Exit Strategy (12 page)

“EXIT is a privately held company, sanctioned by the government as a weapon of last resort. Its public face is the tour side, of course. But its true purpose is to train and deploy highly specialized operatives who can be called upon to protect our country and its ­people when the alphabet agencies have exhausted all traditional means of resolving an issue. We mostly operate domestically, but all of us rotate overseas every few years because of the conflicts our country is embroiled in around the world right now. In those cases we mostly gather intel and assist our military’s special forces.” He shrugged. “We do whatever has to be done.”

“You mentioned alphabet agencies. You mean like the FBI, or CIA?”

“And many others. Those agencies have restrictions that we don’t have. They can only go so far.”

“Restrictions?”

“Laws.”

The idea that an entire company could be sanctioned by the government without the restriction of laws was incredible, and terrifying.

“So, basically, as an enforcer you do the government’s dirty work, things they would never admit to publicly, all in the name of protecting the country?”

The corner of his mouth lifted in a semblance of a smile. “I’ve never heard it put quite that way but I suppose that’s an accurate description. More specifically, the major difference between EXIT and the other agencies is that they have to wait for a crime to be committed. We’re more pro-­active. We make selective, preemptive strikes to prevent loss of life.”

Her stomach sank. How could she crave this man’s touch, want his arms around her—­even now—­his lips on hers, when he spoke about preemptively killing ­people, all with a smile on his face?

“You sound like you still support EXIT’s mission, that you think they’re doing the right thing.”

“That’s because I do. If there’s one bad apple in the company creating fake orders, and we can eliminate him and preserve the company’s main mission, that’s the best-­case scenario out of all of this. Unfortunately, I doubt the situation is that simple. Especially since we don’t know yet whether Cyprian Cardenas, the CEO, is involved in the fake EXIT orders.”

“Then, you’re still okay with their business-­as-­usual way of doing things. You don’t see that this is wrong? Mason, you talk about killing someone just because you think they
might
hurt someone else. But how can you know that? You can’t know the future. No one can. You said it was wrong that EXIT went after me, because I’m innocent. But the ­people you kill are innocent too. You’re assuming they’ll go through with their plans. What if they change their minds? What if they realize what they were going to do is wrong? You can’t really know what they’ll do.”

His earlier amusement disappeared. “Your situation is totally different. You’ve never funded a terrorist organization. That was the crime EXIT accused you of. The ­people I kill have usually spent their entire lives doing bad things, which makes future behavior easier to predict. I don’t take what I do lightly. I only eliminate ­people I know are a threat to others. But enforcers don’t sit around and wait for our marks to kill others first. We save lives by taking lives.”

“But how can you be sure?”

He gave her an aggravated look. “Waiting for incontrovertible proof might sound great on paper, but in reality, it means ­people die who shouldn’t have to.”

Sabrina marveled at the conviction in his voice. Mason was obviously a man with his own moral code who truly believed that by breaking the law, by preemptively killing ­people that he believed were “bad,” he was doing the right thing. But Sabrina just couldn’t understand that mode of thinking.

The potential abuse of power within a company like EXIT was mind-­boggling, and obviously the worst
had
happened—­someone
was
abusing that power, using the company as their own personal weapon. And they needed to be stopped. It was just too dangerous for one company, or one person, to have the kind of power to decide who was good and who was bad, who lived and who died.

She held her hands out in a placating gesture. “I’m trying to understand. I really am. But I just don’t see how your way is the right way. There has to be an alternative.”

He stared at her a long minute. “Okay. Hypothetical. You’re a cop, or an FBI agent. You have a nugget of information, a whisper of intel about an extremist cell planning on blowing up a school. But you have no proof, nothing that would hold up in court anyway. Tell me, Sabrina. If you’re convinced a school might be blown up, but you don’t know which one, and all you have is the name and address of a guy who
might
know, what would you do?”

She clasped her hands together. “I . . . I don’t know. I guess I would . . . try to find out more information, get a search warrant.”

He looked disappointed with her answer. “What if you’re the parent of one of those kids? Knowing your child could die waiting on a warrant that might never come.
Now
what would you do?”

She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. “That’s not a fair question. It would never happen.”

He arched a brow. “Those types of scenarios happen more than you think. You sit there making moral judgments, but you refuse to face reality.”

“Okay, fine. I’m the parent. I would . . . I would hope that I would have the strength of character to stand up for what’s right. And, Mason, what’s
right
is to work within the law. It’s the only way to guarantee that ­people’s civil rights aren’t trampled. I know our justice system has problems. I’ve been a victim of that broken system myself. But that doesn’t mean we should throw the whole thing out. We have to fix it. Going vigilante isn’t the answer.”

He stared across the room through the large picture window, watching the stalks of corn bending in the breeze. “ ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ ”

“I’m sorry, what?”

He sighed and looked back at her. “It’s a quote, by Edmund Burke. What it means to me is that if I have the power to act to save someone, and I do nothing, then that’s the most horrible sin of all.” He searched her eyes, as if hoping to see something, but the disappointment in his expression told her he hadn’t found what he was looking for.

He stood and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Based on your reasoning in my hypothetical situation, four hundred kids would be dead on your watch, all because you had to wait for the crime to be committed. Because it wasn’t hypothetical. It happened, a month ago. I chose to act. I didn’t wait. I busted into a guy’s house and found bomb-­making materials, but no bomb. No clue where the bomb that he’d made was planted. And when he laughed in my face and asked for a lawyer, I didn’t call the police or follow due process. I pressed his cheek against a hot stove until he screamed in agony, until he screamed the location of the bomb, a middle school in downtown Asheville. Once I got that information, and the bomb squad confirmed it, I put a bullet in his brain.”

Sabrina choked and pressed her hand against her mouth in horror.

Mason gave her a sad smile. “You think I’m a monster. Maybe I am. But because I did what needed to be done, because I acted like an animal and showed no mercy, I saved
four hundred innocent little kids
. And it only cost the life of one, deranged, sick terrorist. I haven’t lost one bit of sleep over my decision. I’d do it again in a second. And for that, Sabrina, I make no apologies.”

He strode out the back onto the porch, letting the door slam closed behind him.

Chapter Ten

Day Three—­7:00 a.m.

C
yprian nodded with satisfaction as he approached the archway to his hidden office. Stryker, efficient as always, had corralled a resentful-­looking Ace between him and Bishop in the row of chairs in front of the desk. Whether Ace wanted to or not, he was about to explain everything that had happened between him, Mason, and Hightower.

Cyprian was just about to step into his hidden office when the intercom on his official EXIT phone buzzed behind him.

“Mr. Cardenas?” his administrative assistant’s voice called out through the speaker.

He frowned and returned to the desk. “Yes, Miss Evans?”

“There’s a policeman here to see you, Detective Donovan.”

Cyprian let out an impatient breath. After finding out yesterday that Hightower had gone to the police, he’d been expecting them to eventually question him to confirm her background, specifically the death of her parents on an EXIT tour and the subsequent lawsuit. But the timing could definitely have been better.

He signaled Stryker through the archway and closed the panel, hiding the other office from view. Then he settled himself at his desk, turned on his computer monitor, and pressed a remote to unlock the main door. “Bring him in, please.”

The door flew open and a slightly heavy, balding, man well past his prime stepped inside. Before Cyprian could do more than look up from the screen to take in the rumpled, off-­the-­rack suit, Miss Evans hurried in, blubbering apologies.

“Mr. Cardenas, please forgive me.” She was slightly out of breath and frowned her displeasure at the stranger who was now standing a few feet in front of the desk. “I told the detective to wait for me to bring him in. But he rushed by before I could even get up from my chair.”

“Detective Harry Donovan, Asheville PD.” He held his hand out toward Cyprian. “I hope I’m not interrupting. It was a long drive out here and I still have to face rush hour to get back in town on time for a morning meeting. I got a mite impatient.”

Cyprian smiled warmly and shook the other man’s hand. “Perhaps next time you could let me know that you’re coming and I could arrange a better reception, croissants, muffins, bagels. Miss Evans would be happy to bring you some coffee if you wish.”

“No need to go to any trouble on my account. This won’t take long. I just have a few questions.” He sat down in one of the chairs positioned in front of Cyprian’s desk without waiting for an invitation. “I’m here about Sabrina Hightower.”

The detective’s shrewd, intelligent gaze zeroed in on Cyprian. This wasn’t just about background information, not from the way Donovan was watching him. Was the detective digging to see if Cyprian might have orchestrated Hightower’s abduction to avoid a costly court battle? Or had he stumbled onto something more damning?

Either way, if he was hoping for a reaction, Cyprian was happy to disappoint him. After all, he’d been running this company and keeping its secrets for years. He wasn’t an amateur.

“I’m always happy to speak to Asheville’s finest. Of course, I’m not certain what I can say in regards to Miss Hightower. Our lawyers won’t want me to comment about anything related to the civil suit she’s filed.” He nodded to his assistant. “Miss Evans. Please close the door, won’t you?”

Her face alight with undisguised curiosity, she seemed to leave with reluctance, slowly closing the door behind her.

“This isn’t about the civil suit. It’s about Miss Hightower’s alleged kidnapping.”

Cyprian hesitated. “Kidnapping? I do hope she’s okay. But you said alleged. I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“She came to the police station yesterday with some convoluted tale about a man breaking into her home. She described coconspirators and insisted that the man who’d taken her said she’d been marked for assassination, and that he was the one who was supposed to kill her. But the funny thing is, I guess the guy decided she didn’t deserve to die, so he let her go. At the police station.”

The police station? Not the hospital? He was beginning to wonder if Hightower had been shot at all. Maybe Ace had made up the story about seeing her shot to cover that he’d failed to even find Mason. And maybe the police had taken Hightower to the hospital just to have her checked out. That would certainly explain why she was released a few hours later.

“Well, that’s quite a story,” he said to Donovan.

“Yep. Can’t say that I really believed her. But I can’t explain away one particular piece of evidence. Someone shot her.”

Cyprian blinked, genuinely confused. He’d just decided that she hadn’t been shot, and now he was back to wondering what had really happened. “Pardon? She was shot? Then, she’s . . . in the hospital? Recovering, I hope?”

“Last I heard she was home, safe and sound.”

Cyprian curled his fingers into his palms. The detective was playing games. He wouldn’t do that unless he suspected EXIT was involved. All of this went back to Bishop’s failed attempt to kill Sabrina during their tour, which had resulted in her parents dying instead. Cyprian’s guilt over involving Bishop in the very beginning was rapidly fading. He might have made one mistake, but Bishop’s were compounding themselves and making everything far worse.

“That’s quite an amazing recovery from being shot,” he said, trying not to let his impatience show. He needed answers. And most of those answers were waiting for him just a few feet away in his hidden office. “A flesh wound, I’m guessing? She was very . . . lucky.”

Donovan waved his hand. “No, no. Sorry. Didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression. I took her to the hospital for X-­rays. Turns out she had bruised ribs, nothing worse than that. You see, she was wearing Kevlar.”

“Kevlar.”

“Yup. Now ain’t that just the darnedest thing? The guy that kidnapped her put a bullet-­resistant vest on her. Saved her life. Kind of odd, don’t you think?”

“Um. Yes. Very odd, indeed.” He rested his forearms on his desk. “Detective, while I certainly wish Miss Hightower no ill will, I’m really not following why you feel compelled to speak to me about whatever happened, or didn’t happen, to her.”

Donovan tapped his meaty hand on the arm of the chair. “It’s that due diligence thing, I suppose. You see, what bothered me when speaking to Miss Hightower was how forthright she sounded. I’ve been a cop for a long time and I can usually spot a liar a mile away.” His gaze narrowed on Cyprian before he continued. “I spoke to her for several hours. Her story never wavered.”

He leaned forward in his chair, resting his arms on his knees. “You seem like an important, busy man. So, I’ll get to the point. I’m not so sure that Miss Hightower’s abduction story was a lie.” He reached into his suit jacket, pulled out three pieces of paper, and unfolded them on the top of Cyprian’s desk. “These are copies of sketches that she drew of the coconspirators in her alleged abduction. Do any of them look familiar?”

The pencil drawings of Devlin Buchanan, his girlfriend—­former Detective Emily O’Malley—­and Ace all stared up at him from his desk. They were the same drawings that had appeared on the news clip yesterday.

And obviously Sabrina Hightower had lost none of her artistic abilities since the last time he’d seen one of her sketches. Or that incredible memory that allowed her to recall every detail. But why wasn’t there a sketch of Mason?

He studied the drawings closely, as if trying to jog his memory. In reality, he was trying to consider what facts the police might have before he stated whether he knew the ­people in the sketches or not.

Ace was strictly an enforcer for EXIT and had never worked on the tour side. On the rare occasions when they were together, it was always somewhere private, such as in the tunnels or in his hidden office. So there was no danger that anyone outside of the enforcer network would even know of their association.

As for Emily, Cyprian had never met her in person, so he felt safe in denying knowledge about her. But Devlin had worked as a tour guide off and on as part of his cover as an enforcer. Denying that he knew Devlin would make the detective suspicious if Donovan ever found out that Devlin had been employed as a guide. As much as it galled him to admit any tie between any of the ­people in the sketches and EXIT, his hand was forced. He’d just have to play dumb and hope for the best and deal with the fallout after the cop left.

He tapped the middle picture. “Those other two don’t ring any bells, but this one looks an awful lot like one of our tour guides. Or at least, he was a guide off and on through the years. I don’t think he still works for us anymore but I can certainly check our records.” He tapped the picture again. “I’m trying to remember his name, if indeed this is even him.”

“Does Devlin Buchanan ring any bells for you?”

He was careful to hide his surprise. Had Devlin gone to the police instead of trying to find his missing brother? Sending Stryker after Austin had seemed like a brilliant move. But it might have been too late.

“Yes, yes I think that’s his name. If he’s turned to a life of crime, that’s certainly a shame. I assure you EXIT would never condone such behavior. If he’s still one of our guides I’ll begin termination procedures immediately. Assuming, of course, that he’s guilty.”

“Of course.” Donovan gathered the papers and slid them back into his jacket pocket. “I sent those sketches to every major police department in the south in case our kidnappers had done this sort of thing before. I was grasping at straws, I suppose. But a detective in Savannah—­Tuck Jones—­recognized Buchanan and his wife.”

“His wife?” Cyprian cleared his throat, chagrined that, in his surprise, he’d blurted that out. “I, ah, never knew he was married.”

“Apparently it’s fairly recent. Tuck used to work with Emily O’Malley, a fellow detective. He said that she married Devlin and the two of them have been off on their honeymoon for the past few months. He and Emily aren’t exactly close anymore but he checks in with her family every now and then and they’re the ones who told him about the marriage. When I asked Tuck why he and his former partner weren’t still friends, he told me something very interesting. He said that Devlin Buchanan had been under suspicion at one time of possibly being some kind of hired assassin. Long story short, Tuck isn’t sure what to think of Mr. Buchanan and he’s not comfortable with Emily’s choice of a husband.”

Cyprian held himself very still at the mention of the word “assassin,” careful not to even glance to the side. Police were experts at reading body language, and he’d learned long ago the types of “tells” they looked for to see if someone was lying or covering something up.

Donovan clasped his hands together over his knees. “What are the odds that a man who used to work for EXIT would be labeled as a suspected assassin, then a few months later, he’d be tagged as potentially being involved in a case where we have
another
suspected assassin? And tacked onto those coincidences, the victim in this case is one associated with EXIT. She took a tour with your company a ­couple of months ago and her parents were killed. And now she’s suing your company. I don’t know about you, Mr. Cardenas, but that’s an awful lot of coincidence to swallow all at once.”

The two of them studied each other from across the desk. And Cyprian knew he was in trouble.

“I’m not sure what to say.” He shrugged. “I’m not a detective so I wouldn’t really know if coincidences like that are unusual. What exactly can I help you with, Detective? EXIT Inc. is an open book for our law-­enforcement friends. Are there records I can retrieve for you? Perhaps Mr. Buchanan’s personnel file? I’m not going to stall and demand a warrant. If there’s something you need and it’s within my power, I’ll provide it.”

“How about Devlin Buchanan? Can you provide him?”

“If I knew where he was, I certainly would. As I said earlier, I’m not even sure if he still works for us. But I’ll get my assistant to work with Human Resources and pull his file. I can have it delivered to your office this morning.”

Some of the suspicion seemed to fade from Donovan’s face as he stood, probably because he was surprised at Cyprian’s full cooperation—­which of course had been his intent.

They shook hands as Cyprian came around the desk to lead him to the reception area.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Cardenas. I’ll be looking for that file.”

As soon as the detective left the reception area and stepped into the hallway, Cyprian closed and locked his door. He strode to his desk, keyed the code to slide the panel open, and hurried through the archway into his other office.

Bishop, Ace, and Stryker were still sitting in front of the desk. They rose as he entered. The handcuffs around Ace’s wrists jangled against the chain that was being held by Stryker and there was a small white bandage on Ace’s neck.

Ace’s opinion of his current situation was no mystery. His eyes were narrowed and he looked like he wanted to kill someone. Well, join the club. Right now Cyprian wanted to kill quite a few ­people. But he was far more civilized than that. Killing was a last resort. But violence had its place, when necessary. And right now, it was definitely necessary.

Bishop opened his mouth to say something but Cyprian held up his hand to stop him. “Detective Donovan is suspicious about EXIT’s involvement in Miss Hightower’s abduction. He’s also under the impression that she’s home right now. Since I’d sent you to find her and Mason, can I assume you’ve at least already verified that she’s
not
home?”

“I’ve, ah, set up surveillance on the front of the house in case she goes somewhere and to watch for any activity through the windows. But I didn’t break in to see if she was already home. I thought the police might be watching the house, so I didn’t want to risk being seen.”

Thank goodness for small favors. He was probably right about the police watching the place. “All right. I want you to check on the surveillance you set up. Make sure no one from EXIT approaches her house and that the surveillance is undetectable. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir. Watch, don’t approach. Got it.”

“Then why are you still here?”