The Cairo Job: (A Case Lee Novel Book 13) by Vince Milam

Author:Vince Milam [Milam, Vince]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TRG, Inc.
Published: 2024-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Our setting made for an appropriate backdrop for desperation. A minuscule parking lot pressed between squalid structures alongside a back alley in an iffy Chesapeake neighborhood, the day overcast and hot and steamy. The imminent phone call was a last roll of the dice. If Marilyn Townsend didn’t produce, we were hosed. My head leapt to worst case—a low odds Brussels trip where I’d track down Albert Parker or Maria Lopez or the Mossad spy, Daniel Weiss, and seek answers. More than seek. I’d beat the hell out of Parker and Weiss if needed—desperate times, desperate measures—but my gut said even with such punitive action they wouldn’t or couldn’t deliver a lead on Jules. As for help from Maria, well, she hadn’t even deigned to return my earlier message.

“Tempus fugit, goober.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. Should I put it on speaker so you can participate?”

“Let’s not contribute to her prickly nature with my addition. It would force her gray matter to calculate responses for a broader audience.”

“You sure?”

“She and I are long time amigos, albeit with an asterisk that may affect the conversation’s outcome.”

I nodded back, understanding. While she held Bo’s abilities in the highest esteem during combined Company and Delta operations, her cut-and-dried world perspective didn’t mesh with Bo’s. At all.

I called Townsend, she picked up after two rings, and waited for me to speak.

“Director, I need your help.”

Silence as she waited for elaboration.

“Thoth has kidnapped my asset in Chesapeake. I’m going to get her but require a starting point.”

“I was unaware of this event. Interesting.”

A professional data point for her. Valued data, no doubt, as Jules was privy to boatloads of clandestine intel. But her response lacked a whiff of personal concern. The Clubhouse represented one of many outsider intel flows often leveraged by the Company, all viewed as part of a much larger picture. Fair enough. But Marilyn understood my intimate connection with Jules, and what it meant for me.

“Where would they have taken her? Somewhere in the States? Europe?”

“Possibilities abound, Mr. Lee. At the moment, I have much larger fish to fry.”

“Understood. All I’m looking for is best bet. Something I can work with.”

“I will contact you as information becomes available.”

A bullshit response, and my frustration meter ticked upward. I understood she wouldn’t prioritize Jules’s disappearance given everything else she had on her plate, but someone in her outfit had a hand in this, and I said so. Thin ice given the subject’s maximum sensitivity, but I’d done more than just participate in uncovering the conspiracy. I’d put my ass on the line.

“You’re busy. I know. And I’m not asking for the world. It’s just that someone from the Company knows about this. They might be loyal to you and your organization, or Thoth has recruited them. Doesn’t matter right now. Someone knows. I’ve gotta have a starting point.”

“We will not discuss this further, Mr. Lee.”

My blood rose, and I glanced at Bo who returned a deadpan expression. He grasped how the conversation fared from my

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