Endings and Beginnings (Death and Destruction Book 8)

by Patricia Logan

  The man knew how to suck cock like no one Nico had ever been with before. He knew how to tease the head of his cock and wasn’t shy about his foreskin like a lot of guys were. So many treated him like they’d never seen what he had to offer so Mac’s unconditional acceptance of his body, was a turn-on like he’d rarely experienced. It was… good. The word seemed so inadequate for the feeling Mac had left him with as he’d sucked and swallowed all of him. When Mac suddenly broke the kiss, Nico’s mind was ripped out of the reverie he’d so easily fallen into.

  “I can’t,” Mac breathed. He pinned Nico with a hard stare as he let him go. Nico immediately felt the loss of Mac’s embrace. “If I keep it up, I’m gonna have you under me in that bed, Devecchio, and I gotta focus on work.”

  “I understand, McBride.” Nico rubbed both pectorals as he stared up into Mac’s flushed face. He wanted him badly. It was obvious. “There will be time after this mission is over and we’ll have tonight, right?”

  “Don’t know anything until I find out how I’m getting introduced to them.” Mac reached up and cupped Nico’s stubbled cheek. “I hope we have time before we have to go under. Won’t know until… well…”

  “I know.” Nico covered Mac’s large hand with his as he stared into Mac’s light amber eyes. He let out a long sigh and turned his face so that he could place a kiss in Mac’s huge palm. When he leaned back, Mac was smiling. He turned and started walking away and Nico found himself once again staring at that gorgeous back. He watched him until he rounded the corner out of sight.

  ****

  Jarrett, Thayne, and the rest of their team were in the conference room at FBI headquarters when Mac walked in. Jarrett smiled at him.

  “You’re late.”

  “Sorry. I was up late last night.” Mac wasn’t about to tell him why he was up so late. He glanced at his watch. “I’m only a few minutes late anyway. Where are the bosses?”

  “I saw Diaz on the phone in her office and Stanger is stuck in traffic. He just called,” Sarah said. She glanced at Lincoln who was perched on the chair beside her where he usually was… at least since they’d gotten serious about dating. They were hardly ever out of each other’s pockets. “Where’s Devecchio?” Sarah asked, looking at the room at large.

  Mac was about ready to open his mouth and tell them all about the emails they’d been looking at that morning when Stanger and Diaz walked into the conference room together. They passed out a folder to everyone at the table and then walked to the head of it as everyone opened their folders. They were printouts of the email string he and Nico had been reading that morning. Stanger greeted them with a quick hmph before punching numbers into the phone in the center of the table. When Nico picked up on the first ring, they all turned their attention to the speaker phone.

  “Tell the others what you just told me, Devecchio.”

  “Sure.” He hesitated. “Sorry, you’re there, SAC Diaz?”

  “Yes, Devecchio. We’re all here.”

  “Okay, so I guess the FBI has all these files already? You’ve looked through them and analyzed them?”

  “Yes, Devecchio.”

  “Okay, I wanted to make sure you were aware there’s a large shipment of something arriving very soon.”

  “We’re aware that something is arriving at the Port of Tianjin on the fifteenth. That means it’s coming by shipping container. We checked but haven’t detected a ship originating in South Africa so we don’t know what Flynn and Kerr are talking about, only that Archer wants it to come off without a hitch. Since the real Josiah Flynn went dark, the emails have stopped—obviously—and he’s not talking.”

  Mac was relieved Nico had called in. He didn’t really want to out himself by having to explain all this to the gang and then have them wonder how he knew what Devecchio’s homework had been. As far as he knew, no one knew the two men had gone home together the night before. He wasn’t shy about his feelings for Nico but revealing them to his friends and coworkers before the job was done, wouldn’t be professional. Mac was always a professional.

  “Right. I’ve read through all the folders of emails you provided. From what I can determine, a shipment was being sent from somewhere to China and Flynn and Kerr don’t name what it is. The problem is, as you mentioned, ma’am, the emails stop yesterday and in that final email, Titus Kerr tells Josiah Flynn that someone named Rogers is trying to suss out someone who’s been quote unquote sniffing around operations out at the mine. We know the person or persons he’s referring to are the CIA operatives but since that’s the most recent email we have, is it possible that our operatives have already been compromised? It would be nice to know this for sure when I go undercover.”

  Mac thought Nico suddenly sounded nervous about his assignment.

  “One of our operatives last checked in at 2300 last night, Devecchio,” Stanger said. “He didn’t say anything about a problem. They’re not due for another check-in until 2300 tonight so hopefully they’re secure. I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Are you comfortable with the language Josiah Flynn speaks online and the relationship between him and Kerr?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve got it down. He’s got a cryptic speech pattern but that’s his email style. Whether he speaks that way or not is really a crapshoot. We don’t have any recordings of his voice? Not even a few sentences or lines?”

  “No. Nothing. This man has kept himself to an online presence only,” SAC Diaz said. “We weren’t able to find any phone calls between him and anyone else including Kerr, at least on any line we’ve been able to identify. I’m very sorry, there, Devecchio.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Was there anythin’ else that stood out from the emails?” Jarrett asked, leaning toward the speaker phone.

  “Not a whole lot. He also says that Rogers needs to know when FR will be onsite. I haven’t been able to figure out who that refers to.”

  “It might not refer to a who,” Jarrett said, glancing across the table at Mac. “He might mean Force Recon.”

  “That’s… possible, yeah,” Mac said, angry that he hadn’t figured that out the first time he and Nico had looked at it. He glanced at Stanger and Diaz, pointing down at the email. “It would fit with the initials TL also. We used to call our team leader TL. Unless the FBI has a different idea about what those mean. Did you find employees with those initials?”

  “Not that we’ve been able to determine, McCallahan, but Evans here brings up a good point. Stryker-Dunn may very well have their own Force Recon. That doesn’t change a damned thing we do here, though,” SAC Diaz said. “We’ve always known their mercenaries were highly trained. We have to believe there are a percentage of them that have highly elite training and were washouts to the US military for one reason or another.”

  “Yeah, I just don’t like the kinda reasons which are typical for those kinds to wash out,” Jarrett said.

  “What do you mean?” Thayne asked.

  Mac watched Jarrett pin him with a serious frown as he looked straight at Thayne to reply.

  “Those types of elite military are the upper echelon of candidates. The only reason one of them washes out is because they couldn’t pass the psychological tests involved. They’ve still passed intelligence, disciplinary, and physical tests.”

  “In other words, these types are crazy?” Sarah asked.

  “Pretty much,” Jarrett said. “Or violent and crazy.”

  “Fantastic,” Sarah growled.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Devecchio said through the speaker phone. “I’m about to walk into a situation where Drake Archer and the men who work for him might know I’m an imposter even before I say hello. The men around him, who are trained in a thousand ways to kill a man with a lint ball, are without a doubt the most vicious, soulless, cruel men on the planet, and… as if that wasn’t enough, they’re insane to boot?”

  Mac looked over at Stanger and Diaz who were exchanging a sobering glance. They turned and looked down at the speaker phone
in the center of the table, studiously avoiding meeting the eyes of anyone else in the room. SAC Diaz planted both hands on the table and leaned in toward the speaker.

  “Yeah, Devecchio. That’s exactly what we’re saying.” She looked up sharply at Stanger. “Are you going to be able to keep your people in line, Lloyd?”

  Stanger stared at her for a moment and sighed. “There’s been no evidence of it so far.”

  Chapter Five

  The agents sitting around the table chuckled at the exasperated look on SAC Stanger’s face. They all knew men and women with such strong personalities must be hard to corral but Jarrett had come to respect his boss’s ability to do just that. He’d been only half joking when he’d told Thayne that SAC Diaz scared the crap out of him. When he’d met her in Arizona last summer, he’d been pretty intimidated by her. She was incredibly intelligent and quick witted, and she knew her stuff. That had been evident from the first time he’d ever seen her. He was also impressed with her ability to see right through his bullshit. It was an admirable quality that not many people possessed. Jarrett was a world class bullshit artist.

  As far as this assignment went, he felt like he and Thayne were being sidelined. Unless something went wrong out at the supermax up north in Susanville—which he prayed wouldn’t happen to the women—it seemed that he and Thayne were going to be sitting in the FBI SCIF. Blech. He hated sitting still. The last thing Jarrett wanted to do was to wish something would go wrong at the prison so he and Thayne would have to fly up north. He didn’t want Dev to get in the way of danger again and Sarah was one of his best friends. He loved her and didn’t want her in very real danger.

  The two of them were also on call to head up the TAC teams if it was necessary to go into Stryker-Dunn and help rescue Mac and Devecchio. In that circumstance and the one at the prison, Jarrett knew they were replaceable. It gave him a sick feeling to know that he was not out in front on this mission like he’d been on every big case they’d had over the last two years. I am backup. The feeling was strange. Jarrett had always excelled at whatever he did professionally.

  In the Marine Corps he was the best sniper, as a mercenary his heart wasn’t in the work so he remained passably good only to get the paycheck until he decided what he really wanted to do with his life. While he worked as a mercenary, he actually ended up helping an old friend out which led him to the bodyguard gig where he met Thayne. The rest was history. Jarrett had been an effective agent with the ATF but this new assignment had him floundering just a bit. His reverie was interrupted when he realized Mac was talking.

  “… and the man I’m interviewing with?” Mac asked.

  “Your contact is Nelson Strange. He’s Drake Archer’s second in charge and screens every new mercenary Stryker-Dunn hires. They require top-level background checks and will check an employee’s past security clearances with the government if they’ve had any. Since you had a top level security clearance as a Green Beret, Langley has made the necessary alterations for this assignment. They’ve worked up a background for you which you will need to memorize. We don’t want you to have any questions when you go to meet with these people. They are in the business of ferreting out liars and imposters. Drake Archer is second only to myself in being able to detect bullshit.” Stanger looked Jarrett’s way and he almost choked on the sip of coffee he’d taken. When he glanced back at Mac, his friend was grinning. Asshole.

  “So, I’ll be reporting to Nelson Strange for the interview,” Mac said.

  “That’s right,” Diaz said. “We’ve answered a classified ad in Soldier of Fortune Magazine. Strange replied to an encrypted email we set up for just this purpose and we set a time and place for your meet and greet. To no one’s surprise, your interview is at Stryker-Dunn headquarters, tomorrow at eleven.”

  “Oh, goodie. I get a chance to wear my Kill a Commie for Mommie T-shirt outside the house,” Mac said.

  The agents around the table snickered but Jarrett somehow knew Mac probably had that T-shirt.

  “And me? When am I going in?” Nico’s voice came from the speakerphone in the center of the table.

  “We need you to make contact with Titus Kerr right now, Devecchio,” SAC Diaz said. “As soon as you can, we need you in the office so we can go over Kerr’s file so that you know everything you can possibly know about Flynn’s relationship with him.” She sighed and Jarrett noted the serious expression on her face. “If anyone outs you, it’s going to be Titus Kerr, so you need to read his file and go over it but first, we need you on email to him. We’ve come up with a cover story for why you’ve been offline and why you’ve agreed to go into Stryker-Dunn in the flesh.”

  “Won’t the email address give me away as a fraud?” Nico asked.

  “You’ll be sending it from a clone of the real Josiah Flynn’s encrypted email. We don’t know his password. We’re close to breaking the encryption but meanwhile we’ve set up a new one so you can contact Kerr right away.”

  “Get your butt into the office, Devecchio,” Stanger said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Diaz looked at the other agents in the room.

  “We’re counting on all of you performing your roles the way you always do, with courage and professionalism. We trust you and your colleagues trust you. They’ll be in the line of fire and the roles that each of you have been assigned are important in their own way,” Diaz said. “For now, that’s all you need to know. This operation gets underway at 0800 tomorrow morning for everyone but Devecchio. Until then, you’re dismissed. We’re waiting for you, Devecchio.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be there.” The phone clicked off and she looked at the rest of them.

  “SAC Stanger and I will see you back here tomorrow. McCallahan, memorize your background.” She handed him a folder. “We’ve prepared this for you.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Mac said.

  Jarrett glanced at Thayne and smiled. They had the rest of the day off and he wanted only one thing. It had nothing to do with mercenaries or cloned emails and everything to do with a quiet dinner, a couple microbrews, and their nice big bed.

  ****

  Nico arrived at the federal building about one thirty that afternoon. All his ATF friends had gone home. He made a point of walking past Snow and Mac’s cubicle but it was empty. He wondered where they’d gone and decided they’d probably gone out for lunch. He was a bit relieved that Mac wasn’t there. He didn’t know if he could look at him without his desire for him showing on his face and he knew Mac wouldn’t want that for him. It was better if they just tried to be as professional as they could be when in each other’s presence, at least until this case was over.

  Nico had no problem with his own sexual orientation being public knowledge but whether Mac was comfortable about the way he was, Nico couldn’t be sure. What they had between them was too new. He didn’t even really know anything about his feelings for Mac but the most pervasive one which was that he wanted to see more of Mac. He wanted to learn everything about the man. He was pretty crazy about him but the last thing he wanted to do was push too hard and make the guy back off.

  Nico already knew he was going to be nervous about Mac’s safety when it came to this case, perhaps even more than his own. He was confident in his own capabilities and his own wits so he decided that he would just have to trust that Mac felt the same way about his own abilities. He was trained in the military and abstractly he knew that a man who had been a Green Beret had even more specialized training. Those guys were the upper echelon of the US military. Mac was a badass. He’d be fine.

  He found SAC Diaz’s office and knocked on the door. She bid him enter and he opened the door. His own boss sat in one of two chairs at a small conference room table in front of her desk in the large corner office.

  “Good, glad you made it, Devecchio,” Stanger said with no preamble. “Come over.” He waved him to a chair in front of a laptop on the table. He sat down. The FBI logo was on the screen and Diaz turned the laptop to herself
, typing in a password. After a few more taps, she pulled something up on the screen and then stood up as she twisted the laptop so that it was back in front of him. She moved behind his chair as Stanger also stood. On the screen Nico could see a series of unopened emails addressed to Josiah Flynn from Titus Kerr. There must have been ten of them over the last two days. He’d obviously been trying to make contact and Nico was suddenly flooded with nervous energy as he realized that his cover might already be blown. He looked up at SAC Stanger who was now standing on his left.

  “Kerr’s been trying to make contact. What story do I give when I answer?”

  “We’ve created records of a hospital stay,” SAC Diaz said from his right. He twisted and looked up at her. “Three hours after your last email exchange with Kerr, we admitted the fictional Josiah Flynn to Encino Tarzana Medical Center with a kidney stone. We have everything from a chart with nurse’s and doctor’s notes, to ultrasounds of the kidney and an IVP which stands for intravenous pyelogram. Since all charting is done on computer, it was easy enough for our cyber division to create the records and insert everything into their system. Unless someone goes to interview the doctors and nurses in Flynn’s chart, it is a virtually flawless cover.”

  “You’re quite sure no one will do that?” Nico asked. He wasn’t worried that they would because he had Josiah Flynn’s online language and speech pattern memorized.

  Stanger laid his hand on Nico’s shoulder and he turned to look back at him. “As sure as we can be, son, and don’t forget, when you go in, McCallahan is your backup.”

  Nico nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay, Nico, you need to email Kerr and tell him what happened,” Diaz said. “If he asks, you can tell him you had an excruciating pain and went into the hospital. Once they diagnosed you, they found a more than average amount of blood in your urine so they kept you, doing diagnostics and tests to determine whether you’d need to be seen by a surgeon or not. They drugged you up and when you came to, you realized you hadn’t told anyone you were going to be away but by then it was too late. You weren’t allowed to make calls or send emails and you couldn’t anyway because you didn’t have your encrypted laptop or phone with you.”