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“Copy.”
Clearly, I’d lost her. She was back to all business—mission first. Nebraska was gone, and Dove was back in full force.
As soon as I was out of Nebraska’s room Smith was there, his expression a mixture of apologetic that he’d interrupted, and pissed way the fuck off.
“Kira called,” he started. “Maddon’s been busy.”
No shit.
I kept that to myself and instead asked, “What now?”
“His latest cable back to Washington included an aside he was worried Amani Carver had passed the engineering plans of the drone off to Nebraska. His report included pictures of Carver entering the apartment, Nebraska entering, then her exiting.”
“Just her?”
“Yes.”
It would be impossible to have a shot of just Nebraska. Neither Smith nor I ever left her side.
“He doctored the images to remove us? Why?”
“No clue, brother. Kira’s guess is Maddon doesn’t want to piss off Zane by dragging us and by extension the company into whatever game he’s playing.”
Maddon wouldn’t give the first fuck about pissing Zane off. First, it was his idea to send Nebraska to Zane, meaning he knew he’d already pissed Zane off. Second, he wanted Zane pissed and playing defense. That was part of his strategy.
“No. He doesn’t want any mention of us or Z Corps in the report because someone would see the name, know his connection to POTUS, and alert him. That would give Zane the opportunity to brief POTUS on the entire situation. And if Zane hasn’t gone to him yet there’s a reason why. But still, it would make Maddon vulnerable to expose Zane’s involvement at this point.”
Smith dipped his chin.
“I’ll call Kira back.”
“Who’s comin’ our way?”
“A GB team.”
Good Christ.
That was the worst-case scenario—a team of good guys who’d been told Nebraska was the enemy and we were providing protection on their way to take her in. There would be no talking our way out of the situation, there’d be no reasoning with these men. They had their orders and they’d follow through by any means necessary. That’s what they did, they were trigger pullers, door kickers. They wouldn’t deviate.
I’d once been one of them, and so had Smith.
“The fucker picked well,” Smith finished and peeled off to grab his shit so we could hit the road.
He wasn’t wrong.
Maddon’s play was a bullseye. He knew damn well neither of us could live with taking out any of the men he’d sent our way to the extreme one of us would sacrifice ourselves to protect a comrade. So, yeah, the fucker had picked well sending his GB team our way.
We were in the car, Smith behind the wheel, when Nebraska broke her silence. Since I’d left her in the bedroom she’d locked herself away and hadn’t spoken. That was twenty minutes ago. And in that time she might not have said a single word but she’d been mulling over something.
I knew I was right when she announced, “I need to call in Badger.”
Badger, the last man you see before you meet your maker.
“You don’t think we can protect you?”
That I can’t protect you?
“This isn’t about protection, Easton,” she snapped back. “He needs to be aware Maddon’s jumped the gun. I planned for this. I’d bet he’s already got word to Langley I met with Amani. He’ll make me look like I’m an accomplice. He’ll have told his team he wants to interrogate me. They’ll follow his orders because that’s what they do, not knowing they’re being used. I knew he’d play it this way, I just didn’t think he’d do it so soon.”
