Radio.
Silence.
“We’ll play dirty,” she said. “If it costs my badge, it costs my badge. I’m not losing a kid, a spouse, or a family member. The kids are going under. We useONLYencrypted phones to communicate with them. I know that sounds crazy…”
Ivan stopped her.
“We don’t know who this is. Crazy is not being paranoid when there is a lot on the line. We have to be ready. If this person has been playing this game for over twenty years, we don’t know how many layers this chess game has.”
He was right.
“I want both houses in DC emptied out after this award this weekend. No security left behind. My dogs go to Scotland, and Shadow goes with, too. I’d rather not get a call, they’re dead in some random poisoning.”
They got it.
“We’ll handle it,” Raphael said from the passenger seat.
She believed them.
When Ethan’s phone chimed, it was a text from Gabe, and it was proof that he had some sort of bat sonar to know when people were talking about him.
Reading it, the message said one thing.
And not what they wanted to hear.
‘I have nothing to report. All is quiet, and no one’s heard anything. Be careful. This makes me twitchy. My files are on their way here, and I’ll go over them in my downtime. Be safe.’
He showed his wife.
And she didn’t like it either.
Twitchy was an understatement.
“If the alphabet agencies haven’t heard shit, and the FBI is off the radar, there’s a reason,” she admitted. “Someone played this well. We have to figure out who this is.”
No one argued there.
Ethan thanked the man, and he said nothing about their plans. Gabe was going to be missing his grandson for a while. Oliver and Coraline were going international.
“Alert Michael and Graham that we’re having a horde descend on them. The castle isn’t done yet, but we can convert the library into a giant bedroom for the younger kids, and use the tower rooms,” Gene admitted. “It’ll only be temporary.”
That worked for her.
They had a wedding happening at Halloween, and she needed to have this handled by then.
As they approached a dirt road, Ivan warned her.
“We’ll be there in a mile,” he stated. “The cemetery on the left, and house on the right.”
She was curious.
“They are that close?”
He nodded.
“The cemetery is across from the house,” he admitted. “Talk about convenient and weird. She was killed in front of the cemetery that she was buried in, and likely so her son could keep her company on the weekends.”
Yeah, that was definitely off.
