Chapter 26
“I’ve got it.”
Those were the words Saul had been waiting for, but they were coming at the worst possible time. Sadie had just opened up to him. She’d chosen to trust him, and now, when she was at her most vulnerable, he was going to have to leave.
Fuck!
“That’s great. Thanks Zack. I’ll be over right away for the details.”
He hung up and cursed the fact he didn’t have Sadie’s phone number.
She was at work today, and there was no way he could go wandering around the resort to pay her a visit.
He was too recognizable, and even though he’d have to leave - probably before Sadie got back from work - he didn’t want word getting out that this was where he’d been.
If things didn’t go to plan, he didn’t want those hunting for him to try their luck at coming here to search for him.
There were far too many innocent people on the island for him to take that risk, no matter how much he wanted to talk to Sadie before he left.
He stuffed everything he needed into a bag and briefly thought about his e-stim kit. He didn’t want to take it with him and didn’t have the time to take it back to his own cabana. If he left it, would Sadie see it as the message he intended it to be?
That he’d be back.
Because once all this was dealt with, Saul fully intended coming back here and put his relationship with Sadie on a very different footing.
He was falling for her, he knew. It was fast, true. But he’d had enough women in his life to know she was different.
He wasn’t sure how Sadie might feel. She was cautious and reserved and not at all open to the sort of relationship he wanted to explore with her.
But she’d confided in him, and that surely had to mean something, didn’t it?
As long as he didn’t mess everything up because of his need to leave.
It wasn’t like she didn’t know the necessity for that, as well as the time crunch. Unfortunately, the logic didn’t make him feel any better. It gave Sadie too much time to reconstruct all the walls he’d managed to dismantle.
Well, there wasn’t much he could do but leave her a note and maybe ask Luca for her number. Although knowing how private Sadie was, he had a feeling Luca might not be forthcoming, but the least he could do was try.
His gut instinct was right.
A quick call to Luca, informing him Zack had the information Saul needed, and letting his friend know he had to leave, confirmed as much.
“If Sadie wanted you to have her number, she’d have given it to you already,” Luca told him, though he wasn’t unsympathetic. Did he have suspicions about how close Saul and Sadie had become?
If he did it wasn’t enough to relent.
“She’s done a lot for me, Luca. I didn’t want to simply be gone when she gets home tonight. That’s just plain rude.”
“My hands are tied, Saul. Her number is confidential, and I won’t break that trust, no matter what.”
Saul allowed himself a rare self-pitying sigh. It wasn’t like he could explain to Luca that they’d become more over the ten days he’d been here. Sadie would hate that even more. And if he was honest, he was glad Luca was looking out for his woman.
The thought brought him up short.
His woman?
Yeah. Damned if he didn’t like the sound of that. There was a first.
In the end, all he could do was scribble a hurried note before he made the ten-minute walk to Zack’s place.
“So, what do we have?” he asked, the moment he stepped through the door. There was no time to hang around. Today was the final day of the auction. They had mere hours until Saul’s entire life went up in flames… unless they could stop it and neutralize the threat.
“I’ve locked the location down to a building in Brooklyn,” Zack told him.
“Really?” Saul was surprised. He’d expected to have to take his life in his hands by flying into foreign airspace.
New York was only three hours away. He wanted to ask Zack if he was certain, but was pretty sure the guy would find it offensive.
Zack knew his stuff and Saul didn’t want to piss him off, so he kept his silence.
“That is not any place I figured him to be,” Saul admitted instead. “I thought for sure I’d be having to fly out to Cuba.”
“Surprised me too,” Zack told him. “But I’ve checked and double checked, and I ran some other searches, which suggest you’ll find Jimenez at the same location as the auction base. My guess is that he has Mafia friends bidding and is keen to get the info to them immediately and in person.”
Saul felt better knowing Zack had made certain of the location.
“Maybe it’s not so unexpected since he got the original information from Vito - the Viper - Rossi before he died.
I’m not at all surprised he offered the info to Jimenez instead of his own cartel.
That about sums up the kind of man the Viper was.
Loyal to no one. Not even his own family.
And if Jimenez is there, then I really need to try to make contact with someone else who’s close by, who may also be endangered by this damn recording. ”
He rubbed his fingers through his hair. “So how do we do this?” he asked, taking a seat next to a computer screen filled with numbers.
“Well, I’ve isolated and bypassed the auction itself, like you wanted. The timer is disabled in a way that looks like it's still running, as we agreed. They may suspect sabotage, but they may also be arrogant enough to believe they’re untouchable, and it’s just a glitch.”
It’ll take some time, but once I have all the code written up, I can provide you with an uploadable virus that will destroy everything that mentions specific keywords, which we need to agree on.
I can make it work so it also infects all external systems connected by any shared application.
It’ll be specific, so it won’t affect any other functions.
The information targeted will simply cease to exist.
Saul was impressed. Hell, this man should be working for the agency. “Have you ever considered working for Uncle Sam?” he queried, tipping his head to one side as he took in Zack’s profile.
“Oh hell no,” the other man replied with a humorless laugh. “I still can’t work out why someone like you would.” He returned Saul’s gaze with one of his own, his eyebrow cocked in query.
“Ah, well, I was young and stupid and liked the thrill of the hunt, the subterfuge, never mind having the chance to take out the bad guys.”
“Said like a man who is on his way to regrets,” Zack responded with more astuteness than Saul would like.
Saul shook his head. “Not regrets… although I might not live long enough to change my mind about that.” He said it matter-of-factly, like it was simply a fact no more important than forgetting an umbrella when it rained.
Until now, he’d mostly been that cavalier about it, too.
His identity had always been well concealed.
Hiding in plain sight. His reputation was useful as a successful and effective cover.
Nobody suspected a man with more money than Midas to work undercover for the government.
Like Zack said, why would he? “But the appeal has been diminishing recently. I guess perhaps I finally grew up. Found something more to live for than just the thrill of what I’ve been doing. ”
It was the truth, he realized, as he said it.
Yes, he’d been feeling like this for a while. But getting shot, almost getting caught and losing his life, then meeting Sadie… Well, all that had a hand in making him think it was time to hang up his gun.
He just needed to make sure he had any kind of future first.
And that meant finding Eduardo Jimenez and praying nobody else was privy to the information the man held.
Then, if Saul was really lucky, maybe he could pursue some new dreams and conquests. Ones in the shape of a certain messed up psychologist who had snuck in and stolen his heart.