Operation Zulu Redemption: Act of Treason - Part 4 (15 page)

Emergency medical services flooded into the square. Firemen checked the building for damage, removing the injured.

Trace stood watch as they loaded Nuala onto a stretcher, her neck in a brace and a strap securing her head so she didn’t aggravate whatever injury she sustained when Boone saved her life, plowing off the roof onto the lower balcony of the top floor.

She held Boone’s hand as he walked with the EMTs taking her to an ambulance. “I told them you didn’t betray us,” she whispered.

Boone smiled at her. “You always saw the best in me.”

“That’s because that’s all there is to see.”

Trace grunted. “I might lose my cookies,” he teased then looked at the EMT. “I think she hit her head harder than she realizes.”

As they loaded her up and locked her stretcher into place, Trace patted Boone on the shoulder. “You going with her?”

“No,” Nuala said, straining to look down the length of her body at them. “Stay. I’ll be back once they X-ray me and realize I’m telling the truth that I’m fine.”

Boone hesitated.

“I could use your help here,” Trace said.

“I’ll go with her,” came a female voice from the side.

Trace shifted, surprised to find Téya walking toward them, barefoot and escorted by Eric Goff. Dried blood clung to her sandy-colored hair and down her jawline. “You look like you could use some medical tending.”

“Why do you think I offered?” She climbed into the ambulance without a word. She sat and sighed, glancing down at something in her hand. As the doors closed, Trace caught sight of a pen.

“What happened?” he asked Goff.

Goff stood with his hands on his belt. “She took off like a bat out of hell. That’s when I saw Ballenger, so I went after her. Chased him all the way down to Saint Francis. An explosion blew up two cars—I think he led her down there intentionally. To kill her. The explosion blew her into the amphitheater. She said it didn’t, but I can’t see how it didn’t. I maintained pursuit of Ballenger. Lost him in a garage. Called in a team; they’re sweeping it now. I went back to find Two. She looked pretty rattled.”

“She’s tough. She’ll be okay.”

Goff nodded. “Noticed that.” He had an appreciative gleam in his eye. One Trace wasn’t sure he liked.

“Thanks for your help.” Trace turned away.

“Colonel?”

Trace stilled. Didn’t bother to correct the guy. He shot him a sidelong glance.

“If you put the team back together, I’d appreciate it if you’d consider me.”

Put the team back together? What was he? Humpty Dumpty? “Noted.” Trace couldn’t even fathom entering the war game again, not right now. Not as he stared down bloodied operatives, dead agents, and wounded civilians. Again. Trace keyed his mic. “Anyone got a twenty on General Solomon?”

Cantor came toward him. “Solomon’s car is missing. Batsakis and Stoffel are dead. Colonel Goff is in critical condition.”

Trace slid his gaze to Eric Goff. The man was unfazed by the news. And he wasn’t rushing off to be at his father’s side. “What don’t I know?” Trace asked them, then pointed to Cantor. “You didn’t want me to protect Solomon. You wanted me to watch him. Because you knew. You knew he was dirty.”

Cantor sighed. “I came to you because—”

“It was me, sir,” Eric Goff said. “I learned of my father’s involvement in the weapons smuggling and approached General Cantor with the news.”

“
Learned
of it?” Trace challenged him.

“He paid attention,” Cantor said. “Look, Trace, I had information I couldn’t prove. I needed tonight to happen. Solomon and Goff made their move—tried to take out Nuala, then Téya—right in front of our eyes. If we hadn’t had resources in place, this would’ve been a lot worse. What we weren’t counting on was Ballenger’s complicity and retaliation.”

“He killed them?”

Cantor nodded. “Hit Stoffel then used the panic of the crowd and the explosions to cover Batsakis and Goff.”

“Solomon?”

“I have teams hunting him down now.”

Over the general’s shoulder, Trace spotted Francesca Solomon. Tears made her eyes look like pools of liquid gold. Her dark eyebrows curled against her brown skin. She shook her head.

“Excuse me,” Trace said. He made his way over to her.

Life imploding had a way of clearly establishing priorities, defining wrongs, and stirring a deep awareness of forgiveness owed. He owed her nothing. In fact, flipped on its head—she owed him everything. An apology. A begging of forgiveness. And eternal servitude. It was an unrealistic, archaic thought, but it just made it very clear to Frankie that Trace Weston had every right to hate her guts.

And yet, here he came toward her, wearing a mask of sympathy. Empathy.

Frankie shook her head. She didn’t want that. Not from him. She didn’t deserve it. She took a step back.

“Hey.” His voice was soft in a way she’d never heard it before. He dragged an overturned chair toward them and hefted it upright, then set it down. “Sit.”

Frankie resisted.

Trace took her by the shoulders and nudged her down. “We need to talk.”

Right. Of course. “I. . . ” Words tangled amid her grief. She felt numb. Disbelief churned in the wake of her father’s betrayal. Frankie had watched Trace move from one injured person to another in the aftermath of the explosion and shoot-out. Talk with the operators. Confer with the emergency personnel. It became so clear to her then. So night-and-day obvious that she had Trace Weston all wrong.

The worst of it? There wasn’t anything she could ever do to make up for the way she’d actively torn his life apart.

Rather fitting that it was her life now that was torn apart.

Trace snagged another chair and sat on it, elbows on his knees. His hands were steepled as he sat with her. “You holding up okay?”

She half nodded, half shook her head.

“Yeah, I know that feeling.” Trace threaded his large hands, fingers edged with callouses and smeared with dirt from working the scene. “I don’t want to be insensitive, but do you have any idea where your father might have gone?”

Frankie heaved a thick breath that had a tinge of smoke and ash. Would he go home? Bring the danger to her mother? “I. . .I don’t know. My first thought was home, but I don’t think he’d go there because Mom is home.” She shoved her hand through her hair—only to have it get tangled. She grimaced. How could she forget she had her hair up? She freed the pins at the back and massaged her scalp. “I’m not sure if I’m the right person to ask. I”—her chin trembled and made it hard to talk—“I never saw this coming. I had no idea he. . .”

Trace nodded. “We have that in common.” Then he looked at her with a small smile crinkling the edges of his green eyes. “It’s to your credit that you saw the good in him. Loved him enough not to fathom he was capable of that.”

“And what does it say of me. . .what I did to you?” She didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to face the music.

Apparently, he didn’t want to look at her either. Once again, he steepled his fingers. Flexing them in and out, widening and shrinking the triangle formed. “That you’re tenacious and bullheaded?”

Stunned, Frankie stared at him.

Late thirties, a war hero, a warrior, but he had a soft side. He arched an eyebrow and smiled at her.

Frankie laughed. “I deserved that.”

He pushed back in his seat. “Yes. Yes, I believe you did.”

The laughter, the teasing—she needed it. Needed the chance to breathe in the midst of this avalanche that had swept her perfect, unrealistic notions away. “I’m sorry. Sorry for. . .everything. You didn’t deserve what I did to you. I wish I could undo it all—you didn’t deserve to lose your job.”

“Being uncooperative pushed that envelope over the edge.”

“I’ll never forget you shouting the Special Forces creed.”

“Neither will I,” he said, another smile tweaking his lips. “And what about you?”

Frankie frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“I heard your place was trashed. You lost your job.”

She widened her eyes. “He told you?”

Trace nodded. “Not all of it, but I’m still connected to the intelligence community. Word gets around.”

The Pentatonix-Lindsey Stirling version of
Radioactive
belted into the night. With a gasp, Frankie dug in the small wristlet and retrieved her phone. Her heart tripped and fell when she saw the caller ID. “It’s my father.”

“Wait.” Trace placed a hand over hers and looked out at the pavilion. “Cantor, Goff!”

The general and captain hustled over to them.

Trace released her hand “Put it on speaker.”

Hand trembling, Frankie nodded. She answered it and immediately pressed the speaker option. “Daddy? Are you okay?” She couldn’t help but come to her feet. “It’s crazy here. . .”

Weston, Goff, and Cantor huddled around her. In minutes, there were more operators gathered, including Annie Palermo and a dark-haired man she’d referred to as Sam.

“Hey, Angel,” he said, using the pet name he’d given her. She’d wanted to be an angel for dress-up parties for years. But she could hear in his voice his grief and torment.

“Daddy, where are you?”

“No,” he said, his voice thick with emotion but also ferocity. “I know they’re there. I know they’re listening. But this isn’t for them. This is for you, Frankie. This is my apology to you.”

Feeling closed in, Francesca turned her back on the others and found herself staring at the brick wall of the Hyatt. “Daddy—”

“Just listen to me, Angel. You were right. All those things you said about Trace.”

Frankie froze. Her mind bungeeing through his words.

Trace held his peace. There was no way Solomon could pin this on him. Right now, Trace needed to be here for Francesca. The girl was taking a mortal blow to her lifetime hero—her father.

Her brownish-gold eyes bounced to him.

Trace didn’t react. Would Haym really do this? Shift the blame?

“But they were about me.”

Trace had to admit, he released the breath he’d held.

“Hey,” Cantor whispered as he touched his sleeve. “Eric called Solomon’s wife. She said he’s at the house. Showed up a few minutes ago and went to his office by the pool. Locked himself in.”

Trace tensed. “Get a team there.”

“Already en route,” Cantor said. “About four minutes out.”

“What you said about Trace—you should’ve been saying them about me,” Haym spoke through the phone. “I arranged for the weapons to be removed from U.S. custody. That warehouse had been our shipping point for years. But it wasn’t me, though—I’m not the one who put those kids there. That was Goff. He knew Cantor had gotten wind of it. He wanted the team out of the way. Wanted to send a message.”

“Daddy, let me come to you.” Tears slipped down Francesca’s face as she held Trace’s gaze, and he gave her a nod, communicating she was doing good. “We can talk. Turn yourself in.”

“No, no, that’s not how this will play out.” His voice trembled. And even in the din of the cleanup behind them and the shakiness of Francesca’s sniffling and words, the unmistakable sound of a slide racking.

Chambering a round.

Unfortunately, Francesca recognized the sound as well. She snapped her gaze to Trace, her mouth hanging open.

“Sir!” Trace bent closer. “Please. Let’s talk. It’s not worth your life.”

“Trace.” Haym’s voice wobbled through a sob. “I really did see you like a son. I tried—I tried so hard to keep you safe. It’s why I fought so hard after Misrata.”

“But you didn’t tell the truth, sir.” Trace figured if he could keep him talking, then the man was still alive. The team would get there and stop him. “You didn’t come clean. It would’ve been better, sir. We could’ve faced it.”

“Trace, you looking at my angel?”

Trace met Francesca’s gaze. “I am, sir.”

“Coming clean would’ve destroyed her. And her mother, who was a saint putting up with me. My sons—they’re heroes, Trace. I couldn’t come clean without destroying all of their lives.”

“Daddy, please.”

“I love you, Angel. Always have. You make me proud.”

“Daddy!”

A loud noise snapped through the line. Shouts came for the general to put down the weapon. Francesca’s hope rose that they’d save him.

Crack!

Francesca screamed, her face contorted in agony, as she stared at the phone. “Daddy!” She flung her grief-riddled gaze at Trace.

Shouts carried through the line. A few curses. A woman’s scream.

Cantor spoke into a phone, his expression going dark. He met Trace’s gaze and shook his head. “A minute too late.”

The phone tumbled from Francesca’s grip. She stumbled backward, shaking her head in frozen torment.

Trace reached for her. “Fran—”

Her legs buckled.

Lunging, Trace caught her. She curled into his shoulder, her body tremoring as she sobbed.

The remnant of Zulu sat in the now-disassembled command center, debriefing. Trace leaned against a table along the wall. Nuala had returned a few minutes earlier, cleared of any breaks or internal injuries from the nosedive off the rooftop with Boone. With her, Téya had cleaned up and bore a butterfly stitch over her cheekbone. Annie and Sam sat across from each other in a pair of chairs opposite the sofa. Francesca sat between Nuala and Houston, who seemed to have developed puppy eyes over the attractive lieutenant. Trace wanted to slap the drool off the guy’s face. Behind the team, both figuratively and literally, Boone held up a wall behind a seating arrangement.

“Hard to believe,” Annie said quietly, glancing at her teammates, “that it’s over. That Misrata is settled.”

Francesca burrowed into herself, crossing her arms. She shivered and from the few feet separating them, Trace could see the goose bumps on her arms. Probably leftover shock. He’d tried to get her to go home, but she wouldn’t leave. Said she needed some space and time. And yet, she was here. With them.

He went into the bedroom and retrieved the soft blanket folded over the foot of the bed. In the living room, he handed it to Francesca, then sat on the edge of the sofa arm. “A lot happened tonight. It’s going to take time to get it all written up, but yeah—Misrata is settled. It took a colossal effort, but it paid off. I want to apologize for the deception regarding Boone.”

“Deception?” Téya asked.

“Boone didn’t betray you. It was part of a plan to push the persons behind this into the open. It was a risk, but one we felt was the only way to draw Ballenger into the open, for those behind Varden’s illegal actions to think they had to silence us immediately. It was dangerous, but it worked.”

“I told you,” Nuala said triumphantly, “he’d never betray us.”

Téya tossed a couch pillow at her. “You’re just glad he’s back.”

Nuala went crimson, her humiliation screaming. “Of course I’m glad. We’re a team. He’s part of it.”

“Uh-huh,” Téya said, but left it alone.

A knock at the door made Trace hesitate. They weren’t expecting visitors. He shared a look with Boone, then gave his buddy a nod signaling him to answer it.

Weapon held low, Boone called, “Who is it?” through the door.

“Cantor.”

Boone gave Trace a startled look as he unlocked and opened the door.

Cantor entered, wearing a pair of slacks and a button-down shirt. By the clean smell wafting off him, he’d showered. His salt-and-pepper hair looked wet still. Eric Goff wore a loose dress shirt and a pair of jeans as he trailed the general into the room. Cantor met Trace in the middle of the room and shook his head. “How’s everyone?”

“Beat up, but alive,” Trace said.

“Well,” Cantor continued. “Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to talk with you.”

“Okay,” Trace said, motioning to the adjoining room.

“No, actually, I meant to the team. To all of you.” Cantor stood at ease as he faced the team. “First—I am truly sorry for the loss of your sisters, Herring, Reyna, and Shay.” At the mention of Keeley, Cantor’s gaze hit Boone, who gave a small nod. “The loss of their lives cannot be justified, but I hope that tonight’s operation and events will give you a sense of vindication.”

“Sir,” Annie asked, scooting forward a bit. “Can you explain this to us? What happened? How were Solomon and. . .”

He held up a hand. “Glad to. As you might know, Solomon came to me with information about illegal weapons sales of U.S. military grade weapons. I tasked him with solving the problem—which is exactly what he counted on.”

“I just can’t believe he’d kill children,” Annie whispered.

“That,” Eric Goff added, “was not his doing. We have a trail that shows my father was supposed to get the warehouse cleared out before your team hit it so there’d be no evidence. It’d look like a dead end. Instead”—his gaze dipped, marked with disgust and shame—“he wanted to send a message or something, so rather than clearing out the warehouse, we believe he tipped off Ballenger.”

A nervous quiet fell over the team. Most likely aware of the price for vindicating their sisters. For not being able to
enjoy
that cost. But appreciating it all the same. A somber, bittersweet thought.

“We are still in pursuit of Berg Ballenger.” Cantor glanced at Goff. “We won’t give up until he’s found nor will we rest until he answers for what he’s done. Colonel Goff will face a full court-martial.”

“Doesn’t that mean the reverse is true of Ballenger, too?” Téya asked, sitting forward. “I mean—he still wants the rest of us dead, right?”

“I do not believe that’s true,” Cantor said. “It’s our belief that Ballenger was retaliating against those who ran the weapons. That wasn’t you.”

“Somehow,” Téya said, tapping a pen against her lips, “that’s not entirely comforting.”

“My point tonight is that I don’t want this to be the end of Zulu.”

Trace pulled straight, glancing at the general. Then at his team. Half his team. Remembering how they’d stripped him of rank. That he wasn’t an officer anymore. If he was going to keep Zulu active, then it meant he was doing it without Trace. Maybe that’s why Goff was here.
My replacement.

“It wouldn’t make sense,” Francesca spoke up from her nested place in the couch, clutching the tan blanket, “to ask a team to continue on when you’ve stripped their commander of his career.”

Surprise at her words spiraled through Trace. He started to look down at her, but then stopped. What was she doing? She didn’t have anything vested in this fight. Was this her guilt talking? Her regret?

Cantor stepped back and placed a hand on Trace’s shoulder. He gave a small, breathy laugh. “You didn’t know?”

Trace frowned. Looked at Goff, who looked pleased as punch at this situation. “Sir?”

“I signed off on your discharge for publicity reasons only. The public needed to feel like Misrata got justice.”

“So, punish me.”

“Son, you need to think bigger.” Cantor laughed. “Your name is blacked out from records because I wanted you off the grid to lead Zulu in more missions.”

“Sir, respectfully—it doesn’t make sense. I have three team members left.”

“Actually, you have four.” Cantor nodded toward Francesca. “And I’ve asked Goff and Caliguari to step in as advisors and handlers. We’ll get you fully ramped up and ready to go. You have six months to get in shape.”

“Sir, again—I appreciate this, but I can’t do this. Not again. I thought we had clearance before, and it all went south.”

“I understand that.” Cantor nodded, undeterred. “But son, I’m it. I’m the top of the line. If Zulu goes out, it’s because I or the president has signed off on it.” Cantor slapped his shoulder. “This isn’t the end, Weston. It’s just the beginning.”