Page 13 of Angels of the Night

CHAPTER 10

Saint started his morning routine by going through the emails that had arrived overnight, one of them drawing his attention instantly. It was from one of his former collaborators from the child trafficking investigation team, who, just like him and Wendell, another member of the squad, made The Base their home.

The content of the message made Saint gasp in shock, and he stared at the computer's screen for a few minutes, his brain unable to process them, or rather rejecting everything like a bad joke. However, Doc Magnus was not the prankster type, so the message was right. Ardan MacNamara was in the hospital after collapsing in his father's office the day before.

It couldn't be, Saint thought, shaking his head. He witnessed the man's energy firsthand, the words exhaustion and Ardan didn't belong in the same dictionary, not in his opinion, anyway. For over a year, the man was everywhere, from his office at The Base to the luxurious room from where he coordinated the casino business, never showing signs of tiredness or physical weakness.

Doc Magnus's email was also talking about a certain restlessness among the crew at The Base, the men seemingly divided into two factions. One of them was grouped around Brennan, Ardan's younger brother and his semi-official second-in-command. The other faction was supporting one Zachary Jacobs, the guy who saved Caleb, the youngest of MacNamara brothers, from a potentially life-threatening situation and nursed him back to health.

At that point, Saint stopped reading, and, running a hand over his face, inhaled sharply. It had been over a month since he left The Base, and he hadn’t messaged the young man to ask him how he was doing. Not. A. Single. Time. Saint was ashamed of his behaviour that proved he was a lot less mature than Caleb.

While he’d been in London, alone in the hotel room or in the MI5's basement, with no company than the pile of files he was studying, the man had figured out his feelings for the young blond with stunning turquoise eyes. No matter how hard he tried to deny it, to tell himself it was impossible, Saint had to admit the evidence: he had deep feelings for Caleb. In reality, it was just an euphemism for utterly in love because that was the nature of those feelings.

The sensation wasn't new to the man, he’d experienced it before with Zev, the shy, introverted CIA agent, with his light-green eyes almost always clouded with pain and sorrow. With no friends at all, the guy resisted the ever-growing attraction between the two of them, much to Saint's frustration.

Anyway, when he finally understood the cause of Zev's hesitation, he took it upon himself to make the younger man forget the traumas of his past, by taking care of his damaged body and shattered soul. And then, just when Saint had thought the course of their lives was set on the path to happiness, his lover had blamed him for horrible things he wasn't guilty of before disappearing from his life forever.

Taking a more in-depth look at the events that marked his life in such a dramatic, irreversible way, Saint had to admit he was almost entirely guilty of the situation. Instead of insisting to find out what lead to Zev's young partner's death, he kept repeating the same litany, and finally dismissed his lover with a couple of cold words spoken on a cold voice.

Replaying that scene in his head, Saint could almost hear himself, sounding like a father who sent his child in the corner for throwing a tantrum. No wonder Zev didn't want to see him after that scene, he would have done the same. For the first time in years, Saint wondered what happened with his shy, hurt, quiet and beautiful lover.

For a strange reason, every time Zev's image appeared before his eyes, it was accompanied by Caleb's, and the man couldn't understand the meaning of that message. Taking another sharp inhale, Saint decided to revise the notes he’d taken since he began studying those top secret, classified files in the MI5 basement.

The more the man read, the more similarities he discovered between the case he was currently investigating and the one that destroyed his life almost seven years earlier. Just like then, one or more individuals broke into a lab part of a super-secret government program, breaking all the security barriers.

Another common point was represented by the existence of an inside man, an insider who was eliminated at the end, the best way to reduce them to silence. The first time, Saint saw the killing of the lab technician as an amateur mistake of the perpetrators or as their reaction to the man's unexpected presence there, but the coincidence was too big.

Back then, the substance they tried to steal could modify male anatomy, allowing the subject to carry and give birth, same way as a woman and was administered via an injection. The one that disappeared a few months earlier was a gas designed to solve fertility issues in both men and women. However, when mixed with other, equally unstable substances, the compound caused infertility in women and became highly contagious.

As Saint went back and forth to his notes on the two cases, a name kept popping, making him frown, because it was vaguely familiar: Phillip Winters. After spending a few minutes thinking intensely, the man remembered another name he frequently heard during his stay atThe Base, that of Conroy Winters, a twisted-minded bastard who conducted crazy experiments on teen boys, forcefully impregnating them.

Phillip was also the name of the young medical researcher who collaborated with Zev and his young partner about the case from seven years earlier. Back then, however, he was known under the surname of Chestwick, most likely his mother's maiden name. He could also be an illegitimate child who only took his father's name after the man died, five years earlier, almost two years after the events that lead to the death of the young CIA agent.

However, Zev said Phillip was also severely beaten by those who captured the three of them, which didn't make any sense if he was one of the bad guys. Unless...Saint remembered a case with a double agent who voluntarily subjected himself to torture and mutilation to make his cover more credible, and Phillip could very well belong to that category.

With those thoughts in mind, Saint decided to run a check on the guy, and what he found out gave him chills down his spine. That man was guilty of more crimes than the whole population of Rikers, which made the MI5 agent wonder how it was possible for his superiors and the senior CIA agents to not see the connection back then.

One man saw it, but he was ignored, Saint finally realized. His current superior, the elegant, educated Earl Dunvale, was only a liaison officer back then, and his word didn't weigh very much. He must have warned the more experienced, higher-ranked agents, but most likely, he was ignored. The current case represented the perfect opportunity to make light of that dark matter, and the man grabbed it with both hands.

Slumping into the chair, Saint took his head in both hands, letting out a long, heavy sigh. The Base. The place the man hoped never to go back to was where he could find out the answers to all the questions, fill the gaps and solve the cases. That lunatic and his band of crazy followers had to be stopped at all cost, even if it meant coming face-to-face with Caleb and admitting his feelings for the young man.

****

“Good morning, Boss. Lothier told me you wanted to see me. What do you want me to do?” Zachary's attitude was of utter respect, the tone of his voice polite as he talked to Brennan.

“Take a seat, please. I would like you to call me by my name from now on. I'm only the second-in-command here, my older brother is the one in charge.”

“Thanks, but I prefer to keep things straight. Besides, you made it clear from the start who is in charge, at least until Ardan resumes his duties. I don't want to be accused of disrespecting you. My reputation is not very good as it is.” Zachary sat on the chair Brennan indicated, the look on his face neutral.

“Saint just called me. He’s about to embark on the flight back home. He will get here this evening.” The younger man examined the other one's face, wanting to see how the news affected him but couldn't see the slightest change.

“It must be such a relief to you! Finally, I, the thorn in your side, will be gone as agreed. Now, if don't have anything else to tell me...” Zachary left his seat, heading to the door.

“I was wrong about you, and I want you to accept my humble apologies.” Brennan's voice stopped Zachary in his track, and he turned to face Ardan's brother.

“No need to apologize, you didn't do anything wrong. Expressing your opinion on something or someone is not a crime, at least, it wasn't last time I checked. There are a lot of things to be done around here, and I want to use the last hours of my stay here helping Lothier and the others as much as possible.”

“Damn me and my big mouth. I should have known better than to repeat what I did to Ardan! I'm sorry for misjudging you. I should have asked around first and attacked you only if all the information pointed in the same direction. Also, I should have listened to your side of the story, too, which, to my great shame, I didn't. The bottom line is I talked to someone whose opinion I value very much, and my perception of you is completely changed. I want you to stay now. Please.”

---