Tempest - Kris Michaels Page 0,29

listen to us via electronics, and it is soundproofed so good old-fashioned snooping is out too. Who do you need first?" Smoke clicked on a sat phone line and opened the encryption keys.

Tempest sat and ran his hands through his hair. "Anubis." The man was going to be pissed. Tonight was his alone time with his woman. He glanced at his watch. Sucks to be Anubis.

Smoke keyed in the number. The phone rang twice.

"I take call duty as a favor for one night—one fucking night—and I've had three calls. Smoke, this had better be good."

He hadn’t heard Bengal's voice in a while.

Smoke cleared his throat. "I've got Tempest and Sage with me."

"Authenticate Action."

"Movie. We need to go secure." Smoke placed his hand on the key.

"One second. Okay, go secure." Sat phone light changed from red to yellow to green.

"Line is secure. What do you need, Smoke, and why aren't you calling Fury?"

"First, I don't need jack shit. I'm loafing around at Tempest's safe house, and he shows up, and now I believe we've been sucked into his op. But hey, where are my manners? How have you been? How's the wife? Work okay? We should get together sometime and have a drink."

"Tempest, do me a favor and shut him up, please," Bengal's beleaguered voice begged him across the connection.

Smoke smiled at him and high-fived Browning. Clowns. Seriously, they were both teenagers in grown-ass men's bodies.

"I have a lead on a person I believe is a member of Stratus. Highly placed if my gut is leading me in the right direction."

"Stand by, Tempest." Ah, there was the Bengal he knew. Hard-assed and driven.

Smoke walked to the back wall and opened a small fridge. He extracted a water and held it up in question. He lifted his hand and the bottle sailed through the air. Smoke grabbed two more and made it back to the table where all three of them sat as people started checking in over the secure phone line.

"Thorn One on the line." Fury's growl pierced the silence.

"Alpha on."

"Dom Ops."

"Cyber."

"Archangel."

Guardian personnel chimed in before Bengal came back on the line. "We have Tempest, Smoke, and I'm assuming Browning with us."

"You are correct," Tempest acknowledged.

"Break it down for me." Archangel's gravelly voice gave the command.

"When I was held by Stratus, I had a visitor, about two months before I was released." Tempest studied his hands as he spoke. "I'm sure those with the need to know have access to my Go/No go and have been briefed on what transpired. Suffice to say, I returned to Florida to fulfill my obligation to her. I determined her mother was the one who placed her in the cell with me. She was teaching Pilar a lesson on how she acquired information."

"It never ceases to amaze me how parents can reach into the depths of depravity. What ever happened to taking care of your kids?" Tempest listened to the woman who chimed in as Cyber pop off. He'd never talked to her, but he'd lay odds the woman was Bengal's wife.

"What makes you believe the mother is Stratus?" Alpha's question went straight to the point.

"The woman in the cell with me intimidated the guard and used her mother as the threat to get him to do what she wanted."

There was silence for a moment.

"This wasn't included in your debrief folio," Fury commented.

"I was so far gone by that point I didn't know if what I remembered was real or not." Which was a bald-faced lie. He remembered every second of his time with her as if it were inscribed on his DNA. "I made contact with her and validated what I believed to be true."

"What is the mother's name?"

"Regina Grantham."

A low hum sounded across the line. "Not a name we've heard before," Dom Ops said, and he heard typing in the background.

"I got her,” Cyber crowed, “She's got some kick ass controls on her digital footprint. I mean... almost nothing is out there. I love a project. I'll crack this nut. Give me time. Her daughter... damn almost the same except for school records. Ah, smart... an attorney."

"Her mother's attorney," Tempest supplied.

"So, we aren't going to get any information from her." Exasperation filled Alpha's comment.

"No, actually she's willing to give us all the information she has on her mother as long as it doesn't come back to her. Morally, she's conflicted. She took an oath to protect the confidentiality of her client, but she's seen what her mother is doing. If we can use