Exit Strategy, page 12
part #1 of EXIT Inc. Series
“I’m at the airport.”
Mason’s hand tightened around the phone. “Say that again. Because it sounded like you said you were ditching me.”
“I’m not ditching you. Plans changed. I’ve got to get to Augusta to help the Buchanans.”
“The Buchanans? Oh, right. I remember them. They’re those people who are supposed to be right here. Right now. With you.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Mason.”
“Lying doesn’t become you.”
Ramsey blew out an impatient breath. “I didn’t lie, not on purpose at least. I’d planned on being there. But Devlin’s brother, Austin, was in a burn center in Augusta. He’s been recovering from injuries sustained in a house fire. This morning, he disappeared. But no one reported it until a few hours ago. They thought he was sleeping in his room. When the nurse went in to check on him, he was gone.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t walk off by himself.”
“Not likely. He had mobility issues before the fire. And now, well, he couldn’t have left on his own. Devlin and his brothers are frantic. They’re all on their way there now.”
“All? How many brothers does he have?”
“Three or four I think. Doesn’t matter. The point is that this has the earmarks of something Ace might have pulled. He and Devlin have a brutal history between them and this may be Ace’s attempt at payback. I’ve got to help Devlin before it’s too late.”
“Hold it. If he’s got all of those brothers why does he need you? I need you here. While the Buchanans are looking after this Austin guy, you and I can figure out our next steps against EXIT. If there are other marks being targeted, we can’t afford to wait. Someone innocent will die.”
“I know, I know. But Devlin needs someone else who knows how EXIT operates to help him figure out what they’ve done with Austin and to watch his back. Not to mention keeping an eye on his wife.”
“She’s a former cop. I imagine she can handle herself.”
“Not against EXIT. Plus, you know the family won’t be focused right now, not with their brother’s life at stake. I can’t abandon them. And before you say it, yeah, I know it seems like that’s exactly what I’m doing to you. But this is different. You see that, right?”
Mason swore. “Yeah, I guess I do. Go. We’ll have the meeting after you’re done there. I’ll do what I can to try to get information about EXIT, but without Buchanan’s computer contacts, I’m not sure what I can do. One thing, though. Make sure you tell Buchanan and Emily that their pictures are being circulated on the Asheville news as potential witnesses to a crime.”
“What? How did that happen?”
“If you were here, I’d tell you.”
“Ouch. Guess I deserve that. I’ll be back as soon as I can. We’ll sit down, compare notes, and make stuff happen.”
A final boarding announcement sounded over an intercom in the background.
“I have to go before I miss my plane. Good luck, Mason. I’ll call when I can.”
“Be careful, Ram. This could all be a trick.”
“I know. Believe me, I know.”
Mason ended the call and shoved the phone across the countertop.
“Bad news?” a soft voice called out.
He looked up to see Sabrina standing a few feet away. Her hair had been brushed out to a glossy sheen that made his fingers ache to touch it. Another part of him ached to do a whole lot more, but now wasn’t the time or place, even if he was sure she’d be receptive to him. Which he wasn’t. All that he was sure of was that his reason for coming here—the rendezvous—had just evaporated. And if EXIT was actively seeking the little band of rebels, then Mason preferred to be in a much more defensible position without any other houses close by that could hide an assassin waiting with a gun.
“The meeting was postponed,” he said. “Something came up.” He grabbed his phone again and shoved it into the holder on his belt. “Grab your bag. We’re leaving.”
Her eyes widened with alarm. “Is something wrong?” She looked toward the windows as if expecting someone to drive up.
He forced himself to relax, offering her a lazy smile he was far from feeling. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just taking you to my home.”
“I thought this was your home.”
“This ugly place? Not a chance,” he teased. “Let’s go.”
THE SUN HAD set before they’d reached Mason’s real home, an hour west of Asheville. Although this house was smaller—a two-bedroom, two-bath cottage that could fit inside her living room—it was cozy, welcoming, and much homier than the concrete monstrosity back in town. Best of all, it was on a farm, surrounded by acres of rolling hills, trees, and cornfields. She’d adored it on sight, or at least what she’d seen in the truck’s headlights and the outdoor security lights as Mason had driven her up to the house.
He’d shown her to the master bedroom and told her to make herself comfortable while he whipped them up something to eat. More than a little curious what a man like Mason would “whip up,” she quickly changed into a T-shirt and some shorts, her version of comfortable. She took another dose of pain pills and used the restroom. Then she hurried back into the kitchen just as Mason was pouring two glasses of milk.
She burst into laughter. “This is what you whipped up? Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?”
He pressed his hand to his chest as if offended. “According to my seventh grade home economics teacher, these are ribbon sandwiches, thank you very much. They’re also nutritious, full of protein.”
“And the milk? Calcium, I suppose?”
“Strong bones are important.”
“So, basically, you don’t know how to cook.”
“Basically.” He picked up the two plates. “If you’ll bring the drinks, I figured we could eat on the back porch and watch the lightning bugs.”
“Sounds perfect.” She grabbed their glasses and followed him outside.
The wooden porch wrapped around the entire house, its weathered-gray floor contrasting nicely with the whitewashed railings underneath the soft glow of the outdoor lights. Bright spotlights at the corners of the house illuminated the backyard and the edge of the cornfield directly behind the property.
Sabrina set the glasses beside their plates and took a seat at the table across from Mason.
“This is a big table. Six chairs.”
“I have a big family.”
She paused with her sandwich halfway to her mouth. “Family?”
He leaned toward her conspiratorially. “Did you think people like me don’t have families?”
Her face flushed and she set the sandwich down. “Of course not. Well, honestly, I guess I hadn’t really thought about it. So . . . they come here often?
“A couple of times a year, if I’m lucky. Darlene lives in Germany with her husband. My parents are there right now, visiting.”
“Darlene?”
“One of my sisters. The baby, Suzie, is at UGA. And my brother, Zack, he’s a firefighter back in Asheville. Whenever I’m out of town, which is a lot, and he has time off from work, he tends to crash here.”
She’d taken a small bite of her sandwich and quickly swallowed. “Why would he come out here if you aren’t home?”
His mouth quirked up. “Women. It’s hard to socialize at the firehouse. And he rents the apartment above the garage at Mom and Dad’s. So it can get a little . . . awkward . . . bringing home dates.”
“Ah, I see.”
He pointed across the waving stalks of corn that seemed to go on forever behind them. “See that barn out there, just past that clump of trees on the right?”
“Um hm.”
“That’s where Zack likes to hang out with his dates. There’s a lot of hay in that barn.”
The amusement in his eyes let her know exactly what his brother was doing in that hay. She cleared her throat. “If you have hay, you must have horses.”
“Nope. I’m not here enough to take care of any animals. But it is a working farm. I’ve got a deal with the guy who owns the land adjacent to mine. He stores his hay in my barn and plants and harvests the corn, or some years, soybeans.”
“Sounds like a good gig. He does all the work and you get to split the earnings.”
He shook his head. “I don’t take any money from him. Don’t need it.” He slid a glance at her. “And before you ask, yes, working for EXIT is quite lucrative.”
She decided not to touch that comment, for now. “Then what do you get out of the deal you made with your neighbor?”
He waved his hand. “That gorgeous view.”
The contentment in his eyes as he stared over his land was even more breathtaking than the fiery colors in the sky as the sun had set on the drive here.
Thomas would have liked Mason.
Sabrina blinked back the moisture in her eyes. Her brother had been a nature lover too. And she could easily imagine him enjoying that barn when he was younger, just like Zack.
After they finished eating, they went inside and washed the dishes. Once everything was put away, both of them stood in the middle of the kitchen, unable to ignore the elephant in the room any longer.
It was time to talk about EXIT, and figure out what they were going to do.
The acknowledgment was there in his eyes as he held out his hand. “Come on, Rina. You look like you’ll explode if you don’t ask me all those questions building up inside you. Let’s get it over with.”
She was still reeling from the cute way he’d shortened her name to Rina when he tugged her down onto the couch beside him in the family room.
“Go ahead,” he encouraged her. “I’ll answer what I can.”
She folded her hands together. “All right. What exactly is EXIT?”
“At this moment, I’m not really sure.” He scrubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Someone high up in the company is abusing their power, using enforcers for their own purposes.”
“Enforcers. You mentioned that word at my house. But I’m not sure I understand what it means. Isn’t it the same as a hit man? Or an assassin?”
He stared at her unblinking, unashamed. “When necessary, yes. But that’s not all we do, not all I do. What I’m about to tell you is highly classified, and dangerous. I’ve never told anyone else outside of EXIT about my work, not even my family. I’m telling you this now because, after the injustices that have been done to you, you deserve to know the truth. But more importantly, you need to understand exactly what you’re up against.”
The deadly quiet quality of his voice had her almost regretting asking him about his work. But he was right. She did need to know what type of enemy was after her.
“EXIT is a privately held company, sanctioned by the government as a weapon of last resort. Its public face is the tour side, of course. But its true purpose is to train and deploy highly specialized operatives who can be called upon to protect our country and its people when the alphabet agencies have exhausted all traditional means of resolving an issue. We mostly operate domestically, but all of us rotate overseas every few years because of the conflicts our country is embroiled in around the world right now. In those cases we mostly gather intel and assist our military’s special forces.” He shrugged. “We do whatever has to be done.”
“You mentioned alphabet agencies. You mean like the FBI, or CIA?”
“And many others. Those agencies have restrictions that we don’t have. They can only go so far.”
“Restrictions?”
“Laws.”
The idea that an entire company could be sanctioned by the government without the restriction of laws was incredible, and terrifying.
“So, basically, as an enforcer you do the government’s dirty work, things they would never admit to publicly, all in the name of protecting the country?”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a semblance of a smile. “I’ve never heard it put quite that way but I suppose that’s an accurate description. More specifically, the major difference between EXIT and the other agencies is that they have to wait for a crime to be committed. We’re more pro-active. We make selective, preemptive strikes to prevent loss of life.”
Her stomach sank. How could she crave this man’s touch, want his arms around her—even now—his lips on hers, when he spoke about preemptively killing people, all with a smile on his face?
“You sound like you still support EXIT’s mission, that you think they’re doing the right thing.”
“That’s because I do. If there’s one bad apple in the company creating fake orders, and we can eliminate him and preserve the company’s main mission, that’s the best-case scenario out of all of this. Unfortunately, I doubt the situation is that simple. Especially since we don’t know yet whether Cyprian Cardenas, the CEO, is involved in the fake EXIT orders.”
“Then, you’re still okay with their business-as-usual way of doing things. You don’t see that this is wrong? Mason, you talk about killing someone just because you think they might hurt someone else. But how can you know that? You can’t know the future. No one can. You said it was wrong that EXIT went after me, because I’m innocent. But the people you kill are innocent too. You’re assuming they’ll go through with their plans. What if they change their minds? What if they realize what they were going to do is wrong? You can’t really know what they’ll do.”
His earlier amusement disappeared. “Your situation is totally different. You’ve never funded a terrorist organization. That was the crime EXIT accused you of. The people I kill have usually spent their entire lives doing bad things, which makes future behavior easier to predict. I don’t take what I do lightly. I only eliminate people I know are a threat to others. But enforcers don’t sit around and wait for our marks to kill others first. We save lives by taking lives.”
“But how can you be sure?”
He gave her an aggravated look. “Waiting for incontrovertible proof might sound great on paper, but in reality, it means people die who shouldn’t have to.”
Sabrina marveled at the conviction in his voice. Mason was obviously a man with his own moral code who truly believed that by breaking the law, by preemptively killing people that he believed were “bad,” he was doing the right thing. But Sabrina just couldn’t understand that mode of thinking.
The potential abuse of power within a company like EXIT was mind-boggling, and obviously the worst had happened—someone was abusing that power, using the company as their own personal weapon. And they needed to be stopped. It was just too dangerous for one company, or one person, to have the kind of power to decide who was good and who was bad, who lived and who died.
She held her hands out in a placating gesture. “I’m trying to understand. I really am. But I just don’t see how your way is the right way. There has to be an alternative.”
He stared at her a long minute. “Okay. Hypothetical. You’re a cop, or an FBI agent. You have a nugget of information, a whisper of intel about an extremist cell planning on blowing up a school. But you have no proof, nothing that would hold up in court anyway. Tell me, Sabrina. If you’re convinced a school might be blown up, but you don’t know which one, and all you have is the name and address of a guy who might know, what would you do?”
She clasped her hands together. “I . . . I don’t know. I guess I would . . . try to find out more information, get a search warrant.”
He looked disappointed with her answer. “What if you’re the parent of one of those kids? Knowing your child could die waiting on a warrant that might never come. Now what would you do?”
She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. “That’s not a fair question. It would never happen.”
He arched a brow. “Those types of scenarios happen more than you think. You sit there making moral judgments, but you refuse to face reality.”
“Okay, fine. I’m the parent. I would . . . I would hope that I would have the strength of character to stand up for what’s right. And, Mason, what’s right is to work within the law. It’s the only way to guarantee that people’s civil rights aren’t trampled. I know our justice system has problems. I’ve been a victim of that broken system myself. But that doesn’t mean we should throw the whole thing out. We have to fix it. Going vigilante isn’t the answer.”
He stared across the room through the large picture window, watching the stalks of corn bending in the breeze. “ ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ ”
“I’m sorry, what?”
He sighed and looked back at her. “It’s a quote, by Edmund Burke. What it means to me is that if I have the power to act to save someone, and I do nothing, then that’s the most horrible sin of all.” He searched her eyes, as if hoping to see something, but the disappointment in his expression told her he hadn’t found what he was looking for.
He stood and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Based on your reasoning in my hypothetical situation, four hundred kids would be dead on your watch, all because you had to wait for the crime to be committed. Because it wasn’t hypothetical. It happened, a month ago. I chose to act. I didn’t wait. I busted into a guy’s house and found bomb-making materials, but no bomb. No clue where the bomb that he’d made was planted. And when he laughed in my face and asked for a lawyer, I didn’t call the police or follow due process. I pressed his cheek against a hot stove until he screamed in agony, until he screamed the location of the bomb, a middle school in downtown Asheville. Once I got that information, and the bomb squad confirmed it, I put a bullet in his brain.”
Sabrina choked and pressed her hand against her mouth in horror.
Mason gave her a sad smile. “You think I’m a monster. Maybe I am. But because I did what needed to be done, because I acted like an animal and showed no mercy, I saved four hundred innocent little kids. And it only cost the life of one, deranged, sick terrorist. I haven’t lost one bit of sleep over my decision. I’d do it again in a second. And for that, Sabrina, I make no apologies.”
