The Angel. Carla Neggers
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secret. It just was one.
“Some days, Simon,” the FBI director said, “I wish you’d decided to become a plumber.”
“If it’s any consolation, some days I wish I had, too.” Simon had been fourteen, crying over his father’s casket at a proper Irish wake in the heart of Georgetown when he’d first met March. “At least when you’re a plumber and you’re knee-deep in crap, no one tries to convince you it’s gravy.”
“I’ve put you in a difficult position.”
“I put myself there. You’re just capitalizing on it. That’s your job. I’m not holding it against you.”
“My daughter will.” March’s tone didn’t change from its unemotional, careful professionalism. “I’ve kept too many secrets from her as it is.”
Simon thought he detected a note of regret in the older man’s tone, but maybe not. Simon didn’t have the details, but apparently John March had known more about the circumstances surrounding the murder of his daughter’s first husband, an FBI special agent, than he’d let on. Nothing that would have led to his killer any sooner. But Abigail didn’t necessarily see it that way.
“Comes with the territory,” Simon said without much sympathy.
He hadn’t asked for March’s help all those years ago, when the then FBI special agent was wracked with grief and guilt after failing to stop the execution of Brendan Cahill, a DEA agent and friend, in Colombia. But there was nothing March could have done. The killers had videotaped themselves. The video showed them tying up Simon’s father. Blindfolding him. Firing two bullets into his forehead. Simon had seen the tape. For years, he thought he’d stumbled onto it—that he’d been clever, outwitting the brilliant, powerful John March. He was over that illusion now. March had arranged for Simon to find the tape and see his father’s murder.
Instead of feeling angry, bitter and betrayed, Simon had felt understood. March had known that once Brendan Cahill’s young son had realized the tape existed, he’d find a way to see it.
What Simon hadn’t realized, until recently, was that March had never mentioned him or his father to his daughter. Not once in twenty years.
He was a hard man to figure out.
March stayed on his feet. “I’ve told you as much as I know about what comes next.”
Simon doubted that, but he shrugged. “Great. I’ll be in London cooling my heels.”
“We’ve got him, Simon. We’ve got Estabrook, thanks to you.”
With a little luck, the “thanks to you” part would stay between Simon and March, but Simon had learned not to count on luck. “I’ll feel better when he’s in custody.”
“Understood.”
Simon could sense March’s awkwardness. Ordinarily he would keep his focus on the big picture and not concern himself with what a mission meant for Simon personally. But this mission was different. Eighteen months ago, Simon had left the FBI and started a new life—volunteering for Fast Rescue, making a living helping businesses and individuals plan for disasters. It wasn’t a bad life. He had a good reputation, a decent income and the kind of freedom he’d never had as a federal agent.
Enter Norman Estabrook.
To the public, Estabrook was a thrill-seeking billionaire hedge fund entrepreneur into extreme mountain climbing, high-risk ballooning, kayaking down remote, snake-infested rivers—whatever gave him an adrenaline rush. To a tight inner circle of trusted associates, he was also at the center of a network that dealt in illegal drugs and laundered cash for some very nasty people. Estabrook didn’t need the money, obviously, and he sure as hell didn’t care about advancing any particular cause. He liked the action. He liked thwarting authority.
In particular, Norman Estabrook liked thwarting John March.
Simon was in the perfect position to infiltrate Estabrook’s network, and that was what he’d done. He’d known from the beginning if Norman Estabrook was arrested as a major-league criminal—which he would be—and Simon’s role as an undercover federal agent remained a secret, his name would still be associated with Estabrook and his criminal network. Who’d hire him for anything, never mind trust him with their lives?
If he was exposed as an FBI agent, there went that career, too.
Either way, Estabrook would want him dead.
But Simon figured those were the breaks in his line of work. He stayed on his feet and noticed March did, too, the comforts of the lounge immaterial to either of them. They’d simply needed a private place to meet.
Simon grinned at the no-nonsense FBI director. “If this blows up in my face, I can always become a plumber.”
“You could do worse,” March said.
“Estabrook didn’t make a fortune by being stupid.”
“You’ve done your part, Simon. You provided what we needed to unravel this bastard’s network. He’s a bad actor, and so is the company he keeps.” March gave a thin smile. “Excluding you, of course.”
“Of course.”
“There’s nothing more you can do right now. Estabrook’s at his ranch in Montana, and he thinks you’re visiting a friend and recuperating from the Armenia mission.”
Simon shrugged. “I tend to get into brawls when I’m at a loose end.”
“You’re not at a loose end. You’re in wait mode.”
“Same thing.”
“If there’s another disaster—”
“I wouldn’t wish a disaster on anyone just to give me something to do. Owen’s trying to get me to get involved with Fast Rescue training. Makes my eyes roll back in my head, thinking about training people to do what I already know how to do.”
March looked down, and Simon could have sworn he saw him smile. “Just do what a disaster consultant and search-and-rescue specialist would do between jobs, and you’ll be fine.”
“Will Davenport’s putting me up in London.”
“Ah. Sir Davenport. Or is it Lord Davenport?”
“One or the other. Both. Hell, I don’t know.”
March’s eyes didn’t change. Nor did his mouth. Nothing, but Simon detected a change nonetheless. Will Davenport was a wealthy Brit who believed he owed Simon his life. Maybe he did, but Simon wasn’t keeping score. Apparently Will also had a history—a less favorable one—with the FBI director. Simon didn’t know what it was and wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“I take it Davenport is unaware of your reasons for going to London.”
It was a statement, but Simon responded. “If he is, he’s keeping it to himself.”
“That’d be a first,” March said, making a move for the door. “Simon, we’ve got Estabrook, and we’ll blow open his network and save lives. A lot of lives. You know that, don’t you?”
“I do, sir. I also know Abigail’s eventually going to find out my history with you—”
“Not your problem.”
It wasn’t that March had acted as something of a surrogate father to Simon for the past twenty years that would get to Abigail. It was that she’d never known. At first, Simon was too caught up in his own anger and grief even to notice that March never took him to meet his family. He’d show up at Simon’s ball games—a few times at the police station, after Simon got into fights—and stay in touch with the occasional phone call. When Simon headed off to the University of Massachusetts, March paid him a couple of visits each semester, taking him out for pizza, checking in with him about grades. March never suggested the FBI as a career. He wasn’t director in those days, and when Simon decided to apply