“What’s with this rain?” Hutch said, banging a fist on the wheel. They’d been sitting on 684 for what seemed like hours.
“Probably some asshole wrapped his car around an abutment up ahead,” Lewis muttered from the shotgun seat. “How much you wanna bet he was yakking on a cell phone when it happened?”
“Yeah, while drinking coffee and doing eighty in the rain.”
Jensen had the back seat of the Town Car to himself. He needed the space. Hutch and Lewis sat up front. Odds were they were right. Somewhere up ahead there’d be road flares and flashing red lights and glass and twisted metal all over the asphalt.
Jensen didn’t care if people killed themselves on the road—probably cleaned up the gene pool a little—but even on a good day it pissed him off when they did it ahead of his car. The least they could do was wait till he’d passed.
Lewis half-turned in his seat. “Long as we’re sitting here, boss, mind telling us what’s up?”
“What do you mean?” Jensen said, as if he hadn’t been expecting the question. The only surprise was that it had taken this long.
“This place we’re going to—what are we looking at here?”
“I don’t get you.”
“I mean, we’re loaded for bear, right? Just want to know what to expect. Who’s in this cabin and why are we after him tonight?”
Besides Jensen, only Brady and a few High Council members knew the truth about Cooper Blascoe. The guy had become a real liability. Jensen had wanted him to have an accident, but Brady had vetoed that. Not that he wouldn’t have liked Blascoe silenced and out of the way, but he’d said that a sudden death might cause more problems than it solved. Especially with the High Council. Even the members closest to Brady held out hope that Blascoe’s erratic behavior was temporary and that he might be able to get back in touch with his xelton—obviously he’d lost contact—and turn himself around, heal his mind and his body.
Thus the cabin. Isolate him. Let him sink or swim. Jensen had arranged it. He’d also arranged a way to keep Blascoe from bolting the cabin.
The TP brigade, of course, knew nothing of this. They’d been told they were monitoring the home of a Wall Addict who was out to destroy the Church. Nothing more. Only Jensen and Brady had the codes to activate and access the AV feeds. TPs like Hutchison and Lewis merely kept an eye on the telemetry telltales, and called Jensen when something lit up.
Like tonight.
“We’re not so much after the WA himself as much as the people visiting him at the moment. One of them is Jamie Grant; the other is the guy who snatched her from under your noses.”
“We’re packing heat for them?” Hutch said.
Jensen shook his head. Packing heat…Jesus.
“We don’t know what we’re heading into. We have reason to believe the man has mob ties.”
Lewis jerked around. “The mob? What the fu—?”
“Exactly what Mr. Brady and I want to know. The weaponry is just a precaution. I do not want anyone shot—I have a lot of questions for the man—but I do not want anyone getting away with a recording of whatever they’re discussing up there. If—”
“Hey,” Hutch said as the car eased forward. “Looks like we’re starting to move.”
Jensen peered ahead. The jam seemed to be breaking up. Good. They still had a ways to go.
“Think it’s gonna matter?” Lewis said. “They’ve gotta be gone by now.”
Jensen shook his head. “No, they’re still up there. The WA we’ve been watching has a long story, and it’s going to take some time to tell.”
“But if they’re smart they’ll get him out of there and to a safe house where they won’t be interrupted.”
“Not if the WA refuses to leave.”
And he wouldn’t dare.