Betrayal of the Dove

Chapter Twelve



Shane knew from the moment he walked into the room and saw the rest of his former team members sitting at the table that retired or not, they were all back in the game for at least one last hunt. Some had never left in the first place. This wasn’t just about saving their own butts, this was about making a man pay for killing two good men. They wouldn’t let that slide. They would either take this guy in alive, let him stand trial and go to prison, or they’d take him in dead. It didn’t matter at this point because he knew, they all knew, that the next body in that box wasn’t going to be their body, and if they had to kill the bastard to see to that, then they would.

“Guys,” he pulled out a chair and sat down.

“Hey, Shane. Good to see you, man;” Jimmy’s somber voice told Shane these were not the conditions he wanted to see him under. Jimmy had been out on a covert mission when Shane turned in his papers, so he hadn’t been there before he left. They had all agreed to get together when they were all landlocked on the same continent, but this wasn’t exactly what they had in mind when they made the agreement.

Shane nodded. “What do we know so far?”

“Not sure yet,” Jimmy pushed a file folder in front of Shane. “The C.O. was waiting on you to get here before he started. He got a call before you came in, but he left these files on everybody who has ever applied for transfer into one of the Dove Team units.”

Shane looked at the file folder that was nearly bursting at the seams. “And we couldn’t narrow this down a bit more beforehand?”

“Guess not,” Jimmy pointed to all the other folders. “I’d just like to add that your file folder has completely different names than mine and the others. We’re all looking at different people here.”

“That’s a lot of people to look at.” Out of the five men who had showed up, they all had the same dark green folders.

“These are just the ones who were denied. The captain didn’t think we needed to look at the people who were approved.”

Shane nodded. “Wouldn’t make sense that it would be one of us,” he said. “But clearly Rick knew, or at least recognized the man who killed him. Maybe he interviewed him through one of his testing phases.”

“That’s why the commander gave you those,” he pointed to the extra file folder.

“I get two? Lucky me,” he said dryly. The benefit was that the second folder in front of him was thin, which meant it had less paper which in his book equated to far fewer names to look at. Maybe he should start with that list first.

“It’s a list of the ones he interviewed under your supervision, and the ones you both tag teamed. After what happened to your lady, the captain thought it would be best if you took the shorter list first—just in case.”

“Just in case it’s related to us,” he finished the sentence Jimmy didn’t feel the need to finish.

“What affects one of us hits us all, you know that.”

“I know,” he said. He wasn’t taking this on his shoulders alone. He was well aware that they were all in danger, but the more he thought about it, the more he thought maybe this was about him. He had given it some thought while he was in route to Colorado Springs and every thought led him back to the fact that David and Rick had been killed, and whoever it was now seemed to be targeting him—no, he had targeted an innocent civilian and in Shane’s book that meant the man was probably some weak, unethical bastard that got denied because he couldn’t live up to the code. Every branch of the military had a code, but the Dove Team had stricter guidelines, and those guidelines and rules were not optional.

This wasn’t just some elite country club. They were working on security breaches closer to home; on things that would impact the citizens in their backyard and in a situation like that there was no margin for error. If any one of them went off half cocked it could get more than just the team killed. It could get the kids on their way to school, their parents, their entire community, killed. It wasn’t a game, and though they sometimes had to find fun activities to take the edge off, they all had to stay alert, vigilant and realize the seriousness of every mission. Maybe that’s why the applicants were so many, yet the members were so few in comparison—not everybody was cut out to be a member of the Dove. Clearly somebody on one of these lists couldn’t handle that fact.

Shane sat through the briefing, feeling as if he had never left his team, as if he had never retired. Once again they were reunited for a common goal, justice and survival. It was good to be back, but where he wanted to be, where his mind had already traveled to, was back home. He was worried about Alyssa. Not only had he brought trouble into her life, there was still a maniac terrorizing the shops on the Row. The cops had released Dumas which meant they were back to square one on finding, and stopping, whoever this man was. Shane wanted to keep her safe. He knew she could hold her own if equally matched, but whoever was after him wasn’t likely to be her equal match on the battlefield and he couldn’t stomach the thought of what could happen to her; what would happen to her if he didn’t find out who this guy was and stop him.

“Gary,” Alyssa smiled. “What are you doing down here? You never leave the studio.”

He laughed. His big brown eyes wide and bright. “I heard about what happened.” He paused as Leo stepped out of the security room. Alyssa had told him he could go enjoy the shops or even the park if he wanted to. She would be fine, or at least she thought so, since the stores were open and nobody would try anything during the day. Leo didn’t think so obviously because he refused to go anywhere.

“Gary this is Leo; Leo this is Gary. He runs the art studio and gallery down the street.” Leo nodded, but he failed to retreat back into the security room. She resisted the smile that threatened to grace her lips. As much as she wanted to think the men currently in her life were far too overprotective, she had to admit she felt safer with them around. If anything did happen, and she wasn’t able to handle it—like the other day, then at least she would have backup. Or maybe it was more like she could be their backup if they needed it because she was sure neither Shane nor Leo would let her go in fighting first.

“I wanted to come down and make sure you were okay,” he said. “Did you fire the other guy?”

“How do you know about the other guy?”

“Craig’s been up and down our block telling everybody. He said he was short.”

She laughed. Compared to Leo she guessed he was short. “Not short really, but yeah, this isn’t him. I didn’t fire him; he is just away on business. He’ll be back soon.”

Gary nodded. “You’ll still come down to the opening next Friday night?”

“Yes,” she nodded. Leo cleared his throat as if he was trying to tell her not to promise anything, but she had already done that weeks ago. Gary’s art students were displaying their work and he was going all out with the opening. He promised wine, finger foods, music and of course, great art. She wasn’t going to miss that. She loved art too much to miss the opportunity. “I promised Gary a couple weeks ago that I would go to the opening,” she told Leo because she wanted him to understand that she wasn’t going back on her promise.

“You can bring your friends; both of them if you want,” he said. “I really want the students to have a good showing.”

She nodded. “Okay. I think I might be able to talk at least one of them into coming.” She was almost sure of it actually because neither one of them were going to let her go anywhere without at least one of them accompanying her.

After Gary left, her day went back to normal—mostly normal. A few other shop owners stopped in, more afraid and needing information than anything else. She didn’t have any information to give them. As far as she knew, the guy robbing them blind was still at large, and the guy after her guy was still on the hunt. She also knew that she hadn’t heard from Shane and she was starting to get worried. That was just crazy because the man was trained for war, and since he hadn’t been gone long she really shouldn’t be stressing his whereabouts; but she was. She was worried and she couldn’t deny that.

By eight she was closing up shop. Her register took a little longer to balance, thanks to her own counting error, but at least she was thankful to find out she hadn’t undercharged a nine hundred dollar piece of jewelry. “I’m almost ready,” she told Leo; he was patiently waiting at her counter. “I just have to run upstairs and get something.” She was sure he wasn’t thrilled about having to squeeze into her little car to get back to Shane’s place, but Shane had needed the truck for his trip so they were down to just her car. Leo really was too big for the space, but at least he fit—although probably not super comfortably.

She turned off the store lights, ran upstairs to grab the pieces she had been working on earlier in the week. She wasn’t sleepy so she was sure she was going to want to do some work once they got back to Shane’s place. They were almost completely out the back door when somebody hit Leo over the head and pushed her inside before locking the door behind them. She took one fist to her face that split her lip and that was all. She fought like her brother’s had taught her. Her last move took her assailant down to the floor and she dug her stiletto boot heel into his spine. “Stay down or I will be forced to keep you down permanently!” She kept one of his arms twisted and elevated in a way that would dislocate his shoulder if he tried to move.

“Alyssa!” She heard the pounding on the door. She reached over, keeping her balance and twisting the lock. The second she flipped the bolt he rushed in.

“I’m fine,” she said as he surveyed the damage.

“Shane is not going to be happy about your lip,” he mumbled.

“Hey! I kicked butt,” she said nearly irate with the fact that the only thing he noticed was her lip—a lip that was throbbing with pain right now. “You should call the cops.”

“He pulled out his cell and punched in the emergency number, gave location and situation details like a law enforcement officer would, and then he disconnected the call.

“Let’s see who this bastard is, shall we?” He yanked the ski mask off her attacker while she kept him neutralized.

“Petrof? You’re the one doing all of this.”

He laughed the best he could from his position. “I had fun,” he said. “That night I got Shatrel I was going to come do you instead, but she was easier access, and her products are worth a hell of a lot more than yours.” He uttered his words flippantly and detached from any emotion other than joy and satisfaction.

“You have a successful bistro. Why would you do this?”

“You all are funding my lifestyle,” he said as if that should make everything okay.

“Yeah, and now unfortunately we get to fund your lifestyle in prison too.” She voiced her discontent with the situation. She would have never suspected it was one of the other Row owners. She always thought the threat was outside when clearly it came from within. “How’s your head, Leo?”

“It’s had harder hits,” he grumbled. “But the bastard better pray he doesn’t make one move or I’m going to save the tax payers some money.”

His tone was so lethal and serious that she didn’t doubt that he would do as promised. Lucky Leo, a.k.a. Percileo Dugan-Mishoto, was clearly a lot like his highly lethal sister, Valencia. She wouldn’t want to be on enemy grounds with that family.

“I thought you were alone at first,” Petrof continued speaking; maybe he was trying to explain his actions—or his failure to accomplish his goal. “When I walked to the back of your lot this morning and only saw your car, I thought you had fired the other guy and you were alone. But then Gary came into my bistro to verify catering for his stupid art show and he mentioned that you had some big guy in your store looking out for you. That ruined my afternoon visit,” he laughed and she felt her anger rising. He didn’t even care that what he had done was wrong. He didn’t even care about the pain he had caused to Shatrel.

“Thought my store didn’t have anything worth anything to you,” she heard the bitterness in her tone. She really was starting to hate this guy. He seemed so innocent when she met him; so guy from the high country in Sedona turned guy from the valley who wanted to make a place for himself in the elite areas of Scottsdale. He was nice, always respectful, and usually too busy to make a lot of social calls, but everybody loved him. She could honestly say now that judging the proverbial book by its cover was a phenomenally dumb idea. The guy was a monster.

“Your stuff is getting up there in popularity—might be worth something some day. But I was more interested in you than your products. I’ve liked you since you moved in here. Shatrel was practice, a distraction if you will because I’ve read they profile based on stereotypes. I figured if I did Shatrel first, then came back after you they’d start looking for more than just a robber. Let’s face it,” he laughed. “Everybody knows I’m gay—or at least they think they know that. A man puts on nice clothes and actually cares about how he looks and people assume things they shouldn’t. But hey, it worked to my advantage. None of you idiots even suspected me. And she was just so stupid, staying open an hour later even with the robberies going on when none of the other shops were open. She should have closed up and went home when everybody else did.” he laughed until she applied more pressure of her heel on his spine, then he started squealing like a baby.

“You can stop talking now,” she said because she was sick of hearing his voice, his excuses, his unfeeling and highly calculated insults. That was the problem with a lot of people in this world; they never took responsibility, it was always somebody else’s fault.

It didn’t take long for the cops to arrive, although it felt like an eternity, it really wasn’t. And once they did, they arrested Petrof and read him his rights the entire time he just laughed. She couldn’t even fathom the kind of crazy it took for somebody to do what he did and laugh about it. She didn’t even want to think about what tactics his lawyers might use to get him off with a light sentence—or no sentence at all.

“I knew you’d come back eventually,” Nevin pointed his nine mil at Shane’s back. “Turn around slow,” he said. Shane turned slowly to access his options. He could either go for his weapon and get shot in the back or he could go for hand to hand, provided the option presented itself to him. His primary concern was Alyssa. She and Leo should have been inside his home and if Leo wasn’t coming out ready to fight a battle then something had already gone wrong.

“Should have known it was you,” Shane looked at the short, lanky man in front of him. “You always were a shady bastard.”

He laughed. “Yeah, well, you all didn’t think I was good enough and look what I’ve done. I took out two Dove Team members, and you’re next. Or maybe I’ll kill your lady first and let you watch.”

“Where is she!?”

“Up there,” he nodded his head in the direction of the mountains. “And if the rattlers and cougars haven’t got at her yet I plan to. You see, you and your team hurt me, and now I’m going to hurt all of you. You should have approved my application.”

Shane felt the rage threatening to eat him from the inside out. Even if he could get the upper hand he couldn’t kill the bastard because he was the only one who knew where Alyssa was. He needed him to take him to her. “You killed Leo?”

“Wasn’t that hard with one well-placed shot.” He grinned. “I told you all I was good.”

“It was never a question of your skills, Nevin. The question was whether or not you had brains to accompany that brawn. Clearly you don’t. You kill a member of the Japanese mafia and you think you’re going to continue to breathe? Smooth,” he said. “I see why Rick denied you entry.” Rick had been so sure Nevin was wrong for the team. He remembered because Nevin was great, initially anyway, on paper. He had decorations, served significant time in the Army and was one of the best cryptologist enlisted, but it was what sat behind the initial read through that pushed him out of the running. There were a few things in his file, the deeper they looked, the more they found. And then when he interviewed with Rick there was clearly something that made Rick decide he wasn’t worth the risk. When Nevin had come to Shane, asking that he override Rick, because as everybody knew, he could override the decision given his rank and his position on the team, Shane said no. He trusted Rick’s instincts, and he also trusted his own. Two minutes with Nevin and he knew something wasn’t right about the guy. He didn’t care how many forms of martial arts he was skilled in, how many languages he spoke, or how great he had been in the field, the man simply wasn’t Dove Team caliber. He would probably sell his own mother to the Devil if it came down to him or her, and that’s not the kind of man they wanted on their team.

“You abandoned a man in the field.”

“He was dying,” he snapped as if that should have justified it.

“Dying, but not dead. You don’t leave a man behind.”

“Yeah well they didn’t kick me out of the Army for it.”

“That was their mistake,” he said. “We weren’t required to follow suit.” There was no way the man should have been allowed in service. He was a complete disappointment to the uniform, to the code, and they should have booted him out from the start. His stay probably had more to do with his father, a New York senator. He didn’t care why the Army left the man in; he only cared about one thing. “Tell me where she is and I might let you live.”

Nevin laughed as hard as he could while keeping his weapon trained on Shane. “Turn around and walk, but don’t do anything stupid because if you do, she will die up there.”

Shane couldn’t risk it. When Nevin got him to wherever he was holding Alyssa then he could kill the bastard, but right now he needed to play it safe. He needed to find her—preferably alive.

Alyssa and Leo pulled up outside Shane’s place. The cops and all the reports had kept them at her store longer than she would have liked, but she understood the need. “I didn’t know he was getting back today?” She looked at his truck, with the door wide open, but there were no lights on in the house. Her heart nearly skipped a beat. “Leo?”

“I see it,” he mumbled. He, like she, saw the papers from the file folder on the ground, the truck door still open and no Shane in sight. Something was wrong, very wrong. She hopped out the car the moment she put it in park and she ran over to his truck. Leo bent down and looked at the ground that her car’s headlights were still illuminating. “At least one man,” he said as he inched forward carefully and looked at the ground behind Shane’s truck. “They went that way.” He pointed ahead of them.

“How do you know that?”

“The ground is hard, but there’s dry dirt here and no wind. Footprints are still visible. I’m going after him.” He pulled his weapon from his boot. Shane had given him one of his guns for his protection detail for keeping her safe. Leo had brought a few knives with him, but he hadn’t brought his gun because he was flying commercially and as he had said, he didn’t want the hassle of getting it onboard.

Alyssa reached into the truck and checked underneath the passenger seat where Shane kept a spare weapon. She knew about it because she had dropped her bracelet when she was taking it off in his truck and she saw it there. “I’m going with you.”

“No. Get in that house and stay,” he said.

“Look, I know how to shoot like a Marine because a Marine taught me, so I won’t be a liability to you, or somebody you have to watch out for. That’s my man out there,” she said. “And I’m going whether you want me to or not.”

“All right, Wonder Woman; when you shoot you shoot to kill or you don’t shoot at all. Got it?”

“Got it,” she nodded. “By the way, don’t ever call me Wonder Woman again.”

“Whatever you say, Wonder Woman.”

“Seriously? Can you be serious for two seconds?”

He snickered. “Flashlight?”

“Glove compartment of my car.” She felt her heart racing with fear. She was afraid that they might not get to him in time. “There’s no way he would just let him take him,” she heard her own voice trembling.

“Unless he thinks he has you.”

“My car wasn’t even here.”

“He had you parking in the garage, remember.” Leo was right. Shane had insisted she take the slot in the garage even though he always pulled his truck in there. It was big enough for two cars, but he had a workstation against one wall so only one car would fit. She told him not to ruin his perfect paint job by leaving his car out there in the sun. Her paint job had long ago lost some of its luster. While her parking areas in back of her store were mostly shaded in the day by tree cover, she hadn’t parked around back. He wouldn’t hear her reasoning and he had insisted she pull her car in the garage, so she did. He must have thought that’s where it was when he pulled up. She wasn’t even home yet; well, his home anyway, because they had been stuck giving statements and waiting for the cops to say they were free to go.

As they walked through the desert she thought of all the things she wanted to say to Shane; all the moments she wanted to share with him. The only thought in her mind was that she needed to find him alive. “God, please let him be okay?” She whispered, yet Leo still heard her. The man had dolphin hearing because there was no way he should have heard her whispered plea.

“He’ll be okay,” he said. “And if he’s not I’m going to kill the bastard myself.”