In the Blood (Metahuman Files Book 4)
Page 15
“Don’t tell me,” Jamie interrupted. “This line isn’t secure. I’m most likely being taken to the same location as you are. I’ll meet you guys there. Have Juan monitor the news streams. Media caught Kyle and me handling the threat.”
“When you say handled, do you mean—”
“I wanted the shooter alive. The Secret Service desired a different outcome.”
“We did what we—” Burwell cut in.
“Shut the fuck up,” Kyle growled, pinning the special agent with a hard look.
Burwell shut up.
“Be that as it may,” Jamie continued as if Burwell hadn’t even spoken. “We’ll deal with it. I’m dropping Kyle off at the nearest Metro stop so he can grab a taxi. Mother said she booked him an evening flight back to D.C. I need him there earlier. Get Ariella to rebook him on a private flight out and have it holding for his arrival at LAX.”
“I’ll pass the request on,” Richard said.
“It’s not a request, Father.”
The steel in Jamie’s voice had Richard agreeing to Jamie’s demand without argument for once. “I’ll make sure Ariella is aware of the change in plans.”
“Good. I’ll see you soon.”
Jamie cut the uplink and reached out to tap the driver on the shoulder. “Yes, sir?” she asked, never taking her eyes off the road.
“Detour to the Metro stop that’s half a kilometer away for a drop-off,” Jamie said.
“Yes, sir.”
Burwell kept his mouth shut, though judging by how hard he was clenching his teeth, he really wanted to override Jamie’s order. Jamie resettled in his seat and accepted the gun Kyle handed him.
“Full mag,” Kyle said.
“Thanks.”
Jamie didn’t need to tell Kyle to report in as soon as he was clear of the Secret Service. He had no doubt that the MDF would already know about the assassination attempt, but an eyewitness report from Jamie would have to wait until he could shake his minders. Kyle wouldn’t have that problem, which was why Jamie was sending Kyle on his way.
The SUV pulled into the passenger drop-off zone of the Metro stop, one of hundreds that dotted the sprawling Los Angeles megacity landscape. Kyle was out of the vehicle before it even came to a complete stop, never looking back as he hauled ass to the taxi line.
“Go,” Jamie told the driver before she could even think about staying longer than necessary.
She pulled back into traffic. Jamie retrieved his personal tablet from his inner suit pocket and unlocked it, unsurprised to see multiple emails from his team and Nazari, all of them demanding a more in-depth update than the unsubstantiated reports trending across the media. Jamie accessed the communications from the director and proceeded to type out his preliminary report.
Today was just all kinds of fucked up he didn’t need.
Jamie kept his anger to himself and throttled the urge to call into headquarters and report in. He’d have to rely on Kyle getting the word back to the MDF for him, because he doubted he’d be left alone long enough to speak with anyone. The Secret Service were all on high alert, which was understandable, but Jamie had been dealing with shit like this for nearly his entire adult life. He didn’t need minders telling him what to do when he had a better idea of what was going on than they did.
“Destination?” Jamie asked without looking up from his tablet.
“The senator wanted to regroup at the hotel your family is staying at, but it could be compromised. We’re relocating to a secure location,” Burwell said.
“Where?”
Burwell seemed to recognize that Jamie wasn’t in the mood to argue. “The FBI office in downtown Los Angeles.”
Jamie glared at his tablet as he opened up a message uplink to Katie. Assassination attempt on my father. Regrouping and will try to get out of here soon. Sent Kyle on ahead.
Her response came a few seconds later. What the fuck?
Alert the director. I’ll call in when I can. Pull every security feed from the area that you can find. My gut tells me this is Declan or Cillian working on orders of the Pavluhkins.
I’m on it.
Jamie spent the rest of the drive to the FBI office updating his team, passing on Ariella’s travel information to Kyle, and getting his thoughts in order for the fight ahead with his father. The Boston rally scheduled for tomorrow needed to be canceled, but convincing his father of that was going to be damn near impossible. Some days Jamie really wished his father would worry about his own safety over the goddamn poll numbers.
The SUV didn’t have lights running for the drive to the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, but they still got there in a decent amount of time despite traffic on the road. Burwell called ahead when they were ten minutes out. The Secret Service and half a dozen FBI agents met them in the restricted parking garage to escort Jamie up to the level his family was currently ensconced in.
He left the borrowed gun behind in the SUV and followed after the FBI agent who didn’t bother introducing herself and merely said, “This way.”
They’d put his parents and sister in an interior conference room, no windows to the outside world. When Jamie entered, several campaign aides were on multiple uplinks, his father was arguing with someone Jamie didn’t recognize, and his mother was dictating orders to Ariella with a calmness that was betrayed by the white-knuckled grip her hands had on the back of a chair as she peered over her assistant’s shoulder.
“Everyone out,” Jamie said, pitching his voice loud and clear over the buzz of conversation going on. “I want to meet with my family alone.”
The sharp order had everyone pausing for a brief, wide-eyed moment, before most people scrambled to obey. Several higher-ranking campaign aides looked like they were set to stay, but one steely-eyed glare from Jamie got them moving. Only after everyone was out of the office and Jamie had activated the soundproofing did he speak.
Looking across the room at where his father stood, Jamie said, “You need to cancel the Boston rally.”
“Absolutely not,” Richard snapped.
“Richard, please, think about what you’re doing,” Charlotte said, sounding tired and stressed out. His mother looked more than a little rattled, but only because he knew how to see it in the ever-smiling façade of the politician’s wife she wore.
“I am thinking about it, and I’m not going to back down from my campaign simply because someone is trying to kill me.”
“If Kyle hadn’t seen the sniper first, you would be dead, Father,” Jamie said, the words practically ripped out of him. “Maybe you should have taken the threats against you a little more seriously rather than use it to feed your goddamn poll numbers.”
Richard glared at him, cold anger filling his gaze. “Watch your tone with me, son. I wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for you.”
Jamie wished he could deny that fact, but he strongly believed the people who tried to kill his father today were part of the terrorist groups the MDF was hunting down. That meant a high probability of Stanislav being behind the assassination attempt. That fear was something Jamie didn’t have the luxury of giving in to at the moment.
He’d deal with that problem later.
“Maybe you wouldn’t be,” Jamie conceded. “But you’ve had threats against your person before this, and have done the same thing now as you did back then—use it to bolster your status in the Senate. You can spin this all you like for the campaign, I don’t fucking care. But the people who are probably behind the attack aren’t people you can mock on the news to prove your mettle to your supporters and think further retaliation won’t happen.”
“You should cancel Boston, Father. Boston Common is out in the open like today was. What if someone tries something like this again?” Leah said, sounding more subdued than she usually was.
Jamie glanced at her, seeing the worry on her face as clear as day. “Exactly.”
Richard didn’t immediately respond to the request from his children, and Jamie braced himself for the
forthcoming answer. He knew his father, knew how Richard picked his political fights and made shark deals in the boardroom before he won his first campaign. Family was not immune to his anger.
“We’ve bent over backward as a family to accommodate the decisions you’ve made in regard to how you live your life and the job you do, Jamie,” Richard bit out, voice rising a little from his anger. “It’s no longer acceptable for you to make the demands you do. We are not your team, we are your family.”
“My team is my family,” Jamie shot back, meaning every word.
He’d led them, fought with them, nearly died with some of them, and buried too many others. They might not be of the same blood, but they’d all bled together on the battlefield more times than he could count. Jamie refused to let his father trivialize the relationship he had with the men and women he had the honor to serve with.
“Glad to know where your priorities are.”
“I fight for and with them the same way I’ve fought for your political ambitions.”
“You’ve used our name to the detriment of our safety and we have received nothing in return. I’m not canceling the Boston rally on the MDF’s orders.”
Jamie swallowed the words he wanted to say, the argument they could have in a space that wasn’t safe to yell in. Instead, he accepted the only option he could in the face of his father’s dangerous stubbornness.
“If you won’t cancel, then I’m taking over your security. I don’t give a fuck about your campaign at this point, Father. I care about keeping you alive. You can consider my orders law while in Boston, whether you like it or not. Do you understand?” Jamie demanded.
“You’re in no position to—”
“I said do you understand?”
Jamie barked the words out so forcefully his throat hurt for a few seconds. His father snapped his mouth shut, staring at Jamie as if he’d never seen his son before. His mother was the one to break the tension building between them.
“Let Jamie handle your security, Richard. I don’t want what happened today to be repeated,” Charlotte said.
Maybe it was the fear in her eyes or the way her voice cracked on the words, but Richard took a deep breath and nodded at her request rather than draw out the argument.
“You can handle security,” Richard told Jamie. “Get everyone back in here. I have a campaign to run.”
Jamie turned to unlock the door, but paused when his father addressed him again.
“And Jamie?”
“Yes?” Jamie said, looking over his shoulder.
“This discussion about your choices isn’t over.”
Jamie raised an eyebrow. “Worry about running your campaign, Father. Stop worrying about how I live my life.”
He palmed open the door to let the aides come back inside, putting the conversation on hold, when he wished it could be over for good.
9
Might Cheat Death
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The line went dead and Alexei looked at where Sean sat behind his desk, furiously working on a report. His suit jacket was draped over the back of his chair, the shirt he wore one from yesterday, wrinkled and in need of a wash. Sean looked tired and stressed out, both of them barely getting any sleep last night on base.
With Sean being targeted by Cillian Halloran, the director had placed him on restricted status. He’d been assigned temporary quarters on base until this whole mess blew over and he could start looking for a new apartment. Which meant Alexei was staying on base as well, because like hell was he leaving Sean alone during a time like this. Aside from that, Sean was required to report his activities and location to MDF Deputy Director Ranisha Stirling any time he wanted to leave the base. They wanted Sean to refrain from using his phase power if at all possible, since it negated any and all bioware and subdermal trackers.
Alexei was the type who would normally chafe at such restrictions, but considering the enemy’s target was his lover, he was tempted to ask Gracie if she thought any blood-based nanotech trackers would work with Sean’s power. He had a feeling the answer would still be no.
“That your brother?” Sean asked, eyes glued to the holoscreens on his desk.
“Da. On his way back. Is big mess.”
“Someone tried to murder a presidential candidate and sitting senator. Big mess is an understatement.”
Alexei walked around the desk and squeezed between Sean’s chair and the bookcase cluttered with holopics of his family and a few wayward tablets. He settled his hands on Sean’s shoulders, digging his fingers and thumbs into the tight muscles there. Alexei made a face at the numerous knots he found in Sean’s shoulders.
“Need break,” Alexei said.
Sean stopped typing, head hanging down a little as Alexei worked at the knots in his muscles. “We don’t have time for a break.”
“You complain this morning about only have one suit. You leave clothes at my place last time you come over. Could go get, have late lunch in city? Get mind off mess?”
“Only way I’ll get my mind off this mess is if I’m dead,” Sean muttered.
Alexei flicked Sean’s ear as hard as he could. “Not funny.”
Sean craned his head around to glare at Alexei. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“Grouchy.” Alexei caught him by the chin and leaned down to kiss Sean solidly on the mouth. “Need change scenery. We go.”
“I have work to do.”
“Do any more work, you drive Elena up wall.” Alexei dug his thumbs into the base of Sean’s neck for a couple more seconds before letting him go, pleased at the soft moan that escaped the other man’s mouth. “Come on. Up. Take break then come back and work later.”
If Sean protested, Alexei was prepared to physically carry him out of the office. Sean must have realized that, because Sean snapped his mouth shut and gave him a sulky look that Alexei shouldn’t have found adorable, but he did.
“You’re going to annoy me about this until I give in, aren’t you?” Sean asked.
“Know me so well, kotyonok.”
Sean made a face as he stood up. Alexei watched as he locked down the terminal, making sure he didn’t try to get sucked into another task. Alexei grabbed the suit jacket off the chair and unfolded it, holding it out for Sean to slip his arms into. The synthfabric didn’t wrinkle as badly as the dress shirt did, but he knew Sean didn’t like a messy appearance unless the cover called for it.
“Ceres, send a notification to Deputy Director Stirling,” Sean said as he buttoned up his suit jacket.
“Ready to receive,” the MDF’s smart-building AI replied.
“Going off base with Alexei to run a personal errand. Will return by 1700.”
That didn’t give them a lot of time, but Alexei wasn’t going to argue. Sean’s safety was his number-one priority, which was why Alexei was the one escorting him off base. He knew Sean could take
care of himself, but Alexei felt better having eyes on the other man.
“Let’s go,” Alexei said.
Ten minutes later they were driving toward the Washington, D.C. megacity and the apartment Alexei shared with Kyle. The car was signed out of the motor pool in case Cillian knew what their personal vehicles looked like. The direct route would’ve been the quickest way to go, especially on a Wednesday afternoon with rush-hour traffic starting up. Alexei opted instead to take a roundabout way to the apartment involving copious amounts of backtracking and side streets to shake any possible tail.
Sean didn’t protest the extra time added onto the trip. He did keep a hand on the gun holstered on his hip as they got out in the subterranean garage, but Alexei couldn’t fault him for being jumpy. Alexei was on heightened alert as well—he was just better at hiding it.
On the elevator ride up, Sean grabbed his hand and gave it a hard squeeze. Alexei quirked an eyebrow at him. “MDF would say if apartment broken into.”
“Humor me,” Sean said.
Alexei lifted Sean’s hand to his mouth, kissing his knuckles. “Okay.”
He let Sean keep the connection between them as they entered Alexei’s apartment, both of them tense in anticipation of something going terribly wrong. Alexei knew Sean was ready to phase them at the first hint of trouble that never came. The place was exactly how he’d left it last week, up to and including the clean dishes in the dishwasher that Kyle hadn’t unloaded before leaving to spend time with Jamie.
Alexei glanced at the new security cameras placed near the entrance to the apartment, wondering who was on watch duty right now. Sean did one full walkthrough of the apartment before being satisfied with the current state of affairs. He let Alexei go in favor of rummaging around in the closet for a couple of extra suits he’d stashed there a few months ago.
“Need to order more clothes. Can get shipped here,” Alexei said.
“Thanks.”
He didn’t mind the idea of Sean moving into the apartment with him, but didn’t really want to share space with his brother and Sean. He and Kyle had put their names on the lease to this place last year, with the understanding that it would be Alexei’s more than Kyle’s despite what the forms said. Alexei had enjoyed living with Sean at his apartment before it was destroyed. Coming home to Sean had felt right, and he wanted to feel that way again.