“But we have families living there. Kids.”
“Your kid in particular, I know. However, he’ll be in the Zoo, spending his time trying to beat out Hacker International for his mother’s affections, in the most secure room the Operations Team can devise with help from a lot of humans who are sneakier than any A-C. And, since you weren’t clear and you don’t know, I wasn’t making this up—Cliff has Chuckie and I came to get you and the others first. I am willing to do a lot to find Cliff and stop him from hurting my best friend any more than he already has, and if that means Kozlow gets to live the rest of his days locked up in the Zoo like our private attraction, then I’m willing to do it.”
“Unless you have a better idea for how we find Charles that you can share within the next five minutes, son,” White said. “Then I know we’d all like to hear it.”
Christopher shook his head. “I don’t. But, I do know that, whatever Cliff’s doing to Chuck, it won’t be pleasant.” He heaved a sigh. “And yeah, getting Chuck back is worth the compromise, Kitty. Though I may have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of my life.”
“As if I won’t assign permanent Field teams to guard both Kozlow and the Embassy?” Reader asked. “More than there are already assigned, I mean.”
“What James said, and dude, why are you such a drama llama all of a sudden? This kind of guard duty is what the Secret Service was made for.”
Christopher might have gone on whining but Tim nudged me and pointed up. A small grate in the ceiling was opening. We all watched as Mossy dropped down from the ceiling to land on the desk in a catlike stance. Which was cute and kind of funny, though I knew better than to laugh.
“Good of you to join us. And thanks for guarding everyone.”
“What do you mean?” Christopher asked.
“Mossy was watching over you guys. He was ready to shoot Nerida and Kozlow if he had to, but he was waiting, just in case. He also altered the feeds to any areas where our teams were, so that what they saw was boring nothing or a lot of dust, depending, meaning those two had no reason to kill any of you.”
Mossy looked impressed. “I wasn’t sure if you’d figured it out or not. Well done. Your newest recruit is an . . . interesting addition.”
“You can whine about it with Christopher when we have time. Until then, we need to get prepped to save Chuckie.”
Buchanan came back. “The ‘implant’ is in. Thank God there were staplers here. Nice to see you,” he said to Mossy.
“You stapled him?” Christopher asked.
“No, Siler did. On the back of his head. Under his hair. He knows not to try to take it out because it’ll explode if he does.”
Jeff got a faraway look. “Yeah, he believes it. He’s kind of . . .”
“Gullible. Yeah. I picked that up. Hence my Crazy Kitty Routine. He wants what most people want—to feel needed and important. And he hasn’t for a very long time, I don’t think.”
Jeff nodded. “Yeah. He’s kind of excited about joining your team.” He shook his head. “Only my girl.”
“Only your girl gets the results we need,” Buchanan said. “We have a location for where Cliff is. I think we need to focus on him first and then worry about finding his other strongholds, though the doomsday plans are also something of a must.”
“Well, that means we have to keep Kozlow alive or we lose that intel,” Christopher pointed out. “Please don’t tell me that’s going to be my job.”
“No,” Buchanan answered for me, “that will go to me and Siler. I have coordinates for the gates,” he said to Reader.
“So how are we going in?” Jeff asked. “Sneak attack?”
My music switched to “Hero Of The Day” by Metallica. “No. I think we want to use our newest team member to the fullest and let him be a hero for a few minutes.”
CHAPTER 83
“I DIDN’T THINK IT WAS POSSIBLE for me to hate a plan of yours more than I hate your moving Kozlow into the Embassy if he comes through like you expect,” Christopher said as we stepped out of our floater gate outside of Cliff’s hidden base on Kharg Island, in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Iran. “But, hard as it is to believe, I hate this plan even more.”
“Blah, blah, blah. Fatherhood apparently suits you, but boy, is it cramping your kick-butt style.”
“I agree with Missus Martini, son. Why so tense?”
“Oh, I don’t know. We’re just trusting someone who’s been our sworn enemy for years with not only Chuck’s life, but Jeff’s, James’, Tim’s, Buchanan’s, and Siler’s. Why am I the only one who sees all the ways this could go wrong?”
“You’re not,” Mossy said. “You’re just the one complaining about it the most.”
“Mossy is my favorite, I’m just sayin’.”
If Kozlow could be trusted, we had all the intel we could need for what to expect in terms of raiding this stronghold, including the fact that while I’d killed the original model, there were several clones of Nerida hanging about. Hers had been made with more autonomy than Lowe’s, in part because her powers had been stronger than his.
Once we’d gotten the relevant info from Kozlow, we’d sent Jeremy back to the palace to brief Camilla and the others on what was going on, gather a variety of the supplies I’d requested from Raheem, and stand by.
Per Jeremy via Camilla, as far as our worldwide intelligence knew, we only had Chuckie, Rahmi, Adriana, Francine, Wruck, Len, and Kyle unaccounted for. We at least had a guess for where Chuckie and Rahmi were, but the others were officially M.I.A.
We’d verified that everyone we’d rescued from the Burj Khalifa was safe and well, and had also gotten an influx of weapons and ammo from Dulce sent to those of us still hanging out at the top of the Burj Khalifa and not getting to enjoy the view.
I’d even taken the time to fill my empty clips because I’d had it. Despite hyperspeed and everyone’s wishes to the contrary, the various rescues and all the stuff with Kozlow and Nerida had taken time, and the prep for our guerilla attacks had taken more. It was after midnight when we finally rolled Mission: Trojan Horse. Actively chose not to worry about what Cliff was doing to Chuckie, as well as avoiding worrying about the others listed as missing, but it took effort.
Once my strike team was in position, the other half of the team would take a floater gate to where Cliff would expect them to exit. During our prep time Kozlow had fixed all our goggles—apparently his talent had been boosted by equipment in the Burj Khalifa’s broadcast level, and he’d been able to sort of short out minor kinds of equipment. Not cell phones, but our goggles had fallen under the level of what he could affect. And, happily, repairing them was within his ability, too.