Chapter Thirty-Six

Have You Ever Skipped A Stone Across The Water

Have You Ever Hitched A Free Ride On A Train

Have You Ever Climbed Up On A Water Tower

To Write A Name

The Truth Is, Every Man Dies

-Not Every Man Lives By Jason Aldean-

Roughly between 12:30 to 1:00 PM

"You're not joking, are you?" Matthew Whitmore couldn't believe what he was hearing from Albert Wilson. "You're really Spencer's grandfather?"

"Yes. And Emma's too. I know she's here as well." The man in question replied as he lowered his shotgun to the table in between them. His wife's rifle was already laying on the table.

Colonel Vance stood next to Matt as the elderly couple explained themselves to the pair. This was going to be near impossible for Eliot to wrap his head around not to mention Emma. "You have to tell them who you are. You owe them that." He replied somewhat harshly. "You've hid from them all these years, living in secret and letting them think you were dead and now you show up? They need to know. Both needed to know who you are."

Albert turned to face the much taller man. "You think you have the right to question me on my secrets, Colonel? Or you Major?" He turned to face the shorter man. "You have both been keeping some whopper secrets yourselves."

Both men looked at each other as they realized what the man was implying. "You know about Evan?" Matt questioned. He didn't even bother to deny the man's allegation, it was time to stop keeping this secret. It had done nothing but lead to where they were right now. "How much do you know?"

"Yes, we know some." Marion answered for her husband. "We don't know how he's involved here or why he hates Eliot so much, but we've pieced things together enough to know that Evan and his brother Eaton were probably conceived by Mary and Jack when they were very young and somehow were probably given up for adoption to one of Mary's step-brothers to raise."

"I don't know all the details of that secret either, but when Evan joined the military and I saw him for the first time, I knew he was somehow related to Eliot. He looked too much like the man, but Eliot claimed he was a cousin and that he wasn't even blood related. It didn't seem like Eliot knew who Evan really was in relation to him, and I knew that didn't make much sense, so both Vance and I confronted Evan. He knew who he was, his adopted parents had recently told him the truth. The man hated everyone named Spencer and he took most of his hatred out on Eliot, who took it all without a word against the man. Whenever he could, Evan was always on that boy's case." He said as he thought back to the few times he'd seen the two men. Eliot never came back to his home in Oklahoma, but Emma kept in touch with her father's brothers and her mother's stepbrothers. He'd seen Evan and Eaton on more than one occasion, and he knew that they were twins as well as Eliot and Emma, so the odds were they were related somehow.

"Yeah, well, all we can tell you is that after Evan had trouble with his military duty, he was given one last option to save his military reputation. I was instructed to get him inside Damien Moreau's inner circle and see if we could take the man down. That was over seven years ago." Vance added as he moved to stand near a dirty window facing the depressing appearance of the alley. "Turned out that Evan liked working for Moreau more than Uncle Sam and we lost him." There was a slight pause before he added, "then we lost Eliot."

"Lost Eliot? How?" Marion asked watching the tall man as he continued staring out the window. She could tell he wasn't really seeing the scenery in the alley.

"I can't go into much detail there as that file is classified," He sighed as he turned to face the small woman. He liked her. She had caring eyes. He could see nothing but worry in those eyes. "But on Eliot's last mission, while he managed to complete the mission, he too became disillusioned with what was duty and what was just sanctioned murder as he called it. So, he left and followed Evan. He found him."

Albert watched the man before him as he took in the slump of the colonel's shoulders. He could tell this man fought a hard battle every day just trying to do his own job. "What happened?"

"Well, long story short, Evan fell out of favor with Moreau and wanted out, so he called us. He thought we'd help him."

"You didn't?" Marion asked.

"No, we helped, but not in the way he wanted. He wanted to come back and be a soldier again, but we knew he was most likely not a good candidate even if he knew Moreau and how he worked; so, we made a compromise." Vance replied crossing his arms over his chest. "He gave up everything he had on Moreau. He gave up everything on Eliot and what he'd done for Moreau. He turned on his own brother and in return we faked his death and gave him a new identity with the promise he'd never set foot in our country again. He was supposed to be living somewhere in eastern Europe. Until this all started, that's where we thought he still was."

"Why does he hate Eliot?" Albert asked as he found himself settling into one of the broken-down chairs at the equally broken table. Marion had followed in the next chair settling herself next to her husband. "Why is he trying to kill our grandson?"

Matt met Vance's eyes as they realized they'd have to tell them something. "Probably because Eliot tried to kill him; more than once." He stated as he watched the couple. "We didn't really care about getting Evan back, we really wanted Eliot out of Damien's circle more than anything. It was Eaton who was tasked with faking Evan's death and getting Eliot out, but things fell apart almost from the beginning." He sighed heavily as he too found a chair and sat down across from Albert. "Eaton had his own plan. You see, Eaton was dying."

"Dying? How?" Marion asked as she grasped her husband hand tightly in hers.

Matt took in the couple and noted the love they shared whenever they looked at each other. He hoped he could have the same with Emma when they got older. "Eaton had cancer. It'd been found late in its last stage, so it was just matter of time for him; but he'd been keeping it hidden. He volunteered to go in and pass as Evan to get to Moreau. From there he would take the man out and fake Evan's death and then the two would drag Eliot out if they had to; but that's not what went down. After Eaton gained access to Moreau, he found out that the man had already ordered a hit on Evan himself for leaving his circle; and Eliot had already tried to take Evan out once. Eaton was in danger since he was playing the part of Evan; and since the task of killing Evan had been given to Eliot, we knew he'd surely die the instant Eliot found him."

"We don't know why Moreau did that other than the man always like to put those kinds of things out there. He wanted his men to be totally loyal and what better way to prove their loyalty than having them do something to family?" Vance added. "Eliot was the one who killed Eaton, but he thought he'd killed Evan; and Evan wasn't really that big of a loss for Eliot since they'd hated each other for so long. At least that's what we figured Eliot's thinking would be. But when the time came, well it turned out it was harder than he thought. Eliot did kill Eaton, but he hesitated for a moment."

"Oh dear, poor Eliot." Marion replied. "He thought he killed his brother, the evil one, but did he ever find out it wasn't Evan?"

"No, we never told him. Eliot thought he'd killed Evan and we thought Evan would be there, but he'd ran, so we don't know what it was that had Eliot hesitating; we can only guess his conscience may have been fighting a war within him. Eaton was dying anyway, so he didn't even try to stop him and maybe that confused Eliot; we had ears to the whole thing, so we know Eaton didn't say anything to stop Eliot. We don't know what happened for sure, but since Eliot did kill Eaton, we knew Moreau had a tighter hold over Eliot than his conscience had. That is, until Moreau sent him on another task to kill a General Flores in San Lorenzo."

"What happened there?" Albert asked taking in every detail.

"We'd lost track of Eliot for a while after that, but when we got word of the hit on the General, we were able to get someone inside on the General's private team who took Eliot down when he breached the General's security. We knew it would be Eliot, he was the only one who made any sense. Only Eliot could get through all the security surrounding the man without getting caught. When Eliot found our man inside, he finally realized just how far he'd come for Moreau and he gave up. He let us bring him home."

Matt looked at Vance as he told the story. It really wasn't anyone's business that the inside man had been Matt himself. They knew no one short of Emma would have gotten a reaction from Eliot than her husband and his former friend. Emma didn't know about Matt's part in that mission and she didn't need to know that. He'd gotten her brother out and that was what was important. "Of course, just because we got him out, didn't mean we had control over Eliot. He became something else after that. Something not exactly good, but not exactly as bad as he'd been. He went on to become a specialist at what he did and had moved all over before he settled in with Ford's team a few years back."

"Yes. I've followed him since he showed up here in Boston. I'd tried to keep track of both him and Emma, but Eliot was hard to nail down until he settled here. Marion and I have stayed as close as we dared." Albert stated as he thought about their grandson.

"We knew Emma was safe with you and she was easier to keep track of, but Eliot moved around so much, we couldn't take the chance we'd never see him if we didn't stay close, so we became his harmless elderly neighbors." Marion added smiling.

The two military men took in the elderly couple and they both knew that there was nothing about this pair that was harmless. "You two staged the scene at Eliot's safehouse, didn't you?"

Albert chuckled. "Yes, we did. Being old you tend to get up two or three times a night and I just happened to notice the flames coming from Eliot's house, so we headed over and quickly got it under control. Whoever had been there, may have been able to get Eliot, but they couldn't start a fire for shit."

"What happened there? Who was the dead man?" Matt asked. "Your turn to spill."

"Well, it seems fate had a hand in all of this. That night my brother came for a visit and while we were at Eliot's, my brother had a heart attack and died in his sleep. I sacrificed my brother's body to help confuse the police so we could find Eliot ourselves. The police only get in the way and we couldn't afford to waste time with them stumbling all over our own investigation, so we created a different crime scene and we found Eliot's earbud and cell phone." Marion said smiling up at the young man across from her.

The two military men couldn't believe what they were hearing. "It was you? You've been listening to us and Ford and the team? You've known every step we've been taking?" Matt asked astonished. This couple, this elderly couple had bested them. He couldn't believe it.

"Yes, it was us. I'm not as good as that young man Hardison, but I'm not an idiot either. I may be old but typing on a computer does not require a lot of movement, so I'm learned a lot over the years." Albert said. "I led you to the warehouse to take down that Liam Chapman and find the fallen soldier they were using to replace Eliot and it was me who has been looking for your friend Quinn as well; and it was me who has found your friend Quinn."

Matt jumped up as he listened to the man. He couldn't believe two eighty-something people had been able to accomplish more than he or Vance or even Ford's team had. "You two have found Quinn? I can't believe any of this." He shook his head chuckling at the whole situation.

Vance laughed as he took all this in. "Did you get all that, Ford?"

Marion and Albert shared a confused look at the man, then they too began laughing. "You're wearing earbuds? Right now? I can't believe that!" Albert couldn't believe that he'd been had himself now. "Well, damnit, get them here already and we'll take you all to Quinn so we can go get my grandson home where he belongs."

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Roughly about 1:30 PM

Evan looked at the cell phone in his hand as he talked to his man Barnes. He'd decided to stick around since it seemed nothing so far had been connected to him. The doctor was still missing, and that nurse and Eliot were in the wind. They were the only ones who could lead anyone to him and since he figured they were in hiding from him, he knew they wouldn't send anyone after him. No, he knew Eliot. If he was getting better, then Eliot would want to take him out himself. He wouldn't need the military or law to do it either.

He'd been pissed that Eliot had gotten away as well as this Quinn guy too; but that all changed now. Barnes and his team had stumbled across Colonel Michael Vance and Major Matthew Whitmore in a building near downtown. They were watching them right now.

"You keep them in sight and follow them wherever they go. If those two are searching downtown, then they're looking for Quinn and if this old couple with them are their contacts to Quinn, I want all of them dead."

"Even the old couple? The woman?" Came Barnes question.

"Do not question me Barnes. You know what I want."

"Forgive me, sir. Don't know what I was thinking. Of course, kill them all." There was no sarcasm in the reply. "Another vehicle just pulled up to the building."

Evan waited for the man to elaborate on the vehicle. "Well, who is it?" He spat out after not hearing anything more.

"Don't know for sure, sir. No one has gotten out of the car yet. It looks like there are two in the front, but it's a van so there could be more." There was a small pause. "Wait, sir. It's Ford and a woman. I'm not sure who the woman is, I've never seen her before. It's not either of the women on Ford's team. They're going into the building."

"Well, let me know as soon as they leave. Follow them and find out where Spencer is. Then do your job cleaning up this whole mess." He smiled as he remembered seeing the news broadcast two days ago about the strange bombing at a warehouse downtown. Most of the zombie flash mob had left the scene, but Barnes and his men had been able to take out all five of Liam's men and probably Liam himself. There had been 8 casualties and several more wounded, but none of the zombies had succumbed to the blast. For that, Evan was disappointed. He'd really have loved hearing about the walking dead actually dying.

"Yes, sir." Barnes ended the call and picked up the binoculars hanging around his neck. He watched Ford and the woman go into the building and he watched as another vehicle pulled up next to the van and four people got. He recognized three as members of Ford's team, but there was another dark-haired woman with them he did not know.

He watched as the people in the building came out and met the others in the alley; and he continued to watch as all of them loaded up in two of the three vehicles and finally pull out of the alley. He signaled his driver to follow them. He was going to complete this mission, then he was done. He'd had enough of Evan Chapman. Barnes didn't mind working for eccentric people, but when they started going nutty, he was out. It didn't matter how good the money was; if there was one thing he'd learned in this business; it was that crazy usually led to nothing but trouble and Evan Chapman was heading towards full blown crazy.

He'd take care of these people and then he'd take care of Spencer. Then, he planned on dropping out of sight. He had priorities after all and getting buried in some unknown military hellhole or getting taken out by Eliot Spencer were not on the list.