Page 46 of Escape into the Night

Connor squeezed Mack’s nape harder as Luke whispered the name, last known location, and all the aliases they'd unearthed. The tension was so thick in the air, it became suffocating. Like trying to breathe hot soup. The hair stood on end along Connor’s arms, and the goosebumps visible on Bella’s offered only a small confirmation that she was feeling the same. The minutes stretched to the point of breaking, time melting and morphing like something out of a Dali painting. When Luke hissed a cuss, Connor’s blood became ice.

“No, T. Run it again. Check something—”

The faint murmuring of Taz on the other end of the line was indecipherable to Connor's ear, but the slow draining of color from Luke’s face was all the confirmation they needed. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

Luke didn't say a word as his hand lowered and he disconnected the call. The phone buzzed in his hand, but he didn't look at the screen. Instead, he slowly closed his eyes and let his head fall backward, the last vestiges of sunlight casting a wash of gold over his pallid features. Mack moved quick as lightning, and just as dangerously, snatching the device from Luke’s limp fingers. The now empty hand fell to his side as he choked out a whispered apology.

“No. No.” Mack’s head shook vehemently from side to side as his massive mitt began to quake. Connor knew that defiance. That staunch denial that marked the first step on the painful path of grieving a loss too large to comprehend. Despite his reservations, he leaned forward to read whatever it was on the screen that had reduced their surrogate drill sergeant to a quivering mass of muscle. A pit opened in his stomach and the free fall of realization left him nauseated as he scanned the news article. Their source, the defected General who’d been labeledAWOL for months, had been found. Found dead by apparent suicide twenty-four hours earlier.

“Fuck… Mack, I'm so sorry—”

“No!” Mack shoved the phone at Luke’s chest and took a step back, his head still shaking as if trapped in autopilot. As if he could change the facts through sheer force of will. The soft whimpers of the dogs at their feet sent a chill racing through Connor’s nerves as his hand fell away from Mack’s neck to land atop Gary’s furry little head.

“It's bullshit.” Bella broke the prickly quiet with a sharp bark.

“It is.” Luke swallowed, his words thick with emotion. “It’s bullshit.”

A throat cleared nearby, snapping Connor out of his stupor as his pulse pounded in his ears. James crept forward, wary eyes narrowed as his gaze bounced between the four of them. Mistrust had Connor on edge, but the raw pain in the younger man’s expression gave him pause.

“What?” He didn't intend to sound so gruff, but he was two seconds away from spiraling into a rage at the injustice of it all to worry about softening his voice.

“Call it an assumption or a hunch,” James croaked, his voice rough with disuse and distrust. “Intentional OD. Typed note. Doors locked. No signs of breaking and entering. No foul play.”

Luke turned his phone over and unlocked the screen. Connor leaned into his space and they both read the eerie similarities between James’ words and the press release on the screen. The pit in his stomach became a black hole that threatened to swallow everything in proximity to it.

“You gotta be shittin’ me.”

“I want in. Whatever this is, I want in. For my guys, and your guy.” James tipped his head toward Mack, but the man wasn't seeing anything at all, the thousand yard stare of devastation leaving him to stand there like an empty shell of a man.

Whatever this is. Connor’s jaw clenched. He would never confirm it out loud, not where they could be overheard, but he knew deep down exactly what it was. This was the CIA cleaning house. This was an enemy larger than anything they’d ever faced before, and that enemy was systematically tying up loose ends. The most chilling realization of all was that they, too, were a bunch of very loose ends. He startled as the dusk grew dark enough to trigger the artificial lighting to flip on. But even with the artful illumination of the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial gleaming in the distance, he felt swallowed by the shadows. With a brusque exhalation, Connor swept a palm over his mouth and lifted his eyes heavenward. Not a single star could be seen through the light pollution around them, and that was somehow even more unsettling.

“Reckon we better rally the troops.” Connor expelled a ragged sigh as he dropped his gaze back toward the haunted faces around him. “No one left behind, eh?”

Murmurs of assent, quiet and fearful, floated between them all. Despite the fact that they weren't alone, he felt very, very small. Small and lost and alone.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Taz

Hunchedoverhiscomputerin the lab, Taz basked in the blue glow as his nervous energy peaked. His head was pounding, but he couldn't stop now. The moment he’d discovered the news about the mystery General’s alleged suicide, something inside of him had snapped. Snapped and shattered and splintered into a million pieces. He wasn't even sure why this particular thing was the final straw, not when he thought about every single other more personal attack he and his friends had suffered, but he wasn't about to try and examine the why. The why didn't matter. The why was irrelevant. He had a job to do, and like he had promised Bella, he held the unlit match in his hand with every intention of burning down the haystack to find the needle hiding inside.

The mole was still out there, feeding their enemies everything they needed to keep the corruption spreading like a goddamn disease. Driven by a manic need to do something, anything, to make it stop, Taz developed a plan. It was a half-baked plan at best. Luke was liable to kick his ass to the curb once he figured it out, but that was a problem for future Taz. Another problemto add to a laundry list of problems. Hell, for all he knew, it would solve his most major problem—the fact that he was a disappointment and that Luke and all their friends would be better off without him.

Determined, Taz’ fingertips flew over the keyboard as he crafted the perfect bait. A single message, disguised as routine chatter, sat ready to deploy into an unsecured internal FBI channel. With a nod to no one but himself, he hovered for a brief moment before slapping the enter key with more force than necessary.

“Intercepted intel. Hidden archive related to The Wolf. Full database of names flagged for retrieval. Priority Level: High.”

Now for the icing on the cake. Taz dropped a location pin with a timestamp for pick up. The coordinates were carefully selected by him as the perfect place for his trap—a deserted underground parking garage on the outskirts of DC. It was ideal. Remote. Isolated. Surrounded by a surveillance dead zone. It had taken him hours to find this perfect location. Hours of scrolling through street cams and nearby businesses to ensure that no one would see a damn thing. If the mole took the bait, he’d be flying blind with no backup. Taz didn't think too long or hard about the fact that he would also be flying blind. Details like that didn't matter. He didn't matter. Not in the grand scheme of things. He read over his message again to avoid thinking about the implications. It was just vague enough to raise alarms and just urgent enough to force a move. Now, all he had to do was get there in time. He shot Luke a quick text with his bullshit cover story. Dinner w/ Lily. Back late. Don't wait up. Love you, Luke. More than you’ll ever know. He was quick to turn the phone off. He went a step further and pulled the battery out before locking it in his desk drawer. It's better this way, he told himself. He could lie to himself no problem. Lying to Luke sat like a stone inhis chest. With another shaky exhale, he grabbed his backpack and snuck out of the headquarters before anyone was wiser.

The parking garage was worse than Taz’ overactive imagination had envisioned. The fact that it was even standing was a marvel of physics. The husk of concrete and dank shadows made the November night feel even chillier. Despite the cold, the stale scents of oil, musty dirt, and old gasoline clung to the air and clawed at his sinuses. Faint, flickering light seeped through the cracks and fissures of the walls to paint eerie patches of sickly yellow light onto the cracked pavement beneath his ratty Converse. Taz kept himself huddled in the deep pocket of darkness alongside a pillar marked with stupid graffiti that would have made him laugh if he were in the mood for humor. Dan sux mad ballz. Good for you, Dan. Good for you.

He flexed his hands as his heart beat like a hammer against his ribcage. He wasn't a fighter. He never had been. But he wasn't walking away without answers. It took a lot of effort to resist the urge to check the tiny camera clipped inside his jacket. Liam and Leon would discover it missing eventually. Same with the hidden mic inside the front pocket of his backpack. He just hoped that, in the event of the worst case scenario, Theo would be able to help the buffoons decipher the password he’d left on an index card where the stolen items had once resided. Gotta love the Cloud. At least if he died or disappeared, the evidence would remain. If he achieved anything with his life, let it be this. He was lost to his maudlin musings when the first footfalls snapped him to attention.

Slow, deliberate footsteps crept closer and closer as Taz held his breath and huddled closer to the column of cement. He nearly squeaked in fear as a figure emerged from the gloom because of how tightly wound his nerves were. He definitelyscoffed out loud when the figure became identifiable in the darkness.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Todd?!” Taz stepped out of the shadows with a wild gesticulation of his hands. “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

Todd Jerring, the utterly inept whiny weasel of a man, stopped short in a puddle of light. Todd, the fuckface dipshit who nearly bungled the entire operation to take out the warehouse where the bio weapon lab had been housed. Todd, who could barely string together a functional piece of code, even if his life depended on it. Todd fucking Jerring, who’d plagued Taz with a dozen “anonymous” HR complaints ever since Taz had told him to sit down and shut the fuck up while he did all the work to keep their field agent’s safe that ill-fated day.

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