Zack (In the Company of Snipers Book 3) (30 page)

EMBER

The capricious wind whistled around Ember Davis as she stood in solitary vigil at the headstone of Agent Todd Chandler.

Like the soldiers they represent, the endless rows of identical white headstones marched across acres of snow-drifted lawn in reverent Arlington Cemetery. The morning stillness gave way to the first of many twenty-one-gun salutes that would sound throughout the day while honor guards assigned heroes and heroines to their final posts. Solemn words would be spoken, the noble flag folded and presented. Another warrior safely home.

Yeah, right.

Ember didn’t see it that way. A wild spirit whose perspective was eternally different from the world around her, all she saw was that she stood alone. She’d recognized a kindred spirit in Todd. He was the perfect complement to her perpetually searching soul, the steadiness to her unbounded enthusiasm, and the ground wire to her stream of effervescent energy. And now he was gone. Taken from her and buried here, among all the noble dead.

Even in death, he’d conformed to the strict military code of the cemetery. He’d lived by the code he was now interred by. Interment was another unsolved puzzle for this computer genius. When her time came, her remains would be cremated, the ashes tossed high into the jet stream to be scattered at its pleasure, not left within the cold bosom of a neglectful mother earth, forgotten and alone for eternity. No. Give her the sky and its endless sunshine. Give her night stars and solar flares. Give her–light.

Give me Todd back!

Tears coursed down her reddened cheeks. It wasn’t long ago she’d shared the hope with Mother that maybe–just maybe–Todd was the one. He’d pestered her so much at first, almost like a younger brother who was always in her way. Finally, Ember had recognized his attention for what it was. He’d loved her at first sight, like no other before him. He just wasn’t sure how to approach her, or if she even cared. Now he was gone, consigned to death while she was left behind, consigned to life.

She cared like hell.

So engrossed in grief, she didn’t hear the quiet footfall until her boss stood beside her. Alex. Always Alex. She didn’t understand how the man seemed to know when a member of his team was hurting. He just did.

Many times, she’d watched him shape attitudes with a few words that made them stronger, more focused, or mad as hell. She’d seen him bring comfort into mayhem just by showing up. She’d also seen him bring chaos the same way. With a glance or a word, he could build as easily as destroy. Alex was the strength and power behind The TEAM, the fiery core the rest of them moved around, like satellites in orbit around a temperamental sun.

Damn Alex.

She mopped her sleeve across her face, but if he’d noticed, he didn’t say a word. Thankfully, he honored Todd in silence, alone with his thoughts while she stood alone with hers. Did he miss Todd half as much as she did?

Another twenty-one-gun salute sounded from far across the frozen ground. Still her boss waited with her. Of course, he hadn’t come for Todd as much as he’d come for her. She didn’t want to face anyone yet. Hiding was easier. Avoiding was better. Not having to talk was the only way she made it through the day. Talking meant opening up. Letting people in. Being normal again. Although she’d had plenty to say the day of the shooting in the Sit Room, she’d gone silent again. Living alone will do that to a person. Even her fat yellow tabby, Maple Syrup, figured it out. She wanted to be left alone.

“What do you want, Alex?” she asked without turning to face him. Eye contact with this guy was not in the cards. Not today. One hint of kindness and she’d fall apart.

He didn’t answer. Alex stood ramrod straight, as always. Maybe he was still deaf; maybe he hadn’t heard the nasty tone in her question.

She gulped. Maybe he did.

“Ember?”

Squeezing her eyes against Alex was like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand. He was still here.

“What?” she ground out, angry she sounded pitiful.

When he did not speak, she faltered. Peripheral vision was no help. There was no escape. She bit her lip and faced the man she refused to call Boss. He was Alex. No better. Certainly not smarter. Just damned Alex and he was here and she wanted to be alone!

Those dazzling blues looked straight into her soul, and she couldn’t hide her pain. He saw her. He felt the same. And he could hear again.

“Todd was a good man,” he said quietly.

Ember jerked her gaze away from that compelling blue light and sniffed the frigid air, hoping it would bring composure. It didn’t. The man beside her was made of steel, and she was melted taffy in the summer sun, all sticky and turning to goo just because he’d shown up.

“Yes,” she sputtered. “He was. Todd was...a very, very good man.”

“He was in the middle of a mission when everything went wrong, you know.”

“I didn’t know he had a mission. He never said anything. I mean, not about any mission or anything. I mean....” Ember didn’t know what she meant anymore. Grief swelled within her ocean of pain.

“It meant a lot to him, totally his idea. I’m not surprised you didn’t know. Few agents did.”

Ember straightened as she waited.

“I’d like you to finish it on his behalf, if you would.”

“What? Me?”

“Only if you think you’re up for it. I know it’s a bad time.”

“Are you serious? I’m not one of your snipers. It’s been a long time since I held a gun.”

“Not all our missions involve guns.”

The damned man was as powerful when he was gentle as when he was mean. It set her off balance. She didn’t know what to expect from him. Or herself.

“I know that, but...What? You came all the way out here to give me an assignment? What do you want?” The fury in her heart flew out of her mouth without thought or permission. She’d come here to cry and pray in peace, not work.

Damn Alex.

Instead of answering, he put his arm around her shoulders and tilted her body toward his. She was almost as tall as he was. Still dressed in mourning with her spiked hair as black as her eyes and her clothes as wild as ever, they must’ve looked quite the sight; him with his conservative trench coat embracing a totally free and angrily rebellious spirit in the middle of a freaking cemetery!

Ember groaned. She’d locked her heart away. He had no right to test the lock. She’d come here for solitude, not redemption.
Leave me alone. Not today, buddy. You can’t break me today.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.”

So not fair! Of all the things to say!

For a moment, they stood like two fence posts in the Arlington winterscape: straight, stiff, and separate. The bright white snow and granite blinded her. That’s what the moisture was in her eyes. Without warning, it happened. That single gesture of gallant kindness and those gentle words filled the aching hole in her heart with something besides bottomless pain. She crumbled. The dam burst. Grief gulped out in a torrent that wouldn’t stop.

Damn you, Alex. This is your fault. You’re making me cry.

Ember leaned into him. He offered a cloth handkerchief. She shivered and wiped her raw, sore nose.

I look like a clown.

The winter wind spun flake and crystal around them in a sudden flurry that just as quickly departed, leaving them lightly frosted in its wake.

I miss him!

They stood together as the storm around and within abated.

“I’m sorry.” She dabbed her eyes, the venom in her heart gone with the frozen breeze and a kind man’s touch.

“Nothing to be sorry about.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Sometimes tears are all we’ve got to give the friends we’ve lost.”

“It’s just that...it’s just that....”

“You loved him.” Alex’s voice was more tender than she’d ever heard.

“Yeah.” Ember gulped again. He read her like a book. She couldn’t even cuss him anymore. “And he loved me. He was like, all starry-eyed when he was around me. You know?”

“Everyone knew.”

“And now...”

“He’s gone.”

She leaned into his shoulder again, her resistance gone and her heart wide open. Alex held her tight while her pain poured out. “And I’m still here. And I hate it and I miss him and I’m still here!” she ground out, wishing she could shake some sense into the gods of karma and make them give Todd back. He wasn’t the one who was supposed to die that day. It was Zack, only she didn’t want Zack to die either. It just wasn’t fair!

Alex held her steady until she calmed again.

Ember mopped her face and tried not to wipe her nose on her boss. “It comes in waves. One minute I’m normal, and the next, I’m so mad. And I’m sorry. I don’t wish Zack was dead and I don’t hate you.”

“I know.” He let her lean against him, his grip strong and firm. “What will you do now?”

She ignored his question with a question of her own. “What’s the mission? What’s so important Todd couldn’t tell me?”

“I don’t think it’s that he couldn’t. I think it’s more he hadn’t found the time to tell you yet. He was going to talk with you. That much I know.”

“About what?” She brushed the tears off her face.
Spit it out, Alex. Then leave me alone.

“There’s a little girl at the city morgue.” He reached into an inner pocket of his black trench coat. “Todd started a collection to—”

“To bury baby Jane Doe?” she finished for him. Jane Doe was the baby girl found in the Potomac around the same time Zack rescued Chai Yenn. She still rested in a stainless aluminum drawer–waiting for someone to care.

“He had this at his desk.” Alex handed her a brown envelope full of bills of various denominations.

Ember accepted the lifeline. The envelope was part of the man she loved, and now, in a way, they would share and care about the forgotten child together. Warmth flooded the cold recess of her sad heart. It was so like Todd.

“I can do this.” Her voice turned from sad to calm.

They trudged through the drifted snow together.

“He had green eyes just like mine.”

Alex squeezed the smaller gloved hand in his. “He did. They were a shade lighter, though.”

“They were.” She pressed the brown envelope against her heart and sniffed her tears away. Alex was the best boss. Despite the incredibly pain-filled down side to her job, she wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“If you need more money, let me know.”

“Thanks.” Ember felt stronger with every step.

“You do realize you can give her a name, don’t you? You can put the name on her headstone.”

“I didn’t know that.”

He nodded, his hand strong at her elbow as he accompanied her downhill to the parking lot.

“Her name is Chandler,” she whispered.

If that little girl hadn’t belonged to anyone before, she did now.

The frigid breeze full of glistening snowflakes blowing through the city of Paris fit the season. Christmas shoppers scurried along the narrow cobblestone street. Zack had been sent on the most important operation of his life. Even now, his heart beat contentedly while he observed his quarry from the warmth of a tiny, uncomfortable foreign rental car.

Mei had been less than pleased at his abrupt departure, arguing that LiLi was no closer to being located with him gone. He would have gladly told her the truth, but he could not risk breaking her heart or dashing her hopes again. So he opted for the Christmas gift of a lifetime. If she only knew.

Without fail, the man Zack followed left his home at precisely the same time every morning, and returned on the same tight schedule at dusk. He drove his own vehicle, a small black Peugeot sedan. Without a single day’s variation, he parked in his assigned, numbered stall at the world-renowned Saint-Antoine University Hospital in Paris. Not once did the Caucasian gentleman step outside the hospital for lunch or other errands, neither did he detour from his established route to and from the hospital. By all appearances, he was a strict disciplinarian; his daily routine synchronized like finely-tuned clockwork.

His name? None other than the very prestigious and extremely devious Dr. Christopher Elias Jones II, the same man Mei had once given her heart to. He was the mastermind behind the abduction of the born out of wedlock daughter he’d once disowned. Born into a world where money solved all problems, he’d simply paid off a network of unscrupulous imposters and thieves to accomplish his goal. LiLi was never in danger. No. While poor Mei had been forced to suffer the most wretched nightmare a mother could endure, LiLi had been introduced to a life of luxury and French cuisine. By all appearances, Dr. Jones loved his daughter, but Zack freaking did not care. At the end of the mission, LiLi would be westbound to her mother where she belonged. Christopher Jones could go to hell.

From what he’d been able to observe in the three days he’d been in the country, the doctor employed two women at his very secluded villa east of the Paris metropolis. Zack pegged the sturdy, gray-haired woman to be the cook since she visited the markets daily, and, according to Mother’s astute investigation, an occasional dress shop less frequently. The younger woman was rarely seen outside the villa walls. She did not venture far when she did leave, and the women never travelled together. At least one of them remained home at all times. If anyone else lived at the villa, they were never seen. But Zack suspected....

He sipped his steamy espresso while he waited. In five minutes, Dr. Jones was expected to rush home on the busy Parisian street. As usual, Zack would follow from a safe distance. After Dr. Jones drove out of town and entered the garage at his estate, the single door would close with a mechanical clank and seat tightly into place, offering no entry to rodent or man. That would conclude another day’s surveillance. It would begin again in the morning, albeit in reverse, and again the next day until Zack’s operation was complete.

There had not been a single change in the precise man’s schedule for the last two weeks, according to Mother. Not one. Even the weather had no impact. But Alex had a hunch and Zack a gut feeling. Christmas was a time for children and pleasantry. Surely the doctor had a soft spot in his cold, hard heart. Surely he would falter. Zack blew softly over his cup to cool the drink. He double-checked his watch. It had finally happened. Dr. Jones was late.

Zack checked the GPS locator on his dash. The man might be late but he was close–damned close. The deviation was miniscule. Instead of passing Zack’s parked car, he had parked behind it–of all places for parking to open up. Zack got out of his car and crossed to the opposite sidewalk for a clearer view. He could not help but smile. Dr. Jones had stopped at a toy store, a particularly expensive shop that proclaimed the most beautiful, the most rare, and the most desirable–dolls.

From his new position, Zack had an excellent view of the shop’s cashier just beyond the plate glass window. The doctor wasted no time in making a selection. As expected, he paid in cash. There was no paper trail, which, along with his rather ordinary last name, had made him a bit difficult to locate. Zack snapped the camera shots that documented his findings and transmitted them across the Atlantic to Alexandria, Virginia. Mother’s hard work had paid off.

Invisible in the hurry and scurry of holiday shoppers, Zack waited across the street until his quary was back on schedule. Weighing the change in the doctor’s itinerary against the item he’d purchased, Zack decided.

Tomorrow was the day.

The iron gate needed a drop of oil in its creaky, rusted hinges, so Zack hopped over the stone wall instead. It was early morning. Dr. Jones was already en route back to Saint-Antoine’s. The cook had driven off toward the day’s bargains at the city markets. Within seconds Zack was inside the villa, alert and processing the daily minutiae that came with covert operations inside a residence not too different from Senator Lord’s, minus a few bodies.

A machine hummed off to his right. Since he’d entered through the kitchen door at the rear of the home, he assumed the noise came from the automatic washing machine in the nearby utility room. A door quietly closed upstairs. Another muffled thud indicated a drawer had closed. The sound of water running upstairs meant a showerhead had been turned on. It was definitely not the sound of a bath being poured. Good. The younger woman was taking her morning shower.

It was now or never.

Three doors beckoned in the upstairs hallway. Zack paused at each until he was certain. As quiet as a whisper, he entered the darkened bedroom. It was not so dark he couldn’t see the goal of his mission. With a single photograph in hand to explain his presence, he flicked his small flashlight on and spotlighted the picture.

“LiLi?”

“Yes?” a timid voice answered from the head of the bed.

“Would you like to go home to your mother?”

“Yes,” she squeaked sadly.

“Then stand up. I’ll wrap you in a blanket but we have to hurry.”

She jumped to her feet on the bed, ready to go. “Who are you?” she asked, balancing her hands on his shoulders, trusting him to help her just as her mother had.

“Your Mommy sent me,” he answered quickly.
My God, she looks just like Mei.
“I have to cover your head. It’s cold outside.”

She complied easily as he wrapped her snug and warm. Lifting her into his arms, he retraced his footsteps without a sound. The best thing about infiltrating an old French farmhouse was the solid wood flooring and steps, built by master craftsmen to endure forever. And they didn’t squeak under a man’s weight.

Within minutes, he was outside the villa walls, his precious bundle safe in his arms. Securing LiLi in the front seat of his rental, he made sure the seat belt was just right. The second he climbed inside, he cranked the heater to high. Zack unwrapped a chocolate energy bar and opened a bottle of water for his guest. LiLi Xing would be cared for like no other little girl on earth. Well, except maybe for Baby Song.

“Would you like something to eat?” he asked as he offered the treat.

Tearful blue eyes stared back at him. LiLi shook her head, her chin stuck out defiantly. “I want my Mommy,” she demanded, and Zack was hooked. She was Mei all over again.

“Well, that’s good because I’m taking you home to your Mommy today. We’re going to fly on a big jet. Would you like to be her Christmas present?” He set the treat on the console between them and pulled his vehicle onto the road.

“No.” LiLi crossed her hands over her chest, her head down and her lip quivering. “You said you were taking me home. I want Mommy. Now,” she demanded, verging on tears.

“Should we call her?” he asked, one hand on the wheel and the other reaching for his cell phone.

All he got for an answer was a stream of tears down the saddest face. Zack would’ve pulled over right then and there if he knew for sure hugging LiLi wouldn’t frighten her. He dialed the number at the hotel instead, certain the time difference meant nothing to the woman he loved.

Connor answered. “Hey Zack, what’s up?”

“Is Mei still awake?”

“Ah, yeah. I think so. She was just feeding your little girl.”

Ah, how Zack loved the sound of that–
his little girl.

“Can you put her on the phone?”

“Hold on. Here she is.”

Zack listened while the phone was handed off to Mei. His heart swelled at the sweet torture he would shortly put her through, but it was nothing compared to what she’d already endured.

“Zack?” She got right to the point. “When are you coming home?”

He smiled at the unspoken command behind her question.
We should be looking for LiLi. Why aren’t we?

“I am, but there’s someone who needs to talk with you first.” Without another word, he pulled to the side of the road and handed the phone to LiLi.

She placed it to her ear. “Mommy?”

He heard Mei’s shriek through the phone.

“It’s me, Mommy,” LiLi bawled. “I wanna come home.”

Zack groaned through his tears while mother and daughter cried, squealed, and spoke to each other for the first time in too many weeks. When LiLi hiccupped with sobs, he undid her seat belt and she scrambled onto his lap, her poor little body racked with the happiest cries.

“Mommy wants to talk to you,” she said very seriously as she held the cell phone to his ear, her face drenched and her arm around his neck. “She says you’re her best friend and you’ll take good care of me. Here. Talk.”

“Mei?” he asked, surprised he could find his voice. Half of him wanted to chuckle at LiLi’s authoritarian demeanor, the other half wanted to cry for the joy Mei must be going through.

“Zack?” she choked, and that was the end of the conversation. She couldn’t speak. Neither could he.

Finally he ground out, “I love you, Mei. Stop worrying. We’re on our way.”

“Hurry home,” she whispered. “I love you so—”

LiLi pulled the phone away. “I wanna talk to my Mommy.”

Zack would’ve laughed if he could’ve, but his heart was full. How he wished he were home, holding the matching bookend to this darling tyrant. He pitied Connor and Rory. Mei would be energized now and a bear to live with until LiLi was back in her arms.

Out of sheer satisfaction, he hummed an old-fashioned rendition of
’Twas the Night Before Christmas,
by Clement C. Moore. Mei was about to receive the only gift that truly mattered, the purest reason for Christmas in the first place–the unconditional love of a child. He pressed his new daughter to his heart and wiped his eyes.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!