Jad Bell: Bravo Part 20

"The contingency-"

"Is secondary. Our survival is primary."

"We agree on that."

"Then you'll also agree with this." The Architect smiles. "It's time you introduced me to your partners."

Chapter Twenty-One.

THE DEATH TOLL, Bell thinks, now stands at three, and he wonders if it's about to climb higher.

He resets the pistol in his hands, resets his grip, thumbs lying together. He pushes thoughts about Tom O'Day and what's being done with his body back in Hailey out of his mind, does the same with the memory of Tom O'Day's family, imaginings of his wife and daughter, found dead in their home. Callie O'Day, who will not see thirteen years, who is not anything like Athena except that she's another soldier's daughter. Stephanie O'Day, who clearly went down fighting, and, yes, that is just like Amy.

The voice comes in his ear. "Stand by."

He checks Nessuno, on the opposite side of the door, Provo, Utah, SWAT team surrounding them as they wait, poised to move, outside this second-floor walk-up, this apartment. She's miked and harnessed just as he is, a pistol in her hands. He remembers what she said on the ride in, remembers another woman saying the same thing not so very long ago, the woman who saved his daughter's life and lost hers in trade.

I'm not a shooter.

Nessuno moves her head, just enough to dip her chin. Nodding. Yes, I am ready.

There's the creak and rattle of men wearing body armor and holding weapons, all of them waiting on the razor's edge. The door man on the SWAT team shifts, brings the mallet up, ready to strike.

In Bell's ear, "Go go go."

The hammer falls.

He goes to work on Tom O'Day at once, trying to bring him back to life, but even as he starts he knows it's futile, and even though she knows it, too, Nessuno tries to help. Then Freddie and Isaiah pour through the door, and Bell abandons the room and sprints the length of the tunnel to Jorge's. Brickyard is already on the line, Jorge hurriedly uploading everything that has happened in the interview room. Bell takes the phone.

"Steelriver?" Ruiz asks.

"He's gone. We need a response to his residence, now."

"Already en route."

"I want a response to mine, I want a status."

"Danso reported on the hour, all clear."

"Have him check again. Have him do it now."

"We will call back," Ruiz says.

Fourteen minutes later, Ruiz does, and that's when Bell learns what has happened to Tom O'Day's wife and daughter. That is when Bell learns that Callie and Stephanie O'Day have been murdered in a home that only a handful of people in the world knew truly belonged to Tom O'Day and his family. A home that even fewer than that number should ever have been able to identify as the residence of the Indigo Second Team lead.

"We're backing up Danso and Harrington in Burlington," Ruiz says. "I'm dispatching an additional CI unit to Hailey; they should be there in three hours."

"Not fast enough," Bell says. "Freddie's got two kids. I want to move them. We're bleeding here."

"I am well aware."

"n.o.body should've been able to find him. n.o.body should be able to find us, and right now they can."

"Second Team is not First Team, it's not your team. We've no reason to believe you're compromised."

"And no way to a.s.sure me we're not. I am moving Freddie's family, with or without your permission, I don't care, sir."

It's remarkable insubordination for Bell, and he knows it, and at any other moment, any other place, he would care. Right now he doesn't, and right now, it seems, neither does Ruiz.

"Jet should be wheels down for your team in twenty minutes," Ruiz says. "Westminster. We have receipt of the interview, will run the names. I'll have a team handle the scene there. You lock it down."

"We've sealed the room," Bell says. "I'm moving Freddie's family."

Ruiz pauses. "Negative. I want you and Blackfriars in Westminster, I want to circle this thing, and I don't want all of you on the detail. Chaindragger, Bonebreaker, and Cardboard, but you and Blackfriars, you come in."

Bell rubs a thumb against his temple, feels the adrenaline beginning to leave. "How the f.u.c.k did this happen?"

"You said it. We're bleeding from inside."

"My family," Bell says. "They have to be safe."

"They're out of our orbit, they're not in Hailey. That might make them the most secure of all of us for the moment."

"'Might' isn't enough."

"Which I recognize, Master Sergeant. It will be handled. Take Blackfriars. Westminster."

Bell kills the connection.

"What's the word?" Jorge asks.

"Break it down, you're rolling out with Chain, you're going to make sure Board's family stays safe."

"It cuts that deep?"

"Someone reached out to Tom and threatened his family, Jorge," Bell says. "They held his wife and his child, and instead of turning to the men who've had his back since day one, instead of turning to us and trusting us to do what we've trained every f.u.c.king day of our lives to do, Tom shot Tohir in the head and then ate his gun."

"He should have told us. We could've gotten them back."

"That's what I'm saying. But he didn't."

"Why?"

"Because someone had to have talked. Because, despite everything, he didn't trust us."

Jorge is heading for the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs. "We're f.u.c.ked."

Bell says, "We've got an active cell planning an action for this weekend, maybe. Tom O'Day was compromised, his family has been murdered. Brickyard wants me and Blackfriars to come in for reasons I don't begin to understand. We are thoroughly f.u.c.ked, Jorge."

"Tell Freddie I'll meet him at his house."

"Will do."

Bell leaves the room, makes his way back down the tunnel, slower this time. Isaiah is standing post at the interrogation room door.

"Freddie?" Bell asks.

"He went home, and I don't f.u.c.king blame him," Isaiah says. "We were watching on the monitors, we heard what Tom said."

"Jorge's packing up and heading there now. You're going to join him, and then you're taking Freddie's family to ground until you hear otherwise."

"Roger that."

"Where's the chief?"

"Getting cleaned up. You should, too."

Bell looks down at himself, sees that he's covered in Tom O'Day's blood.

"Come with me," Bell says.

They stop at the gear room before reaching Bell's bas.e.m.e.nt. Isaiah grabs three of the ready bags, Bell takes another two. Once in the house, Isaiah heads for the front door and out, and Bell finds Nessuno coming out of her bedroom. He pulls off his shirt without breaking stride, heads into the bathroom, and runs water, finds it already hot.

"We move in five," he tells her.

"Tohir's dead, I'm not going anywhere. I'm done."

"You need to sit with the body?" He rounds, angry at everything, at Tom O'Day's death, at the murder of O'Day's wife and daughter, and-not in small measure-at this woman he cannot track, who keeps slipping between the lines and making him question what he feels. "You need to make your good-byes, is that it? You work it out yet?"

"I told you not to put me in that room, I told you-"

"Did you know?"

She stares at him, loses her color. "How can you f.u.c.king ask that?"

"Did you know?" He steps forward, and Nessuno's arms snap up, ready defense.

"You touch me you're striking an officer, Master Sergeant. How dare you f.u.c.king even ask me that question."

"So you're an officer now? Is that who you are? Were you an officer when I had to keep you from putting your fist into his wound?"

"He said he was going to kill me, he said it like I was on a f.u.c.king to-do list." Her arms come down, but instead of keeping her distance she steps up, lifts her chin, close enough for him to feel her breath. He can see that amber in her eyes, and it seems to flare. "Ratf.u.c.k sitting in that room, shooters on all sides, he threatens me? Like I'm his f.u.c.king toy? Like I'm his motherf.u.c.king plaything?"

"I have to know who you are. Right now. I have to know if I can rely on you."

"Who am I? Who do you want me to be? You want the woman you f.u.c.ked in D.C., is that what you want? Or the broken goods who came to your bed last night? You want me to show you my moves? You've f.u.c.king seen them. You know who I am. I'm all of it, Jad. You don't live a lie without some part of it becoming true. Who am I? I'm all of it."

Bell doesn't speak, turns back to the sink, the condensation rising to cloud the mirror. He can see her through its mist. He can see himself.

"Your friend is dead, I understand that," Nessuno says. "The situation is what has changed, Jad, not me."

"You're supposed to transit with me. Brickyard's order. Grab your bag."

Bell scrubs at his hands, at sc.r.a.pes and cuts that still haven't fully healed. The bandage around his palm came off at a time he can't even recall, and the sting of the healing wound is galvanizing. He splashes water on his face, uses the damp hand towel to dry off, and Nessuno sidesteps out of his way as he heads for his duffel at the foot of the bed to search for a clean shirt.

"I've got to reach out," Nessuno says. "I've got to report to Heath."

"I would not do that."

"I look AWOL."

"You're covered."

"You think she's wrong?"

"The only people I trust right now are headed out of town."

She goes to grab her duffel, returns in seconds as Bell is shouldering his. He tosses her a gear bag, leads the way out of the house, locks up quickly. They make the drive to the airport in eight minutes, find the Learjet waiting for them when they arrive.

They're in combat climb before Nessuno speaks again.

"They had his family."

"They're dead," Bell says.

She doesn't say anything.

"Brickyard says there were signs of a struggle," Bell adds.

"How old was his girl?"

"Twelve, I think. Maybe thirteen."

"Maybe forensics will pull something."

"Yeah, that'd be nice, wouldn't it?"

"You've got to hope."

"Oh, I hope," Bell says, and once he starts speaking this time, he can't stop himself. The anger that flared when talking to Ruiz, the fury he directed at her, it surges, rises like a boil, inflamed, infected, aching. "I hope a lot of things, Chief. I hope there are forensics, absolutely. I hope we get a lead. I hope that lead gives us a name and an address, and I hope that gives us a positive identification. I hope we undeniably identify the piece of s.h.i.t who pulled the trigger on Stephanie and Callie and, yes, Tom. I hope we put the f.u.c.king gun in their hand at the exact moment, without any doubt. Because once we have that, I am going to kill that motherf.u.c.ker."

The plane banks sharply, abruptly.