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The team had been together for four months now, and he'd come to respect his fellow agents, and the broad latitude that Jason had given them to get their jobs done. After two years working for the bureau in Los Angeles and Chicago, he'd actually been on the verge of quitting when Jason's call had come. Now, he felt like he was finally making a difference, finally getting ahead of the problem, instead of having to react to something that was already happening, or having to wait for the people above him to allow him to take action.
After parking in the underground garage, he used a biometric scanner to access the elevator and a fingerprint scanner to gain entrance to their third-floor office suite. The other floors offered a fitness room, a weapons center, and an operations center that provided twenty-four-hour support for agents in the field.
As he entered the suite, he walked through a large area of open desks, with two offices and a conference room set apart from the bullpen. Down the hall was a kitchen, a lounge with cots for overnight crashing, and the tech center, which was equipped with the latest technology and manned by Wes Paulson and his support staff.
"I thought you'd look better after a few hours' sleep," Kara Reid commented as he stopped at his desk, which was next to hers. A pretty dark-eyed brunette, Kara was one of the few of them who was a native New Yorker and had spent eight years working for the NYPD. He hadn't been sure what he thought of her at first, until she'd managed to stop a terrorist attack on the Brooklyn Bridge. Her courage under fire had impressed him along with her dedication to her job.
"I had hoped to sleep a little longer than I did," he admitted.
"I'm sure you had a lot on your mind, but hopefully you can relax this weekend knowing the streets will be safer because of the work you've put in this past month."
"We've put in." He might have played a pivotal role, but it had been a team effort. "Is Jason in?"
"He's on a call." She tipped her head to the glass-walled office at the other end of the room, where he could see Jason on the phone. "He pushed back the debrief until ten."
At that piece of information, he took a seat at his desk. "What do you have going on this weekend? Aren't you and Max going to Maine or something?"
She frowned. "We were, but his company took on a big job, and we had to push Maine back until next month, which is fine. In late April, it's still pretty cold there."
Max, a former CIA agent, ran a private security firm now. Having seen Max in action, Tyler thought that was the perfect job for him.
"What about you, Tyler? Any plans?"
"I have tickets to the Yankees tomorrow, but I'm not sure I'll make it."
Her gaze narrowed on his face. "You seem…off. Is everything okay?"
"Not sure."
"Want to talk about it?"
"Not yet." He got to his feet as he saw Jason get off the phone. "I need to speak to the boss first."
"Well, I'm happy to help if you need me. But just so you know, I cannot get behind your support of the Yankees. It's the Mets all the way in my family."
He smiled. "I'll keep that in mind." He walked over to Jason's office and knocked on the door.
Jason waved him in. "Briefing is at ten," he said. "Damon will join us."
Damon Wolfe ran the field office at 26 Fed, and they'd worked closely with him and his personnel on their last job. "Great," Tyler said. "After that, I need to take the afternoon off, if that works for you."
"Well, you've been working eighty-hour weeks the past month, so sure." Jason gave him a sharp look. "But you don't look like a man who's taking time off to have fun."
He sat down on the edge of the chair in front of Jason's desk. "I had a visit this morning from a doctor I met in the service. Someone I'd served with in Delta came into her ER last night at East River Veterans Hospital. He was delusional, angry, and ready to fight. They had to sedate him."
"How's he doing?"
"That's the thing. I don't know. When a fire alarm went off in the hospital, Jack apparently ripped out his IV and disappeared. No one saw him leave."
Jason gave him a skeptical look. "That sounds like a big coincidence."
"It does, but I'm not sure if there's more to it or not. His clothes were gone, so he obviously got himself dressed, and Jack would certainly have been more than capable of slipping out of a hospital he didn't want to be in."
"But you're worried about him."
"He had a piece of paper in his pocket with my name and address on it. Based on where he collapsed, he might have been coming to see me, which is odd, because we had a falling-out when I left Delta. I didn't believe we'd ever speak again. But now…I need to try to find him."
"Makes sense," Jason said with an agreeable nod. "Take whatever time you need, Tyler. And if this turns out to be something that needs a more official investigation, let me know. The man is a veteran and that medical center is federal property, so we can get involved."