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“We were in a three-vehicle convoy. Riley had the excellent idea of mixing the order up, and we brought up the rear. Jacob Black was in the middle vehicle. Somehow someone—and bysomeoneI mean Adrian Sommers—found out about the post-briefing convoy and we were attacked.”
Hope and Emma both drew in a deep breath in shock but Raul wasn’t shocked. Like Pierce, he knew how the world worked.
“Riley saw on her laptop that we were being followed by a drone, and we were able to disperse just in time. Fucker shot a missile at us, aiming for the middle car of the convoy, where we were supposed to be. We took off. One of Black’s operators shot it down.”
Hope and Emma had their hands covering their mouths in shock. Raul didn’t do shock, but he did do rage, and that’s what he was expressing.
“Would that be Adrian Sommers attacking you? And attackingJacob Black?”
Pierce smiled thinly. “Yeah. Big mistake. Sommers is clearly getting desperate. In trying to kill Riley he took a shot at Black and members of his crew. The thing is, we need to contact Black, but anonymously.” Pierce bit his mouth, unwilling to say more.
Raul didn’t have a problem with saying it out loud. “Because Black clearly has a leak in his house.”
Pierce heard clattering in the background and Emma exclaimed, “I’ve got it!”
Raul turned his head to his fiancée, and Pierce saw the sappiest possible expression cross his face. He rarely saw that expression on his best friend’s face. Raul usually turned a smiling face to the world, but Pierce knew it was mainly cynicism, as the world proved time and again to be as shitty as they knew it was. Raul was always waiting for further confirmation, which he always received.
But this? This was awhat a wonderful worldkind of smile that looked weird on his face. Unnatural.
Then Emma came into view and … well, of course. She was amazingly beautiful—not as beautiful as Riley in his opinion, which he’d never share—and he knew she was really nice, a hard worker and madly in love with Raul. So that sappy look was justified.
She wasn’t looking back at Raul lovingly, however. Not right now. Right now she was frowning at her monitor, pressed a button and turned her face to the camera. She talked to Pierce soberly, because when she was at work, she was all business.
“Pierce, I might have found the leak. I’m sending you the details on one Samuel K. Rafferty. He was a former Black Inc. operator, based in Miami, was fired from BI two months ago, the records don’t say why. Being Miami, it was probably drugs. But he almost immediately joined the Sommers Group, as Keith Rafferty.”
Okay. That made sense. Rafferty would have inside codes and passwords, which changed every three months, which they did at ASI, too, but three months hadn’t gone by since his departure. And he’d know the addresses of safe houses, which made Pierce really glad he’d opted for his friend’s apartment. No one knew where they were.
He shot a look at Riley, who understood.
“Okay, that’s really good to know. I’ll tell Black. Can you connect me to him in a way that is untraceable? And can you blur our background?”
Hope’s head appeared and she looked a little disgruntled. “Of course,” she said, frowning. As if he’d asked her to touch her nose and pat her head at the same time. The background on their screen became absolutely blank, light gray, no identifying characteristics whatsoever. Just his and Riley’s faces, crisp and clear.
Hope tapped keys and then Jacob Black’s face appeared—dark, long and narrow. And pissed.
He opened his mouth but Pierce beat him to it. “Good to see you’re safe, sir. My friends assure me we are on an unhackable connection.”
“If the Queens say it’s unhackable, then it is.” Black’s jaw moved, clearly processing a strong emotion. “You wouldn’t be seeing me at all if Riley hadn’t warned us in time.” He moved his head and it was as if he were in the same room as Riley, looking straight at her. “I owe you my life, Riley. I won’t forget that soon.”
Riley gasped. “Oh no, sir! You were nearly blown up because I insisted on changing the order of the vehicles. It was a statistical thing, but you nearly died. I would never have forgiven myself.”
“Right now I’m glad neither of us died. But there are some hard truths we have to face. Jordan, where are you?”
Oh man. This was hard. Pierce braced himself. “With due respect, sir, I can’t tell you that. Opsec. Because—”
“I have a mole,” Black growled. Took in a deep breath, let it out. The closest thing he’d allow himself to stress relief. “Black Inc. has a mole, and it’s hard even to say the words. We won’t rest until we know who it is.”
“We might know, actually.” Emma’s clear, high voice chimed in and another square opened up on the screen. Samuel Rafferty’s picture appeared. “This is a man called Samuel Keith Rafferty. He worked for you briefly in your Miami office, but one of your men, one Nikolai –”
Black nodded. “Garin. One of my VPs.”
“Yes. He fired Rafferty a while back. The report doesn’t say why, but it being Miami, it might have something to do with drugs.”
“I’ll ask Nikolai.”
“In the meantime, Rafferty had already been hired several days before as Keith Rafferty by the Sommers Group.”
“Goddamn. He was clearly a spy in our house. Before he was fired by Nikolai, he’d know or have access to the lot. To the tags of our vehicles, our major passwords, our operators.”
