Digger had taken them through several shortcuts and odd turns and finally back into the French Quarter. Road blocks had cropped up everywhere, and there was no way for the group to get out now. If they were going to escape New Orleans, they would have to split up to do so. And none of them were willing to do that.
They headed for the last place Ty knew to go. He said it was his former boss’s home, the man who’d been murdered before they arrived in New Orleans. Arthur Murdoch had no family left, and his house would probably still be vacant. He had resided in the Tremé, a historical black neighborhood that bordered the other side of Rampart Street, across from the French Quarter.
They arrived at Murdoch’s house and sat on it for an hour to watch it for surveillance. When they found it clear, they dumped the van nearby, where it was unlikely to be found any time soon. And if it was found, it would simply serve to point their pursuers away from the neighborhood. As they made their way back to Murdoch’s house, Nick got the impression the area was usually a lively place, though it was run-down and in disrepair. It was also dead quiet after all the shooting on Rampart earlier.
They all crowded around Murdoch’s living room, stretched out on the couch, hovering on the arms of the chairs, and sitting around the tiny dining table.
“He left you in the wind?” Liam asked in patent disbelief.
“What are you going to do?” Nick asked Ty.
Ty’s jaw tightened and he stood, pacing away from the rest of them. Nick watched Zane and Liam, who were sitting at the table. Both men looked worried and defeated.
“Hey, this isn’t the first time we’ve had to rely on our own devices, right?” Nick tried. He looked over at Ty, who still had his back to them, staring at a wall full of photographs and artwork. Ty was in several of those photos, arm around a grandfatherly black man in a Panama hat. “Ty?”
When Ty turned, he looked like a different person. His eyes had gone hard and flat, his mouth set in a thin line. All the humor and charisma that made Ty Grady who he was had disappeared, replaced by the soulless, lifeless person the military had battered them all into. They had been trained to morph into that person when they needed to act without emotion. Nick hadn’t seen that look since they’d come home. It had always ended in blood. It sent a shiver down his spine.
“I need a few minutes,” Ty said, then he stalked through the room and out the front door.
“Well, that’s that,” Liam sighed.
“What?” Zane asked.
Liam shook his head. “The only things Tyler’s ever understood were loyalty, honor, and orders. His entire life has been devoted to them.”
“I know,” Zane growled.
“Do you really?” Liam shook his head. “Because I think if you did, you’d be a little more frightened right now. Do you know what happens to people like Ty when they realize everything they’ve been living for has been a con?”
Zane glanced at Nick quickly, then back at Liam. Nick lowered his head and closed his eyes.
“Have you ever seen a trained dog that’s always been kept on a leash?” Liam asked after a few moments of tense silence. “Only released when the order to kill was given?”
Nick looked up. Zane was staring at Liam, grim.
No one answered. Liam sat straighter. “Have you ever seen what one of those dogs will do once no one’s giving it orders?”
Zane sniffed and ran a hand over his face. He nodded, staring at the darkened window. “Not a goddamned thing.”
“That’s right,” Liam said in disgust. “He won’t even eat unless someone tells him to. He curls up and starves without his master.” He stood and grabbed his jacket.
Nick scowled as Liam pulled on the coat. “What are you doing?”
“I’m leaving.”
“What?”
“Leave. Ing. Leaving.” He pointed toward the door. “That is not the man I knew ten years ago. He’s not even half the man I knew. And now look at him. His heart’s broken, Dick Burns has betrayed him, and he’s getting his men shot left and right. He’s done. And I for one don’t intend to follow him into the hereafter.”
Nick lunged to his feet, shaking with anger. If they knew half the things he and Ty had done, half the sacrifices Ty had made to see orders through, it wouldn’t be so easy to sneer.
“Don’t,” Liam grunted. He waved a hand at Nick. “Don’t defend him. Jesus, it was hard enough watching you two circle-jerk in service, I don’t need to see it now.”
He headed for the door, still shaking his head. When he yanked the door open, a hand reached out and grabbed him by the throat. Liam didn’t have time to react or defend himself before Ty shoved him back into the room. Nick and Zane both lunged to their feet.
Liam kicked out, but instead of dropping back and defending like Ty often did, he attacked. He used Liam’s leg and then shoulder for leverage, kicking up, wrapping a leg around Liam’s neck and twisting and rolling to slam him to the floor. The entire house seemed to shake when they hit. Then Ty was on Liam, his knee in Liam’s solar plexus, his hand on Liam’s throat again in an iron grip. Liam kicked and flailed, grasping. Ty easily avoided every attempt he made to free himself.
“This trained dog’s still got a few tricks up his sleeve,” Ty snarled.
Liam made a gurgling noise and kicked his feet against the battered hardwood floor, trying to get leverage. He smacked at Ty’s face. The veins in Ty’s arm jumped as he squeezed Liam harder.
“Grady,” Nick shouted, the same voice he’d used to relay orders. “Let him up.”
Ty squeezed just long enough for Liam to start clawing at his head. Then he released him, grabbing him by his jacket collar and lifting his shoulders off the floor. “You’re in this until the end,” he hissed. “Is that understood?”
Liam grasped at Ty’s wrists, gulping for air. He nodded. “As long as you can still do that to someone like me? I’m with you.”
Ty released him and stood. They all stared at him with wide eyes. “Time to stop waiting for the cavalry.”
A grin slowly overtook Nick, and he sat back down and put his hand over his mouth to hide it. That was the Ty Grady he remembered, the one a lost eighteen-year-old from Boston had fallen in awe of.
He wondered if Zane was seeing the same thing.
Zane’s arms were crossed and his eyes narrowed. “Do you have a plan?” he asked Ty.
“No. But I’m in a room with some of the smartest, most devious assholes I’ve ever known. If we can’t slither our way out of this, then we don’t deserve our titles.” Ty nodded at Owen and Digger, then at Nick. Nick smiled.
Liam began to sit up, but Ty put a foot on his shoulder and shoved him back to the floor. A ghost of a smile crossed Zane’s lips.
“Right now we have two enemies, after two different things, who’ve joined forces,” Liam rasped. He shoved at Ty’s foot. “We need to pit them against one another. Will you get off me!”
Ty stepped away, smirking at Liam as he pushed himself off the floor and brushed himself off.
Owen stood from where he’d been lounging on the couch. “What if we give them what they want?”
Ty sat down hard in the chair Liam had vacated, across the table from Zane. “I’d rather not die in this plan.”
Owen held up a hand. “They think you’re Tyler Beaumont, right? Ex-military, wandering performer, hired henchman. CI important enough for the FBI to try to save.” He shrugged. “Who’s to say you weren’t hired to off someone?”
Ty cut his eyes toward Nick, not yet willing to say he wasn’t following but obviously not following any more than Nick was. Nick shrugged.
“And Garrett,” Owen continued, “he could be a dirty Fed, still be part of the cartel crowd.”
Ty and Zane shared a look over the table. Both men still seemed confused.
Digger leaned over and put both hands on his head. “Johns, I swear to baby Jesus, if you don’t start making sense, I’m gonna kick you.”
“Listen,” Owen insisted. “Bell contacts the cartel, tells them Garrett, or whatever name you used, wants a meet with them. Follow?”
The room was silent.
“Oh my God!”
“Can you . . . draw it in a chart or something?” Nick asked.
“Look, Garrett’s a dirty Fed. Liam’s a hired gun. They’re both after Ty, who is a dirty rat.”
“Hey!”
Owen flopped his hands. “Well, you were!”
“Granted, but I am no longer after Ty,” Liam added. “Turned the job down, remember?”
“Details. Garrett has Grady, wants to trade him in for safe passage to Miami, and Bell tells the cartel.”
“Why didn’t you just say that the first time?” Liam grumbled.
“I don’t want safe passage to Miami,” Zane said.
“He’s not being literal, Garrett, Jesus Christ,” Ty snapped.
“I’m sorry, Grady, I have a hard time thinking like an asshole!”
“He means getting back in good with the cartel. Or getting out clean, what the fuck ever. Would your cover still fly with them? Could you go in as a compromised agent?”
“Yeah,” Zane said, nodding slowly. “I was there two years ago. The story was I got out of prison. When they pulled me, though, I just disappeared.”
Ty tapped the table. “That was right around the same time de la Vega was killed.”
“You would know,” Zane mumbled.
“It’s possible he found out you were a Fed, turned you, and gave you a job to do in the Bureau. You left to do it right before he was offed, and ever since, you’ve been looking for the man who killed him. Will that work?”
Zane stared at Ty for several seconds before nodding. “They’ll be suspicious. Going in and admitting I’m a Fed, that . . . that might actually work. Yeah. Yeah, I can work with that.”
“So Zane calls up the cartel boys,” Nick drawled, “tells them he’s their long lost buddy, and he’s got the man who killed big papi?”
Digger made a clicking sound with his tongue. “So far, all I’m seeing is Garrett handing Grady over to the people who already want him dead and telling them more reasons why he should be dead.”
“But they’re not the only people who want him dead,” Owen said.
“You want to play a fiddle game where Ty is the fiddle?” Liam asked.
“Fuck no.” Ty shook his head. “The fiddle dies.”
“I’m good with it,” Liam said.
“The fiddle is usually an object,” Digger said. “What the fuck kind of messed up fiddle game you been playing?”
“No, no,” Owen said quickly. “We make the cartel believe Ty is the one they want, not Zane. And then we call up Papa Gaudet.”
“Who obviously wants to talk to me before killing me,” Ty added.
“Right. And we tell him when and where the cartel plans to acquire and kill Ty.”
“So you’ve, in theory, pitted Gaudet against the cartel.” Nick winced. “That’s banking on Gaudet still wanting information from Ty badly enough to keep him alive. And hoping they’ll fight over him instead of just teaming up to make him dead.”
Owen’s shoulders slumped and he sat back down. “True. I wouldn’t want those odds if I was the fiddle.”
“It’s not the fiddle game!” Digger shouted.
Ty sat silent, resting his chin in his hand and scowling. His knee began to bounce as he examined the floor. Finally, he waved his hand and sat up straighter. “So we give them what they want.”
“You? Dead?” Zane asked incredulously.
Ty nodded. “We don’t need the two sides to wipe each other out, we don’t need them to fight. We just need them to think they succeeded. So we get them both there. Zane brings me in, and he kills me in front of all of them. Their problem is gone so they’ll clear out, and bonus points, they’re no longer after Zane.”
“How the hell is that a good plan when it involves me killing you?” Zane shouted.
Ty put a finger to his lips and shook his head. “There is a small glitch, I’ll admit.”
Nick rubbed at the stubble on his chin as the idea became clear. “We put you in Digger’s vest.”
“Fuck, that’s risky,” Digger whispered. “It’s only NIJ II level protection. If Garrett’s close enough to make sure someone doesn’t take a head shot, he’d be too close for the vest; the bullet could go right through. And if it don’t go through, it’s definitely fucking him up. Broken ribs, sternum, maybe organ damage.”
Nick shook his head. “Not if Zane’s shooting a blank.”
“There’s no way that’d look real, there’d be no impact,” Ty said, but he was sitting forward, warming to the idea. “But if the real shot is taken from further away . . .”
“A sniper?” Zane asked.
Ty gave him a curt nod. “It’d have to be a long-ass way. One, to make sure he’s not spotted during the meet, and two, make sure it doesn’t kill me. NIJ II is . . . 1,100 to 1,800 feet per second.”
Nick groaned and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re talking eight-hundred, maybe a thousand yards before a sniper round drops to that velocity. Or more. I know I can’t make that shot with enough accuracy to hit a vest with my best friend in it.”
Ty met Nick’s eyes and nodded. Nick’s heart jumped into his throat. He gave a slight shake of his head, silently pleading with him not to ask. Ty smiled sadly, then met Liam’s eyes. Liam began to grin.