31. Ben
Sunday afternoon, I stared across the conference room at the only other occupant. “I don’t like it.”
“You don’t like anything except Savannah,” Wheeler said. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“I think you have me confused with Lang.” I pointed to the page we’d printed and hung on a whiteboard. Meet me on Sunday, 6:00 p.m. “But I’m talking about this. What’s his play?”
The message had been waiting on Savannah’s long-since-abandoned Chat-o-Gram account since Friday night. Devlin hadn’t sent a location for the meeting, so we had to assume the geotag that came with the message was his intended rendezvous point. Our scramble to uncover the lair where he planned to lure her had uncovered nothing more than a community center, a plain white building in a midsize town half an hour east of us and fifteen minutes north of the Lamp;M office building. The center manager didn’t know who the group was that had rented the space or what their twice-monthly Sunday meetings entailed. All she knew was they were very polite, always paid cash, and never forgot to put away the folding chairs before they left. We could connect the dots, though.
We’d been over my concern about Devlin’s motive a hundred times, but that’s what prepping for an op meant.
“How many fucking times do we have to go over this?” Wheeler said. Apparently, Airmen didn’t have the same work ethic as Rangers. “He’s invited Savannah to one of his cult meetings because either one, he wants to threaten her in person to return the information and not go to the police, two, he wants to plead his case in person to return the information and not go to the police, or three, he wants to recruit her to his cult. In which case, she’ll be inclined to return the information and not go to the police.”
“Or he could just want to win her back,” Bloom said as he entered the room, carrying a plate with two enormous pieces of pepperoni pizza.
“Should you be in here with that?” Wheeler and I said together, then looked at each other.
I glared at him, and he grinned at me.
“You two ever think of getting a room?” Bloom asked. “I’m staying over here, away from the papers and computers and whiteboards. Pizza’s in the kitchen, if you want some.”
I was too amped up to eat. “I’d feel better about this if I could go inside and keep an eye on her.”
“We’ve both been made,” Wheeler said.
In unison, we turned and looked at Bloom.
He shook his head. “Don’t look at me, man. I can’t go in there. I’d be way too susceptible to conversion.”
“You’ve been trained in advanced resistance techniques,” Wheeler reminded him.
“Sure, but these things always start with love bombing,” he said around a mouthful of pizza, which he then swallowed. He smiled. “And I’m a sucker for love bombing.”
“I don’t like her going in there alone,” I told him, ready to talk him into it.
“We’ve got that covered,” Kat said as she entered the room, followed by Lang.
At least, I thought it might be Lang. But the gruff, grizzled guy I’d only ever seen in dark jeans, blue or black T-shirts, and a weeks’ worth of scruff, was clean-shaven and dressed in khaki pants, a white button-down shirt, and a white pullover sweater with a thick band of red knitted around the V-shaped neckline. I was pretty sure my cousin had that exact outfit for her genitalia-less, male-representative doll. I like walking on unmaimed legs, so I didn’t mention it to Lang. But then I saw the shoes, and…
“Are those loafers?” Wheeler asked.
I stepped aside to give Lang a clear path toward him. I didn’t want to get caught in the line of fire.
“It’s business casual,” Bloom answered. “Our research showed it’s the most common thing for first-timers at these things to wear.”
“Should you be eating that in here?” Lang asked.
“I’m almost finished,” Bloom said.
“Bloom, you shouldn’t be eating that in here,” Kat told him.
“Yes, ma’am.” He left and walked back to the kitchen.
“It helps to tell, not ask,” she said. “It also helps to be the boss of all of you. Speaking of, we roll out in thirty minutes. Hayes, is Savannah ready?”
“She will be, “ I said. “She’s finishing up a telecon with her family.”
“Aw. Sweet. Lang, during the operation, you’ll be on her audio channel along with Pasco.”
“Roger that,” he said.
Kat headed to the kitchen. “Bloom, there’d better be at least one piece left for me.”
“I know how much tac ops hate to sit out of the action,” Lang told us, “but go do a few laps or something because the adrenaline in here is fucking choking me.” He pointed his finger at me, his hardened face a sharp contrast to his preppy-geek outfit. “And you, do not ask me if I’ve got this like you ask your buddy here.” He jerked his thumb in Wheeler’s direction. “Because I’ve always got this, whatever this is. Do you have any doubts about that?” He scowled more, which I wouldn’t have thought possible. “Are we going to have a problem?”
“No.” Once again, I bit back the urge to add a “sir” at the end of my answer.
But I wasn’t lying to appease Lang. I truly didn’t have a problem with it. Two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have trusted Savannah’s protection to a soul but Mai or me. Now, I would trust any one of these guys with the momentous task. For temporary colleagues, they were beginning to feel a hell of a lot like my team.