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“That reminds me, I think we should give Mr R a call and see if he can give us any more insight into what she was doing, and also to make sure that he’s aware that Jynx and her team are involved, and they are being granted full immunity while they’re working for us.” Trick suggests, already pulling out his phone.
“Dude, he might be with family. It’s Boxing Day, after all,” Cash points out with a frown.
“Text first, or better yet, just use the secure line to email him what we want to know and what he wants to know, and then he can let us know when he’s not busy anymore,” Atlas suggests.
“Good idea. I don’t think he’s got family, but I imagine he’s spending it with his team,” I add thoughtfully.
“I’m not sure we’d know even if he did have family. I mean, we all keep our private lives pretty tightly under wraps at headquarters to ensure that our loved ones stay safe. He could have a wife and kids for all we know.” Ezra adds.
“That’s a good point. I mean, we’re really close with Zemi and her team, yet we’re still cautious about how much we tell them, and they’re the same with telling us things. It’s just inbuilt in us to be more cautious.” I reply thoughtfully.
“Exactly,” Atlas adds, “that’s why an email would be better, just in case.”
“I’ve just sent it, so we’ll see when he replies,” Trick replies, and then adds, “we aren’t going to get any communication from Peter today since Elijah is heading out with his team tomorrow.”
“His program should be finished pulling and mapping the locations that Rylie called from late tonight, early tomorrow, so we can hit the ground running and at least get some research started,” Ace explains to us since he was the one that helped Pete set it all up before Christmas.
“Great, well, in that case, everyone can meet up here bright and early then,” Trick replies. “It will just be research for a while, I imagine.” He then looks at Lyric and her team, “How involved do you guys want to be?”
“We’re still involved. I’ve got a few months yet before I’m out of commission. I just need to be more careful about the combat side of things, and if I do start to feel the strain, then I’ll step back.” Lyric replies, although her men still look slightly nervous at the prospect of her being in the field, which I can understand.
“Okay, so you will be taking more of a role in the surveillance and research side and take a step back on the actual rescue?” Trick asks to clarify.
“Yes,” Lyric nods with a smile.
“The rest of us will still be there if you need us to be, but at least one of us will be staying with Lyric,” Dominic adds.
“Got it,” Trick agrees, “we’ll try and keep you guys out of the more dangerous side of things. We’ve got Jynx and her guys; that should be enough for us to go and get Rylie out, but it all depends on exactly what the situation is.”
“Understood and appreciated,” Creed replies with a smile.
“Is anyone else hungry?” Jensen suddenly asks.
“Me,” Ezra replies like he’s been desperate for someone to ask that question.
Ace nods rapidly, “I’m starving.”
“Well, the fire is starting to go out since we’ve burnt through everything, and Rafe set up a buffet,” I reply, and before I’ve even finished my sentence, they’re gone and striding back inside.
“I guess they were hungry,” Jynx chuckles.
“Are any of us really surprised?” Rome chuckles.
“Nope, those three are so similar, and yet they get on so freaking well,” Lyric chuckles as we all get up and head inside to eat too.
Somehow, the food that Rafe set out earlier is delicious, and I love how he has managed to make something as simple as a buffet into something extraordinary.
Everyone is sitting down and eating, Jensen with three different plates in front of him, when Trick checks his phone again.
“Mr R has replied. He said that Rylie was tasked with finding the person who was controlling our moles, and she was one of the first people he put on the case, so while we were finding the internal ones amongst us, she was trying to locate the leader,” Trick explains to us, and then frowns slightly.
“It would’ve been nice to know that there was more to it than just the ones that we were chasing,” Rage points out, voicing what everyone else is thinking.
“If he’d told you that though, he would have had to tell you that someone else is taking care of it, and that could have piqued your curiosity or prompted you to ask questions, which could have compromised Rylie,” Malachi points out.
“He’s got a point,” Lucien agrees, “he couldn’t risk Rylie and her ghost status. That’s the whole point of her being a ghost.”
“Good point,” Trick replies, “anyway, he’s also said that’s all he was aware of; she was gathering information and making her check-ins, but it was too risky to try and get the information to him regularly, so they decided to leave it until she had a good chunk of information before she attempted it, she was supposed to hand the information over on her next check-in, which she didn’t make.”