“It’s been a long night,” she replied.
“We gotta tell the President,” Grey said.
All eyes on him.
Carrera joined them. “What did you say?”
“If the President doesn’t know, he’s gotta be briefed,” Grey repeated.
“Not yet,” Carrera pushed back.
“Grey’s right,” Caroline added. “We’ve got a dead terrorist and these taunting messages from the terror cell.”
“I’ll talk to Sin,” Carrera said.
“I don’t need to go through Sin,” Grey said. “I’m tight with his Chief of Staff.”
“Evelyn Baker?” Carrera asked. “How do you know her?”
“She and her husband, Sean Baker, took me in after I ran away.”
Sin entered the room. “Dakota’s asking for you,” he said to Caroline and Grey.
“Brother, I gotta say, the surprises keep on coming,” Tank said.
Sin regarded Grey.
“Sean and Evelyn Baker are my fam,” Grey said. “Evelyn can get me on the President’s agenda.”
“Shouldn’t we discuss this as a team?” Sin asked.
“We just did,” Grey replied. “Who’s comin’ with me? Austin?”
“No,” Caroline replied. “Bring stronger players.”
He furrowed his brow. “I disagree.”
“The Trinity,” Carrera said. “Bring the Trinity.”
“Who’s that?” Caroline and Tank asked, in unison.
“Me, Carrera, and Luciano,” Sin replied.
“I’ll set it up.” Grey made a call, put the phone to his ear. “Evelyn, I need to brief the President on the Day of Destruction.” He grew quiet, then said, “May thirty-first. Haqazzii. They’re here, planning an attack.” More listening. “He’straveling to Paris, then he’s on vacation. I can’t wait that long.” Grey listened. “That’ll work. Love you too.” He hung up. “Today, 1700. Five PM.”
“Gotta love a man of action,” Carrera said.
“Jesus, I thought I had power,” Sin said.
“I just made a call,” Grey replied. “It was nothing.”
“Power iseverything,” Sin pushed back, “and you’ve got a shit-ton of it.”
After checking on Dakota—who was resting comfortably—they stopped by the kitchen for breakfast. Hawk and Addison had cooked up a feast. They plated food for Dakota and Providence, returned for their own meals.
The stench of bleach was too pungent to eat in the kitchen, so they returned to the rec room. The conversation around the card tables was focused on the terror cell, on next steps, and on how they’d handle the mission going forward.
Grey said very little, only contributing when directly asked a question. Caroline knew he was in strategy mode, reviewing what went wrong, improvements to make, how he’d root out the killers before they blew up the buildings.
