I.N.E.T 4

by Brenda Cothern

  Knight took a swig out of his water bottle and frowned. He had no doubt that Hunt could not only hear him, but see him as well so he continued as if the man was standing in the room next to him.

  “I’m not sure if they,” Knight knew Hunt would understand he meant the FBI. “Purposely didn’t give us information on the employees or not, but I need a full workup.” Knight paused to drink the rest of his water before he walked back into the living room.

  He finished unbuttoning his shirt while he continued to talk. “If there are drugs being moved through the restaurant, the only place they could be going through is the kitchen. There is no way they are moving anything through the restaurant’s dining room unless they are doing it when Midnight’s is closed,” Knight informed. “I’ll start placing the surveillance equipment tomorrow and should have it all in place within a week.”

  Knight didn’t wait for any kind of sign indicating that Hunt had heard his request and check in because there wouldn’t be one. So, he took his ass to the shower to wash the smell of Midnight’s off before he went to bed.

  Slade researched Midnight’s so he knew the hours they would be open. This told him when to expect Payne, and possibly Zep and Spider, to be surveilling the restaurant. He hadn’t expected the restaurant to be open until one a.m. and the late closing threw off his timeline to do a few drive-byes. He still did them, though, and immediately located the ideal locations to surveil the building. Those would be where his teammates would set up for their surveillance and the locations Slade would need to steer clear of if he didn’t want to be spotted.

  He didn’t know if Knight and Lita would use the front door or the back one he spotted to go to work so he would just need to watch both. That meant at least two nights of surveillance whether they used the same door or not. Slade would need two nights in order follow each of his teammates to wherever Deat set them up.

  Slade was totally fine with that as he did one more drive-by the front of Midnight’s. It was going on six a.m. He was pushing twenty-four hours and it was time for bed.

  Several pieces of audio and video surveillance equipment were in Knight’s pocket when he arrived at work the next evening. Knight had a plan for where to place the audio bugs, but was still unsure as to the best locations for the mini cams. He was familiar with the visual range of the cams, but there was no optimal place to set them up on the tables.

  So, Knight pushed the issue aside and inspected the tables that were in his section. Even if he wasn’t assigned to the same five tables as the night before didn’t mean he couldn’t place the audio bugs. He did just that under the guise of ensuring the flatware on each table was in the perfect position. The most difficult part of placing the bugs under each edge of the tables was lifting the linen tablecloths unobtrusively. The first three were easy because only Chad was present in the dining room.

  Once the FBI agent realized what he was doing, the man became more focused on their surroundings. Why the FBI didn’t already have these tables bugged was something Knight would contemplate later.

  “Hey Chad.”

  The voice of the twinkish chef almost caused Knight to turn around before the tablecloth he just released settled back into its rightful position. He still had two bugs to place, but if the chef was here, he was out of time.

  “Matt,” Chad greeted, but Knight still resisted his urge to turn.

  “You hired a new waiter,” Matt stated the obvious. “Are you going to introduce us?”

  Knight turned around just in time to see Chad raise a brow. He didn’t know the agent well enough to decipher what his expression meant, but he smiled at the chef just the same. His eyes and smile never left the smaller man who approached with Chad.

  “Matt, this is Mark Williams,” Chad introduced. “Mark, this is our head chef Matt Curo.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Knight held out his hand and prolonged their shake on purpose.

  “You as well,” Matt replied with an incredible smiled that split his Cupid bow lips. “I look forward to getting to know you better.”

  “You as well.” Knight returned Matt’s smile and was rewarded with a glimpse of the hunger he’d spotted the night before.

  A moment of silence settled around the three men before Chad cleared his throat. “Well, Mark needs to finish his prep work.”

  “Of course.” Matt blushed slightly. “I have work of my own to attend to. Have a good evening, Mark.”

  “Thank you, you too,” Knight said before Matt turned away and walked to the kitchen.

  “What the hell was that?” Chad asked softly as they both watched Matt disappear into his domain.

  “That,” Knight chuckled. “Was the chef flirting.”

  “What?” Chad turned to look at him and Knight just chuckled again.

  “You didn’t know he was gay?” Knight inquired.

  “All we know is he’s a workaholic and not in any type of relationship because he spends so much time here in his kitchen.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll get to flesh out his profile then.”

  Knight laughed at the expression of shock on Chad’s face. It was clear the man wanted to ask if he was really gay or just doing whatever it took for the op to succeed. Of course, the answer to both questions was ‘yes,’ but Knight just gave Chad a wink before he returned to the server station.

  Matt’s heart was racing when he entered his kitchen. There was no way in hell he’d imagined Mark holding his hand longer then was politely necessary. The man’s megawatt smile and knowing light blue eyes only reassured Matt that he was gay; not only gay, but interested. That thought made Matt’s heart pound for a whole other reason.

  He hadn’t had sex in the last three years and was extremely out of practice when it came to picking up a guy. Still, that didn’t mean he didn’t want to try. He just didn’t know how since he spent all of his time in the kitchen and the man that had him so riled up worked in the dining room. Matt would just have to figure out a way to interact with Mark more than he normally did with other waiters.

  Lita felt useless in his current undercover position. He hadn’t really learned anything that could pertain to the case aside from confirming the kitchen staff’s names. Those he gave to Hunt by talking to his empty apartment. He reminded himself, yet again, that he had only been in position for three days and they could be on this op for months. Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t already be frustrated.

  At least Hunt just sent me the profiles on those names, Lita thought when he tossed his keys on the dining room table.

  Just thinking about the files that contained the requested information Hunt left on the desktop of his laptop, made Lita frown again. The FBI should have already had workups on all the employees at Midnight’s. Full workups not just the bare minimum they received in the case file Fish gave them.

  It surprised him that his old high school friend would do such shoddy work. Chris had always been a stickler for details back in the day.

  “Maybe someone else dropped the ball,” Lita said to his empty apartment.

  He sighed and climbed into his shower. Lita didn’t stop his memories of Chris Harrison from playing in his mind. They had been best friends for all four years of high school. If asked back then, Lita was sure they both would have said they’d be friends for life. However, that didn’t turn out to be the case.

  Lita went into the Army and Chris off to college after graduation. A few letters during the first year after they graduated were all they exchanged before they drifted apart. Lita could admit that the last person he expected to see on the Satan’s Blades op was Chris Harrison. He sure as hell never expected to see the crazy tattoos on Chris’s bald head. Lita pushed thoughts of Chris from his mind and turned his attention to Knight.

  Lita hadn’t missed how Knight lingered in the kitchen every time he picked up an order or how his coworker subtly flirted with the chef. Lita was sure within the next week, Knight would see Matt Curo outside of Midnight’s to start building the
trust he would need to get more Intel for the op.

  He couldn’t help but wonder how Slade would feel about the tactic Knight was about to utilize. He had no idea if Slade was the jealous type or not, but was grateful Slade wasn’t part of the surveillance team for them to find out.

  Slade easily identified where Payne was set up to monitor Midnight’s. So, just as easily Slade avoided him. Last night he followed Knight to his apartment building. Tonight, he followed Lita. Once he followed Payne tomorrow night, he would work on figuring out which apartments Knight and Lita occupied in their buildings.

  Past experience told him that Knight and Lita would have ground floor apartments so figuring out which were theirs wouldn’t be difficult at all. Just like following Payne to the house Slade knew he and Hunt would be utilizing as a base of surveillance wouldn’t be hard either.

  Slade’s only unknowns would be Zep and Spider. He’d caught no sight of either man yet, but that didn’t mean Fish didn’t assign them to the op and he wouldn’t see them. He would just have to be hyper vigilant in assuring he wasn’t spotted by any of his coworkers.

  All of this Slade thought about as he let himself into his hotel room. He was beat tired but felt wide-awake even though he was still adjusting his sleep schedule to the late hours required for the surveillance. Sleeping alone in bed wasn’t helping, either. Still, with thoughts and plans for the following night swirling in his mind, Slade somehow managed to fall asleep.

  Six

  For two weeks, Lita’s only observation and entertainment was watching Knight reel in the chef with constant flirting. The flirting didn’t make Matt any less abrasive when he barked orders around the kitchen, though. His only other information to report to Hunt when he spoke to his teammate in his empty apartment was the delivery schedule of the fresh food. He was only able to catch the name of one of the delivery companies, but had no doubt Payne would figure out the other two.

  Lita had a suspicion that the drugs had to be coming in through one of the deliveries unless they were coming in after hours. If they were being moved through the deliveries, the chef had to be involved.

  Matt always walked the deliveries of the fresh food to the coolers and spent a considerable amount of time in there before escorting the delivery guy out. Of course, Matt could just be going over the order invoice, but Lita wasn’t about to assume anything.

  He had no contact at all with Knight, but was sure Hunt would somehow arrange for them all to discuss the case. Lita hadn’t seen Chris either, but wasn’t surprised at that. His old friend was posing as a businessman who needed money laundered, so there would never be a reason for him to come into the kitchen and definitely no reason for him to speak to a mere dishwasher.

  Hopefully, they could catch up once the op was over because he really did miss the guy. Lita sighed and let memories of Chris from when they were in high school occupy his thoughts while he loaded up another tray for the dishwasher.

  Knight continued to subtly flirt with Matt and waited for the guy to make a move. Matt flirted back, so Knight was biding his time. The way Matt shouted out orders to the other chefs in the kitchen made Knight think the man should have made his move already.

  They had only really spoken to each other on three occasions, but those three times were full of enough heat in the guy’s eyes that Knight couldn’t fathom why Matt hadn’t asked him out yet. It seemed Knight would have to make the next move. He could do that and already had an idea of how he would go about it. His smile when he took the order for an elderly couple had nothing to do with being polite to them, but they didn’t know that and Knight wasn’t about to tell them.

  Matt’s breath hitched every time Mark came into the kitchen to pick up an order. Midnight’s newest waiter seemed to be acutely aware of when his orders were ready. Frequently, Mark arrived just as Matt was putting the finishing touches on the entrées. He never had to tell Mark that the food couldn’t sit for more than three minutes. Matt hadn’t needed to train Mark on picking up the entrées under his three-minute rule like he had to train the other waiters. However, Mark’s promptness wasn’t the real reason he smiled at the man every time Mark entered his domain. It sure as hell wasn’t the reason he always paused to meet the pale blue eyes of the waiter’s, either.

  Matt was still trying to figure out a discreet way to ask Mark out. He supposed the first step was to actually talk to the man again. Midnight’s didn’t have a no fraternization policy, so that wasn’t what was holding him back. Fear of rejection wasn’t either, because there was no doubt the man was interested. Matt knew the real reason he hadn’t asked out the sexy new waiter: he’d never asked anyone out before.

  Not that Matt hadn’t dated anyone. He was twenty-seven, after all. However, every boyfriend or date he’d ever had or been on was initiated by the other man. He knew how the process worked to ask for a date, but he just never had been interested enough in someone to actually want to ask them. Matt was interested enough in Mark. He just needed to figure out how to go about actually doing it.

  Slade had fallen into a routine over the last three weeks. He would get into one of his chosen positions to watch Midnight’s and observe Payne arrive in one of the two places the man had decided were best suited to watch the restaurant.

  Doing surveillance on the surveillance of an op he wasn’t even on turned out to be more interesting than difficult. However, if he hadn’t known INET’s practices and how Payne would utilize them, he was sure trying to keep an eye on Knight without being seen would be hard as hell. Not being in on the Intel sucked, too. There wasn’t shit he could do about that though.

  It wasn’t like he could bug Knight’s or Lita’s apartments. He had worked on too many ops with Hunt not to know both of those places would be monitored to all get out. Audio, video, motion sensors. Hunt would’ve set them up with the works, so Slade knew he needed to keep his distance. He needed to keep his distance from the small rental house where Hunt and Payne were, too.

  Slade also couldn’t just walk into Midnight’s. Not only would his lover seeing him send Knight into a blind rage, but they looked too much alike for him to pull off being a customer. That and the place looked like one meal would probably cost him his next paycheck.

  So, Slade leaned back in the chair he occupied at a café that set almost catty corner to Midnight’s. It wasn’t the best location for surveillance which was likely why Payne wasn’t utilizing it. The café was two businesses down from the corner and had the intersection not been as wide and he not seated in a specific outdoor chair, Slade wouldn’t be able to see the front door of Midnight’s at all. The café was open until nine which gave him plenty of time to see his lover arrive for work. He would sit there and drink coffee until they closed.

  To be less conspicuous, Slade had his laptop and typed away his observations as if he were recording the surveillance for an op report. The petite blonde waitress flirted with him and he just smiled friendly at her before reminding her he needed to get back to writing his novel. The first time he mentioned he was an ‘author’, she raised a doubtful brow. Of course, he didn’t know what authors looked like but he was sure she thought they didn’t wear a baseball hat, a shirt over a wife beater, blue jeans, and combat boots. However, what she thought didn’t concern him.

  Slade scratched the scruff that covered his jaw and put the waitress out of his mind. He hated letting his facial hair grow this long, but he didn’t dare wear it his normal way if he wanted to ensure anyone from INET wouldn’t do a double take and recognize him. That was why he forewent his usual black jeans and T-shirts as well and wore the damn baseball cap. He hated fucking baseball caps.

  He watched his lover arrive at Midnight’s and had to admit Knight looked sexy as hell in his formalwear. The urge to strip Knight out of the tuxedo shirt and dress slacks before using the damn bowtie like the last time he used a tie on Knight, was strong. It wasn’t the first time, either. Slade slouched down in the chair to give the bulge between his legs a bit of r
elief.

  He kept watching the door to Midnight’s and waited to see if Payne would stroll down the street. There was no pattern to Payne, or sometimes Hunt, strolling down the sidewalk in front of Midnight’s. Slade’s only saving grace for not being discovered when he witnessed either of his teammates walking by the restaurant was that they weren’t walking toward his direction. They would do a walk by before taking up one of the two positions Payne had chosen for surveillance of Knight and Lita’s shift at Midnight’s.

  No, the pattern Slade witnessed was that they always walked in the same direction. It was dangerous to have a pattern at all, but he understood why they chose the direction. Approaching Midnight’s from that direction gave them more time and a wider view to see inside the restaurant. It was the same reason Slade took up his post at the café and frequently used his laptop camera to zoom in so he could see through the windows of Midnight’s.

  Tonight, Hunt was the one strolling down the street. Slade had to do a double take at his teammate and still couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Hunt was walking a dog. Well, Slade assumed the little ball of fur was a dog. He couldn’t stop the chuckle that was almost a laugh from escaping his lips. However, even though he was still amused, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was Hunt’s dumb luck or if the man trained the fur ball when it stopped directly in front of one of Midnight’s large windows to pee on a tree. Slade just shook his head and sat up to resume typing in the open word doc. He so had to make a note of this.

  Knight worked his section of Midnight’s in between flirting with Matt whenever he picked up his orders. The job itself was easy and mostly boring, but Knight did it with a smile on his face. That smile didn’t falter when his latest customer was led by Chad to a table in his section.