C21 Box Set

Chapter 3-5

Mars frowned, not at all happy with Dylan’s last comment. He wondered if it was the truth. Possibly. After all, from the video we have of him and Samson, we know he took guests up to one of the rooms in the hotel to have s*x with them. He’s not exactly averse to the idea of spreading himself around.

Changing the subject before he made some comment he shouldn’t, Mars said, “All right, we need to come up with a way to make you visible without jeopardizing your safety or freedom.”

“That would be appreciated,” Dylan muttered. “One question though, which just occurred to me. Why would Tommy’s people come after me in the first place?”

“Payback. You killed him; they have to kill you to save face. Also, if I’m reading what you told me correctly, until it hit the papers that he was killed by his lover—you—they had no idea you and he were a couple.”

“Probably true. To the best of my knowledge, he kept our relationship secret because he wanted me all to himself.”

“Exactly. His control issues. His partners could…probably do wonder how much he might have told you about the gun-running end of things.” Mars shot him a hard look. “Pillow talk, as you put it.”

Dylan winced, nodding. “And if I’d use anything he said to blow the whistle on the business, and them, as a bargaining chip if the cops arrest me.”

“You catch on fast. Knowing what IE Global really does behind the scenes, and proving it, has been pretty much impossible so far. As we told you yesterday, Samson had friends in high places, one of whom—and this is only presumption—warned him about two Feds who infiltrated his organization. They both ended up dead.”

Dylan hissed in a breath, but to Mars’ surprise seemed to take that information in stride. “So how is getting his partners to come after me going to help? In the first place, do you really think they’ll do it personally? Wouldn’t they just send some goon to take me out?”

Now we come down to the nitty-gritty. Let’s see how he takes this. “I don’t think they’ll kill you, when they locate you.”

“Meaning? Oh, hell.” Dylan looked at Mars in disbelief. “You want them to capture me! So they can find out what I know and who I’ve told. And you’ll probably have me wired somehow so you can listen in and…and get what you need from the questions they ask.”

“Yes.” Mars waited for the outburst that didn’t happen. Instead, Dylan got up and began pacing. Mars remained quiet, wondering what was going through Dylan’s mind.

After a few moments, Dylan came to a stop back at the table, although he didn’t sit. “What if we play this differently? I have no great desire to be tortured for information. Presuming that’s their objective and they don’t have me killed outright, which wouldn’t do us any good at all. Even if you wired me, they might be smart enough to find it. If they didn’t, would they really be dumb enough to ask questions which would give you cause to have them arrested?”

“Good points. What do you have in mind?”

“I’m on the run. I need help.” He looked at Mars. “I assume you have names for Tommy’s partners. Are they involved in IE Global the way Tommy was, as part of the company as well as behind the scenes?”

“One of them is. Nate Webb. He’s a sales representative for the company, just as Samson was—supposedly.”

“So if I could reach him through the company, telling him I know what Tommy actually did and I want both protection and to be part of the operation…” Dylan looked questioningly at Mars.

“It…could work. If you can be convincing.”

Dylan smiled. “As you pointed out, I’m good with people. It’s…it was part of my job. I didn’t become assistant-manager on my looks alone.”

Mars eyed the appealing and quite handsome blond, blue-eyed man. You could have. “You also managed to persuade certain hotel guests—”

“To keep quiet about me and what we were doing. More proof I can probably deal with Mr. Webb and get him to let me become a member of what he and the others really do.”

“What part of two federal agents being caught and killed didn’t you understand,” Mars asked sharply.

Dylan waggled a finger. “You said it probably happened because one of Tommy’s contacts in high places—as you put it—let him know what was going on. Since C21, is covert, but not—” he looked hard at Mars, “—part of any federal agency, none of the organization’s contacts would know about me. Well, other than what they’ve seen on the news.”

Mars smiled in approval. “Figured that out, did you? Yeah, we’re independent. The ‘C’ stands for Chicago, where we began. There were originally twenty-one people involved. Ergo, when they decided the group needed a name, they came up with C21.”

“I suspect you never use the name in public, but if anyone did—” Dylan chucked, “—people would most likely think you were talking about the realty company.”

Mars laughed. “I never thought of that, but yeah, hopefully they would.”

Sitting again, Dylan drummed his fingers on the table. “We need to figure out how I can get in contact with Mr. Webb. Phoning might work, but it’s not personal enough. I’d rather do it face-to-face, if I’m going to convince him of my sincerity—as it were.”

“Let me go get Alastair. He should be in on this.”

When Mars got down to the security room, Alastair was on one of the secure phones. As soon as he saw Mars, he told whoever he was talking to he’d call back later, hung up and asked, “So how’s it going with him?”

“Dylan’s a smart man. He came up with a much better plan than using him as bait to get someone in Samson’s organization to try to grab or kill him.”

Alastair leaned back, gazing up at him. “Explain.”

Mars did. When he finished, Alastair looked pensive. “It could work. The problem will be getting Dylan trained enough to carry it off, because we don’t have much time. It’s already been five days since he killed Samson, two since the police put out the arrest warrant on him. Where’s he been all that time?”

“Let’s go up and figure it out. He might have some ideas. I can work hard with him to get him up to speed on what going undercover entails.”