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He wasn't going to tell me. We still had access to Lohman. We'd secured him and his family, but they'd gone to ground. We had ways of contacting them, but that would take time.
I pushed to my feet. “You'll be happy to know that Massimo is picking up where you left off. Even without your ledgers, he is really getting in tight with the syndicate.”
Antonio laughed. “Massimo doesn't even know the syndicate exists. He's a fool. He knows I'm the one who will protect him. He's going to get me out of here.”
“I hate to break it to you, but your son is not coming for you. Nobody is. You will die within these glass walls or perhaps somewhere far worse. But until then, you can sit and rot.”
“Good luck finding your little spy.”
“I don't need luck. You've told me everything I need to know.”
I was no fool. I would verify with Lohman about the tracker. I would also get it out of him about our guard. It would take time, but at least I had a direction to look for verification. I needed something incontrovertible though.
If Gennifer was coming for Tabatha, she had something. And not just something circumstantial. So what was it?
9
Gabe
Ten days.
It was all I had, and I hadn’t wasted the time Saff was gone. I’d spent it looking for angles and holes to plug.
This was my team and I’d be damned if I was going to let Gennifer Goode tear it apart.
Just like with my original assessment, Monarch, Saint, and Rook were our exposure points in terms of clearance level. I had plans to cover them all. But I needed time.
I met Saff in the briefing room. All it took was one look, and my sister knew something was up. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Weren’t you just on honeymoon? Why do you look tense?”
“I’m tense because of your face. What did you do to piss off Tabatha?”
“Why do you assume I did something?”
“I know you.”
“I’ve done nothing to her.” Except snog her. But to be fair, she started it.
She pushed to her feet and I watched with concern as she swayed a little. But even though she smiled, something was still off.
“Question is, are you okay?” I asked with a frown. Was she sick? I couldn't really afford not to have her in the field right now. Where the hell had they gone on honeymoon? What if it was dengue fever or one of those slow insidious illnesses that was hard to pinpoint unless you knew what you were looking for?
“First of all, I'm fine, just jet-lagged. Now, answer my question. What did you do? Tabatha hasn’t answered my calls. I can only assume it’s because you did something.”
Oh, I’d done something all right. Something I was never doing again.
Within five minutes, we had all active field agents piled in plus the senior engineer. I tried to do these briefings at least once a month so that even the junior agents could see what was happening, how their work impacted other missions, etc.
Everything kicked off like normal. A review of open statuses, investigations, and requests from other departments. And all the while I managed to keep my eyes off Tabatha. She was sitting in the far left corner next to Devlin, and I tried not to scowl at him. Probably best I just avoided that corner altogether.
We were going over our information on the Syndicate and had a briefing with our tech guys, Rook and Devlin, about Antonio Igno's ledger. Even with the cipher, it was still difficult to crack. The snippets of information he'd put in the ledger were only bits of the things he had in his head, so they weren't having any luck either. I'd been hoping for some kind of miracle. I'd even tried to talk to our resident villain, Drake Webster, but he hadn't been any help either.
We were just finishing up when the full weight of the proverbial other shoe dropped as Gennifer Goode and Oversight board member Frank Millan glided in like they owned the place.
Frank Millan was one of the Home Office attachés. Oversight had representatives from Foreign and Home Office, as well as the Ministry of Defense and GCHQ, Government Communications Headquarters. Frank and I had crossed paths in meetings before, but I’d never had a problem with him. He was, by and large, a politician. I knew better than to trust politicians, but I had always liked the bloke. He was a straight shooter and generally didn't bullshit.
I lifted a brow. "I've always said Oversight is welcome to come and see how we do things, but I'd appreciate a heads-up."
