Page 3 of Play the Game

“ID, based on known players?” TJ asked.

I hadn’t worried about identifying the guy. That usually fell to the tactical crew in the field, or to Alder running face recognition software.

“Charlie Franklin,” Li answered. “Local thug, as expected.”

While she spoke, I slid my phone out of my pocket and checked the evidence. I turned off the white noise interference I’d been running on my comms channel and spoke. “Hey, can you hear me? That guy I ran into must have been using a jamming frequency, but I managed to clone his phone.”

Instead of answering, Li sprinted down the street in my direction, and Tam drove the Expedition alongside her.

“He’s not hit,” Li said, continuing a conversation that I must have actually missed.

I moved toward them and heard Penn groan. “Not tranqed. Fuckers had billy clubs.”

Li and Sparks helped him into the back of the SUV. I tried to help, but Penn threw up his arm to stop me, then howled in pain.

“Whatever you got better be fucking worth it,” he told me through clenched teeth, “because your little stunt got my ribs broken.”

CHAPTER 2

Tamela

Bond warnedus all away from the second-floor medical bay, where she was setting up Penn for a long convalescence. He had three broken ribs, two on his left side and one on his right, which meant it would be weeks before he’d be able to sleep in a comfortable position, let alone join us in the field.

My first concern was for him as my friend. My second concern was for the operations we had to complete while he was off-limits to us. TJ would have to bring in someone from a different HEAT team to cover as the logistics lead. I dreaded the idea of reporting to someone I barely knew and had never worked with, especially since my long-honed agent senses were telling me something big was underway right under our noses. And while things always could and often did go off the rails when we were in the field, Penn’s injury, subsequent absence from the team, and all its fallout for me could be laid squarely at Jason’s feet. BFF or not, I was fed up with our resident cowboy.

I managed to keep my pique under control while I sat a floor below my fallen teammate, in the glass-walled, unclassified conference room in our Chicago HEAT headquarters and typed up my debrief. It was a requirement of all field agents at the end of an operation, one of the more boring parts of the job. I stuck to the bare-bones facts, skipped the part about my private communique with Jason, and avoided speculation about his loss of the comms signal. Part of me worried he’d get us into even worse trouble one day, while another part of me thought he might be a damn superhero, the way his unsanctioned behavior always seemed to end in a win for HEAT.

Across the gym that made up the majority of the first floor in all HEAT buildings, the room that served as IT hub, Jason’s domain, took up half the space along that side. The upper half of the room was all windows, making it easy to catch glimpses of him throughout our work days. Jason sat at a desk and TJ stood beside him, watching over his shoulder. Alder sat at the next desk, focusing on her own computer. From Jason’s excited explanation on the drive back to HQ, I knew he’d managed to clone the phone of the target, whom we’d quickly identified as local thug Charlie Franklin, had been using to communicate with the Carbonados. Jason had recognized their unique encryption signature.

While Bond, who had joined us in the Expedition when we’d waited at a stop light, had overseen Penn in the back seat, Jason had sat in the passenger seat and explained it to us. The way he’d constantly glanced back at Penn, I’d thought it was probably to let our teammate know he hadn’t taken a beating for nothing. Now Jason and Alder were already running software on the dummy phone and would probably have the target’s data unencrypted in a few days, and they hoped to map the decryption and set up a master key that could be used to decode future Carbonados messages.

In short, Jason had gone way outside the lines and succeeded again. Meanwhile, I was nearly collapsing from the weight of the small lie of omission about being in touch with him while he’d been incommunicado with the rest of the team.

“Hey,” Kessler said as she stepped into the conference room. Li followed her. “Looks like the golden boy has skated out of trouble again. Are you okay?”

“Me?” I hit save on my computer to upload my debrief file, then leaned back in my chair. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Li slumped into the seat beside me. “Might as well not bother to lie. Cynthia’s been watching you.”

That translated to reading me, via body language, to decipher my emotions and the subtext under them.

I glared at Kessler. “Please stop.” The last thing I needed was her being all up in my Jason-lust business.

Kessler held up her hands. “Fine. Just remember, we’re here to talk if you need us.”

“And to drink,” Li said. “Chase is flying in tonight, but I have an hour to kill before I pick him up.” Chase Wilder was Li’s significant other and the brother of a former HEAT agent.

“And I also have some time to kill before my phone date with Derek,” Kessler said, referring to that former HEAT agent.

Yes, our tactical crew partners were dating brothers, and both their relationships had become official since the Alpha Team had been formed last December to deal with the Carbonados. Our team doctor had also found her significant other since then with a Chicago cop, which was why she wasn’t sad our current operation had us stuck in the city. Since Penn had been married for years and Alder was in a long-term polyamorous relationship, that left TJ, Jason, and me as the last singles standing. And Jason was new to our ranks, only joining six months ago when he’d signed his divorce papers, although, in fairness, his marriage had been over in every way except legally for the year preceding that.

“All right, one shot,” I said. “Then I need to shower and change because said golden boy owes me a drink.” After his stunt today, he owed me a whole slew of them, but good best friends don’t keep score, so I would let it slide.

Kessler arched an eyebrow. “That’s a great idea. You should put on some lipstick and your favorite dress, and after Jensen buys you that drink, make him be your wingman.”

“Never works,” Li said. “You can’t walk into a bar with a hot, straight guy and expect other hot, straight guys to move in on you.”

“Maybe not.” Kessler frowned. “But Sparks, lately you’ve seemed...” She shrugged. “You need to do something.”

---