Frontline (30 page)

“He deserved worse than losing his job at the
Times
,” Chris mutters.

The smiling Peters Family portrait sitting on my coffee table catches my attention. I glance between it and the man sitting on the couch. I barely recognize the two of them as the same person. Years of stress and worry have eroded my father, washing away each layer of happiness until all that’s left today is a deep chasm of misery. And my mother
—

An icy spike drives up my spine. “Dad, where’s Mom? Is she okay?”

His quick nod tames only some of my concern. “She’s safe. This morning, Trenton arranged for her and her sister to visit a spa in Arizona. She doesn’t know any of this is going on.”

My heart squeezes out of relief for her safety and out of sadness because I miss her and could use her now more than ever.

To think of what my father has been up to for so long, placing us in so much danger, and we never knew. My mom thinks running a yellow light should be grounds for prison time. If she ever found out about this, I can’t imagine how she’d react. Since I was born, and even before, she worked in tandem with my father to provide a happy, stable home life. They were partners once, teammates, and best friends. His latest partnership with Don could destroy our lives.

And yet, he was only trying to do what he vowed the day he put a ring on my mother’s finger . . . the day they carried me home from the hospital: to provide a better life for all of us. The instability of work at the dock has been hard on him and I don’t blame him for looking for something better. Had I only known he was in so much trouble trying to pay the bills and look after us, I could have done so much more. Additional shifts during the school year, an extra job in the summer, they all could have helped us. Now, here we are, trying to untangle ourselves from the Russian mob.

How the hell did it come to this?

As loving and protective as my father has been, there are some things about him that drive my mom crazy. One is his inability to communicate with her. My dad bore the weight of every low point himself, internalizing all the worry and shutting my mom and me out by taking refuge in front of the basement television each night and saying barely a word. I know it made my mom feel worthless, as if he couldn’t confide in her and didn’t trust that she had the strength to share his burden.

Look out for your father when he gets testy like this,
my mother would say.
It’s when he’s pushing us away that he needs us most.

I square my shoulders. “Trenton, what’s your arrangement with Kedrov?”

Trenton stands from the coffee table and walks toward the kitchenette. “I figured if I could convince Kedrov to move his weapons with my ships, the FBI would be able to trace the source of where it all comes from, where it all goes, ID all the main players, and stop them in one swoop. Initially, Kedrov just sent his counterfeit goods with me, the handbags and clothes your father mentioned, stuff that was inconsequential.

“Every few months, as we gained more of his trust, he’d send something more illicit with those goods. It’s taken almost two years to develop this relationship. When I met with him on my trip to Moscow last week, he said he had a very important container he trusted me to move. I made sure it all happened smoothly
—the fake manifests, traveling through less-secured ports. Everything went perfectly.” Trenton turns to my father with a lethal look. “Smoothly, that is, until it landed in San Francisco and disappeared.”

My dad leans forward and rests his forearms on his knees, twiddling his thumbs in the space between. “Sara, listen to me. I didn’t want to go to jail or be responsible for smuggling in weapons that, for all I knew, could be used in a terrorist attack or something. Most importantly, I didn’t want anything happening to you or your mother. So I had to sever ties with Kedrov and quick.

“When I overheard Kedrov’s men saying there was something real important coming in a couple days ago, I thought this was my chance to stand up to him. Blackmail him, get out for good, and stick it to him for killing Don. So I came up with a plan. When the shipment came in, I erased all the tracking info from the manifest and database in the office and made sure the security cameras were dismantled in certain areas. Then I trucked the container way into the docking grounds and hid it. Only I know where it is. Kedrov, of course, is furious.”

“He’s not the only one!” Trenton says. “That container was meant to prove to Kedrov once and for all that he could trust my shipping company to smuggle his goods. It was imperative that we established that trust and your idiotic move ruined everything.”

“So let me get this straight.” I focus on Trenton. “You helped Kedrov move a container of God-knows-what illegally into San Francisco as part of some undercover FBI operation to show him he could trust you and your shipping company.” I turn to my father. “Then you took this container and hid it somewhere in the port as some kind of payback for what Kedrov did to Don and to use it as leverage to get out of the smuggling game altogether and keep our family safe.”

My father nods. “It was all I could think to do at the time.”

“When Kedrov found out the container was missing, he put two and two together and dispatched orders to find your father, get him to give up the container’s location by any means necessary, then kill him. That means anyone connected to him is in danger.” Trenton extends a long finger from his clenched fist and points directly between my eyes. “Including you.”

I draw in a breath, trying to approach the situation calmly, like I would a chaotic shift in the ER.
“So it was Kedrov’s men who tried to shoot us the other day? They’re going after me to get to my dad and find out the container’s location?”

“No, that happened before Kedrov found out about the missing container.” Trenton fixes another menacing stare on my father. “Allan, care to explain the final piece of y
our well-orchestrated puzzle?”

My dad’s shoulders slouch. His thumbs stop moving. “Sara, those idiots that shot at you . . . that had nothing to do with Kedrov. Not directly.”

The look on his face tells me that even after everything that’s been said already, the worst is yet to come. “What do you mean, Dad?”

“I, uh . . .” He clears his throat. “I hired them.”

Denim and Kelly gasp hard enough to suck all of the oxygen in the room. My head feels like it’s about to float away and my lungs burn as I struggle to breathe. The windowsill catches my hand as I fall against it. Trenton starts toward me, but stops just as quickly. Kelly and Denim rush to my side.

“Y
ou . . . you hired them?” I screw my eyes shut for a moment as dizziness besieges me. “Why would you do that?”

My father rises from the couch and creeps toward me like I’m some wild animal he doesn’t want to scare off. “You gotta understand, Sara, when you left San Francisco, I needed someone to watch out for you, do what I couldn’t do anymore. But I couldn’t afford much
—even with the money I got from helping to move Kedrov’s goods. A co-worker at the docks gave me the number of some guys from around here who he said would do it for a good price.

“They tailed you for a few days
—saw you getting into fancy cars, hanging with Money Bags Merrick and his GI Joes.” He motions to Chris and Sean. “It sounded fishy to me. Then they sent photos back and I got real worried. I was convinced that Kedrov had found you and was up to something, maybe trying to get some leverage on me just in case I stepped out of line. I told them to protect you at all costs—that if they thought you were in danger, to do anything they could to keep you safe. I guess the two of you driving down a deserted country road on Saturday evening sent off warning bells in their empty heads and they decided to try and take out Merrick.” He drops back down onto the couch, his head in his hands. “But you gotta believe me, kiddo, I never figured they’d do something so stupid like shoot at you.”

Sean chuckles. “Man, those guys were brutal. Where’d your co-worker find them? Craigslist?”

Chris smirks.

Kelly glares at them. “Well, I’m glad someone’s finding humor in this situation.”

Trenton doesn’t look amused either. “They were amateurs, Allan. You entrusted the life of your daughter to amateurs and they almost ended it. What were you thinking?”

My father turns to face him, his hands clenched into fists. “I did the best I could to protect her. If I could afford my own personal ar
my like you, I would have it.”

Trenton scowls. “If you loved Sara as much as you say you do, you wouldn’t have been so careless.”

My father flies off the couch, his right fist drawn back to his shoulder, his left reaching to snare Trenton’s suit jacket. Sean and Chris swoop in, colliding with my dad like speeding cars meeting head-on, throwing him back toward the couch with such force that I fear they might crash through the wall into the adjacent apartment.

Few could face Sean or Chris individually, let alone together, but seeing my dad tossed so easily onto his back and physically restrained by them
—the man who protected my mom and I from any danger all these years—ignites my temper.

“Let him go!” I rush over to my father. “Leave him alone, both of you!”

“Don’t you
ever
insinuate I don’t love my daughter!” My dad thrashes out against Sean and Chris, still trying to get to Trenton. “I would do anything for Sara. I wouldn’t expect you to understand, Merrick. I doubt you’re even capable of loving someone more than yourself.”

Chris and Sean’s firm holds deter any further thoughts my father has about getting past them and he stops fighting. Through it all, Trenton remains stone-faced.

I glare at him, realizing that talking directly to his Tin Men is useless.
“I said let him go.”

Trenton raises his hand and Chris and Sean release my father like obedient attack dogs. My dad adjusts his crooked jacket and shirt. A brown corduroy sports jacket with a denim shirt and tan slacks were always what he considered his best formal wear. My mom and I never missed an opportunity to tell him how handsome he looked. Now, next to Trenton’s designer suit, his classic outfit looks like something pulled from the bottom of a thrift bin.

Anger rushes through me like wildfire over dry brush. “Don’t you dare allow your men to lay a hand on my father again—you hear me?”

Trenton’s expression remains apathetic. “Sara, your father has jeopardized two years of undercover investigation through his own short–sightedness.”

My dad throws his hands up in the air. “How in the hell was I supposed to know you had anything to do with this latest shipment? As far as I was concerned, it was just another Kedrov box carrying a bunch of dangerous things into America and it needed to be stopped. I did it the best way I knew how.”

“Damn it, stop arguing!” Kelly stands at my side, glowering at my dad and Trenton. “You both screwed up. That’s been established. But it sounds to me like this shipping container isn’t going stay hidden forever. So why not try working together to stop this Kedrov guy from finding it, hand it over to the FBI, and be done with it.”

Sean scoffs. “Halt our operation before it’s finished? I don’t think so, Sheridan.”

Kelly plants her hand on her hip. “You have to eliminate the Kedrov threat now or Allan and Sara are as good as dead. What’s more important? Their lives or your resume?”

Trenton and my father trade apprehensive glances like two children told to shake hands and apologize after a schoolyard scuffle.

“We do have enough evidence . . .” Chris looks to his boss. “As long as we can get to the container first, we could easily track it back to Kedrov, even with Allan’s tampering of the manifests.”

“I can take you to the container,” my father says. “But I don’t know what to do with it when we get there.”

“We’ll take it from there.” Trenton gestures to Sean. “Call Randall. Tell him to have a plane fueled and waiting. Also, dispatch Ben and Kyle to this location. They’ll take Sara back to the safe house. She can stay there until Kedrov and his men are no longer a threat.”

My eyes widen. “The safe house? No way. I’m not going back to that place!”

Trenton walks toward the apartment door. Sean pulls out his cell phone.

I grab my father’s shoulder and pull him toward me as he rises from the couch. “Dad, can’t you just
tell them where the container is? Why do you have to go to the port with them?”

He sighs. “It’ll be tricky for them to find on their own, Sara. There are thousands of containers at the port. Besides, they’ve got no clearance to get inside.”

“They work for the freakin’ FBI!”

Chris steps forward. “Actually, we haven’t informed the Bureau about what happened.”

“Why not? You need their resources if you want to stop Kedrov.”

“Orders, Sara,” he says quietly.

“Orders?” My voice sounds shrill in contrast.

Chris glances at apartment door where Trenton stands with Sean, who’s talking on his cell phone. His voice drops even lower. “If we told the Bureau what happened, the first thing they’d do is arrest your father.”

And with the realization that follows, my shame shoots up to an all-time high.

“Oh.”

“Come on,” Trenton says, turning to my father and Chris. “We’re wasting time.”