Page 82 of Nothing to Fear

The line went dead.

“You got it?” Omega asked.

Rho nodded, grinning like the cat who swallowed the canary. “There’s a new security flaw in Web Real-Time Communication. The vulnerability is browser-based in Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera. She was on one of them. I had to use JavaScript to send a STUN request through WebRTC to the third-party network server on the other side of NAT. It returned her real IP address.”

Yada, yada, nerd speak—whatever. “Where are they?”

“A hotel on Grand Cayman Island,” Rho said.

“They’re going after the money.” Drawing in a breath, Omega did a rough flight-time calculation. Eight to nine hours by helicopter. A commercial flight was exponentially faster, but they’d be hard-pressed to get a flight this late, and they’d have to contend with securing weapons on the island. Taking the helo gave them the ability to travel anonymously and carry all their gear and the flexibility to touch down as close to the bank as possible. Hell, if he wanted, he could land on the beach.

“Is Epsilon going?” Rho asked.

Omega quirked a brow. “I was taking you.”

Not true. Rho had sharper leadership skills than E and was better suited to hold things down here with the girl and take point on security once Daedalus arrived. But Omega needed to make sure Rho was up for anything.

“Stone took out Beta, Delta, Kappa, and Sigma by himself,” Rho said, making it sound as though Stone had obliterated a row of fraternities.

The codenames made him think of a Quentin Tarantino film, but Daedalus had insisted. Omega rarely opposed him. Reserving a hard stance for when it was absolutely necessary kept Daedalus more inclined to agree on those rare occasions. Not easy to bend such a man’s ear or his will to do anything he didn’t want to do.

“What do we know about Gideon Stone?” Rho asked.

“No military record. Agency issue.”

They were the worst. With a military guy, you knew what to prepare for, understood how they thought. They were predictable. But those Agency-bred beasts were unique.

“Where do we stand on getting leverage on Stone?” Omega asked.

Everyone had a weakness. Omega had found Gideon Stone’s in the file Cobalt had delivered. Those Gray Box Boy Scouts were hardwired to risk their lives to save innocent civilians, but making it personal, tugging at the heartstrings, was better.

Emotions always knocked someone off their game.

There was one person in Stone’s life who he cared about but had kept at a distance to protect them. If he’d really wanted to keep them safe, Stone should’ve cut them off completely. No calls, no emails.

“The guys went to the farmhouse in Martinsburg, West Virginia, found it empty, but spoke to a neighbor. The target is on a cruise and will be back Tuesday. Hopefully, this will be resolved by then, but in the meantime, we need more men,” Rho said flatly.

Omega didn’t tolerate cowards, but Rho wasn’t afraid. They’d fought and bled together in the meat grinder and come out the other side. This was a simple matter of common sense. Rho was right. They needed more men, but waiting for extra guns would delay them. The sooner they had boots on the ground, the easier it’d be to catch Stone off guard.

The island was small. If Omega could place men at the hotel and the bank, getting them was an inevitability. Once the chick learned they had her sister, it would be easy as pie to reel in that bleeding heart.

“Daedalus is flying in with a handful of men,” Omega said.

The man was in a touchy mood after hearing about Cobalt’s threat of insurance and wanted to see this finished firsthand.

“I’ll wait for him to arrive and make it work with the men on hand.” Omega strode around the table to the window of the warehouse and looked down at the abandoned waterfront. “No time to wait for more.”

Rho straightened. “When will he arrive?”

Three hours, eleven minutes. No need to look at his watch again. “Soon.”

Once Daedalus landed, Omega would switch gears and feel him out, make sure he didn’t go doomsday-explosive. The man swung to extremes, and when he got bloodthirsty, he was relentless in a fashion that left even Omega breathless. Daedalus was magnificent to behold in action, but if left unchecked, he became a danger to himself.

Everything was on the line. Omega had peeled a lot of flesh and shed a lot of blood to crown Daedalus king of this empire. They’d both do anything necessary to keep this hard-earned monopoly on U.S. counterintelligence and corporate espionage.

Daedalus would never admit it, but Cobalt was a priceless asset. The Gray Box had unrestricted access to every American intelligence agency, from the CIA and NSA to every sector of the Department of Defense. The intel Cobalt provided had been a gold mine, affording them the opportunity to expand their kingdom in ways far exceeding their wildest imaginations. The continued flow of information would solidify their hold.

This bold move to safeguard Cobalt was a massive gamble, but if they pulled it off, there’d be no stopping them. They’d already lost more men than anticipated and stuck their necks out well beyond comfortable limits, but there was no glory without sacrifice. So long as Omega kept Daedalus levelheaded and protected, he’d find a way to manage the rest. “I don’t want you to go with me and the boys to the Caymans.”