"Right."

"Why does he need Nash?"

"It's complicated."

No shit. "Why don't you just take down Finnegan this afternoon and squeeze him for the location of the meeting?"

"Because Letsky will disappear if word of the takedown gets to him. You know how dangerous those kinds of ops are. And what if the squeeze doesn't work?"

Everyone talks if you apply the right amount of pressure. "I don't-"

"I don't care what you don't, Wilder," Crawford said. "I've already told you more than you need to know. The rest is none of your business."

Wilder resisted the urge to punch him. Probably get him another check in the column marked problems dealing with authority figures. Although if he showed them Crawford, they'd understand.

"Do you understand me, Captain Wilder?"

"None of this is my business," Wilder told him and walked out.

Chapter 16

"So you're going to make nice when we go to the meet," Wilder said to Lucy when he'd met her back at the camper and explained it all to her.

"Why?" Lucy had that stubborn look again. "Why can't I just tell Finnegan it's over? He's not going to be suing me if he's got the Russian mob on his butt. I think it's definitely past time to cut our losses. Stephanie's going to be okay, Bryce didn't get hurt, you didn't get knifed, so I'm thinking we're pushing our luck here if we keep going. Let Finnegan have his stupid helicopter without my people on the bridge. We can put up the lights so the cops think we're shooting and then just leave-"

Wilder shook his head. "No good. We can't spook them with the change in plans. The stunt has to go off, and then Nash will take Finnegan to Letsky, probably with the jade in the cargo net. Letksy is a bad guy and he needs to go down, Luce. We have to do this."

Lucy took a deep breath. "I'm having a bad day."

Wilder nodded. "I need you to play nice when he calls with the meet location. Follow my lead. Do not tell him you're shutting down the movie unless I say that's what you're going to do. Let me handle this." He saw her face flush and added, "It's my mission, Lucy. Tonight it's your movie, but today it's my mission."

"No," Lucy said. "Tonight it's my movie, but today it's my crew, my cast, my family, my people. I am not sacrificing anybody for the fucking CIA."

She shifted away from him, and he slid his arm around her and pulled her close, needing her warmth next to him.

"I'm not the CIA," he said, looking into her eyes. "I'm on your side. You have to trust me."

"Right," she said. "So about these two ex-wives-"

Her cell phone rang.

"That's Finnegan," Wilder said, and let her go. "Answer it."

Lucy took a deep breath and answered the phone.

Wilder drove up to the entrance to the Savannah Wildlife Refuge, following the directions Finnegan had given Lucy, and stopped the Jeep.

'"What's wrong?" Lucy asked.

What's right? Swamp mixed with forest lay all around. Indian country, his team sergeant would have said-perfect for an ambush. A metal bar was slid off to one side and a sign warned that the refuge closed at dark. Another sign indicated the road through the refuge was one-way. They had passed the exit about a half mile north of here. Bad omens, both of them.

"J.T.?"

Wilder tried to give Lucy his "no problem" smile but it was one he couldn't remember using before so he wasn't sure how it went over. "Everything's cool." He wondered if that qualified as lying as he drove down the gravel road that was set on top of a berm with swamp on either side. He slammed on the brakes as the metal bar rattled shut behind them. An even worse omen.

"Uh, still cool?" Lucy asked, her voice a little higher than usual.

A trap or somebody just making sure no one else joined the meeting? And who had shut it? Someone who had surveillance on them.

He did not like that at all. He slowly looked about. The cranes in the port to the south. The paper-mill towers. Hell, someone could be in the swamp itself with an angle on the road. Could even be Moot, lying out there licking her chops for her next meal to come down the road. Of all the possibilities, Wilder liked the idea of facing Moot the best. At least he knew what to expect with a gator, having been fully briefed by Pepper at lunch after she'd run out of Wonder Woman facts. Wilder smiled grimly. Pepper was better than Crawford at intelligence.

"J.T.?" Lucy's voice cut through the stillness.

This was why they'd used hand and arm signals on his old team and nobody had spoken when they were tactical. "It's all right." He opened the metal box between the seats and took out a Beretta 9-mm pistol in a well-worn leather holster. He pulled the gun out of the holster, checked the magazine, chambered a round, then nipped the gun and held it by the barrel, the grip toward Lucy. "Here."

She looked at him as if he were nuts. "This is your version of 'It's all right'?"

"Just in case," he said, extending the gun farther.

She took it reluctantly. "I thought you weren't going to give up your gun to anyone else again?"

Women and their memories. Never cut a guy any slack about the past. "It's my backup gun. You can have my primary if you want. Anything for you."

"That's really sweet, J.T." Lucy looked at the gun as if it were going to bite her. "Next time, try jewelry."

"Safety is on," Wilder said, pointing. "Flip it and then pull the trigger. There is a round in the chamber, so be careful. You have fifteen bullets."

"And double-tap, right?"

So she had been listening. "Yep." He took the gun back, slid it into the holster, then gave it back to her. "Loop your belt through this. Strong hand side."

As Lucy armed herself with no enthusiasm, he put the Jeep in gear and drove. He felt like he was back in Iraq, waiting for a roadside bomb to go off. But Finnegan wouldn't do that. He needed Lucy. He wanted this meeting to convince her to go with the stunt and they had already decided to go with the stunt, so everything was going to be fine. Right, Wilder thought to himself. Lucy lifted her shirt over the holster, hiding it from sight, but there was a distinctive bulge. "Don't take the gun out unless you mean to shoot and don't shoot unless you mean to kill."

"That will be never."

Her face was tense and he felt bad. The only sound was the tires' crunch on the gravel. The road went into a patch of trees, and Wilder used one hand to pull out his Glock and place it between his legs, at the ready.

Lucy drew back a little. "Should I do that? I am not going to shoot anybody but should-"

Wilder shook his head. "You're the backup. Finnegan will expect me to be packing. You, he'll wonder about."

"I'm wondering about me too," Lucy said. "Two days ago I was making a movie, then I hooked up with you, and now I'm carrying a gun to meet an international thief."

"Yeah, sorry," Wilder said but she kept going.

"You know, when I thought about us together, I figured I'd probably have to jump out of a plane for our anniversary or something, but I never thought the first thing you gave me would have a safety."

That's good, Wilder thought. She's making jokes. He stole a glance at her. He thought they were jokes. "My life has never been dull."

Lucy gave him a look. "How about we compromise from now on and go for 'not facing death daily'?"

They cleared the patch of trees and saw two hundred yards of straight road through the swamp before the next stand of foliage. The old oak trees they were approaching were so large that the gravel road was a pathway into a green tunnel. They entered and Wilder rolled the Jeep to a stop because there was Finnegan, sitting on the hood of a maroon Jaguar, wearing a loud blue Hawaiian shirt under an expensive-looking jacket and smoking a large cigar. A cane with a silver tip and a silver handle shaped like a stallion's head was within his reach. He looked like a rich, badly dressed Jolly St. Nick. An asshole, Wilder instinctively felt.