Carla Neggers - Breakwater

“Now?”

“Yeah, now.”

Huck knew he got under Vern’s skin. “Where?”

“Outside.”

“Vern, that leaves about a hundred acres-”

“You’re an asshole, Boone, aren’t you?”

Boone. Huck didn’t flinch at the phony name. He’d gotten used to it during his months of deep-undercover work. “Who, me?”

“Be outside in three minutes.”

He almost asked why three-why not two? Why not five? That kind of deliberate effort to get under a person’s skin was more natural to him than he cared to admit, but he also knew it helped with his cover, the persona he’d established when he’d first gone undercover after his fugitive. Breakwater Security had done a thorough background check on him before letting him into their Yorkville compound. The U.S. Marshals Service and the FBI together made sure any paperwork and people needed to verify his new identity were in place, down to a retired deputy who posed as Huck’s former first-grade teacher. That little Boone boy. What a corker.

Glover left Huck to what remained of the three minutes. He got a clean shirt from his built-in dresser. Because he was working for a private security firm, he got to carry his Glock 23 in his belt holster and a snub-nosed.38 revolver on his ankle. He had the proper paperwork as Huck Boone, bodyguard extraordinaire, so he couldn’t arrest himself for gun-law violations. His Breakwater colleagues all were good with their paperwork-not that he would arrest them for low-level gun violations. There were rumors the vigilantes had shoulder-fired missiles, grenades, chemical sprays, illegal explosives-a long list.

Supposedly, they wanted to buy an armored helicopter.

The task force didn’t want him blowing the whistle too soon.

Most of all, they wanted to know names and plans. Who were these guys, and what were they up to?

He sat on the edge of his bed. White no-iron sheets, cotton blanket, one pillow. He could feel the metal springs through the thin mattress. He was five-ten, one-eighty. On a good day, he had a face that scared children and small dogs.

An extra blanket was up on a closet shelf for cool nights. He had three Breakwater Security shirts, one sweatshirt and one windbreaker. A navy blue suit hung in his closet, and on the floor were running shoes, water shoes, lightweight combat boots and black dress shoes. If he needed anything else, he’d have to find a store.

When he ventured outside, the air smelled of wet earth and bay, but it was fresh and clean, the storm having blown out any remaining rain and humidity. The grounds of the Crawford compound were old-Virginia lush, with trim grass, flowering trees and shrubs, spring bulbs-certainly not the kind of landscape anyone would picture when imagining a start-up private security firm.

The sprawling main house, white clapboards with black shutters, overlooked the bay, a spot most people would be content to live. Not Oliver Crawford. He’d stirred up Yorkville when he announced that he was converting his picturesque country estate into Breakwater Security. Although people still had their doubts, outright protest was short-lived, at least partly because Crawford had only recently survived his harrowing kidnapping and his Yorkville neighbors understood his need to take action-except, perhaps, for Alicia Miller.

Huck stepped over a puddle left over from the storms. The late-afternoon sun angled through a stray gray cloud. It’d been a rough series of storms, rain and wind slapping the converted barn’s windows, trees swaying outside, flashes of lightning, claps of thunder-the works. Diego had brought in his boat just in time.

The Riccardis, the couple who ran Breakwater Security, walked down the stone path to the converted barn. Joe had let his iron-gray hair grow out maybe a quarter-inch since he’d retired from the army. He was forty-two, six feet even and without any obvious excess fat. He had on a navy polo with the Breakwater Security logo embroidered in gold, pressed khaki pants and black running shoes. He wore his Glock on a shoulder holster. His wife, Sharon, was thirty-five and pretty, even delicate, with her dyed blond hair and blue eyes. She was unarmed and wore a skirted suit. Navy blue. She had worked as Oliver Crawford’s executive assistant for fifteen years but now oversaw everything nonoperational for Breakwater Security.

Sharon spoke first. “How’re you doing, Mr. Boone? Settling in?”

“Doing just fine, thanks.”

Huck didn’t have a solid read on the Riccardis, athough the task force had provided Huck with a brief workup on them. They were married last summer right there at Breakwater. Sharon ’s first marriage, Joe’s second. He had two kids in college in Colorado. Nothing in their backgrounds shouted vigilante.

“Mr. Crawford is arriving from his Washington home in the morning,” Sharon said. “He’ll want to see what all we’ve accomplished in the week since his last visit. Joe will go over the details with you tonight at dinner.”

Huck had yet to meet Crawford. He and Diego had read a write-up on him, too, but nothing in it indicated any wing nut vigilante propensities. Then again, who knew what a terrifying ordeal like a kidnapping could do to a man.

A towheaded kid of maybe twenty-two burst out of the barn. Sharon Riccardi gave an impatient sigh, but her husband greeted him pleasantly and shook his hand, welcoming him to Breakwater. The kid all but saluted. Joe couldn’t stop a smile. “Relax, O’Dell. You’re not in the army anymore. Boone, Glover-meet Cully O’Dell, our newest recruit. He’s from the Neck. A local boy. He can tell you the best fishing spots, and you can show him around the property.”

O’Dell shook hands with Vern, then Boone. The kid seemed to have a sunny disposition and was obviously excited about entering the high-stakes, high-possibilities world of private security. Vern didn’t look thrilled at having to help show Cully O’Dell around Breakwater, but one thing Huck had discovered in his two days in Yorkville-he was never left to wander around the property on his own. Someone was always watching.

Being senior, Vern gave O’Dell the quick rundown of the various buildings and what was up and running and what was only in the planning stages.

No mention of private interrogation chambers and thumbscrews.

No mention of a plot to destroy the federal government, to assassinate judges or to snatch bad guys off the streets and toss them into their own private jail cells.

Vern talked about maintaining the highest standards of professionalism, ethics and training as they provided individual and corporate security ranging from routine background checks and threat assessment to investigations, protection, surveillance and crisis management. Those who started now, when the company was still more dream than reality, would have the opportunity to move up as Breakwater Security grew.

“Cool,” the new recruit said under his breath.

Huck grimaced. If Cully O’Dell was a budding psycho vigilante, Huck would cut off his big toe. In the meantime, he’d try to make sure nothing happened to the kid.

They started up the stone path to a new, perfunctory structure that was out of keeping with the aesthetic of the estate. It housed classrooms and the gun vault. Huck figured if Breakwater had any shoulder-fired missiles, illegal explosives, illegal chemicals or vials of anthrax, they’d be in the vault. He wanted to get in there on his own, but it wouldn’t be easy.

On the other hand, if he’d wanted easy, he would never have worked undercover at all.

They ran into the Riccardis again on their way down to the indoor firing range.

“I forgot to ask,” Huck said. “Any word on the woman who was out here this morning? Miller-Alicia Miller, right?”