“So glad you could make it, Mr. Wolcott. Thank you for joining me for dinner,” Sean said. He let the Brooklyn accent his cover cultivated slip into his voice as he came around the table to greet histarget.
Riley Miller was an old CIA cover he’d had to resurrect in January during his time running an undercover mission with Alpha Team, the MDF’s top field team. Resorting to that identity hadn’t even been discussed in the preplanning phase, but when a couple of old acquaintances had shown up with their target in the middle of the mission, Sean was forced to switch identities onthefly.
Sean’s cover identity had gone from former Irish mob to the current CFO of Root Source, Inc. Riley cleaned up nice in a suit even if the rough and tumble background shined through in his voice. Sean could mimic most accents and was very good at pretending to be someone he wasn’t. His skill in that area was what led the CIA to recruit him in the first place after seeing him perform on stage with hisbrothers.
“Always looking out for new businesses to make mine better,” Adrian Wolcott said, flashing Sean a cocky smile as he held out his hand for a quickhandshake.
Adrian was a charismatic man in his early forties, tall, with a solid body filling out his bespoke suit. Light brown hair was slicked back with just a touch of product. His hazel eyes were more on the green-gold side than brown, and set in a tanned face that had gone through a little too much enhancement work to be called natural. Still, Adrian was good-looking by anyone’s assessment, even Sean’s. He’d always been partial to brunets over blonds, and while Adrian fit that criteria, Sean’s daydreams revolved around someone elsethesedays.
As a wealthy casino magnate based out of Las Vegas, Adrian was the owner of a portfolio of money-making properties on the Vegas Strip, the jewel of which was Olympus. He’d been hinting at wanting to branch out into New Miami’s club scene according to the dossier MDF analysts and profilers had created. There wasn’t anything illegal about owning a casino or a club, but Adrian’s younger brother, Declan Wolcott, who was a shareholder in one or two of them, also owned a different kind of company the MDF was intenselyinterestedin.
A former Army Ranger, Declan had left the service with a clean record at the age of thirty-two. He’d spent the next seven years building up a private military company off a loan from his brother that Declan eventually repaid. North Star International was one of the top three PMCs in the country that contracted with the military and federal government agencies for security services. Unlike its owner, North Star International didn’t have as clean arecord.
Neither brother would’ve been on the MDF’s radar if analysts hadn’t dug up a single holopic of Declan having dinner with Nikolaas Jansen and a few other people. The MDF had clawed the new lead out of intel derived from the January mission. Jansen, a known black-market facilitator beholden to thePresnenskaya Bratvaand the Pavluhkin family, was too chilling a detail toignore.
The MDF didn’t know the extent of the Wolcotts and the Pavluhkins working relationship, if they even had one. Declan was a difficult man to reach without him becoming suspicious. Rather than target him directly, the MDF had chosen to go through his brother instead. From everything analysts could uncover, the brothers had a decent relationship. Exploiting their inherent trust of one another was critical to the MDF’sgoals.
Sean, using his Riley Miller cover, had spent the past month and a half making overtures to Adrian through his role as CFO of Root Source, Inc. The MDF had created the cybersecurity company as a way to infiltrate the criminal organizations working to make their own metahumans by subjecting innocent people to Splice. Owned and operated on paper by several members of Alpha Team, financially backed by the son of one of the richest men in the world, Sean’s credentials had earned him an in-face meeting that Adrian rarely granted people hoping to do businesswithhim.
It helped that they weren’t trying to take away business from the man, only work to secure hisempire.
Adrian gestured at the tall, ridiculously slim and gorgeous woman hanging onto his arm. “Allow me to introduce my wife,Chloe.”
Chloe Wolcott was a good sixteen years younger than Adrian, who spent her days immersed in the fashion industry as a model according to her file. She wore her platinum-blonde hair pulled back in a sleek ballet bun to better show off her sharp, symmetrical facial features. Her sheer, floor-length, red dress was nipped in at the waist and sleeveless, with a high ruffled collar that just brushed the underside of her jaw. Beneath the sheer fabric, she wore what looked like dark red lingerie set with gold floral appliqués in just the right spots to make a claim for decency. Her high heels put her inches taller than Sean’s own lean, five-foot-nineframe.
“A pleasure to meet such a lovely lady,” Sean replied, shaking Chloe’s proffered hand. Her fingers were laden down with diamond and ruby rings that matched the heavy-looking drop earrings dangling fromherears.
“Charmed,” she replied, probably having heard the compliment a thousand timesbefore.
Adrian pulled out a chair for her while Sean took his own seat at the square table, opting to face the door and let the other two have the view of the city skyline athisback.
“I apologize again for Ekaterina’s absence. An emergency came up in the UK, and she had to attend to it personally,” Sean said as a server poured ice water foreveryone.
As far he knew, Sergeant Ekaterina “Katie” Ovechkina, Alpha Team’s second-in-command, was enjoying some down time between missions right now back in Washington, D.C. The MDF hadn’t needed her or Alpha Team to reprise their January mission roles in the field to sell the company to new clients when they had Sean to handle that angle. Alpha Team was more focused on trying to keep one step ahead of Stanislav Pavluhkin whenever they got pulled back into his orbit for hacking jobs. Keeping up appearances like this was something Sean could handle on his own and had been since the beginning oftheyear.
“Next time, I want to meet her,” Adrian said, making it a casual demand Sean could only nod at because that’s what was expected of hiscover.
“I’m sure she wouldn’t be averse to coming out to Las Vegas,” Sean replied. “In working with them, I’ve come to understand that Marines bet on everything, so your casinos would be a fundistraction.”
“I do know how to make sure people have agoodtime.”
Sean smiled politely at that comment as two servers came through the door carrying three plates. The ten-course, prix-fixe meal had been reserved a few weeks back, but Sean let Adrian pick out a bottle of wine tableside, inwardly wincing at his memory of the five-figure price tag it came with. Technically, it wasn’t his money that he was spending, but Sean came from a solidly middle-class family, and the way the wealthy spent their money without a second thought wascrazy.
Sean picked up one of his forks, eyeing the delicately plated amuse-bouche. He’d eaten a lot of things over the course of his life to keep up his covers, but raw sea urchin was afirst.
“I understand you’re looking for both a personal and professional use of Root Source, Inc. Your request shouldn’t be a problem. We’re capable of scaling up or down, according to our client’s needs,”Seansaid.
“My brother believes he’s capable of handling the security of my casinos, but I keep telling him cybersecurity is different than merely giving a man a gun,”Adriansaid.
Adrian scooped up his sea urchin and shoved it into his mouth, chewing obnoxiously. Sean ate his single bite of the stuff and choked it down. It was briny-sweet, in a weird way, but not a flavor he wanted to repeat. He was glad there was only enough foronebite.
“Guns are useful. A hacker, in my experience, can cause more damage than a bullet. It’s why Ekaterina created the company. It takes a hacker to fight a hacker, and our people know the tricks both white hats and black hatsemploy.”
“So I’ve been led to believe. But you’re offering a high price to ensure the security of my casinos, to say nothing of my privateproperties.”
“Paying shit money for a shit job gives you shit results,” Sean shot backmildly.
Adrian barked out a laugh and pointed a finger at him. “True.Verytrue.”
