took my escape, but circled back and heard you and your men talking about my brother. Why?”
Blair’s mouth opened and closed like a fish as he processed the information.
Jack could deck Kane himself. He hadn’t known he’d intentionally let himself be grabbed. You don’t do that without backup! Kane couldn’t have known whether Blair had been given a kill order. He didn’t know if they might have incapacitated him. Drugged him. Shot him. Tossed him out of a fucking airplane.
Sometimes Kane made Jack crazy.
Kane’s arm came out so fast that if Jack wasn’t expecting it, he would have missed it. Kane punched Blair in the face. If he hadn’t checked his swing, the bones from Blair’s nose would have shot up into his brain. But as it was, Kane knew exactly what he was doing. Blair’s nose was smashed, he was in pain, but he would live.
Blair started blubbering as blood poured from his face.
Kane pulled Blair’s phone from his pocket and pushed his shaking thumb on the button to decode it. There was no reception here, but Kane scrolled through recent calls and texts. He frowned. Showed the phone to Jack.
Jimmy Hunt was in his contacts. They’d had extensive contact two years ago, then intermittent contact since—apparently through a surrogate. Kane went through more carefully.
“What’s going down?” Kane asked.
“Fuck you! Fuck you!” Blair said, his nasally voice pained.
Kane put his fist up and Blair screamed, then started choking on his own blood. He spat out blood, coughed, spat out more. Kane watched.
He didn’t ask again.
Blair began to sob. He put his head down on his knees and cried like a baby, muttering, though Jack couldn’t tell what he was saying.
And still, Kane waited him out.
“He’s escaping from prison, okay?” Blair finally said. “Sometime today. I don’t have the details. I don’t know when.”
Hunt had been transferred to a prison in Texas, according to Megan. Beaumont wasn’t far from Houston, but what did that have to do with Sean?
Sean was in prison in Houston.
Could he be in the same prison? Jack couldn’t imagine how that would be possible. Sean was in jail, downtown, awaiting arraignment.
Hunt was testifying in federal court. He might be kept in the same jail …
Kane was doing his stare down, but Jack realized that Blair might not know exactly what was going on. He had some facts, but not all the details.
“Sean Rogan,” Jack said. “Spill. Now.”
“He’s the guy who stole all their money two years ago, that much I know. I was told to grab you,” he said to Kane, “to make him comply.”
The way he said it, Jack believed him. And it made sense.
Sean was in jail.
Unless …
Jack walked out. Kane followed.
“I need to call Megan. Don’t kill him.”
“He planned to transport me, probably to Hunt.”
“Why set it up like this?”
“Because we’re weaker here than we are in the States.”
“This is about the money Sean siphoned off from the Hunts—that money is long gone, in government coffers. Sean can’t get it back,” Jack said.
“Sean can get money for Hunt,” Kane said. “It doesn’t have to be their money.”
Sean’s hacking skills came in handy, but now they put him at great risk.
“We have to get him locked down.”
“Sean isn’t going to help even if he thinks I’m in trouble,” Kane said. “I trained him better than that.”
“It might not have been about you. Sean has other vulnerabilities. Nate is out of commission because of the drug bust, Brad is missing, and Lucy is likely in Houston because of Sean—which puts her at risk, even with Patrick watching her. It also means Jesse is vulnerable. Even if they can’t get to Jesse, if they get to you Sean might believe they also grabbed Jesse, and he’ll have no way to verify.”
Kane clearly wasn’t confident in Jack’s analysis, but he nodded.
Jack pulled his sat phone from his bag and called Megan. It took her several rings to answer.
“Jack?” she said. Her voice sounded rushed and far away.
“We have information that Blair has been in communication with Jimmy Hunt and that Hunt is planning an escape.”
“Hunt escaped this morning and took Sean with him. One corrections officer dead, the other wounded—but he made a statement that Sean shot and killed his partner. The police think that Sean orchestrated the escape, there’s a manhunt, and they’re interrogating Lucy right now. Kate Donovan is on her way here and I hope she can take over the investigation, because this is a mess—I heard that a cell phone was found in