Cal could hardly believe what his once-satisfying work life had devolved into. He’d always liked the clear delineations of Bureau life, the obvious hierarchies, the limited responsibilities and resources available to each level which prompted petition to higher-ups to access their authority. He understood which problems were his problems, which belonged to his boss, and which had belonged to her boss’s boss. His innate orderliness had adapted to the necessary bureaucracy of the Fed, and he’d learned to game things to get his cases through.
Now, he was at a stand-still. By removing his boss and leaving Cal autonomous, they’d given him the illusion of independence while effectively crippling him. He could do no more than his level permitted. When it came to the white supremacist flavor of domestic terror, that was essentially nothing.
Dispirited, it was all Cal could do to finish the work day, spinning his wheels again. He contemplated calling Barnes for advice but decided against it. He’d just urge Cal to come work for Dark Sun, and that wasn’t a solution; it was abandonment of duty. Instead, Cal went home to Hunter the minute it turned five, looking forward to another wild evening of bondage games.
When he arrived home, he went looking for Hunter. When he found him sitting on the floor in his home office closet, Hunter was dressed in a suit for some reason, petting Bruiser and looking uncharacteristically troubled. Cal immediately put sex out of his mind.
“Hunter? I’m home.”
A bottle of scotch sat next to the blond, still full. Unusual, since Hunter didn’t really drink; he was keener on smoking.
Hunter patted a spot on the floor next to him. “Hey, how was your day?”
“Not as bad as yours, I’m guessing.” Cal settled on the floor beside Hunter and held out his hand to Bru, petting his fluffy fur affectionately. He was so glad to be home with his boys. He looked up from Bruiser to catch Hunter’s gaze. “What happened?”
“My day is about to make your day really suck.” Hunter let out a grim chuckle and ruffled his hair. “But good news to bad news, I can grow my hair out.”
He exhaled loudly and rested his head on Cal’s shoulder. “I don’t know where to start. I guess at the beginning.”
Hunter slid his hand into Cal’s. “It starts with Chad.”
“What starts with Chad? Did you run into him today?” Cal frowned and tightened his hand on Hunter’s, squeezing sympathetically. He gathered Bruiser in his other arm.
Hunter rubbed his face, a nervous habit of his when he had to tell Cal something he didn’t want to, which happened a lot. Cal wasn’t going to like what was coming.
“Not today, I’ll get to today. I was…keeping an eye on Chad online. He’s been radicalized by white supremacists. I went to one of their meetings to see—” Hunter sighed and met Cal’s gaze. Seeming to sense Hunter’s anxiety, Bruiser moved to his lap to stand and lick his chin. “I stumbled into a conspiracy.”
“What?” Was Hunter serious? He looked serious. “You’ve been stalking Chad, who’s now a Nazi, and you— You went to a Nazi meeting?”
Cal couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He frowned and tightened his grip on Hunter’s hand. “Is that why you—” Cal motioned to Hunter’s hair with his free hand. “But that was a while ago. You’re just telling me now?”
“It’s hardly stalking when he puts it out on social media.” Hunter huffed and averted his gaze. “And I’m allowed to meet with those fine people on both sides. You’re not allowed to investigate them or see if there’s any there there. As far as I knew, he could’ve just been running his mouth. But there was a meeting of a group called Weisse Drache. I’d thought it was going to be a public rally that I could just observe. I didn’t want to stand out, even if I was going to be on the fringe, but as it turned out…it was a more intimate affair.”
“Wait, you infiltrated a secret Nazi meeting?” Cal stared at Hunter in open disbelief. Sure, Hunter had done some dumb things in the past, but this… “So, what, there’s a homegrown group here in Seattle, Chad’s a member, and you just turned up to check it out?”
“I mean, infiltrated? I went. I took Bruiser.” On hearing his name, Bruiser yipped and wagged his tail as if he was proud of his part. “There are rallies and meetings all over the country. Nikki can hardly get to class without running into some Nazi fucks. They’re begging for people to show up. But anyway, the point is, Chad started asking me how I was with a gun, so I knew I had to stay on it.”
“You took our puppy to a Nazi rally?” Cal’s face burned. His skin heated all over with outrage. He released Hunter’s hand and reached for Bruiser, gathering him up as Bruiser licked at his face and hands. “What—What were you thinking, Hunter?” Then he sobered, absorbing the rest of the words. “They’re arming their members?”
“He was gassy and needed a walk, and I thought it was going to be in a park, and anyway, it was good I had him. He helped get me out of there early and away from Chad.” Hunter held up his hand. “Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, Chad started talking about recruiting me to do some shooting. It sounded like there was a violent inner group, and I wanted to know what was going on. I would’ve told you, but you weren’t in a position to do anything about it. If I exposed that I was doing something, you’d have to tell me to stop.”
Cal had so many questions, all of them seething through his mind like a nest of snakes. He couldn’t identify any one thought, couldn’t process what filled him. After a few moments of furious quiet, Cal shook his head, fighting for center. Staring at Hunter, he said, “So there’s…a white supremacist inner circle—Weisse Drache—arming their members for what? Is there an attack coming?”
“Yes. I met with their leader today, but I don’t have a date.” Hunter eyed Cal warily. “Chad’s just a useful idiot. He’ll be the patsy, or so I was informed.”
“Wait, you met with their leader?” Cal’s mouth hung open for a minute in shock at how effective Hunter’s infiltration had been. “Do you have anything actionable?”
Hunter rose to his knees, leaving Bruiser to prance around as he knelt in front of Cal and put his hands on his shoulders. Hunter closed his eyes and took a couple of steadying breaths. “Cal, today I met with Barnes.”
Brow furrowed, Cal stared up at Hunter in confusion. “Okay, so you met with Barnes finally. Is he working on this case too?”
“No, Cal. Today I met with the leader of Weisse Drache. It is Barnes. He’s hawking the idea of a white ethnostate for which Dark Sun will provide security services, but first, he’s gotta start a race war.” Hunter looked so serious, but he could put that. on What kind of elaborate troll was this?
“This isn’t funny, Hunter.” Cal scowled and pulled away, lurching to his feet. “I’m not going to joke about something like that. You know what I’m dealing with at work.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?” Hunter stood with Cal, not backing down or dissolving into snickers. “He’s working you as a contact within the FBI. He wants me to work Antifa into a froth online. He’s sending Chad out there to find people who are ready to murder. It’s a false flag operation. We fucking talked about relocating Nikki to the south!”
“I don’t know why you’d insist on—” Cal set his jaw and breathed sharply through his nose, trying to contain his temper. “Do you hate him that much?”
Hunter’s eyes glittered for a moment and he blinked quickly, looking chastened and sad, as if he’d been slapped. “You think I’d lie about this?”
“I don’t know what I think, Hunter! I’ve known Barnes for years. He’s not a Nazi!” Cal ran his hands through his hair, pulling at the strands as he tried to hem in his tumultuous emotions. “You’re asking me to believe that my former partner is— What? Some kind of evil overlord of a mass conspiracy?”
“I’m your partner now, or at least that’s what I thought.” Hunter took a deep breath and blinked back glassiness from his eyes. “He doesn’t give a shit about race. He wants the money and power. I told you there was something weird about him. I said it from the start. I didn’t think it was this. He’s not even who I was supposed to meet today. I thought I was meeting Chad.”
“You were going to meet with Chad without telling me? After what he did?” Cal’s temper flared in a whole new way, and he couldn’t take it. His head hurt. His heart hurt. What was going on?
“I don’t—” Cal staggered back to sit in the desk chair, thumping into it and skating back across the floor. He arrested the roll belatedly and looked up at Hunter feeling lost. “Swear to me, Hunter. Swear to me on all the trust I have in you that you’re not running some elaborate troll on me.”
“We met in public places. I went early, I checked for black vans…” Because of course Hunter thought there would be black vans. “I told Nikki to tell you if I vanished, but today, we were meeting at a restaurant. I was going to record it, but then Barnes showed up. I legit thought he was there to bust me. I’m not running a troll on you. I just… I don’t know what to do now. I didn’t know how to tell you, but I had to. It’s not just some small-time jackass bigging himself up.”
“I don’t—” Cal swallowed and closed his eyes, trying to make sense of the world as it tilted. He had faith in Hunter. As impossible as it was to believe Barnes was involved in such a thing…
Hunter wouldn’t lie to Cal. Not like this.
He opened his eyes and studied Hunter, chest feeling caved in. “I have no one to take it to. They transferred my boss. I’m on my own.” Biting his lip, he shook his head, feeling untethered. “Are you sure you aren’t mistaken? It couldn’t all be some misunderstanding?”
Hunter squinted as if giving that some thought. “I don’t see how. I wasn’t trying to catch him. I…” He rolled his eyes and folded his arms. “I didn’t think Chad really paid for what he tried to do to me and what he did do to all those women. I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I guess I thought I’d see how low he’d sunk.
“I didn’t expect to run into Barnes. He wasn’t adding up, but I thought he was just regular contractor sleaze, which is maybe what he is. He’d hardly be the first government contractor to gin up a conflict to profit. He wants to be the next Haliburton.”
Cal stared at Hunter, trying to assimilate the information. “So, he wanted you to help him conduct a false flag mission with Antifa, to stir up a race war, so he could profit. That’s what you’re telling me? That Barnes trusts you to tell you all that?”
“What, you think I can only get information out of online twits?” Hunter’s jaw tightened, obviously forcing himself not to lash out. “Yeah. I mean, I had to do a little something for him to prove myself, but yes, he told me. He thinks I’m like him.”
Cal held his head in his hands and exhaled heavily as the shock of it all swept through him anew. “What did you—” He shook his head. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.” He covered his mouth with his hand and breathed deeply, trying desperately to find his way. Finally, he shrugged. “All right. What do we do now? The Bureau has cut me off from resources, and if we don’t have adequate proof…”
Sighing, Cal acceded, “Even with proof, it might be hard to get the FBI to mobilize against the head of Dark Sun.”
“I was hoping you’d know.” Hunter frowned and sat on his desk next to his keyboard. It jostled his mouse, making his giant screen light up. Nothing about the monitor made sense to Cal—the whole desktop was scattered with icons for commercial software and PDFs. It took a moment for Cal to put together that this wasn’t Hunter’s desktop.
Eyeing it, Hunter laughed nervously. “Um, so this is Chad’s computer. I just got the tunnel in. I figured at the very least, we’d get a heads up before any attack occurs. Barnes just wants me working the Antifa side of it. I haven’t seen any dates yet.”
“How involved is Chad?” Cal rolled his chair close and looked at the screen with new interest. “He’s not practicing good internet hygiene. I’m surprised Barnes would let him get away with that. Except… You said Chad’s going to be the patsy?” Cal brightened then and reached out to squeeze Hunter’s shoulder. “So, the incriminating information is going to end up in Chad’s possession at some point. He must be implicated as epicenter of the problem to go down for it. Maybe Barnes is counting on Chad’s ineptitude getting him caught while Barnes covers his own tracks.”
Cal raked his fingers through his hair and sat straighter. “Chad’s a sack of shit. He’d sell out Barnes in a minute if we got him on charges. Unless you know something I don’t know? What does Barnes have on Chad that’ll keep his nose clean?”
After another moment’s thought, Cal sobered and whispered, “Unless he intended Chad’s computer to be found posthumously.”
That the Barnes Cal knew—welcomed in his home, that he’d been inside of—was capable of such a thing should’ve seemed impossible. But Cal remembered the early days of their partnership, before Barnes saved his life in that shootout, and Cal had always felt a nagging disconnect from him, not so different from what Hunter described. It hadn’t been until Cal owed the man his life that he’d warmed up.
Then, of course, Barnes had seduced him, and Cal had been so swept away in the intensity of their shared experiences at work that he’d let it happen. Had Barnes been manipulating him this whole time?
He met Hunter’s gaze and raised a brow. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
Hunter nodded. He looked surprisingly grave. As overdeveloped as Hunter’s sense of vengeance apparently was, and as addicted to the idea of having a gun as he was, he didn’t seem comfortable with Chad ending up dead.
“Barnes probably doesn’t know I’m in. I gave Chad a honeypot drive. He’d given me one, but I’m guessing that was from Barnes. I opened it on a dummy computer, so he didn’t get shit. I’m guessing Chad wasn’t meant to look at the files, but he gave in to temptation.”
Hunter sighed. “He wanted me to be involved in the gun-carrying part of the op, but Barnes moved me to internet. Guess it’s good for me that I have more valuable skills. Also, they were fucking, so maybe he’s got that on him, but honestly, I think Chad’s a true believer in this shit. His daddy’s probably paying. Barnes said he was milking some scared, rich white guys.”
“Ugh.” Cal’s disgust turned to anger again as he looked at Hunter. “I can’t believe he thought he could take you from me. That he thought you were like him.” Cal reached out to cradle Hunter’s cheek in his palm and gazed at him with his heart in his eyes. “You’re such a good man, Hunter. I warned him. I told him.”
Cal leaned in and kissed Hunter, sliding his fingers up into Hunter’s hair and pulling him in closer as Cal devoured his mouth.
Hunter whimpered and melted against Cal. He hadn’t realized how much tension Hunter had been carrying. As much as what Hunter had done bothered Cal, he’d known something was up, something big.
That didn’t mitigate Barnes’s betrayal, but at least Hunter had Cal’s back.
Hunter broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to Cal’s. “I had to let him think that. He’s really proud of himself. He’s probably been dying to share his plan with someone. I just… I didn’t know how to tell you. I was worried you’d throw me out.”
Cal shook his head sharply. “No. Never.” He rubbed his nose against Hunter’s and kissed him again, brief and soft. “I love you. I trust you.”
Hunter averted his gaze, seeming humbled by the words. God, how could someone like Barnes think this sensitive man was like him?
Then again, Cal had seen some of Hunter’s trolls. He knew how he could be, what a good actor. Perhaps that very empathy helped him read people, at least when he bothered to.
“Thank you. I love you. You know I trust you, right? The FBI, not so much.” Hunter caressed Cal’s face. “Dark Sun’s not that big yet, though, is it? He can’t have had corporate meetings on that topic. Someone would’ve leaked. I bet if we shut down his race war, he’ll spin out, and we can get him.”
“I don’t want you doing it alone.” Cal frowned and reached for Hunter’s nape, holding their brows together and looking into his eyes from up close. “I don’t—The Bureau isn’t going to have my back. I don’t have a direct superior to report to. Maybe it’s…” Cal trailed off, torn, and then barreled onward. “Maybe it’s time I operate outside their parameters. This is serious.”
“Welcome to the dark side.” Hunter gazed into Cal’s eyes. The corners of Hunter’s own eyes crinkled like he was smiling, but this close, Hunter couldn’t hide his worry. “This would be a good time to have the full force and power of the FBI to shut it down.”
Hunter exhaled, closing his eyes. “Do you even think evidence of a time, place, and plan of attack would be enough to get a team? Do you think they’d care? Because I can’t help but think—with Barnes’s possible connections inside—that reporting would be dangerous. We could probably count on Sam, but anyone else….”
“Fuck.” Cal closed his eyes too and nuzzled Hunter’s face tenderly, tightening his grip on Hunter’s nape. “I’m sorry, Hunter. I don’t… Maybe Sam would help us. He could provide backup. I can call Barnes, and we can— I don’t know. Do you think he’d trust me if I told him I was done with the FBI and wanted to come on at Dark Sun?”
Opening his eyes and sitting back, Cal kept his hand on the back of Hunter’s neck, craving that connection. “Maybe we can work this together, get the info, and Sam can do an end-run. He’s still got his boss as far as I know. Different department, different specialty. If he can take it up the chain of command, if we can implicate Barnes strongly enough…”
“He’ll buy that I’ve worked on you into giving up on the FBI, but you can’t be so easy to move on your basic principles. He knows you too well to believe that.”
He flashed Cal a wry smile. “Damn you for being so incorruptible. I don’t think he’ll confess to you right away.”
Scooting closer, Hunter wrapped his arms around Cal’s neck. “You think the FBI would act on him before anything goes down? I was thinking…we could pressure Chad, maybe. I have full access to his computer. But I’m guessing if I do, Barnes does, too. Anything overt I do, he’ll see. Right now, I’m just taking snapshots of his data. If I loaded something on there or launched an attack….”
“What are you thinking? Could you trigger something remotely at the time of our choosing? Something to implicate him and all the names he’s connected to? Maybe hack his email and BCC the FBI and the Seattle PD on whatever plan he sends out, when it’s time?” Cal furrowed his brow and then laughed softly. “I’m guessing I don’t know half of what you can really do.”
Hunter bit his lip and looked up, squinting as if the answers were on the celling. “Theoretically, yes.”
He turned to look at the screen. “If I depend on a constant and consistent connection and sending from his computer with his IP…then it would be trickier. It leaves not being found out up to chance and would also bank on him not being at his computer to see his email working remotely. But….”
He tilted his head. “Bear in mind, we’re talking about a lot of factors, so we’d need to really… but on my end, once we have the email on my cloned instance, I could send from a remote server. It might look weird to anyone looking closely at it, but if the emails are on his computer when it’s seized… But the other half of that is how quickly would the FBI or the PD mobilize? Would he need to be caught red-handed?”
“I hate to say it, Hunter, but I think Seattle PD is gonna act quicker than the Bureau on this. If SPD believes it’s a credible threat—even an unlikely one—they’re going to mobilize. And because it involves hate crimes, they’ll be looping in the FBI more effectively than I can. They may be our best bet, especially if we can get Sam to disseminate the information within the Bureau. You’re not the only hacker in this equation. I trust him.” Cal raked his teeth over his bottom lip. “But I think we’re gonna need to wait to trash Chad until we’ve got Barnes, or it’s all gonna be for nothing. These government contractors are like Teflon, and Barnes is slick as heck.”
Hunter’s eyes were glassy for a moment and he sniffed, blinking quickly. “You don’t know how scared I was that you’d side with him. I didn’t know what I’d do.”
Mastering himself, Hunter nodded, apparently getting back into the game. “Yeah, I’m just not sure how far I could push Sam. I trust him, but I didn’t want to…you know…I’m already putting you in a difficult position with the FBI. They’re not going to love you for this. But Sam probably knows who would be most likely to move on this once we have something, right? How high up is he?”
“Sam’s got the highest clearance of anyone I know. He’s done a lot of favors for a lot of powerful people. You know how good he is at making friends. He wouldn’t be where he is if he wasn’t. I mean, you like him, and you don’t like anybody.” Cal smiled affectionately and ruffled Hunter’s hair. “We won’t ask Sam to do anything illegal—just to be on standby while we do what needs doing and push things up the food chain until we get some motion. And if I torch my career, well. Daddy’s not too old to hack it in the private sector.”
“Neither of us really have to work again if we don’t want to.” Hunter shrugged as he peered around his office closet. “You don’t have to be morally compromised by your job to keep things going. I know we’re effectively blowing up an offer on the table, but I’ve got plenty of money stashed away. Probably time to sell my Bitcoin before it crashes anyway.”
“What would I do if I didn’t work? Spend all day cooking for you and giving you spankings?” Cal’s smile was a little forced, but he sighed in acceptance of the facts. Hunter had ample savings after selling some work to the government, and Cal still had most of the insurance money left from his bombed house since Hunter had insisted on helping pay for their condo. If they were smart and stuck together…
It was time for Cal to quit spinning his wheels.
“The Bureau’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. But either they step up, or I’m out. We’ll see how it goes.”
“I’d like to revisit this reality in which you spend all day cooking and spanking me.” Hunter’s grin was brilliant, but brief. “I mean, there’s worse things. We could always become a rogue team of investigators who right the wrongs for the little guys on our own terms. Like The A-Team?”
Clearly, Hunter was too young to really know what that was, but Cal got the idea.
“Yeah, going rogue is definitely more a you-thing than a me-thing, but…” Cal shrugged and sighed heavily. “Look, you’re not in this alone now. I’m going to help you. You’re going to have to work with me if we want to come out of this clean, but I think we might be able to pull it off.”
The tension Cal had observed in Hunter’s smile since the hair change melted a bit. It wasn’t altogether gone; they were still facing huge odds. It was heartening to see how much the deceptions had cost him. People who didn’t know Hunter very well probably wouldn’t have noticed, but Call could read him.
“Okay. Just…” Hunter cleared his throat. “I might’ve kind of implied that a threesome might happen. We’ll just put it off, but I don’t want you to be shocked if he says it. I didn’t think telling him there was no way in hell I was going to fuck him was going to earn much trust. So…yeah. We need to get you talking to Barnes. See how much more he’ll give us.”
Cal blinked and raised his brows, studying Hunter for a moment. Then he shook it off. “All right then. I guess we string him along. He’s gotta know I’m not the type for a threesome, so he’ll be expecting that to take some work.” Cal raked both hands through his hair and then pushed his chair away from Hunter and back toward his own desk. “Guess it’s time to give the man a ring. Wish me luck.”
Hunter nodded but then wheeled over and leaned in for another long kiss, as if to assert that Cal was his. “You want me to stay with you, or you want to do it alone?”
“Stay. I want you to hear what’s said.” Cal gripped Hunter’s nape and pressed their brows together for a moment and then pulled away and reached for his phone. He called Barnes’s number—with a little star next to it, from when he’d been one of Cal’s favorites—and took a deep breath as it rang.
After a moment, Barnes answered with a bright, mildly surprised, “Riggs! How are you?”
Cal looked at Hunter and smiled bitterly before sinking into character. “Hey, Barnes. Uh, not doing so great today. The Bureau’s really.…” Cal sighed and shook his head. “They’re not interested in anything I have to contribute. I’ve been talking to Hunter this evening, and he’s really persuasive, you know? He said he’d talked to you and thought maybe Dark Sun would be a good place for both of us. The FBI’s never really gonna give me or Hunter a fair shake, so I’m calling you to… I dunno. Maybe a trial run?”
“Really?” Barnes’s surprise increased, but he sounded delighted. “Cal, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Just a trial run,” Cal clarified, tone gruff. “I’ll take a leave of absence from the Bureau, come work with you for a little bit, see whether I want to leave the Bureau permanently. I’ll give you a chance to woo me.” Cal sounded almost flirtatious.
“That’s all I wanted. Good. You’re making a sound decision. Let me check on all the irons I have in the fire, and I’ll pick a plum assignment just for you. Sound good? Cal, you won’t regret this. You deserve so much more than to be turned gray before your time by those bureaucrats.” Cal could hear Barnes’s smile in his voice, his obvious sense of triumph. “Tell Hunter thank you for me. I had a feeling he might bring you around.”
“Yeah, apparently you had a good talk. Now I know Hunter’s on board, well.” Cal raised his brow and smiled, looking over at Hunter. “I go where he goes. We’re a package deal.”
“I never thought I’d hear you put any one person above the Bureau, man. That’s exciting.”
“Yeah, well, you’re there too, right? Putting two people above the Bureau.” Cal affected abashed fondness, the same tone he used when he talked about Barnes saving his life. “I’ll let you get back to work. Call me when you have something. I’ll submit paperwork for my leave.”
“Sounds good, Cal. Sounds really good. Welcome aboard.” Barnes chuckled as if he couldn’t contain his glee. “All right. Talk to you soon.”
Then he hung up, and Cal met Hunter’s gaze. “It’s begun.”