CHAPTER 22
Josie
The buzzer goes, the front door releases, and I’m through it and into the Jameson lobby. I throw a backward glance over my shoulder in time to see Finn’s taillights pull away from the curb and merge into the morning traffic.
I’d received a text from Malik an hour ago proclaiming an emergency meeting about the Voronin case and now here I am.
Once again at Jameson, having just left Finn’s house. The two places I exist and I’m getting tired of these prison walls.
I nod at a few agents, pausing to drop my purse at my desk before heading into the main conference room.
It’s already full when I push through the door and the temperature of it tells me everything before anyone says a word.
This isn’t a recap or a check-in. Recaps have coffee and chitchat but it’s dead quiet.
While Malik offers me a small, welcoming smile and nods at a chair, he looks ready to storm a country.
Cole sits beside him with a legal pad and no expression, and Reid looks unbelievably focused.
At the far end of the table, Special Agent Royce stands, head bent over a notepad before her.
She’s in a sharp black pantsuit, hair pulled back into a severe bun that rests at the nape of her neck.
She glances up and taps a finger on the table. “All right… the entire team is here. Let’s get started.”
Royce doesn’t waste a syllable. “A little before five this morning, the bureau received an anonymous tip through one of our public channels. Ordinarily, that goes in a queue and gets triaged in a day or two, but this one had a piece of secondary detail that our analysts were able to independently corroborate within the hour, which moved it to the front of the line.” She presses a button and the smart TV behind her flares with a chart of the South Sound.
“The tip says Mikhail Sokolov is personally overseeing a transfer tonight and will be off-loading at this dock.”
My pulse picks up. If this is legit, this could be the moment where we take Voronin down.
“The corroborating detail?” Cole asks.
“A vessel registration that matches a hull our maritime analysts have flagged twice this year, repositioning north yesterday afternoon consistent with a Canadian pickup window between midnight and four a.m. tonight.” Royce lets that sit. “It’s highly actionable, so we’re moving on it.”
She walks us through the plan and everyone scribbles notes, even though we’ll have a printed version handed to us before we walk out the door.
In essence, the bureau will run the operation as a joint task force with two Coast Guard cutters and support from Jameson.
Our main role will be intelligence, but we’re also providing tactical support.
Royce’s gaze moves around the table. “Malik… you’ll run coordination from a mobile command post staged a half mile inland.
Reid… you’ll lead a Jameson tactical element embedded with our ground team at the dock, and Cole, you’ll liaise between Malik’s command post and my bureau command, keeping the two halves of the operation speaking the same language in real time so nobody crosses a wire when the shooting starts.
Wright and Fanasick, run perimeter and contain the land routes out. ”
Excitement rushes through me.
This is it.
This is where Mikhail and Voronin go down, Finn walks away from smuggling and our life together begins.
“The objective,” Royce continues, “is the women first. We don’t move until they’re off the boat and clear of the water, because the second anyone realizes it’s a trap, the easiest way to destroy evidence is to put it back in the strait.
Once they’re on the dock, we close. We take Mikhail Sokolov alive because he’s the thread that pulls Voronin.
” She pauses for dramatic effect. “I repeat, we need this man alive as he’s our best shot to take Voronin down. ”
The room is quiet as everyone processes. It’s a good plan with solid intelligence. I’m proud to be a part of this team.
I clear my throat and raise my hand. “And what’s my role? Where would you like me?”
Malik doesn’t even look up from his pad when he answers, “You’re not on this one.”
The words feel like a sharp slap to my face. “Excuse me?”
Now he looks up. “You’re not on this, Josie. You’re here this morning to help us finalize the analysis and the dock logistics, but tonight you’re home behind locked doors.”
“Is this because I’m a woman?” I can’t help but ask, knowing it’s lame and that I’ve already tried this tack once without success.
The look Malik gives me has my face flaming red. “You really going there again?” he deadpans.
“Malik—”
“You built half of the intel we’re relying on and nobody’s diminishing that. But you’re a witness in this case and you must remain safe. I shouldn’t have to remind you that you’re the tie between Sokolov and Voronin.”
I understand that but it’s not good enough for me to let this go.
This is the endgame, and I should be a part of it.
“I’m the lead intelligence analyst on this case.
I know the approach corridors, I know the off-load patterns, I can read that water in real time from the command post and feed Reid’s team things they won’t see coming—”
“Every word of that is true,” Royce says, taking over the argument on behalf of Malik.
“And it changes nothing. You are the single-most important piece of this case right now, and if anything happens to you, the case doesn’t get harder, it ends.
There’s no version of this where I put the keystone of a two-year federal investigation in proximity to the exact men who already tried to kill her once. ”
“From the command post, then. Inland. A half mile back, you said. I sit next to you with a headset—”
“No.”
My eyes turn to my boss. “Malik—”
“No, Josie.” His voice doesn’t rise. It doesn’t have to. “I hear you. I know what it costs you to sit this out, but you’re not going. That’s the end of it.”
“He’s right,” Royce says, and I’m surprised by the soft tone of empathy in such a hard-ass woman.
“I’ve lost people I couldn’t afford to lose on this one.
I’m not adding you to that list. Not when you’re the piece that finally makes it work.
Sit this one out, Ms. McAdams. Let us bring it home for you. ”
And there it is. The thing that takes the fight out of me. Not Malik’s authority but rather Royce’s loss, because it makes me remember the people I lost when I was with the NSA. I remember that pain and I know I can’t add to Malik’s plate.
If fact, I knew it before I asked the question. I asked it anyway because some part of me needed to make them say no out loud so I could be angry at something other than my own uselessness.
“Fine,” I say and while it comes out tight, there’s no heat in it.
“Thank you,” Malik says softly and then we move on.
We spend another forty minutes on the details and by the time Royce closes her laptop, the operation has a shape, a timeline and a go order.
The room starts to break up, the sound of chairs being pushed back from the table, Royce’s people gathering folders, Malik already turning to Cole about the command post staging.
Reid bumps my shoulder with his on the way out. “For what it’s worth, he’s right and I hate it too. You’d be the best set of eyes on that water, but we need you safe.”
“I know.”
“We’ll get him, Josie.”
“I know that too. Promise me you’ll stay safe.”
He grins at me. “Always.”
I gather my laptop and walk out of the conference room with my spine straight and my face composed, but the second I clear the door and turn the corner toward the restrooms, the composure starts to crack at the edges a little.
I push into the women’s restroom, breathe a sigh of relief it’s empty and call Finn.
He picks up on the second ring. “Hey. You okay?”
I keep my voice low, even though the room is empty, and I proceed to betray my people at Jameson just a little. “I can’t give you the details, you know that, but I need you to know that they’re going to make a move against Mikhail tonight. The operation is both on water and land.”
A beat of silence on his end. “Okay.”
I inhale and pinch the bridge of my nose.
“I just want you to know because… well, your team’s going to be…
you know, doing their thing on the water.
” I flounder for the right words. “And I don’t want anyone getting caught or hurt in the crossfire.
So maybe you should call off that thing you’re going to be doing, you know? ”
Finn doesn’t say anything, and it makes me feel the need to babble.
So I do. “The waters tonight might not be safe. There’s going to be law enforcement out there.
A lot of it. Boats that aren’t they’re supposed to be, when they’re supposed to be.
” My throat tightens around the next part.
“I’m worried about your…thing. About the timing.
I just need you to be careful. All three of you. ”
There’s a pause, and then, impossibly, he laughs. Soft. Warm. Not dismissive but the laugh of a man who seems thoroughly charmed by me.
“Babe… I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you looking out for me, but have you seen the size of the water out there?”
“Finn, I’m serious—”
“I’m serious too, Josie. The Salish Sea is twenty-five hundred square miles.
Two operations could run all night and never come within fifteen miles of each other.
And I’m not even going to bother asking you where your operation’s going to be.
I wouldn’t put you in that position and I’m positive we won’t run across each other. ”
“But you were there when Mikhail tried to kill me,” I point out. “So the water’s not that big.”
“That was lottery-type odds, and that won’t ever happen twice in the same lifetime,” he says confidently.
I press the heel of my hand against my eyes. I know he’s probably right, but I’m terrified something will happen. I’m afraid that Connie and Marcus will get caught, and then that means Finn will probably get caught.
He told me last night he’s getting out and this is the last run. He’s almost free and I can’t stand the thought of losing him.
“I love you,” I say. “I just need you to be able to come home tomorrow when this is all said and done.”
“I love you too. And Josie… I am home, with you. Okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Hey.” His voice lifts, deliberate, pulling us both up out of the dark.
“Here’s what we’re going to do tomorrow on the first day of our new life.
We’re going to the grocery store and we’re going to get dough and fresh mozzarella and I’m going to fire up the pizza oven on the patio and make you the best Margherita you’ve ever had in your life. ”
A laugh comes up out of me, wet at the edges. “That sounds lovely.”
“Yes, it does,” he agrees. “That’s as crazy as our lives get after tonight, okay?”
I’m smiling now, my eyes prickling with tears of relief. “Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Pizza. Tomorrow.”
“Pizza tomorrow. I love you, Josie. Go do your day. I’ll pick you up when you’re ready to come home.”
Home.
I want it more than anything.
After we hang up, I stand with my phone in my hand and my back against the cold tile.
I let myself have ten seconds of feeling all of it at once—the sting of being benched, the guilt of telling Finn about the op, the fear sitting low in my gut, and underneath all of it the warm impossible fact I’m in love with a man who’s going to be my home starting tomorrow.
I give myself thirty seconds.
Then I push off the tile, run the cold water, and press my wet hands to my face. I look at myself in the mirror all flushed, bright-eyed, and managing to hold it together.
Tonight I’ll sit at Finn’s and twiddle my thumbs and wait for a phone call telling me how the operation went.
Tomorrow there’s pizza.
I dry my hands and I go back to work.