Over the Line (20 page)

“Julian Assange lives in a tiny room in a foreign embassy,” James countered. “Is that what you really want?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Beth could see two men, guns up, carefully sweeping the hallway below as she and James had done earlier. She was sure one of them was Simon. When the other caught her eye, she realized it was Matt from the rehearsal dinner. Matt held his finger to his lips and she nodded. And then she remembered her shears.

Carefully she raised her knee so the top of her boot was in reach. She looked meaningfully at James, who could see what she was reaching for. Distraction time.

“Why do you want Jeffrey untied? What could you possibly need him for?”

“He has all the codes, too.” William laughed. “If my guys downstairs have no luck with your father, he’s my backup plan. I meant what I said: you can stay at my beach house whenever you want. The Russians kindly extended diplomatic immunity to me. I’ll be in Moscow before the end of the day.”

“Jeffrey doesn’t have any codes. I think he may have… overemphasized his importance in the CIA to you. And if you’re working for the Russian government, then you really are a traitor. You can’t play the WikiLeaks card if you’re selling information to a foreign power. Are you? Are you planning to sell this data to them?”

William’s grip on Beth loosened just a tiny bit, and she hoped that the conversation was making him lose his focus on her. But as that thought occurred to her, he pressed his arm around her throat, sending a new flash of panic through her. He could kill her easily in that position.

“I never meant to. My intention was…” William said, his voice getting louder and more desperate.

“I don’t care about your intentions. What you don’t understand is that everyone here is willing to die to stop you from accessing the systems. My question is, are you willing to kill everybody here?” James squinted as if he was trying to find a target on him.

Jeffrey whimpered and Mrs. Walker kicked him.

Beth tried to fall sideways to give someone the shot they needed, but who knew a hacker could be so strong? He held her in place, rock solid.

“Yet you seem attached to this one. Maybe I should give you five minutes to get the codes from your father, or I kill her?”

James swallowed. “I think you underestimate me if you think I’d choose a woman over national security.”

He was doing the right thing, diminishing her worth to him, but hell if that didn’t sting. She got her fingers in the loops of the scissors and pulled them out. She had one chance to make the move right. She mouthed a countdown to James. He nodded, nearly imperceptibly, along with her. On one, she pushed William’s gun hand from her head and twisted, sticking the shears into his side, and then dropped out of the way. Three shots rang out, and William dropped next to her.

Beth slumped on the floor, trying to catch her breath, which abject fear had taken. James kicked William’s gun out of his hand and bent over to help her up. She wrapped her arms around him.

Matt stayed on the stairway, smoke still wafting from his gun, while Simon took the stairs two at a time. He blew past Beth looking for Sadie.

“What’s the point of having a cavalry if it arrives late?” James bit out.

Simon slapped him on the back as he passed. “Sorry, brother. There were four other men outside who kept your security team busy, while Matt and I had to figure out how to bypass the lockdown. That took us a little while. Anyway, looks like you had it all handled. And we still have to liberate the study. I persuaded one of the guys outside to talk. There are nine of them. Five inside, four outside. They’re definitely Russian, but I don’t think they work for the government. They told William it was about freedom of information to make him feel important, but I think they just intend to sell the data to the highest bidder. They used him to get in.”

Beth pulled herself out of James’s arms and looked at him, counting off the men. “There’s one in the kitchen.”

“One in the snooker room, and William here. That leaves two unaccounted for.”

“Everyone back in the bedroom. At least everyone who doesn’t have a gun,” Simon said.

The women edged back into Sadie’s bedroom, and Beth picked up the Glock she’d set down near the doorway earlier.

“Sure you can handle that?” Matt asked.

“She’s special forces, dude,” James said tightly. “Don’t even look at her. I know you too well. I’m serious.”

Beth just shook her head at both of them.
Boys
.

* * *

Simon and Matt headed back down the stairs first. As soon as they left the landing, James pressed Beth against the wall and kissed her. Less passionate, more like staking a claim. He hoped she would stay long enough after this clusterfuck for him to be able to explain.

Explain what, he wasn’t yet sure.

He led her downstairs and they both made their way along the hallway as if they were back in Afghanistan: guns up to their eye lines, swiveling to cover all angles and blind spots. He should be loving it. Should feel comfortable that they were so in synch in this situation. But it was all a very different proposition when you were looking for your father.

The door to the study was closed. Simon and Matt braced their backs against the wall on either side of the door. Shouts from within carried quite far down the hallway, and they stopped to listen. James was glad Beth had his back, but he was petrified something might happen to her. He would never be able to live with himself. Ever.

They moved into position. Beth crouched down and aimed into the room from in front of the door and James prepared to kick it down. He looked at her and waited for her nod. When he got it, he kicked. Six faces turned toward them; two of the men had guns. One raised his weapon toward the door and James shot him in the forehead. He didn’t want to risk that any of them were wearing bulletproof vests. The next seconds slipped into slow motion.

Beth threw her crouched weight at James to knock him aside as either Simon or Matt shot the second man. They got him, but he had already released a shot that would have pierced James’s chest had Beth not shoved him. Instead it entered his shoulder with a burn. The pain invaded every part of him as everything went black.

* * *

“Help! Medic!” Beth shouted, hoping they had at least a first-aid kit handy.

No one moved for a good second or two. Then Director Walker’s three colleagues sprang into action. Two of them secured the two shooters, and the other one went for help. Beth removed her jacket and pressed it to James’s wound, but soon found it wasn’t really bleeding too much. She figured the bullet had probably shattered his shoulder bone. She took advantage of his unconsciousness and brought his elbow around so his forearm lay in his lap. She figured it would be less painful for when they picked him up with the helo.
Ambulance
, she meant. She was losing it. They weren’t in Afghanistan, they were in D.C. Everything was fucked up.

Liquid dripped on her hands as she bent over James. She looked up to see if anything was leaking from the ceiling, but realized it was coming from her. She was crying. They were in D.C.; James had just been shot. It was okay; she was allowed to cry. She wasn’t at war. Choking sobs came from her as she pressed a bloody hand to her face, as if to stem the tide of emotion pouring from her eyes, nose, and mouth.

“Don’t… ugly… cry,” James whispered, barely able to hold his eyes open.

She jumped at his words and gasped out half a laugh. “It’s okay, James. You’re going to be okay. Just because you got shot for a third time, I promise I won’t start calling you a pussy.”

He choked out a laugh. “You’re a lightweight. I beat you by two.” His voice was so faint she was gripped by a fear that she had never felt before. Never. Not when she’d been shot, not even when her mother had died and she was left alone with her sister.

The director’s security team rushed in, their faces equally worried and embarrassed, and in a matter of minutes, Matt was directing two EMTs up the hallway as Simon got the women out of the bedroom upstairs. For a short while, it was pure chaos. Beth took a step back and watched as they worked on James. As they loaded him onto the stretcher, Harry came running.

“James, sweetheart. James. Are you all right?” She all but shoved Beth out of the way and grabbed his hand. “It’s all right. I’ll come with you.” And before Beth could even react, Harry was running alongside the stretcher as they took James out of the house. Matt stood at the end of the hallway and watched them leave, too.

Numbness oozed into her as Matt shrugged at her.

* * *

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Beth said into the fray. No one stopped talking and yelling, though. The police had eventually arrived and taken the masked men away. It seemed as if William had instigated the whole episode, mostly using Jeffrey as a patsy. Kind of served Jeffrey right for indicating he was privy to the crown jewels of the intelligence community instead of just being an administrator. Not that she cared anymore. James was with Harry, who he probably still loved. Which meant she was on her own now. Again. Why wasn’t she happy about that?

She’d saved his life, and now they were totally even. She could leave without regrets. And she was
so
out of here. As soon as she straightened out his stupid family.

They seemed to care less about James’s well-being than about whether Sadie’s wedding could continue, what people would think, and worst of all, what to tell the media.

“Shut up!” she shouted.

A sudden silence descended in the study as they all turned to look at her. “Shouldn’t you be with James?” Sadie frowned at her.

“The question is, why aren’t any of you?” Beth countered, looking around the room. “I really don’t know any of you, but let me introduce myself. My name is Beth Garcia.”

The director frowned and opened his drawer. She assumed it was to remind himself of whom he’d written the check to. “I thought your name was…” He looked at his checkbook. “Beth Cojones?”

“Let me see that.” Sadie snatched the checkbook out of his hand and read the receipt. She barked a mirthless laugh. “Dad. You really thought her name was Beth Testicles? It’s
cojones
.” She pronounced it with a pretty good accent. “It means nuts, balls. And really. You’re still doing the check routine? You know I managed to set up at least five friends with college funds just by pretending to date them, don’t you?”

Director Walker looked at his checkbook, at Beth, and then at Sadie as the information he’d just been given rattled around his head. Then he sunk to his chair.

“No disrespect, sir,” Beth felt compelled to say. She didn’t really expect him to say “none taken” and indeed he didn’t.

“So, Ms. Garcia? Just who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“I’m a special forces soldier, based at Fort Bragg, sir. I met James in Afghanistan when he saved my life,” Beth said, desperate to explain to his family what kind of hero he was.

“Now I know you are lying, young lady. My son has never deployed,” he said.

“Yes sir, he has. He didn’t tell you he had a combat position because he didn’t want you to use your influence to shuffle him into a desk deployment. He’s a TACP, he’s in the AFSOC—Air Force Special Operations Command. He has two purple hearts.”

Mrs. Walker gasped at that, clutching her pearls to her chest.

“Actually, he only has one,” Sadie interjected. “He refused to be nominated for his second one. He thought it made him look careless.”

Beth couldn’t help but let out a short laugh.

“You knew about this?” James’s father asked her.

“I am the only one who did. He didn’t want you to interfere, or to worry.” Sadie sat heavily in one of the green leather armchairs.

“I want to tell you what he did,” Beth continued. “James had been part of our team for a couple of months, going out on patrols with us to protect us with airpower. One night we were ambushed, and the vehicle behind us came under intense fire. I left my vehicle, which had been disabled with a rocket-propelled grenade, to offer the other vehicle some cover fire.” She was aware that she was basically reciting her report word for word, and you could have heard a hand grenade pin drop in the room.

“I was shot in my leg, damaged an artery. Despite orders to stay in the vehicle, James got Strike Eagles to lay down close air support, to the exact location of the Taliban, and then left the safety of the M-RAP to get me. He carried me, while being shot at, to an extraction point, where”—her voice cracked a little at the thought of Marks—“
most
of our team was safely evacuated by Combat Rescue Officers.” She took a second and cleared her throat, thinking about the soldier they’d lost that night.

“So I’m here, pretending to be his fiancée, because I owed him, and he wanted the wedding to go smoothly for Sadie. I guess he didn’t really get his wish, all things considered.”

“That wasn’t anything to do with him. That was Jeffrey and William.” Sadie turned to her father. “The one man you should have paid off but didn’t. I can’t believe you work with him every day, and didn’t notice anything off about him.”

The director’s face paled noticeably. “Oh my God. A month or so ago, he came to me asking what he could do to win you back. I won’t lie; I would have been happier to have a company man in the family than another military one. So I told him to make a grand gesture. I didn’t think it would involve armed men and a kidnapping.” He groaned and placed his head in his hand.

“Okay,” Sadie said, brushing off her wedding dress. “I’m going to the hospital. Want to tag along? Or have you seen enough of this crazy family?” she asked Beth.

Beth hesitated. Her every instinct was to get far away, but she owed him a hospital visit. She owed her heart some closure. “Sure.” She turned to the family. “It was… nice to meet you.” What a big fat lie. Mostly.

Sadie offered to pick her up at the pool house, since Beth’s jacket and skirt had James’s blood on them. Once there, she examined herself in the mirror. Was this the amount of blood that James had been covered with when he’d tried to stop her bleeding? More, probably.