New Orleans: 6 June 6:10 A.M. Central time
Lance stood at the window, his gaze on the heavy gray sky. The day had dawned hot and sultry, with a thickening bank of clouds that promised rain by the afternoon.
The report of the FBI raid on the Charbonnet Street house had already reached him. It wasn’t part of the plan to have the house found first. But the development was manageable, more a complication than a derailment. The Feds had, naturally, traced the house’s security system to the Irish Channel, but Michael Crowley had plenty of time to clear out. It’s the way they’d planned it, except that part of the operation was running about twelve hours ahead of schedule.
His phone rang and he flipped it open without looking at the number. It was his six-year-old, Missy.
“Mommy told me you were coming home this morning,” she said.
Lance closed his eyes. “I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry. It shouldn’t be much longer now.”
“Barney misses you.”
Lance smiled. Barney was Missy’s gray tabby. “I miss Barney, too. But not as much as I miss you. I love you, honey. I’ll see you tonight.”
Lance closed the phone and was staring out over the city when Hadley pushed up from his laptop. “Looks like they’re in Dallas,” he said, hitting the Print button.
“Dallas? How the hell did they get to Dallas?”
Hadley stood with his hand out, waiting to catch the paper feed. “I don’t know, but they showed up at headquarters. Even used Fitzgerald’s access card to pop the lobby door.”
Lance swung around. “What the fuck? Did they get in?”
“Nope. They ran.”
Lance stood, snapping his fingers. “Send a team out to Fitzgerald’s house ASAP. They took his wallet and keys, remember? Maybe we can catch them there. And get somebody out to the airport. If they rented a plane, I want to know about it.”
Hadley handed him a printout of a lean guy in a polo shirt standing outside headquarters. “At least we got a good picture.”
Lance grunted. The security camera photo was grainy but sufficient. “So that’s the son of a bitch.”
“Our boys chased them, but they got away.” Hadley waited a beat. “They also wrecked two more of our cars.”
Lance studied the open elevator just visible in the photograph’s background, and smiled. “That’s okay. The asshole’s been recalled to Langley, and he’s still got the girl with him. Tell our guys in D.C. to get ready. I don’t care what they do to him. But this girl better be dead before seven o’clock tonight or we’re all in trouble.”
Jax Alexander was asleep before the Gulfstream taxied down the runway. But Tobie was too wired to drop off. She finally gave up and went to slip into the empty seat beside Bubba Dupuis.
“Aren’t you supposed to file a flight plan or something?” she asked.
Bubba looked up from adjusting his controls and shrugged. “Nah. Even when I do, I usually lie about where I’m going.”
Tobie huffed a soft laugh. “What exactly do you do for a living, Mr. Dupuis?”
“Call me Bubba.” He shrugged. “I fly things for the Company—and for other outfits. Things and people.”
She felt a chill that stilled the laughter on her lips. “You mean, as in the secret renditions the Administration has been doing?”
His brows drew together in a frown. “Nah. Not me. I don’t believe in kidnapping people and ‘disappearing’ them into secret prisons. As far as I’m concerned, it’s that kind of shit that makes the bad guys bad guys.”
She glanced back at the man asleep in one of the reclining leather seats. “How long have you known Jax Alexander?”
“Let’s see…it must be a good five or six years now. First time I met him, he was running from a bunch of Samburu in Kenya. You should have heard the shit I caught when I landed in Nairobi with a damn spear sticking out of my fuselage.” He leaned back in his seat and stretched. “I seem to spend half my time bailing Jax out of some tight spot or another. The last time was in Colombia.”
Tobie smiled. “More spear-throwing natives?”
“Nah. Right-wing death squads and a pissed-off ambassador. Chandler. Jax coldcocked the son of a bitch.”
“Why?”
Bubba went back to fiddling with his controls. “I think it might be better if you asked Jax to explain it to you.”
Tobie stared at the man who still slept soundly, one tanned arm thrown up to shade his eyes from the dim light. She’d met a few CIA guys in the Green Zone in Baghdad; company men who never hesitated to suppress uncomfortable truths or twist the facts when the politicians in Washington let it be known that was what they wanted. This man was nothing like them.
“He’ll tell you he only does this shit for the excitement,” Bubba said, as if following the drift of her thoughts. “But it isn’t true. Get him drunk enough, and he’ll start talking about our obligation to make a difference in this world and to fight for the people who can’t fight for themselves. And the need to keep the bastards honest.”
“Even if the bastard in question is the American ambassador?”
“Especially then.”
Tobie studied the big, hairy pilot beside her. “So why do you help him?”
“Me?” Bubba laughed. “Because Jax always manages to see that I get paid, one way or another.”
“What do you mean, one way or another?”
“Well…let’s just say a few times he had to get a bit creative.” Bubba frowned and flicked his finger against one of his instruments. “I don’t know what it is, but ever since you sat down here, it’s like everything on the panel froze.”
Tobie got up and quietly moved away.