Page 16 of S.O.S. Mizzay

The feeling was mutual, but just because the man was a prick, didn’t mean he was their traitor, unless… “You have intel on him you want to share?”

Baskins grunted. “No. Just a feeling.”

Right.

Missy certainly understood that.

CHAPTER SIX

Nine and a half years ago; Minnesota…

“I’m compromised. How the fuck did they find me this time?” Cobble growled, using his burner phone from a location thatwasn’tinside his now breached house. He’d tried calling Andy, as he was supposed to, but she hadn’t answered. Being spooked, he’d taken the chance and called Chuck. Cobble’s cousin had finally been designated as Andy’s back-up in an emergency. Which this definitely was.

“Hey, Auntie. It’s nice to hear from you.”

Oh, Chuck.

That cryptic greeting didn’t bode well. It meant his cousin wasn’t certain he was clear of the leak, even now. Cobble waited to see how Chuck wanted him to proceed after being abruptly displaced.

Yeah.Displacedagain.

Cobble had come home from work on the bus, as usual, but before walking into his house, via the back door, he’d noticed that the small strings he always kept draped over the top of it were missing. Which meant that either someone was inside, or they had been.

He’d silently eased back into the tree line where a thicket of arborvitae and a fence made for good cover, and crouched down.

Another bummer? He had to pee like the devil, but he’d willed the urge away while he waited and watched.

It hadn’t taken long for Cobble to determine that a shadow was being cast on a wall opposite his kitchen window.

Son of a bitch!

Knowing that he had to move again, pissed him off. Because Chuck and Andy still hadn’t pinned down who, of their colleagues in the DOJ, the FBI, and the CIA were the loose cannons. Even before Director Baskins—whom Cobble hadn’t yet met—had agreed that Andy could let Chuck know where Cobble was, Cobble’s location had continued to be infiltrated. The opposition was relentless.

While waiting for Chuck to speak, Cobble snuck down the fence-line, back toward the street, keeping to the camouflaged edges of the yard while pondering his next move.

He was getting damned tired of it all. Nearly five years, and it seemed that Andy and Chuck were no closer to finding out who, on foreign and/or domestic soil, were profiting from the smuggling scheme and orchestrating the hunt for him, even though the investigation continued.

Right. Fruitlessinvestigation. The political unrest in South Sudan, even now, made the previously lax regulations of the prior government seem like Fort Knox. Information and players now changed almost daily, because this new regime? The fucking wild west.

Andy, currently working for the DOJ, had uncovered name after name of multiple people she suspected, and had done her best to make busts. But by the time she tracked down each and every identified perpetrator, they’d already be dead.

A leak at the DOJ as well as the FBI and the CIA?Absolutely.

Cobble still waited for Chuck to answer his question, but Chuck—even though on a one-time-use burner phone whose number he’d given Cobble—was clearly pretending Cobble was someone else.Dammit.

“Yes, Auntie. Sure. I have it in my car,” he chuckled. “My mother said you’d be calling for that recipe. You know this would be a lot easier if you’d just learn to use a computer.”

Cobble could tell Chuck was on the move. Most likely headed outside so his conversation couldn’t be coopted.

Sure enough, a minute later, Chuck tried to calm Cobble down. “I don’tknowwho’s behind this latest,” he huffed. “No fresh information has come to light on our end, so thank God you’re being vigilant.”

Huh.It was either be vigilant or be dead.

“New plan,” Chuck told him, unequivocally. “I want you to head out and lose yourself at that all-night mall two towns over. I’m going to have Missy come get you.”

“I haven’t been able to reach her,” Cobble said through gritted teeth. “That’s why I called you.”

“She’s undercover on an op, but I can contact her. Don’t worry. I’ll see that she changes hats immediately. Depending on flights, she should reach you in five or six hours. She’ll find you both a motel where you can lie low until she can come up with a new safe-house. This time, believe me, if I know Missy, she’ll be putting you in a place thatisn’tin the FBI’s confidential stable of locations, since eventhatamount of intel has clearly been used against us.

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