This morning, Ink, along with two federal marshals, escorted me into a pretrial conference room where Cope was waiting.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
Instead of answering, I scowled at him.
“Irish?”
“You better be fucking sure you can protect me, Cope.”
“You’ve trusted me this far; don’t blow it now by panicking.”
“I’m the one locked up in a cell like a goddamn sitting duck.”
“Just keep your mouth shut and let me handle it like I always do. If you don’t, every risk we’ve taken in the last seven years will be for nothing.”
I understood. I did—intellectually. The depression and anxiety, though, were eating me alive.
Cope drummed the fingers of one hand on the table. “My father ambushed me by inviting Fisk to dinner last night.”
The CIA director had been at the top of our list of people we both, along with Decker, believed played a role in the deaths of so many agents, especially when he started snooping around what I was up to prior to my arrest. “And?”
“Smug bastard. It was all I could do not to pull out my gun and shoot the sonuvabitch.”
I had no doubt I would’ve felt the same way. And, like Cope, knew that as much as I wanted to kill him, we wouldn’t get any answers if he was six feet in the ground.
When I hadn’t heard from Cope or Hammer, my acting attorney, in three days, I engaged Ink. Within twenty minutes, he returned with news.
“Hammer says a reporter was driving Cope’s car when it was T-boned. I don’t know the extent of her injuries, but Cope thinks whoever it was, was targeting him.”
“Jesus,” I muttered.
“It gets worse.”
My eyes opened wide.
“There was a bomb planted in the courtroom. Decker says they’re going to bump up security in here.”
I didn’t say this to Ink, but if we were getting close to nailing these bastards, then they’d stop at nothing to shut us down.
“Who’s he bringing in?”
“Easy and Kanga.”
“Copy that.”
I looked over at Rage, who was undercover as my cellmate. “You wanna transfer out of here, I’ll understand.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yep.”
“If that’s the case, let’s do it together, Irish. I’ll ask for a transfer out, and you can come clean to the director. You know, tell him you’ve been conducting a side mission for a few years and you’re ready to call it quits.”
“Fuck you, Rage.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. If you aren’t going anywhere, then neither am I.”
At three in the morning, an unfamiliar sound woke me. I sat up and saw two men, both guards, rushing toward the cell.
“Rage!” I yelled as I watched Easy, Ink, and Kanga race toward the men, guns firing.
Before I could get out of my bunk and duck for cover, gunfire rained down on the cell. At least four of the bullets hit me before everything went black.
14
Flynn
Crested Butte, Colorado
January
At three this morning, my dad was taken by ambulance from the Roaring Fork Ranch to Gunnison Valley Hospital. Porter was the one who’d found him on the floor in the kitchen. According to the paramedics who came to the house, he’d most likely had a stroke.
“You should stay here,” said Cord when I followed him out the front door and over to the truck where Porter and Holt were waiting.
“The hell I will.” I stormed past him and climbed into the front passenger seat.
“Flynn—”
“Whatever you’re about to say, Port, you can forget. He’s my father too.”
“He’s Buck’s father too,” Cord said from the back seat.
“I’ll call him.” There was a chance he was still on the East Coast, where it would be almost daylight.
“Hey, Flynn, I’m in the middle of something, and I’ll need to call you back,” Buck said, sounding like he’d been awake for some time.
“We’re on our way to the hospital. Dad was taken by ambulance.” There was silence on the other end of the phone. “Buck, are you there?”
“Shit, Flynn. I’m here. I’m sorry. Been up all night, and I didn’t even realize what time it was.”
“Buck, you need to come if you want to say goodbye.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
He either ended the call, or it dropped. Either way, it didn’t matter.
15
Irish
Richmond, Virginia
February
I tried so damn hard to open my eyes, but I couldn’t. The sound of machines beeping their rhythm was muffled in the background just like the voice of the man I’d recognize even half dead—like I knew I was.
“I’m going away for a while, Irish, and as soon as you’re able to, you’ll be going away too.” I could feel his hand wrap around mine. “I’m so damn sorry, Paxon. I promised I’d keep you safe, and I failed.” Even as subdued as he sounded, I could hear the emotion in his voice. “I just hope that when this is all over, you can find a way to forgive me.”
I tried again to get my damn eyes to open, but they wouldn’t budge. Instead, I squeezed his hand with all my might.
“Paxon?”
I squeezed again. It probably didn’t feel like much to him, but it took every ounce of strength I possessed. I didn’t want to drift out of consciousness again, but my mind couldn’t fight against it.
I opened my eyes and lifted my head.
“Good morning,” said Decker, who was sitting in a chair in the corner.
“Where the fuck am I?” I rested my head against the pillow and closed my eyes.
“As I’ve told you at least ten times now, you’re at the King-Alexander Ranch. It’s located outside Austin, Texas, and if someone were to attempt to get to you here, their body would be blown to bits. Oh, and like I’ve said every other time you opened your damned eyes, afterward we could watch the drone footage over and over again if you wanted to.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Wouldn’t you want to see someone who tried to kill
