Liar, Liar – Episode 1: The Cleanup Crew

Some lies protect. Some destroy.

Nora Pemberton isn’t looking for anything—not love, not trouble, and definitely not a reason to slow down. She’s fifty-one, recently widowed, and finally paying attention to the business empire she inherited. Someone isn’t happy about that.

Charles Grant is a former Plan B operative who knows how to stay invisible and whose job is to watch her, keep her safe, and not get close. He’s failing that last part.

As the danger buried in Nora’s late husband’s past moves closer and secrets begin to unravel, the rules they’ve been living by become harder to follow.

They understand the arrangement. They know what’s at stake. But some temptations are impossible to resist.

Twenty-five years ago…

Charles Grant turned the ambulance left into the dark alley. Rain hammered the windshield, the huge drops creating a shallow river of dirty water that ran across the pavement.

He stopped behind a battered van and killed the lights. He checked his watch. He had less than fifteen minutes before patrol cars pulled up. Less than fifteen minutes to retrieve the dead bodies, collect any intel he could, and rid the scene of all evidence of Plan B’s involvement.

Charles retrieved the compact H&K pistol from beneath the seat and double-checked the magazine. Fully loaded.

He grabbed the black medical bag from the passenger seat—a precautionary measure in case he found an operative alive.

He hopped out of the vehicle and into the torrential rain. Narrowing his eyes against the cold drops of water battering the world around him, he carefully walked over to the van with the logo of a fake plumbing company painted on the exterior. He eased the door open and peered inside.

He didn’t see anyone, but the interior was a mess. He saw shell casings and one discarded rifle sticking out from beneath overturned plumbing supplies, pipes, and other debris. Bullet holes punctured the back of the front seats, and the windshield was shattered. A literal battle for survival had taken place inside this van.

He kept walking, his footfalls soft, rivulets of water running over his shoes. His eyes and ears were alert for the slightest sound or movement that would indicate danger.

As he neared the apartment building’s exterior staircase, slight movement underneath it made him freeze. He could just make out the bottom of a man’s shoe sticking out from the shadows. He crept slowly forward, weapon lifted high and tight against his chest, and encountered a pair of gray eyes in the darkness. The man was sitting up against a pile of trash bags, his wet hair clinging to his forehead, water dribbling down his face from the openings in the metal stairs above.

Braxton.

He recognized him right away but held his weapon pointed at him nonetheless. In his line of work, you could never be too careful. Expect the unexpected.

Upon closer inspection, the operative’s leg was soaked with blood. The lower left side of his shirt was also soaked with blood, and his face was battered and bruised.

He whispered something, and Charles crouched in front of him. That’s when he saw the second man. Ross. His body was shoved up against the exterior brick wall, but nothing could be done for him. Not with a gunshot wound through the middle of his forehead. Both of them had probably been dragged out of sight and left for dead. Somehow, Braxton had survived.

“Name,” Charles said.

The wounded man’s eyes dropped to the small B pinned to the collar of Charles’s zipped up jacket. It let survivors know that Charles was part of Plan B’s cleanup crew and offered comfort that help had arrived. The cleanup crew operated in the shadows of an already shadowy organization tasked with protecting the United States against domestic and international threats.

“Braxton,” he breathed.

Charles nodded at the confirmation and began working, cutting through Braxton’s pants leg with shears. Blood pumped from the ragged hole in his skin.

“What happened?”

Braxton’s teeth chattered. “Ambushed.” His chest heaved up and down. “Knew… we were… coming.” He spoke with difficulty, every word taking monumental effort.

Charles wrapped a tourniquet a couple of inches above the leg wound and tightened it.

The operative jerked and cursed.

“Relax. Save your energy,” Charles said.

“Easy… for you… to… say.”

The bleeding slowed, indicating the tourniquet was tight enough, but Braxton’s face had paled, and his eyes became unfocused.

Charles gently slapped his cheek. “Hey, stay with me.”

The man groaned, grimacing. “I’m… here. Damn.”

“You better be. Don’t check out on me.”

Braxton gave him a weak smile. “Bastard,” he breathed.

“Damn straight.”

Charles lifted Braxton’s shirt and examined the wound on his side. A bullet had grazed his flesh. Not life-threatening, but undoubtedly painful.

“Where are the files?” he asked as he began to dress the flesh wound.

“Ross,” Braxton groaned.

Charles looked at the dead agent. “Is it still on him?”

“Don’t… know.”

That was something he would have to figure out. Had their attackers been able to retrieve the information?

Tonight’s operation had been simple but turned ugly. A gun smuggler had been masking its illegal operations by pretending to be a legitimate company, funneling weapons through Central America into the United States with the intent to overthrow the government. Braxton and Ross had been dispatched to meet with a company whistleblower in an apartment upstairs.

The contact had information about the smuggling routes and financial records—all of which the U.S. government could use to bring the hammer down on the smugglers. In exchange, the whistleblower and his family would be given immunity and new identities to live their lives as American citizens.

But someone had ratted them out.

Charles checked his watch. Less than eight minutes to go. He removed a syringe from the bag, and Braxton eyed it wearily.

“Something for the pain,” Charles explained before administering the medication. “Be right back.”

He ran to the back of the ambulance, water splashing beneath his feet. He yanked open the rear doors and removed the stretcher. By the time he wheeled it over to Braxton, it was soaked from the rain.

He crouched beside the injured operative again. Charles was six foot one and in great physical shape, but Braxton was bigger and more solidly built. It wouldn’t be easy to move him, but he had moved larger men under worse conditions.

“Arm around my neck,” he commanded.

Braxton did as he was told, and Charles hauled him upright, ignoring his groans. The drugs should kick in soon enough. Until then, he couldn’t go easy on the guy. He had to move quickly to get him to safety and find out if they had the drive, if possible, in the little time he had left.

He strapped Braxton onto the stretcher and wheeled him back to the ambulance. Lining up the stretcher with the floor tracks, he shoved him inside and tossed the medical bag onto the floor beside him.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Charles said.

“Ha.” Braxton’s voice sounded stronger already. The painkiller was working.

Charles slammed the doors shut and raced back to the dead agent. Getting onto his knees, he began to search. He quickly checked his pockets, his waistband, and removed his boots, checking for false bottoms but found nothing.

He rolled the dead man over onto his face. “Sorry, buddy.”

He yanked up the back of his shirt and found the drive taped to the middle of his back.

Charles removed it and slipped it into a waterproof pouch that he then stuck into the interior pocket of his jacket.

A metallic click sounded behind him and made him freeze.

“Stand up,” a gravelly male voice commanded.

Charles glanced at his gun on the ground beside him.

“Don’t even think about it,” the stranger warned. “I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

Fair enough.

Charles eased from beneath the stairs and raised his hands as he slowly straightened.

“Turn around.”

He did so slowly, carefully. The man in front of him was about the same age, in his late twenties. He wore dark pants and a dark shirt. The pistol in his hand was pointed right at Charles’s chest.

“I’m just an EMT,” Charles said.

The man smirked. “Sure you are. And I’m the tooth fairy. You’re with them, aren’t you?”

No point in lying. The guy wasn’t an idiot. “Yes.”

“Where’s the other one?”

Charles shrugged. “This is the only person I saw.”

Clearly doubting his answer, the guy flicked his gaze toward the ambulance. In a fraction of a second, Charles slapped aside the hand holding the weapon. A shot exploded in the alley and the discharged bullet created a spark as it collided with the metal staircase.

Charles punched the man’s throat. Gagging, the stranger stumbled backward but held onto his weapon.

Charles followed, and as the man tried to swing the gun toward him, Charles grabbed his wrist and drove it hard against the brick wall. The man swung his fisted other hand toward Charles’ head, but he ducked and followed up with a powerful blow into the man’s ribs.

Charles slammed the attacker’s wrist against the wall. Once. Twice. The gun clattered to the hard ground and slid several feet away. But the man kneed Charles in the abdomen, temporarily knocking the wind out of him and then diving for the weapon.

Charles jumped onto his back and slammed his face hard into the pavement. The attacker let out a cry of pain. Scrambling over him, Charles stretched for the gun, but the enemy was tougher than expected. He grabbed Charles’s ankle and yanked him backward.

Time to end this.

Charles twisted onto his back and lifted his other leg. The man raised his arm to block the blow he thought was coming.

Instead, Charles grabbed his backup weapon—a .38 special strapped to his left ankle. Small but still deadly.

The man’s eyes widened.

Charles fired, the shot cutting through the edge of the attacker’s forearm and into his eye. His face dropped to the wet ground. Charles fired again, the second shot putting a hole in the top of his head.

He took a deep breath, replaced the weapon in its holster, and jumped up, immediately going over to Ross. He retrieved his other gun and stuck it into his waistband. Then he heaved the dead agent over his shoulder and sloshed through the water to the back of the ambulance. He never left a man behind if he could help it.

When he opened the doors, Braxton’s eyes widened, but when he saw Charles, he immediately relaxed and breathed easier.

“I heard gunshots,” the injured agent said.

“That was the other guy.”

Charles placed Ross on the floor beside the stretcher and grabbed a black bag hanging on the wall. He slung it over his shoulder and hopped out again. Slamming the door, he watched as a car drove by on the mostly deserted road, windshield wipers swishing back and forth at a fast pace.

He hurried back down the alley. Only a few minutes left, and he still had to sanitize the apartment.

Charles ran upstairs. At the half-open door, he pulled out the H&K again and pushed the door all the way open with the front of his shoe. He walked in slowly, eyes shifting back and forth over the carnage. Blood everywhere. Broken glass littered the floor. There was overturned furniture and bullet holes in the walls.

Glass crunching under his feet, Charles moved deeper into the apartment. A woman’s body covered a young girl on top of the sofa. Farther in, he saw the bloody corpses of two more men and recognized the company whistleblower lying dead on the floor of the kitchen.

Everyone had been slaughtered. Even a goddamn child.

He checked the back rooms. Empty. No one hiding and no more bodies. Returning to the front, he grabbed every phone he found and tossed them into the bag on his shoulder.

The sound of sirens wailed in the distance. No time to keep searching to retrieve additional electronics that could provide intel.

He pulled two incendiary grenades from the side pocket of the bag. The first one he activated and tossed down the hall. The other he activated and tossed near an overturned armchair in the living room. Then he rushed toward the door, intense heat blooming behind him.

By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, he could smell smoke and see flames flickering behind the window. Before long, the entire apartment would be engulfed in fire, destroying the interior and erasing any trace of Plan B.

He tossed the third incendiary grenade into the back of the plumbing van and then sprinted to the ambulance. He hopped into the driver’s seat, flipped on the emergency lights, and backed out of the alley.

“Headed to the extraction point,” he called out to Braxton.

No answer.

“Hey, Braxton. Did you hear me?” he asked sharply.

“Yeah, I heard you.” His voice sounded stronger, but he was still weak.

Charles picked up the communication device on the dashboard and inserted it into his ear. “Cleanup One to Eagle, do you copy?”

Red and blue lights flashed behind him as he pulled onto the road. The cops had arrived.

Static crackled in the comm. “Eagle here.”

“On our way. One injured. One deceased. Package retrieved.”

“Eagle ready.”

Charles stared straight ahead as he sped toward the meeting point. His clothes were soaked through, but he was alive and had saved an operative.

Another successful cleanup under his belt.

—

I hope you enjoyed this introduction to Charles Grant. As you can see, he’s a man with a very special set of skills. 

He’ll be much older when episode 2 drops next week, but no less capable. He’ll also still have a sense of humor, which you saw a little of in this episode. Trust me when I say that his physical prowess and sense of humor are exactly what our heroine, Nora Pemberton, needs. 

If you want to see the inside of an ambulance and the incendiary grenade Charles used to ‘clean’ the apartment and plumbing van, visit the serial’s Pinterest page.

There’ll be a couple  of cameos from the Cordoba Agency series in next week’s episode. See you next week at the same time!