Rescue Me (23 page)

“It's no bullshit. You shouldn't even know
that much.”

This time Kat sighed. “Weber, if you want
K-SAR to step in, you have to give me more to go on. I'm willing to
assist, but not blind. I won't send my people out if they will be
in any danger.”

“No danger,” he replied way too eagerly.
“I've got Allen and his team already up there.”

The thought of seeing Spencer and helping him
on another search had her willing to look past Weber's evasiveness.
“What do you need?”

“Talk to Rand. He has the details.”

Unbelievable. “Does TREX think they have open
access to my logistics officer? First Spence, now you?” Her other
line beeped and she pulled her phone back to see who would be
calling her at five in the morning, not surprised to see Rand's
number pop up. No doubt he already had half the teams en route.
“We'll be ready by daybreak.”

She ended her call with Weber and switched
over to Rand. “Hey, Rand.”

“Good morning, boss. We have to stop meeting
like this.” Rand usually sounded so damn chipper it would irritate
her. But not this time. This time he sounded clipped, his voice
edgy, tight. His accent was more pronounced, which sent her guard
shooting straight up.

“Tell me what's going on.” She hated to beg
but at this point, she'd do anything to get the truth for once.

“You sound tired.”

“Quit trying to avoid the question.”

“Whoa. Someone woke up on the wrong side of
Happyland.”

She hadn't slept since Spencer got the call
just after midnight, so waking up on the wrong side of anything
wasn't the issue. Overbearing males who thought they could order
her and her teams around without giving her an ounce of detail
were. And logistics officers avoiding her question.

“Rand, please.”

“We already have enough in the field,” he
went on, ignoring her plea. “We just need you.”

“We?”

Rand laughed. “I mean TREX. Listen to me.
You'd think I worked for them, too.”

“So, no K-SAR resources?”

“Not this time.” There went his accent again
and Kat's suspicions went into full alert. He only let his accent
slip if he had something else on his mind.

“Why won't you tell me what Dan Weber told
you?”

“That's what I'm doing. TREX is asking for
K-SAR's expertise only. That's you.”

“What about Travis? He drives the Com
Van.”

“He's on his way to the flat spot before
Capital Peak. It's you they really need on this one, Kat. Got
another call coming in.”

Before she could say anything else, Rand hung
up. Kat ran into the bedroom to change. Grabbing her coat and keys,
she disarmed the alarm and hurried out the door. The snow had
stopped and as the day started to break, she saw only a few inches
on the ground. That wasn't so bad.

She jumped into her Xterra and stuck in her
earpiece in case she got any calls on the way. No sooner did she
activate the Bluetooth than her phone rang.

“Kat Davis.”

“Hey.”

“Spence?” Her heart skipped and she both
loved and hated that she still had that kind of reaction whenever
he called. He didn't normally call while out on a find so, of
course, she assumed the worst. “Is everything okay?”

His voice trembled. “No.”

Her stomach clenched. “What is it? What's
wrong?”

He drew a shaky breath. “We lost a guy
tonight. He...” Spencer's voice faded and pain seeped through the
line, straight into her.

“Spencer? What happened?”

“I ran over.” Another shaky breath. “It was
too late. Gabriel Lyons. Been on the team longer than any of us.”
His voice cracked.

“Oh, Spencer.” Kat brought her hand to her
mouth. She'd only met him on the Miller search. Spencer spoke of
him often. He really cared for him, almost as a son would a
father.

Oh God. No.
Her heart ached. Yet
another father taken from him.

“I'm so sorry.”

“We have another one barely hanging on. Just
a kid. They air vac'd him out. He's in surgery to remove the
bullet.”

“Bullet!” she cried and white-knuckled the
steering wheel. “You were shot at?”

“Yeah. No one else was hit.” After several
ragged breaths, he went on. “I just had to hear your voice. Jesus,
Mary is going to be devastated when TREX tells her. This will
destroy her. This is why I won't... I
can't
do this to
you.”

Her heart stopped, the pain so intense she
couldn't take a breath. “Spencer, don't say that. Don't you dare
say that.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No,” she begged as her emotions got the
better of her. Her eyes swelled with tears and her voice quivered.
“You promised me. Please don't do this.”

“Kathryn, baby. Don't cry.”

“Don't make me cry.”

“I just—” He swallowed a groan. “I can't. I
just
can't
, Kathryn.”

“Tell you what,” she said, bargaining for
more time. He was clearly in no state to talk about their future
and she needed to stay focused on the upcoming search. “Let's just
talk about this later, okay? We don't need to talk about this
now.”

After several stressful seconds of silence,
he answered, “Okay. I have to go. Please promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“If you get a call from Weber, don't take the
job.”

“I'm actually on my way there now.”

“Sweet Jesus. Turn around, baby. Don't come
up here.”

“I'm coming,” she told him, determined to do
whatever she could to end this. Whatever
this
was. She
couldn't stand hearing Spencer in so much pain. He needed her. It
was her turn to be his superhero.

“Kathryn, don't. It's too dangerous.” The
urgency in his voice scared her.

That gave her pause. “What sort of
danger?”

“I-I can't tell you.”

Of course. Well, to hell with the secrets and
constant lies. This time, she'd put herself in the center of it
all. This time, she'd get her answers for good.

“ETA in twenty. I'll see you there.” She hung
up before he convinced her otherwise.

“We found a truck,” Cummings reported.
“Straps in the bed. Yep. This definitely transported something up
here.”

“Oh darn,” Aims said after a crash sounded
over the radio. “Someone broke this guy's window. Let's see who our
mystery asshole is. Looks like the vehicle is registered to a
Samuel Green. Address is a post office box so that's no help. No
other info in the glove box.”

“Anything else?” Spencer asked. He'd stayed
behind with Lyons until TREX arrived to retrieve the body. The
night gave way to another day despite the chaos that had stopped
his world on a dime. Lyons was gone. McKoy was barely hanging on.
And still, life went on.

Aims went on. “It smells like ass in
here.”

“Musty,” Cummings cut in to clarify. “It's
been parked here a while. Judging by the snow piled in the bed,
it's been here about a week.”

“A week?” Spencer growled. “Are you fucking
kidding me? Salazar had this planned from the beginning. He played
us on the Miller search.”

“Son of a shit storm.” Weber's voice sounded
through the radio, which meant he had to be close. “No wonder Kat
expertly extracted information out of him we couldn't. He knew we'd
see right through him and counted on her doing exactly what she
did.”

“I don't think he meant for her to find the
kid,” Spencer added. “His death was for another purpose. Why else
hire mercs to kidnap a six-year-old?”

Spencer spotted Weber's rig and waited until
he pulled up to the cabin. He stepped out and walked up the
hillside to the blanket covering Lyons's body. Kneeling down, he
then lifted it and peeked under. He sucked in a breath and dropped
the cover back down before standing.

Weber turned to Spencer, a solemn look
washing over his face. In a rare show of emotions, he said, “I'm
sorry about this, Spence. I know what he meant to you.”

“Thank you, Dan.”

And, just like that, his face lost all
expression as he hardened back into the gruff SAC Spencer needed
right now. A TREX van pulled up behind Lyons's SUV. Spencer stood
back and never took his eyes off Lyons as the team bagged his body
and placed him in the van.

“Do you want a cleaning crew, sir?” One of
the agents looked at Weber.

“Already on the way.”

“There's not a whole lot of blood so it
shouldn't take long.”

“The bloody mess is over here.” Spencer led
him over to where they'd extracted McKoy.

“That sounds like something I'd say,” Rand
cut in, his accent strong, no doubt on purpose.

“Will you be joining us on this one?”

“Not this time. I'll be monitoring the find
from my office. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry, Spence. I know
you and Lyons were close.”

Jesus Christ. If one more person offered
condolences, Spencer would lose it. He was barely holding on as it
was. He swallowed down the tightness in his throat and watched as
the team took Lyons away.

“Tell me what happened.” Weber's voice broke
him of his trance of watching that van drive off with the man who
had taken Spencer under his wing and taught him everything.

“We were in position.” Spencer nodded around
them. “I got a feeling. I can't really explain it. And I
knew
. We were being watched. Salazar kept the cabin dark. He
paced like he was nervous. The more I thought about it, the more
sense it made. They knew we were watching and just waited until the
right time. A single gunshot sent us into action.”

“Four hours,” Weber pointed out, that hard
look resting on Spencer. “The sniper had four hours to pick you
off, yet waited. Why?”

Spencer wasn't about to throw McKoy to the
wolves. “I wasn't the only one watching the hillside. Lyons noticed
it, as did McKoy. The son of a bitch got them both.”

“But not you.”

“No, sir.” He should be dead. They were his
team. His to protect. And he'd failed. Spencer rubbed the grit out
of his eyes before running his fingers through his hair. He
couldn't get Lyons' image out of his head. Probably never would. A
few of his favorite curses rolled from his lips.

Weber's tone softened as he quipped, “You
look like shit, Allen.”

“Yeah,” was all he replied.

“I'll bring in another team to relieve
yours.”

“No,” Spencer snapped. “No way am I letting
anyone else take this. Lyons was one of us.”

“He was one of all of us.”

“That's not the same fucking thing and you
know it. Gabe may have been TREX, but he was
our
brother.
We've all been together as a team for seven years. Seven fucking
years we've bled together, sweated or frozen our asses off
together, and stayed up for days at a time on a find together.
McKoy just joined the team, but that doesn't make him any less of
our brother. Let us see this through. We owe it to them both.”

Weber studied him in silence. He then traced
their surroundings before settling his attention on the cabin.
“Let's step inside. Maybe it's a degree or two warmer. There are a
few things you need to know.”

Why did he have a nauseous churning in his
gut? Spencer followed Weber inside the cabin and waited as he
closed the door. Nope. It wasn't any warmer inside than outside. It
could have something to do with the way Weber had those icy blue
eyes resting on him. He signaled for radio silence. Spencer clicked
both his receiver and transmitter off, as did Weber.

“Listen, Allen. I've had intel working on
this ever since you mentioned mercs on the Miller search. What is
said inside the cabin never leaves this cabin. Your ears only.
Understood?”

“Understood.”

“You don't hire mercenaries to kidnap a kid
and then only ask for a tenth of what you should have in ransom.”
Weber wiped a hand over his face as he started to pace. Both tells
that he was already agitated. “Miller is worth billions. His family
is so deep in Texas oil that his blood runs brown. Any merc worth
his weight knows how to dig that shit up.” He stopped pacing long
enough to add, “You know what that tells me?”

“His kidnapping wasn't for the ransom.”

“You got it.” He resumed pacing. “So why
kidnap the grandkid of not only a billionaire with a lot of friends
in high places, but who is also on the board at a covert agency.
They had to have known he'd get TREX involved.”

Spencer put the pieces together. “They wanted
us involved.”

“That's exactly what Gessler said. So I ran
with that and had intel check for chatter on the agents Miller
asked me to assign to his grandkid's find.”

“He can do that?”

“When you're on the board, you can do pretty
much anything you want. He requested my two units. Why? Why request
Seattle-based units on a search two hours south?”

“Because we're the closest.”

“No.” Weber shook his head. “Because of
you
.”

His chest pinched. As if he didn't have
enough guilt. “Me?”

“Your relationship with Kat Davis. Miller is
no moron. He knew we'd call in K-SAR. He knew she'd find Tommy.
That's why he wanted us in the first place.”

“Great,” Spencer growled, pissed he never saw
this angle. “So we got played by Salazar and by Miller. Fucking
great. And we are no closer to who masterminding this whole
thing.”

“A carefully placed pawn is more destructive
than any other player.”

Spencer nodded. “Words right out of the
playbook from Gahanna.”

“Or anyone who knows how to play chess,”
Weber countered. “You need to know I called in K-SAR.”

He clenched his jaw so hard it popped. “I'm
aware of that.”

“And I can see you aren't happy about
it.”

“Why the hell would I be happy that you're
purposely putting her in danger.”

Weber rolled his eyes. “She's not in any
danger.”