The Rescue(114)

“I don’t blame you. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to save your daughter.”

“There was nothing you could do.”

“I played it back thousands of times in my head.”

“Ryan—may I call you Ryan?”

He nodded.

“Ryan. My daughter was dead the moment she was taken, and everyone else? They were dead the moment I agreed to hire you. They didn’t think you’d find her, and when you did—”

“This kind of thinking makes my head spin.”

“I wish I could say it gets better.” She offered her arm. “Shall we?”

She guided them to a single elegant gravestone engraved with the names of his wife and son.

“I’ll leave you alone,” she said, stepping away with her bouquet.

“Thank you for this,” he said, kneeling in the grass in front of the stone.

He placed the flowers on the ground in front of the grave next to an old bouquet—and closed his eyes, vividly recalling the last time he had seen them together. The scene had faded from his mind so much over the past two years, he was afraid he’d lose it completely. He cried without holding back, something he hadn’t done since he learned they had been killed.

After he’d stopped crying and wiped his eyes on his sleeve, he glanced to his left and saw Senator Steele kneeling in prayer in front of a gravestone only a row over. He kissed his hand and touched the stone in front of him before getting up and walking over to her. When he saw the names on the gravestone in front of her, he fell to his knees, crying again.

DAVID THOMAS STEELE

MEGHAN MARGARET STEELE

Margaret Steele held him until he was done, helping him up onto unsteady legs. Decker dried his eyes again and took a deep breath.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“I feel better than I did about ten minutes ago,” he said in what was left of his voice. “It was good seeing them again, if you know what I mean.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Steele, regarding him kindly. “And I don’t want to rush you out of here.”

“I think that’s all for me right now. I’ll probably stick around town for a few days and visit some more.” He glanced over at his family’s plot, then turned back to Steele. “I saw the bouquet. Thank you for leaving flowers while I couldn’t. That means more to me than you know.”

“I think about our families a lot,” she said. “Can I give you a ride back to your hotel? I’d like to discuss something with you. Something I’ve been thinking about quite seriously since Friday night.”

“I might walk around for a little while,” he said. “This town holds a lot of memories for me. I’m afraid if I go back to the hotel, I’ll lock myself inside again.”

“I doubt that very much, but I understand. Do you mind if we talk on the way back to my car?”

“Sure,” he said, intrigued by her persistence.

“I’m not someone to mince words, so I’m going to lay this on the table and get your first impression. Just so you understand, I won’t take no for an answer today. I really need you to think about this.”

Now he was really intrigued.

“We got lucky with Harcourt,” said Steele.

“Lucky?”

“I’ve withdrawn the bill that I cosponsored with Gerald Frist,” said Steele. “Apparently, he was accidentally shot by one of Harcourt’s guards during the confused rescue that ensued after your escape. My guess is it wasn’t so accidental.”

“I should have brought the house down on him,” said Decker. “Please tell me he’s in custody.”

“Unfortunately, Harcourt’s nowhere to be found.”

“And you want me to find him.”

“Not yet,” said Steele. “My point is that Harcourt would have pulled off this Praetor agenda if you hadn’t intervened.”

“I don’t understand what you’re suggesting.”

“Aegis Global is just one of far too many criminal enterprises masquerading as legitimate businesses. Some don’t even pretend, like the Solntsevskaya Bratva and drug cartels. Getting lucky isn’t a legitimate strategy for dealing with known and emerging threats of this scale. I need someone willing to work with me to expose and ultimately stick a dagger through the heart of these threats.”

“Mr. Pierce and I won’t be able to solve the drug cartel problem in a week,” said Decker. “I don’t want to set your expectations too high.”

She laughed. “I have significant private financial resources that I’m not squeamish to spend, and a considerable network of contacts, government and private, domestic and international. And I have access to information that you could only dream of at World Recovery Group. The only thing I lack is an utterly reliable and effective group of associates to channel these resources against these threats to humanity.”

“I feel like you’re working up to a job offer.”

“More like a side business,” she said. “One that will never be directly connected to me in any way.”

“I don’t even have a primary business. And there’s still the somewhat showstopping issue of my prison status.”

“I’ll take care of that, either way.”