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His head lifted, his nostrils flaring. “You didn’t fool me, bitch. I just hoped you were smarter. Now you can die right along with the bastard that thinks he can tell me how to live my life and the little whore that thinks she can walk away from me.” He tightened his grip on Jules again, causing her to cry out in pain.
Psychotic, Myron had told her. He had no friends. He was worse than psychotic.
“Do you think you’re going to get away with this?” she finally asked him. “That you’ll actually manage to escape?”
“Of course I will. The mercenaries have orders to kill Raymond and Myron. I’ll lose the missiles, but oh well.” He sighed. “And you and Father will kill each other. Just after Father kills Jules.” He stroked the weapon down Jules’s swollen face.
He had fooled them all so effectively. He truly had. Ford had been the one the investigation had focused on, just as Bailey had focused on him for the past twelve years. She had been so certain it was Ford because of her suspicion that he had been beating Anna and Mathilda, that she had refused to look any further. And now, they were all paying for it.
Bailey shook her head. “It won’t work, Wagner. You won’t get away with this.”
His smile was gloating.
“I will get away with this . . .”
“Myron isn’t dead, and neither is Raymond,” she told him, feeling the pain that tore through her. “Myron and Grant are alive as well as Raymond. I knew before I arrived here who to look for because they told me.”
Silence filled the room. Wagner’s expression cleared for a long second as his grip tightened on Jules to the point that she whimpered. Bailey could see the flash of fear in his eyes, of disbelief.
Shock creased his face. “You’re lying. Myron wouldn’t betray me!” he suddenly screamed as Mary flinched and cried out.
He cuffed her head roughly. The next few seconds moved like slow motion.
Mary stumbled to her knees, clearly close to unconsciousness, as Ford jumped for his son. A curious animal-like howl echoed through the room as Wagner let go of Mary, straightened his arm, and fired at his father.
Ford’s body jerked, then fell into Wagner, catching him off balance, as Bailey jumped for both of them. She could hear John behind her, yelling out at her as she fought to get to the gun Wagner had dropped.
His hand curled around it. His arm came up. A smile spread across his face and in the same breath a bloody red hole appeared in his forehead.
“No. No,” Ford moaned in disbelief as he crawled to his son, lifting his head against his bloody shoulder and hunching over him as grief racked his body. “No. No, Wagner.”
There were no tears. His voice was broken, though. Agonized. His expression was glazed as he lifted his eyes to Bailey.
“I don’t believe this,” he whispered. “I don’t believe this. Why?”
Men were swarming into the room now. Black-garbed, masked, weapons lifted, and hard voices shouting out orders as sirens railed in the distance.
Bailey crouched next to Ford, John beside her. He’d fired the shot that had killed Wagner. He’d backed her. He’d let her have her moment, he’d let her avenge the past until he’d had no choice but to step in.
“You didn’t know, did you?” she asked Ford then.
He shook his head slowly. “I wouldn’t hurt Anna and Matty, Bailey,” he said, shaken, weak now from the wound in his shoulder. “Your dad asked me about that. I thought you were crazy.” Tears fell from his eyes to his cheeks. “I thought you were crazy.”
Now wasn’t the time. It wasn’t the time to tell him what his son had been, what his son had done. Later, she thought. After he healed, after he had time to accept what had happened.
“He just had a temper,” Ford whispered as he clasped his son, rocked him. “That was all. He had a temper.”
He had a lack of conscience.
Turning from him, she moved to where Mary was being checked over by Catalina and Kira Richards. They had jerked the masks from their faces and were running their hands over the other girl’s body, checking for broken bones.
“She’s unconscious,” Kira stated as two men moved to Ford. “We have paramedics on their way.”
“Move out. Law enforcement coming,” a harsh, brooding voice called out. Hard drives were being jerked from computers and files torn from cases. “Black Jack and Wildcard have the upstairs,” another voice called out. “Move out. Move out.”
Catalina and Kira remained in place as several suited agents rushed into the room.
“You have it, Director,” the commanding voice said, turning matters over to Milburn Rushmore—Bailey’s former boss and director of the CIA headquarters in Langley.
