Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 146392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Lou took a long breath as though bracing herself. “This is the one I’m worried about. We need to remember that the AI isn’t always right. It’s making a best guess.”
TJ felt his whole body tighten. “What is it, Lou?”
She shook her head. “It’s not about you, babe.”
The babe totally made his heart warm even as she hit the button and the AI spoke again.
Comment sais-tu que c'est la bonne personne ? Je ne crois pas qu'il soit proche du fabricant de bombes.
His uncle frowned. “He’s looking for someone close to the bombmaker.”
“There’s more, but it’s all along the same line. They argue about whether TJ is the one they were looking for. Whoever was behind Huber, he wanted to get to The Jester to get to the bombmaker. But the other guy thinks TJ should know the bombmaker personally if he’s the one they’re looking for. There’s one place where he talks about finding the bombmaker before something in Nepal. The AI got confused,” Lou admitted. “I actually think we should let the Brits hear it. They might make some sense of it.”
His parents looked to his uncle as though seeking his counsel.
“I don’t know if we should involve the Brits.” His uncle looked grim. “And it’s not about Oliver, the little shit. Despite the idiot-lothario thing he has going, he’s Damon Knight’s son, and I trust that family. Sami has a good head on her shoulders.”
“But they’re working with Ben Parker.” TJ understood exactly what his uncle was saying. “And if he hears someone is speaking French in the background, looking for this bombmaker, his brain is going to one place.”
Emmanuel Huisman.
“Can we consider that he might be right and this person we’re listening to might be Huisman?” Lou asked. “He’s speaking French. I wish I could hear more and figure out if the French he’s speaking is proper or more Canadian, but the AI wasn’t able to differentiate.”
“As far as I can tell he wasn’t in Germany that day,” his mother said. “When I found out Parker was involved, I started looking. I’ve read those files and knew what Parker would think, so I looked into Huisman’s movements for that last day. I can tell you he was in Montreal at a gallery opening at eight p.m. the night the team recovered TJ. So he would have to get to the airport and go straight from the Munich airport to Montreal, and still manage to make the gallery opening looking perfect in roughly eight hours. The flight time from Munich to Montreal is eight hours and twenty-five minutes. We were at least an hour from the nearest airport.”
“Only if he flew directly from the airport,” his dad mused. “If he had a private plane or a helo waiting, it could have been faster, and some of those new private jets are faster than you would suspect.”
New technology was constantly pushing the boundaries of what was possible, and Huisman had the money to have that cutting-edge jet if he wanted one.
“It’s still tight,” his uncle allowed. “But it doesn’t take him off the board. However, if the Canadian finds out, he won’t look at anyone else. I’d like more time with what we have before Parker blows up and potentially goes after the doctor.” He held up a hand Lou’s way. “I’m not making a judgment call. I’m not saying he’s clean. I’m saying I want time. Parker is a bomb that’s set to go off. Look what he’s already managed to do. He put our team in direct conflict with an MI6 team we should have a good working relationship with.”
“It wasn’t Ben’s fault that we didn’t know Damon Knight’s team existed,” Lou argued.
“I don’t care about that. I understand what Knight was doing. I need more intel about Ben Parker, and I don’t know that I can trust either of my daughters to get it,” his uncle replied, a grim expression on his face. “Kenzie is half in love with the guy and Kala wants to murder him. I know. Kala wants to murder most people, but she really has it in for this guy.”
“Kenzie will do her job,” Lou assured him. “If you tell her to get the dirt on him, she’ll do it.”
“That’s the problem, Lou. I don’t want to hurt her that way.” His uncle looked a bit weary, and he sat on the sex couch without a single protest. “I’m not sure this is going to work, and I have no idea how they’ll handle failure.”
Kala and Kenzie wouldn’t handle it well. This was their dream, and they’d worked so hard to achieve it. Hell, it was Lou’s, and he could see that now. He was pretty sure Cooper and Zach and Tris wouldn’t be happy if they broke up the team.
“Have we considered sending Dare in?” TJ asked. “Parker seems like a lone wolf, but he took Dare’s friendship seriously. I was on his detail during the Australian op. He made it clear he didn’t want Dare hurt. If he could have gotten away with it, he wouldn’t have ever let Dare know who he really was. Now that’s not to say he wouldn’t have walked away. I think Parker’s a guy who always gets the job done, but he cared about Dare. He valued that friendship.”