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“A lot of those glory soldiers as well as Duncan Sykes make a habit of showing up at the garage and finding time to talk to both Timmy and Vince, the BCM mechanics we have there,” Noah told them. “You’re blond and look American enough they might talk to you.”
Nikolai grunted at that.
“Have you made many contacts?” Jordan asked Nik.
The big Russian shook his head. “First name as Nik only. A few drinks, no heavy conversations with anyone. My American accent seems to be working well enough.”
But, Noah knew, Nikolai had had practice with that accent a long time before he came into Elite Ops.
“Nikolai, you’ll be going by Nikolas Steele, you’re a California native,” Jordan informed him before turning to Tehya. “Get his papers together. Do a family tree back to the frickin Mayflower. Let’s give them an impoverished blue blood son of America.”
Tehya grinned as she winked at Nik. “I’ll have it before you leave, Nicky.”
He grimaced at the playful nickname.
Jordan looked back at Noah sharply. “Are there any other issues at the garage?”
“None I didn’t anticipate.” He shrugged. “I intend to have Rory fire the mechanic Timmy just to shake things up some.”
The mechanic was ineffectual, and even worse, he didn’t know a wrench from jack. Why the hell Rory or Sabella had hired him Noah hadn’t figured out yet.
Jordan nodded at that. “Our mission parameters are simple. Identify, capture if possible. Contain if captured until they can be extracted by the bureau and taken care of. If all else fails, we eliminate. That’s a worst-case scenario only. We need information on this one, we need top-level names and organization leaders. This militia is spreading and we need it contained. To contain it, we need information. See if you can find a way in and get what we need. Let’s take care of it.”
The files were opened. Another two hours were spent going over scenarios and ideas. Jordan sat back, listened, and commented when he needed to. The group worked well together. Noah was confident this mission would proceed just as the others had in the previous years. Dangerous. Bloody.
They were trained to work alone until they had to work together. Trained to disassociate or come together as needed. In this case, disassociation would work best with the exception of Nik in the garage.
There was no doubt in Noah’s mind that someone was trying to sabotage Sabella and Rory’s business. Rory had admitted the previous night that before Sabella took over, vehicles were going out not quite finished. Sometimes dangerously so. She had taken to going over the finished repairs herself and checking for any anomalies before signing them out.
Noah’s neck itched whenever he thought of the problems she’d had with the garage. He couldn’t help it. It had been itching ever since Mike Conrad had shown up. Drunk, insulting, violent. He hadn’t seen Mike like that since they were teenagers, and the fact he had abused Sabella with it had shocked him.
But Sabella had never liked Mike. He should have trusted her instincts rather than the lifetime he had spent being pushed in Mike’s direction by his father.
The Conrads were friends of the Malones. Mike and Nathan were the same age, had been raised together. They had hunted together, fished together. Noah had always thought that they would raise their families together as well. He’d have to ask Rory if Mike’s father and Grant Malone were still friends.
“Tehya and Macey are running communications and electronics here at the bunker. I’ll be at the Malone ranch for a while today and part of tomorrow. I’m hoping I can get some information there. Keep your cell phones secured. Micah and John, you’ll stay on backup. Right now we have Durango team, except for Macey, in the park watching things there. They’re last resort only,” Jordan stated.
The Elite Operations Unit was specially designed and trained to run bare-bones. The fewer who knew who they were and what they were doing, the less likely the leaks. The better the chance they remained “dead.”
The lights came back on as the meeting drew to a close. Noah didn’t waste time. Sabella had claimed to have a date tonight, and he intended to make certain she got home without getting pawed by that bastard Duncan.
“Noah.” Jordan caught him as he was swinging his leg over the Harley, his fingers on the key, ready to turn it.
Noah watched his uncle approach, wondering, not for the first time, why Jordan had chosen him specifically for this unit.
“I had a call today,” Jordan announced.
“Yeah?”
“Rick Grayson, the sheriff.”
Noah stared back at him.
“Grant gave him my number. He said there’s a stranger in town.” Jordan’s lips quirked. “Working at the garage. He said that stranger was manhandling Belle and he thought someone from the family should check him out.”
Noah twisted the key in the Harley slowly, never breaking eye contact with Jordan as he kicked it in neutral and eased the cycle back until he could turn around, kick it back into gear, and ease it from the parking bay into the little canyon that ran for over a mile in two directions.
Big Bend National Park was filled with canyons, gullies, cliffs, and mountains. He kept the headlight off; the brake lights were set in a switch that allowed him to ride, totally dark, as long as he needed to.
