younger man to know that Damien had figured it out weeks ago. The man might be brilliant, but Damien didn’t work with people he didn’t know.
Damien’s and Fawkes’s ideologies were different. Fawkes looked to destroy and rebuild all of law enforcement. Damien just wanted Omega to suffer the way he did when he’d lost his Natalie. Wanted them to know what it meant to experience unbearable loss.
But if Damien could bring chaos across the country by destroying the foundation of all law enforcement, as was Fawkes’s plan, then hell, he was up for that, too.
“It’s time,” Fawkes said as he paced back and forth hardly visible beside a window, even in the full moon. “You’ll be ready, right? We only have eight days.”
Damien sat perched against a desk. “Yes, I’ll be ready to do my part in your master plan.”
“We’ve gotten rid of two of their team members completely. Another is injured and not fully up to speed.” Fawkes continued his pacing.
“It’s a mistake to underestimate the Critical Response Division, even when they’re weakened.” Damien had learned that the hard way.
“They brought in a new guy on the SWAT team. That was unexpected.” Fawkes stopped and studied Damien as he said it, as if gauging his response.
Damien knew all about the new guy. “Is that a problem?”
“No.” Fawkes resumed his pacing. “The team thinks they’re so smart, but they’re not. I’ve left a trail. It’s going to lead right to the very heart of the SWAT team. The sweetheart.”
“Lillian Muir?” Damien raised an eyebrow.
“I’ve got special plans for her. Have already left clues in the system that lead back to her as the mole I know they’re searching for.”
Damien had to admit Fawkes’s computer skills were impressive. He’d provided information that had helped Damien a great deal. Most particularly two weeks ago, when Omega had almost captured him at his own house. Without a warning from Fawkes, Damien would never have made it out.
Nor taken one of the SWAT team out of action in the process.
Fawkes might not be the easiest person to work with, but he definitely knew how to manipulate a computer system. And how to manipulate people, for that matter. People didn’t take him seriously enough, including those at Omega Sector.
Which was probably why he was trying to blow up—literally—all of law enforcement.
Or maybe he just had mommy issues. Whatever. Damien didn’t care why Fawkes was doing it, he just wanted to see Omega Sector destroyed. If Lillian Muir was going to take the fall for that, even better. Damien would do a little checking up on her himself.
Fawkes wasn’t the only one with computer skills and digging-up-info skills.
“Is there even going to be anyone left to search for the villain after you get through next week?” Damien asked.
Fawkes stilled. “I’ll be left. I will be one of the few tactically trained agents left in the whole agency. Hell, in the whole country. And all the destruction will lead right to Lillian Muir’s door. She’ll be dead and unable to open the door, but the destruction and blame will still lead right to her.”
Damien grinned. One thing Fawkes had was exuberance. “Sounds like a perfect plan to me.”
Jace Eakin stretched his long legs out in front of him in an office chair that probably hadn’t been comfortable even when it was new. Now that it was ratty and at least a dozen years past that, it was even less so. His knee was stiff from too many hours cramped in a plane, his shoulder vaguely ached from a bullet he’d taken years ago in Afghanistan. Thirty-two was too young to feel this old.
He was in an office that looked like it was out of some old gumshoe movie, complete with dirty windows and low ceilings. The man sitting behind a desk looked almost as rumpled as the office itself.
Jace knew Ren McClement was anything but.
Jace had first met him ten years ago when they served together in the US Army Rangers in the Middle East. Working side by side with someone in daily life-or-death situations showed that person’s true colors. Ren McClement was one of the few people in the world Jace trusted without restriction. He knew the feeling was mutual. Which was why he was here now in this godforsaken seat in some out-of-the-way office in Washington, DC, rather than putting the finishing touches on his ranch in Colorado.
“Ren, seriously, dude, you’ve got to get some chairs not built for midgets.”
Both Ren and the other man in the room, Steve Drackett, chuckled. Ren had gotten out of the army not long after the time he spent in Afghanistan with Jace. Because of his skills and security clearance, Ren had immediately been brought into Omega Sector, a joint task force made up of the best agents the United States had to offer.
Jace knew Ren was one of the highest-ranking members of Omega, and that he worked mostly in covert missions.
Nothing surprising about that. Ren had had the ability to blend in with almost any situation even back in his Ranger days. That the government was smart enough to use him for clandestine work wasn’t surprising to Jace.
What was a mystery to him was why Ren had asked him here to begin with. Although always happy to see his old friend, Jace was not an Omega Sector agent. He wasn’t an agent at all.
“Yeah, budget for this place wasn’t very big,” Ren said. “Not that I’m in here enough to worry about that anyway.”
Ren could probably have a very high-end government office with a million-dollar view of DC, but chose not to. Jace knew for a fact that Ren never entered a government building unless he had to, and even then it wasn’t through the front door. The undercover nature of his job prohibited it.
“I can see why you wouldn’t want to be here often. And speaking of, why am I here? I’m assuming there’s a reason other than reliving old times.”
Ren nodded. “We have a situation in the Omega Critical Response Division out in Colorado Springs. A mole who is leaking information to a terrorist named Damien Freihof. We know the mole is someone inside the SWAT team. Steve—” he gestured to the other man, who was leaning with one shoulder against the wall “—has requested that I send in someone I trust to help find the mole.”
Steve pushed himself away from the wall and handed Jace a thin file with some papers inside. “We found this Manifesto of Change document hidden in one of our Omega computer servers.”
On my honor, I will never betray my badge, my integrity, my character or the public trust.
I will always have the courage to hold myself and others accountable for our actions.
I will always uphold the constitution, my community and the agency I serve.
Jace looked over at Ren, then Steve. “This looks like some sort of law-enforcement creed.”
Steve
