Jo Robertson - The Traitor

As the second shooter advanced on the defenseless Harris, Slater panted shallowly and tried to scrabble out of the way, reaching for his backup weapon. But he was too weak and his arm flopped uselessly at his ankle.

He clamped his chattering teeth together and made a last-ditch effort. He hardly felt the weapon leave its holster, but suddenly the grip was solid and warm against his clammy palm.

The second hitter loomed over Harris, lifting his gun for the head shot, when Slater's bullet took out the back of the man's skull. Harris lay sprawled on his back, bleeding profusely from his leg. An artery? Even knowing there was nothing he could do, Slater tried to crawl toward his deputy.

The girl's screaming penetrated the roar in his head. She raced out of the bedroom into the hall and ran smack into the third hitter. Slater saw Harris' fingers jerk faintly in an attempt to reach his discarded weapon.

At that moment, another figure entered through the glass patio door behind Harris. Slater opened his mouth in warning, but no sound came out. A hard blow to the back of Harris' head with the butt of a semi-automatic rifle and all movement stopped.

God, Slater thought, they were all going to die here. Now.

Right before he passed out, he glimpsed the round sweating face of Manuel Ruiz as it twisted into something vicious with satisfaction while he loomed over the fallen Harris.

God, Manuel Ruiz, a traitor in his own house!

Ruiz placed his heel on Harris' chest, aimed the barrel at his skull as Slater's eyes fluttered shut. From a distance he heard the faint jumble of words:

"¡No! Qué – haciendo – " and a muffled response "El Jefe dice – " followed by a final blast of gunfire.

His last thought before he lost consciousness was, Thank God Bella wasn't here.

"Slater, Slater, can you hear me?"

Bella's pretty face, worried and damp with tears, floated in front of Slater's eyes as he opened them.

"Esperanza?" he moaned. "Is she alive?" His voice petered off into the creaky sound of an old man and he tried again. "Did they get her?"

Bella shook her head. "Let's just worry about you right now."

He felt the motion of the gurney beneath him as she placed her hand on his cheek. "What happened? Christ, is everyone dead?"

"They're taking you into surgery." She gripped his hand. "Don't worry. Rafe and I will handle everything." He saw the sheen of tears in her eyes and felt the soft press of her lips on his before his lids became so heavy he couldn't hold them open.

He heard Hashemi's voice at his feet. "You'll be okay, man. They'll fix you up."

That must mean the girl was dead, Slater thought, as an anvil of grief and guilt pressed on his chest. And he must be dying because Bella would never kiss him on the mouth, and Hashemi hated his guts after the little talk they'd had about her at the safe house.

Suddenly, the memory of the slaughter that'd happened there panicked him and he struggled to sit up. "Ruiz," he muttered weakly. "He's – "

Heavy hands held him down. Hashemi's voice. "Take it easy, man. Calm down."

A moment later a mask descended over his mouth and he floated off to a blessed, undulating oblivion.

Santos knew the text message that came through as he boarded a plane from LAX to Sacramento was meant for Vargas and had somehow been sent to his phone by mistake: Se acaba. It is done. What next?

Santos settled back into his first-class passenger seat and fumbled with the seat belt before responding. Even though he hadn't ordered any moves against the witness, he was afraid he knew what the message meant.

He was a cautious man, after all, and many things could happen between arrest, arraignment and trial that could extricate Vargas from the charges ADA Torres brought against him. Hasty action was not Santos' style, but rushing in headlong without thinking about the consequences was exactly the kind of action that Diego would take.

He texted back. ¿ Quién? Who?

A few moments later the answer in English: prime + 3.

That meant the girl plus three others were dead. ¡Mierda! Santos swiped a hand over his face as the flight attendant warned over the intercom that all cell phones were to be turned off.

Theirs? he texted.

Fuck! M.R. stood for Manuel Ruiz, their deep-cover informant in Bigler County. The girl was surely dead, along with three deputies or agents, whoever had been guarding her, probably the sheriff included. Ruiz had become a casualty, too, either by accident during the attack or eliminated by the assassination team under Vargas' direction.

Santos wondered if the lovely ADA Isabella Torres was one of the casualties and felt a brief and unfamiliar wave of regret. More likely the sheriff and deputies.

And, if they were fortunate, el árabe, the DEA agent.

But, Mother of God, how was he to clean up this mess? And who had survived the slaughter?

"That bastard!" Anger and grief warred for a place in Isabella's expression. She dashed at the tears that spilled down her cheeks.

Rafe wrapped an arm around her shoulder and walked her toward the hospital exit doors. "There's nothing we can do about Slater now. He's in good hands."

She shrugged out of his hold and turned away as he reached for her again. "I'm not leaving him."

He stared at her back, thinking Isabella could easily have been at the safe house when the hit went down. She could've been talking to the girl, and right now lying in the operating room, fighting for her life or sprawled on the safe house floor riddled with bullets. He clenched his fists at his sides.

Goddamn it! He should've protected her better, protected them all. But he was too tunnel-visioned to see the rat scurrying around in his own house. And even though he suspected multiple rats were involved, he still had little more than an inkling who the rat in his own department was.

He ran through the list of names in his mind. Contacts Lupe might've revealed accidentally or under torture before he died, men below and above Rafe in rank, even his trusty administrator, Mrs. Roberts.

Five feet away from him, Isabella hunched over, her arms wrapped around herself as if holding in a terrible pain. He ached for her, for Esperanza's death, and for the possible loss of a good man like Ben Slater, but he fell back on rationale to reassure her.

"The surgeon said it would be hours before Slater came out of the operating room," he said logically, turning her around to face him. "Be reasonable. You need to get some rest."

He glanced at the black and white wall clock which hung unattractively over the nursing station – six-thirty in the morning. "You won't do Slater any good here."

"What if he…" Fresh tears started down her face and her nose ran.

He wanted to kiss her red cheeks and puffy eyes, but he handed her a handkerchief instead. "He won't. The man's too stubborn to croak on us."

Isabella laughed, a sad little attempt that sounded like a dying songbird. "Yeah, Slater's obstinate as hell."

He tried to coax a smile from her. "Must be where you learned it from."

She rarely swore, and he knew she was under a lot more strain than she admitted. "He's going to be okay, Isabella."

She nodded solemnly. "Yeah, sure."

He sighed heavily and tried to reason with her again. "If you don't want to leave the hospital, let's go to the cafeteria and get some coffee."

When they reached the lower level, the cafeteria's security gates were down over the kitchen area, and they settled for vending machine coffee and stale breakfast rolls. They chose a small table near the back exit doors of the nearly empty room. Several nursing staff sat across from them and a custodian mopped at a corner area to their left.