Page 119 of Critical Doubt

"I'll cover you. And then I'll be right behind you."

He didn't waste time arguing. He ran toward the open door and slid inside. He could hear two men talking. They were arguing. He moved down the hall, past a stable office and around a corner. And there in the middle of the barn was a green van. Next to it were two men he used to know as well as he knew himself.

"Why didn't you tell us you were alive, Leo?" Hank demanded. "I thought Mason was running the show. I thought his surgery was just a fake-out. But it's been you all along, hasn't it?"

An odd sense of relief ran through him. He wasn't the only one who hadn't known that Leo was alive.

"Mason and I needed to keep the circle small. He's having surgery so he couldn't be implicated, and we can continue to use his connections."

"You said this was a one-time thing. Then we disappear. We start over in new lives."

"You won't want to stop after you get the cash," Leo told Hank.

"I don't like this. Where have you been? What have you been doing? How the hell did you get out of Afghanistan?"

Ryker wanted to know the answers to those questions, too, but before Leo could say a word, they heard the sound of an engine.

"That's Vance," Leo said. "Keep it together, Morgan. Everything goes as planned, and we walk away rich men."

Ryker moved behind the wall of a stall as Vance entered the barn. He was accompanied by a heavily armed younger man, but he waved him toward the door once he saw Hank and Leo in the barn. In Vance's hand was a laptop computer. The payment was going to be a wire transfer, Ryker realized, and probably untraceable.

"Open the van," Vance told Leo, not acting at all surprised that Leo was alive or in charge.

Leo motioned for Hank to do the honors.

"Half of the shipment is there," Leo said. "The other half will be yours when the transfer goes through."

"I need it all now or no deal," Vance said, anger in his voice. "Don't fuck with me, Leo."

"You're not in charge anymore," Leo replied. "I'm not your errand boy. This is my deal. And I've been waiting a long time to collect."

"You won't get away with this."

"Of course I will. I'm already dead. No one can touch me. And it's all because of you. You tried to take me out and you failed. But in doing so, you gave me great cover."

"Wait a second," Hank interrupted. "Vance took us out?"

"He sold us out to the insurgents," Leo said. "Did you really just figure that out, Morgan? I forgot how stupid you can be."

"You set us up?" Hank turned on Vance. "You killed Carlos?"

"He was collateral damage. The target was Leo," Vance said, without a trace of remorse in his voice. "He was trying to blackmail me to get a bigger cut. I had to take him out."

"Carlos was a hell of a lot more than collateral damage." Hank turned to Leo. "Does Mason know that Vance is the reason he lost his leg?"

"He didn't need to know. Keep your eye on the prize. This is how we take care of everyone, remember?"

"Carlos is dead because of you," Hank repeated. "Everything that happened to us is because of you."

"Because of him," Leo said, tipping his head to Vance. "I wasn't the mole; he was."

"But you were working with him in Afghanistan."

"That doesn't matter. Let's do this. Make the transfer, Vance."

Ryker moved slightly to get a better view of the unfolding scene.

Hank was shifting from one foot to the other, fury stiffening every muscle in his body. He was going to blow, but he was clearly waiting for the transfer to go through. He wanted that cash. But he also didn't want to let Vance walk away.