Radclyffe - Oath of Honor

He checked the readout and grimaced. “I’m so sorry, a business message from a client overseas. They’re available now and I have to get back to them. It may take a while. I hate to have gotten you all the way out here only to run out on you.”

“That’s okay—if you can get free for lunch or dinner in the next day or so, you have my number. If not, maybe I’ll see you the next time I visit Ellie.”

“Absolutely.” He started to rise and paused. “Oh, I almost forgot…” He reached into a backpack beside him and drew out a small narrow box. “Ellie asked me to give you this. A Christmas present. She said she didn’t get her shopping done in time to mail it to you.”

Laughing, Jennifer slid the small box into her oversized bag. “That sounds like her. Thanks for bringing it along.”

“No problem. Well—I should go.”

“All right. Hopefully we’ll meet again sometime soon.”

He held her gaze a moment. “I hope so too. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Jennifer said softly.

*

Roberts’s voice came over the COM. “Team one, subject is on his way out. Take him at the corner…Go.”

Wes watched as two men closed in from either side and a woman stepped from a parked SUV into his path, forcing him to slow. The subject’s expression went from surprised to wary, and he quickly scanned up and down the street as if considering his chances of escaping. Within seconds, the two male agents each grabbed an arm and the trio pushed him forward into the back of the idling SUV. The agents followed him in, and the vehicle sped away. The whole thing was over in less than a minute.

Wes scanned all the monitors for Evyn and didn’t see her anywhere. Her mouth went dry but her pulse stayed steady. She glanced at the masks and hazmat suits stacked by the van door. Evyn knew her job, and she knew hers. No matter what happened out there, she’d find Evyn.

Inside the diner, Jennifer searched through the large shoulder bag and came out with bills that she laid on the table next to her uneaten croissant and nearly full cup of coffee. Wes wondered if she’d transferred the stolen sample to another container inside the bag. Any unnecessary handling risked rupturing the seal on the tube or, even worse, breakage.

“Showtime,” Block muttered as Jennifer stood and pulled on her topcoat, slipped the strap of her black leather bag securely onto her shoulder, and strode directly toward the front door. The next second, she stepped out into the morning.

*

“Go,” Roberts said over the COM.

Evyn pushed away from the side of the diner and strode around the corner to the front. Jennifer was thirty feet away, one hand in the pocket of her coat, the other on top of her bag.

“Hi, Jen,” Evyn said brightly, watching the hand on the bag. As far as she could tell, the bag was closed. She looked past Jennifer down the block, saw Paula Stark intercept a woman with a stroller and redirect her back the way she had come. The sidewalk right in front of the diner was clear—the inside team would have prevented anyone from exiting until the intercept was over and the area secured. Directly across from Jennifer, Roberts stepped out of a parked SUV.

“Oh hi, Evyn.”

Twenty-five feet.

“How about I give you a ride to work.”

Twenty feet.

Jennifer’s friendly smile dimmed. “I’m not due in for another hour or so. Thanks anyhow.”

Fifteen feet.

“I’ll give you a lift home, then.” And focused on shoulder bag, on Jennifer’s fingers gripping the zipper along its top edge.

Jennifer glanced over her shoulder. Stark strode rapidly toward her. Her gaze cut across the street. Cam, joined by another agent, arrowed toward her. Jennifer’s eyes widened.

Ten feet.

“You’ll want to say yes, Jen,” Evyn said, watching Jennifer’s hand ease toward the now open bag. “Make this easy.”

Jennifer’s other hand came out of her pocket. The Sig looked huge.

“Gun!” Evyn shouted and launched herself across the last eight feet. The sharp crack split the air, heat flashed over her, and the rage in Jennifer’s eyes swallowed her.

*

Evyn went down and Wes jumped to her feet. The COM lines flooded with shouts.

Shots fired.

Agent down.

Medics. We need medics.

Wes grabbed the hazmat container, shoved the rear door of the van open, and shouldered through. Block was beside her, running. Her breath tore from her chest—shards of pain shredded her throat. Half a block seemed like an eternity. A clot of agents hovered over the prone figures. Jennifer’s shoulder bag lay on the sidewalk, its contents strewn around it. The box Jennifer had received from her contact lay half in and half out of the bag.

“Get away from the bag,” Wes shouted. “Everyone—back away from the bag.”

Roberts materialized from the huddle of bodies and jogged toward her. “Subject is contained. We’ve got an agent down.”

Evyn. Evyn was hurt. Wes clamped down on her panic. “The specimen could be compromised. This area is a hot zone—get everyone out, cordon off the street.”

“Already gave the order.”

“How is she?”

“Gunshot—close range. She’s shocky.”

“Evacuate her—tell them to put her in isolation. Everyone else goes into lockdown until I know what we’re dealing with.”

“I have to interrogate the subject,” Roberts said.

“Then you’ll have to do it in an isolation cell.” Wes kept her focus on the bag and what it contained. Her duty, her obligation, was to neutralize that biological agent, a substance every bit as lethal as a dirty bomb and capable of killing far more. They didn’t know what they were dealing with, and every member of the team had potentially been exposed. Her heart demanded she find Evyn, protect her, aid her above all others, but her duty drove her toward the open bag. Kneeling, she flipped the lid on the biohazard chest filled with dry ice and pulled on a pair of gloves. She extracted the suspect package from Jennifer’s bag and dropped it into the chest. The package appeared to be intact. After stripping off her gloves and depositing them in a red biohazard bag, she donned another pair of protective gloves, pushed the spilled contents back inside the bag, zipped it, and dropped that into the biohazard bag as well. Using yet another pair of gloves, she sealed the red bag and carried it and the hazmat chest to the SUV idling half up on the curb next to her. She climbed into the back, and as the agent inside pulled the doors closed, she looked back at the group on the sidewalk.

Jennifer Pattee was facedown with her hands cuffed behind her back. Hernandez, the medic assigned to Stark’s team, and Stark knelt over Evyn. Wes couldn’t see Evyn’s face. She stared at the plain white chest with the iridescent green biohazard sign stamped on the front resting at her feet. The SUV sped up, leaving the scene on the sidewalk farther and farther behind. Leaving Evyn behind. Wes concentrated on the job that needed to be done, ignoring the pain that made every heartbeat as agonizing as a bullet tearing her flesh. She’d had to abandon her wounded in the field again, and this time, she’d left her heart behind.

Chapter Thirty-three

They made it the eight miles to the army research lab in Silver Spring in under twenty minutes. When Wes climbed out of the SUV with the white ice chest in her hand, three uniformed soldiers converged on her.

“Captain Masters?” the female major asked.

“That’s right.”

“Come with us, please.”

The silent escorts led her directly through the building to an elevator and down one floor. A fortyish African American woman with short black hair and luminous mahogany eyes in a disposable cover gown and gloves met Wes as she stepped out of the elevator. The hallway in front of the air lock to the Level 4 lab was empty, save for the slowly panning security cameras mounted at intervals along the stark white corridor.