Page 109 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

“Wow.”

“Don’t even start,” Jackson told Cody, right before Ellery’s voice came across.

“You almost made that nice man cry.”

“Ellery….”

“Yes, yes, I know, Jackson. But… but think of it like this. Even if people we care about are compromised, do we know a single person who wouldn’t think this is worth it?”

Jackson grunted. “No,” he said after a minute. “I just hate—”

“I know you do, baby,” Ellery soothed. “You hate to be in the position where people might be exposed. But….” Something in Ellery’s voice shifted. “I don’t know if it’s occurred to you, but we’re in the middle of a big one.”

Jackson gave a somewhat fractured laugh. “Yeah, I know. Weird, right?”

“Very.” Ellery’s dry tone helped to ground Jackson a little. “So you understand. No meeting up at the picnic spot. Mother, Galen, Jade, and I are all going in, wired for sound, and the FBI is our backup. Your job is to look for more”—his voice dropped—“proof.” He paused. Then quietly, he added, “Jackson, do you remember how Lacey went?”

Jackson’s blood ran cold. He and Ellery had been crouched behind an aluminum-sided airplane hangar while Lacey had monologued about how the men he’d destroyed were too weak, that was it, that was the problem. They were so weak that the mind games and tortures he’d inflicted on them had twisted them beyond humanity, but with a little more work, he could do it, hecouldmake the perfect soldier.

And that was when Ellery had taken the gun he’d only recently learned how to use and had blown a hole through the thin wall in an effort to shut that motherfucker up.

And Lacey had returned fire.

Jackson had killed Lacey to defend Ellery, who had been lying in a pool of his own blood.

“Yes,” he said, feeling queasy and awful and scared with that one word.

“We’re both smarter than that now,” Ellery said. “I wouldn’t lose my temper this time. I wouldn’t take that shot. Do you understand?”

Jackson grunted. “Yes, I understand,” he muttered, “and no, I won’t take the motherfucking shot.”

“Good,” Ellery said. “June. Flowers. Sunshine. A fitted suit. Everybody who loves us. Remember the endgame, Detective.”

“Will do, Counselor. What does Manning look like, by the way?”

“Five feet, eight inches, one ninety—”

“Hey!”

“I beg your pardon—one seventy, uhm….”

“Bald,” Manning filled in dryly. “I’m very bald.”

“G-man suit?” Jackson asked.

“Jeans, those boot things you wear when you’re hiking a lot, and some sort of… insulated blue fleece vest over a maroon hoodie.”

Some of Jackson’s temper dissipated. “He doesn’t sound completely stupid,” he said bluntly. “Manning, ping me when you’re on the ground.”

“Will do.”

Jackson signed off and turned toward Preston and Preacher. Preston was busy telling Preacher what a good boy he was and letting him sniff what looked like a hotdog. Preacher grinned, tongue lolling, and Damien, the pilot, approached with packs from the plane.

“You both can help carry water,” he said, and while his voice rose politely, Jackson knew it wasn’t really a question.

“Of course.” Jackson had a canvas satchel hanging from his side with a soft-sided water bottle, trail mix, and beef jerky, and he’d equipped Cody with the same. He understood, though, that while he and Cody might be good with three liters of water apiece, thedogwas doing most of the heavy lifting. He took thepack from Damien and started rearranging the contents, adding his own to the emergency foil blankets and thin wool pullovers that he found there, in addition to protein bars and another two liters of water. “Does the dog wear the sweaters?”

Damien grinned at him. “You laugh, but those are fine alpaca. If you layer those between a T-shirt and an outer layer, like fleece, they can help insulate your body in some pretty brutal temps. A sweater much like that saved my life a few years back. We put them in all the packs now when the weather’s inclement. It’s like a lucky charm.”

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