“Exactly.” Schmitt’s voice turned soothing. “We can’t allow that to happen. So we need his family. For their own protection.”
Typical government thinking. They assumed they could do a better job of keeping Ben’s family safe. “If you let him go with his family, he should be able to keep any terrorists from capturing them. That’s the whole point of his visions.”
“Maybe he can. Maybe he can’t. I, for one, don’t want to take that chance. After all, we managed to capture Ben.”
“You captured him because he was protecting his wife. He knew you wouldn’t keep searching once you had him, and she’d get away.”
Schmitt’s voice turned sharp. “It’s not your job to argue with me, Vazquez. We need the daughter.” A pause. His tone softened. “Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of her. It’s for her own protection.”
A cold chill ran through Enzo. If the government actually intended to keep Ben’s family safe, his visions would have told him so. He wouldn’t have sacrificed himself for his wife’s freedom if he knew the government was going to protect them.Ben would willingly tell Schmitt how to find his family so they could all be together and safe.
Terrorists weren’t the ones who wanted to threaten the Huntingtons to get information from Ben. It was his own government.
And Enzo’s boss had just ordered him to bring Charity in.
Well, that wasn’t going to happen.
Turned out, Enzo hadn’t consideredallthe options before. He’d never considered running. Now it seemed the only choice left.
“I’m sorry for speaking out of line,” Enzo said. He’d had a lot of practice apologizing to superiors when he didn’t mean it. The sentence sounded sincere. “I know you have the country’s best interests in mind.”
And Schmitt probably did. He thought that locking Charity up and starving her, or torturing her, or whatever he planned, was for the best. The ends justified the means, after all.
Enzo shifted in his seat and cast a glance at Shreeve and the tech officer. They were still deep in conversation and not paying attention to him. “I’ll work out our travel arrangements with the unit. Mostly they have tanks and some armored trucks that need a few repairs, but they said they could have a vehicle fueled and ready in three hours. Are you holding Ben in the Federal Detention Building? Is that where you want me to take Charity? Or should I bring her to your office?”
“Let me know when you’re approaching the city. I’ll give you details then.”
Schmitt gave him a couple more instructions, then ended the call.
Enzo took off the headset, handed it to the tech officer, and turned to Shreeve. “I understand you’re lending us one of your vehicles for our trip back to the city.”
“Yes,” Shreeve said. “We’re also prepared to send another truck to escort you, and an additional soldier to ride with you.”
“No need for that. I’m a pretty good shot.” Enzo added a smile. “Which is why I’m glad I didn’t shoot you last night.”
Shreeve laughed appreciatively. “If you’re sure.”
Enzo sauntered toward the tent door. “You need your vehicles and men here to fight. But I want to leave immediately. That’s not a problem, is it?”
“No problem,” Shreeve said.
Good. They could be far away before Schmitt started to wonder why Enzo hadn’t called.
28
Charity sat by Enzo as the armored truck rumbled away from the camp. She was only slightly jostled as they went over the bumpy road and an assortment of unfortunate vegetation. The truck had nice suspension.
Enzo had barely told her anything. He’d just said they were heading out and hauled their things to the truck.
He checked the rearview and side cameras a few times, then said, “I don’t think the truck is bugged. The military has no reason to bug one of their own vehicles and doing so would be a liability for them. They wouldn’t want their enemies to be able to patch into that frequency, but I’m sure it has a tracker on it. I’ll stop and take it off when we veer from the road to Kansas City.”
“We’re not going there?” she asked.
He told her about his conversation with his director.
Her father had been captured.
She felt sick. Panicked. Her head buzzed with confusion, with the wrongness of it all. Her father’s visions were supposed to keep him safe. She’d always depended on this fact. “How could he have been captured?” she asked, then answered her own question. “They put him in a position where no safe choiceexisted. The only way for him to protect my mother was to let himself be taken.”