Page 17 of Final Exit

The line clicked.

Kade clenched his cell phone so hard he was surprised the case didn’t shatter. Cursing, he pitched it onto the desk. Once again he found himself wondering how he’d gotten to this point. Twelve years of glowing reviews, coveted assignments, awards. He’d been the envy of agents twice his age. Hell, even his best friend had been jealous. Now he was reduced to taking orders more often than he gave them. Faegan hadn’t even given him a chance to explain his reservations about Dominic and Jack.

He tapped his hand on his desk. Life would be so much easier if he let this go, if he could ignore the doubts that Bailey Stark had raised. Was he overthinking? Was he too tired and in too much pain to look at this logically?

Everything had seemed fine until he’d stared into those disturbingly bleak, incredibly beautiful green eyes, and listened to her accusations about what wasreallyhappening to the Enforcers his team captured.Couldshe be right? That would mean a conspiracy, that his boss was keeping the truth from him.

The way Kade kept the truth fromhisteams?

Feed them a few lies and they think they’re a trusted part of an inner circle. They know just enough to make them eager and are so intent on making a good impression that they don’t rock the boat, they don’t demand more information.

He froze. Was that whathewas doing? God knew he was desperate to make a good impression on Faegan. This assignment was make it or break it for him, his chance to turn his career around. Or destroy it once and for all. Were Bailey’s accusations really that compelling? Or were they just an echo of the doubts that he’d had all along but had chosen to ignore?

Thatthought shook him to the core.

Whatever the reason for his doubts, he had to figure out what was fact and what was fiction. To do that, he needed more information. And he needed to get that information without doing anything that might raise a red flag—like performing searches in the FBI’s databases for things his boss wouldn’t want him to look into.

Kade was well aware that the so-called checks and balances that Faegan had mentioned extended to him as well, for good reason. He was on probation. He’d been given a short leash when his boss had grudgingly agreed to let him start a new assignment. What Kade needed was the help of someone not in the FBI, someone whousedto be in the FBI and understood how they operated. A person who was now working for another alphabet agency. He needed to call Robert Gannon—his former best friend.

If he gave himself time to mull it over, or waited until a decent hour to make the call, he’d talk himself out of it. He extracted a wrinkled, yellowed business card from his wallet—a card that he’d been given only because he was standing with several other people at an FBI, Homeland Security business function. It would have looked impolite if the issuerhadn’thanded him a card, too. Neither of them had ever expected that he’d actually use it.

Two minutes later, he was on the phone with hisformerbest friend from high school, a friend whom he hadn’t spoken to socially since a woman had come between them—over five years ago.

“Did hell suddenly freeze over?” the sleepy voice rasped on the other end of the line.

“Hey, Gannon. Sorry for the obscene hour. How’s Kendall these days? I haven’t spoken to our former boss’s boss since you two left the bureau.”

A cough, then the clearing of a throat. “Has the President been assassinated?”

“Not that I know of,” Kade said.

“World War three started, someone blew up the Statue of Liberty? No, wait, you called to tell me you’re a bastard and grovel for my forgiveness.”

“Already did that and it didn’t make a difference.”

“Maybe you should try again. If nothing else, it’ll give me something to chuckle over, right before I tell you to kiss my ass.”

Kade blew out a deep breath. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

“Why should I?”

Kade clenched his fist on top of the desk. “I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t urgent. I need your help.”

This time, Gannon did chuckle. “The great Kade Quinn needs me? You really think I care?”

“You cared enough to convince Faegan to give me another chance.”

“Yeah, well. That was different. You got sympathy votes for being in a freaking coma. It won’t happen again.”

He stared at the far wall, bile rising in his throat at the thought of what he was about to say. “Please.”

The silence lasted so long that he pulled the phone back to make sure the call hadn’t been dropped. “Gannon?” No answer. “Robert? You still there?”

“Stick with Gannon, Quinn. We start using first names after all this time and my world’s going to tilt on its axis. Seriously, man. What the hell are you calling me for? Aside from the early hour, it’s been five years. Give me one reason not to hang up right now.”

“I think Faegan’s passing off mercenaries as federal agents.”

This time the pause lasted a full minute. “Start talking.”

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