Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“No, it’s not a crazy idea,” Wyatt said to Director Spenser over speakerphone after he and Harper had spent the last few minutes presenting their theories to him.
Harper held her breath as she stood next to Wyatt. Maybe she should send a prayer to . . . was there a patron saint of dealmakers?
“We need the President to tell us where Will is now. And yes, someone from our team needs to go talk to him at the prison,” Wyatt added.
“CIA black sites are classified. Only the President and a handful of people know all of the locations,” Director Spenser responded.
She and Wyatt were alone in the living room while Finn was making a call of his own in the other room.
As for Roman, he was with the devil. Twenty minutes earlier, at five o’clock on the dot, his uncle had picked him up in his limo so Roman could explain the plan.
The idea of him alone with Luciano had her stomach flipping.
It didn’t help that it was empty since she was certain she hadn’t eaten since yesterday.
“And only a handful of people know about us.” Wyatt set both hands on the desk, staring at his cell phone as if he could melt the thing with his eyes like Superman. “Make it happen.”
“You don’t order me around, son. I think you’ve forgotten who you work for,” the director returned.
“Don’t bother phoning your wife to have her call her dad, either.
Admiral Chandler is in the Situation Room with me now, and he doesn’t want you all on some wild goose chase that could potentially draw the bad guys straight to a top-secret facility. ”
“Will Hobbs is in prison. How could he pull any of this off?” Harper overheard the admiral ask. He sounded a bit more open and sensible to the idea, at least. “And why now?”
“He was transferred at some point last year to a different prison during President Bennett’s restructuring of black sites, one that might not be as secure as we think,” Harper explained what both men had to have already known.
Most likely, Will would have been somewhere in Nicaragua if he’d been in prison with Brandon prior to the relocation program since Brandon’s helo transport went down there.
“Someone on the inside must be helping Will make contact with the outside world.”
“Look at the facts, sir,” Wyatt said. “Talon Fox was friends with Will Hobbs, and he’s capable of making that two-mile shot in Israel.
His employees are parked outside Mauricio’s sister’s hotel as we speak, and Talon is now off-the-grid,” he repeated what they’d already told him.
“And the most obvious piece of evidence is that Will wants us in Monaco on Monday, the day his wife died, and it’s the location where we arrested him in 2018. ”
And that meant it wouldn’t be Ezra waiting for her in Monaco as she’d hoped. Talon Fox must’ve gotten to Ezra and forced him to share everything he knew. And sadly, it meant it probably was Ezra who had died in that car bombing outside the hotel.
“Or someone is working hard to make it look like it’s Will Hobbs,” the admiral spoke up. “A man that’s in prison in a classified location. And are you suggesting a SEAL like Talon Fox would attempt to kill President Bennett’s son?”
“Will Hobbs was a SEAL. And he was also a founder of our teams, and even he betrayed our country,” Wyatt shot out the reminder, and the line fell quiet for a moment.
“So, it’s not a stretch of the imagination that his best friend, who is now more loyal to the almighty dollar, would make questionable choices and help Will out. ”
“Let us worry about Talon Fox, then. We’ll locate him and bring him in for questioning,” the director responded.
“Like we said, he’s conveniently MIA. The Navy trained the man in evasion tactics.
He knows how to avoid being spotted by surveillance cameras.
Plus, he’s without a doubt using an alias for travel,” Wyatt delivered the bad news.
Of course, Harper, Jessica, and Natasha wouldn’t give up in their search for Talon, but their plan to lure him out would most likely be quicker. “We have a way to draw him out.”
More silence as the director probably muted the call to exchange a few words.
“I need to speak with the President before we move forward or share any classified intel on a current location for Will,” the admiral spoke up, which was better than a no.
“Can you at least confirm Will is still in prison?”
There was still the possibility Will escaped, but it’d require a lot of moving pieces for that to not only happen but for no one to know about a prison break.
“We’ll see. Just get your asses back to D.C. Fly commercial if you have to,” the director issued the command.
“And, uh, where would you like me to store my sniper rifle and gear? In the overhead compartment?”
She was sure Wyatt wouldn’t have smarted off if it’d been his father-in-law who’d barked out the order.
And he wouldn’t normally disrespect a higher-up but discovering that the man at the top of the suspect list for hunting them and shooting Knox had betrayed them and the country all over again—well, it was a lot to handle.
“I’m pulling Natasha out of Israel until we know what’s really going on,” the admiral spoke up before Spenser could reply, and Harper saw Wyatt’s chest fall with relief. “I suggest you catch the next military flight back so you can keep an eye on my daughter.”
“We’re not through here yet, sir. We need to go after Talon Fox.
” Wyatt’s voice had been strong and confident while speaking to the director and the admiral, but now Harper noticed a tightness around his eyes and mouth, subtle clues that he was uneasy about the plan they’d hatched earlier—the one involving using Luciano Riviera to help them bait Talon.
They could no longer afford to be sitting ducks.
They needed to get ahead of Will. If Brandon had shared intel with Will in that TH Crimson black site, logic dictated Will would have asked Talon to track down Ezra.
Then he’d use Ezra to throw the teams off his scent.
They’d been focused on a terrorist attack and then on the old Dumas case.
Not on a man who may or may not be in prison.
“Let me ask you something, if Will masterminded this plan of revenge, why suddenly drop a clue with the anniversary of his wife’s death and pick Monaco as the location to connect him to what’s going on?
” the admiral asked, and that was something Harper and the guys had already discussed before the call.
“What do terrorists do to their prisoners?” Her voice was low and a little shaky. “Psychological warfare. They mentally beat up their captives before they make their next move. And that Starbucks gift card we told you about is the next big move. Possibly the final one.”
“Will wants to bring us back to the very location where we first took him down in Monaco. We’re sure of it,” Wyatt added.
“Then why has he been working hard to split you all apart?” the director pressed. “Part of this mental game he’s playing?”
Wyatt and Harper exchanged a quick look before Wyatt responded, “He wants to weaken us. Break us. Then kill us.”
“And the fact Harper wasn’t officially on the team at the time Will was arrested, what about that?” the admiral spoke up.
“She helped us on the case in 2018, the one that led to his capture,” Wyatt reminded them. “And if he’s had Talon watching us, he’d have learned she’s now part of our team that he’s looking to destroy.”
God, it all made her sick to her stomach.
“I suppose you’re not going to tell us about your plan to find Talon Fox, then?” the admiral asked after a few seconds of silence.
Wyatt pushed off the desk. “It’d be best if you’re not privy to the details.
” That was code for, what we’re going to do may violate international agreements with a foreign country, and you don’t want to be connected to that.
There was a reason their teams existed, after all.
Bravo and Echo went when it wasn’t an option to put official boots on the ground.
“I need you home. You can’t personally be involved in whatever ace you think you have up your sleeve,” the admiral ordered in a firm tone.
“I’m the Secretary of Defense, and my daughter is still CIA.
I can’t have you getting your ass thrown in jail overseas.
” A deep breath crackled the line. “That isn’t a request, son.
Roman and Finn can handle whatever it is that I shouldn’t know about. ”
Harper’s stomach squeezed at the news. It was better than nothing, she supposed.
“And me? I’d like to stay here, too.” Roman was going to hate the idea, and she may have still been upset with him, but she had his back. “Wouldn’t you like to be able to tell POTUS we found the man who shot his son?”
“And if you fail?” Spenser hit a nerve, applying pressure on her insecurities. Her fears. The what-ifs she didn’t want to face.
What if I do lose Roman? “I won’t fail, sir.
” She tightened her arms across her chest, hating her lingering self-doubts.
“You have my word. If you get us the intel we need about Will, we’ll get you the shooter and the man who hired him.
” Be confident. Believe what you’re saying, too, she scolded herself.
“Fine,” the admiral grumbled. “I’ll be in touch within the hour, and, Wyatt, make sure your wife gets on a plane home tonight, or it’s your ass,” he added before ending the call.
“That didn’t go quite as planned.” Wyatt removed his black ball cap and tossed it onto the couch. “Roman won’t be happy you’re staying.”
“Roman has no right to argue with me.” Earlier, she’d been pissed at herself for desiring the man while he’d ordered her to stand down about Monaco. Her body had a habit of caving to the passion that burned between them, especially when he went full-on alpha male.
“True.” Wyatt frowned. “He was really going to ask Emilia for help instead of us, wasn’t he?”
That part of Roman’s “speech” to the team that morning had hit the guys the hardest.
“He knew you would never agree to kill his uncle.” She found herself automatically defending Roman.
“And what if he’d told us the truth earlier?
Asked for our help and his uncle found out?
Luciano wouldn’t have hesitated to hurt one of us, or someone easier to target like Luke’s wife, for instance. We can’t bring back the dead.”
“You don’t have that superpower?” He gave her a slight smile, trying to diffuse some of the tension.
“Believe me, if I did, I’d bring back Marcus for you all.” She’d never met Marcus since he’d died before she joined the teams, but they carried his loss with them every day. Terrorists took him the way they’d taken her father.
“Well, lucky for us, no one is going to die on my watch, so we don’t need to worry about that.
” He tipped his head toward the door to the connecting suite, suggesting he speak to his wife in private.
“We’re not going to let anyone tear apart our team,” he added as if he needed to hear the words as much as she did. “Not Will. Not Roman’s uncle. No one.”
She nodded, but before she could reply, the main door to the suite opened, and the dark, weary expression on Roman’s face had her knees almost buckling. “What’d he say?”
Roman let the door swing shut before tearing both hands through his hair. “We leave for Cape Town tomorrow.”
“South Africa?” she sputtered. “Wait, ‘we’?” He was going to let her go with him without a fight? That was hard to believe.
Roman set his gaze to Finn now joining the room, standing off to her left. “My uncle won’t arrange a meeting with the hitman who shot Knox unless you’re there with me.”
She was okay with that, but . . . why? “I, um.” She worked her lower lip between her teeth with his eyes sharp on hers.
“He thinks I’ll be more motivated to do what he asks from now on and walk away from my old life if I bring a part of that life with me,” he said, his tone strained and raw with emotion. “You.”