Page 33 of Renegade

His eyes flashed fire. “Then the message had to be sent from someone who was on base at the time John was lost out there. No one else would know he’d been lost in a sandstorm,” he said, shaking his head. “Jesus, they named himSandstorm? They snuck out of camp while we were out there desperately searching for him! Why the hell would they do that? I feel so stupid because I trusted those men to keep us safe. We all did. They were the ones providing the intelligence we needed out in the field every time we were risking our lives.”

Fury was pouring off my dear, sweet man in waves. He was right. Those CIA fuckers at the military base went out to the place where Sutter was last seen and picked him up…possibly the same day he got lost in the storm. Something occurred to me as I glanced at Miguel. “Did you know all the operatives on your base? Could the man in the stairwell have been one of them?”

Miguel thought about the question. “I thought I knew all of them, but he might have been there. It was a massive base of operations. We had several military branches including Navy intelligence as well as the CIA on base providing intel for our ops.”

I gestured to the message, trying to do whatever I could to keep Miguel’s head from blowing off. He was vibrating with anger. “Where do you think this outpost is…er…was?”

Judy’s frown returned as she swiveled back to her screen. “It’s hard to say. I looked for something near the base, but I couldn’t find a coordinate that responded to anything close. It must be somewhere else.”

“Yeah, it would be,” Miguel said. “They would have had to get John out of the area since they knew we were searching. We metaphorically turned over every blade of grass and never found him. Whoever these guys are, they’re good.”

“Well, if as we suspect, they had some sort of operation where they were stealing money, jewels or both, they would keep their base of operations secret, right?” I asked. “I’d bet they were a rogue CIA operation just like the one behind the killings of the CIA officers inThree Days of the Condor.”

Miguel smiled, reaching out to pat my cheek as if I was just too cute. “Except this is real life, Sunshine, not an old movie.” I blushed as he dropped his hand to Judy’s shoulder, looking down at her. “I’m sorry I jumped down your throat.” He smirked at her, and I blew out a relieved breath. “Raven told me you were good, but I had no idea you werethisgood.” He waved in the general direction of her computer.

She smiled, looking a little guilty.

“I’ll shut it down and do a wipe of my system.” She thought for a second. “I suppose I should go back into Langley to erase any traces of me being there too.”

“Definitely, but they’re going to detect a second intrusion, aren’t they?” Miguel asked.

She nodded. “Yes, but I disguised the hack, so that it would look like the Russians were in there.”

Miguel burst out laughing. “You’re a fucking genius, Judy. Just leave it then. I can see it now. Some poor bastard at the CIA is trying to figure out what the Russians got and when they realize it’s a bunch of coordinates for old, closed bases, they’re going to wonder what the fuck is going on.”

She chuckled and turned back to her desktop to begin wiping her system.

I pointed to the phone Miguel still held in his hand. “You’d better call Mark Evans.”

“Yeah…I’ll do it on the way home, though. I’m beat.” Miguel turned to Judy. “Don’t start World War Three today, okay?”

“I could do that, but you’re the boss…smartass.” Judy grumbled under her breath, wearing just a hint of a smile as she frowned at him. It was totally adorable, and I couldn’t help but laugh just a little as we headed out of the office.

MIGUEL

I slid into Raven’s passenger seat as he started the engine and pulled out onto the street. I still held my phone, so I hit the contact number for Mark. It was picked up after two rings.

“Hello?”

Mark’s voice was that of an older man which was what I suspected. “Hi there. Is this Mark Evans?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

I cleared my throat, glancing over at Raven whose gaze remained fixed on the road as he headed home. “My name is Miguel Huerta. I’m a—a friend of Jarrett’s.”

“Oh, yes. Jarrett told me you’d be calling.”

I was slightly surprised that Mark didn’t have the same thick West Virginia drawl that Jarrett had, and I wondered if it was because he’d spent a lot of time away from home in D.C. or Langley where he was probably stationed. Then again, most operatives spent a hell of a lot of time overseas and if this man had started his career early in life, who knew?

“Well, good then. I suppose he told you why I wanted to talk to you?”

“He told me only what he could over the phone, so I think it best we meet in person, Mr. Huerta.”

I blew out a relieved breath. At least he knew my questions probably had something to do with covert operations and those questions could never be answered over the phone. The NSA had sneaky ways of knowing who talked about what, even if they weren’t closely monitoring everyone. I knew they employed specialized algorithms which picked up words like bomb, target, and other dead giveaways to terrorist activities. Of course, even the NSA had to obtain a FISA warrant in order to listen in on a civilian suspect who was suspected of spying for a foreign government. But that didn’t mean I trusted the phone lines any more than the former spy I was talking to.

“That would be great.Uh…where are you? I mean, where should we meet?”

“Well, I don’t have an office anymore since I’m retired but my home is near Jarrett and Thayne’s in Sherman Oaks. When would you like to come by? I understand there’s some urgency in the matter you’d like to discuss?”

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