Page 75 of Cyn
“Can you call her? Maybe she can smooth the way for us because, if I recall, that event starts in forty-five minutes,” she said after glancing at her watch.
“On it,” Anthony called back as he hopped into his car. Six climbed into the passenger seat beside him.
When she and Joe were seated in her car, she plugged the address into her Bluetooth and a map popped up. Once they were on the go, she dialed Beni’s number.
“What’s the update?” Beni asked without preamble.
“Ask Persons and Harrow about the Jewish Center in Brookline,” Cyn said, then rattled off the full name of the center.
She heard Beni call over to an agent and relay the information. When the man had walked away, Beni returned to the call. “What’s the story?”
Cyn quickly relayed Anthony’s new information.
“Are you headed there now?” Beni asked.
“We are. Nora and Devil are still with Fawkes, and I’m going to divert them from their next site and have them meet us instead. If it’s another dead end, we’ll all head to the last site on their list.” It wasn’t going to be a dead end, though. Cyn knew it in her gut.
“Want me to send some people?” Beni asked.
Cyn thought about it for a split second. “Yes, but only for crowd control. Six, Devil, Nora, and I have trained together enough that we can operate as a team. Joe is proving to be an asset, and I hope we’ll need Fawkes and Anthony, but I don’t want any more people in the building than that.”
“Fair enough. They won’t like it, but that’s the joy of being in the position I’m in. They still have to do what I tell them.”
Cyn heard a hint of the wry humor that was Benita Ricci, and inconsequentially, she thought it was probably good that Calvin Mathews had fallen ass over tea kettle for the agent, or he might get too used to people kowtowing to him as the vice president.
“I’ll keep you posted,” Cyn said.
“We’ll do the same,” Beni responded before ending the call.
“Proving to be an asset?” Joe repeated her description of him with a half-smile as he navigated back toward Brookline.
She grinned. “We’ll see how the day goes.”
He chuckled beside her as she texted Devil and Nora letting them know where they were headed and asking them to meet there. Nora confirmed they hadn’t found anything at the third site they’d searched and agreed to head to Brookline.
By the time they arrived, less than fifteen minutes later—thanks to the lighter holiday traffic—Rabbi Ben Peretz was standing at the door waiting. Cyn eyed the structure as Joe pulled into a parking spot. The building was a soft cream white, and while it wasn’t a synagogue, the large, domed architecture reminded her of many she’d seen around the globe. The parking lot where they’d left their cars ran along the north side and was relatively small. Although the lot wouldn’t hold nearly as many people as the building, Cyn was surprised they had one at all given the location in the heart of Brookline.
“Anthony?” Rabbi Peretz asked Joe as they jogged up the stairs, Six and Anthony coming up behind them.
“No, that’s me,” Anthony said, stepping around her and Joe to shake the man’s hand. “Did Caroline explain why we’re here?”
The rabbi, a man closer to Cyn’s age than her parents’, eyed the four of them before letting his gaze land back on Anthony. He shook his head. “She didn’t. She only requested that I listen to you and encouraged me to do as you ask.”
Cyn cast a quick look at Anthony. They didn’t have a lot of time to bring the rabbi up to speed. The celebration would start in twenty-five minutes, and she had no doubt people would start arriving within five to ten minutes. She turned as a series of car doors slammed behind her and eight FBI agents flooded out of four different government-issued cars. Cyn knew they’d be armed and wearing body armor, but she was grateful that Beni hadn’t sent them in full tactical gear. The last thing they needed was to create a panic.
Cyn gestured to Anthony to tell the rabbi what they needed while she jogged over to the agent who looked to be leading the charge. Cyn scanned the group but didn’t see Beni. Not that she’d expected her—as the fiancée to the vice president, working from behind a desk was one thing but being out in the field was another thing entirely—but it would have been nice to see a familiar face.
“Agent Lafabre,” the tall Black man striding toward her with his hand out said.
“Cyn Steele,” Cyn replied, taking his hand then nodding to the others. In less than three minutes, she and Lafabre had agreed on a crowd control plan and she was headed back to Joe, Six, and Anthony. She’d hit the first step leading up to the building when Nora, Devil, and Fawkes pulled up in Devil’s car. Cyn held up an okay sign to Lafabre, who’d been told to expect them, and he waved them into the parking lot. Another ninety seconds later, the good rabbi was ushering them all into the building.
Quickly, he pointed out access points and gave them a rough description of the building. Then without being asked, he turned and exited, saying something about helping the agents outside keep the day’s celebrants calm as they started to arrive.
“I’ll take the upstairs,” Nora said. According to the rabbi, there was a small area on the second floor used for administrative offices. The main floor held the meeting space, kitchen, and storage areas. The basement held archives and records.
“We’ll start here,” Devil said with a nod to Fawkes. Cyn hadn’t been sure what to expect with the explosives expert, but it wasn’t the tall, well-built man who looked a little like he belonged onThe Endless Summerposter, though he was closer to forty than eighteen.
“That leaves us the basement,” Cyn said, glancing at Joe, Six, and Anthony. “Are you ready?”
