“Interpol,” Danny agreed.“Yes, Liam—we’ll skin him, dress him, roast him, and serve him.All your people have to do is—”
“Accept the silver platter,” Liam agreed.
“But wait,” Josh said, suddenly seeing the whole picture.“What will all of you be doing?”
Danny and Felix glanced at each other, and Felix spoke.“Besides directing resources, working comms and satellites and organizing that final con, we’ll be—”
“Protecting me,” Julia said softly.“Because I asked them to.And I begged—begged, mind you all—that Danny and Felix be here during my pregnancy.”She was squeezing Leon’s hand tightly as she spoke.“They’ll be doing some traveling, but….”She swallowed.“I need them here.”She sniffed and took an offered napkin to dab at her eyes.“Besides, this little episode is going to be costly, and we do need to keep the businesses running to fund it.”
“And Kadjic will never suspect Danny if he never—as far as Kadjic knows—leaves Chicago.”Felix looked grimly triumphant at that, and then he sobered.“And when we say Julia was begging, that was not an exaggeration.Danny and I donotlike letting the lot of you go off into the world without us.That was never our intention.However, since Lucius and Leon have offered to supply us with transportation and extra pilots—”
“And myself,” Leon said modestly, while giving Julia a beseeching look.“I, after all, do business in Greece and much of Europe, so I need to be positioned to be an asset—”
“No,” Julia said mutinously.
“But darling—”
“You have children, Leon, and you made promises,” she said, her face growing tight as she turned a glare to Danny and Felix, who both raised their hands.
“This was not our idea,” Felix said.“Let Carl fly his plane, yes.Let him be on it while it’s crashing, no.”
“Hey!”Carl protested.“I’ve gotten much better!”
“He can land without hardly bouncing now,” Michael supplied staunchly.
Carl gave his beloved one of those expressions that said he didn’t know how to respond to that.“Thanks, sweetheart,” he murmured.
“’Course.”
“My own pilot can help,” Leon said smoothly.“I, uhm… frankly, I would feel much braver if my own pilot was at the helm.”
“Hey!”protested Carl, Chuck,andHunter, their pilots.
“That wasn’t fair,” Julia snapped.“And remember the part about you having children—and one on the way?”
“You can’t have it both ways,” Leon said softly.“Either Danny and Felix here and me on the road, or me here and Danny and Felix on the road.I understand that you feel safer with them here—they have, after all, kept you safe for the last twenty-plus years, but you can’t ask me to sit the whole thing out.”His lower lip took on a hurt curve.“They always try to leave me out to protect you.It’s finally my chance to play!”
Julia covered her eyes.“We will discuss this,” she said after a moment.“All four of us.”She removed her hand.“Suffice it to say, we need at least a month—”
“Two weeks,” Danny said.“At the outside.Liam and Josh should be on a plane to England—”
“England?”Josh asked.
“Well, our first big boom is back in the Caribbean, where we know he’s building up his gun supplies on another friendly island,” Felix said.“We figured England for a week, the tiny island goes boom and….”
“And we’re on our way to our next destination in the company of two people who look like the people who blew up the guns,” Josh said.“I get it.Two different destinations, lots of—”
“Oh my God,” Molly said, as though this had just occurred to her.“Are we going to put somebody inboobs and a wig?Please tell me yes.Pleasetell me that’s part of the plan.”
Danny snickered.“Well, it is now, precious.It can be.”He sobered and made eye contact with everybody.“But we need to get to work.Felix is sending you info on every actual site that will be approached and assailed—we needallof the big brains in this room to be thinking of plans.Don’t get all up in your feelings if we take somebody else’s plan.You may be implementing it, because this is going to be big.Josh and Liam, you two are on sites of distraction—where can you be most efficientlyme.”
“Do you have a bucket list, Uncle Danny?”Josh asked eagerly, and Danny smiled at him beatifically.
“Oh, my boy, I’m sure I can get you some suggestions.How kind of you to ask.”
“So four major ops and their distraction points,” Felix summarized.“The fifth op depending on what we learn from the first four.Stirling, Tienne, and Danny will be our major computer power, although yes, I know the rest of you don’t suck at it.But this way we can send Stirling and Tienne on the road with whomever is most in need, and they’ll have hackers right there.I’ve leased us some extra time on the satellites—”
“You candothat?”Grace asked in wonderment.
