Counting Stars #2
“I thought you said protein,” Liam protested before throwing his underwear into the hamper in Josh’s bathroom.
“Yogurt has protein,” he mumbled absently, studying a tablet that he must have brought in his duffel on the way over.
“And also some nice bacteria that helps my stomach recoup what it lost when chemo tried to kill me. So some things you should know about last night’s fallout—grab some food and be ready. ”
Liam went through the small refrigerator and found, to his delight, bagels, cream cheese, and salami. He eyed that last speculatively, and then glanced at Josh and then back into the refrigerator.
“Eat the salami,” Josh said dryly, although it did not appear he’d looked up. “If nothing else, I have breath mints.”
“Try not to kill the romance,” Liam grumbled, and when he glanced Josh’s way, Josh was giving him a mischievous grin.
“You showed up when I needed you,” Josh said happily. “Achievement unlocked. There’s only one thing I need you to do after that.”
Liam’s expression softened. He knew the answer to this one. Any idiot would.
“Stay,” he said.
Josh tilted his head. “We all have our damage. Stay.”
“Understood. What are you looking at so fiercely?” He grabbed the bagels, schmear, and spicy lunchmeat and put them all on the counter before pulling out the toaster, all while listening to Josh reading the morning family report.
“Well, Carl told us that Kadjic managed to slip out before the FBI Art Theft Division got there—”
“Big surprise,” Liam muttered.
“Yes, but also not a big surprise was that Celeste apparently didn’t even know who the guy was—her words—and she had no idea why the painting seemed to anger him so much.”
Liam snorted. “A lie?” he asked.
“Oh, definitely a lie. I heard her say his name twice a day for six weeks. She knew he was coming.”
Liam frowned. “But she obviously knew that was bad news from a LEO perspective. I never did catch whether or not the girl invited him or just ran in his circles. How did he know whether to show up or not?”
“We baited the hook,” Josh said. “Danny knew that Kadjic loved Dizzy Gillespie and the Chicago jazz movement. I think it had something to do with the hats.”
Liam blinked. “Hats?”
“Fedoras?” Josh asked. “You know, all those movies with guys in fedoras and turtlenecks snapping their way through jazz clubs? Apparently Kadjic’s a fan.”
Liam gaped, nonplussed, until a bagel popped out of the toaster.
“Weird,” he managed as he turned to his breakfast.
“No, not really,” Josh murmured, making another note on his tablet. “What’s your favorite music?”
“Punk,” Liam said, not even having to think. “But that’s sort of, you know, a London thing—even an East End thing.”
“So,” Josh said, “if, say, the lead singer of The Clash actually painted in the style of your favorite artist….” He gestured at Liam to fill that in.
“There’s a street artist I like,” Liam said. “Don’t know his name, only his tag. Coyle.” He said it with the Gaelic pronunciation, “Kelly,” and was surprised when Josh spelled it out for him.
“Yes, that’s it. How’d you know?”
Josh raised his eyebrows puckishly. “We ran into him when my family was wandering around Europe, when I was a little kid. Sweet guy. Loves fairy tales, proud Irishman, has a daughter about my age. I think Danny and Felix financed him—gave him enough money to live on until he made it big mainstream, and also kept him going so he could do his street art.”
“I didn’t know he was mainstream,” Liam said, impressed.
“Under a different name,” Josh said. “Anyway, they called it a grant, and he gives them a painting once a year to auction so they can keep giving out grants. Nice guy.”
Liam chuckled. “Of course,” he said. “But back to Joe Strummer coming back from the dead and painting street art.”
“Well, what if he painted street art while he was alive,” Josh said. “And you got a chance to, I don’t know, own a piece of that wall for your giant loft—”
“Tiny dusty flat,” Liam corrected dryly.
“With a fabulous art collection,” Josh supplied. “Anyway, if you were a power-hungry oligarch, wouldn’t you come buy that chunk of wall?”
Liam nodded. “Okay, so yeah. I get it. You baited the hook with a very public exhibition, and then fucked with it. Nice hint of cruelty. That’s how you knew he’d show up, and how you knew he’d flip out.”
“Exactly,” Josh said. “And we knew Celeste ran in his circles, so that’s why her loft. Besides, it was in Chicago, and we want to take him out on our home turf.”
“Fair,” Liam said. “So he managed to squirrel out of meeting the FBI—”
“Big surprise. BTW, if anybody asks, Carl’s here right now debriefing us for the insurance company.”
“I’ll be sure to toast him a bagel,” Liam said dryly.
“Well, he was going to come by,” Josh said, his mouth quirking, “but apparently oversharing with my obnoxious codependent does have an upside.”
Liam massaged his forehead with one knuckle. “So good to know.”
“But there’s more,” Josh said, tapping an item on his tablet. “While we were making out―”
“Making love,” Liam supplied without glancing up from prepping his bagel.
“Doing naked things,” Josh clarified, eyes dancing, “two things were happening. Number one, somebody was taking a poke at my ID.”
Liam almost dropped his bagel. “I’m sorry?”
“We knew it might be challenged,” Josh said.
“I’m not really a celebrity, but Felix and Julia are out a lot on the society pages.
Danny has managed to keep a low profile after that appearance on TV last year, so Stirling backstopped ‘J.D. Morgan’ to the moon.
The ID held—Stirling, Danny, and Tienne have built a system the military would envy—but Danny says somebody’s been pretty insistent with it.
There haven’t been any breakthroughs, and nobody’s thought about facial recognition software yet, which is good, but we can’t expect that to last.”
“What does that mean for us?” Liam asked, concerned.
“It means we need to get our shit together,” Josh said with a shrug. He glanced up as Liam placed his bagel on a napkin and a glass of juice on the counter at Josh’s side. “But that starts this afternoon.”
“Yes, I heard.” Liam walked around the counter and perched on the stool next to Josh’s. “Two this afternoon. Why? Why did it have to be so early?”
Josh gave him a winsome smile. “Because I wanted to play video games with my friends. With you. Also my friend.”
“More than friends,” Liam grumbled playfully. But he was as weak as the next man; he needed to hear it.
“Yes,” Josh said, and he leaned his head on Liam’s shoulder with that pliancy and sweetness Liam remembered from the yacht. Not weakness, he thought, wrapping his arm around Josh’s shoulders and leaning back. He sighed, some of his insecurity leaching out.
“What was the other thing?” Liam asked.
“Well, the other thing was that phone—remember the one I gave Danny?”
“I do,” Liam said, mostly because he’d been the one to give it to Danny.
“In the time Kadjic was close to me, we managed to clone his phone.”
“You what?” Liam practically jumped out of his chair.
“We weren’t sure it would work,” Josh said soberly.
“People come up with encryption as fast as other people can come up with encryption blockers. It was a gamble, and it paid off. Not completely—we don’t have a total phone list or all his passwords.
But we do have a list of calls and locations he made within twelve hours after the clone. ”
“What happened then?” Because that had been while they’d been asleep, content after a hard evening’s work.
“According to Stirling, all his passwords automatically changed, because he’s got an algorithm on his keychain.
But our computer guys—and between Danny, Stirling, Tienne, and Carl, we’ve got something of a squad—were all busy, busy bees until then.
We don’t know if he’s been hacked or not, but we’re pretty sure it’s ‘not.’”
Wow. Wow. This was more than Interpol—or any crime fighting organization really—had done in the twenty years since Kadjic had begun his rise from street thug to kingpin.
Suddenly Liam realized the true delicacy of Josh’s situation.
He hadn’t wanted to attract Kadjic’s attention—not really.
None of them wanted Kadjic to remember what they looked like.
But he would have wanted to be close enough long enough for the cloning software to work.
That was why the careful soft shoe of people running interference during the caper.
Divert, divert, divert… steal all of Andres Kadjic’s information in one fell swoop.
“Can you tell me what you all have planned?” he asked, suddenly worried for the caper, for the danger, for plans that might once again put a lever between them and pry them apart.
“No,” Josh said, “because I don’t know. I… I have the whisper of a plan, you understand. But you’ve seen us plan before, right?”
Liam nodded. What happened wasn’t always…
linear. It was instead a result of gestalt, the collective.
Josh’s “crew”—his family and friends—had at their disposal a truly boggling amount of talent, creativity, and intelligence.
Josh may walk in with one sort of plan, but one person could throw a pebble in his path and he’d pivot in mid-stride, and the entire planet would pivot with him.
They’d get to the same goal, but their journey could vary wildly—the night before was a prime example.
Right down to the hospital visit and Josh’s return here, in Liam’s care, instead of back in the mansion in Glencoe.
“You going to eat that?” Josh prodded, not moving his head from Liam’s shoulder.
Liam shoved a bite of bagel in his mouth and chewed gamely.
“Good,” Josh murmured. He sat up. “I’m almost done here, and you’ve got to keep up your strength.”