Dominance Never Dies (Masters and Mercenaries #11)(58)

Or invite someone to smother him.

Case picked up the pillow. “Hutchins, time to wake up. Get your lazy ass out of that bed right f*cking now and back up your CO.”

Hutch damn near came off the bed, his eyes wild and his hands moving as though looking for his gun. “What the f*ck?” He frowned. “You suck, Taggart. Where’s my gun?”

“Michael took it from you and cleaned it so now it’s shiny and ready for use on you. Never let a man take your piece. Not even when you’re f*cking asleep. Let’s go. We have a job to do.”

Hutch yawned, seeming to regain his usual lackadaisical composure. “I’m going to need some coffee.”

Lucky for him, they were in Colombia.




Thirty minutes later, Case stood outside Old Town, the most popular part of the city with tourists. Surrounded by Las Murallas, thick stone walls that had once protected the city from invaders, the small district was filled to the brim with foreigners enjoying the day. The sky above was a clear crystal blue and he had to wonder if his brother was sitting somewhere, staring up at the sky and wondering why he’d been left behind.

“Fain seems pretty solid to me, boss,” Hutch said quietly. He carried his second cup of heavily sweetened coffee of the day. Case had noticed early on that Hutch had habits. Coffee, thick with cream and sugar in the morning, some kind of soda after noon. Never any alcohol. Not a beer or a shot of whiskey. “I ran his records and he was in the Marines for five years. Did four tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Served in Force Recon. One purple heart. Only child of Marie and Hank Fain of the great state of Iowa. One half brother from Marie’s first marriage, but I didn’t find much on him. The Fains ran a farm until they sold out to a big corporation and retired to Florida.”

It didn’t sit well. “How deep did you dig?”

Hutch sighed. “I’ve been awake for thirty minutes, boss. For the last couple of days finding the identities of our dead dudes and lady corpse was, according to you, my highest task in life.”

“I’m sure I didn’t put it that way.”

“No, you said something like figure it out or I’ll fire you. Which, might I point out, is a threat you never follow through on so now it’s a little like white noise. All I’m saying is I’m your lone tech guy. In the words of Scotty…” Hutch went into a bad Scottish accent. “I’m giving her all I can, Captain.”

He did get the point. “I can’t bring anyone else in. I need your best work, man.”

Hutch sobered. “You’ll have it, but I’m working with one hand tied behind my back. I don’t have Adam or Chelsea to run interference and some of the sites I’m pulling files from aren’t the easiest hacks in the world. Fain was up for recruitment into our old black ops team. I did find that paperwork. Will you at least let me try to contact Ten and ask why he didn’t make the cut? I’m not sure where he is, but I can probably find a number he might or might not be using right now. I can try the last one I had, but he likes to change things up.”

Case was definitely interested in why Fain hadn’t joined their CIA team. But he also knew getting Ten on the phone could take a while. “Yes. You can do that. Tell him I’m worried because Mia hired him. That’s all he needs to know right now. What did you find out about our would-be kidnappers?”

Down the street he could see the bank his brother had robbed. Case had studied the police reports. Theo and his team had been precise and professional. Like the other Gringos jobs. They’d gotten in, blown the safe, and gotten out with over a hundred grand in under three minutes. How long had Theo prepped for the job? He would have cased the place. He would have taken his time and learned the ins and outs of the building and the habits of the people around it.

“Facial recognition identified our lovely flight attendant Angela Burns. She’s worked for 4L Software for the last year. Her Facebook feed is full of cats and she has a real thing for Barry Manilow. Yeah, I thought that sounded fishy, too, so I dug a little deeper. Angela Burns is a construct for Angela Winslow, who’s done time for fraud and assault. Angie was a bad, bad girl, but she apparently had some good connections because her documents were nicely done. The pilot and the copilot were clean, which means one of two things.”

“Either they hadn’t gotten caught yet or they’re backed by someone who can really scrub a record clean.”

“And that’s what scares the mother f*ck out of me.” Hutch kept pace with him, walking slowly, as though they were simply two more tourists, enjoying the Colonial architecture. “I’ve got some feelers out on the Deep Web. We’ll see what comes up. I’ve asked some hacktivist friends of mine about Kronberg.”

The company that had funded Hope McDonald’s research. “I thought you were trying to stay away from that crowd.”

Actually, Ten had ordered him to. Case hadn’t thought he needed to reiterate what just made sense.

“They’re not all bad,” Hutch argued. “And this is a special case. This is for Theo.”

Case nodded, his eyes on the bank ahead of him. “All right. Do what you need to do, but understand that there’s a reason Ten didn’t want you hanging with that group.”

“He thought I’d relapse, I’m sure. Once a black hat, always a black hat.” There was a bitterness to Hutch’s tone that couldn’t be denied.