“You let that slide?” Asher asked in amazement.
“I didn’t want to do anything that would ultimately upset the senator,” Eden explained. “Then when we went to sit down for dinner, I found out we were with another couple. It turned out to be one of the partners from the firm where he was working. Edwin was just out of law school, but he was already trying to score points and work his way up the corporate ladder.”
Ash raised his eyebrow. “And then?”
“This guy was with his girlfriend. They weren’t getting along, and he was ready for something new, and apparently, I was it. Edwin was happy to deliver.”
“You’re shitting me, right?”
Eden sucked in her lips and shook her head. “Nope. Wish I was.”
“Somehow after dinner, we all ended up at Doug’s house. It was when Doug was insisting on a midnight dip in his hot tub that I’d had enough. So had his girlfriend. Of course, neither of us had our cars. I called my roommate who came and picked us up.
“I was so upset. Then Edwin started calling me to say it wasn’t what I thought that I had misunderstood things.”
“Don’t tell me you went out with him again?”
“I called Mom first. I needed her opinion. But first I got her to promise not to tell Dad. She gave me good advice, told me he was gaslighting me, trying to tell me what was actually happening wasn’t the truth. She assured me that I was seeing things correctly.” Eden snorted.
“What?”
“I screwed up by getting her to promise not to tell Dad. I should have said and don’t tell my brothers, because within days, my oldest brother Pete was in Boise.”
“The Green Beret?”
Eden nodded.
“Good for him.”
“The day Pete showed up at my door after work, the senator had mentioned that Edwin had to be taken to the E.R. because he’d fallen down some stairs. Needless to say, when I saw my brother, I put two and two together right away.”
“The more and more I hear about your family, the more I like them.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot to like,” Eden agreed. “What about your Mom and brother?”
Eden jolted when an alarm went off. It was a timer on Asher’s watch.
“Time to check back in,” he gave a half-smile.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you planned that.”
“Then it’s a good thing you know better.”
He untangled their fingers and got up from the table. He fished out a can of Altoids and put it down in front of Eden.
“Dessert, Mademoiselle.”
“Merci.” She smiled as she eagerly opened up the tin of mints.
“But beware, the mints aren’t going to stop me from asking more questions,” Eden warned. “But it was a good try.”
Chapter 14
“This is Leo. We’ve got a problem.”
“What else is new?” Ash asked. “Give it to me.”
He looked over at Eden, who was frowning, so he put the phone on speaker and set it down on the table in front of her. He couldn’t sit down. His blood was pumping too fast.
“Kane’s got a lock on their communication’s channel. He’s been listening in to their conversations for the last hour. Señora Azua was right, Perez is in charge of this op. He’s convinced there is a ton of money to be had in the bank, and he’s cutting out Maduro, but nobody else knows that.”
“If none of his underlings know it, how does Kane know it?”
“Maduro is still incommunicado, so this is all Perez. Our guess is that Perez is planning on looting the bank, then getting the hell out of Venezuela, never to be seen again. So, he wants this done before Maduro gets back to Caracas.”
“So, what’s Perez planning? It’s Saturday,” Asher looked at his watch, “at seven a.m. He’s running out of time.”
“He no longer cares if civilians know that he’s trying to break into the bank. All sense of subterfuge is gone. The report on the news is that there has been structural damage to the bank, and now Maduro’s people are trying to rescue bank employees. There’s a news helicopter that actually live-streamed the tank blowing holes in the North gate so that secret police could get to the bank building.”
“Everybody in Caracas would either believe them or would be too scared to say anything against them.”
“Okay, so it’s going to be an all-out assault against the vault,” Eden said. “How are they planning on doing it? From what Kane said the last time, they only had dynamite and that other stuff.”
There was a long pause before Leo started talking.
“Perez hasn’t been talking about this on regular channels. He’s been on his phone, so Kane hasn’t been able to do his eavesdropping thing, which you know kills him.”
Asher chuckled. “I wonder what A.J. thinks of that.”
“You know she’d cut him off at the knees if he ever tried shit like that with him.”
“I don’t think that’s what she’d be cutting.” They laughed harder. “Okay, so Kane knows nothing.”
“I didn’t say that,” Leo sounded like he was smirking. “Would you believe there is an earthmover being unloaded outside the gate?”
“Hmmmm.”
“Yep, they plan to dig their way in and then set the charges,” Leo said. “But they won’t work, will they?” Leo wanted reassurance.
“Leo, you need to keep an eye on things. They might not be digging just a hole for a man to climb down and set charges, they could be clearing the area so that the tank could shoot a mortar at the vault. Either way, it’s a hell of an undertaking. It’ll take hours.”
“Or how about they’re digging out a ramp so that the tank could angle its cannon at the vault and shoot at it that way?” Eden suggested.
Leo laughed, but
