Page 15 of Jacking Jill

Was Jack Wagner a sacrificial pawn being played by the red-haired Queen to make sure her own bloodline survived the undeniably escalating danger that hunted every Darkwater man, woman, and child?

“You all right, John?” came the red-haired Queen’s voice now, her blue eyes shining like she’d been studying him harder than those blueprints. “You still grumpy that I told Paige to go ahead and give Jack control of his own phone?” She smiled with an edge that once again struck Benson as new, like something had changed in Nancy Sullivan during their time apart. “You’re pissed that I gave him control of his own fate,” she whispered, her tone almost taunting. “His own destiny. That’s the game, isn’t it, John? Control. Well, how does it feel to not have control? Are you worried that this whole thing will blow up in your face if you aren’t watching and listening like some spirit in the shadows?”

Benson’s jaw tightened, his gut wrenching with a strange mix of defensiveness and anger. He wondered if Nancy had seen the wheels turning in his own jaded mind, had guessed that decades of being a double-crossing snake was finally taking its toll, making it so that Benson was losing the ability to trust even those closest to him.

He snorted in Nancy’s general direction, refusing to take the bait and respond hotly to her taunting teasing words. “Look, Nancy. You know damn well I’m thrilled to have you back. But you ever do something like this again, and I’ll haul your butt back to the retirement home myself, settle you into your armchair by the fire so you can get back to knitting wool booties for your precious grandchildren. Got it?”

Nancy reddened, her eyelids fluttering rapidly as panic streaked across her face. Benson’s heart leapt with the thrill of victory when he realized that damn, she loved being back here, didn’t she?

Of course she did.

Because Darkwater was her family too.

Not just Brenna and the kids, but every man, woman, and child of this travelling circus called Darkwater.

She was thrilled to be back, happy as a mother setting up a new homestead. Benson was an idiot to doubt her, a fool to let suspicion dig its claws into his spy-trained mind.

“I . . . I’m sorry, John,” Nancy said softly, her gaze darting down to the table, then back up towards his taut face which was trying its hardest to stifle a grin. “I don’t know why I allowed Paige to do it. I know it’s dangerous, but there was something perverse and childish in me that flared up. Shit, maybe there’s a part of me that subconsciously wants you to fail, John. Maybe I’m jealous that you’ve been right every time and I’ve been wrong. Maybe I’m—”

“Oh, shut the hell up, Nancy!” Benson waved his hands to make her stop. “I trust your instincts better than my own sometimes. If some intuition in you whispered that Jack needed some free rein on this one, then I’m glad you followed up on it and gave Paige the green light.” His face settled into a warm smile when he saw the relief wash over his precious Nancy. “Look, Darkwater is evolving, learning from itself. The new guys know the details of all the old missions, and that changes how we handle the new missions. More importantly, it changes how the new guys handle their own missions. This thing with the names and the coincidences . . . hell, I know as well as anybody that it can fuck with a man’s mind. And with confident, cocky-ass men like Jack . . . where the hell is he, anyway?”

Benson was about to storm over to the door and holler for Paige again, but then Nancy reached out and turned her computer screen in Benson’s direction.

“So much for staying away from Darkwater missions,” said Benson with a sideways grin when he saw that Paige had already set up Nancy’s computer to track everything from her office. There was a screen showing all the text-messages between Jack and Keller. Another screen with a live map tracking Jack’s location via his phone’s GPS, which thankfully hadn’t been turned off along with the microphone and camera. “Why is Jack moving so slow on I-95? Barely at the speed limit. Isn’t he on his crotch-rocket of a motorcycle?”

Nancy shook her head, tapped a few keys on her keyboard. Black-and-white video from what appeared to be security cameras outside a strip-mall popped up on the computer screen.

“Interesting . . .” Benson muttered as he leaned forward and watched a grainy image of Jack Wagner emerging from what appeared to be a somewhat beat-up Honda hatchback. The video showed Jack snatching his keys from his parked bike’s ignition, then squeezing his big body back into the little Honda’s front seat. The car turned and drove away. Benson couldn’t make out the driver from the video. “You manage to get footage of the license plate so we know who’s driving that car?”

Nancy shook her head. “Not a lot of traffic cameras in that small urban center. Paige is running some scans from the speed-detection cameras on I-95. She’ll get the plates sooner or later.” She smiled. “But don’t worry, Jack isn’t being kidnapped by a new Darkwater villain. He texted Keller to say he’s found a way to get into the Bobby Carmine wedding in Philly, where it appears Diego might be headed for a secret meeting with someone.” Nancy raised an eyebrow at Benson’s quizzical frown. “Wait, are you not up to date on the burner phone that Diego called before he tossed his own burner? He called someone whose phone just came online near the Carmine Estate outside Philadelphia. There’s a big mafia wedding this weekend, beginning with a cocktail party that’s starting right about now.”

“No, I most certainly am not up to date. Been in physical therapy all afternoon.” Benson flashed a grin, but it didn’t last long as he listened to Nancy rattle off the latest news—which was not all good. The Carmine Family was a relatively small player in the East Coast Italian Mafia, but it wasn’t a good sign if Diego Vargas was getting connected to them.

“Diego’s Zeta Nation owns a tiny bit of oceanfront land between Colombia and Guyana on the Northern coast of South America,” Benson said slowly, thinking aloud after quickly processing Nancy’s excellent summary of the day’s developments. “They’ve used some of the millions siphoned to them by Northrup Capital and IMG to build a small but sophisticated seaport on the coast. Chinese container ships have been coming and going from that seaport. CIA surveillance-drones and NSA spy-satellites haven’t been able to identify what’s in those containers. Some of it is probably basic low-cost supplies and products that every country in the world imports from China. But we suspect some of the containers are loaded with cheap Chinese-made Fentanyl or the precursor chemicals to make Fentanyl.”

Nancy’s breath caught, her face paling at the mention of the notorious synthetic opiate drug that had been designed to be used in tiny doses as a last resort to help cancer patients experience some relief at the late stages of the disease. Now the drug had a multi-billion-dollar underground market in the United States, thanks to dirt-cheap Fentanyl produced in China making its way across the border from Mexico after being shipped to ports in Colombia and now apparently the little Zeta Nation seaport.

“You . . . you think Diego is going into business with the Carmines?” Nancy asked softly. “Selling them Chinese Fentanyl in bulk so the Carmines can sell it on American street-corners?”

Benson nodded grimly. “It would make sense if Diego knows that within a year Senator Robinson will be President and will end that financing loophole which Northrup and IMG have been using to funnel taxpayer money to the Zeta Nation. He’ll need a new source of income for his nation.” Benson took a heavy breath. “Philadelphia is a port city. And the Carmine Family will have connections with both the dockworkers union and the port-authority customs guys.”

Nancy sat back in her chair, her face tight and drawn. “So that’s why Diego is connecting with someone linked to the Carmine Family. They’re going to make a deal where Diego gets Fentanyl shipped directly by sea from his Zeta Nation port to Philadelphia.”

Benson nodded. “Much easier than transporting it all the way to Mexico, then smuggling it across the land border. Those border crossings are all controlled by the big Cartels, who charge a hefty percentage for access.”

Nancy sighed. “And Diego would rather cut off his left hand than do business with the Cartels that murdered his wife and daughter.” She glanced up above her reading glasses, her expression grave. “John, these drugs are destroying millions of American lives. We can’t let that deal happen. We need to bring in the federal Drug Enforcement Agency. You can’t just let this play out with whatever Jack thinks he’s going to do on his own at that wedding. DEA has the manpower to flush out Diego and his contact at that wedding this weekend.”

“No.” The word popped out almost involuntarily past Benson’s tight lips. He blinked twice, then shook his head and doubled down on whatever instinct told him that he absolutely did need to let this play out with Jack Wagner. “If we call the DEA, they’ll have agents hiding under the damn buffet tables at this wedding. If there really is a deal in the works, it might spook the Carmines into backing off. Diego will disappear again. He might cut a deal with some other mafia family or drug-dealing gang on the east coast, and we might not get wise to that until it’s too late. The whole thing might backfire if we bring in the DEA right now.” Benson’s face darkened when he thought back to Darkwater’s last interaction with the Drug Enforcement Agency. “Hell, they might send us another Maggie Malone. You remember her, don’t you?”

Nancy took a deep breath, let it out slow like a pressure cooker trying not to explode. Maggie Malone had been a crooked DEA agent who’d almost derailed the whole Cate-and-Cody mission—which was the first Darkwater mission after Nancy joined the team. Yeah, she remembered Maggie Malone damn well, Benson thought.

“Yes, I remember, John.” Nancy’s eyes narrowed. “But I also remember that it was Martin Kaiser who brought in Maggie Malone without giving you or Cody a heads-up.” She blinked twice, her gaze softening. “How is Martin, by the way?”

“You tell me,” Benson said gruffly. “I heard you’ve been spending quite a bit of time at the Kaiser homestead with Martin and Alice and the new twins.”

Nancy frowned at his tone. “Wait, are you still upset about me telling Alice not to invite you over that weekend when the twins arrived from Iceland?” She sighed, rubbed the bridge of her nose. “John, it was too soon after I’d left Darkwater. I just couldn’t be around you. I knew you’d try to manipulate me into coming back, and I . . .” She sighed again, shook her head, then shrugged, slumped back in her chair, and smiled up at him. “Oh, wait. Here I am. Back in Darkwater. Shit.”

Benson’s gruffness faded as he listened to Nancy talk herself into circles—all of which led back to Darkwater. Yeah, it had hurt to be left out of the welcome party for the twins—after all, Benson had been the one who convinced Kaiser to adopt those orphaned twins after Fay’s sister died in childbirth. But Benson was also secretly relieved he’d been excluded from the invite list. These sorts of occasions made him uncomfortable. He just about tolerated the Darkwater weddings, had long since given up attending baby showers and baptisms and the zillion other baby-related milestones that seemed to be infinite—just like the fertility of the Darkwater women appeared to have no biological limit. Those couples were producing twins and triplets like it was a game to see if they could change the genetic makeup of the entire human race.

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