Kyle had to kill the quiet panic running through the back of his mind aboutclassified identities.They’d prepared for this.He hoped the MDF’s fail-safes would be enough.
“All I see is a group of friends enjoying a night out on the town,” Kyle said after a moment, reaching for another fry.
Adam smiled thinly but didn’t seem surprised Kyle wasn’t admitting to anything.“Most people wouldn’t consider Nikolaas Jansen a friend.”
“He owned the club and offered us free drinks.”Kyle shrugged.“I’m not one to say no to that.”
“Jamie Callahan could buy that club five times over and not break a sweat.Free drinks aren’t an incentive for a man like him.Whatever I’m sure you all discussed probably was.”
Kyle took another sip of the beer he’d claimed as his.“I wouldn’t know.”
“You were there.”
“Yeah, and apparently, you didn’t hear me.”Kyle lifted the pint glass, pointing at it with his other hand in case it wasn’t obvious.“Free drinks.”
“I wonder if Jamie’s father is aware his only son is running around with a criminal when he’s supposedly deployed?You have to wonder how fast a story like this will travel when it’s linked to a presidential candidate.”
“I don’t make it a habit of reading lies.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed.He biolocked his tablet again, obviously a little put out by Kyle’s blasé reaction to his little reveal.“I follow where the story takes me.”
“So you said.But maybe next time, you should think twice about buying a ticket to another country after getting a name and location alert from the internet.All you have is a group of friends enjoying a night out in a club.You bump into all kinds of people in a club or a bar.That’s not a story.You’re inferring something from those pictures that isn’t true.”
“There’s still enough of something there to inferabout.”
“So you’re telling meThe New York Timesis going to run a story about Richard Callahan’s son hanging out with friends and try to spin it into, what, exactly?A hit-piece on the guy leading in early polls for the Republican presidential candidate nomination?”
“Jamie Callahan is supposed to be deployed, and yet, he’s here in London taking meetings with a known criminal.”
“Taking leave is a thing people in the military do.And if this Jansen guy was as much of a criminal as you’re trying to make me believe he is, then you’d think he’d be locked up in prison somewhere.What’d he supposedly do?Kill a guy?”Kyle grabbed another fry and ate it.“Guess what?So have I.That happens when you put on a uniform.”
Adam’s eyes got a little wide at that confession, but it wasn’t anything Kyle knew could get him in trouble in any court.Public opinion, sure, maybe, but inside the four walls of a courtroom?War gave soldiers more leeway for taking a life than any other profession in existence.Shit happened in the battlefield, and yeah, some nights Kyle didn’t sleep all that well when his memories dredged up old nightmares, old ghosts that wouldn’t stay buried.But his job was to serve and defend his country, and that meant defending himself in the process.
Kyle took another sip of the beer before deciding he really didn’t like this brand.It was cheap, bitter, without any hint of actual flavor.Just piss-water, really.He poured it out over the side of the table, keeping his gaze locked on Adam’s face as the alcohol puddled on the sidewalk.Adam jerked, like he wanted to grab the glass from Kyle before he wasted it all, but held himself back at the last second.
“You should double-check your sources before you put your name on that byline,” Kyle said as he stood up.
“I’m not dropping the story.”
“The story of friends on leave from the military taking a vacation together?”Kyle gave him a two-fingered salute over an easy smile.“Have fun with that.”
He walked off, keeping his stride slow and easy, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket so Adam wouldn’t see the way he was clenching them into fists.Putting his back to the reporter made him want to check his six every other step, but Kyle refrained from doing so.He didn’t bother taking a circuitous route back to the house.If Adam was here, indulging in an early happy hour in Kensington, then he probably already knew where the house was located.
“You may want to hurry up,” Katie sighed over the comms less than a minute later.“Jamie isn’t happy.”
“On my way.”
It didn’t take Kyle long to make it back to the house, slipping through the front door on quiet feet.Donovan was sitting on the couch, with Madison stretched out beside him.She had control of the television, and Donovan wasn’t fighting her for the right to tell the computer what show they wanted to watch.
Alexei, Sean, and Trevor were nowhere to be seen, which meant Trevor was probably replacing their nanotech comms.They’d packed extra in the medical gear Gracie had sent along, the doctor apparently well versed in the effects Sean’s power had on electronics.Annabelle was in the kitchen, cooking something that smelled suspiciously like the lasagna the team was known to fight each other over for the last piece.He didn’t see Liam anywhere, which made him wonder if the other man had left for the day now that their show of a lunch date was over.
Kyle shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over the nearest chair before heading for the office on the first floor Katie and Jamie were both using.He knocked on the closed door before pushing it open.Katie was sitting behind the desk, surrounded by holoscreens of scrolling data, an intense look on her face as she munched on a bag of chips.
“Jamie is upstairs talking with his father,” Katie said, not looking away from her work.
“Did he witness the conversation?”Kyle asked.
“Called him in the second you made the guy.He wouldn’t let me remotely delete the reporter’s files.”
