The Shack: The Milk Run

All things considered, that made encountering Emma all the more ironic.

We’d just rounded the corner to head for the stairs when we walked right into her. And, of course, per policy, she promptly stopped what appeared to be a heated discussion with a White House liaison officer I vaguely knew and began talking with us.

Tess’s reaction was flawless. “Ma’am, aren’t you the executive assistant director for the National Security branch?”

Emma gave a perfect smile. “I take it you’ve studied the Bureau.” She looked over at me, apparently with no recognition at all. “If you have a moment, I can talk with them for a few minutes. I was due at a meeting five minutes ago, but they won’t start without me. So we can talk unless you have a schedule to keep.”

The White House Liaison gave a sour grimace and did everything but stamp his foot impatiently, which made it easy for me to shake my head. “We have plenty of time.”

That earned me a slight side-eye from Tess when she realized she wasn’t the only one with a talent for accents and voices. It’d been a while, but I easily slid into an old Connecticut accent, which oozed good schools and affluence, although not at Emma’s Swiss boarding school level. I kept my voice a bit higher, with a slight quaver, the voice of retirement. It was far from my normal central Virginia accent. She showed no sign of recognition at all.

Emma had one of her aides grab an empty briefing room and gave what I, at least, considered an outstanding bit of community engagement, despite the fact that I really wanted to be almost anywhere else.

The girls played their parts, asking typical questions and mostly looking fascinated. Delaney asked the usual question we get from kids. “Have you ever had to shoot someone?”

Emma didn’t so much as twitch. It’s a common question; it would have been a little unusual if none of the girls had asked it or at least thought of it. Each agent handles it differently. Emma gave a solemn nod. “When I had to, to save myself or someone else. It isn’t something I’m particularly proud of, but it had to be done.”

“My Dad was a Soldier; he says the same thing. Sometimes you have to do what has to be done.” There was a depth to Delaney’s voice, perfectly in synch with Emma’s solemn tone. For that moment, they sounded eerily alike.

I remembered my conversation with Mackenzie. More than ever, I was sure Delaney had been forced to make those final decisions, probably more than once.

“We do our best to avoid those situations, but we can’t all the time.” She gave a practiced, slightly sad smile. I doubted she actually regretted pulling the trigger when she had to, any more than I did, but it was the right thing to say; although, perhaps not with these particular young women.

“It doesn’t happen as often as it does in the movies. Most agents go through their whole career without ever having to engage in a firefight with a suspect.”

Despite the obvious impatience of the White House liaison officer, Emma took her time and talked to the girls for a solid twenty minutes. Part of that was probably to piss off the liaison officer, but most of it was just, well, Emma. She believed in the FBI at a level that was beyond dedication; she fiercely wanted the FBI to be what it should be, what it aspired to be, beyond politics or petty bureaucratic concerns.

She sent her aide to her office to bring back FBI lapel pins; she solemnly pinned them first on the girls and then on me before making her apologies for having to leave for her meeting.

We waited until they were out of sight before moving to the stairwell.

I had an almost irresistible urge to break out in a very un-deputy-director-like giggle but managed to bring it up short. The girls chattered loudly and excitedly about how cool it was to meet the EAD for National Security. But the excitement never quite reached their eyes; deadly cold and serious, they scanned relentlessly.

Tess did a silent count before checking around the corner and gesturing us into the stairwell.

We walked up slowly as I lectured about the history of the FBI. If anyone ran into us, we’d just keep going and project that we had every right to be where we were.

Michael used to joke that if you want to be left alone in the Army, carry a clipboard and look busy. Anyone with any sense will stay clear just to avoid getting dragged into whatever task you’ve been tagged with.

Not everyone in the FBI was as enthusiastic as Emma about the engagement policy I had put into effect. Most would simply walk by an obvious officially sponsored tour and try desperately not to make eye contact to avoid getting pulled in and disrupting their already packed schedules.

I was careful to keep my “voice” in character. Regardless of what the movies show, it is extremely difficult to maintain a fake accent or voice pattern over any real length of time, even with professional training. Like Tess, I’d always been a natural mimic, but even with that advantage, I could only push it so far.

The fact that I was basically giving part of the speech I gave to every FBI Academy class was both good and bad. All too easy to remember, but all too easy to fall back into my natural voice and speech pattern.

It was also pointless as we didn’t run into a single person. I could take some justifiable pride in that; one of my few contributions to the girls’ planning process. The FBI, like every other large bureaucracy, has patterns. Work hours, lunch times, external drivers, distribution of subordinate and implied tasks, along with the driving need for internal communications, all work to force most meetings into a relatively narrow band. At times, the halls are crowded with passers-by. There are also times, even inside the FBI, that you’d never know that anyone worked there. Emma running late had been a fluke of timing.

We reached the door, and I prayed for two things; that the key card would work and that no meeting had been scheduled for the room. It was rarely used, but bad luck happens, and coincidences can kill.

I scanned the card, held my breath and pushed the door open.

Empty.

The energy-saving motion-detecting lights kicked on as I stepped in. The room smelled a little musty in that oddly specific way; that peculiar smell of an abandoned room.

It was the perfect place for Michael to have left me a message. I figured he had probably put it on the shared folders on the computer.

I smiled as I headed for the computer kiosk; all I had to do was figure out the name of the file or folder. We’d shared a lot of secrets, a lot of private thoughts. We practically had our own secret language. I knew it would be something I’d recognize instantly.

Long time lovers can do that. Build those private worlds that only they know.

I… I stopped.

The kiosk was empty. The various data lines, audio and video cords, USB and other cords were sitting randomly across it, like tentacles of some dead ultra-modern sea creature.

Delaney came up on my left and stared at the empty space where the computer was supposed to be. “Fuck.”

“Fuck.” I echoed her. She was clearly a bad influence on me. But then, even on reflection, I couldn’t think of a better word to use.

Mackenzie visibly deflated as she took in the view of the empty kiosk. Tess moved slowly and looked around darkly. “Was that the only computer?”

“Yes.” I sighed and stared at the ceiling. “That was it.”

I felt the walls closing in. I’d been wrong on every count. We’d have to exfiltrate, and then I needed to find a way to get out of the US. I was putting everyone I came in contact with at risk.

What the hell was I even thinking? Teenage girls playing bodyguard? Sneaking into the FBI with Girl Scouts? Jesus.

I looked around. Delaney was watching the door, jaws clenched, struggling to keep her annoyance in check. Mackenzie was putting on a brave face, but I could see she’d taken a hit.

Tess… Tess wasn’t annoyed or disappointed…she was scanning, breaking the room into sections and looking it over methodically. She looked up at me with a calculating, almost machine-like expression. “Where were you exactly when you met him?”

I looked over the room. “Over there at the table, but there’s no computer there.”

She shook her head. “There’s plenty of dust on the kiosk where the computer used to be, but no outline. That computer was long gone before this ever started. Nobody has been in here for months. He had to know that.”

She was already moving to the chair I’d pointed to; she pointed to Delaney. “Stay on the door. Mack, I need a light.”

Delaney gave a curt nod and moved closer to the door, in a position to “accidentally” temporarily block entry. Mackenzie reached up into her hair and pulled out a hair clip that turned out to be a miniature flashlight. It would have looked like any other hair clip on the backscatter x-ray we’d passed through.

With one quick look at the door, she was on the floor and scooting under the table.

It took her about thirty seconds, and only that because either Michael or me had misremembered the precise location. Embarrassingly. It was probably me; I’d been a Special Agent at the time, so I probably hadn’t been as far up the table as I “remembered.”

She rolled out with a high capacity flash drive in her hand and gave me a smile with a wry twist as she held it up to me. “You know anyone named ‘Legs?'”

I felt myself flush red. Michael’s nickname for me had only ever been spoken when we were alone. Usually completely undressed.

All three girls shot me quick, sly looks. Mackenzie smiled knowingly. Delaney glanced down over my legs and snorted. “Figures.”

I concentrated on the flash drive for a long moment; right up until Mackenzie plucked it from my hand and tucked it into her hair.

Exiting was far easier than I expected. For a change, everything went smoothly — passing through security on the way out went without a hitch. We even stopped at the gift shop.

A few minutes later, we were on the crowded sidewalk and headed to the parking garage.

*****

Wolves in the Darkness

*****

We made an effort not to look like we were hurried or rushed, but we moved with a definite sense of purpose.

Tess pushed me into the van, and we rolled out before I could even get my seat belt buckled.

I looked around. “Where’s Delaney?”

“She’s meeting up with us later.”

It chilled me that I hadn’t even noticed her drop out of our group. “I don’t like leaving her…”

“We didn’t leave her.” Mackenzie was insulted, but she kept her tone even, if a hair clipped. “You’re paying us to do our job. At least, I hope we’re getting paid. Just let us do it.”

She moved the van through traffic as smoothly as any driver I’d ever had assigned, and we’d escaped just ahead of the heaviest surge. Rush hour is a kind of obsolete concept in DC, but there are heavier and lighter moments.

We were well south when I sensed a change in Mackenzie. She hadn’t done or said anything, but it felt like the temperature had shifted. Tess caught it too, raising her eyes only slightly from her laptop.

Mackenzie finally spoke. “They are definitely on us. About a half mile back; silver sedan and black SUV closing slowly.”

“They’ll wait a while. Catch us out where there isn’t any traffic. Less chance of police interference.” Tess had a map up on her laptop, and I could just see the corner.

“That’s what I would do. They have to know this van can’t outrun anything.” Mackenzie scanned the road.

We were another five miles down the road when Tess spoke. “Five hundred meters. They’re waiting for traffic to clear. Probably another three miles.”

She shifted her laptop, and I realized she had activated the backup camera on the van somehow. Mackenzie kept looking straight ahead. “Got it. Are you buckled in?”

I realized the last question was for me. “Yes.”

“We have a plan for this. Just hang on.”

After a few more miles, Tess glanced at Mackenzie, then back at the screen.

“They’re moving up. One hundred fifty meters.” Tess pulled a handgun out of the glove box and passed it back low between the seats to me, followed by two extra extended magazines. “Hang on to it just in case.”

I looked down at it for a moment. A Glock, but not one I’d ever handled before. Distinctive, almost unique factory barrel porting. I twisted it and looked at the rear left of the slide. A selector switch for full automatic. “An 18C.”

Tess didn’t blink. “Twelve hundred rounds per minute with three magazines; armor piercing. If this goes wrong, use it. We’ll hold them as long as we can. You get free. Contact K2.”

“If you have to fight, fight like you’re the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s Ark, and it’s starting to rain.” Mackenzie’s laugh sounded all too much like Delaney’s, and I had no doubt where that saying had come from.

Our pursuers continued to close quickly as Tess called the distance. “Fifty meters. Two in the sedan, four, maybe five in the SUV.”

At twenty-five meters, Mackenzie took a deep breath. “Now.”

Tess straightened up and looked directly back over her seat at our pursuers, and sat back down. I choked in shock. It was a completely unprofessional move; there was no way our hunters could have missed her looking back at them through the untinted windows.

To make matters worse, Mackenzie stomped on the accelerator, pushing the van to its pathetic limit as we pushed past the last of the traffic, an old battered pick-up truck. We sure as hell weren’t going to outrun them, but now they knew we’d seen them.

The blatant amateurishness was so completely out of character I could only sit and watch in horror.

We pushed ahead, and they followed, leaving the few remaining vehicles behind.

Then I noticed that Tess was smiling. So was Mackenzie. Not normal, happy teenager smiles. A hunter’s anticipation.

“Is it him?” Mackenzie’s voice sounded like a hungry growl, and I wondered for a moment if Delaney’s feral nature was contagious.

When Tess answered, the predatory sound made me was certain it was. “It’s him.”

Before I could ask what the hell they were talking about, Tess went on coolly.

“Do you think he wants her alive or dead?” The casual tone in Tess’ voice was disturbing, especially if I focused on the fact that I was the “her” that Tess was so casually asking about.

Glancing in her mirrors, Mackenzie gave a half frown for a second. “Dead. All the windows just came down, and I saw a long gun barrel. The sedan gets ahead of us, boxes us in, the crew in the SUV shoots us up and finishes us off after we wreck. Not that it matters.”

“Not real creative, are they?” Tess twisted in her seat, eyes sparkling with something like glee but hungrier. She caught me looking, and her smile widened a bit more. “Spooky says a friend of hers has a saying.”

Mackenzie gave a soft, almost mocking laugh. “Wolves are the most dangerous of prey. Because they always hunt you back.”

I turned to see what she was looking at. The SUV never had a chance. Our pursuers were locked on the van. Realizing we’d seen them and were running, they did what predators instinctively do.

They chased, trying to close the distance.

The old farm pickup truck we’d passed suddenly surged from behind, and Tess laughed and spoke in an eerily flawless Russian accent, in a beautiful angelic voice I recognized all too well. “And there are always more wolves in the darkness.”

Police sometimes call it tactical vehicle intervention, although I’d heard the term tactical ramming used. These days, it is usually called a pursuit intervention technique. Or just a PIT maneuver.

The men in the SUV didn’t catch on fast enough, although if they had, it probably wouldn’t have made any difference at all; the truck was far quicker and more powerful than it looked. It pulled up until the front bumper was just even with the back of the rear passenger door of the SUV, then seemed to lunge into it, pushing the rear sideways, forcing it to spin out.

A police officer would have backed off as the SUV fishtailed, but the truck pushed harder, and it was both far heavier and more powerful. It forced them onto the shoulder and beyond.

The SUV driver was good; he tried to pull out of the fishtail, and turn it into a J-turn, but the narrowness of the road, the high center of gravity, the speed and the sheer power of the truck were too much. The SUV went into the ditch and crunched into a hard rollover.

Even if the crew weren’t seriously injured, the SUV itself was done.

The truck neatly evaded the wreck and pushed ahead, far faster and more agile than an old farm truck should have been. The guys in the sedan reacted, but quick as they were, they had nowhere to go. Boxed in from the front by our van, their chance of evading the overpowered truck was near zero. They’d been caught by the same maneuver they’d planned to use on us. Their only chance was to get past us and run for it.

Mackenzie twisted the van slightly when the sedan tried to pass us, forcing him to compensate.

It was only for a fraction of a second but easily long enough for the vicious predator-truck to slam in and force them off the road and into the ditch, where it rolled. I caught a glimpse into the truck and wasn’t at all surprised to see Delaney, her rage intensely focused, teeth bared as she slammed her vehicle to a stop next to the still rolling wreck.

Mackenzie had the van stopped, into reverse, and was back to the wrecked sedan before I could even react, bumper to bumper with the old farm truck.

Tess dropped out the door, moving low and fast, clutching something in her hand. I could see Delaney ahead of her, some kind of gun leveled at the wreck. The girls moved wordlessly in from the front, light and fast. It made sense, as the deployed airbags blocked anyone inside from seeing where they were as they approached.

Mackenzie was out, using the corner of the van as a prop to steady a rifle at the ready. They must have had a hide built into the van, as I’d had no idea at all that the heavy, magazine-fed rifle was there. A military nightmare of some kind; I didn’t recognize it, but the shark-like profile, large scope and wide magazine all pointed to something that could go through a vehicle from end to end.

Delaney and Tess hit the open windows simultaneously, and I could hear the snap and stutter of police-grade stun guns.

“Two tangos, two down! Our package is on the passenger side.” Delaney yanked the door open.

Rifle in one hand, dragging a bag in the other, Mackenzie rush to her side while Tess stayed focused on the driver.

An unbelievably short time later, Delaney and Tess roughly dumped a bagged, handcuffed, and duct-taped figure into the rear of the van while Mackenzie kept the area covered with her rifle. Delaney pulled what looked like silvery survival blankets out of a pocket, and they hurriedly wrapped him in them.

We pulled away, and Delaney gave a flippant wave as she pushed ahead of us.

A few minutes later, Mackenzie started talking. “We figured there’d be a good chance they’d acquire us at the FBI. That’s what we would do. But we didn’t figure it would be more than one or two vehicles because there are too many federal agencies in that area that might notice. They needed to keep a low profile.”

“So you gambled. Too much. You didn’t need the guy. We probably have what we need, and hired muscle isn’t going to know anything useful.”

A look shot between the two girls before Mackenzie turned to followed Delaney down a dirt road. “We created an apparent tactical opportunity for them and then exploited it. We know our limits. We had to maximize our advantages.” She paused for a second. “And we have our reasons for taking this guy.”

Tess shot her a warning look, and she stopped. I figured that was a pretty clear sign that subject was closed.

We bumped down the road for a few miles until we pulled into a barn. An older Toyota SUV was waiting inside.

Delaney hopped out of the truck. This close, I could see how heavily reinforced the front bumper was; just short of an I-beam — and it looked like everything else was equally sturdy. “We’ll come back later for the van and the tank.”

She caught my expression and answered my questions before I even asked them. “It’s armored, even the glass is good enough to stop most handgun rounds. You can buy anything on the internet. Gets about four miles to the gallon, though, so it doesn’t have much range, even with the extra self-sealing tank.”

“That limited range is why you had to pre-position it, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. ‘Excuse me while I refuel; I’ll be back to PIT you in a few minutes.’ It just doesn’t work.”

“You had to have another vehicle down near the FBI.”

“A motorcycle. Best way to get through heavy traffic and get ahead of everyone.”

“And you couldn’t let me in on this plan because…?”

The irritation in my voice caught Delaney’s attention. She frowned. “This is important to you, but it’s fucking important to us, too. We’re risking a lot, and that means we get to choose how to do this. That’s how this works. You pay us to take risks, but we decide how because we know what we can and can’t do.”

“Like choosing to take them down on the road.”

Delaney nodded, and tried to bite back her response a bit. “There were five guys in that SUV, probably all trained and experienced mercenaries, plus the two in the car.”

She took a deep breath. “I’ve dealt with guys like that before, and they are fucking dangerous.” She shook her head and shivered. “These guys weren’t ready for us the first couple times because they didn’t know what was going on, but by now, they had to have some idea, and they’d have been ready. We wouldn’t have had a chance on the ground. We’d have been dead meat.”

“I can understand that. Some of these guys may have more years in the field than you’ve been alive.”

She looked a touch mollified. “We’re trained mostly as couriers and surveillance, not combat soldiers, but we can use that. I’m 88 pounds, soaking wet and wearing work boots, but in the tank, I’m a fucking Godzilla. We have tons of driving training, and we’ve practiced PIT maneuvers hundreds of times, more than most instructors ever get a chance to. If we didn’t take them down this time, they might catch up to us later when we didn’t have all the advantages. Now their guys are down. They can probably replace them, but that takes time, and if you’re right about what’s on that jump drive, they just ran out of that.”

I thought for a second. It was smart, and it made sense, even if I didn’t like being used as bait. “So why did you grab the guy?”

Delaney gave a short snort. “We’re making the drop in less than two hours, so we have to take you with us anyway.” She opened the rear door of the van, carefully eyeing the man to make sure the restraints had held before lifting the black hood off his head.

I stared at him for a moment. It took a second since they’d taped gauze bandages over his eyes. “Is that…?”

“Your friend from the mall.”

Tess walked up and stared down at him. “He’s a side quest.”

I blinked, trying to figure out what she meant, then Mackenzie cut in. “A target of opportunity.”

That, at least, seemed to make more sense.

“He’s cash money; that’s what he is.” Delaney slid the hood back over his head.

The three girls transferred their equipment and the man to the Toyota. The odd look to the glass and weight of the doors gave away the fact that the Toyota was armored as well.

*****

Delivery Included

*****

An hour and a half later, we were at a small airfield with only one aircraft on it, a very pricy looking corporate jet with a stylized “C&W” on the side. The “tower” was a small one-story building that was mostly windows.

The three girls scanned the airfield with high-end optics and a very nice thermal imaging scope, one that was typically way out of budget for law enforcement.

Eventually, Tess called it. “I have two in the tower, at least one in the plane. None in those open hangers.”

Mackenzie nodded. “That’s what I have.”

Delaney looked down at her phone. “K2 says ‘site secure, safe to make the drop.'” She took a deep breath.

“Let’s do this.” Mackenzie slowly pulled onto the airfield and parked the Toyota some four hundred yards from the aircraft and the tower.

Delaney looked at me. “You might want to come with us; our contact has some information for you. Kurt says it’s safe, but it’s up to you.”

I walked with Tess and Delaney. Mackenzie was leaning on the hood of our vehicle as we walked to the plane, seemingly texting on her phone, but the heavy rifle was right up against her side, out of sight of the aircraft and the tower. Her sunglasses were hiding the fact that she wasn’t even looking at the phone. In any case, I was sure her “cell” was a rangefinder and ballistic calculator.

They’d parked so that anyone trying to return fire at Mackenzie would be looking into the bright winter sun, just high enough off the horizon to blind them without backlighting her.

A lone figure stepped gracefully out of the plane and started down the stairs. Somehow I wasn’t surprised by the familiar expensive black suit.

She had a few more grey hairs, but Wendy looked more or less the same as the last few times we’d met. She smiled at me, a smile that would make a wolf check for an exit, if the wolf had any sense. “Maria. So nice to see you again.”

“Wendy.” The machine pistol was the only comfort I had. I couldn’t imagine the girls selling me out, but Wendy’s reputation for ruthlessness wasn’t something I could completely ignore. “Nice to see you too. I hope.”

“I was in the area when we got the call, so I couldn’t pass on the chance to say hello. I was rather expecting you to buy a ticket out. I’d have given you a family discount, you know.”

“I decided to try to handle it.”

She nodded, then glanced at the girls, noticing they’d moved out and slightly forward, using the body of the plane and the wing to shield themselves from anyone in the tower or the aircraft itself. “I suppose these two are part of Kurt and Katie’s crew.”

She stepped down and off the stairs. “Don’t worry, we’re clear. I own this airfield. I understand you have a package for me?”

Delaney stared at her unblinking for a long second and pressed a small bowl-like object onto the aircraft body. “In the back of the vehicle. He’s mummy wrapped in antistatic foil, but we didn’t really have time to search him for trackers.”

Wendy nodded. “Can I send someone to get him?”

Tess signaled to Mackenzie, who popped the back hatch open.

A lone man with a luggage cart headed out of the tower building for the long walk to the Toyota. I looked over at the smuggler. “Alright, Wendy, I’ll ask. Why are you interested in this guy?”

She gave a perfectly practiced shrug. “I’m not. He’s just paid cargo as far as I am concerned.” She gave me a slight smile, just as rehearsed as her shrug. “The Volkov Group, on the other hand, is most certainly interested in him. The bounty on him is quite substantial, something about a rather large amount of missing money after one of their Syrian operations, or so I hear. If I deliver him, the bounty gets paid with no argument; I subtract my carrying fees and pass the rest to K2. Everybody walks away alive.” She glanced at the now-loaded luggage cart headed back to the tower building. “Well, almost everybody.”

“Makes sense. Nobody would cross you, not even the Volkov Group. They might try to take delivery then refuse payment to someone else, but not you.”

“It’s a good deal for everyone.” She looked at me. “There’s a bounty on you too, very substantial.” She glanced at Tess and Delaney. Delaney looked back at her laconically. “But I’m not stupid enough to start anything with K2. It would be bad for business.”

Tess gave a somewhat plastic smile. “We’re glad to hear that.”

“Kurt warned me to be on my best behavior. He said any misunderstanding with this particular team is likely to result in… I believe the term he used was ‘immediate and substantial property damage.’ That doesn’t sound very profitable at all.”

Delaney looked slowly from Wendy to the plane. “But it’d have been fun. I’ve never driven a plane before.”

Wendy appraised her for a moment. “Are you planning on flying it?”

An outright evil grin lit Delaney’s face as she eyed the distance from the aircraft to the tower. “I wouldn’t have to get it that far. It’s got wheels. I’d get it there. I’ve driven any kinda rig that’s ever been made.”

Whatever I was expecting from Wendy, it wasn’t a completely honest answering smile. “‘I’ve driven the back roads so I wouldn’t get weighed.’ I haven’t heard that in…forever. God, Kurt loves that song.”

Delaney’s grin was suddenly almost friendly. “He sings it all the time. He was sure you’d remember.”

Check and double-check. Delaney and Wendy had just used a secondary pass-phrase and counter-sign. Kurt had told the team they could trust Wendy. The extra layer was a way to ask Wendy if she was under duress. A way to make sure that Mackenzie was the only sniper on the field.

A check set in place decades ago. Damn, it was good to be working with professionals.

“We used to…” Wendy stopped and looked down at her red-soled Christian Louboutin high heels for a moment. “I’m glad he still sings.”

“Every week, the training team does a Karaoke night.” Tess shook her head with a rueful smile.

“Please tell him that Chip and I would like to try to drop by some time.” Wendy sighed and looked at them. “Can I get a moment with your principal?”

We walked several feet away.

“Evelyn said to put your ticket on her tab if you need one.”

“No, I think we’ve just about finished this.”

“In that case, she said to let you know that she is covering your K2 bill. She sees this as her responsibility.’

I snorted. “I’ll let her do that. I don’t even know how much this will all cost.”

“It’d be pretty substantial. Kurt says your team is a premium service.”

I looked back over at the girls. “You don’t exactly seem surprised by teenage mercenaries.”

“One hears things. The fact that they placed sniper cover and put hollow charges on the undercarriage as soon as they walked up makes it pretty clear that at least some of the stories are true.”

“I saw that.”

Wendy gave a solemn nod. “If you can’t be sure you’ll win, make it clear that there’s an unacceptable cost to trying to take you down. It’s practically the story of my life.”

“Mine too, although it’s usually political and not murder attempts.”

“There’s a difference?” She looked pointedly at Delaney. “So that you know. She has a very substantial price on her head, too.”

I followed her glance. “One does hear things. Do you know who?”

“I haven’t pinned that down; it’s a rather secretive issue, even by my standards. The rumor is that it’s a trap. According to the story, everyone who’s tried to collect has ended up quite dead, and the body count is supposed to be very, very high.”

“I’ve spent enough time with her to suspect the body count rumor is probably true. Besides, it’d have to be one hell of a lot of money to risk bringing K2 down on you.”

“Kurt and Katie would take it very personally.”

“But they’re okay with this…?”

“It’s different. Business is business, Maria. Inherent risk. Kurt doesn’t write greeting cards for a living.”

*****

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis

*****

I sat alone in Mooky’s bedroom with a brand new laptop. Getting into the flash drive was simple. The passphrase prompt was “Cabo Bikini.” Only I knew what the obvious answer to that was. And I have every intention of taking that to my grave.

For a long while, I paged through document after document. Pay-offs, pay-outs, promises made, promises kept.

Wire diagrams outlining a vast conspiracy intended to dig in and spread like a cancer.

I’d seen something like this before on some nature show. There’s a horrifying fungus that can infect ants. It takes them over from the inside, growing next to the brain and eventually taking over the central nervous system. When it does, the ant does whatever the fungus programs it to do. It has no resistance and no will. The ant looks the same, but serves to do whatever the fungus needs to grow stronger.

Until the ant dies, of course.

Folder after folder, document after document.

I clicked on a video in a folder, then just stared at the screen, feeling sick. Michael’s thin, ravaged face stared back at me, frozen. I’d paused the video to catch my breath. I’d spent the last several days suppressing this. Not thinking about Michael actually being gone. As much as I had known it was coming with cancer advancing relentlessly, it still hurt almost too much even to feel real.

I pressed “play” even as I willed myself not to.

He’d suspected they were on to him, that they had people inside the Bureau. He wanted to look into one more thing but couldn’t risk losing the data. One copy on him, one taped to the underside of the table. One more thing to do. The date on the file was the night before he was killed, the same day this all started.

He broke the one rule we’d always followed. He talked about the should-have-beens, the could-have-beens, and what we really meant to each other.

Even when the video stopped, I couldn’t stop looking at him. I choked and held myself and felt all my internal walls give way.

It was almost two hours later when I left the room. All three girls took one glance and looked away uncomfortably. With my red puffy eyes and splotchy skin. I might as well have had a sign around my neck that said, “cried for hours.”

The moment he saw me, Mooky got up from the counter and wordlessly gave me a gentle, practiced hug. The kind of perfect hug that someone who has dealt with grief over and over knows how to give. When we finally stepped back, he gave me a soft, understanding, sad half-smile.

After a long moment of quiet, Tess spoke up. “So what do we know, and what do we do next?”

*****

“Synarchists, Dude.”

Delaney stared at Mooky in puzzlement. “What?”

“Super rich guys trying to take over the government. This isn’t the first time. It was, like, the 1930s.”

Tess shook her head slowly. “What are you talking about?”

“They’ve tried this before. There was like this secret cabal of rich guys…” He raised his eyebrows “…who wanted to rule the world. Dude named Smedley… Marine dude… Butler, yeah, Smedley Butler. I remember ’cause that’s like the coolest name…”

Mackenzie looked doubtful, but Delaney’s eyes narrowed. “Dude. Focus. What did he do?”

“He dimed them out. They tried to use him to take over, but he called them out to Congress.”

Delaney swiveled to look at me. “Is he right?”

“It’s been a long time since I took history, but it sounds vaguely familiar.”

Tess looked up from her computer, looking drawn. “General Smedley Butler. The Business Plot of 1934 to overthrow the US government. Congress just sort of glossed it over, and everybody pretended it hadn’t happened. Too many people with too much money and too much power involved.”

Delaney gave Mooky a suspicious stare. “Where did you hear about this stuff?”

He shrugged. “I have a friend, Petey, and she does this podcast. Cool stuff, you know. Aliens, weather control machines, she’s the real deal.”

At a total loss for words, Delaney held her hands up in surrender and looked back at Tess. “Just stick to the plot; let’s not worry about weather control machines for now.”

We all moved around next to her and looked at the screen. Tess took a deep breath and put one finger up to the screen. “Look at the names.”

Delaney looked at the ones Tess pointed out. “You have got to be fucking kidding me. It’s been a hundred fucking years.”

“Almost.” My voice sounded hollow in my ears. Reisner, McGuire…Reinhardt.

Mackenzie’s tone came in a whisper. “It wasn’t just the US, was it? France… they really meant it…”

She looked up at me. “Or still mean it.”

“They spent three hundred million dollars trying to pull it off in 1934.” Tess brought up another page briefly. “That’s almost six billion today.”

Delaney’s lip curled in a nasty sneer as she looked at the screen. “Billionaires. That kind of money does something to people. It rots their brains and makes them think they’re fucking gods or something.”

I shook my head. “Aren’t you the one that called the guy ‘cash money’ earlier?”

She gave me an unblinking stare. “I don’t want money for money’s sake. Money is just a tool to stay alive. I’ve dealt with people with this kind of money before.” She gestured sharply at the screen. “They turn into monsters.”

For a moment, she stared right through me, her eyes focused on a different time and place. Delaney’s lip curled, grim and predatory.

Her jaw twitched and tightened; I could see tension and rage building in her, wire-taut nerves starting to fire, a growing manic glitter beginning to burn in her eyes. Something, maybe hatred, flashed behind the anger. “We’re going after them, right?”

“No.” I waited until she turned her now-unblinking stare on me. “This is for other people.”

She was trying to figure out whether she believed me or not. I continued. “Part of this goes to the FBI and the White House. They have the resources to do this.”

Tess looked over her computer. “The government didn’t do much with it last time.”

They already knew too much to bother hiding the rest, so I continued. “Some of it will go to Spooky’s people, and some to the people Pogo works with. They won’t stop. Ever.”

“What about us?” Mackenzie seemed to be doing math in her head.

“I’d like to keep you and K2 out of it. This isn’t your fight.”

Delaney looked put out. But she smiled when she heard what else I had to say. “Besides, I’d like to keep you as a really nasty surprise if things go wrong.”

*****

“I got a call from the Director of the FBI this morning.” On the tablet, I saw Derek lean back as he talked.

“Let them know that once we see Reisner and McGuire in cuffs on the news, we’ll talk.”

“I already did, but it’s not going to happen. They found Reisner hanging in his shower this morning. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense McGuire had a fatal one-car accident last night.”

I shook my head. “Not very subtle.”

“I think that’s the point. To me, it looks like somebody has taken this personally.”

For a moment, I wondered what he actually knew. Maybe Donna had let Spooky off the leash, maybe Howard was cleaning up, or perhaps the conspiracy was cleaning up after itself. Too many maybes.

“Maybe.”

He flipped a page to check something out. “The FBI has swept a bunch of the lower level ones on the list, but a little bird told me that they were in it for the money and didn’t really know who they were working for. Some in Homeland and Department of Defense, a number in the AG’s office, some in the FBI. A fair number of Congressional staffers. A few more scattered across different departments and agencies. Even HUD.”

A few hours later, I watched on the news as Emma, cane in hand, stood quietly behind the FBI Director as he conducted a press conference regarding a spy ring that had been uncovered “by hard work and sacrifice.” He briefly introduced her as the lead on the investigation.

In the back of my head, I could hear Michael chuckle. Wherever they were, the leaders of the conspiracy had to be taking a very deep breath. Early on, Emma’s insane drive had combined with her lack of height to give her the somewhat sneering nickname “Dangermouse.” Now that name was only spoken with respect, mostly by members of the Hostage Rescue Team. Emma was a fanatic, the FBI-as-it-should-be was her religion, and she, a Holy Priestess, would fight to the death keep it pure. Worse yet, there was no way to buy her off. As Evelyn’s daughter, she was the heir to the almost incomprehensible billions of the Reinhardt fortune. She should have been the conspirators’ natural ally; she should have been one of them, as her forbearers had.