Chapter 21

"Steven Andrews and Julianne Reinholt to see Mr. Baugher." Zane said politely to the receptionist that manned the front desk.

"Please sign in." The middle-aged woman decreed monotonously before picking up the phone.

Max scrawled her assumed identity in the visitors log, listening carefully to the tone of the woman voice as she talked to her boss. She knew instantly that they weren't going to be allowed to see Baugher without some persuasion.

"I'm sorry. Mr. Baugher is very busy today and is taking appointments only." The receptionist said, replacing the phone in its cradle.

Zane cocked his head slightly, letting the tiniest of smirks touch his lips. Max managed to keep her face emotionally detached, but she reached into her jacket just the same.

"Agent Andrews and Reinholt with the IRS." He said with the arrogance of an authentic government worker.

To the Baugher, Forrester, & Kline accounting firm, a little visit from their friendly IRS agents wasn't good news.

The receptionist, now quite pale, asked to see their identifications. Max and Zane handed her the perfectly forged IDs. She took the phone again, dialing the numbers on the back of "Agent Andrew's" ID. "Hello," She said somewhat uneasily. "This is Barbara Myers with Baugher, Forrester, & Kline. Two agents are here and I'd like to verify who they are."



"Okay. Can I have their badge numbers please?" Jhondie said into the phone, simultaneously checking the surveillance equipment on the table in front of her.

"Mmhmm. Agent Steven Andrews and Agent Julianne Reinholt, that is correct. Yes, they're there for a visit with Dwayne Baugher." Jhondie finished her equipment checks long enough to shoot Zack a thumbs up. "Have a nice afternoon." She finished politely and ended the call.

They each turned and watched the screen that displayed the security feed Syl tapped into. "Mr. Baugher will see you now." The receptionist said with a somewhat shaky voice. "Have a nice day." Everyone let out a sigh of relief when Zane and Max received their visitor badges and exited the view of the front office security camera.

With a few keystrokes, the image on the screen changed to a long, door- lined hallway that Zane and Max were walking down soundlessly.

Logan sat several feet behind the X5s, somewhat isolated from it all. Objectively, he scrawled notes into the pad of paper that Lydecker allowed him. He found it ten times easier to either record his interviews or type them directly into his laptop, since his handwriting was close to illegible. But apparently a laptop and a simple hand held recorder was too much of a security risk, according to Lydecker. Since Logan figured he was a week away from having enough information to write his article, he wasn't about to risk everything he'd done for a tape recorder. No matter how badly his hand was cramping.

'It's still surprising how they can transition from family mode to military mode without much effort. Their commanding officer can order his siblings to set up equipment in the same breath that he tell me what can be done to the human body with jumper cables. More specifically the human body that was involved with his sister.'

Once again, Logan found his thoughts trailing of the details that were less than important to this particular article. He could write a novel on everything that was going through his head concerning Max, but he was supposed to be writing a three page political magazine appropriate article. Not on what it was like to wake up, thinking it was all a dream, then finding the remnants of their hastily made dinner still in the sink.

"Okay, they're in." Zack said. "Cut video record, switch to audio." He ordered.

"Why aren't you recording the surveillance tapes?" Logan asked Syl as she switched off the console that had been recording the visuals.

"A lot of the things that are going to happen in that office we don't want on tape. So we took out cameras altogether. By the time security knows there is a problem, we should be out of here."

Logan nodded, waiting for any sort of sound to come through the speaker. The silence was enough to make anyone go out of their minds, but the X5s just sat calmly completing tasks. Jhondie examined her nails, Zane fidgeted with a paper clip. Most alarming of all was Syl leaning back in her chair with her eyes closed, like she was about to go to sleep.

Logan jumped when the sound of a fist against wood came out of the speaker.

"Mr. Baugher." Max's voice sounded detached and emotionless. "I'm Agent Reinholt with the IRS. This is Agent Andrews."

"Nice to meet you." There was a pause. "What brings you agents out here on a hot day like today?" Baugher's held the southern Texas twang that twenty years on the northern west coast couldn't erase.

There was another stretch of silence, presumably Zane and Max entering the office. "We'd like to talk to you about one of your clients. Robert Staub." Zane said. "We have received a tip that has shed some suspicion over the tax report that Mr. Staub filed, through this agency, in 2019. There appears to be a small discrepancy."

"What kind of discrepancy?" Baugher asked.



Max tapped her finger against her knee to resist smirking. "I'm afraid that information is sensitive to the case and can not be disclosed at this time." She said and had the sublime pleasure of seeing Baugher's shoulders tense. Sensitive information was never good information.

"I'm afraid I can't give you anything unless I see a warrant." Baugher said, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers. "Client privilege, I'm sure you understand." Max glanced out of the corner of her eye at Zane, who wore the exact same expression. He was talking to them like third graders. They represented the people who made those laws. Or at least, they were pretending to be.

Zane slipped the folded piece of paper out of his pocket and slapped it into the middle of Baugher's desk without a word. Baugher's face went an interesting shade of gray, reminding Zane and Max that there were certain perks to recon. "This is a search warrant pertaining to a charges against Phillip Costello." He managed; sweat popping out along his hairline.

"Yes, it is." Zane said. He couldn't help it anymore. His face broke into a triumphant grin. "Robert Staub is one of Phillip Costello's aliases."

Baugher's mouth dropped open. Then he seemed to gather his wits and his face went blank. "There is no way an IRS agent would know that, you're just making wild accusations that have no basis."

"Oh come on!" Max said with a small, thin laugh. "Have you ever seen IRS agents that look this good?" As if to make her point clear, she pulled the forged ID out of her pocket and tossed it onto the desk to lie next to the warrant. "Now we can sit here and work this out rationally. Or you could continue to piss me off by playing dumb. Then you'll find out who we really are." She casually propped her feet up on the surface of Baugher's desk.

Neither of them had anticipated the gun.



The pencil had dropped out of Logan's fingers the second he heard his godfather's name mentioned. To say it was unexpected was like saying Oswald gave Kennedy a good weeks notice that he was going to assassinate him. After the full ten seconds of a complete lack of brain function, his logic kicked into overdrive. He couldn't have heard that right.

If he was hearing this right, they had a warrant out on his godfather. Which made absolutely no sense, because his godfather was a good man. He had his faults, yes, but he was completely harmless. Completely harmless. Phillip Costello was a simple man with a mind only for business. He didn't have the imagination to pull off anything else. He'd looked through most of the X5s files and had read all about this mistakes they had made, but this was truly as far off base as they'd ever been.

The gunshot was an assault to their ears, making everyone jump. There wasn't even a second of frozen shock in the room. "Pull the camera up." Zack commanded unnecessarily. Syl had it done before anyone could blink. The image jumped onto screen. The sounds didn't match up with the images, leaving them in the dark with what was really going on. "What's the delay on this?" Zack asked as he watched Zane jump the desk. "Exactly thirteen seconds." Syl muttered. "More than enough time for something to go wrong, send someone in." She ordered. While listening to the sound of bone crunching against flesh, they watched Baugher raise a gun and fire. Max rolled, hitting the floor, but there was no way to tell if she'd been hit or not. There was a loud screech of static, a crunch, and then total silence inside the room. The screen went blank. "Send someone in, Zack!" Syl repeated. They were operating totally blind, totally deaf.

"No. We can't risk it. By the time they get through security this will be over." Zack murmured.

"Security isn't a problem." Jhondie said, crossing the room to stand next to do the door.

"We can't risk the exposure." Zack repeated.

"Fuck that." Zack turned to face Logan. "Someone just pulled a gun in there, you don't know who, you don't know what the hell just happened in there, and you're talking about exposure?" Logan said incredulously.

"They can take care of themselves." Zack said stiffly, fury sparking in his eyes. "I don't need to defend my decisions to you."

Krit had left his keyboard forgotten to stand at the door with Jhondie, just waiting for signal from Zack. "I'll just say that if I don't hear from them in three minutes," Krit said under his breath, "Zack's orders aren't going to mean shit to me."

Jhondie said nothing, only nodded, and listened to the tense silence that would be their accompaniment for the next three minutes.



"Son of a bitch!" Zane looked at Baugher's unconscious body one last time. "You okay, Max?"

"Yeah." She kicked off the heeled boots she'd been wearing bad temperedly as she got up off the floor. "But I'm never going to look the same in a sleeveless shirt again." She clamped a hand over upper arm.

Zane swore loudly. "How bad?" He asked.

"Just a flesh wound. Just brushed me." Max reassured. "Call Zack before he sends in the cavalry. My ear piece got knocked out." Zane pulled his cell phone out and dialed while Max crossed over to the row of filing cabinets situated behind Baugher's desk. She paused long enough to give Baugher's unconscious body a firm kick the stomach. "That's for ruining my favorite jacket." She muttered.

They worked in quick and quiet silence. Ignoring the blood on her fingers, Max systematically went through the three tall filing cabinets, pulling files out at random that could be important to any of their investigations. Now that Baugher had taken a shot at them, he wasn't exactly going to be able to call the police on them. Therefore, they didn't need to stick to their warrant. "Aren't the Sixers looking up on Senator Martin?"

"I think so." Zane made quick work of the weak security system on Baugher's computer.

Max nodded and pulled his file out. "Okay, let's get the hell out of here. My arm hurts like a bitch."

"Quit whining, Max." Zane said and grabbed the pile of papers out of the printer. He pulled a small, slim piece of what appeared to be tin foil out of his breast pocket. He peeled the back off, and then stuck it to the underside of his monitor. It wasn't very hidden, but unless he purposely checked for a bug under the monitor, then it would go unnoticed until someone decided to search his office for bugs. It was a simple transmitter, one that took Krit an entire summer to design and would only work with his system. Krit was going to have to spend hours sorting through every page that anyone visited on that computer, but the chance to see into his email was enough to make it worth it. "Okay, lets go." He said. Baugher was starting to moan, not that they were particularly worried or anything, but it was best that they got out of there before he started screaming for the cops.

They calmly walked into the hallway, keeping their expressions impassive as they received stares as they exited the building. Seeing a man and a woman, one covered in blood and the other carrying a large stack of files. "Just a quick warning." Zane said conversationally as they brushed past the shocked receptionist that was quickly calling the police. "Zack said they let Logan listen into the transmission."

"Shit." Max muttered. "How much did he hear?"

"He's a pretty bright guy."

"Damn it. How screwed over am I?"

"I'd say you're screwed blind."

Max sighed long and hard. "Well, hell, I just got shot. If that doesn't buy me some time, shoot me again, would you please?"

"With pleasure." Zane said with a grin.