I also desperately wanted the agony visible in Manny’s nonverbal cues to disappear. So I took a deep breath and moved my chair closer. A frown pulled his eyebrows together as he watched me take another breath and move even closer. I was breaking my own rule of maintaining a personal space of fifty centimetres. I was sitting so close to Manny I could feel his body heat. “What happened?”
Manny stared at me. Then he looked down at the proximity of our chairs. The tension in his face softened. The sigh he uttered was heavy and defeated. “The idiots at Interpol decided I don’t have enough work.”
“You’re being sarcastic.”
Manny grunted. “They assigned an elite task force to me. They didn’t want me to run it, just to oversee it. The only problem with this bloody task force was they were all green and arrogant. Yes, they were the top of their class, but all of them were green.”
“Green means inexperienced,” Colin said quietly and I nodded.
“I told the bosses I don’t have time to babysit, but they wouldn’t listen.” Manny rubbed his hands over his face again.
It was quiet in my room. Vinnie hadn’t moved far from Manny, but all his aggression was gone. Instead, compassion flooded his face. Francine was sitting behind me and I could hear her shallow breathing. She needed comforting as well.
“You said ‘they were’.” The tense had been telling.
Manny closed his eyes and nodded. When he opened his eyes, he looked at his hands. “The bosses wanted to send the team on an assignment. I told them these guys were not ready. I also recommended they were split up and put in more experienced teams so they could learn. But no. The bleeding idiot of a young leader convinced the bosses I’m too conservative.”
“You are.”
The corner of Manny’s mouth lifted slightly, but he ignored Vinnie’s teasing. “They sent the team in to extract someone they thought was the leader of a growing extremist group. I helped them plan the op, but they resisted running through it again and again. Twice was enough for these arrogant idiots.”
I waited, but Manny didn’t continue. His lips tightened even more and he didn’t lift his eyes from his hands.
Colin took a step away from the cabinets. “Only two of the six team members came back alive. The extremist group was holed up on a farm in the south of France. Their security was better than the team had expected. They saw Millard’s guys coming from a mile away. When I went hunting for those artefacts, I got in touch with my contacts at Interpol. They told me everything.” He leaned towards Manny. “I’m sorry, Millard.”
Manny nodded and straightened. “Now the bloody bosses want to blame the two survivors. They can’t blame me, because my conservative recommendation is official through an email to all of them. Those kids were not ready. The two who made it out barely did so. Already they have to carry the weight of their decision to follow their leader and go against me. Blaming them is not going to solve anything.”
Francine got up, pushed Vinnie out of the way and sat down on Manny’s lap. She ignored his protests and cupped his cheeks in both her hands, forcing him to look at her. “I’ve told you before and I will tell you again and again. This is not on you.”
“You think you could’ve done something different?” Colin’s laugh held no humour. “I have first-hand experience of the authorities at Interpol overriding any logical reasoning and making you do what they think will make them look good. Fortunately for me—and for them—it worked out. No matter what you did or said, they would’ve sent those men out, Millard.”
“Manny won’t tell you, but he’s fighting to keep the two survivors from being prosecuted.” Francine didn’t take her eyes off Manny, her affection for him impossible to miss.
“And you’re grieving for them.” I narrowed my eyes. “On your own.”
Manny snorted. “And I’m screwing up even more.”
“Aw, old man. We’re family. We forgive you.” Vinnie held out his arms. “Wanna hug?”
In a shockingly uncharacteristic move, Manny rolled his eyes like Nikki. “Bugger off, big guy.” He pushed Francine from his lap. “Enough of all this drama. We have work to do.”
Francine poked Manny in the shoulder. When he looked up at her, she widened her eyes and nodded towards us. I didn’t know what message she was trying to convey, but Manny must’ve understood. He sighed heavily. “I was out of line. I apologise.”
“Bloody hell!” Vinnie’s fake British accent was jarring. “You can’t do that! Don’t apologise, good man. Now I can’t punch you again.”
Colin chuckled and Francine blew Vinnie a kiss. Manny just ignored him, but the smile pulling at the corners of his mouth gave me comfort. I moved my chair back and Manny’s smile widened. “So, do we have any actionable intel, Doc?”
“Oh, thanks for asking.” Vinnie’s smile was genuine when Manny turned to glare at him. “As a matter of fact, I have intel. Before our run-in with our Iranian friends, I got a call from a CI. He told me three of his buds died in a car crash yesterday. These guys were into everything: guns, drugs, explosives, even wet work.”
“They’re assassins?” Daniel asked.
Vinnie nodded. “My CI said they were hired to scare some people off, but then they crashed their SUV. The dumb bastards had explosives with them for some other deal and—”
“It exploded on impact.” Colin ran his fingers through his hair. “They were in the SUV that chased us.”
“All the details matched,” Vinnie said. “I asked, but my CI didn’t know who hired these guys.”
This was interesting information, but not useful. I studied Vinnie’s expression. “You know something more important.”
Manny scowled. “Speak.”
“Remember this morning when you were being an asswipe?” Vinnie shrugged. “Well, you were being an asswipe because I was being an asswipe.”
Manny only stared at Vinnie.
“Well, you see, I had this little plan.” Vinnie walked back to the door, leaned against the frame and held out a small round device between his thumb and index finger.
“A button cam?” Colin’s eyes widened, then he laughed. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, I did.” Vinnie’s chest puffed. “I swiped a couple from Franny’s desk. When I was getting all touchy-feely with Shahab and Amin, I planted these babies on them.”
Manny jumped up. “Holy hell! Do you know what you did?”
“Yeah.” Vinnie smirked. “I found a way we can track these Iranian assholes and find out what they’re up to.”
“No.” Manny put his hands on the top of his head. “You created an international incident.”
“I don’t think so, handsome.” Francine was once again sitting next to me, busy on her tablet. She replaced photos on two monitors with maps of Strasbourg. “We’ve been able to track their movements.”
“You’re in on this too?”
Francine’s look of innocence was outrageously fake. “Of course. You were being an idiot.”
Manny closed his eyes and shook his head. “Bloody hell. What do you have?”
“We can’t get audio and visual outside a radius of seventy metres, but we can track their location for up to fifteen kilometres.”
“Did you make any recordings?” I would love to see the footage.
“I didn’t place them well.” Vinnie grimaced. “I had to do it quick and thought that any location might be better than nothing. So I put it under the collars of their jackets where they won’t be seen quickly.”
Francine nodded. “That and the fact that they’re wearing their outdoor coats over their jackets pretty much eliminates all audio and visual.”
“But you have their location?” Manny asked.
“Yes.” Francine looked at the maps, her eyes suddenly widening in excitement. “Oh, my God! Look at that. We have him!”
“What do you have?” Manny sat down and stared at the monitor when Francine zoomed in on the map.
“One of the button cameras went to Adèle’s house after they left the café.” She looked at me. “They were there for almost an hour.”
“Isn’t it still a crime scene?” Manny looked at Daniel.
“It is. Let me check.” He took his phone and swiped the screen. He lowered it towards us, the ringing clear over the speakerphone. It went unanswered. Daniel frowned. “Give me a second.”
He left the room, none of us speaking.
“I have a bad feeling about this.” Vinnie rubbed his chest.