Page 73 of Renegade

“Oh, God, yeah,” he said, pulling out his phone as he started to get up. He looked around. “Um…where?”

“Why don’t you make your call from here?” Damon suggested, not so subtly.

“Oh, yeah, of course.” He sank back into his chair. “I wouldn’t tip them off or anything. I just want you to know that.”

I shot Thorne a look. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“I’d prefer it too, just until this is all resolved,” Mark added.

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” John dialed the number and then put the phone on speaker. Someone picked up on the second ring and the minute I heard the voice, chills went down my spine. Icould’ve sworn it was the man from the stairwell as he began to speak.

“Where are you? Why haven’t you checked in?”

Raven squeezed my thigh, and I looked over at him, holding my finger over my lips as everyone remained silent. He nodded, eyes wide, obviously recognizing the voice as well.

“You told me to check in early only if they did something,” John said.

“And?”

“Well, they were at the office all day and then they headed to a house and came out an hour later with a suitcase. I’m calling from a filling station in Ojai. I think they’re going out of town on some weekend getaway or something. Do you want me to follow them?”

“Of course, I want you to follow them, you idiot. Make note of any stops they make in case they’ve got a lead on the ruby and when they head back to L.A. I want to hear about it right away. We should put a stop to all this shit. Rosina is tired of waiting. She has a buyer for the ruby and the other gems and they’re not going to wait.”

“Right,” John said, looking at me. “Well then, I gotta go. They’re coming out of the convenience store.”

“Check in again at 0800.”

“Okay.” He hung up and breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s done.”

“Good,” Mark said, glancing at me. “Now, you should call your friend Vonne and have him come here so we can brief him before he and John go and pick up Daniel and his mother.”

I nodded, checking with John. “Do you want Raven and I to come with you?”

He thought about it for a minute. “No, I want to be able to talk to Vonne alone. He’s my brother and it’s not going to be a fun conversation. We might say some things to each other and…I don’t know.”

I shook my head. “You’re underestimating him, John. You know he has more heart than all of us put together. We’ll all hang around and help you explain things once he gets here, but you may have a point. I think if we’re all here, he’s gonna be intimidated to ask questions he needs answers to.”

John nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay, just call him then. Tell him I’m here, though. I don’t want him to be surprised.”

“I will.” I pulled out my phone and looked over at Raven. “I’m gonna take this in the other room, Sunshine.”

Raven grabbed my arm. “What if they’re monitoring your phone and they hear that John is here?”

I looked over at John who was shaking his head. “They’re not. They act like they’re sophisticated, but they’ve pissed off a lot of people in Langley.” He glanced at Mark. “You can confirm that, sir.”

“We know that, John,” Mark said. He glanced at Damon. “Thorne and I did a quick search when we were in the SAC’s office. They’re all on a watchlist and their own communications are being monitored by Langley.”

“You’re shitting me?” I said, hurriedly clearing my throat. “Sorry, sir. I meant to say, you’re kidding, right?”

Damon and Mark shook their heads. “After I called to plug that hole in the CIA’s computer systems, my friends began investigating all the operatives who rotated in and out of thatbase,” Mark said. “Even if Sutter hadn’t turned up here today, we would have suspected those three because they’re being targeted by several different countries where they’ve spent time over the last decade. In each country, rare stolen gems have traded hands in private auctions where one of their aliases were on guest lists.”

“Rosina Cassanova is quite the globetrotter, and Bishop is usually on her arm, always under an assumed name,” Damon added. “It wasn’t hard then to extrapolate Mendez’ aliases from the same flight manifests that Cassanova and Bishop have been traveling under. Correct me if I’m wrong, but he is probably the muscle of the outfit, right?” When John nodded, he went on. “It makes me wonder how arrogant they’ve been all this time, not to have even considered that legitimate operatives often infiltrate auctions where looted and stolen items trade hands.”

“Jesus Christ,” I said, looking at Mark with new respect. “You guys are something else.”

“I probably should’ve never retired.” He smiled widely, looking at Jarrett and Thayne. “But then I met Thayne’s mom, Dot, fell in love, and decided that I needed to get out of that business.”

“But you obviously still keep in contact with the right people,” Raven said, respect in his tone.

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