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“No. I’m going to do it here,” he replied.
“I can have—what?” Bernard asked, his hands hovering over his keyboard.
“I have people here who can put the phones through their paces. In the next few days, actually,” he replied, his brain ticking over the logistics of his plan.
There was him, Eli, and Claire. And Hartley was on her way back, though his mind balked at getting her to do anything. There was the detective he’d brought in a few days ago, squandering a favor from a senator to hush up the body they’d found. He could give Jackal one device, though something in his gut didn’t trust the man. Eli had a team with him, too.
“That’s not how we’ve run testing before,” Bernard cautioned, his eyebrows lowered.
“We’ll need more devices, as many as you can send quickly,” he demanded, ignoring Bernard’s comment as he typed the Cavendish address in the chat window.
His brain was firing on multiple levels now, and he realized the testing was serendipitous.
For all he knew, the Cavendish cell phones had been breached. It made sense that Rogue, having been a point person on the Cavendish security team, would have used the phones to track everybody. How else could he have accessed the property—and buried a fucking body—without being detected by security running the last engagement? No, everyone would use the new devices. They’d flush out Rogue undetected, thanks to the stealth chip, and complete the field test at the same time. All he’d need was—
“Can you get the testing done before Beijing in two weeks?” Bernard asked, sounding skeptical.
“I’ll get it done in five days, if you can get the phones here overnight,” Montgomery countered, locating the printer on the network and sending a draft of the field test matrix to print. A muffled sound buzzed from a cupboard to his right.
“You’re going to test and report on the phones in five days?” Bernard said, the words heavy with disbelief. “A process that usually runs three weeks?”
“And not only that,” Montgomery added, rolling his chair to the cupboard to grab the printouts. “I’m apparently getting my divorce underway at the same time.”
He looked up at Bernard, whose eyes bulged. Montgomery smiled, a cold twitch of his mouth lacking any humor.
It’s what he should have done after Hartley found him and the woman, the one woman she’d said was off limits in their flexible marriage. Although they’d both liked the idea of some version of an open marriage, they’d never crossed that line. Until he had, with a very heavy step.
He couldn’t even remember the woman’s name now, which made him feel worse. All he remembered was that it had been written on the pin of the grenade, which he’d pulled and lobbed.
“I wish I’d invoked your father’s name months ago, if that’s what’s bringing on all these decisions.” Bernard shook his head.
The mention of his father soured Montgomery even more. “Let’s keep him out of it,” he said. “I’ll keep you updated daily, either by email or text. I’ll get the field test done and the report completed. Before you know it, I’ll be in Beijing for that regulatory meeting, so get the team focused on a major fucking launch party for February.”
“February?” Bernard said. “You can’t count on anything moving that fast in China. Just the import issues—”
“You wanted the old Montgomery? Well, he’s back. Nothing is going to stop me from pushing this through.” He growled, watching the startled look on Bernard’s face meld into the hungry, ambitious expression Montgomery was used to seeing.
“Willkommen, Feuerdrache,” Bernard said with a sly chuckle, and Montgomery ended the meeting.
He stretched his fingers as he read through the draft report. His mind was clear, and it felt fucking great. Not just clear, focused and capable. He would push the company far beyond anything his piece-of-shit father could imagine, and then he’d put that asshole at the front table to see him rack up every fucking business award imaginable.
The sound of a nuclear blast blared from his phone, and he leaned back with a long sigh.Hartley. It was the ringtone he’d assigned her the day after she’d found him with that woman.
Sorry I missed these,read Hartley’s text.
“No shit.” He rolled his eyes at her lie. She’d read the six previous texts over the past days with no reply. Also, she would never admit to being in the same time zone as sorry.
I’m staying at the manor until we figure out the next steps in this mess,he typed, getting out of the chair.
No need. I’ve got it covered,she replied.
Fuck you, you’ve got this covered,he thought, pacing to the far end of the room.
Police are involved, at my request, so we’ll need to transition once you get here,he typed. That sounded good. Calm. Level-headed. Even conciliatory. She’d be happy at the implication that he was turning things over to her.
Wait. Transition implied that he’d taken charge of things, and nothing was as guaranteed to set her off—
Just get the fuck off my property,came her quick text reply. He didn’t have to reread it to feel the heat of her contempt.
