Chapter Seven #6
His plan had been to tell his brother, and that was just one more reason why he’d been trying to hunt him down. He needed backup.
NATIVE backup.
“Yeah, apparently, Jet didn’t want Arlington, after all. He wants to be with us. His final wish is to be with his family, and I’m working on making that happen.”
Ethan was confused.
“We’re being cremated and put at the burial grounds together. How is he going to be…?”
That’s when he figured it out.
In fact, his eyes got huge.
“Oh.”
Yeah, that’s exactly what Callen had thought when she’d asked him.
“That’s why I’m here. I have to get to the council, and in order to leave, Demeter said I have to tell Ivan, get more travel buddies, and check in with my partners.”
Ivan gasped.
Oh, and he was staring at him.
“You what?” he finally asked when the pounding in his head started to calm down.
From.
His.
Impending.
Stroke.
Because he was a ballbuster, Callen pointed at himself and talked louder like that was the problem.
Spoiler.
It wasn’t.
“I HAVE TO GO TO THE COUNCIL AND FIND A WAY TO GET A WHITE MAN BURIED ON NATIVE AMERICAN LAND, TOADY.”
At first, Ivan just stared at him.
Then, he went there.
“You’re an idiot.”
It made him laugh.
How could it not?
“Well, I’ve been called worse,” Callen admitted. “This is minor.”
Tony looked up from the scans.
“Will they let you bury a white person there?” he asked. “I didn’t think that was allowed, or just anyone would want to steal Native lands with their dead.”
Oh, it wasn’t.
Usually.
Callen shrugged.
“I mean, Catherine is buried next to Timothy and Naomi. She was full Caucasian, and divorced from our father at the time, so how did they pull that off?” he asked.
Ethan walked right into it, not seeing the trap, and he wouldn’t until it was too late.
“Well, because Timothy was the Shaman, and he likely used his position to make it happen,” Blackhawk admitted.
In that moment, no one said a word, but Callen did turn and smile at his brother.
“What?” he asked.
Callen pointed out the obvious, and how it related to what he’d just said.
“You’re the Shaman, Spanky. You’re going to go with me so we can get Jet buried on Native land without a speck of Native in him. Tag.”
He blinked.
Oh, hell.
He’d fallen for that one. Never let it be said his brother wasn’t sneaky.
“Well, shit.”
Yeah, he could say that again.
“We just have to check in with Gene and Chris. Then, grab some security to head on out. That’s our day. We share a wife. We share an ethnicity, so we share a problem. This one.”
Ivan stopped that.
“Yeah, nice try, but you can’t go. I have to clear that, and you’ve pissed me off calling me names that she calls me to also piss me off.”
Yeah, well, Callen didn’t have a choice.
“Do you want to be the one to tell her that when Jet gets here, that he can’t be buried?
Do you really want to be the one who tells her that one of her MARINES, the most treasured thing next to her own children, is sitting in a cold room because you said no to letting me do what she specifically called me in the middle of the night to have handled? ” he asked.
Ivan did one thing.
He flipped him off.
He knew damn well there was no way ANYONE wanted to call Brunhilda and contradict anything she’d wanted done. That was more than a ball bruising.
It was ball destruction.
The look on his face made Callen laugh.
“Listen, Ivan, we have to do this. We’ll be safe.
Besides, what are we going to do here? Gene is researching, and he’s dealing with Gabby, Chris went over the dead head tech’s body and car again, looking for anything that Devon might have planted.
He’s already autopsied the three victims from Corpus Christi—minus their appendixes, nipples, and clits.
Ethan and I can’t do anything until we get those skeletons and review the footage of the new scene. ”
He.
Hated.
This.
Why was it so goddamn difficult to wrangle these particular people? It had to be a family thing.
Or genetic.
Or both.
“Goddamn it. This is stupid,” Ivan said. “If that Russian is around…”
Ethan reassured him.
“She’s gunning for Elizabeth. She won’t come for us. How many times over the last year has she had a chance to go at one of us and never did? They weren’t hunting us to get to her. They wanted Elizabeth.”
Okay, so he had a point.
Well, now that they’d put holes in his argument, that meant that he couldn’t stop them.
“Fine. But if we get killed, you’re in trouble! Don’t say I didn’t warn you at my goddamn funeral!”
That was all kinds of crazy.
Elizabeth would kill them for letting him get killed. They’d all be having a joint funeral since they were all in this clusterfuck together.
So, Ethan made the call.
“Let us check in with our partners, and then we’re heading out. Use the bulletproof Navigator. We’re going to the rez to bribe an old Native man who doesn’t really like us. Great.”
This was insane.
Only, he was pretty sure they knew that already.
Who was he to point out the obvious?
Ivan just hoped they didn’t live to regret it or die because of it. Inside the FBI building, they were safe.
Outside, it was anyone’s guess.