Nine
Nic woke to Cam’s Boston brogue, harsh and drawn out with unleashed fury.“What the hell was that?”
From Nic’s other side, Bowers spoke, his words clipped and strident.“I’m trying to find the person calling the shots.”
Eyelids heavy, Nic listened to their voices echo around him in stereo, the beeping of a heart monitor like a metronome keeping the cadence of their argument.“You lost us Becca and Abby,” Cam said.“And you got Percy and your best AUSA injured in the process.”
“My best.”Bowers scoffed.“You were the one running the op.Your agents should have adapted to the change in course.”
“Percy is not a fucking agent.We didn’t prep him for an insertion.”
“Whose fault was that?”Bowers retorted.
“We had a game plan, and you called an audible without warning.”
“I warned you yesterday.”
“Then you said we could run the op our way.”
A third voice entered the fray, Irish lilt pronounced.“We cannot change an op in progress if we don’t have the right personnel in place,” Aidan said.His thicker-than-usual accent, startling but not surprising after ten days in his mother country, had finally unstuck Nic’s eyelids so that he witnessed the direction of the SAC’s chiding.
“You’re back,” Nic croaked, and three faces swung to him.
“We’re back,” came a fourth voice.
Nic lolled his head on the pillow, following the direction of the Southern drawl.In the back corner of the hospital room, Jamie and Lauren huddled behind two laptops open on the tray table.Nic gave a nod, then movement at his side drew his attention forward again.
“Hey,” Cam said, stepping closer, all trace of harshness in his voice gone.“How do you feel?”
“Like I was hit by a fucking car.”He braced a hand on the mattress, wincing, and assessed the physical damage.Sore but no sharp pains and no casts on his limbs.Some bruised ribs, judging by the wrap around his torso, and scrapes and bruises under more bandages elsewhere.But nothing broken—on him.
“Easy there,” Cam said, lifting a hand toward his shoulder.
Nic batted it away, pushed through the ache, and levered himself up to seated.He leaned back against the mound of scratchy pillows.
“Percy’s injured?”he asked, recalling Cam’s earlier words.
“One of Becca’s guards knocked him out as they made their escape.Broken nose and a concussion.He’s shaken up more than anything.”
“Escaped?Into the car that hit me?”
Cam shook his head.“Oddly, no.They used the confusion to take cover in a shop, then gave us the slip.”
“And the car?”
“Rammed two cruisers as it sped out of the west end of the park.”
“I did get a partial on the plate,” Lauren said.“Running it now.”
“A distraction,” Bowers said.“So Becca could make a break for it.”
Which meant the car had to have been there already, the driver lying in wait.Just like their people had been.Did that make any sense?
Wouldn’t the driver have noticed them and warned Becca away?
Wasn’t it more likely the car was unconnected, like Saturday’s shooter?Another attempt to threaten him personally.Maybe an attempt to eliminate him altogether.But how had they known where he’d be?About the bust?And for that matter, how had they known about the last raid?
“You’re lucky you survived,” Aidan said from where he stood at the end of the bed.
