Chapter 9
“Is Sassy bringing down some pie for us?” Acer asked. “Because if she’s not—”
“I’ll have her send some down later,” Dane said. “The pie is the second reason I chose this location for our meeting.”
As soon as Dane reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw Shana in the surprisingly large room filled with people as if she were the one spot of color in a black and white painting. The bright red rose in a dark alley.
“It took you long enough,” she said. He smiled and walked to her, not stopping until he got within inches of her. She didn’t back up, but she didn’t smile back.
“Let the meeting begin,” Ryan said. Dane was reminded of the fact that Ryan was an attorney now. Not a soldier.
“Let Acer do his job first,” Dane said. Acer pulled his surveillance detection gadget from his pants pocket and powered it up as he circled the perimeter of the room.
The ceilings were low and hung with fluorescent lighting that reminded Dane of a hospital operating room.
There were no windows. A plus he’d counted on.
“What about Sassy and Ronnie?” Shana said.
“They know their roles.”
“Lookouts? And they’re happy with that?” Shana said. Dane didn’t want to argue about the education by default of their apprentice investigators.
“They’re good little soldiers,” he said. He let the unspoken “You should be a good little soldier too” hang. She didn’t scowl as he expected. She gave him a scary Mona Lisa smile. Not that she didn’t look gorgeous as usual, but the knowing confidence behind it scared him. Always had.
Cap said, “Lara and Paulette?”
“On their way home.”
Dane kept Cap’s attention and asked, “Who are you today, Cap? Official or civilian?”
“Can’t I be both?”
“Not likely. I’m thinking you’ll need to stay in the background except in an emergency—for your own good.”
“Don’t start trying to protect everyone—”
“I’m not. But there’s no need for foolhardiness either.”
Toly said, “You can feel free to protect me, Dane the Blaise.”
Even Dane had to smile while everyone laughed, releasing some of the tension. Enough tension remained to keep them alert, but not so much that they’d continue with the paranoid distrust blocking their way.
“What’s the plan?” Ryan asked. He pulled out a chair at the lone table in the room and Dane walked over and stood at the head of the table. The rest of them took seats too. Shana sat to his right—at least partly because no one else went there.
Toly sat on his left and Cap sat at the other end. Acer sat near Cap. With the team assembled, the fact that they were a small team hit home. Dane shoved the notion aside like a pebble in the road, sucked in a breath, zeroed in on the low level hum of adrenaline running through him, and spoke.
“First order of business is to call the wedding guests and tell them the wedding is off. We’ll insist that they can’t discuss it for personal reasons.” He turned to Shana.
“You’re in charge of that. You’re also in charge of setting up the church for the staged wedding. We’ll need to make it look like we’re going forward in the eyes of everyone on the island who isn’t invited.”
“This plan is crazy,” Shana said. “No disrespect meant.”
“I know it’s risky. You got another plan? We can’t let the real wedding take place and the feds aren’t going to let us off the hook. It was either this or they would force Toly to work with them.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Ryan said.
“If I know Max the Ax—and I do—he would still want to have something on Toly for leverage. My guess is he’d snatch Lara either way.
With this plan, we set up the perfect opportunity for him to take his revenge or gain his leverage depending on which way he decides to go.
In a controlled environment, or as controlled an environment as we can make it. ”
Shana studied him, considering his words, but she didn’t look convinced.
“What is it?” he asked her.
“Nothing. You’re right. Of course.” She let a half smile slip. One dimple showed causing a spark of longing quickly followed by a hot flame of desire. Then she said, “But it is very risky.”
She didn’t need to add that she would be taking the biggest risk of all.
Acer said, “I’ll let some intel slip that there’s no longer a security concern for the wedding now that we’ve alerted the FBI.”
“What are the chances that Max and Sal know about Homeland Security?”
“I have Homeland Security checking into that,” Dane said. “It won’t matter too much.”
“Why do you say this?” Toly asked.
“Either way, they’ll anticipate interference and they’ll either abort their operation and bow out of the deal with their terrorist cell partners—”
Toly scoffed. “What is Plan B? Because they are not crazy to try and back out of this deal.”
“They’ll put word out for the feds to hear that they’re backing out of the operation and make it look like that’s what they’re doing. Then they’ll send in some new people to take their revenge.”
“What makes you so certain they’ll take revenge and at the staged wedding?” Ryan looked skeptical, as if he were a prosecutor questioning a hostile witness.
“We’re feeding Max and Sal incentives by way of seemingly legit intel from the feds. They’ll let it drop that they’re shutting down the surveillance and moving onto another likely target—a potential rival arms dealer.”
“Who is this rival?” Toly asked.
“I was counting on you to tell me that.” Dane paused and waited for the gears in Toly’s mind to churn.
“I have one such candidate in mind. You are going to feed him to the FBI for a special operation?”
“You protective of your competitors?”
Toly began to rise from his chair, but he let his voice rise instead, “They are not my competition. I am not in this business. That is what got me into this damn mess.”
“We’ll have Shana deliver them to the feds for the purposes of the setup only. Chances are HS is already onto them.”
“I’m the official go-between with the FBI?” Shana might have been trying to rub it in, but Dane ignored the rub.
“You’re the liaison for all communication with both the FBI and HS from here on out. Things will go smoother that way.”
“For you,” she muttered. He kept his smile to himself.
“Don’t worry. As soon as anything goes wrong, they’ll hunt me down. I’m the only one they’ll be gunning for if there’s a need for a scapegoat. That’s part of the deal.”
“How are you going to make that stick?” Cap asked.
“With the governor’s help—if we need it.” Dane gave everyone in the room a mean look, the one he reserved for people contemplating crossing him. Usually it was effective, but these were his friends. They didn’t look impressed.
They looked pissed.
Cap said, “You know you have a serious martyr problem.” He shook his head.
Cap didn’t bother arguing. He hadn’t taken Dane seriously enough to bother arguing. Shit.
Dane took a breath. The last thing he wanted was Cap risking his career over his and Shana’s client and case. Hell, he didn’t want any one of them risking the danger—except maybe Toly. But he knew better than to protest or make a case. They were all as entrenched as he was in their positions.
He’d need to be very tricky to minimize the fallout to anyone but himself. Especially after the trick he pulled down in Brazil on an operation they’d been involved in to save Oscar and Shana. That case had been trouble from the start.
He needed to avoid getting any one of them into that kind of trouble—getting thrown into a dungeon, real or otherwise—in this operation.
“What do you want me to do?” Ryan said.
“You’re playing a starring role,” Dane said.
“You’re the groom. You continue to stay on the island and only do groom-like things.
You will have no contact with anyone from your office or your family or anyone who was invited—then disinvited to the wedding.
” He paused, watched Ryan take this in, then continued. “That includes your father.”
“Is he still under suspicion?”
“Not by me.”
“Damn—is there anything we can do? Can’t we read him in—”
“No flipping way.” Dane was surprised he hadn’t asked about Lara, but then he did.
“What about Lara?”
“What about her?”
“Can I talk to her—”
“No.” Dane hadn’t meant to gentle his voice. He doubled down on his frown to make up for it.
“It’s for her and Paulette’s safety, Murph. You know that.” Dane hoped they’d gotten off the island without a trail. He looked at his watch.
“Are they gone?” Ryan said. Dane nodded. He’d hear from David once they were safely stowed.
“I’ll let you know when they’re safe. But we didn’t get to the hard part—your role in the staged wedding. You’ll be a major target—and you’ll be standing next to one.”
“How the hell are we going to stage a wedding, Blaise?” Toly asked. “Where will we get the guests? Are we going to fill the church with FBI agents and Homeland Security people?”
“There’ll be some of that—and we’re going to use dummies—”
“What?” Shana stared at him.
“Haven’t you ever heard of—”
“First time. Where the hell am I going to get a bunch of dummies dressed for a wedding? And how the hell am I supposed to get them inside the church if we’re being watched?”
“In pieces. I was on an op once where we—”
Acer said, “I remember that op—”
“Shut up,” Shana said. “I’ll figure it out.” She turned to Toly. “Your bill just got a whole lot bigger—”
“This I can manage. Money is no problem.” Toly eyed Dane.
“Continue with your plan,” Cap said. “Once we stage this wedding and lure in Maxim Xavier and Salvatore Cannelloni—or more likely his men—what happens then?”
“Then we entice them to take a shot. One shot—”
“At Shana the beautiful? Are you crazy?” Toly turned red. He was a sentimental old fool.
“No. Shana will play Lara in public, but not at the staged wedding. We’ll have someone else—”
“Why is that? Why not me? I’ll be wearing a vest, right? Same as anyone.”
“No.” Dane’s heart rate sped up too fast for him to say more at that moment. The other men around the table looked at them. He knew they all agreed with him, but they would never admit it to Shana.