Chapter 20 - THE LAST NAME ON THE LIST WAS THE ONE JACK NEVER EXPECTED
Nobody moved.
The federal agent stood between us and Mercer.
“Lower your weapons,” he repeated.
Cole didn’t.
Neither did Eli.
I looked at Sarah.
She had one hand pressed against Rex’s wounded shoulder.
Mia and Lauren were behind the cruisers.
Too many people I cared about in one open space.
I lowered my pistol first.
“Who are you?”
“Special Agent Warren Bell.”
Mercer smiled.
“Warren and I go back.”
Bell’s jaw tightened.
“That’s not why I released him.”
“Then explain quickly,” I said.
Bell reached inside his jacket.
Every gun came back up.
“Easy.”
He removed a folded document.
Federal transfer order.
Signed.
Stamped.
Real enough to survive a glance.
“Mercer has been cooperating with an active national-security investigation,” Bell said.
Eli laughed in disbelief.
“Cooperating? He kidnapped people.”
“He claims the Iron Vipers operation was part of establishing access to a larger network.”
“Claims?” Cole shouted. “My daughter disappeared for fourteen months!”
Bell looked at Lauren.
For the first time, uncertainty crossed his face.
“You were not in our brief.”
Mercer stopped smiling.
There.
A crack.
Bell turned to him.
“Nathan?”
Mercer said nothing.
I understood.
The government knew part of the operation.
Not all of it.
Mercer had been running his own business inside someone else’s investigation.
“Search the gray car,” I said.
Bell looked at me.
“Why?”
“Because Mercer didn’t risk this town for hardware he planned to hand over.”
Agents searched.
Ten minutes later, one returned carrying a black case from beneath a floor panel.
Inside were drives.
Passports.
Bank tokens.
And photographs of missing people.
Bell’s face went hard.
Mercer ran.
Rex moved before anyone else.
Even wounded, he cut across Mercer’s path and forced him toward the rail fence.
Cole tackled him.
This time Bell put the cuffs on himself.
“You’re done,” Bell said.
Mercer looked past him at me.
“No one is ever done.”
By noon, Ash Creek was full of state troopers, federal agents, ambulances, reporters, and people trying to understand what had happened to their town.
Price was arrested.
The corrupted deputies were identified.
The missing civilians were recovered from two properties outside town.
Lauren went home with Cole.
Mia refused to leave her side.
Eli went to a hospital under guard and protection.
Rex received nine stitches and acted personally offended by the cone they put around his neck.
Sarah sat beside me on the curb outside the veterinary clinic.
“You promised you were finished fighting,” she said.
“I know.”
“You’re terrible at retirement.”
“I know.”
She rested her head on my shoulder.
For the first time in three days, nothing exploded.
Then a vet tech came outside holding Rex’s old service vest.
“Mr. Mercer?”
“Yes?”
“We found something sewn inside the lining.”
She handed me a tiny metal capsule.
I unscrewed it.
Inside was a strip of paper.
Eli’s handwriting.
One sentence.
IF MERCER IS CAUGHT, FIND THE MAN WHO SIGNED BOTH DEATH CERTIFICATES.
Below it was a name.
Special Agent Warren Bell.
I looked across the street.
The black federal SUVs were gone.
So was Bell.
Rex stepped beside me, cone and all, and stared down the empty road.
I folded the note into my pocket.
Sarah saw my face.
“No,” she said.
I looked at her.
Then at Rex.
Then at the highway.
“Yeah,” I said quietly.
“Apparently we’re not done yet.”
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