Patriot by M.A. Rothman (summer reading list TXT) 📗

the first helicopter left out of there in a hurry once the cops started showing up.”

Connor and Thompson looked at each other. Connor asked, “First helicopter? Second truck? What are you talking about?”

“At the mint. There was another U-Haul, it tore ass out of there right before the police officers started showing up.”

Duncan nodded. “There was another chopper that left right as we arrived. We called it into dispatch, but I don’t know what happened to it after that. That was around the time we started taking heavy fire from that thing.” He motioned to the machine gun in the back of the pickup.

“Dammit,” Connor said. “Can you track it?”

“I’m not sure,” Brice said. “I’m working on it now. Might be able to tap into Stewart’s Air Traffic Control and get a view of the radar data. I’ll let you know.”

“Make it quick, Marty,” Thompson said. He hung up and slid his phone back into his pocket. “How much you want to bet Müller was on the first chopper?”

“One hundred percent chance,” Connor said. He felt cheated.

“Um,” Duncan said, “I don’t mean to be rude or anything… I mean, obviously you’re on our side because you helped us stop these assholes, but… who the hell are you guys?”

Chapter Forty-Six

The next morning, Connor woke to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and eggs. He sat up on the couch he’d spent the night on and stretched. His entire body was sore, a reminder that he wasn’t the operator he used to be, and he definitely needed to get into the gym more often.

Of course, years of sleeping in Humvees and C-130s had given Connor the ability to sleep almost anywhere and in any position. He’d even managed to sleep standing up more than a few times.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Richards said, setting a carafe on the table that took up most of the briefing room. It was the same briefing room where Thompson and Richards first brought Connor up to speed on the Outfit.

Connor grimaced as his back popped, then rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”

“Welcome the to Outfit,” Richards said. “All in a day’s work. Time to wake up and do it all over again.”

A cold wave of anticipation came over Connor as he looked up at Richards.

The senior agent smiled and filled a mug. “You like anything in it?”

Connor shook his head and held out his hand. “Not today I don’t.” He blew gently on the steaming liquid for a few seconds before taking a sip. It was surprisingly good.

“Like it?”

“Better than the CIA’s budget coffee, I can tell you that. Not quite as good as Starbucks. But it’ll do.”

Richards laughed. “We roast our own in-house coffee.”

Connor’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”

“You wouldn’t believe it after the last couple of days, but there are times when we do a lot of sitting around. Couple of the guys thought it’d be a good team-building exercise.”

“Well,” Connor said, taking another sip, “here’s to some free time.”

Richards laughed. “There’s no free time for you and me. We’ve got tons of work to do. Like cleaning up this damn mess.” He motioned to the screens mounted on the wall. They featured images from the mint and the aftermath of what the media was calling “the Potomac Disaster.” Police and fire departments had the area cordoned off, and crews worked through the rubble, searching for survivors.

“You know our cover story isn’t going to fly,” Connor said.

He’d laughed when Thompson first presented it to him. Only minutes after they’d opened one of the crates in the U-Haul, revealing the silver bullion within, Homeland Security and the FBI had shown up. Thompson pulled aside the first Bureau suit he saw and explained they were NSA liaisons and that their presence was strictly classified. Their involvement wasn’t to be documented in the official report. Not even their names—which were fake anyway—could be written down. They were on strict orders through the executive branch, and Thompson even produced the paperwork to prove it.

Richards laughed as he took a seat at the head of the table and rested his feet on the edge. “Those pencil-necked paper-pushers can’t do anything without a form. You know how the federal government works—you were in the system long enough. They can’t think past their own regulations and policies.”

“I guess it helps that the forms were actually signed by the president himself.” Connor glanced at Richards. “They were signed by him, right?”

Richards nodded. “Like I said before, every president is briefed on our existence, and we always get the cooperation we need.”

Connor raised a chin at the nearest screen. It was muted, but a reporter was speaking to the camera while rescue crews worked behind her to clear the debris. “I can’t believe she survived that.”

Richards raised an eyebrow. “Who, Annie?”

“Yeah.”

“The woman has survived more brushes with death than all of the people with us combined. She’s got more lives than a cat. Thompson is bringing her here now.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Connor asked. “I saw her when Brice was talking with her. She was pretty banged up. Don’t you people have a sick leave policy?”

“Sick leave? We don’t even have vacation time. Hey, you don’t like it, you can take it up with HR.”

“You have an HR department?”

“No.” Richards grinned over the top of his mug.

“How are you guys keeping us off the record. I mean, Annie went to the hospital, right? The cops would have filed some reports on us—”

“It’s simple, actually.” Richard sipped at his coffee. “Sure, Annie had been taken to the hospital, but Brice hijacked the hospital’s fire suppression system and sent the entire place into a panic. That’s when Chris Jenkins picked Annie up in the confusion. Brice wiped all of the hospital’s security feeds ensuring that Annie’s presence had vanished. All she was was a ghost in some people’s memories. And it’s standard operating procedure for our computers to flag any of the electronic case files the