Chapter Thirteen #2
Taking a deep breath, Archer took a chance, darting into the room, aiming his weapon, and firing.
He took out the bad guy, dropping him with a shot to the neck.
Atticus was right behind him, both of them holding their weapons at the ready.
He had enough experience not to trust that the hostage was the one they were seeking.
She could’ve easily been a plant—just another baddie looking to take them out.
Under the guise of loosening the ropes holding her, he checked for weapons. When he found none, he signaled to Atticus.
And the overhead lights came on. The pain in his arm disappeared instantly.
“Congratulations,” Z said into his ear. “At least you’re not dead.”
Yeah. At least.
Brantley read the stats on the screen as the exercise ended.
“Are you sure the sensor’s readin’ right?” he asked RT.
“It is.” He pointed to the side of the screen reflecting Atticus’s stats. “And look at this improvement. The kid’s got somethin’ a lot of people don’t.”
Yeah, he did. And surprisingly, Atticus was coming into his own in a very short time. Hell, since he’d gone through training, he’d done a complete one-eighty, and it was damn hard not to notice. It was one of the reasons Brantley had put him and Archer as leads on this case.
“They’re comin’ out,” Z announced.
Brantley looked up to see both men grinning as they talked. He wasn’t sure what was being said because the mics had been turned off, but whatever it was, it looked like they were having a good time.
Suddenly, Atticus stopped and began digging in his pocket. He pulled out his cell phone, frowned at the screen, then tapped it to take the call. He turned away.
Brantley headed out of the control room to talk to Archer, curious what the man thought about the training facility.
“Pretty impressive,” he said as he approached the big guy.
Archer huffed a laugh. “You’re tellin’ me.”
“I meant your score.”
Archer’s eyebrows rose slowly. “They were keepin’ score?”
“Everything’s scored or graded around here. Everything’s measured.”
“Figures.”
“You and Atticus came in the top ten for that course and level.”
“Lemme guess. You and Reese hold the number one spot.”
Brantley grinned, not bothering to answer.
Archer shook his head, rolled his eyes, and grinned. “Of course you do. Navy SEAL.”
Nudging his chin in Atticus’s direction, Brantley asked Archer, “Who’s he on the phone with?”
“One of his old contacts up here. We’re tryin’ to track down an address for Martin Calloway.”
Brantley was impressed. “Any luck?”
“Hopefully. We thought we could have someone follow him while someone else does recon on his residence, if we can get an address. If not, I figure we’ll have someone stake him out at his office, then follow him to see where he goes from there.”
“Good idea.” And Brantley liked that Archer hadn’t assigned himself to the task. It showed his ability to delegate.
“We’ve also asked Evan to go to the motel and talk to Meredith Prescott. I’m not sure she knows anything, but it won’t hurt to have him interrogate her a bit.”
“Sometimes you don’t even know what you know until someone asks the right question.”
“Agree. And he’s takin’ Becs with him. Hey, man.” Archer nudged his chin at someone behind Brantley.
“Hey,” Reese said as he joined them. “What’s up?”
“I was just tellin’ Brantley that Evan’s gonna go talk to Meredith today.”
Atticus strolled up, causing Archer to pause.
“Any luck?” Brantley asked him.
Atticus frowned, then glanced at his phone. “Oh, yeah. Right. Actually…” His gaze slid to Archer. “He said there’s been hush-hush rumors that Censorious is back in business and currently in the middle of acquiring a new top-level.”
“Who said this? And how do they know?” Reese asked, his attention darting between all the faces.
“I’ve got a contact who works for the Dallas Morning News.
He’s one of their fact-checkers. I asked him about Martin Calloway.
Rumors specifically. He said they’ve been lookin’ into them for the past couple of months.
Ever since word got out that they’ve regrouped.
” Atticus looked at Archer. “I think we should get Simon on it. See what he can find out.”
Archer nodded. “Sounds good to me. I was just givin’ them an update.”
“Don’t stop on my account.”
Brantley fought the urge to smile. He was a bit surprised at how naturally the two of them worked together.
He had expected some hesitation as they worked to determine which was the more dominant partner.
It was interesting to see they were somehow managing a relatively balanced structure.
It kinda reminded him of how he and Reese worked back in the beginning.
Their personalities complemented one another, allowing them to get shit done without a lot of bickering.
“We’ve asked Charlie to do a thorough analysis on Allison Bogart, going back as far as she can. A conversation would be better, but we need to locate her first,” Archer explained. “We’re not sure if she’s still in Coyote Ridge, but it’s worth finding out. A sit-down with her is in order.”
“Agree.” Brantley glanced between them.
Archer continued. “Jay will be doing a deeper dive on any information the team comes up with. If we find out Allison’s got a partner, he can dig into it. We might be able to get some info from them once we identify who they are.”
“Oh, and JJ emailed this mornin’,” Atticus added. “Said Baz is gonna talk to the doctor today. She’s currently runnin’ background on him, but what she’s found so far is probably enough to nail him to the wall.” He grinned. “Her words.”
Yeah, Brantley was glad he decided to put them on this.
“What would you like us to do?” Reese asked.
Archer looked at Atticus, nodded.
Atticus was the one to answer with, “We discussed it this mornin’ and we thought it best if the two of you stake out Martin Calloway. We’re workin’ to get a home address for him, but so far, no luck. We do know where he works, so if you want to start there.”
Brantley looked at Reese, waited.
“I’m good with that.” Reese looked at Archer. “I’ll need you to take Tesha. She’s good on stakeouts, but I hate to do that to her if I don’t have to.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d seen a man’s face light up the way Archer’s did. Like a giant kid on Christmas morning. He saw a version of the same every day on Reese’s face. It was almost amusing how excited a grown man could get about being partnered up with a dog.
“He’s got a list of her main commands,” Brantley told Archer, fighting the urge to laugh. He kept to himself the fact that the list was on a notecard. And it was laminated.
“What about you two?” Reese asked.
“We’re gonna do some recon on Decker,” Archer said without hesitation.
“Thought we’d check out where he grew up, see if we can talk to anyone who knew them back then.
Since he’s the one who said Martin Calloway blackmailed his father as well as Meredith, it makes me believe he’s the nexus.
I want to see if we can get some clarification. Due diligence and all that.”
“And we’re hopin’ to track down Allison Bogart’s parents, see if we can get anything out of them,” Atticus added.
Brantley nodded. “Sounds like y’all’ve thought of everything.”
“Have you gotten an update from Luca?” Atticus asked.
And apparently, it wouldn’t be long before Atticus was taking over the team. The kid was on top of everything.
“He texted me a little while ago,” Brantley told him. “They don’t have anything yet, but he’s workin’ with Slade. They’ll be talkin’ to some people today.”
At the mention of Slade’s name, Atticus’s gaze shot to the ground. Brantley was curious what was going on between those two, but decided now was not the right time to inquire. They had too much to do to worry about personal bullshit.
Twenty minutes later, they were in the truck, headed to Plano to stake out an FBI agent.
“I find it interesting that this particular field office handles government corruption,” Reese said, staring at his phone.
“Ironic, huh?”
“The fact that you used ironic correctly is ironic,” Reese teased. “But yes, it’s most definitely ironic. I guess if you’re in charge of locating guilty parties, it’s easy enough to cover up your own crimes.”
“True. What information do we have on Martin Calloway?”
“Give me a sec.” Reese grabbed his laptop from the back seat and propped it in his lap.
Brantley let the navigation system direct him where to go, glancing every so often at the screen to see how much time until their arrival.
“All right,” Reese said. “Here we go. Holly started doin’ a deep dive on this guy. Martin Calloway. Sixty-three years old. Married for the second time. First wife died in a car accident eighteen years ago. He’s been married to the second for…”
Reese looked up.
“For?” Brantley prompted, not sure why the sudden silence.
“Seventeen years, eleven months.”
Ah. Well, yeah. He could understand it now. That did sound a little … planned.
But rather than jump onto another conspiracy bandwagon, Brantley went with something less likely, but definitely a possibility. “Maybe he just falls in love fast. Could be completely coincidental.”
Reese laughed. “Yep. Because we believe in coincidence.”
“We believe that not everything’s a conspiracy,” he countered. “Like I said, maybe he falls in love fast. What else? He have kids? Grandkids?”
With his attention back on the computer screen, Reese continued. “He’s got five kids. Two with the first wife, two with the second.”
Brantley waited for the rest, but nothing came.
“Hey, I know I’m not a mathematician or anything, but I’m pretty sure two plus two does not equal five.”
“I’m lookin’. Hold on.”
Why did that seem to be the theme of his day?