God save him from amateurs. They were unpredictable, they did wild shit that anyone with half-assed training would never do, and sometimes it worked. What if Kingsley had thought to use a silenced weapon? He’d have shot Bo, maybe Tricks too, then waited until Morgan came out. Kingsley hadn’t thought of it, and the dumbass plan hadn’t worked out, but Bo had come so close to being killed Morgan had lost ten years off his life. Only his training had kept him moving, kept him thinking, all the while he was almost insane with gut-wrenching fear.
He wanted the hacker-Devan Hubbert-in a bad way, but Hubbert had given them the slip. At least Axel had been able to secure Hubbert’s personal computer and currently had a whole computer forensic team breaking it down to the code. Whether or not they could find anything incriminating against the Kingsleys was up in the air. The bad news was that street cams showed Hubbert entering the Russian embassy, which meant either he had asylum or he was a deep plant. They couldn’t touch him, at least not without the Russians’ permission-which wasn’t going to happen. In the meantime, they were digging as deep into his background as they could to determine if he was a deep plant or a homegrown traitor.
When Morgan had entered the GO-Teams headquarters, everyone he met looked surprised to see him. There were a lot of people on the support side who he knew on sight but whose names he didn’t know. Everyone knew his name, though, and knew something really bad had gone down a few months before. The place looked like a fire drill, with everyone rushing around and a sense of urgency permeating the air.
He’d gone straight to Axel’s office; though they hoped Devan Hubbert wasn’t still able to monitor Axel’s conversations, until they knew for certain, they were maintaining strict protocol over the phone, so nothing much had been said. Axel’s office, his car, his home were all being swept for bugs. They were routinely swept anyway, but this time everything was being checked down to the wiring. All computers were being checked for any keylogging program. The damage Hubbert could have done-likely had done-was enormous.
“Let’s step outside,” Axel said sourly, indicating how worried they were about the entire building being compromised. There was a safe room, completely shielded from electronics, but evidently he wasn’t trusting even that right now.
From the street the building looked like a nondescript, slightly run-down office building in need of some repairs. There was secure parking from a discreet entrance in back, and adjacent was a public parking area where Morgan had parked since he didn’t have his security ID with him.
The three-hour drive had put him there in the late afternoon, when the D.C. heat was oppressive, the humidity close to a hundred percent. Because of that, as well as the possibility of a parabolic mic being aimed their way-who the hell knew?-they got into Morgan’s Tahoe and he cranked up the air conditioning as well as the radio.
“What happened?” Axel brusquely demanded.
“Dexter Kingsley showed up. Good thing it wasn’t Yartsev, or the outcome would likely have been different. I didn’t have any fancy security in place yet; it’s sheer luck Bo and I aren’t both dead. He grabbed her when she left for work. I heard the dog barking, saw what was going down, and flanked him from the rear. He was holding Bo with his pistol to the back of her head,” Morgan said tersely, his face tightening as he relived the sheer dread and, yes, terror, that he’d had to fight through so he could function. “She lifted her feet and dropped straight to the ground. He shot but his aim was off, got her in the neck.”
Axel’s sour expression didn’t so much as flicker. “Is she dead?”
“No. He didn’t hit anything vital.”
“I assume he’s dead though.”
“Correct.”
Axel said, “That’s something, then. We still don’t have shit against the congresswoman. Maybe there’ll be something on Hubbert’s personal computer, but until then we can’t overtly move against her.”
“Overt” was the operative word. What was done in private was a different animal from what was said in public.
“I suggest we pay Congresswoman Kingsley a visit,” Morgan said, glancing at the time. “I wonder if she’s still in her office.”
“No. I put a tail on her. She went home twenty minutes ago.” His smile was cold and mirthless. “I think talking to her is a good idea. Unofficially, of course.”
“It will be a pleasure.” The long drive had taken Morgan from a hot murderous rage down to a cold murderous rage, driven by the knowledge that he couldn’t do what he wanted to do. His instinct was to walk up to the door and when Joan Kingsley opened it put a bullet in her forehead. He couldn’t do that. He didn’t give a damn about the law, but he did give a damn about whether or not he’d be free to spend the rest of his life with Bo. That mattered. Personal vengeance was one thing, but stupidity was another. Axel would take care of Congresswoman Kingsley, whether that action involved something catastrophic to her health or was restricted to removing her from a position of power-or a combination of both. Things happened. Sometimes those things were truly accidents. Sometimes they weren’t.
“Let me drive,” Axel said. “I know the way.” They swapped seats, though Morgan wasn’t crazy about it because Axel was a shitty driver. But when they arrived at the Kingsley residence in Bethesda, he saw why. The house was a gorgeous Georgian mansion, three stories, thick columns. A gated drive prevented casual access to the property. Axel let down the window to press the button. From his vantage point Morgan couldn’t see a security camera, but there almost assuredly was one, and Axel would have known that. He preferred to keep Morgan in the passenger seat, out of sight. Morgan aided in that by looking down as if he were fooling with his phone in case there were multiple cameras with different viewpoints.
“Yes?” came a voice, without identifying the residence.
“Axel MacNamara to see Congresswoman Kingsley.”
There was a short pause, then the gates began smoothly sliding open on their tracks. When there was enough room, Axel pulled forward. Watching in the side mirror, Morgan saw the gates slide together again.
There was a lot of money represented here, in the three-car garage, the security, the house, the manicured grounds. Morgan remembered their cabin cruiser, which wasn’t a small one. He guessed it would run a couple of hundred thousand, at least; he’d never priced a boat that big or that fancy. Congresswoman Kingsley’s salary wasn’t anything to sneeze at, but neither was it sufficient for this. Dexter Kingsley must have been a hell of a lawyer-either that, or they’d been raking money in on the side for quite a while.
Axel got out and closed the driver’s door. Morgan waited a little bit longer, watching the curtains to see if he detected any movement. Axel continued without pause up the sidewalk to the front door. Morgan thought he saw a slight twitch of the curtains, enough that whoever had peeked out had seen only Axel going to the door.
Quickly he exited, vaulted a piece of shrubbery, and was standing beside Axel when Congresswoman Kingsley opened the door, a calm smile on her pretty face, her silver-white hair immaculate.
He hadn’t accomplished anything except surprise, but it was worth it to see the absolute shock on her face when she recognized him.
She began, “Morgan! It’s wonderful to-” Then she stopped, realizing the pretense was no good because she knew that he’d remembered what he’d seen that day. She knew because of the hacker. She knew because her husband had gone to silence him. What she didn’t know was what had happened to her husband.