack jumped to his feet and- CRACK!.
A gunshot shattered the air. The obnoxious Interpol Director lurched backward, a marionette blown off its feet. It was Alex at the door, his SIG locked in both hands as he advanced into the room.
Chaos erupted.
That one nanosecond of shocked surprise propelled Zack. His elbow caught the man behind him full in the face, knocking him off balance so Zack"s fist could do the rest. The guy"s gun flew. So did Zack"s fist. He hit the man"s nose. His cheek. His mouth. The guy never got a punch in. By the time Zack shoved his limp body aside, hamburger never looked so ugly.
Someone fired again. Had to be Alex. Another of Peters" men went down with Murphy on top of him. Mark had barely pushed off the floor at the other side of the table, his fists red and bruised. Somehow, David Tao still looked clean and professional. No doubt he"d relied on his martial art skills.
The percolator was shattered. Harley was covered in water and coffee grounds, but he had the c.o.c.ky Mortimer swagger on. Take that, PTSD! Roy was just releasing one tough guy from a stranglehold. Either the man had pa.s.sed out, or...Zack didn"t think beyond that point. Didn"t much care, either. Dead was just as good.
Pride ratcheted up Zack"s spine. This was his team. His friends. His brothers. No one messes with MY FAMILY!
"Murph, that"s enough," Alex shouted, but Murphy was suddenly just as deaf as Alex. He kept punching an unconscious a.s.sa.s.sin"s b.l.o.o.d.y face again and again, his jaw clenched as tight as his fist.
"Murphy," Alex shouted, like he wasn"t already loud enough.
Zack crouched beside Murphy, his hand restraining another blow to a face that no longer felt anything. Poor Murphy was spattered in blood and still mad as h.e.l.l. "It"s okay. You can stop now. We"re done here. You done good."
Murphy made eye contact, for a moment ready to strike Zack. It took a second for him to shift mindsets. When he climbed to his feet, he kicked the bloodied, dead body of Director Peters and bellowed, "You sonofab.i.t.c.h. I ain"t never too old I can"t take care of my Moira!"
"I got it, man." Zack steered his senior agent away from Peters. "Look around. You"re in good company."
Murphy was still ready to fight until he caught sight of Alex. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?" he snapped. "Aren"t you supposed to be home taking it easy?"
Alex pointed at one ear as he secured his pistol inside the holster under his arm. "Mother! Ember!" he shouted out the door.
Zack grinned. The man was deaf, still bossy as all get out, and a d.a.m.ned sight for sore eyes.
Mother and Ember entered the room, each with a revolver drawn. Zack grinned harder.
"No one messes with my guys," Mother said as she holstered her weapon, her chin stuck out in self-righteous bravado.
Ember calmly secured her pistol. She"d lost her dark gla.s.ses. The sadness in her eyes had been replaced by the look of the tough Navy Corpsman she"d once been. Zack was glad she was on his side. She was Amazonian againtall, voluptuous, and deadly. He snagged one arm around her slender waist as he strolled out of the Sit Room behind his boss.
"I think it"s time for you and me to do some serious target practice," he teased. Ember was the weapons expert. Target practice was the last thing she needed, but she took the bait.
"I already shoot better than you, Zack." The light was back in her green eyes. Still fragile. Still more glimmer than audacious, but Ember was on her way back from the grave. She was going to be okay.
Alex shouted to David, "Call the police. They were supposed to be here by now."
As if on cue, a swarm of officers poured up from the damaged stairwell, rifles drawn, and, like the cavalry in the old cowboy movies, late as usual.
Zack joined Alex and everyone else around Mother and Ember"s workstation. For some reason, Alex was sitting behind a laptop, something Zack doubted he knew how to use. The man didn"t do technology very well. It wasn"t until Alex started talking that Zack put two and two together. Ember was typing the conversation so Alex could read what everyone had to say.
"Man, Boss, you never looked so pretty." Harley grunted as he flopped his lanky body into the chair beside Alex. "I was thinking I could take out maybe two of those guys with my trusty coffeepot, but I was worried it could get awful ugly."
Alex read the message Ember typed. He shot her a small smile before lowering his booming voice to a conversational level. "It did get ugly, just not like Peters planned."
"Boss, what are you doing here? You"re supposed to be home resting." David pulled up the chair on the other side of Alex.
Ember typed David"s words and Zack smiled. She looked happy to be helping Alex.
"And where were Mother and Ember during all this?" Roy asked. "Not that I minded you showing up like you did, but why didn"t Peters grab you gals?"
Alex didn"t have to wait for Ember to type, as fast as she was. His biggest problem was maintaining eye contact while reading the screen. "They were in the supply room. They saw him intercept Harley. And I"m here because I finally did what I should"ve done."
THIRTY-THREE.
"What"s that?" Zack asked. He"d taken a seat directly across from his boss.
"I talked with Shawn Washington."
"The g.a.n.g.b.a.n.ger who shot Todd?" Zack asked, instantly angry. "Why?"
"Remember he wanted immunity in exchange for information? It turns out the big fish he was ready to turn on wasn"t Carducci like I thought." Alex sighed deeply. "It was Peters."
"Yeah, none of us saw that coming," Zack said.
"How would a punk like Washington know Peters?" Roy asked.
Ember"s fingertips flew over her keyboard, keeping her boss on track.
"He drove the car when Peters dumped Zhen Ting. Apparently, the little girl had seen Peters at one of the homes. The dumpster was supposed to have been picked up the same night. She should"ve been crushed in the back of a garbage truck and stuck on some garbage scow. It"s a miracle the old man found her when he did."
"Marty. His name is Marty," Zack said quietly, thinking of his friend. Maybe it was time to adopt him, too.
"Too many other things didn"t add up," Alex said, quieter still.
"Like the emails from Lenny Huang that mysteriously originated in D.C.?" Zack asked.
"Like a lot of things," Alex said. "The explosion yesterday made me d.a.m.ned mad. h.e.l.l, I"ve got a couple loose teeth, and those people at the hospital put me through a whole battery of tests on my heart before they"d let me leave. And not being able to hear is aggravating, but one good thing came out of it. For the first time in months, I ate dinner with my wife last night. That"s rare around our place, and I got to bed at a reasonable hour. I woke up around two this morning, and I could see every single disconnect in the case. It"s like I was looking at a road map."
"That"s what we"ve been going over." Zack nodded toward the Situation Room where the FBI was now in control. "Seems everyone had a gut feeling about all the perfectly aligned evidence we"d been handed by our Interpol friend in there. We"d barely figured it out when Peters showed up with his goon squad."
"And to think I invited these guys into our operation." Alex sat back heavily in his chair.
"You were right to invite them," Roy said. "We couldn"t have tackled a global operation by ourselves. We should"ve been able to trust ATF and Interpol."
"This game had a lot of heavy hitters," Murphy muttered, the wind finally out of his sails.
"Greed knows no boundaries," Mark offered. "Makes me want to go home and hug my wife."
"We are definitely off the case now," Alex said wearily. "I talked with Senator Matt Burlington from Wyoming. He"s an honest man by the way, one you can trust. He"s working closely with the FBI. They"re point for civil rights violations like child trafficking, and unfortunately this one," Alex rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, "is the biggest they"ve ever seen."
"We came to the same conclusion," David said.
"Just a little too late," Zack whispered. The tremendous feeling of relief he"d experienced was tempered by those last comments from Peters about the stateside business being insignificant in comparison to the rest of the world. All those sad babies" faces in the foster homes still haunted him. Mark was right. Zack needed to hold his girls again, the sooner the better.
"Here, guys." Mother had made coffee in two of the smaller coffee makers in the office. She brought a tray of powdered creamer, sweetener, coffee mugs, and spoons to the table.
"Thanks." Harley reached for the nearest cup. "I need a gallon."
"Me, too." Roy helped himself.
Zack took his hot and black. Normally, he"d doctor it with plenty of cream and sugar, but black seemed to fit the mood. He sipped as he stared at the bl.u.s.ter of activity in the usually quiet TEAM office. The coroner had arrived with body bags and several a.s.sistants. h.e.l.l had come to the last place on earth he"d expected it to come.
Armchair quarterbacks and the all-knowing television pundits liked to say that a person who lived by the sword died by the sword, but Zack saw it differently. It was only because of the "sword" carried into battle by honorable men that all those loud mouth pundits and know-it-alls had the freedom to shoot their faces off in the first place. David was right when he"d said, "You and I are not like most of the people around us. We know what it means to fight for peace".
"The police want us to hang around for questioning, but right now, they"re looking at us as victims first," Murphy said as he handed the two video surveillance tapes from the Situation Room to Alex. "You might want to look at this before you surrender it to the police, but these tapes should prove what went down here today."
"Bet you"re glad I talked you into inner office surveillance now, aren"t you?" Mother spiked a sa.s.sy eyebrow at her boss.
"I am," Alex said readily as he took the tapes. "Almost as glad as the day I hired you."
Zack couldn"t help but smile. Mother had just been blind-sided by her boss. She sputtered and got all teary-eyed.
"Those tapes will corroborate everything that happened here today?" Alex asked.
"It will doc.u.ment our evidence against Peters and his ring of a.s.sociates," Mark said.
Alex handed Mother the tapes. "Make three copies. One for me, the police, and Senator Burlington."
She nodded, silently obedient.
Mei"s sweet face came to Zack"s mind. He wanted to run to her and Song, to make sure they were safe, but he didn"t at the same time. Peters" death threats against each agent"s wife and children revealed the extreme evil of the man. This had evolved into an intensely personal operation that rocked each of them to their core. They seemed paralyzed, still needing each other"s company.
Predictably, it was Mother who ended the silence. As she cleared her throat to speak, Ember went dutifully back to typing. "You know, Boss, I wish we could fix the whole world and make everyone happy, and cure hunger and greed and all them things that make this old world sick, cuz it is a sick old place and it needs a powerful lot of help. I do wish that, but I"m looking at my family right now, and...and I don"t care if I make a fool of myself."
Zack gulped. She might not be a trained sniper, but Mother"s words were right on target. Her blue eyes overflowed, making it worse and better at the same time.
"You all wonder why I don"t start my own business and make a million, but I"ll tell you why. It"s not the first time and it won"t be the last time I say it, but...I love you guys. I do. That"s all there is to it. I"m as happy as a pig in a bushel of peaches that you guys aren"t the ones lying in there with holes in your heads. It could"ve been you if Alex hadn"t shown up like he did. And you know what else? I love all your pretty little wives and your kids, too. I don"t know what I"d have done if any of you were killed today. I"m not over losing Todd yet. None of us are."
By now she"d grabbed a box of tissues off her counter and mopped her face, crying openly. "And Boss." She dabbed her eyes and her nose. "I think I love you most of all, and I ain"t ashamed to say it. You can tell Kelsey, too. I don"t mind sharing you."
Alex grunted, and Zack had to turn away. There it was, the truth behind Mother"s allegiance to her boss, out in the open for all to hear. Poor Alex.
Mother sputtered, too emotional to go on.
Thank G.o.d. Zack pushed away from the counter. Any more of this and he"d be bawling, too. He glanced at Harley who was wiping his face and not ashamed in the slightest, but that was different. Everyone knew Harley had a soft heart. David and Mark looked pretty subdued, but Zack was still hoping he had the tough guy mystique going for him.
"I think what Mother is trying to say, Alex," Ember lifted her quiet voice above Mother"s sniffling while she began typing her own thoughts, her eyes never once straying to her flying fingertips, "is that we do good work here. Even if we couldn"t save the world like we wanted, we did save three hundred and eleven little girls. Little Chai Yenn is safe and sound with David and his family. And little Baby Song?" She turned to Zack. "Wow."
He clenched his jaw. Ember was playing dirty.
"All we"ve got to do is look at him." She reached a hand to his knee and squeezed before she went back to typing. "He"s happier than he"s ever been. That"s another sweet picture, watching our big old muscle-bound Zack sitting on the floor with his hands bandaged and playing with his sweet baby girl. You guys should"ve seen it."
Zack could not stop his eyes from filling. Ember was right. Song had opened his heart to the Technicolor world of real love. Mei had made him weak and strong in the same instant. There was no going back. He"d been converted, lock, stock and barrel, but he"d lost a good friend. Todd had also been there that day, watching him coax little Song to pick up the sock monkey.
Ember turned to Alex next, her voice tight with emotion. "And I saw you the day the police raided the first foster home."
Suddenly, Alex looked surprised and as vulnerable as Zack had just been. His eyes widened and just as quickly shadowed. A secret was about to be revealed.
"Wow, Alex. I saw you pick up that little girl when we went to help. She was scared and you snuggled her inside your jacket. You didn"t know anyone was watching you, but I was."
He nodded one quick affirmation, his hand lifted to brush her words off like they were nothing.
"I saw the look on your face. I saw you kiss her forehead. You were thinking of Abby."
He did not speak, but Zack saw the cords in his neck tighten.
"Wow. There you were, holding that little orphan like she was the most precious thing in the whole world."
The hustle and bustle of the emergency responders faded. All Zack could see was the pain on his boss"s face as the tender memory was relived. That was sacred ground. No one mentioned the daughter he"d lost to an automobile accident years ago. Not in the office. Ever.
"Cuz she was." Ember brought the point home. "It"s a very good thing to rescue just one child, Alex. It"s enough."
Her green eyes brimmed by the time she stopped typing and Zack wanted to hug her all over again. Here she was, devastated by her own loss, yet bolstering The TEAM like only a woman could.
Alex reached across the table for her hand, clearing his throat to speak. "You"re right. Maybe we didn"t save the world, but we"ve done a d.a.m.ned good job." He turned to the rest of his team. "Get out of here. Go home. This place can wait. Take two weeks. All of you."
Harley couldn"t help himself. He cupped a hand to his ear and leaned across the table. "Huh? What"d you say, Boss? Huh?"
Alex almost repeated himself until he caught everyone"s smiles. He snapped the laptop closed and stood up. "Get the h.e.l.l outta here."
Unexpectedly, he turned to Zack. "Everyone but you."
THIRTY-FOUR.