Ivan stopped that.
“Yeah, nice try, but you can’t go. I have to clear that, and you’ve pissed me off calling me names that she calls me to also piss me off.”
Yeah, well, Callen didn’t have a choice.
“Do you want to be the one to tell her that when Jet gets here, that he can’t be buried? Do you really want to be the one who tells her that one of herMARINES, the most treasured thing next to her own children, is sitting in a cold room because you said no to letting me do what she specifically called me in the middle of the night to have handled?” he asked.
Ivan did one thing.
He flipped him off.
He knew damn well there was no wayANYONEwanted to call Brunhilda and contradict anything she’d wanted done. That was more than a ball bruising.
It was ball destruction.
The look on his face made Callen laugh.
“Listen, Ivan, we have to do this. We’ll be safe. Besides, what are we going to do here? Gene is researching, and he’s dealing with Gabby, Chris went over the dead head tech’s body and car again, looking for anything that Devon might have planted. He’s already autopsied the three victims fromCorpus Christi—minus their appendixes, nipples, and clits. Ethan and I can’t do anything until we get those skeletons and review the footage of the new scene.”
He.
Hated.
This.
Why was it so goddamn difficult to wrangle these particular people? It had to be a family thing.
Or genetic.
Or both.
“Goddamn it. This is stupid,” Ivan said. “If that Russian is around…”
Ethan reassured him.
“She’s gunning for Elizabeth. She won’t come for us. How many times over the last year has she had a chance to go at one of us and never did? They weren’t hunting us to get to her. They wanted Elizabeth.”
Okay, so he had a point.
Well, now that they’d put holes in his argument, that meant that he couldn’t stop them.
“Fine. But if we get killed, you’re in trouble! Don’t say I didn’t warn you at my goddamn funeral!”
That was all kinds of crazy.
Elizabeth would kill them for letting him get killed. They’d all be having a joint funeral since they were all in this clusterfuck together.
So, Ethan made the call.
“Let us check in with our partners, and then we’re heading out. Use the bulletproof Navigator. We’re going to the rez to bribe an old Native man who doesn’t really like us. Great.”
This was insane.
Only, he was pretty sure they knew that already.
Who was he to point out the obvious?
Ivan just hoped they didn’t live to regret it or die because of it. Inside the FBI building, they were safe.
