“Riker?” I asked.
“Unconfirmed,” he answered. “They’re closing in on the back door. You’ll need to leave by the front.”
Hayes looked out the front window and shook his head at me. “There’s a neighbor out with his dog. We’ll draw too much attention.”
“Neither of the men are Riker,” Wheeler announced. “Both are the wrong build, plus they’re entering the same way you did.”
“B&E?” I asked.
“Affirmative.”
Hayes and I exchanged a glance, then nodded to each other.
“Wheeler, we’ll take them down before they know what hit them,” Hayes said. “By the time they come to, we’ll be long gone.”
“Stand down,” Wheeler said. “Repeat, stand down. I have positive IDs. It’s Forrester and another FBI agent.”
“Fucking FBI,” the four of us said in unison.
“And if you knock them out,” Wheeler said, “you know those whiny fuckers will track us down and arrest us.”
31
KYLE
“Twelve years.”
Kat paced on one side of the conference room, between the table and the wall. She stopped and looked at us. “Twelve years!” She resumed pacing, visibly shaking with anger.
The four of us who had gone rogue sat on the other side of the conference table, lined up like naughty children who’d been sent to the principal’s office. Lang sat at one end of the table with a neutral expression, his hands clasped in front of him. He was Switzerland, without the Nazi money.
Each of the four of us on trial tried to speak a few times, but Kat interrupted with those same two words.
“Twelve years!” She stared at me. “Do you know what that means, Rogers?”
“No, ma’am.” Then one idea occurred to me. “Is that how much prison time we’d have gotten if we’d knocked out Forrester and his buddy?” That seemed excessive, but federal agents could be babies about that sort of thing.
Kat went down the row, pointing to each of us and calling out time frames. When she said two years for me andfour months for Hayes, I knew she was listing the amount of time each of us had been with HEAT.
“What does that total, Rogers?” she asked.
I hurried to remember the figures and add them in my head. “A little under six years.”
“Five years and ten months,” she said. “That’s thetotalamount of time all four of youtogetherhave spent in an Intelligence agency. Now, guess what twelve years is?”
“The amount of time you’ve spent in Intelligence,” I said, finally understanding where this was going. “Kat, I know we should have told you, but?—”
“No.” She was shaking again. “You should not havetoldme anything. I am the boss of you, of all of you. You should have come to me with concerns, requests, suggestions. After which,Iwould have toldyouwhat we would and would not do. And do you know why, Rogers?”
This one I knew. “Because you’ve been doing this for twelve years.”
“Wrong! The reason is that I’m also smarter than all of you put together, based on the evidence of your behavior tonight.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And also because I’ve been doing this for twelve years.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just trying to protect Cami by keeping this as quiet as possible.”
“I know. I want to protect her, too,” Kat said.
“We’re solid on the legalities,” Pasco said. “I double-checked the warrants the FBI filed for Riker. They came with a lot of latitude.”
