Enforcer Ensnared (7 page)

Ange
and Blade were walking down the
street, keeping an eye out for a row of public phones where they could make a
call. Halfway down the next block, Blade caught sight of some. With a low grunt
and a jerk of his head he indicated them, and without further comment they
headed in that direction.
Ange
had been quiet for a
minute or so now and Blade looked at her curiously, wishing he could see her
eyes to read them.

“What is it?” he finally
asked as they came close to their goal. She cast him an unfathomable look from
behind her sunglasses and turned her head to stare ahead once again. After a
moment she spoke with studied casualness.

“You could have partnered
with Sage again,” she answered. For a second Blade felt pure surprise, lost as
to where this had come from.

Ange
continued after a quick glance at
his face, evidently reading his stunned look.

“Back
at the station there.
If you’d asked, Sage would have gone with you and you could have gone
back to your regular Enforcer partnership.”

Despite the lightness of
her tone and the fact that
Ange
stopped her
explanation there, Blade could easily hear the rest of what she wanted to say…
Why
didn’t you?
He felt his stomach clench.

They had both been very
careful not to mention anything beyond this mission. While they both worked on
the same side, and often teams were made and broken throughout a job, it was
rare for a crew to stick together mission after mission. Longevity was not a
common occurrence within the Enforcers outside any given single partnership.

Sometimes Blade grew
weary of the seemingly never-ending changes of crews from mission to mission.
At other times it kept things fresh and gave new perspectives. It didn’t change
the fact that something far deeper than the usual bond between working partners
had grown between himself and
Ange
, and ignoring it
would only drive a wedge between them.

“Sage and I are good
together as partners,” Blade started a little hesitantly. “That doesn’t mean
you and I aren’t good together. It also doesn’t mean I want to ditch you at the
first opportunity and return to the way things were.
Ange
…well,
we aren’t just partners, really, are we?”

Blade felt his insides
loosen as he saw
Ange
smile. He jostled her elbow,
nudging her in an amused, teasing manner to drive the dark thoughts from her
mind.

“Fine.”
She chuckled as she gave in. “Maybe
we’re not. But that doesn’t mean that when this is all over we’ll be able to
stay together working as a team, either.”

Blade frowned as he
thought about that. Strictly speaking it was true, but their merged human and
Mage crew—and the way they had worked so brilliantly and cohesively
together—had sown the seed of an idea in his brain. The more he’d thought about
it the better it had sounded to him. Still, Blade had no
clue
what kind of reception it would get with the others, let alone with the
official managers within the Enforcers or police force.

It wouldn’t hurt, he
decided, to sound the idea with
Ange
first. If it
truly stank, then she’d laugh herself sick at him or tell him so in no
uncertain terms and he could ditch it before he made an ass of himself.

“Well,” he said slowly,
drawing the words out as they came up to the phones, “I was thinking maybe we
don’t need things to go back to how they were. Maybe what we need instead is to
break the mold a little and strike out on our own—be an example.”

Ange’s
eyebrows knitted over her eyes and
he could tell she was squinting at him, possibly looking to see if a second
head had appeared.

“What the hell are you
talking about?” she finally asked when he lapsed into silence.

Unaccountably nervous,
Blade rummaged around in his wallet for the correct coins and picked up the
receiver of the phone and the scrap of paper Will had given him. Not wanting
her to slam his idea instantly and make him feel like a fool, Blade dropped the
coins into the slot and pressed in the digits.

“What I mean is,” he said
patiently, “that maybe we should keep our team like it is and set up business
for ourselves. We damn well have the experience and know how to become our own
bosses and we could pick and choose our assignments and pool our contacts. We
could do security work, consulting work, investigations—damn near anything we
wanted.”

Blade paused for a moment
as
Ange
looked thoughtful. When she didn’t
immediately say anything, he continued.

“Matthias is always in
high demand, as are you when you bother to acknowledge your messages. I’d bet
anything Will is just a fountain of untapped resources, and Sage, Julian, Chase
and I can handle pretty much anything else the world cares to throw our way.
More importantly, we could all stick together as a cohesive crew. I don’t know
about you, love, but the longer we’re in each other’s company the more it
sounds like a plan, babe.”

Blade took a breath and
as
Ange
opened her mouth he raised his hand and
answered the voice on the other end of the phone.

“Yes, I’d like to speak
to Jarred, please,” he said. The voice asked who had referred him and he
replied, “Captain Will
Allcott
.”

A few clicking sounds
echoed in his ear as the call was transferred and a moment later picked up.

“Yeah?”

“Yes, I’d like to speak
to Jarred, please? I got this number from Will
Allcott
,”
Blade repeated.

“Yeah, what do you need
him for?” the voice asked roughly. Blade thought for a split second, the phone
angled so
Ange
could also listen. He cast
her a
curious glance and she rolled her hand in a circular
motion, indicating that he should keep talking.

Willing to go on a bit of
faith—he’d never met a black ops person at any level who didn’t have a healthy
dose of paranoia—he cleared his throat and in his best deep, rich voice
explained the bare bones of the facts while giving away as little as possible.

“My partner and I have
been working recently with Will on a newly merged team. We’ve been tracking a
new drug that’s been released onto the streets and is not going down too well.
We raided what we believe is the main manufacturing plant, with…uh, rather
explosive
results, and are now being stonewalled by the mayor and chief commissioner.
The team is in the process of being disbanded and my partner and I are the
primary operatives who are free to continue the investigation. Will passed
along
Jarred’s
name and this number, saying he might
be a contact who could be helpful to us.”

Silence hung heavily on
the other end of the line as Jarred—presumably—digested all this information.
Blade waited patiently while a minute or two dragged by, and was finally
rewarded with another question.

“What are your names?”

Blade frowned and looked
again to
Ange
. She also frowned and shook her head in
the negative. He had to agree. If their contact refused to relinquish his
identity, no way would they give up more ground.

Not only did it feel like
a tactical mistake to put them at a disadvantage, it would also show they were
a little too free with their private information. If nothing else, their
contact would have to admire their own paranoia and understand they were not
going to come into this as lesser partners or minions.

He and
Ange
would be perfectly able to complete this mission with
no outside help. They were both capable agents. While Jarred could prove
useful, Blade would not enter a working relationship on any footing other than
equality.

“No way,” he replied.
Although he kept his tone casual, the words had weight behind them. “My mama
always taught me it was foolish to introduce myself to a complete stranger. Either
put us on to Jarred, confirm that you are he, or we both hang up and walk away
with no ill feelings.”

A deep chuckle rumbled at
the other end of the phone. “I’m Jarred,” he confirmed with a rich amusement.
“As for proving it, if Will is anything like he used to be I can almost
guarantee that before a mission goes through you’d have seen that man chew on a
Cuban cigar like a kid would with its pacifier. After we left the army it was
deemed no longer socially acceptable to smoke like a damn chimney. We both
kicked the smokes, but
Will
couldn’t let his cigars
go. He used to chew on them before and sometimes during a big fight on a
mission. No matter how many patches and whatnot he’d stick over his body, he
couldn’t give that last vestige of it up—ingrained too deeply. Am I right?”

Blade laughed. “Oh yeah,
he gnawed that sucker before we raided the annex and brought it out again after
the phone call from the commissioner. It struck me as a kind of security
blanket, but it suits him so well I never thought to ask him about it.”

Ange
grinned at Blade and nodded, her
sunglasses reflecting the faintly orange
tinge
of the
lamppost.

“I’m Blade, my partner is
Angelina Harling—Flame.”

“Blade?”
Jarred repeated, a slight suspicion
in his tone. Blade wrinkled his nose in faint distaste and took a deep breath
before answering.

“We’re Enforcers,” he
admitted up front. “If you have links there, which I would assume as black ops
you do, that will be the name my file is under. I was born Bradley McKinnon
Worthington IV—but like I said, my file should be under Blade.”

“Ah,” Jarred replied, the
single word having a wealth of meaning and understanding behind it.

“So what exactly do you
and your partner think I can do you help you?”
Jarred asked,
faint curiosity in his tone.

“Well for starters we’re
pretty much working alone right now,” Blade said. “We have most of the public
Enforcer resources, but anything police-centric will be strictly if not
completely off-limits to us. Any information and data mining you could handle
for us would be a big step in the right direction.”

“Hmm,” Jarred pondered.
“How basic is your information so far?”

“We have one confirmed
name. We’re looking in two main directions from there. Firstly, we know this
guy has other backers—financial and possibly planning partners. Secondly,
we’re wanting
to know where our suspect has gone to lay low
and regroup. His previous work area is a large, smoldering crater right about
now. While we’ve dealt them a blow, the leader is still out there. These drugs
will continue to be manufactured and pushed and so our mission isn’t finished
yet.”

“Okay, well let’s take
this from the start and I’ll tell you what I can do for you,” Jarred said
cheerfully. “Give me your confirmed suspect’s name and details and I’ll have a
background search and known associates check run on him. It will be fairly
simple for me to work up a starting dossier. Then we can meet first thing
tomorrow morning—or later this morning, I should say—and you can give me a copy
of everything else you’ve got. I’m largely interested in who you think he might
be working with and what links you guys want to run further analysis on. We’ll
exchange dossiers, discuss where we think we should head and regroup from
there.”

Ange
nodded to Blade and he agreed
silently that he thought it would be a decent start. Despite the late hour,
they could at least get their work started at the Enforcers’ main office and
create a few simple folders for Jarred to start with. It also wouldn’t be too
difficult to tug a few lines on their end and see if anything popped up in
relation to
Sarke
.

“Okay,” Blade agreed and
checked his watch, silent dismay rushing through him as he realized they’d be
lucky to get three hours’ rest after this. “That sounds like a good jumping-off
point for us both. Shall we meet for breakfast?”

“A late one, yes,” Jarred
agreed promptly. “Let’s meet, say, around ten at Cafe World, near the subway.
Do you need directions?”

“No.” Blade shook his
head, forgetting for a moment that Jarred couldn’t see him. “I know the
place—the one famous for their home-cooked powdered toast, right?”

“That’s the one,” Jarred
agreed. “How will I recognize you?”

“I’m the huge-ass black
fellow who resembles a damn tank.” Blade snickered as he caught
Ange’s
eye. “And I’ll be with a dangerous-looking woman in
sunglasses.”

Jarred laughed, sounding
delighted and thoroughly amused.

“Excellent! And I’ll be
the six-foot-four blond in the long leather jacket, struggling not to laugh at
the odd couple the two of you will likely appear to be.”

“See you then, Jarred.”

“No problems, Blade. See
you tomorrow.”
 

* * * *
*

Entering the Enforcers’
headquarters Blade and Flame headed toward their rarely used offices. It felt
strange to Blade. Most of the employees came here for one of only a few
things—to use the business center, to meet with highly placed division
commanders or when something went horribly wrong and members were called in for
a conference.