by L. T. Ryan
“What’s your name?” Bear asked.
“Go to hell,” the man spat.
Bear sighed. “Look, I’ve had a long day. I got three of your buddies tied up downstairs, and I already had to kill two others, including your friend over there. I’m not really in the mood for this whole back and forth bullshit.”
Newsboy’s gaze flickered to the sofa and back. He gritted his teeth. “James.”
“Great. James. I’m sorry I shot you in the knee, but you were kind of pissing me off.” Bear wiped the sweat off his brow. “I’d really rather not kill you, and I really don’t want to put a bullet in your other kneecap. I just have one question, and if you answer me directly, you’re gonna go to jail instead of a grave. That sound good?”
James looked like it pained him in more than one way, but he nodded.
“Good.” Bear hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Why’d you kidnap the kid?”
“He had something we needed,” James answered.
“What was it?”
“I don’t know.”
Bear stood up and racked the handgun’s slide. A round popped out and landed on the guy’s chest as a fresh bullet chambered. “I thought we had an agreement, James.”
James looked panicked. He tried to shift away. “I don’t know. Honest. It was some sort of file the boss was looking at. It’s on his computer over there.”
Bear turned to face the couch and noticed a laptop on the coffee table. Sure enough, there was a flash drive sticking out of the side, and a bunch of blueprints were pulled up on the screen. Bear grabbed it and held it in front of James’ face.
“What is this?”
James gazed at the screen. “It-it looks like plans for the tunnel we were gonna use for our next op. But it’s all wrong.”
“What do you mean it’s all wrong?”
James pointed at the screen. “I don’t know what these symbols are. This isn’t our schematic. Not unless the boss changed it on us.”
Bear flipped the computer back around and looked closely at the screen. It only took him a minute to put this part of the puzzle together. And suddenly a few of the disjointed pieces that had been trailing him since he’d landed in London started coming together.
He’d stumbled onto some sort of drug trafficking ring, but it looked like these guys had unknowingly uncovered someone else’s plans to blow up the same tunnel they were going to use. Seamus had retrieved the flash drive from the apartment the agents had been hiding out in, which meant there was a pretty big chance this belonged to the terrorist organization who had executed one of Sadie’s men.
The question now was why Seamus was involved in all of this. He wasn’t working for the gang, that was obvious. Was he or his boss working for the terrorists? If so, how the hell did a twelve-year-old kid get wrapped up in all of that?
But when Bear turned around to ask Seamus just that, he stopped dead.
The kid was gone. He’d slipped out from underneath Bear’s nose for a second time.
20
Bear sat at the bar at Cataldi’s nursing his third beer. He hadn’t seen the woman from last time, but the man who’d served him before was currently wiping down the counter and checking that his other patrons didn’t need anything. All in all, it was a pretty quiet evening.
Bear had called the cops the second he’d vacated the building, even telling them about the guy in the car. He was sure his fingerprints were all over that car and the dead body, but he wasn’t too worried about it. Sadie would find a way to cover it all up. And if she didn’t, it wouldn’t be too much trouble to tell them at least part of the story. He was trying to help Seamus. He was attacked. He was defending his life.
Once he was clear of the crime scene, Bear had taken his time getting to the restaurant. A cab brought him most of the way, but he got out several blocks over and meandered his way through the streets. He knew he was being watched and he wanted to be seen. The whole point was to go back to the beginning, to where this mess had started in the first place.
It was just as Bear drained the last drops of his beer that a man sat down next to him. Bear could’ve called Sadie and set up another meeting, but he was testing a theory. Even after their business was done, Mr. Jones was keeping an eye on the situation.
The question was, who was he keeping an eye on the situation for?
“Hello.” Bear didn’t even bother turning in his chair.
“Good evening, Mr. Logan.” His accent was just as thick as Bear remembered, with that hint of something from Eastern Europe.
“How did you know I was looking for you?”
Mr. Jones ordered them a pair of beers. “I had a hunch.”
“You don’t seem like the kind of guy who usually relies on hunches.”
“And you don’t seem like the kind of guy who leaves something to chance.”
Bear took a swig of his beer. “Guess we’re both acting out of character tonight.”
Mr. Jones chuckled. “What is it you want, Mr. Logan?”
“Why have you been watching me?” Bear asked. “Is that what the extra money was for?”
Mr. Jones’ face was the epitome of innocence. “Extra money?”
“An address shouldn’t have cost as much as I gave you,” Bear said.
“Depends on how difficult it was to get.”
“True.” Bear wiped the condensation off the bottle in his hands. “But you seem like a resourceful guy. I don’t think it was too difficult for you.”
“You flatter me.”
Bear took that as confirmation. “How do you typically get your information?”
“A good magician never reveals his secrets.”
“I’m assuming your network is pretty large. You’ve worked with our mutual friend in the past, so I’m also assuming you come across highly valuable intel.” Bear was tired of the back and forth. It was time to go big or go home. “No offense, but you don’t scream government agent to me. Which means you need to get your information the old-fashioned way.”
“And what way is that, Mr. Logan?”
“With a little bit of money invested, you can build a team of trusted individuals. People who do all your legwork. People on the streets.”
“You mean the homeless?” Mr. Jones asked.
Bear shrugged. “The homeless. And Taxi drivers. Waiters. Drug dealers. Anyone who would be underappreciated and overlooked.”
“You’re beating around the bush a little bit too much for my tastes, Mr. Logan. What is it you’re asking me?”
“Have you been watching me since I landed?”
“You already know the answer to that question, but for the sake of our relationship, I will choose to be direct with you. Yes, I have.”
“Direct.” Bear scoffed. That was a first. “Did our mutual friend hire you to do so?”
“Yes, she did.” Mr. Jones paused. “She warned me you liked to get into trouble. I was to ensure your safety. If anyone reached out to you, I was to report back. If I noticed something you didn’t, I was to report back. You get the idea.”
Bear wasn’t sure if he was grateful Sadie was just trying to look out for him, or if he was bothered by the fact that she was keeping secrets. He appreciated the gesture, but now it just felt like he was wasting time talking to Mr. Jones when he could be elsewhere.
“Is the kid yours?”
“I beg your pardon?” Mr. Jones asked.
“The kid,” Bear said. “Seamus. Is he one of yours?”
“He is.”
Bear could feel the heat rising in his cheeks. It didn’t help that it was fueled by alcohol. “Do you often put kids in dangerous situations like that?”
“I prefer not to.” Mr. Jones had the decency to look somber. “It is never my intention.”
“It’s your intention if there’s even a remote possibility of something like that happening.” Bear noticed one or two other patrons looking in his direction and worked to control his voice. “Seamus could’ve been killed tonight. It see
ms like you’re not hurting for money. Why don’t you use those funds to keep kids off the street instead?”
Mr. Jones’ face flushed, but his tone implied it was with anger, not shame. “What I do with my money is my business, Mr. Logan. But to ensure that we’re perfectly clear, I will say this. I do what I can to keep all of my informants safe. I take no pleasure in using children to gather information. Seamus’s job was to watch both the building and you from a distance. It seems he wanted to impress a young girl and decided to take an unnecessary risk. And, as I remember and feel compelled to point out, you’re the one who sent him into a building without knowing who or what was inside.”
Bear gritted his teeth, but he couldn’t argue. They both hadn’t done the most they could for Seamus. The fire inside of him died down to a dull roar.
“But that’s not entirely true, is it?”
“Come again?”
Bear took a sip of his beer so he could choose his words carefully. “Seamus told me he was instructed to take both my wallet and my phone. Why are you lying to me, Jones?”
“Mr. Jones,” he corrected. “And I suppose old habits die hard.”
“Why did you want my phone?”
“Information.” Mr. Jones gestured at the world around him. “It’s why I do everything I do.”
“Our contact told you to watch me, but didn’t tell you why?”
“She knows how to compartmentalize information. I didn’t need to know what was going on in order to keep an eye on you.”
“But you wanted it anyway.”
Mr. Jones shrugged, a soft smile playing around his lips. “I’m an inherently greedy person. I have grown to accept that about myself.”
“Is Seamus okay?”
“He is,” Mr. Jones replied. “A little shaken up, but his friend Annie is taking care of him.”
“You’re the boss he’s not allowed to meet.”
A sad smile formed on Mr. Jones’ face. “It’s better for the kids not to know who I am. It keeps them safer.”
“He’s a good kid,” Bear said. “He deserves better than this.”
“I know.” Mr. Jones pushed his still-full beer a little farther from him. “We’re working on it. For him and Annie, too. For all the kids who don’t have parents or a bed to sleep in. We do what we can, I promise you that.”
Bear didn’t bother asking who we was. He knew he wasn’t going to get that answer out of his mysterious contact. But he did have one other pressing question. “How did Seamus know to look for the flash drive?”
Mr. Jones turned his whole body to look at Bear. “What flash drive?”
Bear laughed. “You don’t need to pretend like you don’t know. I’m sure Seamus told Annie everything the moment he was reunited with her, and she filled you in on everything he said. In fact, I’m guessing the only real reason why you’re here right now is because you want information only I have.”
Mr. Jones smiled, and Bear could see the calculation in his eyes. “He mentioned the flash drive. He said he saw one of the agents bury it about a week ago. Right before they went missing.”
“You knew about this and didn’t go after it yourself?”
“It was tempting,” Mr. Jones said. “But I’m more interested in who else wants to know what’s on that flash drive. That seems like the more valuable information to me.”
“So why did Seamus grab it now?”
“It had been over a week. One agent was dead. I figured I’d get my hands on it before you did. The universe had other plans, I suppose.”
Bear chugged the rest of his beer and dropped a couple bills on the table. “I tell you this, and you back off. You keep your distance and let me do my thing. And the kid stays far away from this.”
Mr. Jones didn’t even hesitate. “Done.”
“I don’t know who they are, but they seemed like an Irish gang. Maybe a family business. They wanted to use an abandoned tunnel to transport drugs. My guess is they were also watching the apartment building. They knew the information was there, but they didn’t know where. Figured someone would retrieve it eventually. When Seamus dug it up, they were ready.”
“He’s lucky you were there, Mr. Logan.”
“Yeah.” Bear pushed his stool back up against the bar. “Make sure he stays lucky.”
“I’ll honor our deal,” Mr. Jones said. “You have my word.”
21
Bear left the restaurant without a backwards glance at Mr. Jones. He doubted the guy would be able to resist keeping an eye on Bear entirely, but as long as he stayed out of the way, Bear didn’t care. There were too many unknown factors, and he was getting tired of chasing ghosts. He had to eliminate what he could and focus on anything that remained.
Which meant the next obvious step was to talk to Sadie.
Bear found a bench down the street and took out his phone. His finger hovered over the send button. He didn’t like the hesitation he was feeling. He didn’t like that he wasn’t sure he could trust her.
Jack and Bear hadn’t known Sadie for long, but Costa Rica had bonded the three of them in a way that only happened during harrowing experiences. Korea had complicated that relationship, but Bear had decided to trust her. She had used him to get to Thorne, but Bear couldn’t say he wouldn’t have done the same in that situation. And he wasn’t exactly upset at the result.
So why was he having trouble trusting her now? She had paid Mr. Jones to keep an eye on him. Was she worried about his safety, or was she worried he was going to keep something from her? Was there something she was afraid he’d find out? Something more she was hiding from him?
Could it have to do with the agents? They had been her men, after all. And Bear was fairly certain one of them was dirty. Why else would he be burying flash drives in the front yard of an apartment complex? Maybe Sadie wanted to keep that quiet so her superiors didn’t have another reason to pull her from the field. Or maybe she wasn’t as clean as he wanted her to be, either.
Or did all of this secrecy have something to do with Jack? She had seemed pretty surprised when Bear had informed her Jack had been in London. Was that because she hadn’t expected him to be so close, or was it because she thought he was somewhere else?
It took all of Bear’s willpower not to chuck his phone against the nearest building and walk away from this entire mess. He could drop the gang, the terrorists, even the agents and Sadie without losing any sleep at night. The CIA and MI5 had enough resources to get the job done without him.
But he couldn’t walk away from Jack.
Bear took a deep breath. One step at a time. Eliminate what he could. Focus on what remained.
Sadie picked up on the second ring. “Got anything for me?”
Bear ignored the question. “What’d you find out about our Marine?”
Sadie took a deep breath. “Not as much as I was hoping, but we’ve got some promising leads. He stayed off the radar for a couple years after he was discharged, but in the last year or so we’ve found him popping up here and there under other names.”
“How’d you find him?”
“They’ve got some pretty good people here at MI5, but don’t tell them I said that.” She laughed but Bear had no urge to join in. “We were able to track down a few of his friends from his military days and worked out from there. He visited one or two of them a couple times. The trail was faint, but we were able to follow it. We’re getting a better sense of who this guy is.”
“And who’s that?”
Sadie blew out a breath and it crackled in Bear’s ear. “You were right about his life after getting discharged. Looks like he does cleanup jobs here and there. Nothing solid that we can link him to, but it at least tells us what to watch for.”
“And that would fall in line with what he was doing at the apartment,” Bear said. “If he’s a cleaner now, his job would’ve been to recover any evidence from the scene and then destroy everything else.”
“But he wanted to burn the place down. That’s less of
a cleanup and more of a demolition.”
Bear shrugged even though Sadie couldn’t see it. “Whoever he’s working for knew we were going to look in on the agents eventually. Slowing us down was probably the smartest option.”
“But you got a drop on him.” Sadie sounded proud. “It didn’t quite pan out the way they wanted it to.”
“True, but we’re still twiddling our thumbs over here.”
“Not necessarily.” Sadie paused, and Bear had a feeling it was for dramatic effect. “We found our Marine leaving London hours after the fire. He made a single phone call from a pay phone prior to that. We’re still tracking that information, but I’ve got a good feeling about this, Bear.”
“You think it’ll lead us to where he is?”
“That, and maybe who he’s working for, too.” When Bear didn’t share in her excitement, she asked, “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” Bear decided to keep the information about Mr. Jones to himself for now, but he had to share news about Seamus. “Yeah, just a lot going on all at once. I found the kid, though.”
“You did?” Her voice was shrill. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. A little shaken up. We kind of got ambushed.”
“What happened?” Sadie’s voice dropped to a deadly octave. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. We’re both fine. Everything is okay.” Bear took a deep breath before launching into his story. “Bottom line is I found him back near the apartment. He dug up a flash drive in the front yard and then was immediately kidnapped. I think it was an Irish gang, but I don’t have any clue who they are.”
“Were you able to follow them?” she asked.
“Sure did. In fact, a few of them are still tied up, waiting for someone to arrest their asses. I’ll send you the address. I don’t know how much this ties into your agents. Probably best to at least poke around.”
“And Seamus?”