Twenty-Seven

Within minutes, the place was swarming with cops—uniforms and suits—and Mathews had wasted no time in crawling up Sabrina’s ass. Michael could hear him barking at her through her cell. Never mind that she’d defended a witness and taken out a cartel assassin. What Mathews was worried about was his own ass and how one of his inspectors turning a hospital into the O.K. Corral was going to make him look to the top brass.

He looked at the kid and wondered what the hell he was going to do with him. How he was going to keep him safe. Under normal circumstances, he’d take a witness to an FSS safe house and await instructions, but the last forty-five minutes had proved that this situation was anything but normal. Following protocol, Ben had left a Pip here to guard the Kotko boy, but Shaw’s muscle was nowhere to be found once the bullets started flying. Either he’d abandoned his post … or he’d been following other orders.

He thought about the man Sabrina killed. One of Cordova’s, which meant someone else was calling the shots, and the turf war that’d been brewing was far from over. And how did the Maddox boy figure in? By all accounts he’d been kidnapped on Reyes’s orders. So why was it Cordova’s man in a body bag and not—

“A bell. I’m putting a fucking bell around your neck, Vaughn.”

Michael looked up to see Strickland standing in the doorway, a hard expression on his usually relaxed face. Sabrina mumbled something into the phone before dropping it into her pocket. “Hey, partner,” she said.

Strickland ignored her, aiming a glare his way. “Surprised you’re still here. Don’t you usually take off after she gets shot?”

Gut clenched tight, Michael shifted his jaw around a few choice words but he kept them to himself. Strickland was right, and getting into a pissing contest with him wouldn’t change that.

“Jesus Christ, it’s a graze. I’m fine,” Sabrina said in a heated rush, wrapping a hand around the back her neck. Looking up at him, she said, “We need to figure out our next move and we need to do it fast.”

He nodded. Out in the open, the kid had a shelf-life of about five minutes. “I’ll call Ben, have him meet me somewhere. I’ll hand the kid off to him and then we’ll meet up—”

“As usual, when he’s around, I’m left wondering what the hell is going on,” Strickland said, glaring over to his partner. “Explain.”

Sabrina dropped her hand and looked down at the boy curled up on the floor next to the waiting room sofa. “I will, but not here.” She reached down and held her hand out to the boy; he took it without hesitation. She helped him stand, pulled him to her, positioning her body between him and the door. “The FBI is placing our witness under protective custody and transporting him to the Russian Embassy for safe keeping. Mathews’s orders,” she said to her partner before finally looking at Michael. “Strickland and I are going to follow up on a lead. I’ll call Ben if I find anything.”

“You can’t leave,” Strickland said. “You just shot a guy, remember? You’re gonna be stuck here for the next few hours. I’ll call in surveillance on this Elm guy until we get everything sorted out. We can pick him up for questioning first thing tomorrow morning.”

“No.” Sabrina shook her head. “After what just happened, he needs to be picked up now.”

Strickland looked confused. “Okay. Then I’ll go—”

“Not without me you won’t,” she said and walked out the door.

Michael had no idea where he was going. He’d been driving around aimlessly for over an hour now, one eye on the rearview to ensure they weren’t being followed.

They weren’t. But that could change at any moment. Any number of people were gunning for him and the boy. Which meant he couldn’t keep driving around forever, wasting time he didn’t have. He was going to have to take a chance and reach out.

Using a clean prepaid cell, he dialed Ben’s number.

“Is this Murphy’s Pub?” he said as soon as the kid answered. It was a code they’d established a long time ago. One they’d never had to use until now.

Ben was quiet for a second. “Nope. Wrong number,” he said before hanging up. Michael dropped the cell in the center console and waited. The wrong number was a signal that he was in trouble. Ben was supposed to ditch his phone and call him from a fresh one as soon as he could.

He took a look in the rearview, this time letting his gaze fall onto the kid. He sat in the back seat of the SUV, staring into middle space. He’d given no protest at being hustled out of the hospital by a total stranger. Seeing Sabrina shoot one of the men who abducted him must’ve done what hours of talking and persuading couldn’t: he trusted them.

Which would more than likely end up getting him killed.

Michael shifted his gaze to the road behind them. Still no tail. But, then again, why bother with a tail? He was outfitted with a state-of-the-art tracking device. There was no need to put a physical tail on him when it was possible to track him via satellite. No need to send a platoon of Pips to gank his ass when all Shaw had to do was let his fingers do the walking.

He kept going over what had happened at the hospital. The disappearing Pip. Cordova’s triggerman. What he’d said to Sabrina, that he wasn’t alone. Something was going on. Michael’s gut told him that whatever it was, Livingston Shaw was involved up to his chin.

No one at FSS could be trusted. Not even his partner.