An Arrogant Black Belt Threatens a Rookie Nurse in a Rural ER — Unaware She Was a Navy SEAL Officer
Chapter 14
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"On my way."Reese walked down the corridor toward Trauma 2. As she passed the lead contractor, who was being flex-cuffed by a sailor on the floor, she stopped. She looked down at him. The lead man's eyes were finally focusing again."Who hired you?" Reese said.The lead man smiled up at her. His teeth were red. "Hired ourselves, sweetheart. You took something from us a long time ago. We came to take it back.""What did I take from you?""Aleppo. 19 of ours."Reese stared at him for a long, long beat. Then she said, "19 of yours killed four of mine, including a corpsman named Salazar who was 24 years old. So the math doesn't pay you back; it just opens the account further."She started to walk away.The lead contractor laughed; it came out wet. "Doesn't matter what the math is, Dusty. We're not the last car in this train."Reese kept walking, through the doorway of Trauma 2.Vega looked up at her from the bed, his eyes clear now. Vega's hand came up off the blanket, weak, and Reese took it and held it without thinking."Boss," Vega said."Eddie.""Reeves is coming.""I know. He brought the file.""I know that, too." Vega closed his eyes. "Good. Good. Now we finish it."Kessler's office was on the second floor, end of the hall, behind a frosted glass door with his name in black vinyl letters. Reese walked up to it with Marsh and one sailor behind her. She did not knock; she pushed the door open.Kessler was at his desk, his phone off the cradle, pressed against his ear. He saw her and his eyes went wide, and his free hand came up off the desk and reached toward the top drawer.Marsh's sailor cleared his sidearm in a fluid motion that took less than a heartbeat. "Hand off the drawer, Doctor."Kessler froze. He put the phone down very slowly. The sailor reached across the desk, opened the drawer with two fingers, lifted out a snub-nosed .38 by the barrel, and set it on the bookshelf out of reach.Kessler swallowed. "I want a lawyer.""I'm sure you do," Reese said. She walked to the chair on the visitor side of his desk and sat down, crossed her legs at the ankle, folded her hands in her lap. Her voice stayed at a normal volume; it did not need to do more than that. "Dr. Kessler, you called a man in Reston, Virginia, 18 minutes ago. The number belongs to a private military contracting firm that, by happy coincidence, sent four armed men into my emergency department a few minutes after your call ended. Two of those men are in custody; one is on his way to the morgue; the fourth was apprehended in the parking lot. I have a witness chain, a phone record, and a recording of your call. You are not getting a lawyer for at least an hour, because Lieutenant Marsh is exercising naval jurisdiction over a national security matter, and you are the inside contact. Are you tracking?"Kessler's mouth opened, closed, opened. "I... I don't know what you're—"