“So, this is all about the attack the government set up on your brother’s group in Iran?” Terk asked. “So why is it that you’re not pissed at the American government for it?”

  “Well, you can’t really fight governments, even if you want to,” Yousef explained, “and at the end of the day, you don’t have a whole lot of power. We could pull another terrorist attack and bring down some big monument. We could kill a few thousand more Americans,” Yousef replied, “but the way you guys populate, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. You’d be back up and running in no time. Old tricks, new faces,” he said, “but we have something much, much better happening right now.”

  “You mean this?” Terk asked once again, with that bored tone, as if this Yousef guy was wasting his time. “There are always better snipers in the world. You are not it, man. You are nothing. Nada, zilch, dude. Not a big deal.”

  “Sure,” Yousef agreed. “Snipers were my brother’s specialty and so much more, Terk. And the best part is, we’re getting paid for it.”

  “If you live to get paid. Remember that. So you still haven’t told me why, or who is paying you for it.”

  “Nope,” he said, “but I did leave you hints today, if you can survive me first. Not that you’ll necessarily figure it out. By the way, I’m planning on you not surviving.” More gunfire rang out, peppering everyone on the roof with a spray of bullets.

  But again it looked like it was just for show. It was temporary gunfire, and Terk’s team was struggling against an adversary intent on mocking them.

  Brody couldn’t see the second gunman, and there was no guarantee that he was even still around. Brody wanted to go to the other rooftop, but getting into the stairwell and getting out of here wasn’t really an option at this point either. Something else in a long list of things pissing him off.

  Just enough was going on here that he wanted to help Terk get as much information as he could.

  “Yeah, it’s the person who’s paying you that’s of interest to me,” Terk noted, “and considering you’re not expecting any of us to survive, why bother with a hint? Why not just tell us?”

  “Nope,” Yousef said. “That’s all you get.”

  “Fine, do your worst.”

  There was a startled moment of silence from the talkative sniper, then Yousef spat, “You think this is just fun and games? Do you think that I did all this for nothing, just to sit here and talk to you?”

  Brody shook his head. Yousef was batshit crazy but still building his anger, like just before a raging storm.

  “Do you think I have no second plan or no end game?”

  “I’m sure you think you do,” Terk said.

  “Do you really think that the people you’re protecting inside that building are safe?” And Yousef started to laugh.

  At that, Brody’s blood ran cold and then hot. He was thrust into agony, and he felt everything inside him freeze. After all they’d been through, he knew deep down and had expected that their attackers would attempt to get inside. But, with three of the team up on the roof, being held down by snipers, plus Rick and Cal standing guard at the ground-floor doors, Brody wondered how many men it would take to defend those inside the building. And at what point in time would it happen?

  He raised his weapon against the far wall and waited, feeling so much better that at least he was armed now. He heard the conversation still going on around him, with Terk’s patient attempts to try and get more information and the other guy’s unwillingness to part with it. All starting to grate on Brody’s nerves.

  “You know what I always wondered?” Yousef asked. “I always wondered what you found good about working for the government. You should know that they’ll betray you in a heartbeat for their own agenda.”

  “Is that what yours did?” Terk asked quietly.

  Brody knew that this was the burning question they’d all been wanting to know. Had the very government they had served done this to Terk’s team?

  Yousef laughed. “I just think it’s the nature of the beast,” he stated in almost a mocking tone of voice. “The minute you find anybody who knows too much, they can’t be left alive.”

  “Well, that is definitely your motto,” Terk noted. “How many of your own guys have you taken out already?”

  “As many as I can,” he declared. “Man, I’m serious. I don’t like to share paychecks.”

  “Got it,” Terk said, almost laughing. “Good to know. Remind me not to do business with you.”

  “Oh, hell no,” he snarled. “Not after you took out my brother.”

  “So we’re to completely forget the fact that he was trying to take all of us out first? Right?”

  “Obviously,” Yousef stated. “My brother was a special man. And you’re just an asshole for taking out that team.”

  “I didn’t think anybody survived that op, to tell you the truth.”

  “Well, they didn’t, at least not for long. Just long enough for Zaid to set plans into motion to make sure you paid for it,” Yousef repeated. “When he couldn’t even do that job himself, I stepped up to make sure revenge was meted out. I promised him that I would. You should know that I don’t take my promises lightly.”

  Brody could imagine. Some family members were incredibly loyal, and they would risk life and limb to follow through on something that somebody else had started.

  “Too bad he was on the wrong side of this,” Terk replied. “We aren’t looking for weapons to hurt the world.”

  “Sure, but then when you find them, and you don’t like them, you take them out.”

  “We aren’t you, Yousef.”

  “You’re just as bad as anybody else. And all your holier than thou BS? None of us needs that,” Yousef yelled. “Nobody needs it. And the sooner you guys understand it, the better.”

  “I understand it somewhat,” Terk noted. “But, when you’re done with us, then what will you do? Do you expect to be at peace?”

  “I’ll be at peace,” Yousef stated instantly, his voice calm and almost centered, as if he was looking forward to that. “Believe me. There will be an end to all this.”

  “I hope so, for your sake,” Terk replied calmly. “The last thing we want to do is to take out anybody else. I am not particularly keen on wiping out an entire family.”

  “Zaid took his wife and his sons with him already,” Yousef stated menacingly. “He felt it was better to take them along, than to leave them here to face whatever nightmare you would rain down on them.”

  That truth was too much. Brody’s heart slammed against his chest, and he knew the rest of them would be shocked as well.

  “When you say, Zaid took them, what do you mean?” Terk asked.

  “He took them to Allah with him. He didn’t want to leave them alone. He knew they would suffer here without him.”

  “He killed his own family?” Terk asked.

  Brody heard the damage to Terk’s spirit in his voice.

  “We don’t look at it the same way,” Yousef explained, in defense of his brother’s actions.

  “What about you? Why didn’t he take you with him too?”

  At that, the other man laughed. “Because I had to finish his work.”

  “When you finish his work, is it over then?” Terk asked. “Or do you feel like you have to continue in your brother’s footsteps too.”

  “I don’t have the same abilities as he did, unfortunately. So that’s not an option for me.”

  For that, Brody was grateful. There were only so many of these guys out there that they wanted to deal with. They had been working through them one at a time, and he had thought they were all gone, but obviously they had one left, one last man left behind.

  The last man standing.

  They were wrong that the op took out everybody. No one could have predicted this, and it was shocking to even imagine that anybody could survive that op in Iran. They had barely survived it themselves, but that wasn’t something that was very well publicized. And it backfired on them in a big way.

  The government backlash had been brutal. Not that the government had been worried about Terk’s team’s survival but only about their team’s success.

  It had been a sobering realization.

  What Yousef had said about working for the government was definitely something that they had all wondered. They were the guardian angels, until something goes wrong. Then they became the fall guys.

  Before the Iran operation, they had full government support, and, once they failed in some way to meet expectations, it really didn’t matter that they had worked hard for them all this time.

  Too damn hard. Now it was all down the drain.

  No one could control this.

  “Yousef, I’m sorry it fell to you,” Terk noted. “It must be hard being left behind, all alone like this. It must be hard, not being good enough for Zaid to take you with him.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” he yelled, his voice rough and angry. “You’re just trying to turn them against me.”

  “Not at all,” Terk said. “Obviously the loss of your family has affected you. That Zaid took his own family with him is a little on the unbelievable side from my point of view.”

  “She wanted to go,” Yousef stated casually. “She didn’t want to be left behind. And the children couldn’t be left alone without their parents.”

  “Is it because she knew there would be a government investigation and they would end up in jail?”

  “It’s possible,” Yousef admitted. “My brother always operated just ever-so-slightly under the radar. He did what was allowed. He’d had government support for a time, and, when that was pulled, he continued his noble cause on his own.”

  “I hope it was worth it,” Terk said.

  “It was worth it,” Yousef cried out passionately. “My brother was a genius.”

  “Sure, but, at the end of the day, nobody survived, so how much of a genius was he?” Terk asked, lowering his voice. “You can kill everyone in your world, but, when you take out your own wife and your own children, it’s the end of the line.”

  “But it was the end of the line that he wanted,” Yousef declared, his voice getting ever-so-slightly faint. Then in a much stronger voice, as if having stopped himself from going down that mental pathway, he added, “Besides, it won’t matter, as long as I have justified his work and have taken revenge on those who killed them, my work is done too.”

  “Will you then go join him?”

  “No,” Yousef replied. “No need for me to do that.”

  Terk didn’t respond for a long moment. Brody had to wonder if it was a case of trying to figure out the psychological aspect or because he was trying to figure out the end game here. When he spoke again, Terk asked, “So, if you kill us now, what about the woman in Texas?”

  “Oh, she’s marked for death,” he said.

  “How so? Why would that be an issue?” he asked, trying again for that curious tone of voice.

  “Because my brother thought that she should live, so she could be taken out later. He asked me to let her live and then to kill her and your child, one by one.” Yousef laughed again. “I was setting things up for down the road. Zaid had a great sense of humor. He knew that there was a chance she could survive this, and he didn’t want that to happen. Not for long.”

  “Of course not,” Terk noted, “but that’s very long-term thinking.”

  “Well, that was my brother,” Yousef noted. “Long-term thinking is what he did best. He had your number a long time ago. The fact that you didn’t even know about him and about what he could do just made him smile all the more.”

  “Maybe,” Terk agreed, “but you haven’t really said what your brother was doing either.”

  “He was creating a weapon that would nullify what you guys could do and, at the same time, could take you guys out. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  “Well, it was a worthy effort when used against us,” Terk admitted, “or at least a good try. But, like a lot of your brother’s inventions, his plan is still half-realized. We are all alive, and those inventions only do half the work.”

  At that, Yousef gave a shout of anger. “No! That’s not true. If there was any failing, it was in me applying the weapon.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Terk asked.

  “Zaid did the right thing.” A fury washed over Yousef’s energy. “You will not be allowed to besmirch my brother’s memory.”

  And that was an interesting take too because this Yousef guy was fully prepared to take the blame for any failure.

  “Well, it couldn’t have been all that hard to set up,” Terk noted. “Weapons need to be simple for anybody to use, so maybe Zaid thought he would be around to use it. Even when he knew he was dying, he must have hoped he would live to that point.”

  “I made a promise to Zaid that I would take care of it. I would take care of what he couldn’t do, and I will,” Yousef stated passionately. “You will not be allowed to walk away from this.”

  “So you plan to kill me now, on this rooftop. Then what difference does it make,” Terk asked, “if this woman lives on, that you tell me is carrying my child?”

  “Because Zaid wanted to make sure that there would be nothing left. There will be no one left to remember you. So it’s not just your woman and child but also your brother.”

  On that note, another round of gunfire filled the air. Finding the opening, Brody lunged for the stairs and got his foot inside the arch just in time to dodge the bullet slamming into the wall behind him—spraying him with cement and splinters, yet he got down safely.

  He sent Terk a message, telling him that he was crossing to the other building. And then he raced down the stairs, took stock of what was going on and what it would take to cross over and to enter the building from below.

  This will be hell.

  Chapter 13

  Clary didn’t know what just happened, but something did.

  Brody was on the run, causing his energy to flare. She didn’t know if he was in trouble or not, and that was something she struggled to sort out. She didn’t want to do anything to knock them down, but, at the same time, she also couldn’t take a chance of Brody going down because he was taking too many chances.

  But she couldn’t see whether they were under attack or if this was something completely different. Being blind was hurting her in a big way. She sent a message to her sister asking about it.

  No idea.

  Her sister’s mental note was clear. They didn’t have any answers. And just when Clary thought to pull back and to take another look at what Brody was doing, she heard a sound that made her blood run cold. Someone is inside.

  She immediately stepped in Mariana’s bedroom, shut the door, and locked it.

  She heard footsteps outside the door. Not just footsteps but heavy footsteps. She gave a passing glance to the thought that maybe it was the team coming back in but ditched that thought almost immediately. No time to be optimistic. Something was menacing about those footfalls; the frenzy was real. And a feeling welled up that she knew all too well by now.

  She knew that somebody had found a way inside the building, while everybody else was busy on the roof. Within the chaos, somebody had managed to find a weak spot, and they were in.

  Now more than ever, Clary needed every ounce of her energy to help deal with what was about to come. She sent out an immediate warning to her sister and anybody else in the vicinity, including Terk, hoping that, at least for the moment, Brody could look after himself.

  Need the energy, the camouflage, to get across that street.

  Brody was there, and she knew it, and, if she pulled her energy too early, he wouldn’t make it. She sent him one vast dump of energy, warned him what they were up against inside the warehouse, and then shut down.

  She pulled on the reserve of energy around her and then brought in all her feelers in preparation for whatever might come through that door. She sat and waited in anticipation.

  She felt a heartbeat, strong and close. She wasn’t sure whose it was. The feelers were doing something different for her, and she wasn’t sure of her own exploits yet. It was the most bizarre sensation she’d felt in a very long time.

  She sent out a call to her sister, asking if she could feel it. But it came back negative. It wasn’t Brody, and she knew that, but beyond that she didn’t think it was any friendlies.

  Both Mariana and Little Calum had no idea what was coming. Clary closed her eyes, pulling on as much of the energy as she safely could, and put up the type of camouflage that Brody used. She knew instantly that it worked when the light shimmered and flashed for her.

  She needed to keep them separate and away from the intruders. She didn’t know how many men had entered the building, but even one was too much. She immediately sent a probe outside the bedroom door, looking to see who was there.

  She needed answers.

  Who is out there? How many? What are they after?

  She could only hope that she would find answers and soon enough to do some good. Because to have it go south right now would have dangerous consequences for everyone. She had no standard weapon; she had nothing except herself. That had been enough, up until now.

  She didn’t want to doubt herself now, but not knowing what was coming was enough to set her teeth on edge. Inside the room, the two slumbered gently. When she heard the footsteps stop outside their door, she went rigid, knowing her worst fears were at the door. Almost immediately the handle rattled, when someone tried to open the door.

  She’d locked it behind her. She put up as much of a screen as she could, hoping to protect anybody from seeing what was inside. As she did, she caught a glimpse of some recognizable energy. She was wondering if it was possible to take that energy to protect herself and the others in this room with her.

  The moment she came in contact with the energy, she realized that the protective energy was a mix of her sister’s and maybe Terk’s.

  They’d both sent probes into the room. She smiled at that because, if there was ever that sense of belonging and caring and loving, it was right now in that moment. When she needed all the help she could get, they were there with her.