At the Pleasure of the President Read online

  Zack tried to smile. At least he had the appearance of innocence going for him.

  He cast a sidelong glance Elizabeth’s way. Her eyes were wide, and she blinked at Freddy like the loon he was. Zack had to hand it to her. If she was acting, she deserved an Academy Award.

  Suddenly, she turned those blue eyes on him. They were full of sympathy.

  God, he didn’t want to believe she wasn’t genuine. He wanted her to be exactly the sweet, caring, strong woman he’d met so long ago, the one he’d waited years to be with.

  And if she wasn’t? Did that mean he couldn’t be with her? What if he could find a way to have her, even if she was a traitor? It occurred to him that being constantly on top of Elizabeth was a damn fine way to keep tabs on her.

  Freddy rolled his eyes. “Of course not. He’s smart.”

  Mad’s patience was obviously wearing thin. “Damn it, I know you hated the army, but you were an excellent intelligence officer. What does all that training tell you?”

  Freddy’s lips went mulish, but he finally sighed. “That he’s a pawn. He’s not playing the game the way they hoped he would, so they’re planning to sacrifice him and move a better pawn into place.”

  All kinds of crazy with a thread of sanity—that’s how Lara had described Freddy. Though the man actively hunted for Sasquatch and believed that ancient aliens walked the earth, he was incredibly good at cutting through the smokescreens and the everyday BS to find the nuggets of truth others overlooked. Zack couldn’t deny that Freddy had also ridden in to save the day when Dax and Holland had been in grave danger. Though now Zack suspected he’d done that at Mad’s behest.

  “All right. But if they murder and bury me in the backyard, I’m going to haunt your ass,” Freddy vowed. “You know I promised myself I wouldn’t be buried on federal land.”

  Because he was certain the government had made a deal with whoever ran the afterlife, according to Lara.

  Connor’s wife got to her feet and joined them. “Freddy, I promise nothing will happen to you.”

  Freddy turned, his eyes softening on her like he thought the world was a terrible place full of terrible people…all except Lara. “I know you would try to save me, but this goes deeper than even you know.”

  Mad put a hand on Freddy’s shoulder. “If Zack kills you, he’ll have to kill me, too. I’ll make my last wish for you to be cremated, with your ashes carefully portioned out and scattered in safe spaces across the globe. They won’t be able to bring you back.”

  Lara took over, working her magic on the man. “Did Zack deal with us fairly when I showed him proof that Joy was the assassin’s real target?”

  “What?” Elizabeth gaped in both shock and horror, looking his way with an expression that said she prayed it wasn’t true.

  He gave her a grim nod, then Gus stepped in, quietly explaining what the others knew. Zack was grateful to Augustine in that moment. She would know how to tell Elizabeth exactly what she needed to know without embellishing or sugar-coating the truth.

  Freddy gave him a considering bob of his head. “Yeah, I suspected he might have me killed then, too. He could have sent someone after me.”

  “You make me out to be far more Machiavellian than I actually am,” Zack pointed out.

  He’d ditched his suitcoat and tie for the evening, but the women, except Elizabeth and Gus, were still in their cocktail gowns because they had nothing else to change into. He rather hoped their clothes wouldn’t arrive tonight. If they didn’t, Elizabeth would be given a clean white T-shirt to sleep in—his. He might not ever see her in it, but he could spend the whole evening fantasizing about it.

  “Well, I voted to have you silenced, but not because of your investigation. I simply find you annoying as hell,” Roman commented. “And for two guys who’ve managed to stay off the grid for months, you’re not very good at whispering.”

  Zack repressed a grin. His friends could be assholes. But he loved that they often said the very things he couldn’t.

  Lara turned to glare at Roman.

  Gus merely rolled her eyes. “I want to know how you found Freddy. Because he was Lara’s neighbor?”

  “We’ll get to that. The better question is, why did Freddy try to out me to Lara? If he was working with you, why did he send the target of my investigation”—Connor gestured in his wife’s direction—“a complete rundown on her new lover?”

  Freddy had written a letter to Lara that Connor had intercepted, outing Connor as one of the Perfect Gentlemen. If Lara had seen it, the missive would have blown Connor’s cover utterly. Zack felt sure the entire situation would have exploded in their faces.

  “I obviously didn’t know about that,” Mad replied. “Nothing about that particular op went the way we thought it would.”

  “You were in love with her,” Connor said softly.

  Freddy didn’t deny it.

  “It’s okay,” Lara’s husband assured. “I understand. She’s incredibly lovable.”

  Lara smiled as Connor leaned closer and tugged her onto his lap. He kissed his wife, proving the morose bastard had become much happier than he’d ever been during his single days. Then again, Lara brought out her husband’s lighter side.

  Zack didn’t want to dwell on the fact that every single one of his friends had a woman by his side now. Sara might be holding out, but she was also pregnant, and their baby would tie them together forever. Funny, he’d married before any of them, but it hadn’t been for love, rather duty and politics. And now he was alone, probably for good.

  Freddy returned Connor’s gaze. “I was never going to make a move on her. I…I don’t think I’ll ever have a wife or kids, and that’s for the best. There’s a part of me that’s broken. But I did…do care about her. You sleeping with her was never supposed to be a part of the plan. I didn’t realize you were falling in love with her. I thought you were simply using her and would break her heart. Mad promised me she wouldn’t get hurt, so I went around him and tried to separate her from you. Obviously it didn’t work, and that’s for the best. I know you treat her well.”

  Connor’s lips curled up. “Because she’s told you or because you still spy on me?”

  Freddy shrugged. “Old habits, you know.”

  “We’re going to have a talk about that, but I understand why you did what you did. We’re cool,” Connor said.

  “I didn’t count on you two getting together,” Mad admitted. “Or Roman being such a massive asshole.”

  “Hey,” Roman began, then stopped. “Okay, that’s fair.”

  “To get back to business, I’ve explained what happened the evening Ivan Krylov visited me,” Mad began.

  Holland gaped. “The head of the Krylov syndicate?”

  Zack looked pointedly at Dax. “I thought we all agreed to fill the women on what we know.”

  Dax winced. “I meant to, but I might have been excited to see my wife. We didn’t have time to talk. My mouth was busy, if you know what I mean.”

  Holland groaned. “Really?”

  Zack should have guessed. While Mad had talked to Sara, Zack and Roman had filled in Gus and Elizabeth about how Mad had risen from the dead. Gabe and Connor had spoken to their wives, but Dax and Holland had disappeared. Apparently they’d had way more fun than the rest of them. Newlyweds… Hadn’t they gotten enough during their Maui honeymoon at that cozy bed-and-breakfast?

  “Mad was investigating the situation with the girls’ foundation when the head of the Krylov syndicate beat the piss out of him in an attempt to stop him,” Zack explained. “What I don’t understand is why the syndicate wouldn’t simply kill him. And why, when they left him alive, he didn’t call his friends. Why would you decide to investigate by yourself?”

  He wanted Mad to put his whole truth out there. They’d been tiptoeing around the honest reason Mad had faked his death.

  “I didn’t know what to think, Zack. Ivan Krylov told me you were the one who sent him to silence me,” Mad explained simply.

&n
bsp; Lara gasped and scrambled off her husband’s lap. “That’s not possible.”

  “Of course not. We know that.” Everly reassured her friend with a quiet squeeze of her hand, then pulled her back to the couch. “I don’t know why Mad didn’t come to the same conclusion…but let’s hear him and Freddy out. I suspect there’s a reason Mad has returned now.”

  “And it can’t be good,” Gus pointed out.

  “Nope.” Holland had gotten over her embarrassment and now stared at Mad and Freddy with a shrewd gaze, looking like the NCIS investigator she was. “The game has somehow changed or he would still be in hiding. I can only think of one reason to come out now. Someone is in real, credible danger. Have the Russians threatened one of us?”

  Mad held a hand up and sauntered to the front of the room—exactly where he liked to be. “Let me explain from the beginning. I didn’t call Zack that night because I was trying to think things through…while making sure my kidneys still functioned after the Russians beat the hell out of me. And I didn’t want to bring them down on any of my friends. I especially didn’t want them to know about Sara.”

  The women immediately started in on that.

  “You tortured her to protect her?” Gus asked.

  Everly shook her head. “Not going to work, Mad. We could have managed some diversion that didn’t include Sara and me being at each other’s throats.”

  Lara and Holland were having their says, too—all at once. The room threatened to erupt in chaos. Brow raised, Elizabeth looked to him. Zack knew if he didn’t take control, she would.

  “Stop.” He didn’t have to raise his voice. The room went quiet instantly. “I’d like to get through this debrief as quickly as possible. Holland is right. Mad is here because he’s uncovered a plot to assassinate me. He doesn’t know exactly who’s behind it, but apparently the Russians have infiltrated the White House and the Secret Service.”

  “But we vet all our people,” Elizabeth argued. “Anyone who works for us has to have security clearance, and there are layers on layers of background checks.”

  Freddy waved that off. “They’ve infiltrated everywhere. Background checks can be faked. More likely the agents were sleepers.”

  “What Freddy is trying to say is that the operatives in place have likely been there for years,” Mad said. “Like Tavia. She and her family had been in America for decades. She passed plenty of background checks. Some of the operatives are American-born and, for whatever reason, the Russians either persuaded or blackmailed them in to betraying their country. It’s even possible their parents raised them to be operatives.”

  “We need to examine all those files personally,” Roman said. “Re-vet every single employee ourselves.”

  “Freddy and I believe that’s the right course of action.” Mad’s gaze shifted back to Sara, and he shoved his hand in his pockets, as if forcing himself not to touch her…but Zack didn’t think that would last long. “It’s one of the reasons we had to surface. We need access to those employee records.”

  Roman huffed. “You want access to White House files? That’s not going to happen. Connor can do it, but I can’t get you clearance to look at those records.”

  Zack knew he might need Connor doing other things, so he wasn’t willing to refuse Mad yet. “I’ll think about it. Now tell me what you’ve discovered.”

  He steeled himself for what would happen next. While Mad laid out his conspiracy, he would watch Elizabeth, study her every expression. Try to decide where her loyalties lay.

  “Okay…” Mad nodded. “After Krylov paid me that visit, I met Freddy and we started talking.”

  Gabe scowled. “You couldn’t come to any of us, but you cozied right up to a stranger about Krylov’s threats?”

  “I didn’t find Freddy. He found me—lying on my kitchen floor, barely able to move and afraid I was bleeding out. It’s sort of hard to ignore someone who’s giving you the kind of first aid that might be saving your life.”

  “He’d been beaten badly,” Freddy added with a nod. “But he was still a good listener.”

  Mad nodded. “Besides, Freddy was already up to his eyeballs in this shit. He knew way more than I did. After we compared a few notes, I knew I couldn’t stop the investigation I’d begun with the girls’ foundation. I’d already figured out that my father once had an affair with Tavia’s mother, so I needed to discern how deep my family ties were to the Gordons. I thought I could dig in plain sight as long as I did it carefully. So I broke things off with Sara to keep her off the syndicate’s radar, then I began looking into all the deep, dark rabbit holes. I know I should have talked to you guys. I didn’t for the same reason I broke things off with Sara. I needed answers, and while I was getting them I didn’t want any of you to meet Krylov the way I had. I’m convinced the only reason he didn’t kill me that night was my high profile.”

  Connor nodded. “I think so, too. If you’d been found dead in your home, there would have been an investigation. The police would have been involved, and the press would have gone insane—like they did when your plane crashed. I take it that happened because you got caught snooping again.”

  Mad nodded. “Freddy helped me figure out the best way to proceed. He’d been working on the assassination plot for months. He spends a lot of time on the Dark Web. That’s how he made the connection between Krylov and Crawford, then decided to pay me a visit. He was hammering out a theory that a Krylov associate actually killed Joy, not the patsy Connor took down.”

  “I’ve got a tight group I trust,” Freddy added with enthusiasm. “Candy Man124, StoneColdLA, and AliensAmongUs. Those are solid guys. But not CandyMan125. Don’t get those two confused. 125 is an actual candy dealer, and he gets upset when you send him a graphic murder video and ask his opinion. But 124 is excellent at finding the seeming unrelated threads in a conspiracy.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Zack promised. “Was one of these Dark Web visitors a pretty vegan?”

  “Oh, Lara didn’t play around on the Dark Web,” Freddy assured. “Well, not much. But I knew she was a journalist. I figured out she was behind Capitol Scandals.”

  “Only because you’re a sneaky bastard,” Lara huffed.

  The former army officer shrugged. “When you moved into the building, I checked you out. My friends helped me. And…I might or might not have hacked your system. But probably more on the might side.”

  Mad nodded. “Freddy is the one who put Lara on my radar, and given what I’d found out about Tavia, her family, and their connections to my father, I was looking for someone not associated with any one of us, who could start shining a light on the information I’d unearthed. I actually intended to reach out personally to Lara until I found that bomb on my plane. Or rather Matthew Kemp did.”

  “How did Kemp get involved?” Dax asked.

  “I met Matty when I worked intelligence,” Freddy explained. “We’d known each other for about ten years. When I first ran across the whispers about the president, I reached out to him because I knew he was working for the Secret Service. He didn’t believe me at first, but when we realized Ivan Krylov was interested in Mad, he agreed we needed to look into it. That’s why I was watching Mad the night Ivan came for him.”

  “I still say you could have saved me from that,” Mad complained.

  “No, I had to let it happen. If I’d intervened, he would have known someone was onto him. And if he’d killed you, that would have been a helpful piece of information.”

  Damn, Zack was glad he hadn’t needed Freddy as a partner. “So the head of the syndicate mentions that I’m working with him, and you don’t bother to ask me if it’s true?”

  Mad’s gaze found his. “C’mon, Zack. If you’d been guilty, what could you have done but deny it? It made more sense to do some digging. What I really hoped to find was concrete proof that you were innocent, along with something I could show you that revealed your enemies and their motives. And…in the midst of that beating, Krylov told me if I went to you or a
ny of my other friends, I might be surprised at what I found. Then I overheard them say that Sergei wouldn’t approve. I’m not sure of what. But they made a call and spoke to someone they referred to as Sergei.”

  Zack grimaced. He wished he’d never heard that name.

  When he glanced at Elizabeth, he saw no recognition on her face at all. The others though, they’d stiffened at the mention. His friends knew that name well.

  “I played the odds.” Freddy took up the tale. “I waited until they left, then checked the dumpsters around Mad’s building. Those guys always use burners. I found it and the dude hadn’t pulled the SIM card. We were able to figure out they’d called another cell phone, and we narrowed it down to the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of DC.”

  His stomach twisted. “You think they called the White House.”

  “I was scared because that seemed like an awfully big coincidence,” Mad admitted. “I had no idea what was going on. Then Freddy started showing me everything he’d figured out.”

  “He showed you the footage of Joy at all those rallies?”

  Even thinking about those clips made Zack want to throw up. He had that first time. Freddy had assembled a montage of video from the rallies leading up to the Memphis event shortly before the election. To this day, he remembered hearing the shot and looking down at his own chest, certain he would see blood there. Everything had happened so fast, but in his mind those moments seemed to last forever.

  At the time of the shooting, the whole country assumed the assassin’s shot had gone wide and mistakenly killed Joy. Guilt had taken root in Zack’s soul and fed his every decision since because he’d believed that his wife had died in his place.

  Freddy’s video had proven him so wrong by showing him that whoever killed Joy had been practicing his shot for a while, like he’d intended to sacrifice her all along. In multiple rallies prior to Memphis, the footage had shown a split second where a tiny red dot hovered over Joy’s chest. He wasn’t sure why the assassin had chosen Memphis over any of the other cities, but it was clear Zack had never been the target.