He led his way up the staircase to the upper floors and the place Joey remembered as his father’s study.As he went, he saw Swan and Doba standing guard over a bedroom full of staff—two housekeepers, the young chef Joey had seen over Christmas, and two helpers, one possibly an assistant gardener.Joey called Swan over before they passed.
“Be kind.I know we have to clear them, but if they got shoved up here when shit fell out, it means they have nothing to do with the business.This is a….”He grimaced.“It’s a room he let his guys use when they, you know, wanted tousesomeone.Nobody comes in here willingly.”
Swan nodded.“I got that vibe,” he said, glancing around distastefully.“I’ll hand them over to the first flatfoot that comes along and tell him to get their names and addies and let them go.Harding said he had a thing he needed us to see.”
“Yeah,” Joey said.He was pretty sure he knew what it was.
TEN MINUTESlater, the whole unit was there, except for Gideon and Harm.Harm had radioed Harding to tell him that the bus was on its way to the hospital and to tell Joey it was good he’d stayed away.Joey didn’t ask what that meant.He understood his assignment.
He had to hold his shit together while Harding explained why having access to Stevie’s computer shit was putting that “we’re all dead” expression on his face, and then—he had promises from Pearson and Crosby on this—they would sedate him and drag him to the hospital to wait for Gideon.
He was being an adult.Gideon had taught him how to do this.His pack took care of him; he had to take care of his pack.
“Okay,” Clint said grimly.“Tal had about five minutes with this shit before she called me.Tal, you want to explain the sitch?”
She turned toward them all.“The sitch is that we have too many goddamned secrets,” she said seriously.“You want to blackmail three-quarters of our elected officials?Our DOJ?Homeland Security?The cabinet?Bank presidents?This is the way to do it.Now some of it is dumb shit.We’ve got a daughter of a congressman who got revenge porned.Somebody’s kid brother tried pot in college.Shit that, in a sane political climate, wouldn’t mean jack squat, but as you know, those are not the times we live in.And some of this shit is dangerous.Some of it is….”She grimaced.“It’s ‘secret police force will sneak into your bedrooms and disappear you’ dangerous.You all know what I’m talking about.It needs to be released, but if we release it, we’re dead, our families are dead, and our unit is dead.So this is big.And whatever we need to do, we need to agree to it.This op, so far, it’s not sanctioned by the government.They could just start by putting us in jail for coming over here to murder citizens, and that would shut us all up, and none of this would get addressed.”
“But…,” Crosby said.“I mean, itneedsto be addressed.I take it you got a plan to do that?”
Clint nodded.“Oh, I do.I’ve got a couple of channels I could send this through, and while there’s no guarantees it will all be taken care of—”
“It beats us getting disappeared from our beds as we sleep,” Natalia said, and Joey had a feeling she knew exactly what channels Clint was talking about.
“So,” Gail said slowly, “we wouldn’t be going public with this information.Who do we turn it over to?”
Harding and Natalia met eyes, and Harding said, “Joey, this is why we needed you.I know….”His voice went soft.“Iknowyou want to be somewhere else right now.But I’ve got to ask you, was your father the type to, uhm, booby trap his office?Like, with, you know, thermite?”
Joey blinked, and yearned sharply for Gideon to be there next to him to explain what Harding was asking him.
“Like, burn the office up?”he asked dubiously.
“And the entire house down with it,” Natalia said, nodding her head.“Garcia, you worked ATF.Could you brew some of that up—I meanaccidentally set some of that off—in here with some help?”
For a moment they all stared at her, and Garcia started to cackle.
And then Pearson did too.
And then Swan and Doba and Crosby.
And finally Joey got it.
Burn the house down, with the computers, and nobody would be worrying for the information that could get them killed.
And he let out a weak chuckle.Sad and strained, but it was enough.
“Yeah,” he lied.“That Stevie, absolutely terrified somebody would break into his study.I never saw the inside of it myself—he was too fuckin’ afraid.”His father hadn’t even been afraid of Joey as Joey was slitting his throat.
Harding nodded.“Okay, then.Folks, we gotta put on something of a show.Talia, you and Pearson download it and store it.Garcia, you figure out how to destroy it.The rest of us, we gotta clear this fuckin’ house and all its grounds of anybody with a pulse.”
They all nodded.
It was time for operation CYA to commence.
GARCIA ENDEDup in the hospital for a third-degree burn across the back of his arm and smoke inhalation—but, he said as the EMTs were pumping him full of morphine and loading him into the ambulance, that’s what happened when you set off a booby trap.
What he was really saying, of course, was that while the injury was the result of some hurried attempts at high-powered arson, it was reasonable to assume that somebody would get injured setting off the booby trap that Stevie Carlyle had supposedly set.
It added to the believability.
