Cut and Run 4 - Divide and Conquer

good
    customer lately.”
    Ty continued to glare at him evilly. And Zane continued to be
    oblivious, since he couldn‟t see it. Damn him. “That‟s not why he did
    it. You‟re lucky I feel sorry for you right now or I‟d kick your ass,” he
    muttered as he looked out the window.
    Zane stopped picking apart the bread he had in hand. “What for?”
    Ty continued to grumble at him as he sipped at his water.
    Although Zane couldn‟t see, he was sitting right across from Ty, so it
    looked like his partner was peering right at him.
    Then Zane blinked a couple of times and sat back. “Okay, I just
    caught up with the „pretty‟ comment.”
    “Little slow on the uptake?” Ty challenged.
    Mischief chased across Zane‟s face before he cleared his throat
    and hid it. “You‟d probably kick me again if I said the scenery here was
    as good as the food, huh?”
    “Zane,” Ty said warningly.
    Zane rolled his eyes and shook his head. “The food really is
    good,” he insisted.
    “It better be,” Ty warned. He peered at Zane, letting himself
    investigate the feeling rippling through him. It wasn‟t that he suspected
    anything was going on, because he knew Zane better than that. But the
    sensation of being jealous, no matter how slight it was, was something
    foreign to Ty. He almost liked it, safe in the knowledge that Zane was
    completely unaware of the attention.
    Divide & Conquer | 145

    “He delivers, huh?” Ty said to Zane quietly. “I‟m burning every
    little brown bag I find in your fridge from now on.”
    Zane just smiled innocently. “Even the cheesecake?”
    Ty liked that damn cheesecake; of course it came from here.
    “Don‟t push me, Stevie Wonder,” he growled.

    “YEAH, I understand,” Graham whispered into the cell phone, trying
    to cover his annoyance. Pierce was getting on his nerves with all his
    damn orders, and in Graham‟s opinion, he was taking this shit too
    seriously.
    It was one thing to steal money from big banks to pad his wallet.
    The banks were insured. It didn‟t hurt anybody. But the bombs were
    real now and getting bigger and meaner. Pierce liked the destruction.
    He wanted to hurt people, especially cops. He said they were making
    some kind of statement now, not just creating a diversion to keep the
    cops distracted. It was making Graham and the others nervous. He
    hadn‟t signed up for a manifesto; he just wanted the extra cash
    “This is the big one, man. We need all hands on deck,” Pierce
    was saying furtively. “The best way to expose society‟s corruption is to
    split it open bit by bit and show everyone—everyone!—just what we‟re
    dealing with here. The government pigs—”
    Graham rolled his eyes. Who talked like that? “Yeah, yeah, I get
    it. I‟ll be there, okay? I have to go or I‟m gonna get fired.” He hung up
    before Pierce could start into his “manifesto” again.
    He peered through the kitchen door to see if table three was clear
    yet. He could see Ryan out there talking to two big dudes who looked
    vaguely familiar. Graham belatedly recognized the darker one. Mr.
    Garrett. No, Agent Garrett. He was some sort of government guy,
    always smiling and friendly, didn‟t make a fuss, always left generous
    tips. He seemed like a decent guy, for a Fed.
    Graham looked at them closer, wondering why Garrett looked
    odd. He wasn‟t exactly looking at Ryan when he spoke to him, nor was
    146 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

    he looking at the pissed-off guy in the blue suit across the table from
    him. He seemed to be staring off into the middle distance.
    When Ryan left them and came through the door, he looked
    troubled. Graham nodded at the table. “What‟s wrong with him?”
    Ryan looked back at the two men. “He said he was one of the
    agents caught in that explosion down at the harbor shops. He lost his
    vision.” He gave them one last sympathetic glance and then was gone,
    off to the kitchen to put in an order.
    Suddenly Graham recognized them: the two agents from
    television that Pierce had the vendetta against. The other man‟s name
    was Grady, and Pierce had yet to stop talking about him.
    Caught in the explosion. Graham stood looking out at Agent
    Garrett. The explosion they set in the shopping mall. The bomb Pierce
    insisted needed to be bigger and better.
    Graham had been sitting beside Hannah when she‟d reluctantly
    called in the tip that sent the cops and FBI to that building. He had
    helped lure Agent Garrett into that