Chapter 9
Nine
Nic woke to Cam’s Boston brogue, harsh and drawn out with unleashed fury. “What the hell was that?”
From Nic’s other side, Bowers spoke, his words clipped and strident. “I’m trying to find the person calling the shots.”
Eyelids heavy, Nic listened to their voices echo around him in stereo, the beeping of a heart monitor like a metronome keeping the cadence of their argument. “You lost us Becca and Abby,” Cam said. “And you got Percy and your best AUSA injured in the process.”
“My best.” Bowers scoffed. “You were the one running the op. Your agents should have adapted to the change in course.”
“Percy is not a fucking agent. We didn’t prep him for an insertion.”
“Whose fault was that?” Bowers retorted.
“We had a game plan, and you called an audible without warning.”
“I warned you yesterday.”
“Then you said we could run the op our way.”
A third voice entered the fray, Irish lilt pronounced.
“We cannot change an op in progress if we don’t have the right personnel in place,” Aidan said.
His thicker-than-usual accent, startling but not surprising after ten days in his mother country, had finally unstuck Nic’s eyelids so that he witnessed the direction of the SAC’s chiding.
“You’re back,” Nic croaked, and three faces swung to him.
“We’re back,” came a fourth voice.
Nic lolled his head on the pillow, following the direction of the Southern drawl. In the back corner of the hospital room, Jamie and Lauren huddled behind two laptops open on the tray table. Nic gave a nod, then movement at his side drew his attention forward again.
“Hey,” Cam said, stepping closer, all trace of harshness in his voice gone. “How do you feel?”
“Like I was hit by a fucking car.” He braced a hand on the mattress, wincing, and assessed the physical damage.
Sore but no sharp pains and no casts on his limbs.
Some bruised ribs, judging by the wrap around his torso, and scrapes and bruises under more bandages elsewhere. But nothing broken—on him.
“Easy there,” Cam said, lifting a hand toward his shoulder.
Nic batted it away, pushed through the ache, and levered himself up to seated. He leaned back against the mound of scratchy pillows.
“Percy’s injured?” he asked, recalling Cam’s earlier words.
“One of Becca’s guards knocked him out as they made their escape. Broken nose and a concussion. He’s shaken up more than anything.”
“Escaped? Into the car that hit me?”
Cam shook his head. “Oddly, no. They used the confusion to take cover in a shop, then gave us the slip.”
“And the car?”
“Rammed two cruisers as it sped out of the west end of the park.”
“I did get a partial on the plate,” Lauren said. “Running it now.”
“A distraction,” Bowers said. “So Becca could make a break for it.”
Which meant the car had to have been there already, the driver lying in wait. Just like their people had been. Did that make any sense?
Wouldn’t the driver have noticed them and warned Becca away?
Wasn’t it more likely the car was unconnected, like Saturday’s shooter? Another attempt to threaten him personally. Maybe an attempt to eliminate him altogether. But how had they known where he’d be? About the bust? And for that matter, how had they known about the last raid?
“You’re lucky you survived,” Aidan said from where he stood at the end of the bed.
“No, I’m lucky the Navy taught me how to roll.
” Yanking the IV out of his arm, he tossed it aside and moved to swing his feet off the bed.
Cool air hit his back, and he belatedly realized he was wearing a hospital gown.
He’d have to wait for some privacy unless he wanted to show his ass, and his ink, to everyone.
Which he did not. He straightened against the pillows instead.
“Do we have a location on Becca and Abby?” he asked.
“Yes,” Cam said, finally delivering some good news. “A condo in SoMa. Percy planted the card on the guard just before he took Percy out.” Not perfect, but as long as the guard stayed with Becca and didn’t find or otherwise toss the card, they could track them.
But Nic guessed everyone’s presence here meant they weren’t going directly after Becca again. “What’s our next move?”
“We are going to change the game plan, but we’re going to do it right,” Cam said, eyes cutting to Bowers and back. “Becca’s going to lead us to the person in charge.”
“How do you know she’s not?”
“We cracked the money trail,” Jamie answered behind him.
Nic rotated, wincing. “To?”
“Not a person yet,” Lauren replied. “But a place. Serbia. And it’s the same place the deposits to Scott originated from.”
Nic’s mind whirred, fighting through the painkillers to make the pieces of his case fit. “So one, someone didn’t trust Scott to get the job done.”
“Or hired Becca to eliminate him,” Aidan speculated, “once the job was done.”
“Has to be considered,” Nic said with a nod. “And two, someone in Serbia is trying to steal the Serbian artifacts.”
“My guess,” Cam said, “before the exhibit opens.”
“Close the exhibit,” Nic replied.
“Tried that,” Aidan said, then proceeded to lawyer back at him, counting off the issues. “One, it’s a fundraiser. Two, Kristi? still wants to do it as a tribute to his late wife.”
“We need someone inside,” Cam said. “And if we’re gonna do an insertion, we have to do it right this time, like you said. One of ours, not another Percy.”
Nic agreed. “I’d go—”
Two sharp Nos, a strange Boston-Irish mix in one stern word.
“But they know me,” Nic finished his sentence.
Aidan raised a hand in apology. “And there’s no way Becca will believe you’ve flipped.”
“We need a B&E guy who is already ours, who we trust. One of your agents? Or an asset?”
“Danny’s had enough excitement for one year,” Jamie chimed in.
“Mel will have my ass if I risk his on this,” Aidan agreed.
Cam’s suggestion was the last thing Nic expected. “I’ll go.”
Nic’s first instinct was to argue but he bit back his no at the last second, not wanting to second-guess him in front of Aidan or Bowers. And besides, Jamie, blasting out from behind the tray table, was objecting loudly enough for the both of them. “No way, Cameron.”
“It’s fine, Whiskey,” Cam tried to soothe.
“Talents I don’t know about, Boston?” Nic asked.
Dark eyes shot to his. “There’s a lot you don’t know about.”
If Cam had the skills, he was certainly qualified, and there was no one Nic would trust more as their inside man. No one he’d trust more to rescue Abby, capture Becca, and help close this case.
Before Nic could say so, Jamie grabbed Cam by the arm and tugged him out of the room. Aidan broke the astonished silence that had settled in their wake. “Has Becca or any of her new crew seen him?”
Nic shook his head. “I don’t think so. He was kitted out in a mask and helmet at the condo raid. I don’t think he took them off until after Becca fled.” He craned his neck to glance at Lauren again. “Anywhere else I’m forgetting?”
“The arraignment maybe?” she said.
“Negative.” He turned back to Aidan. “Becca wasn’t in the courtroom, and I don’t remember seeing her anywhere around the courthouse yesterday.
We can check security footage to confirm, but I’d be willing to bet Percy was the only one there.
And when we cornered him, he recognized me but he had no idea who Cam was. ”
“She still could have had eyes on him,” Bowers said, as the door swung open.
“I won’t look the same to those eyes,” Cam countered, stopping at the foot of the bed next to Aidan.
Fuming, Jamie stalked back to his spot beside Lauren, and Nic could tell it was all the former agent could do not to make a remark.
Nic wanted—needed—to know what was up, for the sake of the mission if not his sanity. But he wouldn’t ask Cam in front of Bowers. “Are you sure about this?” Nic said instead. “Your call, Boston.”
“It’s the quickest, surest way to infiltrate, to find out who Becca is working for, and to rescue Abby. This is my job. This is what I’m good at.”
Nic sank back into the pillows. No use arguing. Cam’s mind was set, and if his best friend couldn’t change it, Nic wouldn’t be able to either.
“All right, Boston, it’s your rescue.”
Cam kicked down the volume on his headset before the screeches of “Uncle Cam!” blew out his eardrums. “Bobby,” he tried again, hoping his older brother could hear him over the kids. “I just need five fucking minutes of your attention.”
“You try sparing five minutes with three kids always hanging off you,” Bobby replied, weary but laughing. “They miss their favorite uncle.”
Truth be told, Cam missed them too, more than a little.
He slumped on the end of his bed next to his go-bag stuffed with the rattiest clothes he still owned.
Torn jeans, threadbare T-shirts, ribbed tank tops, an old BC hoodie, and his ancient army surplus camo jacket.
He held the coat to his nose, inhaling the lingering scents of shop grease and pot smoke.
Two decades later, any smells should have been long gone—maybe they were and it was all in his head—but this jacket would always smell that way to him.
Remind him of that part of his life—a mix of bitter and sweet.
Vestiges of a life left behind even before he’d moved here.
He was lucky he’d kept this stuff. Luckier still that he’d brought it out with him to California.
Then again, he’d had to make the moving trailer worth it.
A bed frame and mattress, treadmill and weight bench, and a couple suitcases of clothes barely filled half the trailer.
So the shit in the back of his old closet had moved cross-country to the back of his new closet.
Would unearthing it all now unearth his old life too?
A life he and his brother had vowed never to revisit.
“Say a few words to them?” Bobby said, snapping Cam back to the present. “Ma’s on her way over to babysit while Josie and I go out.”
Cam set the coat aside. “Yeah, I’d like that.”