“I apologize, sir, but we have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?” Blake asked, tone changing.
“Two federal agents have just taken Mr. Cross into custody.”
“What?”
“I said, two federal agents—”
“I heard you, Preston!”
“Of course, sir,” Preston said as he trotted down the steps of the building he’d been using as his sniper’s nest.
“What agency?”
“I can’t be certain. They had FBI badges, but one of them—”
“Were they CIA?”
“Possibly, sir. I couldn’t tell.”
“That was fucking fast. Stay on them, Preston, but do not move on them, understood? I’ll get back to you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Preston flipped the phone closed and picked up the pace, hurrying to the ground level so he’d have a chance to catch up with that cab.
Chapter 5
TSA used the screened-off area for security searches to pass through airline crews, law enforcement, and VIPs. It was quicker than going through as a regular passenger but still a lot of scrutiny, especially when it came to checking prisoners.
Ty and Zane had debated over whether to go through the law enforcement line since they were supposed to be operating dark, but the risk of taking Julian Cross through the searches without being restrained was too high, and trying to explain that he was handcuffed because he wasn’t coming willingly without identifying themselves as FBI would get awkward.
So there they stood at Midway airport as one uniformed man each patted Cameron and Zane down. Ty rocked from side to side, checking the time on his cell phone every few seconds. Zane knew he didn’t want to miss the plane, but he figured Ty also wanted to get rid of Julian as soon as possible. Zane didn’t blame him; he felt much the same. Julian Cross was dangerous. Even standing sedately in front of them, his hands cuffed, Cameron’s jacket thrown over them to hide the restraints from the general public, he made Zane uneasy. Obviously Ty felt the same way. And there was an added element in that Julian seemed to especially dislike Ty and vice versa. The animosity between the two was solid in the air, and Zane couldn’t figure out why, other than Ty sometimes had that effect on people.
The TSA officials reported them done and waved Zane and Cameron over to the side. Zane holstered his gun when the guard spoke up. “Next,” he said, gesturing for Julian to step forward onto the screening mat. The other screener waved Ty forward.
They stood side by side, Ty annoyed with the whole process and Julian calm and serene as the TSA agent took Cameron’s coat from him to reveal his handcuffs.
Ty had his arms up, hands held out to the sides as he was given a cursory pat down. Julian looked sideways at him, then at the TSA agent. After another moment he calmly said, “He has a bomb.”
Zane whirled in place so he could see Julian just as the agent said, “Excuse me?”
Ty’s head snapped up, and he looked at Julian murderously as Julian repeated, “He has a bomb.”
Ty would have lunged and throttled him right then and there, but the TSA agent who’d been searching him wrapped his arms around Ty’s shoulders to restrain him.
“Cross,” Zane said in warning, “they’ve already checked our ID.” Attempting damage control, he took a couple of slow steps to put himself between Ty and Julian. Cameron hovered on the other side of the mat, looking mortified.
“Their IDs are fake,” Julian told the TSA agents with supreme confidence. He was even using his Irish accent as he spoke. He looked at Ty with what appeared to be heartfelt sincerity. “I can’t let you kill innocent people.”
“Shut up!” Ty growled at him. He pointed a finger in Julian’s face. “If I get a cavity search because of you, I will kick your ass!”
“Grady, enough,” Zane said, pointing at him before he turned to Julian. “You’re not helping yourself, Cross.” He pulled out his wallet with the utmost care and held out his ID and a confirmation card with the appropriate security numbers, hoping to head off a mess.
Julian actually smirked and winked at him. Zane resisted the urge to roll his eyes and maintained his calm, professional mask as a worried-looking TSA agent took his cards and made a beeline for the phone on the desk. Zane could practically hear Ty vibrating with outrage behind him.
Several minutes later, two very large security agents returned with the first and flanked Ty. “You’re going to have to come with us, sir.”
Ty growled and pointed at Julian, looking at Zane as they dragged him away. “I hate him.”
Zane quashed a sigh and nodded. It wouldn’t help to rail against the very excitable TSA, and he turned to nod at Julian. “Go ahead and search him. Thoroughly,” Zane told the agents. Worst case, he could leave Ty and Cameron and take Julian to DC himself, though he’d get no end of shit about it from Ty afterward.
Julian was still smiling as he held his handcuffed hands up to be searched.
“WHAT if they’d just locked us all up? What would that have accomplished?” Cameron asked Julian as they walked alongside Zane, following in Ty’s wake. He was talking on his cell phone as he stalked toward the airline desk.
“It would have delayed the inevitable,” Julian told him with a negligent shrug. He was smirking, something he only did when he was feeling particularly evil.
Ahead of them, Ty stopped in his tracks as he spoke on the phone. “What do you mean, rent a car?”
Julian began to laugh.
The delay at Midway had caused them to miss the last flight to DC for the night. When they’d missed that one, whoever was giving Ty and Zane orders had told them to haul it to O’Hare to catch the midnight flight, which they had tried to do, but they’d hit the ever-present Chicagoland construction, and it had taken them a full three hours to get up to O’Hare. By then the last flight was gone, and they were grounded until morning. Which was exactly what Julian had wanted.
Cameron wasn’t sure what surprised him more, the ten-minute-long nearly incoherent rant that had come out of Ty’s mouth as they’d sat in traffic in a minivan taxi with no shocks, or the extent to which Julian seemed to be enjoying himself.
“Antagonizing him probably isn’t the best idea,” he said as they stopped as well. Ty didn’t seem to have a lot of patience to work with, and Cameron knew that Julian could try the patience of a saint if he felt so inclined.
“I’ve had worse,” Julian murmured.
Ty snapped the phone closed and turned to Zane. “He told us to rent a fucking car. He doesn’t want us to hang around until morning. He wants Batman and Robin here on the move and away from the TSA.”
“Sounds like he wants us to scramble,” Zane said, just loud enough for Cameron to discern.
“Exactly, but I’m not sure why. We’re not on anyone’s radar. Unless he’s not telling us that either.”
Julian hummed but didn’t comment. Cameron watched as Zane just looked at Ty, and after a long moment, Ty sniffed, shoved his phone in his pocket, and turned on his heel to head toward the rental cars. Zane turned back to him and Julian. “Ready for a ride, gentlemen?”
“A ride? In a car? With the three of you?” Cameron asked, horrified. “To Washington, DC?” He would have sworn he saw a twinkle of humor in Zane’s eyes before the man looked away.
Ty stomped back up to them and grabbed Julian by the elbow. “Get the lead out, Garrett,” he said to his partner. He was muttering to Julian as he dragged him away. “Come on, funny guy. I’ll show you where they keep the cavity search kits.”
Cameron had to work hard to keep up with the three taller and longer-legged men. “Is your partner always this way?” he asked Zane.
Zane glanced at him, and this time Cameron did see faint amusement. “No. Sometimes he’s a little excitable.”
Cameron stared at him, trying to decide if he was joking or serious. He couldn’t tell with Zane’s dry delivery. When he looked away from Zane, Cameron nearly ran into Ty, who had stopped and turned around to wait on them. Cameron winced. The man had to be made of solid rock. Ty looked from him to Zane. “If you’re going to get friendly with the prisoners, take this one,” he told Zane, unceremoniously shoving Julian at his partner. He took Cameron’s upper arm in an iron grip and turned, pulling Cameron along with him toward the car rental desks.
Stumbling along, Cameron looked over his shoulder at Zane and Julian. “Is this your way of getting friendly?”
“‘He has a bomb,’ he says,” Ty parroted in answer. He kept on, taking on a comically exaggerated Irish accent. “Oh look, Mr. Rubber Glove Man, he has a bomb. Och, we missed our plane.”
Cameron laughed as he stumbled and bumped into Ty again. “Come on, man, you’re like half a foot taller than me. Give me a break!”
“Stop talking.”
“You need a Valium or something,” Cameron said under his breath as he tried to hurry enough that Ty wouldn’t drag him.
“Yes, I do. I should also be given a cigarette after what that TSA agent did to me,” Ty snapped. He looked over his shoulder to find Zane and Julian lagging behind. “Garrett!”
Cameron watched as Zane held out a hand to his side, as if willing Ty to be patient. Neither he nor Julian looked to be in all that much of a hurry, which Cameron knew would just incense Ty more. Ty mumbled as he and Cameron came up to the rental desk. Cameron didn’t even know if what Ty was saying consisted of real words, much less English ones.
By the time Zane and Julian joined them, the rental agent was almost finished telling Ty what models of car were available.
Ty turned to Zane and shook his head. “I refuse to drive to DC in a compact.”
“There’s no way we’d all get into a compact unless we lashed Cross to the roof,” Zane said. Ty looked Julian up and down.
“They don’t even have any SUVs,” Cameron said to Julian and Zane.
“Maybe the trunk,” Ty said.
Cameron gave him a disbelieving look before shaking his head, and he was seized with the urge to smack Zane as the man looked to be considering it.
Julian looked between them without comment, then rolled his eyes and looked away.
“Seriously, Zane, I’m not driving to DC in a fucking Chevy Aveo,” Ty said after apparently dismissing the idea of stuffing Julian in the trunk.
“Train?” Zane suggested.
“We’d have to wait longer for that than the next plane,” Ty muttered. Then a light entered his oddly colored eyes, as if an idea had struck him. “Let’s head to the field office. Steal a truck.”
“Borrow a truck.”
“That’s what I said.”
“The office is nearby. We’ll get a cab,” Zane said, taking Julian’s arm to turn him toward the door.
“Do you two do this kind of thing often? Because you really don’t seem very good at it,” Cameron said as he resettled his bag on his shoulder.
“Practice a little self-preservation, love,” Julian murmured.
“Why? That’s what I’ve got you for,” Cameron said with a smile for his lover.
“Oh, gag me with a sock,” Ty muttered as he pulled Cameron away and headed for the doors.
“You need a little love in your life,” Cameron told him.
Ty narrowed his eyes but had nothing sarcastic to say to that.
“Really,” Cameron said, just to get in a dig of his own for being dragged around. “It did wonders for Julian’s attitude.”
Ty shook his head and looked over his shoulder at Julian as they walked through the automatic doors. “Your boyfriend’s coming on to me,” he told Julian with the same sincere honesty that Julian had used to tell the TSA agents Ty was carrying a bomb.
Julian made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat.
“Zane’s more my type,” Cameron said, just to irritate Ty even more. Zane snorted before smiling again.
“Hear that?” Ty asked Julian over his shoulder. “He’s kind of a whore.”
Cameron huffed and elbowed Ty in the ribs as they exited the terminal. The man didn’t even wince, which made Cameron want to find somewhere he didn’t have a protective layer of muscle and kick him.
TY SAT in the driver’s seat of a “borrowed” FBI sedan, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. They hadn’t been able to get away with an SUV, so the sedan would have to serve. It was roomier than anything the rental agency had been offering, and when the Chicago field office found the car missing, it would be a nice little “fuck you” to Dick for sending them into this mess without all the information.
Because it was painfully apparent that they didn’t have all the information. They didn’t even have the CliffsNotes version.
Ty smiled as he thought about the reaction the missing sedan would get from Burns, but he was still irritated just on principle. The first half of the day had been perfect, only to be marred by the addition of the two criminals in love in the backseat. Julian Cross got under Ty’s skin simply because he felt dangerous. He was unflappable too, something Ty had rarely encountered. In fact, Ty couldn’t think of a single person he’d ever met that he couldn’t irritate to some degree. Cameron Jacobs, however, was annoying because he was so damn naïve it offended Ty’s sensibilities. How the two had fallen in love and managed to stay that way Ty couldn’t fathom.
Zane had insisted they stop to load up on supplies at the first drug store they came to. He was taking his sweet freaking time with it. Julian and Cameron were in the backseat of the car, handcuffed to the special rings welded to the floorboards, the child locks engaged so they couldn’t get out. Ty sat with his gun resting on his knee, just in case Batman got creative.