Page 128 of Ricochet

“I want an opinion.”

“That’smy opinion.”

His forehead pinched. “Fucking hell—”

“They’re bored out of their minds.”

“Was that so hard?” Jared pulled out a chair and leaned back, watching the wall of teams in silence.

Boss Man had no idea…They’d worked together for more years than he could count. Everything about this, from the question to Jared making himself comfortable here instead of in the war room, was unlikely. Especially the part where Jared sat and stared in silence as though he didn’t know what to ask or strategize.

Of all the years that Jared had come to his office—not that many in the grand scheme—howmany of those times were to study every screen? “Anything I can help you with?”

“No.”

Jared grabbed a stick of jerky from a jar on a table then went back to his quiet study of Parker’s screens.

“What else has been going on,” Jared finally asked.

Maybe times like this called for unvarnished truth. “Not much.”

He cocked his head, surprised, and chewed in silence.

“Delta’s op has me tied up,”Parker finally added.

“With what?” He took another bite of jerky. “There’s nothing to do but watch.”

Parker chuckled. “Yeah, one would think.”

“So?”

“Your buddy’s a real pain in the ass.”

Jared laugh, and said, mouth full, “Delano? That asshole?”

“That asshole’s a nonstop tornado of requests.” He leaned forward to pull up the last dozen emails. “Hyper paranoid, wanting to know where we are,who everyone’s looped in with, that, we’re talking to his team. He’s sending me files and files of data I haven’t looked at, swearing that they’d help us position better, and I don’t know how high maintenance Astor is as an asset, but hell, it’s been like… a blitzkrieg… of…” Parker paused, his mind whirling with the information that Richard Delano had.

They were all on the same team and normallycoordinated with other team counterparts with this information. Though not at this volume. He’d said blitzkrieg without thought but now he couldn’t shake the idea of a dense attacks. But how was this an attack? Why would it be?

Parker’s gaze floated from one to the next. What was he missing? Delta’s positioning was simple. Maintain the perimeter of the hotel ballroom, the below ground parkinglot, and maintain a presence at the Astor residences.

They were truly back-up in every sense possible, and probably the highest paid back-up he’d ever heard of.

“Something’s not right.” Jared crumbled the jerky wrapper and pitched it into a trashcan.

Brock had felt it and left for ground zero, Jared was here now, and Parker didn’t see it. “With Delta?”

He ignored the question and narrowedhis eyes on the map of lower Manhattan. “Where’s everyone positioned?”

Parker tapped on the keys until one screen showed semi-transparent white dots over the locations of each member. Several appeared stacked on top of one another. “Grayson and Luke are at the residence. Javier’s at the hotel, and it looks like Brock’s made it and is with him. Trace has eyes in the garage, and I’m tapped intothe security feeds there. Everywhere. I just have to pick and pull what I want.”

Jared pushed out of his chair and paced. His jaw flexed, working side to side. “Have we touched base with the FBI investigators?”

“Delano’s running point.” Parker shrugged. They wouldn’t have contacted an investigator under these circumstances, but Boss Man didn’t seem satisfied with his answer. “And we have nothingto share.”

“So, no.” Jared stopped and crossed his arms.

“Right. No. Delano’s coordinating.” Likely burying them with information overload, and Parker didn’t need to add any more to an agent’s pile to sift through. “I’m not sure why we’d reach out if the asset has her primary security on it.”

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