Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
The boys on Echo Team, plus Owen from Bravo, settled around an oval table with Harper, at what they were told would be their new meeting place.
They were always moving to new black sites to prevent drawing suspicion, especially when meeting with those who ordered missions: the President, CIA director, and Secretary of Defense.
They were in a basement beneath an old closed-down jail on the outskirts of D.C. Better than being in that old psych ward like back in Boston, A.J. supposed.
The place had concrete floors, steel beams, and a few fluorescent lights overhead. Sparse and kind of eerie, and after A.J.’s strange hit-in-the-head-ghost-encounter yesterday, he wasn’t in the mood for anything else that gave him the chills.
A.J. gripped the arms of the chair and forced it back, so the front legs were off the floor. The table they were sitting at must’ve belonged to the jail, based on the profanities and gang signs carved by probably a makeshift knife stolen from the kitchen by inmates. “You playing footsies with me?”
“You know you like it.” Chris, who was sitting across from him, playfully kissed the air. “You’d think in this huge-ass space they’d place a table that wouldn’t cramp us so much.” He elbowed Finn off to his side, and Finn nudged him right back.
Owen’s son, Matthew, was feeling better, which was why Owen had shown up today when Harper had called him. At least that was some good news.
“Boys.” The word teased out of Harper’s mouth slowly, and A.J. noticed Roman’s gaze immediately lift from the table and float her way as if on a breeze. An attempt to be discreet in his desire to check her out. God, that man needed to make a move. Man up and just do it.
Okay, so I’m a hypocrite.
“All this place needs is one of those impenetrable, glass-walled boxes in the center of the room to lock criminals in, and we’d be in an episode of The Blacklist.” Finn set his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his palm. “It’s got the creep factor, for sure.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” A.J. nodded in agreement. “Well, the creepy feel. Not sure what in the hell else you just said.”
“What show?” Harper secured her long hair into a high ponytail, the tips of her long black hair had been dyed crimson when she’d lost a bet.
Harper should have known better than to make a wager on A.J.
’s knowledge regarding every major football game played by the University of Alabama in the last forty years.
Hell, his parents had created a trivia game based on the family’s alma mater, and it’d been a weekly ritual growing up.
“A show about the FBI’s Most Wanted criminal. And—” Finn began.
“How do you have time to watch the telly?” Wyatt asked. “You must not be working hard enough.”
“Surprised you didn’t say you watch Jack Ryan since you think you look like that guy from the series. You even grew your beard to match his, didn’t you?” Chris swatted Finn’s chest with the back of his hand.
“Har har.” Finn rolled his eyes. “Anyway, this place gives me The Blacklist chills. The serial-killer-episode kind.”
“That’s a thing now, Mr. Krasinski?” Chris pushed away from the table and stood as if anxious to get a move on. To spin up to wherever the hell they’d be going.
“Who?” Finn asked, playing dumb.
“The actor who plays Jack . . . oh, forget it.” A.J. directed his attention back on Chris. “And you weren’t in such a hurry last night to leave,” A.J. reminded him.
“That was, well, she was . . . different,” Chris answered and waved A.J. off. “We need to operate, though. Get out there again. Been too long.”
“We’ve barely had our boots on home soil since we were over in good ol’ North Korea a week ago, and you call that a long time?
” Okay, so maybe A.J. was usually ready to go as well, but something about being back in Alabama over the weekend had been a reminder that he not only missed home, but it was okay to slow down every once in a while.
He only wished he had someone to slow down with.
A.J. shifted on his seat to grab his phone out of his pocket.
I didn’t finalize the message, right?
Fuck.
I hope not.
Instead of sobering up before heading to the airport last night, Jesse had encouraged a quick “who can take the most shots and not fall down” competition, and he also placed a bet that A.J.
would lose. A.J. had never been able to say no to a bet or to a competition, and in the end, he was victorious.
But he’d been a drunken mess by the time they arrived at the airport.
Probably not one of his best ideas, given the bump on the back of his head.
Wyatt and Chris had to practically carry A.J. onto the plane. And Chris had threatened to tape his mouth shut, worried he’d get them booted from flying commercial if he didn’t stop talking about his firearm collection.
“You happen to know why we were called here?” Finn asked Harper.
“No idea why Secretary Chandler called us aside from the obvious.” Harper’s lips eased into a smile. “A mission.”
It’d be their first official mission this year working for Admiral Chandler in his new role as Secretary of Defense.
And now Wyatt’s future father-in-law was officially one of the select few to know about Bravo and Echo Teams’ off-the-books operations.
To the world, the guys had retired, but hell, they were far from it.
Of course, if they were to ever be captured during an op, they’d have to claim they were acting on their own accord under the guise of Scott & Scott Securities.
They’d secured four more years of operating when Isaiah Bennett won the presidency, but if the media ever got wind of their ops, it’d be game over.
“How much did you drink last night, by the way?” Harper must have been asking A.J. since he was the only one with sunglasses on in the dark basement to hide his bloodshot eyes. All the ibuprofen in the world wouldn’t get rid of his headache, either. It was worse than the one he’d had yesterday.
“His buddy made a bet.” And that was all Roman needed to say for Harper to get the idea.
“Mmhm.” Harper gave A.J. an accusatory but playful grin, her white teeth showing between her parted lips, coated in that nude gloss that Roman was clearly unable to take his eyes off.
Captain Obvious was about as good at hiding his desire for Harper as Asher had once been with Jessica.
Only, Asher and Jessica had done their best to make a show of hating each other while secretly wanting to rip each other’s clothes off.
But Roman kept his cool because Roman was, well, Roman. Quiet. Always thinking. Probably calculating odds and measuring the risks if he were to make a move on Harper.
And then there’s me. I drunk dialed an FBI agent. A.J. pulled at the brim of his ball cap in shame.
“You should’ve taken my phone away from me after all those shots.” The cheap plastic government chair groaned beneath the weight of forcing it to move in ways it wasn’t meant to. A.J. finally allowed the chair legs to meet the ground again.
“And miss out on the chance to watch you do something stupid?” Chris eyed A.J. with intense focus as if A.J. were coming around on the last lap at Nascar, and it was a make-or-break moment. Hell, A.J.’s life was all about those moments, wasn’t it?
He removed his glasses at the sudden realization his drunken message last night had been Chris’s doing. “You . . .”
Chris stopped pacing the length of the table and held both palms in the air. “I may or may not have been the one to encourage you to call her.”
“What am I missing?” Harper asked, but then Roman tipped his chin in the direction of the metal door opening from the other side of the room.
“Harper, you didn’t tell us the admiral was bringing Natasha to our, uh, supposedly clandestine meeting.” Chris dropped back into his seat as if he’d get punished by the teacher for standing. “Um, Wyatt, what’s your future wife doing here?”
Wyatt twisted to the side to peer at Admiral Chandler walking toward the table, his daughter at his right, a stack of folders pressed to her chest. He hurriedly stood, clearly surprised to see his fiancée in this so-called Blacklist-like setting.
Now that A.J. thought about it, the place did give off a bizarre feeling aside from being cold, dimly lit, and beneath a closed-down old county jail. Maybe there were ghosts of previous inmates causing that chill in the air?
Ghosts. Goose bumps exploded across his body as he remembered how clearly Marcus had appeared to him yesterday. You here now? Was Marcus in the room? It almost felt like . . .
A.J. heard a slight crack as he squeezed his palm around his sunglasses.
“What are you doing here?” he overheard Wyatt speak up.
A.J. snatched the bottle of water Harper had placed in front of him earlier, her nose scrunched as if she’d been able to smell the booze on him. Hell, his body was so infused it was probably like a fresh coat of paint on his skin.
“I thought you were working on last-minute wedding details,” Wyatt said while Natasha kept the folders clutched to her chest with one hand and reached out and placed a palm on her future husband’s chest with the other.
“I’ll explain,” Admiral Chandler spoke up, his deep tone deflating any of the residual humor that’d been left wafting in the cool air between the guys.
Wyatt hesitantly went back to his seat, but Natasha remained standing at the head of the table alongside her father, who was out of uniform and in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved, gray button-down shirt. The casual look worked for the man, but it didn’t make him any less intimidating.
It had to be weird for Wyatt to now report to his fiancée’s father, but no stranger than Knox working for his old man. AKA—the Commander in Chief of the United States.