. .oOo.

Chapter 14

Washington DC. Now.

Her shift was scheduled to start in just an hour. Sarah Blanton stared at herself in the mirror, she had a choice to make. Glancing down at her uniform, she absently smoothed out a nonexistent wrinkle on her skirt. For the first time, the idea of showing up at the White House tonight actually scared her to death.

Her heart started to pound. How she wished that she could talk to Vasya. He would know exactly what to tell her about the group that had approached her today. His warning was still echoing in her brain, he had told her to get out of this business. Get as far away as she could. Somehow, at the time, she just couldn't understand why he was saying those things.

All they wanted was what he himself had wanted from her. Secrets, overheard information. Sarah tried to shrug off the apprehension that she felt, wasn't that exactly what she had been doing for a year now? For him? But she knew that this was nothing like what she had done for Vasya.

She met her eyes in the mirror and shook her head. She knew the answer, Vasya had told her to run. He knew it would happen, and he'd told her to get out before anyone could get to her. Why didn't she listen? Why didn't he let her go with him?

When he told her goodbye yesterday, her heart had broken. After all this time did he really not know how she felt? They had shared a drink, nearly frozen vodka, his favorite. Sarah wasn't actually a drinker, but had she shared this precious time with him, if only in an effort to prolong their final moments together. She had taken his hand in hers, tempted to hold on to him and never let him go. He had kissed her lips, so lightly it had almost been a whisper as he pulled away. Then he was gone.

Tears started now, a steady stream of pain and sorrow. First thing this morning she had sent him a text. "Meet me," it had said, but he had never answered. All morning she had held that stupid phone in her hands, wishing for the text that would tell her where he would be. It never came.

But she had had some visitors. Dark men with middle eastern accents knocked on her door, but they did not wait for her to answer it. They were inside of her home, telling her that she was to work with them. Of course she would be compensated, they told her, as if that was all that mattered.

What did she care of that now? Vasya had paid her well too, but she had not been working for the money. Again she wondered why he had never figured out that she had only been doing any of this because of him. So that she could be with him.

Once they had said what they had come to say, they had left her, alone and terrified. There was no option, she did what they said, or this would be the last night that she would be alive. Their message had been perfectly clear, no matter how heavy the accents had been. She lifted a trembling hand to her lips, trying to settle her nerves. She hated being so alone. Sure she had friends, her family that she could have called. But what could she have told them? they did not know the true nature of her job. No, the only person that she wanted to be with right now was Vasya.

As if thinking of him brought his name to her ears, Sarah could swear she heard someone saying Vasya. It was too unique of a name to just ignore and she ran into the other room where she had left the television set on.

His picture was on the screen, the words below it said that Vasya Kostenka was missing. Foul play was suspected because of the mess that had been found at his apartment. Vasya was dead, at least that is what they were speculating after finding his blood on the scene.

Suddenly her legs gave out on her and Sarah crumpled down onto the floor. How could she believe these reports, he was gone, yes, but he couldn't be dead. Could he? Her broken heart shattered into a million pieces. He was gone, dead, and only last night she had wanted so much to run away with him. Why hadn't she said anything? Why didn't she tell him how she felt? She had waited and now it was forever too late.

Slowly, Sarah forced herself to get up. She would be going into work tonight. Not sure what was going to happen, but she did know one thing. No matter what, this would be the last time she ever set foot in the white house. Without Vasya, there was nothing left for her here. There was nothing left for her anywhere. Suddenly the thought occurred to her, they would be doing her a favor if they followed through with their threats. She had no reason to live, not without the only man she had ever loved.

. .oOo.

Footsteps rushed past in the hallway outside the door. Still in Ranger's office, Stephanie was aware of the sounds around her. She knew what was going on, Ranger and Tank were bringing the whole team here. Ella was busy ordering the guys around as they figured out a way to accommodate all of them.

Stephanie could hear Ella's voice as she stocked the break room down the hall. All of it registered somewhere deep inside her brain, but her focus was on the screen in front of her. It was taking her complete concentration to dig through the files that she had found on this Nick Ellis person. Unlike Ben Davron, Nick was not well liked by anyone who had anything to say about him. This time, she was glad it was not another good friend that she was finding the dirt on.

Cal and Lester had left long ago, taking Aban with them. Hopefully he was getting some rest, she thought. When Ranger got home, he was going to want to talk to him. If rest was to be had, the time was now. Not that she needed any herself, not at all. In fact she had no intention of taking even a second away from her search on Nick Ellis.

From the looks of their faces, and the comments that she had passed on to Ranger, Cal and Lester both knew that this guy could mean trouble. So Stephanie was determined to trace him and find his secrets before he could hurt anyone. She just didn't know how long she had before he could show up, there was no way that he did not know where to find Ranger. She could see that with his job, he had had access to personal information about every member of Ranger's team. What he would do with it, she didn't know. Until she knew more about him, she could only guess and she didn't like the scenes that came into her head.

As she was prone to do, she started at the beginning, opening up records from as early in his life as she could find. At first she could not understand how he had become such a threat. The history that she was reading had shown him as a bright kid, always at the top of his class, right into high school. A few disciplinary notes were included before he graduated, but they were the kind of boys will be boys types of things.

On to his military records. Ellis had followed his father's footsteps by enlisting. He appeared to work hard, studying for several specialties along the way including both ammunition and weapons for his MOS. He needed those military operational specialties to even be considered for rangers school and that was his goal. To be truthful, Stephanie was pretty impressed with his record so far.

Things changed when he entered the training he had worked so hard for. Ranger school was only halfway over when he started getting into trouble. Anger management things, it looked like. A couple of warnings were included in his records, and then suddenly, they let him go.

Now it was getting harder to follow his trail. Once Ellis left the training, he branched out, became involved in what Stephanie could only assume were some of those secret, we don't exist kinds of agencies. Their records were not readily available, and even with her super fancy search programs,she was not getting a very complete picture. Not until there was an overlap between the activities of two of these agencies.

With great interest, Stephanie read the notes from Ranger's team. It seemed that the Ellis and his covert team had run into some problems on an assignment. Though the details could not be included, top secret and all, it did say that Ranger's team had been called in to bail them out and extract them from the site they had become trapped in. Both teams had been operating in the same hemisphere. Since Ranger was the only one close enough to get to them quick enough to help finish the mission and then get Ellis and his team out, he got the job.

From all accounts, it had been handled very discreetly, and no further incidents hampered the success of the assignments for either team. All of it had been complicated by the injuries that Ellis and another man on his team had sustained. It took some doing to get them out safely, and because of that, commendation recommendations and all kinds of citations were piled on top of Ranger and his team.

Stephanie didn't have to wonder how Ellis had felt about that whole affair. A single page in the files was from a psychologist who Ellis had been ordered to spend time with after the incident. He may have recovered from the broken bones and knife wounds. But they had left scars. Not only on his body, but more importantly, in his mind. Though it was Ranger who saved him, Ellis seemed to have nothing but hate and anger for him. She correctly surmised that having to have one of the rangers, from the very training that he'd had to leave, come to his rescue, must have left him mortified.

According to the records, Ellis had set out to make a name for himself. He was tougher, smarter, meaner than any of the others on his team. That made him better, in his mind. He was, like Ranger, known to have good instincts. But his anger and irrational behavior was a constant problem.

Interestingly, it was general Kinkaid that had intervened after the whole deal. With his obvious influence, Ellis was given a job. A safe job, one that required that he was alone at a desk the majority of every work day. On paper, Stephanie agreed that it looked like an ideal solution. But knowing the guys at RangeMan the way she did, she was pretty sure that for an active tough guy, being confined to a desk after having been the super hero figure on his missions must have been a huge blow.

All of the intel agreed with that assessment. Stephanie shut down the programs. She was not going to find the answers that she was looking for in any file. She wanted to know what Ellis had to do with Ben and his ex-wife Melissa. Why did Cal and Lester automatically assume that the guy was going to cause trouble. What would Ranger have to say about him?

She sat back in his chair, closing her eyes and breathing in the subtle scent surrounding her. Leather, Bvlgari and Ranger. Her breath hitched and she folded her arms around her shoulders in a hug. She missed him so much, it hurt.

That aching feeling in her gut was back. When Ranger got back she was going to have to talk tell him about Chef. This time she would be telling him that his friend had always had absolute faith in him. Aban had repeated Ben's last words, and they still tugged at her heart and made her so sad. These were the words that she had to tell Ranger. What was it going to do to him to hear them? She knew it was going to be so hard for both of them. But she was determined that she would be strong enough to be his support when he needed it.

Prickles started on the base of her neck and spread up to her scalp. He was getting so close, she couldn't wait to see him. She allowed images of him to flood her mind. Emotions poured over her. Minutes now, she hoped, and he would be in her arms.

. .oOo.

Mahir was huddled in the corner of the warehouse office, just outside of the small, dim circle of light from the dented lamp on the desk. It seemed that their business was so often conducted in dirty dark places like this, and he was beginning to hate it with his whole being.

He deliberately kept as far back as he could, he did not want to be seen, wished that he was not there at all. Everything was different without Aban. This surprised Mahir. At first, he had been ashamed for his friend. Even a bit angry that he would betray the men, the cause that they had come to fight for. But from the moment he had pushed a body out of a plane, Mahir had felt so sick inside. Yes, he had been told to do it, that is what he told himself. And he had only followed orders, isn't that what he was so good at, doing exactly what he was told, even if he did not feel it was right.

What kind of man does that make me, he wondered. It certainly was not what Aban had proven to be. Now it was himself that Mahir was ashamed of. Still, he cowered under the rule of his leaders. How could he leave, he knew what they did to anyone who defied them. The chef had been proof of that, and the way they had threatened that poor girl today confirmed it. Worst of all, he knew what they had set out to do to Aban. He wanted to weep at the knowledge that the assassins had killed him.

Suddenly, Mahir became aware of the discussion that they were having around the desk. Angry voices drew his attention. Heated words, and enraged looks told Mahir that all was not okay. He listened to them and hid the smile that threatened to creep to his lips.

The men, the assassins were not back. Their last message was that they had caught up with Aban. He had led them to Trenton. Nobody was happy about that. There had been silence since they had arrived there. The assumption was that they had finished their work, Aban was dead and the men were on their way back to DC.

But the single phone call that they had been allowed, after being processed into the city jail, told another story entirely. The call was short and not many details were given, but they did say that Aban was alive. With a disgust mixed with wonder, they said that whoever it was that Aban had gone to see had returned fire, with a ferocity that they had never seen before. The fight continued until they were surrounded, apprehended and turned over to the police. There was not much more to say, even if they had had the time.

The men were furious, Mahir silently watched. His leaders were more than upset, they were frantic. He knew that the capture and detention of any of them was a very bad thing. All this time they had been operating as a hidden cell, taking precautions at every moment. Their job, pure and simple, was to remain anonymous as they gathered intel and spread their propaganda. Without question, they were now going to have to relocate again. This time, Mahir wondered if he could get lost in the shuffle and get away like Aban had.

His mind had been so occupied with these thoughts, he had missed the change in the discussion. The room had grown quiet and suddenly Mahir could feel all eyes looking at him through the darkness.

"You were a friend of Aban, no?" someone asked him.

Mahir froze. "Yes, he was my friend when we first came," he said cautiously. What could he say? He could not deny it because they all knew that they had come into the group together. He would keep it as close to the truth as possible, he couldn't let them know that he was having these ideas to run away.

His fears rose in his throat as was now circled by the men, still with angry looks on their faces.

. .oOo.

RangeMan was on high alert. Cal sent out a team to help Ranger, and he stayed to monitor things at the building. Hector was with him going through security tapes from all of the cameras on both sides of the building. If Nick Ellis had come anywhere near the building, they would see it.

Everyone had earpieces in place, but for now, they were to remain silent. Without knowing what kind of equipment Ellis had access to, they were not going to risk giving their position away if he happened to be listening in. All of the rangemen were well aware, by now, that he had been an operative in missions much like theirs, so they had to recognize and respect that he could have skills like theirs.

It was all of the unknown elements about this that put everyone not only on alert, but kept them on edge as well. Coming so soon after the pain of finding Chef's body, only added to the tension that was building.

Woody led the men down Hayward Street toward the location that Ranger had given them. Some of the guys were in stealth mode, if anyone was watching, they would not know that they were there, this gave them an advantage that they would need if they did meet up with the person they were looking for.

Tense seconds passed, they should see the vans turning the corner any time now. Ranger had said that even with the booby traps, they needed to keep going. Headlights announced their approach, and Woody noticed that they were driving so close to the sidewalk, they were almost right on it. A smart move, since the IEDs had been purposefully placed to be right under vehicles traveling on the road. And because of that maneuver, no more of the devices had detonated.

So far they had removed a couple dozen of the small devices. Enough of them to see that they had been deliberately designed to annoy, but they were not intended to kill. The fact that they were so sophisticated was an indication that it was Ellis that had put them here. His expertise with explosives showed in each one of them.

By the time he saw the van come around the corner, Woody was puzzled. What were Ellis's intentions? Why had he come here just to sabotage the area with things that would only perturb them? It was true that Woody did not know him, had not really heard all that much about him since joining RangeMan. So he had no way of understanding what could be in this man's head.

His men passed by the vans, still gathering the devices, and cleaning up the ones that had detonated. They were going to keep this contained for the time being, no cops for now, so all of the evidence had to be removed. Within five minutes, that objective had been met, and all of the men converged on the parking structure at the back of the RangeMan building. It was surprisingly quiet, something that all of them had noticed, and put them further on edge.

The general watched carefully as they advanced, getting nearer to the security gate. He too was confused by the mild attack. He knew that Nick was capable of so much more than this. Not that he wasn't relieved that Nick had chosen to irritate rather than kill, but he could not figure out why.

Woody moved quickly to activate the arm of the gate to allow the vans to pass into the garage. He had just punched the code into the small keypad when all hell broke loose. A wall of fire burst up around him. He rolled away from it, slapping out patches of fire on his clothes.

Gunfire whizzed above his head, the shots coming from all directions. It made no sense, one man could not be making all of these shots. Keeping low and his head down, he ran to get out of the shower of bullets. An arm grabbed him and pulled him out of the chaos. Woody looked up and smiled at Chet.

They whipped their heads around at the sound of another explosion. More fire shot up surrounding the van in the driveway.

A voice behind them said "Oh Shit!" Woody couldn't agree more.

. .oOo.