Carlos could only feed him bits and pieces for so long before Durand figured out he was stalling for time. “I don’t know exactly what he has in mind. I was only a conduit of information. I sent what I found out on him to people who are trying to protect the teens and the presidential cabinet.”
Durand’s eyebrows lifted. “Just who do you work with?”
“No one. I’m an independent contractor.”
“So who pays you for this information?”
“Lots of people, but there was no way to trace the money back to them so I don’t have any names for you.”
“Why should I believe you?” Durand kept his anger controlled, but the rigid set of his jaw clearly showed that he believed Vestavia had played him.
“Why do you think Vestavia was upset when he saw me? He knows that I know he was behind the viral attack on the U.S. last year”-Carlos paused as that registered in the horrified frowns surrounding him-“and that he plans to make you the scapegoat for this attack. Don’t believe any grand plan he told you would include the Anguis organization. This man is more mercenary than you ever hoped to be.”
Something else came to Carlos while he was playing this hand. “And Salvatore is not going to be happy when he finds out who set him up to be blamed for the hits on your oil minister.”
Durand’s face flared with just enough surprise to confirm what Carlos had guessed. Vestavia probably paid Durand to make missed attempts on the oil minister in a way that placed the blame at Salvatore’s feet. But why “missed” attempts?
“What do you know about Vestavia’s organization?” Durand asked.
Carlos shook his head in disgust. Durand was so power hungry he’d let a dangerous man dupe him.
“I don’t know for sure,” Carlos hedged, unwilling to share anything unnecessary about the Fratelli. “But I believe he’s part of a highly organized group who have the financial and political capability of wiping you off the face of the earth.”
Durand’s face changed colors from a sickly gray to mottled shades of red, but he still answered softly, “You lie.”
“No, I don’t. Check out my story.” Fat chance of Durand’s doing that. Carlos accepted that he’d reached the end of the time he could stall.
“Give me the damn iron,” Durand ordered in a low voice without looking at Julio, who rushed over to the pit and retrieved the iron.
A siren blared through the building.
Radios crackled on the hips of Julio and his men: “We are under attack!” Weapons fired in the background.
Durand’s face turned a deep purplish red. He crossed the room and took the branding iron from Julio’s hand. “Go see what is happening and take the men. It could be someone trying to get Alejandro. Maybe that pig Vestavia.”
Julio raced past Carlos to the door at his back, yelling orders at his men, who followed.
Carlos braced for the red-hot iron heading for his chest.
Durand stepped forward with the casual arrogance of a man who had always been in control.
When Durand got close, Carlos shoved up on the pads of his feet, grasping the chain in his sweaty hands. He kicked a boot up to knock the branding iron free. The end hit his thigh, frying a strip of skin before the rod hit the ground. He growled at the pain and swung his second boot right behind the first to connect with Durand’s chin.
An explosion outside rocked the building. Carlos lost his grip and dropped hard to the floor, wrenching his wrists. He tried to twist around to see if anyone was coming, but couldn’t.
If Vestavia had sent men for him, Carlos had a chance to fight another day.
Durand stumbled backward, caught his balance, then reached over to his left for the chain hoist control. He hit a button, yanking Carlos off the ground where he couldn’t get traction to jump a second time. He lifted the branding iron off the floor and started walking.
“I was only going to mark you as a traitor, but now I’ll let this burn all the way through to your black heart.”
Durand moved forward, the branding iron chest high and coming at Carlos.
The door behind Carlos blasted open. Durand looked past him, eyes shocked. A gunshot boomed through the room.
The bullet struck Durand between the eyes, knocking him backward an inch before the iron reached Carlos.
Carlos sucked a couple fast breaths, then waited as heavy footsteps pounded up to him.
Dominic Salvatore held a.357 Magnum with the barrel pointed at Carlos’s head. “Who are you?” Then his fierce gaze went to the tattoo and scar on Carlos’s chest. He frowned, thinking. “Durand’s brother died…there are no more family…” Recognition dawned.
“Alejandro?”
A LOW BUZZ of conversation filled the hearing room that held an easy hundred people. Awed voices from teenagers on their first visit and adults shielding whispered words percolated the air.
Joe walked away from Dolinski, the Secret Service agent in charge of operations today, wishing he could tell the president’s protective service the truth about his team. Since no one knew BAD existed, the president had personally cleared Joe’s team as a private security group hired to watch for a kidnapping attempt on three physically challenged teenagers during their international travels. And Joe would have shared more if they had firm evidence of a threat, more than just a warning sent in a postcard from an unknown woman about teenagers with no history of violence.
The SS wouldn’t believe him if he swore on Bibles.
The way Joe saw it, the children, the president’s cabinet, and esteemed members of Congress were as safe as they could be with the SS and twelve BAD agents in the room including him and Tee. Speaking of his codirector, Tee finished texting a message on her cell phone as he walked up to her. The navy jacket and pants look they’d chosen for this mission had been custom-tailored for her petite size and fit her lethal business image. Straight hair fell to her shoulders in fine strands of sin black.
He envied how comfortable she looked in the straitlaced attire that matched his. Give him jeans and a T-shirt any day.
“I don’t like this.” Tee met his gaze with a severe one that missed little. “Feels too easy.”
“What do you mean?” Joe surveyed the room, catching sight of his people as he took in each section. Two BAD agents stood within fifteen feet of the three teens. Joe had pointed out four of his people to the SS agent so if something happened and those two moved in to protect the teens, they wouldn’t be shot by Dolinski’s men.
“Everyone is here. What better way to lure so many powerful people into one spot than by using political hot buttons?” Tee grumbled, thinking out loud more than pointing out the obvious. “Just because the room is full of children doesn’t mean it’s safe enough to have the president, most of his cabinet, and an alarming number of congressional members present.” Tee’s cell phone buzzed. She thumbed a key and read a text message, then scowled. “Correction. Both presidential candidates and their running mates. This is a terrorist’s wet dream.”
Joe pointed out, “But nobody in an intelligence group has noticed any terrorist movement in the past two weeks, no one has entered the U.S., nothing has popped up on anyone’s radar but what we’ve learned at BAD. And the SS swept for bombs.” He frowned, thinking. Could they have missed something? “We can’t put a hundred percent faith in a damn postcard from some woman no one can vouch for except Gabrielle.”
“I know.” Two small vertical lines broke the plane of Tee’s exotic face, which was part Vietnamese, the tiny change a serious sign of her frustration. “Gotthard is running a breakdown between the list of everyone preregistered and anyone who came through security who was not on that list.”
“Slipping in undetected would be hard to engineer.”
“Not if that person was SS or another national security agency.”
“What are you thinking?” Joe shoved his full attention to Tee now. She had the amazing ability to think not just outside the box, but to reach the outer limits of possibilities.
“We didn’t find out until after the viral attacks last year that a DEA agent had been working as a mole.”
