Someone alert the media. Lucky fully agreed with Cruz. “What you got in mind?”
Stopping at a stop sign, Cruz flashed a grin. “Doing what we’re good at, my friend. Kicking ass and taking names.”
“Can I ask how you wound up on this case?”
Cruz kept his eyes on the road. “We were on a very boring case involving patents for raw materials from India, and all of sudden your name shows up on our reports, and wham! Can’t you do calm? For once? Just for some variety? Why does everyone in the world want to kill you?”
“Must be my charming personality.” Lucky scowled. He’d had enough of Cruz down in Mexico.
Cruz chatted nonstop on the way across town, catching Lucky up on people he’d met while in Mexico. He finally shut up when a very familiar building came into view.
Bo and Keith met them in the nearly empty parking garage, along with two men Lucky didn’t know, but who dipped curt nods at Cruz.
“We’re breaking into the fucking SNB?” Lucky glanced around at the group who’d so docilely left Walter’s.
Bo, sitting astride the Harley, dressed all in black leather, dropped an arm around Lucky’s shoulders. “Go big or go home, right? I was on my way to the bar when I got a call. Couldn’t let you have all the fun.”
***
The blood sang in Lucky’s veins, rather from doing the right thing or plunging back into lawlessness, he couldn’t say, but sometimes one must skate the line between right and wrong.
“Bo shouldn’t be here,” Keith hissed near Lucky’s ear. “If this goes tits up…”
For the second time that night Lucky agreed with someone he usually didn’t. Bo shouldn’t be there but, like Lucky, no one or nothing was gonna stop him.
“All right.” Cruz beckoned with his hand for the assembled to gather around. “This is your home turf, you know it, and where we’ll likely find what we need.” He nodded to his two silent companions. “We’re just backup.”
Lucky shot him a disbelieving glare.
Cruz held his hands up, palms out. “Boss’s orders.”
While he hated going around Walter this way, Walter needed to stay out of this, especially after the break-in tonight. Lucky led the way to the elevator. “What about cameras?” he asked Keith.
“Leave that to me.”
“Guards?”
One of Cruz’s men peeled away from the group and took up a position in the shadows near the elevator door.
Lucky pushed a button and the door opened. Lucky, Bo, Keith, Cruz, and Nameless stepped inside. “We’re looking for anything connected with Forsyth or Chastain. No matter how small.” He hoped to hell they’d find it. The elevator rose.
The door chimed and opened. They stepped off into the semi-darkness of the Department of Diversion Prevention and Control. “Wait here.” Lucky pointed to the reception area. “Housekeeping knows me and has no reason to suspect anything wrong with me being here.” He’d worked odd hours often enough.
He strode with purpose toward his cube, then back and forth down the hallways. All trashcans were empty and the break room coffee pots cleaned. Good. They’d come and gone. Lucky backtracked to the reception desk, after a brief stop at the supply closet.
He handed out gloves. His, Bo’s, and Keith’s fingerprints could be explained, but he planned on going places he wasn’t supposed to tonight. “Keith, I need you to fix the cameras, cut us from the videos, but I also need you to go through the switchboard, see if any phone calls came in from anyone associated with Chastain or Forsyth. Also, between O’Donoghue and his brown nosers.”
“I can get the switchboard,” Nameless said. He sat down at Lisa’s station and adjusted the chair to accommodate someone a foot and a half taller.
Keith tromped off down the hall. Lucky winced. Good thing Keith did his surveillance with high tech toys instead of stakeouts, because he moved with all the grace of a water buffalo.
“Bo, you know where Landry and Eustace sit, right?”
Bo nodded and took off in the general direction of the rookie section.
“I’m with you,” Cruz said.
Eeriness crept down Lucky’s spine as he stalked to O’Donoghue’s, no, Walter’s door. Locked. He nearly laughed. Who’d he plan to keep out, in a department full of folks familiar with lockpicking? Lucky could use pretty much anything but, feeling lazy, strode back to his desk and retrieved his lockpicking set.
