Page 128 of One Last Stand

“Wait. What did Shep mean when he said the mission was over? He said it to you?—”

“It’s something I asked him to do.”

A moment, and then it all slid into her. “You were the one who asked him to watch over me in Alaska.”

He lifted a shoulder. “You’re my princess. Of course I did.”

She heard Shep again, in the cave.“Your dad said he pulled some strings to get my team up there.”

At the time, her brain had been too tired to untangle what he meant, and weirdly, she’d thought he’d meant that her dad had somehow told Shep she’d be on that mountain. Sort of a “Hey, Shep, how are you? Did you know my daughter is skiing Zermatt today?” Except, that didn’t make sense at all, because Shep had been on a Ranger team, and how had her dad known . . .

“Did you . . . You set up the meet in Zermatt?”

He nodded. “I knew that if you were there, then Martin would show up. And I needed evidence that he was rogue. But I had to figure out a way to justify it to the CIA, so I told them about a rogue agent—your handler—and asked them to send in the nearby Rangers unit, because they were already there, training.”

“Shep said that his unit was there to kill me.”

He swallowed. “You were to be apprehended. I would have gotten you out. Alan was the one who changed the orders.”

“And yet you let me go up that mountain.”

“You were . . . you were our operative.”

His words dropped through her, down to her soul.

“You would have let me bemurderedon that mountaintop. As it was, Shep and I nearly died.”

He folded his hands in his lap. “It was out of control. And I had one desperate hope—to get the man who followed you around camp so many years ago and asked for your address and even wrote to you a half dozen times to go on that mission, see you, and . . . shut it down.”

Silence. Just her heartbeat, a hammer against her chest.

“What if Shep hadn’t seen me? What if he’d not been able to stop them? What if?—”

“It’s global terrorism, Laney. And . . . this is what you were ordered to do.”

She blinked. “Byyou.”

“By thecause.”

His words shook her to her bones. “Dad. I’m your daughter. Your only remaining daughter. Isn’t it enough that you lost one already?”

His jaw tightened, and even from here she could see the hit, how his eyes flashed with unshed emotions. Then he swallowed. “It was my fault she was on that bus. They wanted me. But I went in early that day, and . . .” He shook his head.

“And yet you’d sacrifice another daughter.”

He looked back at her. “All it takes for evil to prosper?—”

“Save it.” She backed away from him. Stood by the piano. Folded her arms. “You may be bound by glorious purpose, but I am not.”

Gone was the grief, a simple fury now in his eyes. “Your sister died because of terrorist groups like the ones Tomas funds.”

“Shep nearly died because you used me to get close to your personal nemesis!”

He flinched.

She’d wounded him. But he rose, drew in a breath. “And now you have your own personal nemesis.” He folded his arms. “Tomas.”

Tomas. “He was a good man until I turned him.”

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