Bad Attitude (B.A.D. Agency #1)(30)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

“Don’t you dare touch it!”

“We’re the FBI, Mr. Wallace,” Andre chimed in. “We dare anything. Your staff has been under surveillance for the last six months, and now all of them are busted.”

“Eeh!” Carlos snapped. “Step away from the laptop, Mr. Wallace. That is now property of the U.S. government.”

“This is bullshit! No one has touched my laptop but me.”

Andre tsked. “If it’s in this office, they had access to it, which means it comes with us. But don’t worry. Here’s your receipt. The address is on the back. If there’s nothing on it pertaining to our case, you’ll be able to pick it up once we’re through with it. Otherwise, we’ll see you in court.”

“I’m calling my attorney.”

“You do that, Mr. Wallace,” Andre said in a low, lethal tone.

“Don’t touch that!”

“We’re the government, Mr. Wallace. You can’t stop us. Have a nice day, sir.”

More expletives followed at such an ear-splitting level that Steele had to pull the earpiece out to keep from losing his hearing. He looked over at Syd, who was still grinning ear to ear.

“You people are sick.”

She laughed evilly. “Aren’t we, though? You gotta love Carlos and Andre. Now you know what Andre did in the FBI. He’s good, isn’t he?”

“And what if Wallace calls the FBI?”

“They won’t tell him anything. He has a case number on the paperwork and warrant that will route him to Tee in Nashville, who gives the runaround so good that by the time you hang up, you forgot why you called.”

She tossed a few dollars on the table for the waitress. “C’mon, it’s rendezvous time.”

Steele took one last sip of his coffee before he got up and followed her to the car. She drove him over to the Mall in front of the old Smithsonian building, where he saw Andre and Carlos eating a hot dog while sitting on a bench. Carlos had ditched his tie and coat and wore his white shirt with the collar unbuttoned and the hem untucked.

Andre still looked impeccable sans the FBI windbreaker.

They parked the car, then went over to them.

“Hot dog?” Carlos offered as they drew near.

“Computer,” Syd said without hesitation.

Carlos took a sip of his soda. “You didn’t say please.”

“Please, Carlos, let me have the computer.”

“Simon didn’t say—”

Andre let out a disgusted breath. “Oh, for God’s sake, give her the damn computer, boy.”

Carlos was completely unruffled. “You need to learn to zen, Andre. Ohm…ohm…”

“I’m going to ohm your ass. Now hand it over.”

“Impatient gringos.” He reached down between his legs and opened the briefcase between his feet. He pulled out Wallace’s laptop. “We also seized the secretary’s hard drive and the payroll computer.”

Steele shook his head. “You do realize you just stole computers from a man who kills people for a living, right?”

Carlos swallowed a bite of his chili dog. “Let him take a number. Believe me, I have much better men than him wanting me dead.”

Syd pushed Carlos over so that she could sit down as she booted up the laptop. After a few seconds, she cursed. “It’s password-encrypted.”

Steele gave her a droll stare. “You think?”

She glared up at Steele before she handed it off to Andre. “Get us in.”

“No problem. Give me a few minutes in the van.” Andre crumpled up his hot-dog wrapper, then got up and headed for the black van across the street.

“So when did you get in?” Syd asked Carlos.

He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Joe sent me in yesterday after Steele was shot. He thought you guys might need a little backup.”

Syd smiled, and a weird jealous twinge went through Steele. “Well, we’re glad to have you.”

Carlos gave her a wicked grin. “And I’d be glad to be had by you, Syd.”

Steele had to force himself not to leap at Carlos’s throat.

“Careful, Carlos,” Syd said. “You’ll be limping.”

“Ah, don’t tease me, Syd. I dream of being so frisky with you that it leaves me limping afterward.”

Syd frogged his arm.

“Ow!” Carlos said as he rubbed his biceps, “Anyone ever tell you you hit like a man?”

“Just Hunter.”

Carlos slid farther down the bench, away from her.

Syd looked up, and he must have had a grim expression on his face, because she immediately frowned at him. Steele didn’t say anything for fear it might end in his choking Carlos.

Or shooting him.

At any rate, he was hoping the man would choke on his chili dog.

After a few minutes, the horn beeped from the van. The three of them headed across the street and climbed into the back.

“Well?” Syd asked.

Andre sighed. “I’m not sure how much we can use. Gotta give the man credit, he is paranoid. Everything is key-coded. No e-mails are kept, but I know his server info, so I’ve already called Marc, who is doing a scan of outgoing mail for that service. It’ll probably take a few hours, or even a couple of days.”

Syd shook her head. “We don’t have a couple of days, Andre.”

“It’s the best I can do, Syd.”

Syd leaned her head back as she felt completely defeated. She was beyond frustrated and tired. Every time they took a step forward, it seemed like they took ten back.

“We’ll get them,” Steele assured her.

“How?”

“Have faith.”

“No offense,” she scoffed, “but I’m all out.”

Steele gave her a wickedly charming smile. “Well, that’s because you’re not thinking right.”

Now that offended her. “How so?”

“Pretend for a minute that you are the owner of a ring of assassins and mercenaries. The government just came in and swiped your computer. What would you be doing right now?”

“Freaking out,” Carlos said as he moved over toward one of the panels. “You’d be contacting your people like a mother-fucker, trying to warn them.”

Steele nodded.

He was right. Syd watched as Carlos started running a trace on Wallace’s phones while Steele pulled the PDA out of his pocket and listened.

But as they listened to the telephone calls, Syd’s hope quickly dwindled again. Wallace used so much doublespeak and so many vague references that he might as well be speaking ancient Greek.

Time dragged by as they listened to phone call after phone call without much progress.

“Stalin? This is Wallace. Our security data has been a bit compromised.”

“This is it, Carlos,” Steele said, poking him on the shoulder. “Trace it and record it.”

Carlos frowned at him.

“Trust me.”

Carlos did as he said. But Syd was with Carlos. What on earth made Steele think that this was the right call?

Steele took his earpiece out as Carlos turned the speaker up inside the van for them to listen to the whole conversation.

“What do you mean, compromised?” The voice was thick and deep, and tinged with a southern drawl. There was some kind of distortion on it, probably to make it sound a few octaves deeper. But with a little cleanup, Andre might be able to decipher it for a voice match.

Syd watched as Steele’s face turned to stone.

“Don’t panic,” Wallace said. “I doubt they can find anything. I’m not that stupid.”

“Everyone’s that stupid, Wallace. Mission is compromised, breached, and over.”

“No! Listen, I don’t have time to assign another contractor to the case. Finish it, and I’ll give you a twenty-thousand-dollar bonus.”

“I don’t know—”

“C’mon, Stalin. We need you on this one.”

“Fifty thousand.”

Steele’s eyes narrowed even more.

“Fuck you,” Wallace snarled. He paused briefly before he added, “Twenty-five.”

“Fifty-five thousand.”

Wallace growled low in his throat. “You’re supposed to go the other way in negotiations, dickhead.”

“Sixty thousand,” the distorted voice insisted.

“Fifty.”

There was silence.

“You still there?” Wallace asked.

“As I said, fifty, wired to my usual account after I complete the assignment.”

“Deal.” Wallace hung up.

Syd looked up at Steele. “Now what makes you think that that is the right call? With the exception of
the bonus, it sounds like everything else we’ve heard.”

“I overheard a conversation in Wallace’s office earlier. It’s the right person.”

“What conversation?”

Steele didn’t feel like answering that question at the moment. He was feeling ill at what he’d just heard.

He couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t.

“What time was the conversation?” Andre asked. “We can pull it out of the recordings.”

Steele shook his head. “You don’t need to.”

Syd opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off. “I know who they’ve hired.”

“This is great!” she said, her eyes filled with joy.

Funny, he didn’t feel that way. He was actually sick to his stomach.

Unaware of his turmoil, Syd continued making plans. “All we have to do now is keep an eye on this guy, and when the time comes, we arrest him.”

“It’s not that simple, Syd,” Steele said, his throat tight.

“Of course it is.”

“No, it’s not.”

Nonplussed, she frowned at him.

“Did you ever study Russian history in school?” he asked her.

“Of course.”

“Do you remember what the name Stalin means?”

Her frown deepened. “Why is that important?”

“It means ‘steel,’ ” Carlos said.

Steele nodded slowly. “Yeah. That contractor on the phone…he’s my father.”

Sixteen

Syd felt her jaw drop as Steele headed for the door and left the van. She glanced to Carlos, who whistled low.

“Man, that’s harsh,” he said quietly.

Andre nodded. He looked up at Syd. “I think we should replace Steele. I don’t see how he can complete the mission when he’s this emotionally involved.”

She agreed. Emotions and their kind of work had no place together. In fact, to tangle the two was most often a death sentence.

Her heart heavy for Steele, she left the van to follow him.

He was steadily making his way across the lawn, toward the natural science portion of the Smith. She quickened her steps to catch up to him.

“Josh?” she said, pulling him to a stop. “You okay?”

A tic started in his jaw as he stood there. Instead of looking at her, he was looking at the museum. “You know, my dad brought me here when I was thirteen. All I wanted was to look at the dinosaur bones, but he dragged me up the hill to the Vietnam War memorial and showed me the name of his older brother, who’d died over there.”

He looked at her, and those dark eyes scorched her with their pain. “He made me read every single name on that wall and told me that God, country, and duty were all that mattered in life. You do your duty, and you never betray your honor. To break that code dishonors every name on the monument, and it spits in their faces and on their memories. God damn it, Syd, how could he do this now? How could that man become a contract killer?”

Syd ached for him as she pulled him into her arms and held him. “Maybe it wasn’t him.”

His arms held her close as he lay his head on her shoulder. “I know the sound of his voice, Syd. Even when it’s distorted. He’s my father. It was him. Those were his words. It was his cadence and method. He always loved Stalin and the man’s methods. If he had to choose a code name, that would be it.”

She squeezed him tight, wanting to ease the agony she heard in his voice. But she didn’t know how. Honestly, she didn’t think anything could ever ease the pain of this moment. Dear Lord, how would she feel if she were in his shoes?

“Don’t worry, Josh. It’s over for you. We’ll take it from here.”

He shook his head as he pulled back to stare down at her. “No. God. Country. Duty. I signed on for this, and I will see it through.”

“But—”

“Not buts, Syd. You can’t arrest him until he makes his move on the president.”

“You can tell us how to catch him.”

“No,” he said emphatically. “I want to see this through.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “Don’t worry. I’m your ace in the hole. There’s no one on this planet who knows that man better than me. I know every tactic, every move.”

She supposed he did. And that broke her heart. But in that moment, she gained a respect for him unlike anything she’d ever had for any other person.

Lifting his hand, she placed a kiss on the callused palm, then held it to her cheek. If she lived a thousand years, she would never understand the strength of this man.

Steele melted at the sensation of her soft lips on his skin. The sunlight highlighted the reddish streaks in her black hair. God, she was beautiful.

And for a moment, he was lost in those green eyes. He’d never felt like this about anyone else. He was hot, yet chills spread over him.

“I won’t let you down, Syd. I promise.”

A slow smile spread over her face before she pulled him into her arms again for a quick hug. “I know.”

She let go and pulled back. He felt the sudden emptiness of his arms, and it went through him like a knife.

She took his hand and led him back toward the van. But what amazed him most was the fact that even though she let go of his hand to climb back inside, she took it right back.