Hell for Leather (Black Knights Inc. #6)(60)
And touché. Delilah gave credit where credit was due.
“So this file, BA Repatriate,” Zoelner said, “I suppose it gives the global coordinates of the remaining five weapons?”
Five freakin’ missing nuclear weapons!
“No.” Agent Duvall shook her head, adjusting her glasses again. “That’s just the thing. The file containing the actual locations of the weapons was above Winterfield’s security clearance. He couldn’t access it. The only thing he could access was the file detailing the original mission and the names and ranks of the men who worked on it.”
“Of whom two are now MIA,” Mac murmured.
“The only two who are still alive,” the CIA agent confirmed.
“Christ,” Mac swung away, cursing a blue streak under his breath.
“And you didn’t think to raise a red flag and put a protective detail around Theo and Charles when the first three men turned up dead?” Zoelner demanded.
“Considering one of them died in ’78 of an overdose and the next two died in the nineties, one from a heart attack and the other in a bizarre fishing accident,” Chelsea declared, “no! No, we did not consider a protective detail!”
Ozzie plopped down on the coffee table, repeatedly running a hand back through his hair. And if Zoelner had looked like he wanted to kill Chelsea Duvall before, now he looked like he wanted to beat her senseless and then kill her.
“Do you really believe it’s possible, that after forty-some-odd years, these two men still remember the exact coordinates of the missin’ warheads?” Mac interrupted, his back still turned.
Chelsea hesitated a beat. “Obviously the terrorists believe it.” She shrugged and added, “And, honestly? Yeah. If it was me tasked with pinpointing a handful of nukes, you bet your ass I’d remember. Wouldn’t you?”
“Goddamnit, Chelsea!” Zoelner roared. “And you didn’t think that type of information warranted you going against your orders!”
“We weren’t certain there was any need for alarm!” Chelsea yelled right back, jumping up to slam her hands into her hips. “We didn’t know for sure which files Winterfield snagged. We just knew which files he had access to. And until ten minutes ago, we thought it was entirely possible Fairchild and Sander were just holed up somewhere tying one on!”
Delilah’s mind raced to reach the same conclusions the Knights evidently already had. “Excuse me,” she said after a beat, raising her hand like she was still back in school. “Can someone please explain to me what in the world all of that means? I mean, I get that you guys are under the impression that this al-Whoever guy—”
“Al-Hallaj,” Chelsea added helpfully.
“Yeah, okay.” Delilah nodded. “So, I get that you think Winterfield sold the files to al-Hallaj. And I get that al-Hallaj took Sander and my uncle in order to try to…uh…get the locations of the warheads from them.” She couldn’t bring herself to voice the word torture. “Am I correct in believing that once again technology has advanced to a point where some or all of the remaining five might be salvageable?”
The CIA agent nodded, and Delilah’s heart sank. If she wasn’t mistaken, the thing was hanging out somewhere in the vicinity of her kneecaps.
“So, let’s not get into the discussion of why we, the United States of America, haven’t gone to secure the warheads, and jump instead to the question of why I’ve been targeted twice. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Unfortunately, it does,” Mac murmured, the muscles in his mile-wide shoulders twitching fitfully.
“It does?” she asked. “But, why?”
Mac turned his face slightly, his distinctive profile in view. And if she’d ever seen a jaw looking harder than his, she couldn’t remember the occasion. That redwood of dread in her stomach hit a growth spurt, sending branches up to strangle her throat.
“It means they’ve been unable to get the information from the men by traditional means.” Traditional means. She knew he meant torture. “So, they’re attemptin’ to use you as leverage.”
Uh-huh. Okay. Right. So…terrorists—freakin’ frackin’ terrorists—wanted to use her as leverage. Against her uncle. In order to find nuclear weapons…
She bent at the waist, trying to decide if she was going to puke or pass out. Fortunately, she was saved from doing either when the soft muttering of helicopter blades sounded overhead a mere second before the front door exploded open. What was left of the ruined slab of oak disintegrated on impact with the wall.
She bolted upright just as three men in full-on SWAT gear poured into the house, their huge, black machine guns up and at the ready. The Black Knights answered in kind, handguns whipped from waistbands and holsters in the blink of an eye. Each group aimed for the other. Each group yelled for the other to drop their weapons. It was a rootin’, tootin’, gun-totin’ Yosemite Sam melee.
And Delilah was caught smack-dab in the middle of it. Yippee!
Chapter Fifteen
“Get behind me,” Mac bellowed to Delilah, barely sparing her a glance as he kept his weapon trained on the intruders. But that quick peek was enough to tell him her face had completely drained of blood. It was as white as the chalk he and his father had used to paint the cattle with during culling season.