“Yes,” he said. “Along with dozens of other soldiers from U.S. services.”
“That’s treason.”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“Who’s on J.T.?”
“Nobody,” Dylan admitted. “We lost him over on the west side.”
“We better find him before Lancaster does.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I have a feeling he’s the guest of honor at this get-together in Denver. We invited him, and I’m damn sure Lancaster invited us.”
“Uh, we live here, boss. This is our town.”
“Yeah, but White Rook is the guy who put me in charge of SDF fourteen years ago.”
There was a much longer pause on the other end of the radio this time. Dylan could almost hear Prade churning through that boatload of “we’re so fucking screwed.”
“Does Buck Grant know?” Zach finally asked.
“He knows the name White Rook, but I don’t know if he knows it’s Randolph Lancaster. I just found out this afternoon, after Skeeter decrypted the files I got from LeedTech.”
“And you were going to share this intel when?”
“I hit the office about the same time J.T. hit our garage. Regardless of how we disseminate the intelligence, we need to protect him first. I don’t think we can do that on the street.”
“How good is your data?” Zach asked.
“Pristine.”
“Send me Kid, and I guarantee nothing will get by us on this end.”
“He’s on his way.” And if Lancaster had any gut instincts at all, the hair should already be rising on the back of his neck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
No action.
Not a sign of life.
The Star Motel looked dead to the world, like it had gone out of business and forgotten to turn off the lights.
Skeeter took a sip of the chai latte she’d brought with her from Steele Street. She’d been sitting in the garage’s current “Sheila,” a gray, late-model Buick so nondescript nobody ever noticed it. The car was like part of the pavement. She’d been parked up the street from the motel for damn near an hour and hadn’t seen one thing worth reporting. There were two cars in the motel’s off-street parking area, both of them clearly visible from her vantage point, and neither of them could possibly be J.T.’s getaway car. A ten-year-old Jeep Wrangler four-banger was not anybody’s idea of a getaway car, and neither was a Yugo.
Unbelievable.
A Yugo. Just the thought of an underpowered shoebox on wheels was enough to make her stomach churn, which was the last thing she needed.
She took another sip of latte and stretched back into the seat. A lot was going on out there on the streets tonight, but not on this street out in the middle of BFE, Bum Fuck Egypt.
Dylan wanted her out of the way? Well, he’d gotten her out of the way. The only thing that could rock this place was J.T. showing up out of the blue. That was the score. Maybe she’d get lucky, but just because J.T. and crew had staged from the Star Motel didn’t mean they were coming back. They could go anywhere, drive all night and fly out of Cheyenne, or Colorado Springs, Grand Junction, or even Salt Lake City.
She needed to check the room, and there’d been a time when she would have done that alone, but not now. Dylan had promised her backup, and when it got here, they’d check the room together.
She’d sure like to rescue Jane. A few years ago, she’d been pretty skeptical about a street thief of Jane Linden’s renown being brought into the Steele Street fold, even if it was mostly through the Toussi Gallery, but the girl had proven out, and Skeeter was worried. The former most famous pickpocket in Denver was now a good friend—and J.T. was something else. She didn’t know what.
Juiced. That was for damn sure. God, he’d moved through Steele Street like a storm.
A small green line tracking across the screen of the small computer she’d installed in the Sheila, a Bazo 700 series PC, drew her attention to the dashboard and told her she had a call coming in.
It was about time.
She pressed a button on the unit.
“This is Skeet,” she said.
“Red Dog here, ready to relieve you,” a female voice said.
Red Dog, she thought, wondering if that meant they’d lost J.T. She’d been thinking Dylan would send Quinn or Kid, or both, after the interrogation of Sam Walls.
“Your location?” she asked.
“We’re two blocks behind you and one block over. Come on up and park again on Meldrum, where you can still see the motel, and we’ll switch cars. You’ll drive Coralie home, and we’ll take the Sheila.”