Code of Honor

Chapter Twenty-one

Jane found her father at the shooting range. At 0700 on a cold December morning, they were the only ones around. She grabbed a pair of ear mufflers from the utility shed and joined him on the firing line. He didn’t look in her direction as she stepped up beside him, but continued to fire rounds at paper targets fifty yards away. She sighted on the adjacent target and unholstered her Glock. Soon they were firing in unison, and at least from a distance, her grouping looked as tight as his. She emptied her clip, reloaded, and pushed the button on the automatic pulley for a new target. She moved from center mass to head shots. Fifteen minutes later, she ejected the last empty clip and holstered her weapon. She stepped back to wait for her father, who shot one more clip and then joined her. His face was ruddy from the wind. He never wore a hat and today, like most days, wore only a nylon flak jacket over his khaki uniform shirt.

“Captain,” he said as he worked the mechanism to bring the targets forward for inspection. “Something on your mind?”

“I wanted to bring you up to date on the arms deal, sir.”

He nodded and walked first to his target, where he stood for a few moments, then moved on to hers.

Jane waited, throat dry as it always was when her father scrutinized her performance, whether it was the way she’d set up a wilderness camp when she was ten years old or how she handled her weapon now.

“Better,” he said. “You’ve corrected that drift.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

He pulled down the targets, folded them, and methodically tore them into small pieces. He dumped them in a nearby metal trash bin and faced her with his hands on his hips. “Some problem with the exchange?”

“Not on the surface, no, sir.” Jane fell into stride beside him when he headed back to headquarters. “But with a purchase this big and several middlemen, I’m worried about security. I thought changing a few things might disrupt any attempt to sabotage the exchange if something was in the planning.”

He glanced at her. “A surprise maneuver. Keeping the enemy off balance.”

“Yes, sir.” Jane wanted to unzip her jacket. His piercing scrutiny was making her sweat, but she couldn’t let that show. He’d taught her the consequences of revealing her emotions.

“How do you expect to accomplish that?”

“Press on the timetable, for one thing.” Jane jumped up the stairs to the company command post and followed her father inside. She waited until they were in his office with the door closed to continue. “And change the rendezvous site. I haven’t suggested that yet.”

“Hmm. We’ll need the cash for the buy sooner, but that can be arranged.” Her father hung his jacket on a peg by the door and walked to his desk. “Their response?”

“Cooperative, so far. The club president referred me to the member who is in direct contact with the supplier. He assured me she would meet with me to review details.”

Graves paused. “She.”

“Yes, sir.”

“There was a woman there the night I met with the club’s representative. That must be the one. What do we know about her?”

“Nothing, sir. At this point, I don’t even know her name.”

“Find out. We have a few associates in the county sheriff’s department. I’m sure they have files on all the Renegades.” He sat and regarded her steadily. “Remember, it always pays to know the enemy—better than they know themselves.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll get a file together on her.”

“Anything else? Problems with the new company?”

“No, sir. All the men are ready and eager for action.” She didn’t bother to qualify the generic term. There were a handful of women in the ranks, and they preferred not to be distinguished by gender. She never had.

“Anything else?”

“About Jenn.”

His eyes narrowed. “What about her?”

Jane took a breath, prepared to present her plan. She’d been thinking about nothing else since she’d learned of Jenn’s incarceration. “I think we have a small window of opportunity to secure her release, but we need to move quickly—before news of her arrest gets out or she is moved to another facility and processed.”

“And the bargaining chip?”

“A hostage,” Jane said. “One who’s not expendable.”

His eyes glinted as he continued to probe her face. “And you have one in mind?”

“Several, sir.”

He smiled. “Good. It’s always important to have a contingency plan. Now let’s hear the details of exactly how you plan to secure one of these individuals.”

Jane hoped her flush of excitement would be attributed to the wind buffeting her out on the range. She wanted to appear cool and confident to her father, but her heart raced with excitement. This was her chance to prove herself beyond any doubt. She didn’t want to spend another two years hiding, just another cog in some distant plan. She wanted to fight, and she was ready now.

*

“Yes, what is it, Derrick?” Russo asked when Derrick tapped on his partially open study door.

“I just received a text, sir. Hooker would like you to make contact.”

Sighing, Russo set his newspaper aside and looked at his wristwatch. Breakfast would be served in just a few minutes and he detested a meal gone cold. “Can it wait?”

“I don’t know, sir. I’d recommend taking it.”

Russo sighed again. “All right, fine. Thank you.”

Derrick nodded and disappeared. Russo unlocked his desk drawer, took out the burn phone, and dialed Hooker’s number. He hadn’t given anyone this number and had expressly forbidden Hooker to call on his personal numbers. Now with the campaign gathering momentum, he had too much to lose and couldn’t risk being publicly associated with the militia. He needed the moderates’ votes as much as he needed the lobbying clout, and resources, of the far-right wing. With everyone from the Pentagon to the CIA leaking like a sieve, he didn’t trust anyone’s security, not even his own.

The phone rang three times before Hooker answered.

“Hooker.”

“Yes, what is it?” Russo snapped.

“Our friends might want to move up the timetable for the exchange. I’ll need the cash as soon as possible.”

“You’ll get it as soon as I can reasonably provide it without leaving a trail as wide as the interstate.”

“I just wanted to give you advance notice.”

“So noted.” Russo checked the time. He thought it unlikely Hooker’s phone was being monitored and he knew his wasn’t, but he disliked speaking on the phone about matters of consequence. “And they understand we will expect repayment to be forthcoming without delay? I want something foolproof for my money this time.”

“They know.”

“We need an unambiguous statement that points to the ineffectual and deteriorating power base in Washington. Something that hits close to home and discredits our opponent. I don’t care how you arrange it.”

“Do you care who we use as a target for the…statement?”

“At this point, as long as we’ve got a high-profile target as close to him as we can get, I’ll be happy. We can work with that.”

“So can I.”

“Any new developments in regard to the investigation?”

“Nothing substantial. We know they’ve been looking in Georgia.”

“To be expected. Any word as to what they might have learned?”

“No. There’s no paper trail—no reports being filed. Strictly need-to-know.”

“Who’s coordinating the investigation?”

“My sources can’t be certain. My best guess would be Homeland and, considering the players, someone on Roberts’s team.”

“Are we watching them?”

“As well as we can.”

“I want to know if and when they get close to anything that might lead to me.”

“Of course.”

“I don’t want the new year to progress very far without him losing some of his shine, no matter what it takes.”

“Understood,” Hooker said.

“Good. Now, I’ll be spending the holiday weekend in Palm Springs with my family. I don’t expect to be disturbed with any unpleasant news.”

“Right,” Hooker said. “Happy New Year.”

“I sincerely hope so.” Russo disconnected and locked the phone back in his desk. It was about time he started getting what he paid for.

*

Sky muttered a curse when her phone rang at some god-awful early hour. She rolled onto her side and felt around on the floor for her jeans. The phone was in the pocket. She was alone in Loren’s bed. She blinked in the hazy light coming through the small windows set up high in the rear wall of the garage. Loren was asleep on a cot pushed against the opposite wall. Her clothes were folded over the only chair. Sky had a searing memory of sitting on the side of Loren’s bed in her tank and panties with an ice pack pressed to her eye and watching Loren shed her clothes—all of them—with practiced ease before stretching out on the cot and pulling a blanket over her truly magnificent naked body. The quick glimpse had been enough to supercharge Sky’s engines despite her very unsexy pose with the ice pack, but Loren had just muttered, “Leave it on for twenty minutes,” and promptly fallen asleep. Or a good facsimile of that, at least. Sky had turned out the lights, crawled into Loren’s bed—sans Loren—with a cold bag of ice and some decidedly hot images dancing in her head.

The hot images were still there, and Sky was feeling sore, horny, and bitchy. She did her best to banish the picture of small, firm breasts and lots of long lean muscle as she brought the phone to her ear. “What?”

“Morning,” Dan Bussy said.

“It’s not even eight o’clock yet,” Sky snarled. “What could possibly be so important?”

“You secure?”

“Yes.” Sky fell back on the bed and draped her arm over her eyes. The slight bit of pressure on the left side of her face sent a shock of pain through her jaw. “Ow.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” Sky shifted a little to take the pressure off the side of her face, but when she squinted she could see Loren, who had turned on her side. The blanket fell away, baring a lot of naked back. Sky gave up trying not to look. She was still human, after all. “Why are you calling me?”

“You’re going to have a visitor.”

“Believe me, I’m not in the mood for entertaining.”

“It doesn’t matter. We don’t have any choice.”

“Who?”

“Homeland. And someone serious.”

“Listen,” Sky said with patience she didn’t feel. “Things are hot around here right now. We don’t have time to give a sit rep to some bureaucrat who probably just wants to get credit for—”

“Deputy Director Roberts.”

“Crap.” Sky sat up, unmindful of the blanket dropping down to her waist. The room was warmer than she’d expected. Loren had started a fire in a potbellied stove in the other room, and the air smelled of wood smoke and pine. She’d pulled off her clothes, all of them, when she’d gone to sleep. They’d reeked of beer and bar smoke. “What the hell is going on?”

“Since when does Homeland ever tell anyone anything?” Dan said. “Maybe nothing. Word is, she’s just looking for some information that might tie into another case. That’s all I know, but if we don’t accommodate, we’re likely to have a lot more than Roberts poking into our open cases. None of us want that.”

“No,” Sky agreed. While all of the agencies paid lip service to interagency cooperation, in reality, they all ran their own operations because they didn’t really trust anyone else to do it as well as they could. And, let’s face it, after years of work, when a bust went down, no one wanted to share the glory. The last thing she wanted was Homeland Security digging around in their ongoing undercover ops. If it meant talking to some desk jockey for an hour or two, she’d manage it. “When?”

“I bought you a little time. Told them it would take me a while to contact an agent in the field. You tell me.”

“Tomorrow we’re headed for Reno. If you can get us seventy-two hours, that would work.”

“I’ll do my best.” Dan cleared his throat. “You need anything?”

Sky immediately thought of Loren. “Not a thing.”

“Okay then. I’ll be in touch.”

“Yeah,” Sky said. “You do that.”

She disconnected and dropped the phone back onto her pile of clothes. From across the room Loren said, “Trouble?”

“I don’t know.” But Sky didn’t see how it could be anything else.