“He has another security detail?” Mac asked.
Nico watched Mac, unable to tell from his expression whether that would bother the big man or not.
“Not here in the building. Just his personal bodyguard which is you. When he leaves the building, he is accompanied by four armed and highly-trained men. They fill in when you’re not on duty and come from a select group which are quartered here at all times. I will take you down there to meet them once we finish our tour so you can see who you have to select from.”
“I see. That’s fine,” Mac said.
The elevator dinged and they stepped out. Hayut led them past the mess hall which was bustling and packed with men and a handful of women. Hayut waved at it as they passed explaining that it was open around the clock for anyone who wasn’t on shift. Personnel were expected to eat on their own schedule. The times were not rigid like they were in the service. Hayut explained that they had employees in the building from thirty-eight countries in the world and that they had chefs from various countries who prepared food from everywhere so that their employees were content. Stryker-Dunn spared no expense for the mercenaries they hired, apparently.
Hayut led them to the end of the hall and turned into a corridor lined with several doors. He stopped in front of one and held out a keycard, waving it in front of the lock on room 612. The lock disengaged and he stepped inside, inviting the other two to follow.
“This is your room, Flynn.”
Nico noted the narrow bed made up with a brown all-purpose blanket, a small bathroom with a toilet and sink, and a small table and two hard-backed chairs. There was a shelf and a mirror in the room and no windows. The lights overhead were florescent. It was as basic as it could be. Nico stuck his head in the bathroom and then looked at Hayut.
“Showers?”
“All employees shower down the hall where the lockers are kept.” He looked past Nico to Mac who looked absolutely massive in the small room. “You saw those when McNulty got you situated earlier, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, so here’s your keycard,” Hayut said, handing it to Nico. “This will let you into your room and any other rooms you are cleared to enter. You will be able to go to the top floor with that since you are working out of Archer’s office, as you will, Lieutenant Black. For unauthorized personnel, their keycards only allow them into rooms where they’re assigned. For example, most people won’t be able to access the server room where we just were, but everyone can access the mess. Make sense?”
“Totally,” Nico said.
Hayut smiled and dimples appeared. He really was a stunning young man of about the same age as Nico, maybe a few years older. He didn’t have a curly gray hair on his head and when he smiled, his teeth were white and straight. Nico still liked the shock of red-orange hair and freckles on Mac a hell of a lot better than this guy, even with his runway model good looks.
“Let’s go to the locker room.”
They followed Hayut out to the hallway and down the corridor to a large locker room. Inside it, they found showers and lockers lined up. Several people—both men and women—and all in uniform, passed by them in the halls. Most wore berets on their heads, similar to Mac’s but some of the higher-ranked officers wore piss-cutters, the oblong hats with pointy ends on the front and back. Mac and Adael saluted and returned salutes constantly as they walked and Nico was really glad he was a civilian so he didn’t have to.
The locker room was unremarkable and Nico dressed in the black fatigues Hayut provided. On the yellow patch sewn onto the left bicep, was the word CIVILIAN in large black capitals. He almost laughed at that but pulled the fatigues on anyway. He wasn’t given any sort of cover, leaving his straight black hair exposed as he suspected no one else in the building had.
He managed to remove the folded note from his suit as he hung it, slipping it into a pocket of his fatigues to read later. He made sure to transfer the flag pin to the uniform the way Mac had so that his friends outside would be able to see what they were seeing. When he was dressed and they were ready to go, Hayut led them out into the corridor. They turned down the corridor and after walking twenty feet, made a right-hand turn. The corridor dead ended and Hayut walked three feet and stopped, spinning on his heel. Mac and Nico almost ran into him.
“This is a dead zone. The security cameras and audio monitors cannot pick up on you here or in your quarters,” he said.
“Who are you?” Nico asked, glancing at Mac who’d opened his mouth, probably to protest that they were anyone but who they said they were.
“Adael Dayan, Mossad. I am here working for Israel, undercover, the same way you two are,” the man said quickly.
Nico had guessed right then.
“Wait a minute,” Mac said. “How the hell are we supposed to believe that and how do you know who we are?”
The hair on the back of Nico’s neck stood up.
Dayan ignored Mac and turned to stare at Nico. “You still have the paper I gave you in the elevator?”
“What?” Mac asked again, oblivious to the note which he had known nothing about.
Nico fished for the yellow folded paper. He held it up. “Yeah, right here.” He opened it. On it were numbers which resembled longitude and latitude. He showed the paper to Mac. “They’re GPS coordinates,” Nico said, recognizing them immediately.
Dayan nodded quickly. “Hold the paper up so your friends back home can read them.” He pointed to the pin on Nico’s chest and shrugged when Nico felt his eyes widen. “I guessed it was a pinhole camera.” It was incredulous to believe that Mossad had somehow infiltrated Stryker-Dunn and knew about what was happening there before the Americans did. Nico understood that Mossad shared intelligence with the CIA when needed to protect their ally but it would have been nice to have gotten a little heads-up in all of this before they walked into Stryker-Dunn.
“What are the coordinates?” Mac asked, frowning as he looked unconvinced by what the Israeli was telling him.
“Can they hear me?” Dayan asked.
Nico hesitated but they’d trusted him so far. He nodded. “Yes, we’re wearing earwigs.”
Dayan nodded and pointed at the paper. “That’s where I’ll be meeting my old friend Jarrett Evans at midnight tonight to tell him exactly how this mission is going to go and who’s really running it.” He glared into the camera. “Jarrett—come alone or I’ll leave.”
Chapter Nine
“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him,” Jarrett growled, staring at one huge screen on the wall of the SCIF. Even if he hadn’t been able to hear what Dayan was saying, he could’ve read his lips. My old friend Jarrett Evans. Come alone or I’ll leave. “Fuck this.” He reached out and pressed the button connecting him to Lincoln and Devecchio. Snow’s face appeared on a different screen a second later. “What the hell, Lincoln?”
“First of all, I cut off Devecchio and Mac’s earwigs so we can talk freely,” Snow said.
“Thanks,” Jarrett said, feeling slightly sheepish since he hadn’t thought to ask. The last thing he wanted to do was worry the two men who were putting their lives on the line inside Stryker-Dunn.
“The bosses are gonna be pissed when they get a load of this. Who the fuck does Mossad think they are?” Galvez was bitching from beside Snow.
“I’m conferencing in Diaz and Stanger now,” Snow said, sounding as disgusted as Jarrett felt.
“Yeah, well, apparently, I have a meeting at those coordinates tonight which I didn’t even know about until now,” Jarrett bitched.
“Yeah, we heard,” Galvez said.
“Well, fuck that.”
“Once again, this is a party line, Evans,” SAC Stanger said as his picture came up on another monitor on the wall of the SCIF. Seated beside him was Diaz. They were both frowning.
“We heard from Langley a few minutes ago. We were about to contact you, Evans,” SAC Diaz said.
“What’s going on, SAC?” Thayne asked.
Jarrett looked at his hus
band who was frowning as deeply as everyone else was.
“Apparently, Mossad was one step ahead of us and Langley somehow thought they’d already shared that information with the FBI before you went in,” Diaz said, sounding completely disgusted.
“They’ve had Adael Dayan undercover with Stryker-Dunn for the last four months. Since they are a defense contractor and have nothing to do with the US government, Mossad felt like they had the right to do whatever they wanted to do on US soil with the company. We knew nothing about it until now,” Stanger added.
Jarrett was so pissed, his teeth were grinding.
“Well, what the hell do we do now? Mac and Devecchio walked right in there without being prepared for this, and what in the hell did Adael Dayan mean by insinuating that Mossad is in charge?” Thayne asked, clearly as pissed at the situation as Jarrett was.
“He’s posturing, Wolfe. Mossad has several months’ lead on us but they can’t stop us from what we’re tasked to do,” Diaz said. “From what we can tell, they’ve confirmed that palladium is being shipped in the form of raw ore to China. That’s the delivery which the mine is sending to the Port of Tianjin. The Chinese government knows nothing of this and of course, we can’t tell them or they’ll seize the delivery and deny it happened at all. We have no choice but to go with that intel, though the CIA does believe that it’s accurate from what their people inside the mine can tell.”
“We have learned in all this that Mossad has inserted two operatives in a company called Bohai Trading,” Stanger said.
“Who are they?” Jarrett asked.
“Bohai Trading is headed by a general who is highly-placed within the Chinese government and he’s been using the company to import drugs, which he then turns around and sells to the Chinese population. But Xi Leji is much more than a pusher, Mossad tells us.”
“Let me guess,” Lincoln said. “He’s an arms dealer.”
Diaz smiled tightly. “That’s exactly right, Snow. Xi Leji is connected to sales and distribution of not only black tar heroin, which he imports originating in Afghanistan by way of Iran, but was also a known affiliate of our favorite dead arm’s dealer.”
“Fuckin’ Mills Lang?” Jarrett growled. He looked over at Thayne who was also grinding his teeth, glaring at the screen.
“Yes, Evans. That’s right. Xi Leji was Lang’s Far East connection for weapons and because he is well-connected in the Chinese government, he was able to clear the way for organizations like Lang’s to ship cargo through the Port of Tianjin using Bohai Trading,” Diaz said.
“Why didn’t we know about Lang doin’ business with the Chinese?” Jarrett asked. He knew he was off topic but the very mention of this man’s name had him shaking with anger.
“We weren’t aware of it until we got access to everything in Lang’s bunker in Arizona, Evans. We would have told you about it if we thought any of it were relevant to this case. As it is, this is the first solid evidence that Lang might have even known the Chinese, much less have done business with any of their more notorious criminals. In any case, this is the hand we’ve been dealt now,” Stanger said. “We just need to make sure that we connect Stryker-Dunn to Xi Leji and Bohai Trading.” His boss sounded just as frustrated with the situation as he was.
“Well, that information is probably backed up by Drake Archer’s files stored on the Minnow disks,” Jarrett drawled, “but y’all saw what we did. Archer’s squirreled them disks away somewhere.”
“Not only that but even if Devecchio were able to find them and locate a reader to see what’s on them, we still gotta get him and his miraculous brain safely out of the building,” Thayne added.
“I think we have to trust that Dayan has some idea where those disks are,” SAC Diaz said. “He’s been undercover for months now and obviously has earned some trust in Archer’s circle. When we meet with him tonight, we’ll just have to find out what he knows.”
“I don’t like the fact that Devecchio’s safety is in the hands of fuckin’ Adael Dayan,” Jarrett growled.
“And Mac’s. Don’t forget that McCallahan will do whatever he can to protect Devecchio, Jarrett,” Snow said. “He’s good. He’ll take a bullet before he lets anything happen to Nico. I think we have to hope that having Adael Dayan there will help us. I mean we all dislike the guy but he’s always come through in the end regardless of his shitty methods.”
Jarrett felt a little bad. He knew that about Mac and he wasn’t trying to minimize how important Mac was to this mission. He was probably more frustrated that they were late to the party and that Adael Dayan was involved. He could feel the emotions thrumming inside his husband who sat stiffly beside him. The mere mention of Mills Lang’s name had Jarrett’s stomach turning. He could only imagine what it was doing to Thayne’s insides.
Jarrett reached over and touched Thayne’s hand. He turned and looked directly at Jarrett. Inner strength shone in his eyes but with it, determination. Jarrett’s heart squeezed. His husband was the strongest person he’d ever known. He was going to be okay. Maybe all those months of therapy had made him stronger than Jarrett even knew.
“Jarrett knows that, Snow,” Thayne said, breaking eye contact and turning back to the screen. “I think we’re both just frustrated with the situation. They went in for interviews and for all intents and purposes now—they’re both prisoners in that fucking high-rise.”
“We’re going to trust that they keep themselves safe until this is all over,” Diaz said with an air of finality.
Jarrett nodded, knowing she was right. Both men were trained agents and had good instincts. Devecchio might look like a civilian but the truth was, he’d been NYPD before joining the ATF. If he had to guess, Jarrett would have thought that Nico would be just fine and he had the big guy to back him up if it was absolutely necessary.
“According to the coordinates Dayan listed on the note he gave Nico, the meeting place is what looks to be a warehouse in Korea Town near 7th and Alvarado,” SAC Stanger said. “You know where that is, Evans?”
Jarrett frowned. He knew that area. It wasn’t far from the Stryker-Dunn building. As long as it was indoors, there was probably little chance that anyone would notice.
“It’s near MacArthur Park, SAC,” Jarrett said.
Stanger nodded. “Yes.”
“I’m going with you,” Thayne said.
Jarrett shook his head. He knew how his husband felt about Adael but what he’d had with the Israeli had been a long damn time ago.
“No, you’re not. He said Evans should come alone and we’re not jeopardizing this mission right out of the gate,” Stanger said.
Jarrett dragged his gaze away from Thayne’s and looked back at his boss. He nodded sharply. “Yes, boss.”
“Good. Well then, we’ll be listening in, Evans,” Diaz said. “That will be all for now.” With that, the screen blacked out and Jarrett and Thayne were alone—with the exception of four FBI guys in suits, monitoring the screen showing South Africa.
Normal operations had resumed and nothing out of the ordinary was happening at the mine. It was now daylight in South Africa and Jarrett suddenly felt exhausted. The emotions he’d been feeling had been taxing and he really didn’t know how to handle all of it. The sudden claustrophobia and need to get out of the fucking SCIF was overwhelming. He stood up quickly, looking over at Thayne who seemed a bit startled.
“Let’s get out of here for a few, huh?”
“Yeah.” Thayne got up. He looked slightly robotic in his motions and Jarrett realized he wasn’t in his head at the moment. He had to bring him back down to earth, but how in the fuck was he supposed to do that?
****
Thayne felt like his head might explode. He had no idea what he was supposed to do when he felt like this but leaving the SCIF and maybe going out for fresh air sounded like a pretty good idea at the moment. He followed Jarrett, feeling a jumble of emotions. How he could have thought he would ever be free of the blood-washed legacy of Mills Lang was beyond him a
t the moment. When he had more time to think about it, he knew he was going to have to make an appointment to sit down with Dr. Avery, the psychologist he’d been seeing shortly after the torture he’d endured at the gun runner’s hands.
But for now, he’d have to put all that shit on the back burner and just keep his head in the game. Too many people were counting on him being at his best. When he came to his senses, he realized Jarrett had led them to the elevators and then he was following his husband out into the subterranean parking lot. Jarrett didn’t go over to Thayne’s Mustang, the car they’d come to work in, but instead, he walked over to the motor pool where several FBI-issued black SUVs were parked. Jarrett lifted the temporary FBI credentials they’d been issued from the lariat around his neck and showed them to the guy inside the door.
“We need transportation. Only for about an hour or two,” Jarrett said.
The man checked the credentials and then handed Jarrett a set of keys. Jarrett took them without a glance back at Thayne and clicked the key fob. When one of the cars blinked and the alarm beeped, Thayne winced. They had a bad track record with exploding vehicles and unlocking car doors still gave him butterflies and a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach for a split second. Without a word, he followed his husband down the row of vehicles and climbed into one of them, pulling his seatbelt on as Jarrett slid into the driver’s seat. Jarrett looked over at him.
“You doin’ okay, darlin’?”
Thayne rubbed his face. “Yeah. Why do we need a FBI car when I have the Mustang, Jarrett?”
“I need to take your mind off things and there ain’t enough room in the Mustang for me to do that.” Jarrett started the car, checked the rearview mirror, and pulled out of the parking garage into the bright sunlight. He made a left and started toward the freeway.
“I’m not going to ask why that is but where are you going?” Thayne said as they got onto the onramp.
“Headin’ toward the beach. I need to clear my head and I know you do too,” Jarrett said. He reached across the bench seat and took Thayne’s hand in his.
Endings and Beginnings (Death and Destruction Book 8) Page 14
