“I’m thinking you should play up your infatuation with Dr. Charles. That way, if you seem too attentive, that explanation would be readily accepted.”
“Roger that,” I said, wondering which of the agents working this op Cope believed were the type to readily accept anything.
I ended the call and went across the street and a few doors down to a bar that had outdoor seating. I wasn’t there long before I saw Lynx walk up. The man looked as bone-tired as I was.
“You look like I feel,” I said, raising my pint to him. He waved and went in the bar’s main entrance. A few minutes later, he came out with a pint and a shot.
“I didn’t expect to see you again tonight,” I said when he pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Nor I, you.”
I decided to do as Cope suggested and play up my interest in Dr. Charles. “I guess I know why you asked how close Emme and I are this morning.”
“It isn’t what you think.”
I shook my head. “I said I’d like our relationship to change once the mission was over. You decided not to wait.”
“We’ve met once before.”
His tone explained a great deal; I didn’t need to ask any further questions about their “personal” relationship.
“Have you come to any decisions about who to use for Saint and Dr. Benjamin’s extraction?” I asked as though I didn’t already know.
“Yes. A private firm.”
“Who’s heading it up?”
“Decker Ashford and Cortez DeLéon.”
“Rile?”
“Yes.”
Rile DeLéon had a long career as an MI6 agent as well as ties to both the British and Spanish monarchies. “I heard they started a new group. Some bullshit name like the Invincibles or something.”
He laughed. “That is correct.”
“What’s the plan?” I asked just as his cell rang.
“This is Decker now.” His call was brief, and when it ended, he told me the Invincibles team would be arriving in the morning.
I took another drink of my beer. “About Emme—”
“She was seeing Saint.”
I hadn’t seen that coming. “No shit?”
Lynx didn’t respond.
“How much does she know?” I asked.
“Only that there was a brush pass, but not the details of it.”
I drained the rest of the beer from my glass and set it on the table. “Early start tomorrow,” I said, tossing some money on the table and hopping the fence to leave.
Lynx called a meeting for zero eight hundred the next morning, oddly at Emme’s apartment rather than at Saint’s.
“What are you doing here?” she asked when she responded to my knock at her door. “Sorry,” she added when she saw I brought her coffee and bagels from her favorite place. I looked around when she invited me in; I was obviously the first to arrive.
“Lynx is on his way over, too,” I said, just now noticing she was clad in only a robe. She must’ve realized it at the exact moment I did since she scurried down the hall.
“Give me a minute. Make yourself at home,” she hollered behind her.
While I waited for her to change, Decker Ashford arrived.
“Hello. Who are you?” Emme said to him a few minutes later when she came back into the kitchen.
“I’m Decker Ashford, ma’am,” he said, stepping forward to shake her hand.
“Emerson Charles,” she responded, looking at me although I had no idea why. “I’m sorry, I know you told me your name, but why are you in my apartment?”
Evidently, she hadn’t been briefed on this meeting or that it was taking place here. Damn Lynx. “Decker is part of a team we’re working with to locate Saint and Dr. Benjamin,” I told her at the same time there was another knock at her door.
“Would you like to get that?” she snapped.
“Uh, sure.”
When I opened the door, Lynx walked in.
“I would offer you gentlemen something; however, I was unaware a meeting was taking place in my home this morning.” Emme glared at me as she said it, only pissing me off more at Lynx.
“You didn’t make Dr. Charles aware of the meeting?” I finally asked, getting tired of Emme taking her anger out on me.
“I called, but it went straight to voicemail,” he said to her.
“Are we expecting anyone else?” she asked.
“No, and let’s take this over to Saint’s apartment,” Lynx suggested before I had the chance to.
“I’m curious why you didn’t meet there in the first place.”
I looked at Lynx, expecting him to answer, but he didn’t. I motioned Decker to the door, expecting Lynx to follow. He didn’t do that either.
Several minutes later, he and Emme walked into Saint’s apartment together. I watched as he introduced her to the other men in the room from the Invincibles: Rile, Miles “Grinder” Stone, and Lynx’s younger brother, Keon “Edge” Edgemon. Both Grinder and Edge had formerly been employed by the MI5 side of SIS, aka Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service, which was akin to the US Department of Homeland Security.
“Are we ready to get down to business?” asked Decker once the introductions concluded.
I took the lead. “Emme, as you’re aware, the CIA and MI6 have been working jointly undercover at IPP the last few months.”
She appeared to be listening but walked over to the window, keeping her back to us.
I continued. “These gentlemen were asked to come on board after the CIA received word of a brush pass between one of our agents and Saint.” I took a step closer to her. “They’re with a private security and intelligence firm who will be leading the mission from this point on.”
Emme tapped her lips with her fingertip. “What was the mission?”
“To locate Saint and Dr. Benjamin,” I answered.
“That isn’t what I asked. I said, ‘What was the mission?’ Not what is the mission.”
I looked at Lynx, who shook his head. If I didn’t believe we were close to uncovering information that might give us our first real lead about the mole who was feeding the Chinese information about agents who in turn were dying, I’d walk out.
“Maybe we should consider working from a remote field office rather than at MIT,”
