Author's Note: The memory Lee has in this chapter is from one of the flashback scenes in "Unfinished Business" when Blackthorne is talking to another man sitting in a car outside the Stetson home. I don't recall them ever giving this character a name and couldn't find it in any of my usual resources, so for this story, he's going to be the Martin D'Angelo character that I mentioned in earlier chapters.
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"Get down!" Lee shouted as he reached for his mother and threw both of them to the floor as bullets whizzed overhead. "Are you ok?" he said as he reached for the 9mm at his hip. When she nodded he said, "Stay here." He then rose to his knees staying low behind the bed to gauge where the shots were coming from.
"I certainly will not," Jennie protested. "I'm not letting you face this alone. I just got you back. I'm not about to lose you again." She then cautiously reached her hand up beneath her pillow to pull out her own gun.
"Pistol under the pillow, huh? My kind of girl," Lee said with a grin. "Maybe the agency shrinks are right about that Freudian theory after all."
Jennie slapped at him playfully and said, "You just behave yourself, my boy and concentrate on the mission at hand."
Lee chuckled as he took his stance, looked for his opportunity and fired two shots through the shattered window, satisfied when her heard a yelp of pain through the other side. While the incoming shots ceased for a moment, he used the opportunity to leap over the bed and pressed himself flat against the wall between the two windows in the room listening intently for any sounds coming from outside. When he heard only the low groan of pain from whoever he'd hit, he cautiously peered sideways through the window frame to his left, gun poised and at the ready. He saw three hooded figures all dressed in black, one on the ground and the other two tending to the injured one.
He quickly turned to his mother, held up one finger, then leapt through the broken window. "Freeze!" He shouted leveling his gun at them. The one to the right reached for his weapon, but Lee fired off a warning shot, stopping him in his tracks. "Don't even think about it, Pal!" The figure tossed his gun to the side, but only laughed at Lee as he did so, unnerving the agent. Lee looked around hesitantly wondering if there were more than just these three. Just as he did so, he heard his mother's scream from inside the house. "Mom!' he shouted as he leapt back through the window to find she'd been stripped of her weapon and had her arms pinned behind her by two more hooded figures."Let her go," he said pointed his gun squarely at the head of one of them. "I've been doing this for fifteen years and I don't miss."
Before he could get out another word, he was grabbed from behind by the two he'd left outside, causing him to drop his weapon as his arms were soon pinned behind his back. "Let me go, you bastards," He said as he struggled against them. He managed to work one arm free and threw a punch at the one to his left, knocking him against the wall with a loud thunk. The one still holding his right arm tried to get him in a choke hold, but Lee used the fact that he was behind him to head-butt him and smiled at hearing the satisfying crunch of the attacker's nose being broken. Now freed of the two goons, he rolled across the floor as he scrambled for his weapon, but was stopped by the voice of one of the others.
"Uh-uh, Stetson," the thug said. "Don't try it. Not unless you want to bury Mommy here all over again." Lee looked up to find that the one who'd spoken had a gun aimed right at his mother's temple.
"Let her go," Lee shouted.
"I don't think so," the goon fired back. "She's who we came for now that the CIA has pulled the bodyguard detail from here."
"Then think again," a familiar raspy voice sounded from behind Jennie and the men holding her.
Lee smiled at seeing his wife enter the room, her revolver in hand, aimed at the back of the man's head, and watched as he dropped his gun to the floor. Lee reached for his own gun, rose to his feet and said, "Now, let her go." As they did so, the two injured men behind him scrambled to their feet and made a hasty escape through the window. "Crap," Lee shouted. "You got this?" he said to Amanda.
"Yes, go," Amanda replied as she and Jennie cuffed the two men while Lee barreled out the window after the others.
As Lee got outside, he saw them leaping into a van parked at the curb and peeling off with a loud squeal of the tires against the pavement. He fired off his last three shots hoping to blow out their tires, but missed all three times. "Damn it!" he swore as he holstered his now empty weapon. He shook his head in frustration as he walked to the one still lying on the ground who'd been abandoned by his comrades. He reached down the feel for a pulse and found that while unconscious, he was still alive. He stepped back into the house through the window, broken glass crunching beneath his feet. "The other two got away and there's one more that I got a shot into. He's going to need medical attention."
Amanda nodded as she shoved one of the cuffed goons to the bed while Jennie did the same with the other, and said, "Help should be here soon. I called the agency before I left the house."
"Not that I'm not grateful for the rescue, Amanda, but what the hell are you doing here?"Lee asked her.
"I'm backing up my partner just as I've done for the past five years," She answered.
"How'd you know there'd be trouble?"
"I'll explain later once we get these guys into holding cells," Amanda said.
"Well, whatever the reason, you were absolutely brilliant, Amanda," Jennie said.
"Thank you," Amanda said with a warm smile at her mother-in-law.
"So, who are you working for," Lee asked the thug nearest him as he roughly pulled the hood from the man's head causing him to yelp as he yanked out hair in the process.
"Go to hell," was the only reply Lee got.
"You first, Pal," he said as reached for his mother's abandoned gun training it against the man's throat. "Now, I'll ask again, who are you working for? Why were you after my mother?"
"Go...to...hell," the man replied again. "Just shoot me if you're going to. You're getting nothing, either way."
Lee sighed in frustration and handed the gun to his mother. As much as he'd loved to put a bullet in the guy for attacking his mother, he knew that was not the way to get answers. "Great," Lee said impatiently.
The squeal of tires and an ambulance siren sounded from outside. Amanda quickly walked to the window as members of the agency retrieval team piled into the yard and yelled, "In here."
The team entered the house through the front door and soon walked into the bedroom while the ambulance crew worked on the fallen man in the yard. "What happened in here," one of them asked.
"We were attacked," Lee asked succinctly. "They were after my mother."
"Your mother," the agent replied in confusion. He'd worked with Stetson a few times and always thought that both of his parents were dead.
"Long story," Lee answered. "Can we get these buys back to the agency?'
"Yeah," the other agent answered as he and his team forcibly hauled the two men out of the room.
"So, Amanda, how'd you figure out that there was trouble brewing?"
"Well, while I was working on the guest room, I remembered the trouble you were having with the D'Angelo case and I started looking through the files in your office at home and it hit me that I'd heard the name before back when we were investigating Blackthorne."
"Martin D'Angelo?" Jennie questioned.
Lee nodded and said, "You know him?"
"Yes, he worked with your father many times. He was in Army Intelligence, too. We had suspected that he was a double agent, working with Blackthorne. We even suspected that he was Blackthorne's contact to the other side, but we could never gather enough hard evidence against him."
Lee's mind flashed back to the memory he had of sitting in the tree hearing Blackthorne talking to someone who'd been sitting in a car talking about how his parents had something to show him, but not there because there was a kid, him. His mind then drifted to the memory jolt he'd had when he had first heard his mother's voice in his kitchen and the argument that his parents had regarding D'Angelo. Was it possible that the same case he was working now was related to the one that had caused him to lose his parents? "So, Amanda, you still didn't fully explain how you knew there'd be trouble tonight?"
"I didn't know for sure," Amanda answered. "It was really just a hunch more than anything, but it was a hunch I felt I needed to follow up on. When I was reviewing the D'Angelo files you had at the house and found out from his background information that he used to work in Army Intelligence, and that he'd once worked with your father and I then found out that he'd been dishonorably discharged for questionable interrogation tactics, I started putting the pieces together. I knew from my visit here earlier that the CIA had already pulled their guards from here since they thought your mom was out of danger, so what better time for an attack when she'd be unprotected. Once we moved her to our house where there's more security, plus the two of us there to protest her, it would be much harder for anyone to get to her. I thought it would be safer to check it out, just in case, so I called the agency, then I called mother so she and Curt could come over and watch the kids, then I came here and I'm glad I did."
"Yeah, me too," Lee said as he slipped one arm around her waist and brushed a soft kiss to her forehead.
Jennie gaped at her daughter-in-law. "My dear girl, how on earth did you manage to say all that in one breath?"
Lee laughed as he wrapped his arms tightly around his wife and said, "You get used to it."
"We should get her packed and get her out of here before something else happens," Amanda said.
"Yeah, you're right," Lee said as he released his hold on her. The three of them worked together to pack Jennie's meager belongings and load the filled boxes that they'd brought with them to the family minivan.
Once their task was completed, they all stood in the driveway for a moment to catch their breath until Amanda said, "Listen, why don't you take all this stuff home and have the boys help you unload it. I'll take the 'vette to the agency and get started on debriefing the guys we just nabbed.
"No," Lee said. "We should all stick together. We don't know how many of those flunkies D'Angelo might have out there. Safety in numbers. You head to the house in the van with my mom and I'll follow behind you in the 'vette. Then we'll all go to the agency together."
"All of us," Jennie inquired clearly uncomfortable with the idea.
"Yes," Lee said firmly. "You were the one they were after and you were a witness to this mess. We're going to need an official record of your statement. Besides, maybe while we're there, we'll be able to find out some info on my missing sister."
"Sister?"Amanda questioned.
"Long story," Lee said.
"I'll tell you the whole sordid tale on the way back to your house," Jennie promised.
"I'll be looking forward to it," Amanda said.
"Alright, now that that's settled, we really shouldn't hang out here much longer," Lee said, "Just in case D'Angelo has more cronies out there."