“A team?” I asked, my mind warming to the idea.
Ethan nodded. “A team Xander. That’s just one thing. The offer for this job is eight hundred thousand.”
“It’s not about the money. There’s more. I want that bastard dead.”
“Me too, and I know it’s not about the money. I want him dead too. Remember you and I were once friends and I don’t know why you didn’t find some kind of way to reach me. For help.”
He wasn’t the only person I didn’t reach out to and should have. In my head it was better if everyone believed I died. I thought it would be easier to find Balthazar. He couldn’t run if he didn’t know I was the one who was looking for him.
“I thought it was better.”
“No. How?” He lifted his shoulders into a shrug. “You guys were as close as anybody ever got. We haven’t been able to get close since. No sightings.”
At least I’d had more than that, but that was because I’d worked with the underground. People who wouldn’t have associated with any kind of government. They were the kind of criminals who rose above money. No money on earth would be worth it to them to be linked with government.
“Xander… I need you on this. I really do. It’s the kind of thing where we want to keep it under wraps as much as possible and you’re the man for the job. We get what we want and potentially save millions of people and you get what you want. I don’t mean to be an ass but… I think she would want you to say yes.”
Claire.
Oh yes she would. She was my team leader after all. She would have definitely said yes.
His reference to her pulled on my heart. She was the only woman who could reach me. Right from way back when.
She would have said yes and she would have wanted me to agree to something that could save millions.
I looked back to Ethan and frowned.
“You hit me over my head, nearly fucking killing me, then you bind me to a chair to ask for my help.”
“Sorry about that man. I couldn’t exactly see you agreeing to meet over a cup of tea.”
“Well I’m not much help to you like this… am I?” I raised my shoulders and sighed. “What do I have to do?”
Ethan smiled.
Chapter Four
Xander
Wes glanced at me as Ethan came into the room.
We were sitting opposite each other around a large table in a meeting room at a military base in Nevada. It looked more like an interrogation room for the lack of windows.
Two agents followed after Ethan and took their seats at the furthest end of the table.
This was the first time in six months that we’d come this side of the border.
We’d been in Brazil for the last fourteen months, but went to Florida briefly when we got a lead on Balthazar that came to nothing.
Wes rested his elbow on the edge of the table, ran a hand through his dark blond mane and tensed his jaw. The uneasiness on his face told me he wasn’t sure about this mission, and he wasn’t sure about Ethan either.
Wes didn’t like any kind of authority figure. He didn’t trust any of them, probably because he never worked with them.
While I understood where he was coming from, and respected his opinion, for me it was a little different. In the past I’d seen dirty cops and people who were supposed to be good getting involved with all kinds of shit. I had good examples to follow though. Ethan was one of them.
I had to admit that Ethan was definitely one of the good guys and more than that, he was the kind of guy you could be real with. So that was what I was going on.
It didn’t matter to Wes, but as my best friend he was the kind of guy who would be on board despite his reservations.
He was the only good thing about the last five years. Wes was what I considered to be a modern day Robin Hood. We’d met while he was robbing some rich guys to give money to a village of destitute people. We became friends quickly and he’d been the only person I’d trusted this whole time with my secrets.
That meant I wasn’t doing this— whatever scheme Ethan needed me for — without Wes. To sweeten the deal I gave him all the money I got for our stint with Bernard. It just seemed right, even though I practically had to force it on him. Wes didn’t have to be here.
“Thank you both for coming,” Ethan stated with a pleasant smile, looking from me to Wes. He then moved over to the overhead projector and switched it on.
“This is our guy.” Ethan pointed to the large computer screen and the image of a man I knew as a renowned mobster came up.
“Giovanni Marchesi?” I filled in, before he could say it.
Ethan didn’t look surprised. The other agents did though. Wes narrowed his eyes at me. He knew that if I had a name it was someone to beware of. I only remembered those who we needed to be mindful of in the sense that we should stay away from them.
“What do you know about him?” Ethan asked.
“Vegas King, Mafia Boss, owns Las Vegas, we should stay the fuck away. Far, far away,” I replied.
“That sums him up and we would stay the fuck away except he just got bumped up on our list of threats.”
I smirked, unable to imagine what the guy had done. “Mobsters are greedy. They just want money, they’re low flying criminals in comparison to who you people normally deal with.” I raised my shoulders.
When last I checked, the SMF were more concerned with terrorists, anarchists, rogue government officials, and people associated with them. Not mobsters. Interfering with people like mobsters was like poking at an ant’s nest. You see it and you leave it if it doesn’t bother you. Poke at it and the ants would be all over your ass.
The next slide Ethan showed me shut me right the fuck up.
It was of a guy I’d seen many times before, years ago when I was an agent. We only knew him as The Chameleon. No other name, just called that for his ability to blend in and disappear in the blink of an eye.
He was a Russian illegal arms dealer who’d supplied all manner of people with all types of weapons to carry out whatever scheme they’d planned in order to bring down destruction.
“I don’t have to ask if you know him,” Ethan stated. “Or, him.” He flicked the slide to Diego Sanchez, a notorious member of the Cuban Cartel.
“Fucking hell, Ethan, what the fuck happened?” I scuffed.
“All three are working together, big time. Giovanni of course is the little guy, but the man with the money. There’s always an investor in the equation. Always. It so happens that as this investor is what we call ‘resourceful’, he was able to pull off a heist we never saw coming. It’s the reason why we’ve been called in.” He pulled in a ragged breath and lowered his dark brows. “Two weeks ago the blueprints for a hybrid uranium and plutonium nuclear warhead were stolen while in transit to our base in Arizona. They were created by a scientist at N.A.S.A. Nothing like it exists.”
The blood left my cheeks. “What the hell are you saying to me?”
“It was Giovanni’s guys. They took them. It was very clever. They managed to get to a guy working with the team carrying the prints. Then they managed to switch trucks. There was an ambush but that was just a diversion. We managed to get a guy ID’ed through facial recognition. Only barely. Seriously, it was literally by a stroke of luck and that was how we managed to trace everything back to Giovanni and find out what he’s been up to.”