Sweenie and Swather stood, chairs crashing back. Both tossed angry glances their way before stomping out the door.
Gage shoved out of his chair and followed the three men out to the steps that would lead them to the entryway and back up to the brewery above. When it sounded like they weren’t moving fast enough, Gage’s deep voice rang out, “I’ll shut the door after you.”
Gage was the team’s enforcer. Well, one of them, anyway. Typically, people left when Gage got in their faces and today was no exception.
Dalton turned his eyes back to Ace and held his boss’s silvery gaze until the outer door closed and Gage resumed his seat in the office.
Mason, who’d been abnormally quiet so far, stood and booted the office door shut with a crack before sprawling back in his chair.
“Fill me in,” Ace ordered.
“We met at the place Sphinx suggested. Before we could get close, the two agents opened fire,” he told Ace.
“Was Sphinx hit?”
Dalton rubbed his fingers over the hair on his jaw; he wore it too short for a beard, but too long for a full-on stubble. “I don’t know.”
“He was hit,” Mason said.
“How do you know?” Dalton snapped his gaze to Mason.
“Blood on the railing at the apartment.”
“We need to get Sphinx before the FBI kills him,” Dalton responded, pulling a hand down his face. Something about the former CIA agent unsettled him. He rubbed at his chest through his shirt.
“We also need to find out what the hell is going on,” Ace reminded them.
“We’d already have that information if we worked alone,” Mason said, earning a hard look from their boss.
“Just saying.” Mason shrugged.
“Don’t say,” Dalton growled.
Mason shot him a death glare, but fuck it, Mason was in enough trouble with Ace without popping off. The guy had gone off half-cocked on a few missions. Right now, though, Mason was keeping his wildness in check, but Dalton had a feeling it would only be a matter of time before Mason went off the rails. The guy was a hothead and not a team player.
Dalton wasn’t much of a team player either, but he’d taken a job with Pegasus and would act accordingly. No sense in being a thorn in the team’s side.
Ace was right, they needed to find out Sphinx’s side of the story.
Ace caught his attention. “Can you reach out to him again?”
He let out a breath. It had taken weeks to get Sphinx to agree to a meeting—only to be shot at—so he was pretty sure the former agent wouldn’t meet again.
“I can try. He probably won’t respond.”
“Let him know where you’ll be,” Ace suggested.
“And if he shows up and shoots me?”
“Wear a vest.”
“I have a feeling he’ll take a headshot.” Dalton smirked at Ace.
Ace squinted. “You serious?”
“I don’t know, but he’s got to be pretty pissed,” he said.
“If Sphinx sold that list, then he has no right to be pissed,” Mason interjected. “He’s got to know someone is coming for him.”
The list Mason spoke of was filled with names from the intelligence community that included several US operatives and also assets. The only problem was that, according to ASAC Farnsworth, Sphinx’s name was on the list he stole and sold.
Which posed the question: Why sell your own name to the enemy? Farnsworth’s answer was that Sphinx must have deleted his name from the list before selling it. Dalton didn’t buy it. There was also the fact that Sphinx had agreed to meet. Why agree to that if you’re guilty? Shit didn’t add up.
His phone buzzed with a silent reminder and he stared down at the calendar alert.Adam’s birthday. He’d set the alert for yearly. Should he try to find Adam’s new number and call? He nixed the thought the second it happened. Adam had changed his number, hence his desire not to be bothered. Not that the guy ever knew he’d called in the first place, but the bottom line was that Adam was happy, and it was best to leave him alone.
“See if Jacob can send Sphinx another message through that message board you used.” Ace’s voice jogged him back to the wide office and he nodded, tucking his phone and thoughts of Adam away.
Jacob Burns was the unit’s technical genius. He’d been the one to find out how to contact Sphinx in the first place. Dalton shoved from his chair and filed to the door along with Mason and Gage, but before stepping through, he paused.
Usually, when someone stole secrets, the government wanted the guy caught to get information. Important information, like who Sphinx sold the list to. This didn’t seem to be the case. The FBI wanted Sphinx eliminated, and that bugged the shit out of him.
