Page 7 of Centurion

“I’ll show you.” He called up several pictures they’d gotten from the takedown in France. He blew up the picture and used an arrow to point to the mole on the guy’s neck. Then he did the same with a picture from tonight’s clusterfuck. “There. I recognized this. It’s him.”

“You recognized him from a mole in a picture pulled offline a week ago?” Fury sounded stunned.

“Contrary to certain people’s assertions, I’m fucking brilliant. My Mensa membership would corroborate that statement if you cared to look.”

“Nah, I’d rather judge you from what I know about you. You’re an asshole.” The man’s sinister laugh floated across the connection.

“Right back at you.” Con would have come up with a more scathing response if he wasn’t still trying to figure out where Abrasha would be landing. “Okay, if we follow his current strategy of landing at unregistered airstrips, we have a total of thirty-seven possibilities if the satellite images are still correct. The others are too short.”

“How can they be unregistered?” Ronnie asked from the kitchen, but her comm device was active.

“If they’re operated less than twenty-eight days a year, they aren’t subject to Civil Aviation Authority. They’re called farm strips in England,” Con said as he continued to remove airstrips because of location and proximity to cities.

Ethan came online. “I have one long-distance video of all the members thought to be with Abrasha.”

“How?” Joseph asked before Con did. Con mouthedassholeand continued to work as he listened.

“I went into the surveillance systems for the airfield and scanned each day’s activities. The plane landed four days ago. When they were exiting the aircraft, they weren’t masked. The footage is grainy, but if I feed this information into the AI program …”

“The proprietary AI we’ve developed will have the information to fill in the rest of the face.” Con laughed. “Has anyone ever told you you’re one smart cookie?”

“Yeah, well, to quote a coworker of mine, contrary to certain people’s assertations, I’m fucking brilliant.” Ethan tried to sound like him and did a pretty damn good impression. Con laughed and kept narrowing down the possibilities of the landing strip.

“Fury, I’ve got this down to about seven possibilities. I used the ease of access to major metropolitan areas, outside theflight path of both B and C class aircraft, and long enough to accommodate his type of jet.”

“Send them. I’ll get with Alpha and see who we have in the country.” Fury audibly yawned over the connection, which started a domino effect.

Both he and Ethan yawned. “Stop that shit, Fury, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“What the fuck ever.” Joseph muted himself. Thank God.

Ronnie came back with two plates. A huge sandwich on one and a smaller version of the same thing on the other. She put the plates down and headed back to the kitchen area. Did he watch that fine form with gorgeous legs walk all the way across the room?Yes, yes, he did. He shook his head and returned to his computer.

She returned with two frosted glasses filled with beer. He sighed and rolled his shoulders. “Ethan, I’m grabbing a bite to eat.”

“Go for it. I’ve got this,” the other man said in a distracted tone.

He muted his comm device and sighed. “Thank you. I was going to eat after I put in my time at the gala tonight.”

“Is that why there’s food in the kitchen?”

He snorted. “No, that’s my mother’s doing. She swears I don’t take care of myself. When I’m home, I’m a health food junkie. When I travel for business, eating is hit-and-miss. So is sleep, for that matter.” He took a bite of the sandwich and groaned. “This is so good.”

She smiled at him. “It’s literally bread and meat.”

“So good,” he said again with his mouth full. She laughed and took a delicate bite of her sandwich. Con swallowed his food and reached for his beer. “So, tell me why you don’t date.”

“Tell me why you were at the gala first.” She took another bite.

Con wagged his head from side to side. “Ultimately, it’s because of the Joseph thing. He’s an asshole.”

“I believe he feels the same way about you, but how is Joseph responsible for you attending one of the most sought-after invitations of the year?”

“Well, see, there was this time I put a child’s song on his cell phone. It got progressively louder, and he couldn’t stop it.”

“Why did you do that?” She took a sip of her beer.

“Because he impugned my abilities.” Con shrugged. “I didn’t like that.”

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