“If Yvette isn’t back soon, we’re going looking.” Victor said placing his weapons on the dresser and settling in. “I’ll give her thirty minutes. I don’t like the way this feels for a simple recon mission.”
Again Brett dialed the number he was given and again received no answer. “She said it was a burner. Maybe she got rid of it.”
He dropped onto the bed and sighed. “Gabe being wanted like that…the entire town is on the lookout. There’s no telling what happened to her.”
Moments later his phone rang and he jumped up to answer. “Yve?”
…“Brett…” her sweet and tender voice came through the phone.
“Yvette,” he let out a sigh of relief. “Are you ok?”
…“I’m fine, I’m sorry I didn’t call back sooner, I got caught up…”
“No, Yvette, it’s fine. I’m just glad you’re ok. Where are you?”
…“On the way back to Bridgeport. We’re about 10 minutes out now. Are you at the safe room…?”
“Yeah, yeah I’m here, I’m waiting for you. Listen about Gabe…”
…“Gabe is fine…”
“No Yve,” he let out a sigh. “I saw on the news he’s wanted. They’re looking for him which means that if you stick with him they’ll get both of you!”
…“I know. It’s complicated but I promise I’ll explain everything when I get back ok? I’ll see you in twenty...”
“Wait!” he started just as she hung up. He looked at the phone and turned to meet Victor’s curious gaze.
“Well?”
“She and Tasker are on the way back now. She’ll be here in less than twenty.”
The guys paced the length of the room waiting on her arrival. Dustin pulled up his laptop next to hers and started going through the information he’d saved from Harper’s hard drive, stopping as he saw the excel spreadsheet again. He ran his cipher program once more over the document and waited.
He jumped as it did something it hadn’t done in the last two weeks he’d tried.
“Holy shit…Guys! Guys you are not gonna believe what I just…”
The door swung open and Yvette and Gabriel entered the room. She paused as she saw Dustin sitting at the desk and Ryan and Victor near the bed. “What did you do?” she asked looking at Brett.
“Nothing; they’re detectives, they figured it out.” He caught her expression and stepped closer. “I didn’t betray your trust, Yvette. I’d never do that. Your face…are you ok? What the hell happened?”
“I’m fine Brett. What are you guys doing here?” she said stepping back as he reached for her.
“We heard there was a dead agent walking around and wanted to check it out. You know a postcard or a phone call would have been nice, Yve,” Victor said as she came further into the room, closing the door behind her.
“Yeah well, remind me the next time I get killed. What are you doing here Murph? Why would you come here purposely knowing that you are endangering yourself, your family? You know the type of people we’re up against!”
“And I also know that you can’t do this alone. We’re a team or did you forget what that word meant? Hell you’re my family Yvette. Did you really think I’d leave you twisting in the wind?”
She smiled. “No. I should have known better. You’re just as stubborn as me.” She looked up towards Ryan. “And you? You’re ok with…?”
“Victor couldn’t have said it any better. I may not have known you as long but I believe in you and what we did together. I know these allegations against you can’t be true. I’m with you 100% of the way, Diamond.”
Dustin came over and slid an arm around her neck. “And where would you be without your favorite nerd to guide you?” he kissed her cheek and returned to the computer.
“And in speaking of which, I found something I think you might want to check out.” He pushed the mouse to remove the screensaver and pulled up the document again.
“Remember that list of names I found on Harper’s hard drive? Well for weeks now I’ve been running it through different programs trying to figure out what exactly was up with the names on it. I wasn’t getting hits on several of them and I couldn’t figure out why. Well, I just ran it again through a program I created that goes piece by piece through the data and scans it for any inconsistencies or…” he looked up at Yvette’s frown and smirked. "Welcome back Boss!"
“Ok, long story short, some of the names are anagrams; scrambled pieces of data that are hiding other information. Check out what the software did to three names in particular, numbers 10, 15 and 20: Dale Finnmark, Ariel Saxhorn and Ken Graffiti,” he said as she stepped closer to the screen.
“Alex Harrison and Kate Griffin were on Harper’s payroll? That son of a bitch is behind the hit! He made it seem as though he wanted to bring you in when this whole time he was so gung ho for killing you the second he located you,” Ryan sighed. “And he didn’t waste a second giving the kill command to make sure the trail didn't lead back to him!”
“Yeah, the man failed twice to take me out. He had a second shot this morning but couldn’t commit, he just had to gloat! First rule of combat training: when you can shoot, don’t talk.”
“What happened?” Brett asked crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at Gabriel. “You said you got caught up what exactly does that mean? And what happened to your face?”
“Gabe hit me,” she said glancing over her shoulder at him with a smile.
“Yve! You said you wouldn’t tell him that!” Gabriel exclaimed.
“No I promised I wouldn’t offer the information I never said I wouldn’t answer his question when he asked.”
“You son of a bitch,” Brett said trying to step around her towards him; his fists clenched tight.
Gabe started laughing. “Yvette do you mind backing your boy down?”
“Brett, it’s not what you think. Gabe hit me because I asked him to.”
“What? You want to explain to me why you’d ask him to make your face look like raw hamburger meat?”
“Gabe and I got to the location of what we thought was Harrison’s right hand, Stanley, but it turned out to be a babysitting mission for some high-roller; still unsure who. Anyway the recon became a bait and switch once we realized Harrison was onsite himself. After I took out the guards, Gabriel ‘captured’ me and turned me in to Harrison and his man. They took us down to Langley after I got some ‘personal one-on-one’ with Harrison’s fist as well.”
“Our goal was to infiltrate and get data since the person Yve trusted never came back with the information on their open cases,” Gabe finished. “We now have access to intelligence flow within their systems.” He tossed a thumb drive at Dustin. “It should be more than what we need to get to the heart of what’s going on and the men responsible for the frame job. Brett, Yvette is a longtime friend of mine; I’d never even DREAM of hurting her.”
Dustin stuck the thumb drive onto his laptop and started poking around. “Well would you looky here,” he said opening up the CIA’s network. “It appears that ‘high-roller’ is none other than Anthony ‘The Guns’ Luciano, the current Capo di Tutti Capi, or ‘Boss of All Bosses’ to the Genovese crime family.”
“The CIA are being contracted to protect known criminals of the mafia?” Ryan asked scratching his head.
“No, not the CIA; it’s the Company,” Yve corrected. “It looks like they really are back in business with a new agenda.”
“And with Alex Harrison at the helm,” Tasker added. “They can have access to CIA resources and other government agencies; they'd have more power than ever!”
“So what do we do now?” Murph asked stepping towards his weapons.
“Well, they wanted to protect him for a reason. We’re going to find out what and stop them at all costs.”
“You’re going to have a hell of a time getting to him, Boss,” Dustin said pulling up blueprints and schematics. “According to this they have him locked away really tight. No one can get to him.”
“I don’t believe that. Find us an in Dust I know you can do it.”
“Working on it Boss Lady. You know you could always call your ex-boyfriend…check out what he’s been up to.”
“No, that’s not an option Dustin; don’t ever suggest that again. I'm sure after everything that's happened he wants me dead now too.”
“Ex-boyfriend?” Brett raised a curious brow.
“It was nothing.”
“Yeah if you call a torrid love affair with the son of a mafia boss ‘nothing’.” He looked behind him and found Yvette’s angry glare on him and smiled. “It’s great to have you back. Somehow hearing ‘nerd’ from Vic just wasn’t the same.”
She laughed at Murph’s shocked expression. “Well, it’s good to be back. I just have to hope now that you guys aren’t taking ‘unnecessary risks’ as Scott would call them by coming down here. By the way, Gabe, there is but one bed here, you’ll have to find your own sleeping quarters.”
“He’s staying here?” Brett asked pulling her closer towards his chest and looking at him.
She nodded. “He’s in the same boat as me, as will all of you be if you don’t get back to the surface and stay away from me; from here.” She kissed his lips and pulled away. “I’m gonna go and get out of these clothes. I’ve worn them now for two days. I need a nice hot shower. I hope you guys heed my advice and get while the going’s good.”
Dustin continued working through the network finding a safe spot to upload his own feed for 24/7 surveillance into their systems. He picked up a few profiles and basic statistics for some of the open operations and noted one in particular connected to their current target.
“You guys are just determined to endanger yourselves aren’t you?” she asked rejoining them nearly thirty minutes later.
“What can we say, we’re glutton for punishment!” Vic smiled.
“Boss, while you were gone, I found us an in,” he said pointing towards the screen. “Meet Joey Costello; a soldier in the ranks of the Genovese mob.”
“Soldier? You mean like a mercenary?” Ryan asked.
“No it’s the place you first start in the mafia you know, running errands, making deliveries, cash drops, pick-ups and just sticking your neck out in general hoping to climb the ranks or make a name for yourself. A ‘button-man’ or ‘enforcer’; come on Ryan, don’t you watch gangster movies? You seem like the type,” she smiled.
“I enjoy them but comedy is more my thing. Sorry I’m not up to speed on my wise-guys lingo. Not all of us know the ins and outs of ‘the family’,” he smiled pointing to his nose. “We haven’t all dated mobsters.”
“Nick wasn’t a mobster in the traditional sense; nothing like what you see on TV anyway…then,” she replied thinking back. “I can’t speak for him now especially after I arrested him.”
“So you might be responsible for creating a monster?”
She shrugged. “It’s a possibility.”
“Costello isn’t a made-man yet but he does have connections and some influence. From what I see he is currently in Morgan’s Creek celebrating a long awaited rise through the ranks and it appears he’s into blondes,” Dustin finished.
“Interesting; I do enjoy Italian every now and again,” Yvette smirked at Brett’s displeased look. “But I prefer blondes too!”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her gently on the lips.
“Get a room!” Gabe remarked.
“We can’t come with you out there Yvette,” Victor started. “We are currently on a case which from what I understand was caused by a friend of yours.”
“The security breach? Yeah, sorry about that. But at least it’s easy to wrap up right?”
“I’m not on a case. I got benched for my personal relationship with you,” Brett explained. “I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
“How long is the suspension for?”
“Another day; plenty of time to get down there, get what we need and get back, right?”
“Fine but you have to promise to keep your emotions in check. You most likely won’t enjoy what you hear or see.”
“I can separate your work from your personal feelings Yvette; I think.”
“Let’s hope so. Dustin can you book us a flight?”
“Already on it; one leaves in 2hrs from Dulles. They’ll be expecting Carla Waters and David Yates.”
“You sure you don’t want to let your face heal up a little, Boss?” Ryan asked.
“Isn’t that what makeup is for? Besides there’s no way we’re sitting on this and letting an opportunity to the truth slip past us. It’ll be fine, trust me. Let’s get moving,” she said turning to Brett. “I don’t want to miss our flight.”
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