Page 127 of Dash

“They’re just numbers,” Shaw replied off-handedly.

He hadn’t made the connection. Holy shit. I’d gotten away with it. I took in a breath. Key question: Had Mina and the others gotten my message?

“Five seconds,” Shaw warned.

“This is control,” Mina’s voice crackled over the radio. “Authentication verified.”

“Bravo Zulu,” I replied—well done. “Execute. Execute. Execute. It’s been an honor. Omega out.”

Shaw switched on the jammer at his belt.

“You didn’t have to be so dramatic,” Arthur complained.

“He’s got a knight complex.” Shaw snorted. “He thinks he’s some kind of alpha hero.”

“Heroes are no longer in fashion.” Arthur shrugged. “People only care about money and TikTok. In twenty minutes, the house will be ours. Then perhaps you can turn off that annoying little red light.”

Shaw smirked. “Am I making you nervous, old man?”

Arthur fingered his ring. “Am I makingyounervous, hot shot?”

Fuck the fuckers. They were makingmenervous. Thena was still in this room and the lives of my crew were on the line. If there was another traitor among us, this was when they would strike. I had to trust the team would be on alert for this possibility. I tracked the sounds in the house. Hollers from Bozeman ordering people to hurry drifted into the dining room and so did the clatter of feet on floorboards.

Shaw dropped a tablet on the table and turned it on. A blueprint of the first floor and the garden came on the screen. Four green dots marked his treacherous handywork. The dots flanked the front doors and the pathway to the gates. The good news? Given our advance security setup, he’d only been able to place a few rogue motion detectors and no cameras. The bad news? The rogue motion detectors were in place and active and, as part of the team, he could see whether the automated defense system was green or red.

The stakes kept going up.

Arthur looked to Shaw. “You’ve got the papers?”

Keeping me in his radar, he pulled out a small sheaf of folded docs from the leg pocket of his cargo pants, unfolded them, and tossed them on the table. I stepped forward and skimmed over the opening paragraphs.

“My will.” I’d been right. “Where I leave the Astor fortune to you. It belongs to Thena and her sisters. Fat chance I’m gonna sign it over to you.”

Arthur flashed a deadly smile. “Spoken as if you had a choice.”

I made a serious attempt at keeping this conversation going to offer us the best chance of success. “But shouldn’t these papers be drawn to benefit Coco Martinez?”

He actually looked surprised. “You figured it out?”

“We were almost there when your cash stash provided confirmation.”

Arthur squirmed in his chair. He looked worried. I’d scored a hit.

An eager Shaw stepped up waving his irritating Beretta. “He knows too much.”

I lifted my shoulders and let them fall. “You mean about the New World Order?”

Arthur banged his fist on the table. “How the fuck do you know about that?”

“I get around.”

Despite the electrical shocks, I’d been making all kinds of connections throughout this exchange. It wasn’t hard when the pieces of the puzzle fit. Arthur had given me all the information I needed to put it together.

The mention of his associates was a dead giveaway. If Arthur could get IEDs from al-Qaeda and drones from Iran, he could also procure the poison that he used to murder his brother and biologically engineered weapons like the one that had almost killed Thena. Arthur had also spent his life traveling abroad to the very countries Druid’s analysis associated with Coco Martinez, the cartels, and his illegal businesses.

In addition, Arthur had secured plenty of access to his brother and his niece. Posing as a simpering fool, waiting forhis brother in his office, he’d probably gotten access to Richard’s personal bank accounts. As a backup plan, he’d set up his own brother as the fall guy.

He was a fucking jewel.

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