22
KYLE
Bella and I finished our four-mile trot, then she napped while I did an hour of PT with Hayes, Wheeler, and Lang. When I headed to the third floor of the HQ building where there were apartments with showers for agents to use, she followed me. Her need to keep me in her sight was endearing and heartbreaking at the same time.
But she was already warming up to the rest of the team. Having spent Friday evening with them, she was already comfortable enough to ask them for pets and beg for treats. I tried to enforce Cami’s rules about Bella’s eating habits, but I was pretty sure my friends, particularly Wheeler, were spoiling her rotten behind my back.
Our 0900 team briefing was on the second floor that day, in the SCIF, which meant we’d be discussing something classified. That probably meant it had nothing to do with Scott, whose last name, I now knew, was Riker.
The four of us who’d sweated it out in PT and grabbed showers afterward arrived outside the SCIF at two minutes before the hour. We deposited our personal electronics—which were strictly verboten inside the SCIF—in a basket, and Wheeler punched today’s code into the cipher lock.
“You know,” Wheeler said, angling his way between Bella and me, “we need a team mascot. What do you think, Bella? You looking for a job?”
“HEAT teams don’t have mascots.” Kat, who was already in the room conferring with Pasco, looked at the four of us, then glanced down at Bella. When the pup trotted over to her, Kat showered her with attention. “But I’m a little offended no one’s ever considered Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants as a potential candidate,” she said in a sweet voice that made Bella wag her tail so hard, her body squirmed from side to side.
We all fell silent and looked at Lang, who scowled, then took one for the team. “Kat, you know Mr. Fuzzy hates all of us.”
“He doesn’t hate you,” Kat said. “He just doesn’t like anyone outside the family petting him. Or being in the same room with him. Or looking through the window at him.”
We’d learned that last lesson one time months ago, when Mr. Fuzzy had been closed in Kat’s office and Hayes had made the mistake of slowing down to peek at him while walking past.
Kat shrugged. “Maybe he’s not mascot material.” She patted Bella’s head again. “If you’re going to be around here more often, we probably need to get a dog bed for you.”
I didn’t know whether that made it official, but at least unofficially, Bella had joined our HEAT team.
Lang, Hayes, Wheeler, and I sat at the conference table with Pasco. Our IT guru had arrived a few minutes earlier to set up his computer to play the briefing on the large smart screen at the head of the table, where Kat now stood.
“Bond and Jensen are both in Chicago today and won’t be calling in, so we’ll get started,” she said.
As the heads of the medical and IT departments, respectively, they were too busy to work more than part-time with us, but we still liked to claim them as our own.
“First, some good news,” Kat continued. “X has received permission for HEAT to take the lead in the drug case that involves Scott Riker.”
I smiled with relief.
Lang wasn’t so quick to jump on board. “What does that mean, the lead? That makes it sound like it’s not our case.”
“We’ll get to that in a minute.” She nodded to Pasco, who hit a computer key. A larger-than-life-size image of an old team nemesis popped up on the screen.
We collectively gasped.
“I know you remember Howard Anson, leader of the Wealth Craft Institute,” Kat said.
I might have joked to team members who were not Lang that my partner held a particular grudge against Anson because when Lang had gone undercover in the WCI, he’d had to wear an Argyle sweater. Weirdly, the ladies loved Lang in an Argyle, and a few of them had even slipped their phone numbers into his pockets. That had just pissed him off more.
But the real reason we all hated Anson was because he was a dangerous son of a bitch who’d escaped justice. He’d almost killed Hayes with a bomb, then set up other people to take the fall for his crimes.
And he was still running a fucking cult disguised as a wealth management group.
“Are we back on the trail of WCI?” Hayes asked. He lived for the day we would take down the man who’d tried to kill him.
“And off the Scott Riker trail?” I asked.
“Yes to Hayes, no to Rogers,” Kat said, pacing in front of the screen. “Back to Anson, in his long list of alleged and suspected crimes is attempted blackmail. Kompromat against industry magnates, government officials, military contractors. According to our intel, Anson and WCI have entrapped or are in the process of entrapping dozens of the country’s most powerful people.” She looked at me. “One of the items they use to entice their targets is designer drugs. Very expensive, very specific drugs.”
I petted my pup’s head and her tail thumped against the carpeted floor. “Like the ones that were sewn into Bella.”
I turned over the new information in my head. Riker struck me as very low-rent, but players like Anson often scouted local talent to do their dirty work. And local to us meant four of the main cities on the Eastern seaport, so Anson would definitely have a stake in the area.
