Retrograde (Galaxy) Read online

  He studied her face with intensity. “What is it and exactly how would you do that?”

  “Just listen to me and tell me what you think.”

  When she explained the plan to him, at first he wanted to refuse. The obsession with blood lust, with exacting vengeance, was too strong in him. But Peyton very carefully detailed how much more effective and long-lasting this would be. Then he listened as each of his friends told him why this was the best idea. At last he nodded.

  “But how do we go about getting that information so we can use it? It’s not like we can walk into someone’s office and have them hand over the file, if there even still is one. We’d need help.”

  “I agree, but I just might be able to provide it.”

  “How?” Rocket wanted to know.

  “I wrote an entire series set in Washington, DC, against the background of politics and I still have some very good contacts there. Let me reach out to the one I feel the most comfortable approaching about this. See if he’s even agreeable to helping us get information from what I know are closed files. This could have a greater impact and he’d have to live through it.”

  It wasn’t the same as exacting blood revenge, but maybe the others were right and this would be even better. “Peyton, you are a woman of many talents.”

  She winked. “And don’t you forget it.”

  He deliberately ignored the grins his partners were giving him. “Go ahead and see if you can work your magic. You said you had contacts in Washington. You’re sure whoever you plan to contact would have the info on what happened when Warren Sulzberger left Congress?”

  “Yes. The man I have in mind is still pretty powerful. We connected, but I don’t know if he’ll want to do this. Depends on how much he hates Sulzberger. You’ll have to give me all the details of what happened, at least as much as you know. I can take it from there.”

  “If you can get him to agree to see us, Saint will fly us to DC.”

  “Then let me call him right now.”

  She pulled her cell phone from her purse, scrolled through her contacts and punched a number.

  “Senator Franz? Yes, this is Peyton West. I wasn’t sure if this number still worked. How are you? Yes, yes, I do keep up with you in the media. You’re doing some great things. Uh huh. Yes. You did? Well, I’m honored.”

  Blaze was doing his best to control himself as he tried to figure out what was happening on the other end of the conversation. He just hoped it was good.

  “I have a specific reason for calling you. I don’t know if you can help me or not, but I thought if anyone could, it would be you.”

  Another short silence. He was aware that everyone at the table was as intense as he was.

  “I’m looking for some information about a thorny situation that happened a few years ago. I know you’re still chairing the Armed Services Committee, so I’m hoping you can help me. What? Well, I’d rather not discuss it over the phone. It concerns a friend of mine. A close friend. He’s very trustworthy and I really need to have him with me when I explain what I need. Will that work? Uh huh. Okay. I can be in Washington this afternoon and I wondered if you were free to meet with me? Us? Yes, I can explain it all when I see you. I just don’t want to do it over the phone. What? Good. I’m glad you understand. Yes, I am. Right.”

  There was a long silence on Peyton’s end of the conversation while Blaze did his best to hang on to his self-control. He had to bite his tongue to keep from asking her what was happening.

  “Yes, sir. Right. That’s not a problem. I’ll call you when I land. Thank you again.”

  Blaze slid a glance her way in time to see her stick her cell back in her purse. Everyone else was waiting for her info, just as he was.

  “Good news?” he guessed. Hoped.

  “So far. He agreed to see us late this afternoon. Around four o’clock, at his home. I’m to call him when I land.”

  Blaze let out the breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding and reached for Peyton’s hand.

  “Just like that?”

  She shrugged. “He was a great resource for me, and he respected the fact that I didn’t try to twist information he gave me. We struck up a friendship.”

  “Good work, Peyton.” Rocket gave her a thumbs-up. “You might be our lucky charm. This thing has festered for a very long time.”

  “Let me just say this.” Viper leaned toward her. “If you can pull this off, there’s no charge for us taking your project.”

  “Wait. What?” She looked at each one in turn. “You can’t do that. You have to get paid for your services.”

  “If you can do this,” Rocket told her, “that will pay us in spades. What Sulzberger did was unacceptable and cost good men their lives. He needs to pay.”

  “I’ll be sure you’re properly rewarded.” Blaze was aware his friends were watching the two of them carefully. He didn’t care. This woman, hopefully, was about to help destroy the enemy, and he owed her everything.

  Rocket let Saint know it was time to head for home, and laptops were closed and cell phones put away. No one said anything on the short flight. It seemed as if only minutes passed before he felt the plane descending from thirty thousand feet. Then they were on the ground and saying a quick goodbye to Saint.

  “Stay ready and alert,” Blaze told him when they deplaned. “Get something to eat. We’ll be taking off for DC in a couple of hours.”

  “Got it. You all just be careful.”

  “Always.” ‘Careful’ was their watchword.

  “Be sure we all stay in touch.” Rocket waved his cell phone. “Regular texts?”

  Blaze nodded. They definitely needed to maintain contact and share information. Then he and Peyton were in his car and pulling away from the hangar.

  “Where to?” Peyton asked.

  “Home first to shower and change. Then I thought we’d stop by and see Brianne before we grab some lunch on the way back to the plane.”

  “Good. I need to lay eyes on her.”

  “I know. That’s why we’re doing it.”

  They had reached the townhouse by now and he wheeled the car into the garage and killed the engine. Unfastening his seat belt, he turned toward Peyton and took one of her hands in his.

  “Keeping a lid on my rage has been the hardest thing for me. I’ve actually had dreams about catching up with Sulzberger and taking him apart with a knife one cut at a time.” He paused. “But…”

  “But?” she pressed.

  “But I’d be the only one satisfied, and it would be momentary. I could always walk away from my partners to keep them out of the mess if I had to. But this…this plan is ingenious, if we can pull it off. I can watch him suffer for a long time.” He put a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face toward him. “In two days, you’ve made a greater impact in my life than anyone else in the past twenty years.”

  “It’s been fast,” she commented. “But…”

  “But?” he encouraged.

  “But I’m getting the same feelings. Once we get the information, I’m going to pull whatever strings I can to make it happen.”

  He cradled her face between his palms and pressed his lips to hers. It wasn’t a hot kiss. More like a sweet one, and full of promise. He just hoped to hell he was reading her right.

  “You know,” she said, when he broke the kiss, “for a change, I think my life might be moving in the right direction again.”

  “I damn sure hope so. Okay. Let’s get moving.”

  They took the showers they hadn’t had time for that morning, dressed for the coming meeting and headed back to the hangar.

  “I’m glad we’re stopping to see Brianne. I feel terrible. I haven’t seen her since everything began to happen. Up to now I never missed a day. I keep praying she wakes up. Soon.”

  He reached over and gave her hand a quick squeeze. “Maybe when she does, we’ll have good news to tell her.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  Despite the two muscular
male bodies camped in Brianne’s room, it didn’t seem crowded. While Peyton moved to sit in the chair next to the bed, Blaze checked in with the two men in folding chairs against the wall.

  “All quiet,” Alan Wagner told him. “We triple-check everyone who comes in here and it’s not making us any friends. I think they’d toss us out a window if they thought they could get away with it and if your brother hadn’t vouched for us.”

  “It may be overkill,” Blaze admitted, “but the people who’d harm her are desperate and I wouldn’t put anything past them. Just be alert.”

  “Not to worry. We’ve got this.”

  He moved over to where Peyton was sitting, holding Brianne’s hand and speaking softly to her.

  “Hate to do this, but we need to get moving.”

  She looked at her watch, nodded and leaned over her sister. “Hang in there, sweetie. I know you’ll come out of this soon.”

  * * * *

  When they pulled into the parking space by the hangar, they saw that Saint already had the plane on the tarmac.

  “A little busy today, are we?” He nodded as they hurried up the stairway then retracted it and closed the door. “Well, have a seat and buckle up. We’ll be taking off shortly. Oh, and no refreshments this trip. Sorry, but I didn’t have a chance to pick anything up, and between yesterday and today, you guys drank up all the coffee.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t need anything.” He looked at Peyton. “You?”

  She shook her head. “I’m nervous enough already.”

  Flying time to DC was about two hours, and it was close to three o’clock by the time the Uber they’d ordered pulled up to the palatial home of Senator Alston Franz. Blaze was stunned when the senator answered the door himself.

  “Come in, come in.” He waved them in, glanced both ways then closed and locked the door.

  “Thank you for seeing us,” Peyton told him.

  “I always have time for you, Peyton.” He shook hands warmly with her, then glanced at Blaze.

  “This is Scott Hamilton, Senator. He’s doing some investigating for me.”

  “Call me Blaze.”

  “What kind of investigating?” Franz asked.

  “Something that tangentially involves a person you know. I’m hoping you can give me some help.”

  The senator shook hands with Blaze, a questioning look on his face.

  “Well, I guess if Peyton vouches for you, you must be trustworthy.”

  Blaze swallowed a smile. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Blaze is a SEAL,” Peyton told him.

  “Okay.” Franz nodded his head, trying to hide his confusion.

  But Blaze saw the instant the man’s brain made a long-ago connection, and again the senator looked from one of them to the other.

  “I think we’d better go into my den to discuss this, if it’s what I think it is.”

  The den was just down a short hallway from the entrance, a room paneled in aged oak and filled with books, photos and memorabilia that chronicled the man’s life in politics. A tray sat on a low round table, containing a carafe of coffee on a warmer and a plate of what looked like home-baked pastries. They hadn’t had lunch and Blaze was already salivating.

  “Have a seat and help yourselves.” When they were all seated, Blaze and Peyton on the couch, Franz in an armchair, and they all had coffee and pastries, he nodded at Peyton. “Okay. Let’s hear it. Start at the beginning.”

  Blaze began by telling him who he was and his relationship to Warren Sulzberger. It was obvious Franz knew all about the situation, but he waited until Blaze told his entire story.

  “Nasty business,” he said. “Nasty and disgusting. The cover-up even more so. I’m sorry about your team. I just don’t have words to explain the revulsion it created.”

  “I’ve been carrying this rage around with me for years,” Blaze told him, “ever since it all happened. Good men were killed because of greed. You have no idea how many times I’ve visualized killing that man in any number of ways.”

  Even knowing that thirst for revenge held him in such a tight grip, Peyton was right. This was a better type of retaliation and lasted a lot longer.

  “I can certainly understand how you feel. A lot of us felt that way at the time, although probably not as intensely as you.”

  He set his cup down. “I have to ask, sir. How and why was this buried like it was?”

  Franz shook his head. “A lot of strings were pulled for that. Sulzberger had very influential friends. I’m assuming he still does, since he’s made a killing as a lobbyist.”

  “Peyton came up with this idea we want to tell you about,” he explained, “and she’s right. It will be much more effective.”

  “I’m counting on that,” Peyton told him.

  “But why are you looking into it now?”

  “Because Sulzberger has insinuated himself into our lives.” She went on to fill him in about Dane and Brianne, Kendrick’s efforts to bury the whole thing, aided by Sulzberger, and how it had popped him into Blaze’s life again.

  “Okay. What are your plans moving forward? I can tell you it didn’t sit well with a lot of people to let him slide out the way he did. They’d be damned happy to see him finally pay for it.”

  “Peyton, why don’t you tell him about it? This was your idea.”

  When she finished, the last thing he expected was for Franz to burst out laughing. The man laughed so hard they were afraid he’d choke, but eventually he settled down.

  “Sorry, but that is going to make a whole lot of people very happy. Really, really happy.” He leaned forward in his chair. “If you can manage to get a photo somehow, that would be a bonus. So what is it you’d like from me?”

  “We need information.” Peyton sat forward. “Just enough specifics that the media will dig deeper into it and find out the rest for themselves. Can you do it?”

  Blaze watched the man turn it over in his mind then come to a decision.

  “I can’t give you everything, but I do know where some bodies are buried. I can get you enough solid information that the media can take it from there.”

  “I don’t want you to get in trouble,” she protested.

  “Trouble is my middle name,” he joked. Then the smile disappeared. “Hell, with all the stuff people are always leaking around here, there are at least twenty other people who’d be suspected. Besides, I think everyone would be cheering me on. I’m happy to do it. Believe me, this will be much more satisfying than killing him.”

  Peyton let out a breath. “We can’t thank you enough. What are your arrangements? Can you stay over until tomorrow? I have to see if it’s better to get the information tonight or in the morning.” She looked at Blaze. “Can we?”

  He nodded. “Not a problem. We have our own plane, Senator.” He grinned. “It’s also kind of our office.”

  “Office?” Both eyebrows went up. “That I’d like to hear about.”

  Keeping it short and sweet, Blaze told him about Galaxy, how it had come to be and what they did. And why their plane was their flying office.

  Franz looked at him with a thoughtful expression on his face.

  “So how does someone contact you if your services are needed?”

  “They usually figure out who to ask and go from there.”

  “I’m sure you all don’t have business cards, but how about writing down your cell number for me? The way things are these days, I might find I actually need your services.”

  Blaze chuckled. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope you don’t. It means you’ve fallen into a whole shitpile of trouble.”

  “Well, I agree with you there. Let me call your cells so you’ll have me in your contacts, also.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they were finished and ready to leave, the Uber they’d called for waiting outside.

  “Thank you so much, Senator.” Peyton shook his hand. “I really appreciate it.”

  “Happy to do it. Besides the fact that you’re one of th
e few people I trust, I’m damn glad to see that fucker Sulzberger get his at last. I’ll call you in the morning as soon as I have what you need.”

  Once they were in the car, Blaze relaxed a little.

  “That was easier than I expected.”

  “I gather there was a lot of resentment and animosity when Sulzberger was allowed to slide out of Congress quietly and not pay for his sins.” She glanced over at him. “So, what now?”

  “Now we find a place to stay, have dinner and maybe…” He grinned at her. “Think of a way to work off all this stress.”

  She took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I think I might have some ideas on just that.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Peter Kendrick paced the floor of his den, stopping every few seconds to look out of the window that faced the street. Owen had called that morning to tell him that he and Diane were on their way, so where in the hell were they? A strategy session was crucial right now. Every move the three of them made was liable to be under close scrutiny, so they could not afford even a tiny mistake.

  At last he saw Owen’s rental car pull into the driveway, and moments later the front door of the house opened. Owen walked in, Diane holding tightly to his hand. They were both dressed in casual clothes and wore identical expressions—as if the gallows were waiting right around the corner. They both looked pale as shit and stress lines bracketed Owen’s mouth and eyes.

  Something was definitely wrong. Peter had guessed there was a hell of a lot more to the situation than he knew, and a sour taste of fear washed through his mouth. Shit and fuck. What now?

  “Let’s go into the kitchen,” he suggested. “That’s where the coffee machine is and it looks as if you might need it.”

  They both nodded and wordlessly followed him into the kitchen. When they were all seated at the table, each with a mug of coffee, Peter looked from one to the other, studying their faces. What the hell is going on?

  “Okay.” He leaned forward. “Let’s have it. What else is wrong? You both look like the roof fell in. Again. Did something more happen?”