“Got it.”
I slowed my pace and glanced up at Drake to find him grinning down at me.
“What?”
“Nothing, babe. I just like to hear you talk, especially when you’re excited about something.”
“Oh.”
He used my momentary surprise to his advantage and leaned down to place a hard, closed-mouth kiss on my lips. When he pulled back, I blinked several times until he came into focus.
“What was that for?” I whispered.
“No reason.” He shrugged then muttered, “Because I can. Because you’re standing next to me looking pretty. Because it’s been weeks and I couldn’t stop myself.”
Before I could respond or even pull myself from the trance I was in, I heard my dad’s booming voice.
“Good, you’re here. Let’s get started.”
Dad didn’t wait for either of us to respond before he slipped into the conference room.
“Thought you said they didn’t know I was coming?”
“Didn’t tell a soul I was bringing you with me,” he vowed. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” I exhaled.
Then, before I was ready, we were at the door. Drake placed his hand on my lower back and he guided me into the room.
Jasper, Clark, Lenox, Carter, Brady, my dad, and my mom were all sitting. To say I was shocked to see my mom was the understatement of the century.
“Hi, sweetie,” my mom cooed like she wasn’t as surprised to see me as I was to see her.
“Uh, hi, Mom.”
“Take a seat and we’ll get started,” my dad offered and I looked around the table noting there were two empty chairs. One that very obviously had been brought in because it didn’t match the other eight nor the heavy oak table.
“What are we starting? And how’d you know I’d be here?”
“Figured this was how Drake would play it,” Dad answered, then he breezed into introductions. “Drake, these are my partners, Jasper Walker, Nolan Clark, Carter Lenox.” Dad pointed to my uncles as he said their names. “This is Brady Hewitt. He draws up our site security plans, installs systems, works the ranges and tac training with Carter, and he also heads the sniper course.”
“Hewitt?” Drake asked in a tone full of wonderment. And when I glanced over at him, he was staring at Brady. “Were you with the 75th?”
“Yep,” Brady clipped.
“Damn, brother, you have one of the longest kills confirmed. Twenty-five hundred meters, right?”
I looked at Brady to see him nod his confirmation.
“You still have that Accuracy International? Heard that was your personal piece. I’d love to go out with you sometime,” Drake continued.
“Yeah, she’s my personal build,” Brady confirmed. “I’ll take you out sometime.”
“This is my wife,” Dad cut in. “Blake McCoy. She’s our head intel specialist but she only works high priority operations. We have two other tech guys in house, you’ll meet them later.”
“Good to meet everyone.” Drake lifted his chin.
There was a chorus of “you, toos” and “welcomes.” When that was over, Dad motioned to the seats and I took that as my cue to sit. Something about my father, he was stubborn, if he wanted Drake and me to sit before he explained what was going on, he’d wait us out, and he’d do it with patience like he had nothing better to do other than sit in silence.
Annoying.
The second my ass touched the seat, Carter slid two folders across the table. Drake reached out, grabbed them, and passed one to me.
“That’s everything we dug up on Roman Kushnir,” my mom started. “You’ll also find a full workup on Roman Bolick, the man Lenox took out, as well as Annelise and her family. Take a look and tell us if I missed anything.”
My gaze shot to my mother’s. Her normal, easy smile was gone. She was all business sitting to my dad’s right near the head of the table, about five seats away from me. This was new, I’d never seen my mom at work. Of course I knew she worked at Triple Canopy, she’d help start it. But at home, Blake McCoy was just Mom. This side of her, the no-nonsense, intel specialist was…different.
Different how, I couldn’t explain, but a rush of excitement welled at the thought of working with my mom on a case.
“Fuck,” Drake muttered from beside me.
“What?”
I hadn’t opened my file yet so Drake slid a piece of paper toward me and pointed at the bottom, tapping his finger angrily at the subsection.
“Either Wick purposefully withheld a lot of information or this wasn’t in his packet on Roman’s family history,” Drake started. “When we were debriefed, Wick seemed genuinely surprised that the attack on the lieutenant’s squad was personal, yet he came back rather quickly with Roman’s name. Something at the time bothered me, but I didn’t ask.”
“What did he tell you about Roman?” Uncle Jasper asked.
I was too busy reading the document to answer so Drake did. “It was evident Roman Kushnir was on radar, or Wick wouldn’t have had a half-assed report so quickly. Luke asked why Roman hadn’t been taken out. Wick’s response was Roman was connected, then he explained that connection was with Ukrainian organized crime. His grandfather was the Don of Nova, but Wick didn’t get a chance to explain who’d assumed power as the Don after the grandfather’s death. We switched topics to Lore and Roman’s connection. They were both in Beirut and Roman was moving large quantities of citric acid, food-grade hydrogen peroxide, and hexamine fuel tabs.”
“HMTD,” my dad muttered.
“Right. That was Lore’s signature,” I interjected. “There were two attacks in Iraq, British supply convoys. It made no sense, because the area in which the armored troop carriers were ambushed had been cleared. In fact, the area had been marked friendly. Then suddenly, back-to-back attacks. My team was sent in to scout the AO. What we found was one of Lore’s manufacturing sites. There was copper slag in the building. My thought was Lore was building precision copper EFPs. The armor plate troop carriers were demolished, and not by an amateur IED maker. Wick confirmed there was a shipment of copper going into Beirut. So, between the citric acid, peroxide, and hexamine, we had the copper, turning the loose connection into a solid one. Roman was one of Lore’s suppliers.”
Everyone in the room was staring at me. Well, that was, everyone except Drake, he was looking over the file.
“What?” I asked as my gaze swept the table.
“Babe?” Drake called before anyone could respond. “Take a look at the shipping manifest your mom found, page thirty-two.”
Page thirty-two, good Lord, how fast could Drake read?
I shuffled through the papers until I found the manifest and scanned the list of seemingly random and frankly strange items. “What am I looking for?”
“JB Weld. Methyl alcohol. Aluminum pipes. Silicone spray,” Drake listed four of the items on the list. “What was Lore building with those supplies?”
“Um. JB Weld is two-part epoxy. To simplify, it bonds pieces of metal together. If he was cutting the pipes, he could use the JB to glue the caps on. He could’ve wetted the HMTD with methyl alcohol so the decomposition slowed. But I don’t know what purpose the silicone spray would play. Beyond that, I don’t know. Trey’s an explosives expert, not me.”
“Think, baby, you know Lore. You studied him, what would he be making?”
“Best guess, a detonator. HMTD is heat-sensitive, encapsulating it in an aluminum pipe would cause the off-gasses to heat. But, Drake, when the HMTD reached ignition temperature, the blast wouldn’t be violent enough to cause damage. And if it was meant to be a detonator, again I don’t think it would be powerful enough to ignite a secondary charge. Something like this wouldn’t be a bang, it’d be more like a pop.”
“TNT, RDX, and PENT have the lowest detonation velocities,” Clark put in. “And ANFO if the nitrate pills were powdered.”
The vibe in the room changed. It charged with something worrisome, scarier than my f
amily going after Roman to seek vengeance, even more terrifying than the possibility of the men I loved most in this world putting themselves in harm’s way to avenge me.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
Drake slid another document in front of me, and as I scanned this one, I knew why the vibe had changed. I understood that the situation had shifted and it’d done so in a major way.
“How did Wick miss this?” I surged to my feet and Drake’s hand shot out and grabbed mine, yanking me back down.
“He likely didn’t,” Jasper unhappily answered.
“Roman’s uncle is in the envoy to the UN economic and Social council. How the hell is that possible?”
“Corruption,” my dad responded.
“Marko Kushnir is the head of an organized crime syndicate. And from the intel Mom gathered, it’s widely known. So, while I understand corruption, I don’t understand how the UN allowed this to happen.”
“Lots of ways for corruption to leak,” Lenox noted.
Well, fucking hell. This puts a whole new spin on every-damn-thing.
“So I was bait. Likely Roman’s ties to the infamous bomb maker Lore hit the radar, the government needed a way to take him out, which meant cutting off Lore’s supply chain. And they needed to do this without it looking like an assassination, so we didn’t piss off his uncle, the envoy and crime boss. If Roman was killed during a business deal, Marko would turn his sights on Lore, because that’s who the government would point him to. Marko would take out Lore himself to avenge his nephew and everyone walked away smelling like roses. All they needed was a way to lure Roman out, and everyone knew he wouldn’t pass a golden opportunity to take out a McCoy. Am I getting all of that right?”
The room remained quiet as my dad and uncles all exchanged looks.
“Yes, honey, you’re correct,” my mom finally spoke.
“So who leaked it? And was my team briefed we were walking into a trap of the Army’s making? Did they know their objective was to kill Roman? And further, why the fuck wasn’t I briefed?”
“All good questions, Cousin. Ones we’ll get the answers to, but right now, our focus is on the UN economic meeting. Word is, Marko Kushnir and the Armenian envoy have serious bad blood.”
“Page ninety-four,” Drake told me.
“Jesus, are you a speed reader?” I asked.
“Read enough of these to know what I’m looking for and ignore the rest,” Drake told me. “Your mom found chatter that Marko’s fed up with the Armenian and he’s using the meeting as his opportunity to take him out.”
“With a bomb?” I inquired.
“Yeah, about that,” Brady interjected. “Two flaws with the HMTD being used as a self-igniting detonator. You’re forgetting it would need a heat source. Once it’s dry, it no longer gasses. You’re forgetting HMTD has to be dry to ignite, and it wouldn’t if it was capped off. Second problem is, it’s just too damn complicated. Simple and stupid, that’s the key to any explosive device.”
“Damn, you’re right.”
I felt my cheeks heat at my mistake. As the saying went, I knew just enough to be dangerous but not enough to be smart.
Drake’s big hand landed on my thigh and he gave it a squeeze, then he shook his head.
“Analyze, evaluate, examine. You know we can’t develop a course of action until all intel is studied. Part of that is making assumptions then scrutinizing those theories. You’re damn good at all of that and smart as hell. Your insight is valuable. Don’t pull back and clam up.”
How did he know that’s what I was getting ready to do? The dark, ugly part of my brain that had recently developed was telling me I wasn’t good enough to be sitting around the table with a group of seasoned professional warfighters. All of them had years of experience on me—not to mention they were all far more intelligent.
“Anyone mind if we call Trey Durum? He’s our demo expert.”
My heart clamped painfully at Drake’s statement and I wondered if he realized what he said.
“If he’s willing to give his opinion, we’d be obliged.” My dad answered Drake but his gaze was set on me and his eyes were narrowing more and more by the millisecond.
Drake’s hand left my thigh, and as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, I started thinking about all the possible ways Roman had found my squad.
“Was Wick able to get the commanding general of CID to agree to an investigation?” I asked as Drake held his phone to his ear.
“The lieutenant colonel in charge of your unit refused. Though Wick expected that, and is trying a different route,” Carter answered. “Standard denial. No one in your company wants CID poking their noses in a black ops unit. Wick knew it was a long shot.”
“You’re on speaker. McCoy, Clark, Walker, Lenox, Brady Hewitt, and Mrs. McCoy are present along with Church and Lieutenant McCoy.”
“Ma’ams, gentlemen, Church, what can I help with?”
“Just curious, Razor, why’d you single me out?” Carter chuckled.
“Never known you to be a gentleman,” Trey returned.
Carter shook his head and smiled at Drake. “You know there will be days you’ll miss being on the teams, then there are days when you remember Razor’s lame attempts at insults and you’re glad not to have to listen to them anymore.”
“You know you miss me,” Trey returned.
“Like a case of vaginal warts… shit.” Carter turned a bright shade of red and mumbled, “Sorry, Aunt Blake.”
My mom smiled huge and started to laugh. Then one after another, my uncles joined my mom. But it wasn’t until I heard my dad’s deep, coarse rumble that I finally let the knot in my heart start to loosen.
Carter’s face remained crimson and it reminded me of the way he used to look when Delaney would poke fun at him when we were teenagers. That was when I truly started to remember who we were—who our family was—and how we always stuck close.
33
I felt it, the instant Liberty’s body relaxed next to mine. I didn’t know what had caused it but I was happy for it.
“Is Carter a nice shade of his signature purple?” Trey asked through the phone.
“Gettin’ there,” I told him.
Church was easy to embarrass, or he was when we weren’t on a mission. The slightest bit of impropriety had his face turning colors.
“We need your opinion on some materials on a shipping manifest,” I cut to the chase.
“Hit me, I’m ready.”
All the humor fled from Trey’s tone as he morphed into operational mode.
I ran down the items and explained Liberty’s presumption on the HMTD and Brady’s thoughts on why it was wrong.
When I was done Trey was silent for a spell. Then he asked, “You said cold packs and model rockets?”
“Correct,” I confirmed.
“With those models, was there nitromethane?”
“Fuel for the models, again correct.”
“First, in theory what the lieutenant—”
“Can you please stop calling me lieutenant and ma’am? Christ, Trey, you know my name,” Liberty griped.
“Just trying to be polite. No need to get your panties twisted,” Trey huffed then continued. “Liberty’s theory was almost correct, but as Hewitt—and just as a side note, dude, I know who you are and I just have to say, that kill at twenty-five hundred meters was brilliant. Anyway, as Hewitt pointed out, you’d need a heat source. The pipe would have to be wrapped in a thermo blanket for the HMTD to ignite. He’s also correct that setup is just too damn complicated. But the cold packs and nitro would make one hell of an explosive.”
“How so?” Levi inquired.
“The cold pack has ammonium nitrate in it. Open the unbroken pack up, take that out, mix it with the nitro, bam—you have yourself an explosive.”
“Detonator?”
“Shit, a straw, a pack of gum, a two-dollar cheap-ass Chinese timer, an electro match, and a pinch of HMTD. Does this have to do with Roman?”
<
br /> “Just trying to piece this all together,” Levi told him.
“Run me through what you have.”
I barely suppressed my grin at Trey’s audacity. Pure Trey, nosing his way into something that wasn’t his business because there was a puzzle to be solved. Something he not only enjoyed but he was good at it.
“No offense, Durum, we appreciate your help but I think we’ve said enough over an unsecure line.”
“Then send someone to the airport to pick my ass up. I’ll be down in a few hours.”
“What?” I laughed, not able to hold back.
Pushy bastard.
“I’m far from stupid. I’m also not gonna sit around on my ass in this goddamn apartment on med leave while Liberty’s ass is still swinging. You got a thread of a lead, I want in. And if you’d give Matt, Luke, and Logan the opportunity, they’d be down there in a flash and you know it.”
Fucking hell, I was seriously going to miss serving with Trey.
“Trey, you need to rest. You don’t have to come down here,” Liberty tried to dissuade him.
It wasn’t going to work, but it was cute of her to try.
“I don’t have to do anything, Liberty, but I’m still gonna come down there.”
“Seriously—”
“Yeah, seriously. I owe you and I haven’t forgotten. So far, my leg’s still attached and that’s because of you. The man who harmed you is still running around out there breathin’ free. And that is unacceptable. So, until his ass is six-feet under, I’m at your service.”
“Whatever you say, Trey. But fair warning, I don’t give sponge baths and I don’t have sympathy when someone’s hurt, and if you don’t believe me, ask Carter what happened when he broke his collarbone when he was ten. I’m telling you that so you don’t think when you get here I’m gonna baby your ass even though you’re injured.”
“Noted.” Trey chuckled. “Church, I’ll text you with my flight info.”
“Copy.”
Trey disconnected and I looked around the room noticing all eyes were on Liberty. I wasn’t sure what they were seeing when they looked at her but I did know she’d be uncomfortable with the attention, therefore I broke the spell.
Taking Liberty: The Next Generation Page 25