And Nicholas Tate has been part of the plan since the beginning.
But Nick Tate and I don’t seem to be on the same page anymore.
The drive from Old Home to Daphne, Alabama takes about two hours and I spend every minute of that drive thinking about what I need to say and how it needs to be said.
Nick Tate’s story is as long and twisted up as that snake that wanted to squeeze Indie back on the island. The son of the Admiral, one of the Company Untouchables—maybe even the most untouchable, until he wasn’t, that is—Nick didn’t grow up like most people. Not like McKay, not like Donovan. Not even like me.
Most of his life was spent as an invisible. He was born on a superyacht. No birth certificate. No formal schooling. But trust me on this, no one underestimates his intelligence or his skills.
The last time I saw Nick we were plotting the death of our fathers.
That turned out fairly well for me.
But in order to save James Fenici during the Santa Barbara incident—another Untouchable, sociopathic Company assassin, in love with Nick’s twin sister, Harper—he ended up the prisoner of a Central American drug lord.
That’s where he’s been for the past ten years.
Or… not.
Since apparently he was here in Louisiana this morning and now we have a meeting in Daphne, Alabama.
Just as McKay was walking into the office to talk with Donovan the gate buzzed. I got in my truck, drove down there, and met a messenger who handed me a thick yellow envelope.
I tipped the girl, she left, and I found a burner phone inside when I opened it up.
One number in the contacts.
I pressed send and Nick picked up. “It’s been a long time, Adam.”
I noted three things about his voice.
One. It was deep. Ten years ago, we were still kids. Both of us just eighteen years old. We are no longer kids.
Two. He had a slight Spanish accent. And by Spanish accent I mean he sounded like a fuckin’ gangbanger.
And three… he was very calm.
Six words tell me a whole lot about what Nick Tate has been up to for the past ten years. Maybe I didn’t grow up on a superyacht, but he and I were cut from the same cloth.
“What the fuck did you do this morning?”
“I hear you bought one of them?”
“If you mean Indie, then yes. I did. And I do not fucking appreciate you showing up like this morning and scaring the fuck out of her.”
“Was she scared?”
“What do you want?”
He paused. Sighed. “There’s another plan in play. Right now, in fact. Everyone’s here.”
“Here? Where?”
“It’s a metaphor, Adam. All the players are back, but Sasha is the star of this show. You’re gonna sit this one out.”
“I don’t know anything about this. I helped her out ten years ago and I haven’t seen her since.”
“I know. This is her moment. We don’t need you.”
“So why are you here fucking up my good thing?”
He laughed, just a little, on the other end of the phone. “Good thing? You have one of those psycho assassins living in your fucking mansion, Adam. Did you know she was hiding that girl I caught this morning?”
I didn’t. But I didn’t want to admit that, either. Indie was decidedly off script. And when your little psycho assassin went off script and Nick Tate showed up from the dead to fill you in on it, things were a little more serious than simply… off script.
They were off the rails.
“So you got what you came for? We’re good?”
“Half of what I came for.”
My stomach roiled when I realized what that meant. He came for Indie too. Just didn’t get her yet. “She’s mine, Nick.”
“No.” He paused. And I imagined him shaking his head. “No. She’s not yours. She is the Company’s. And before you tell me how much you paid for her, I already know. I know everything, Adam. She is not yours. She is mine. I run that program. She came from my training center.”
“And so… what? What the fuck are you doing? Taking them all back?”
“You could say that.” There was a long silence on the line after that.
“Why are you calling me?” I finally said.
“I’m texting you an address. You have two hours and fifteen minutes to get there. Then I just… move on without you.”
And the call dropped.
Two hours and seven minutes later I’m parking the truck on the side of the road. There are three people on the Gator Boardwalk in Daphne, Alabama. None of them are Nick Tate. Just a man, a woman pushing a stroller, and a small child.
I head that direction and find my way to the part of the boardwalk that goes under the northbound lanes of AL-42 traffic and there he is. It’s windy and cool today. High fifties, maybe. Heavily overcast and a little bit of drizzle in the air. He’s wearing a black hoodie with the hood over his head, but I know it’s him.
He side-eyes me as I approach and I stop for a moment, taken aback.
“Nick?” I whisper it. And the traffic above us on the bridge is so loud, I can barely hear it myself, so I know he doesn’t hear it. That’s probably why we’re meeting under this bridge. Just in case anyone is listening. Or if I came wired, I guess.
Nick turns to face me full on and I find myself holding my breath. There is a nasty, thick scar down the side of one cheek and his neck is ringed with tattoos.
Chains.
“Nice to see you again, Adam.”
I can’t talk. I don’t know how to reconcile this guy in front of me with the golden surfer kid I last saw ten years ago. They are not the same person. Not even close. And for a moment I just stare at him, unable to believe my own eyes.
“What… what happened to you, Nick?”
He lifts his head up a little in a sort of nod, then says, “Come down here so we can talk.”
I hesitate. Because I’m suddenly unsure if I even want to get that close to him. The whole drive over here to Alabama I was pretty confident that I could handle Nick Tate. But all that confidence is withering fast as I process just how little I know him these days. A lot has happened in the ten years since he was taken down to Central America.
But I’m here. There is no way out but forward. So I close the distance between us in fifteen steps. He leans his forearms on the top rail of the fence that overlooks the water and I do the same. There are no gators down there that I can see. But Nick is silent and studies the water anyway.
I wait as long as I can, but I’m anxious and I need to make sense of whatever the fuck it is he’s doing. For all I know he’s put some kind of team together and he got me down here, two hours away from Indie, so he could send them in and take her out.
McKay too.
But I force myself to remain calm. “Well… what can I do for you?”
He draws in a breath. “I’m taking it down for good.”
“We tried that already. I don’t even know the exact number of Company upper circle who died that night in Santa Barbara, but it was over two hundred. And we’re still here. And I’m still working. So that’s fine. If you want to do it again, I won’t get in your way. But you leave my girl out of it. You got the other one, the one I didn’t know about. But you can’t have Indie. And if you came here to tell me something different, we’re gonna settle this before you leave.”