Page 130 of Hush

Tom stayed silent. Truthfully, he was too.

“I’ll have recommendations for the hearing tomorrow, Your Honor. Thank you for your phone call this evening.” Renner was back to professional, brisk and officious.

“Please don’t hesitate to contact me at my office with any requests you have, counselor. I will see you in the morning.”

Villegas dragged Mike around the corner of the hallway and shoved him face-first into the wall. “What thefuckare you doing, Lucciano?”

Mike bounced off the wall and stumbled. He wheeled on Villegas, his hands clenching. “What the fuck amIdoing? What the fuck areyoudoing?”

“Word’s gotten around,” Villegas hissed, “about you asking questions. About Kryukov.”

“Did you know about what happened?”

Villegas cursed.

“Did you? Did you help plan it?”

“No!” Villegas shoved him against the wall again. Mike shoved back, and Villegas slammed into the hotel room door opposite them. “No,” Villegas grunted. “I found out from Winters. He’s shitting fifty cals right now. We’re moving those guys. Tonight. Getting them out of the district and off the eastern seaboard.”

“They’d better be doing missile transport duty in Montana.” One of the marshals’ unsung, unknown duties was guarding the Air Force’s movements of ballistic and ICBM missiles from silo to silo in the wastelands and far-flung nowheres of Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. If you were on missile transport duty, you had fucked up big time.

“Just about.” Villegas adjusted his suit, straightened his lapels. He stalked close to Mike, getting up in his face. “People aretalkingabout you and Judge Brewer.”

Mike didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink.

“Running your mouth at your little pet judge about what happened? That’s the kind of thing that gets little boys backed into dark corners.” Villegas’s voice dropped. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? Youdo not. Want. This shit.Being spread around.”

“And what shit is that, Villegas? The truth about what some jacked-up, law-breaking marshals did? They’re getting off light being reassigned. What they did was wrong.”

“Aren’t you little miss goody-goody.” Villegas closed the final inch separating them. “Don’t make yourself a target, Lucciano,” he growled. “You’re in enough shit as it is.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Villegas didn’t say a word. He stepped back and walked away, rolling his neck as if he were shaking Mike off.

Chapter 34

July 28th

Tom called Mike over to his suite for breakfast. They ate room service together and ran through the day’s security plan, and Mike filled him in on the marshals from the transport team being reassigned. Etta Mae begged for leftover scrambled eggs and ignored her dog food entirely.

“Hopefully they’re on a dirt runway in Montana right now, smelling cow shit and searching for cell reception and hating life.”

Tom tried to smile. “They’re still getting off easy. What they did was a crime.”

“I know. We’ll circle back around to this after the trial. I’ll help you cut through the marshals’ stonewalling and bullshit.” Going against his own agency, turning against the ultra-tight closed-loop society that was the U.S. Marshals. A marshal bending—or breaking—the law wasn’t, unfortunately, an unusual occurrence. A marshal turning against the pack, ratting them out to a judge… was. But it was the right thing to do.

Villegas banged on the door, giving Mike the hairy eyeball when he opened instead of Tom. Tom invited him in for coffee, and Villegas downed a full cup in one long go. “All right, are we ready?” He set the coffee cup down and glared. He wasn’t asking.

They moved to the courthouse just like the previous morning, loading up in a caravan of black SUVs for the three-block journey. Mike helped Tom into his bulletproof vest, sneaking in a squeeze of Tom’s hips and a wink and a smile. The protestors were still there, as were the media vans and the hounding reporters.

Mike brought him his coffee and settled in at Tom’s conference table, plucking away at his laptop until it was time for the nine AM conference with Renner and Ballard. Mike lingered as Tom welcomed both men into his chambers, then sent Tom a private smile and headed out.

His radio chirped. “Lucciano, report.”

Villegas. Mike cursed. “Just left Brewer in chambers with both attorneys.”

“Come down to the courtroom. Need to talk to you.”