“We’ve got a problem,” she whispers.
“What is it?”
“Unexpected visitors.”
The adrenaline flowing through me in a torrent, I’m out of bed in the blink of an eye. After quickly throwing on my tennis shoes, I grab the holster off the nightstand, pull my weapon, and chamber a round. Moving quickly and quietly, I pass Mo and Paige in the hallway, motioning for them to stay put as I follow Astra downstairs. I hear the sound of furtive movements from the main room and see a quick flash of light. Whoever’s in there is navigating through the room with quick bursts from a flashlight.
We make it to the first-floor landing, and I can still hear the sound of papers being shuffled in the war room. There’s another flash of light followed by more rustling papers. Using hand gestures, I motion to Astra to move down the hall and circle back into the war room from the back side while I slip in through the front side. I give her a few seconds to get into position, then step into the room, my Glock trained on the figure clad in black.
“Stop moving,” I say.
The figure freezes, then turns to me, his dark eyes glittering as he stares at me. In black from head to toe, the man is a larger, fitter version of the man we’re hunting, sans the smiley-face mask. With catlike quickness, he pivots, intending to make a break for it through the back side of the room, but pulls up short when Astra materializes from the darkness, her weapon pointed square at the man’s face. Caught between me and Astra, the guy cuts his eyes left then right, searching for a way out of his predicament.
“Don’t do it,” I tell him.
Beads of sweat trickle down the center of my back, and my stomach tightens. The air in the room crackles with tension, and I have the sick feeling he’s going to make us put him down.
“Put your hands up,” I order.
He doesn’t say a word, nor does he put his hands up. The pressure in the room grows more electric by the second, making my pulse race. Before he can make another move, though, the lights in the room flare to life as Mo and Paige step in, their guns trained on him as well. With four guns on him, the man hangs his head and sighs as he puts his hands up.
“Don’t shoot,” he says. “I am unarmed.”
The voice is familiar, and I stare at him as my face twists with surprise. “Lieb?”
The intruder pulls the balaclava off his head, revealing the face of Lieb Tal, former IDF soldier and longtime bodyguard to Elliot and Ashley Barlow.
“Sit down,” I say coldly.
He does as I ask and puts the palms of his hands down flat on the table, his eyes fixed on some point that seems far, far away. His face is stony, but there’s a hint of annoyance on his features. My guess is that he’s annoyed he got caught. I holster my weapon and walk to the other side of the table, gripping the back of the chair across from him. Knowing his extensive training and that he’s a master of hand-to-hand combat, Astra, Mo, and Paige lower their weapons but don’t holster them, leaving them ready and hanging at their sides.
“You do not need to fear me. I have no desire to hurt any of you,” he says.
The others look to me, and I motion for them to put their weapons away. They do, but remain standing and alert. Lieb sits there looking forward, his face still expressionless.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing, Lieb? Why in the hell would you break in here in the dead of night?” I ask.
“I was looking for an update on the case,” he says. “I wanted to know if you had found anything that would lead us to Ashley.”
“Did it occur to you to pick up the phone?” Astra asks.
He turns to her with a wry smile on his lips. “And would you have been honest enough to tell me what you know? I know how you Feds are with sharing information.”
Astra chuckles ruefully. “Fair enough.”
“So, you thought you’d just break in here and steal whatever information you could?” I ask, incredulous and angry.
“I apologize. I just… I want to help,” he offers.
“Breaking into our war room is not the way to help,” I growl.
“Yes. You’re right. I apologize. I just can’t stand feeling useless.”
“I have a better question: How did you find us?” Paige pipes up. “And maybe better yet, how did you bypass the security systems?”
They are such good and obvious questions to ask, I want to slap myself upside the head for not thinking of it first. The corners of his eyes crinkle as he softly grins.
“I apparently didn’t bypass them all,” he says.
“That’s because I installed a secondary fail-safe not hooked into the site’s main system. He was able to bypass the house’s primary system, but when he did, he triggered the one I installed.”
I turn to see Nina and Rick standing in the doorway watching the proceedings. Rick’s hair stands on end, and he looks like he’s just been pulled out of a deep sleep. He might be the only one who’d managed to find sleep.
“Thank you for that, Nina,” I say.
“No problem,” she replies, eyeing Lieb suspiciously.
“So? How did you find us?” Paige repeats.
“Because I’m very good at what I do,” he answers.
“Elaborate,” I say.
“I installed a tracker on Senator Barlow’s vehicle some time ago… for security reasons,” he says. “I review his movements daily, and when I saw that he’d come here—somewhere very far off his usual track—I grew curious.”
“So, you thought you’d break in and see what he was doing?” I ask.
“Yes. And when I realized it was your operations center, I decided to take a look,” he tells us. “I want to know what is happening, and I want to find Ashley. Perhaps even more so than you.”
