Page 52 of Shadow of the Moon

Amberly could tell that Frank was going to make his move, and she prayed Dev was in position. As soon as he lifted his weapon, Dev fired. She didn’t hear it, just saw the effect. Frank’s body jerked and blood sprayed from the bullet wound in his chest. He looked down incredulously, then crashed to the ground, gasping for air.

Amberly should have felt more, but she didn’t. What Frank had chosen to participate in was reprehensible, and she couldn’t condone anything that he’d done. At one time, he might have been her friend, but she doubted it. She had a feeling that once they started digging into his actions and movements, they would find all his crimes.

Dev materialized out of the dark and walked into the circle of light from the ATV. Stopping in front of her, he cupped her face in his hands. “Are you okay?”

Amberly nodded, feeling a little numb. A lot had happened in the past hour, and it would take a while to come down off the adrenalin rush. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just wondering how we’re going to get out of here.”

She mustered a grin for him. “You can’t fly a helicopter?”

Dev barked out a laugh. “I might be able to turn it off, but I definitely can’t fly.”

Lowering his head, he kissed her for a moment, then wrapped her in his arms. Amberly sagged into him, wishing they were in any fucking nameless motel anywhere in the world that had a bed.

“What do we need to do to get the fuck off this mountain?” she murmured.

They turned around to look at the body of Cole Regent and found themselves looking down a wavering gun barrel. Before either one of them could move, the gun fired.

Dev knewwhat was going to happen, and he dove at Regent, taking the shot aimed at Amberly. Burning pain swallowed his leg, giving him extra fury as he landed on top of Regent. The man was mostly dead. There was a gunshot wound high on his chest, surely from Requiem. And several other bruises and abrasions all over, probably from being slapped by tree limbs on the ride up here. The ATV didn’t have a windshield or anything.

His legs were obviously broken and he was laying wrong. There was also a bleeding hole in his gut, and Dev wondered if one of the other men managed to shoot him. That would be a story. Turned on in his hour of need by his own people. Even as they watched, he took his last, gasping breath. Kneeling down, Amberly checked for a pulse, then shook her head.

Pulling out his phone, Dev took a picture of the dead man and sent it to Charley.

“Are you okay?” she asked, resting a hand on his shoulder.

Dev nodded, looking down at his leg. A long, thin line cut through the fabric of his BDUs, but it wasn’t bleeding too bad. It was just a scratch.

Frank was gone, the light faded from his eyes. Both of them were angry fools, dead by their own actions.

Reaching for her phone, she took a picture of the dead bodies as well, then a short video, because she knew it would be needed in the investigation later. The burner phone wasn’t equipped with a great camera, but it would be better than nothing. Then she sent it to Brown.

Within just a couple of minutes, Brown called. “You got them both?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, “along with about seven others. You’re going to have to send a clean-up crew out, posthaste.”

“I’ve already got one on the way. I knew something like this would happen.”

“Brown,” she paused. “There are more bombs. Not just in the phones. I think Frank has been planting them around D.C. We need to look at his movements for the past week to two weeks, at least.”

“On it. I expect you to gather all the documentation you can and get it here, pronto.”

“I’ll do pictures first,” she promised. “As soon as I figure out how the hell to get down off this mountain.”

They ended up loading Frank and Regent’s dead bodies in the back of the ATV. It was the only thing driveable at the moment, though they saw the Jeep wedged against the tree on the way down the mountain.

“I liked that Jeep,” Dev grumbled.

His leg was bandaged and Requiem was between his knees, the muzzle pointed up. Amberly was behind the wheel again, but the narrower ATV was a lot easier to drive down the mountain, even in the dark.

There was a lot of work to do once they got to the cabin. Apparently, the shoot-out had drawn enough attention that the law had been called. There was a young Sheriff’s deputy taking pictures of the bodies outside with his cell phone, the blue lights of his cruiser flashing in the night. When they parked the ATV near the cabin, they were met with a drawn gun.

“Hands up where I can see them,” the kid ordered.

“You’re going to want to put your weapon away, deputy,” Amberly told him calmly. “This is a CIA operation.” Very carefully, she removed her ID from her bag and held it out.

“What the hell happened here, ma’am?” he asked, voice wavering.

“I think it’s best if you don’t know a lot, Deputy, unless you want to testify in federal court.” His eyes widened comically. “This is what I’m going to need you to do.”

Within minutes, he was cordoning off the area around the cabin with police tape. Squads had gotten there not long after, as well as the sheriff. Amberly filled him in a little, enough to appease the man and explain why she was using his resources.

“It would have been nice to get a call beforehand so my county could have responded a little better.”

Amberly sighed. “Honestly Sheriff, we had no time. If you look in the back of the truck, they’re packed and ready to go. They were leaving in hours. And I had to move on the information I’d been given.”

The older man sighed. “Yeah, I supposed you’re right. It wouldn’t have done to have this stuff come out of our state.”

Sheriff Belle arranged to have the bomb squad come from Billings to take care of the devices in the back of the truck. He also, very helpfully, arranged for a team to go up and retrieve their Jeep, and catalog evidence on the mountain top. Then, finally, Amberly walked inside the cabin to begin gathering evidence.

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