Gabe (In the Company of Snipers, #8)(94)

Whew. Big sigh of relief. I mean BIG sigh of relief.

“Oh. Okay,” Shelby mumbled, miffed at herself for missing this little detail, too. She should’ve taken a good hard look at her roomies at the beginning of this affair.

Gabe leaned his elbows to his knees. “So whatcha got?” he asked Ember.

She must’ve gotten another call. She stilled again and lifted her hand with one finger extended for silence. Her brows raised. “Thanks. I’ll tell him. Yes, he’s here. You’re a peach. I owe you. Big time. Let me know about the rest.”

Swiveling to face Gabe, her eyes glowed. “Mark called. He and David are at the hospital. The two guys who bombed your car this morning, Shelby, are sick with radiation poisoning. The second call was Malcolm, my guy over at the forensics lab. And guess what? Cow’s blood. That’s what you had on your hands that day, that and something else Malcolm can’t identify yet. He thinks it might be some kind of a designer drug.”

“What the hell is Alex up to? Or Becker?” Gabe hissed, and Shelby honestly felt like a ping-pong ball, contributing nothing but trying her darnedest to keep up with Gabe and Ember’s elusive back-and-forths. “He shot Alex with pellets of cow’s blood? The other substance had to be some kind of a knockout drug then. You were there, Ember. Alex went down like he was—”

Ember winced. “Dead. I know. I was there, but wow. Who knew the FBI would do something like this to a civilian contractor, huh? You think they needed him out of their way?”

“Hard to know, but it’s no wonder the boss hated working with them. Do you think maybe he knew Becker was going to shoot him?”

Ember shook her head adamantly. “No way. Not Alex. It would mean that he hid all of this from Kelsey. No.” Ember clicked the mouse at her fingertips through screen after screen of information, some of which Shelby understood. Some, not so much.

“Although we do think he is involved with Chaos Now,” Ember murmured.

“Who? Alex?” Gabe asked. He seemed to have no trouble following the screens Ember scrolled through.

“Yes. Somehow, he’d gotten himself involved with Chaos Now, just like Becker. I’m just not sure they’re on the same side.”

“Hell. We’ve got more players in this mess than we know what to do with,” Gabe muttered. He leaned forward, his chin on his clenched fists, silently following Ember’s breakdown of all he’d missed while Shelby watched and listened. Ember wove into the conversation bullets that didn’t really kill, something called a gang of ten, inconsistencies in the Medical Examiner’s conclusions on Alex Stewart’s COD, and more intrigue and drama than Shelby had ever seen or heard before. Nightshift at the emergency room seemed tame in comparison.

Little by little, anxiety crept up her throat. Chaos Now? FBI trickery? Revolution? Who were these people who called themselves The TEAM, anyway?




Thank God, Alex learned how to work well with the police. It was a relationship built on trust, and Mark found himself the lucky recipient of his boss’s good rapport with the current local police chief. Unfortunately, the interrogation with Bukowski and Stevenson had to take place in the hospital, since both men were critically ill.

Police Chief Darrin McDonald escorted Mark and David to the gentlemen’s joint hospital room. “I’m sure sorry to hear about Mr. Stewart’s passing away like he did. What a shame.”

“Thank you,” Mark replied.

“He was a good friend. We’ll miss him. I worked with him on the White Hawk case. Damned shame he’s gone.”

Mark searched McDonald’s eyes for any hint of insincerity. He hesitated revealing what he knew about the Chaos Now group, or his suspicions concerning FBI sniper Sam Becker’s involvement in Alex’s murder. It had become damned hard deciding whom to trust.

Chief McDonald filled the awkward silence, his hand on the door. “I’ll be interested to see if these guys talk to you, Agent Houston. The hospital is overcrowded or we’d have them in separate locations, but given their condition, it probably doesn’t matter. They’re pretty sick. We’re not getting much out of them. About the only thing we’ve heard is Stevenson telling Bukowski to shut up.”

“We’ll give it a try. Will you join us, sir?”

“Yes. Is that a problem?”


“Not at all. I’d rather you witnessed everything.”

A pitiful sight met Mark’s gaze when the police officers standing guard opened the hospital room door.

Stevenson was the typical jarhead, muscle bound and thick-necked. His hair was shaved high and tight. Big chin. Square jaw.

Bukowski, on the other hand, was Stevenson’s complete opposite. Extremely overweight, he sported a shaggy salt-and-pepper beard, with a spit-polish shine on the top of his bald head. Their only commonalities seemed to be their extremely swollen hands, gaunt faces, and deathly pallor.

“You guys feel like talking?” Mark asked quietly as he stepped to Stevenson’s bedside.

Neither man replied, but their doctor did. The elderly, white-haired physician arrived seconds after Mark and David. “I am Dr. Amin Jitar. What are you doing here? These gentlemen are in no condition for visitors. I’m sorry, but I insist you leave immediately.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Chief McDonald replied crisply. “We need answers, and whether they know it or not, these guys need our help.”