The Intelligence Unit Series

Archer gripped his tactical mask with one hand and the steering wheel of the car Thorn had stolen with the other, taking a deep, cleansing breath. In the forty-eight hours that had passed since their meeting in the kitchen, he had come up with a plan that was as close to foolproof as it was going to get. He and Thorn and Portia had completed their assignments and triple-checked every last detail. The floor plan, the fear tactics, the robbery strategy, the escape route, the backup plan. Everything had been practiced, then memorized, then practiced again until it had become as ingrained as breathing. They were going to walk into Prosperity Savings and Loan in exactly ninety seconds and take every last dime out of the vault, nice and easy. No bullets. No bodies. All payday.

"Okay," Archer said, making sure Thorn and Portia kept their weapons low across their laps, out of sight of other drivers or pedestrians. "You know the drill. I want to be in and out in six minutes. Portia, you've got the cell phone jammer and the manager. Thorn, you'll need to grab the guard and disarm him. I've got the rest of the lobby."

"Got it," Thorn grunted, and Portia gave up a nod. Thorn had fallen in line fairly easily over the past few days, the prospect of hundreds of thousands of squeaky clean dollars in his bank account likely motivating the shit out of him, as Archer had guessed it would. Not that Thorn had been blowing smoke a few days ago-he'd have gone after Camila Garza in a heartbeat if Archer had been on board with it, just as he'd have murdered every last person at all the banks they'd robbed if it had been up to him.

But Archer had manipulated Thorn just enough to make it clear that it wasn't. Having to manage Thorn so closely was starting to wear thin, but then again, he wasn't hanging around with the guy for his sparkling personality. Thorn was a necessary evil in the truest sense of the word. But until they were done, he was necessary, and he had to be handled. Thankfully, he was motivated by money, and the promise of a shitload of it had kept him focused.

Two more jobs. Just two. Then, he'd cement his endgame and be set for the rest of his life.

Archer pulled up to the curb in front of the bank, just outside the security camera's reach, and let the car idle. It was mid-afternoon, the post-lunch lull and the pre-rush hour traffic making the timing for this robbery near perfect. He watched the cars passing on the street, waiting for the light cycle to hold things up before kicking into action. Grabbing the AR-15 Portia slid covertly over the center console from the backseat, he swiveled a careful gaze over their immediate surroundings, his heart beginning to pump faster as he pictured the three of them moving into the bank and taking over with seamless ease. The power of it hit his bloodstream, a more potent high than anything he could ever shoot up or snort. Getting what he deserved. What he'd earned for all of his meticulous planning and hard work. That was what Archer craved.

And he was going to take it. Right now.

"Let's go," he said, nodding at Portia, then Thorn. In unison, they yanked their tactical masks into place and got out of the car with their assault rifles at the ready, a move they'd practiced no less than a dozen times over the past forty-eight hours. Archer's boots thumped hard against the pavement, his pulse pressing rapidly against his eardrums as he yanked open the door and glided over the threshold with Portia and Thorn at his six. A beat passed before anyone registered their presence, allowing him the perfect snapshot of where everyone sat or stood, going about their day, and oh, these poor unsuspecting idiots.

Archer ripped into the quiet as he heard Portia slide the deadbolt on the door behind him into place with a decisive click. "Nobody move!" he said as loudly as he could without yelling. No need to incite panic. He wanted compliance, not chaos. "This is a robbery." Everyone startled, swinging toward him and Thorn and Portia with wide eyes and gaping mouths. Archer's first order of business was always the tellers-all it would take was one runner to f**k up his whole day. "Hands where we can see them. Nice and high," he told both the two patrons in the lobby and the teller behind the bullet-resistant barrier, aiming his weapon directly at the teller to ensure fast results. He delivered his lines about the security cameras and the silent alarms being disabled-both carefully crafted statements to establish control right from the jump-then got to the rest.

"Your cell phones have been jammed and the rear exit has been blocked. You can try testing the limits of that glass, if you like," he told the teller, and Christ, he could practically smell her fear from here. This was going to be a stroll in the goddamn park. "But I wouldn't recommend it."

The teller was in the lobby, on the ground with the bank patrons within seconds. Portia had rounded up the two bank managers, and Thorn kept his AR-15 trained on the security guard's chest as he grabbed him from his post by the door. The kid couldn't be more than twenty-one, his shock of bright-red hair standing out extra now that all the color had drained from his face, and damn, their luck couldn't be better.

"We'll be needing that," Archer said to the kid, who looked ready to piss himself as Thorn stripped him of the Glock at his hip, then shoved him toward the center of the lobby where the rest of the group lay prone on the floor. Whether it was the guard's obvious fear or Thorn's hard-on for being a bully, Archer couldn't tell, but Thorn didn't stop at the simple shove. He waited until the guard had regained his balance, then used the Glock to pistol-whip him. The sickening crack made all the bank patrons cry out as the guard hit his knees, and before Archer could regain control of both Thorn and the situation, the guard turned to glare up at Thorn.

"You're not going to get away with this," he spat, adrenaline clearly fueling his newfound bravery. "The Intelligence Unit is the best in the city, and they're onto you. We're onto you."

Dread climbed Archer's spine, but he refused to give the guy any satisfaction. It was a bluff, plain and simple, and it was wasting time. "Lace your fingers behind your head," he told the guard.

"You think I'm lying? I'm a cop. I was up there while they were working on the case. I know." The kid's chest puffed up, and f**k, Archer needed to shut him up before Thorn did. "We have a witness! At that last robbery, in the vault? She saw you. She saw your eyes," he said, turning toward Portia, who froze to her spot as Archer's breath crashed to a halt in his lungs. "She even drew pictures of them, and they're good! They know you're a woman. They've even got someone from the FBI helping them. The Intelligence Unit is using what they know to run you through every database they have access to. They're going to find you. You aren't going to get away with this. You're all going down. You're-"

Three gunshots ripped through the air, silencing the guard as two tore into his chest and the third hit him directly in the forehead. Blood and brain matter sprayed over the floor behind him, and Archer swore as the guard crumpled to the ground in a motionless heap. Everyone in the bank screamed, which only added to the shit situation, and Archer whirled toward Thorn, his heart slamming in his chest and his hands balled into fists. But he'd have to deal with Thorn's lack of self-control later. They had to get the hell out of here before anyone on the floor panicked and made things worse. If anyone outside had heard the gunfire, they might have already called the cops. Christ, Thorn had turned this into a shitshow.

Luckily, Archer always had an exit strategy in his back pocket, just in case. "Fall out," he yelled, grabbing Portia by the arm. The move yanked her out of her trance, and she stumbled toward the door. Thorn threw back the deadbolt and slammed the door open. There was no time to issue threats for the patrons to keep quiet or count to one hundred, although the one thing working in his favor was that they were probably scared shitless. It would buy him and Thorn and Portia at least a little time, and right now, they needed all they could get.

Stumbling to the car, Archer got behind the wheel and pulled off his mask. After a glance that lasted a microsecond to be sure Thorn and Portia were both in the car, he pulled away from the curb, resisting both the urge to drive as fast as possible and to reach across the front seat to choke Thorn.

"Are you out of your motherfucking mind?" Archer asked, the venom in his voice making up for his lack of volume. "We agreed. No body count!"

"You agreed," Thorn snapped back. "That guy knew too much! We had to shut him up."

"Shooting him in the face doesn't change the fact that the Intelligence Unit obviously knows more about us than they should," Archer bit out. Damn it! Dragging in a breath, he made absolutely sure they weren't being followed before flicking a glance at Portia in the rearview mirror. "The woman from the vault, Camila. How the hell did she see your eyes?"

He'd told her a thousand times to be careful, to never get too close to anyone or look them right in the face. The tactical masks covered nearly everything, but still.

"I-I don't know," Portia stammered, her expression shell-shocked. "We were only in the vault for like, two minutes, tops. I barely looked at her. I never even spoke to her. He did," she said, jerking her chin at Thorn.

He made a nasty noise in the back of his throat. "The stupid f*****g inhaler. You and your little bleeding heart bent down to get it from the bank manager's pocket, and that bitch must've gotten a good enough look at your eyes to notice they're messed up." "You got that close?" Archer asked Portia, his gut dropping.

"I was trying to make sure Camila didn't do anything funny! The bank manager could've had mace in her pocket, or something she could've used as a weapon, and then we'd have been f****d." Portia sent a glare at Thorn before returning her attention to Archer. "Plus, Thorn was going to let her die, and you said no bodies."

"Yeah, and look where that brilliant move got us. If we'd let her die like I said we should, none of this would be happening!" Thorn yelled, and Archer needed control back, right goddamn now.

"Okay. Okay. Let's all just take a breath, here," he said, notching his voice to its calmest setting. "Listen, I know you're freaked out right now"-he sent another look at Portia in the rearview before turning his attention to Thorn-"and you're pissed. I get it. I'm not psyched that the cops know about Portia's eyes, either. But we have to be smart, and that means tackling the closest alligator to the boat."

"What?" Portia asked, her disheveled blond ponytail swaying as she shook her head in confusion.

"We've gotta deal with the problem that's right in front of us, first," Archer explained, "namely, the fact that, right now, we're out in the open and that guard's body is probably still lukewarm. So, let's get back to the house without being followed, okay? Then we can come up with a plan for how to fix the rest of this."

"I'm not sorry I shot him," Thorn snarled. "That little fucker had too much goddamn mouth."

Archer's grip tightened on the steering wheel. But he needed Thorn to come down about fifteen notches so he could figure out how to cover their asses, not to mention recover the four hundred grand they hadn't just stolen, so he said, "I get it, man. But since someone's going to have to mop the guy's frontal lobe from that bank floor with a squeegee, I'd say you got the last word."

The ego stroke, thank f**k, worked. "That's right." Thorn nodded, easing against the passenger seat. "I shut that a*****e up real good."

A transgression they were going to pay for, and not a little. But he couldn't work around Thorn's f**k up or what the Intelligence Unit knew if they were all in jail cells. They needed cover and time, in that order. "Do me a favor, both of you, and just keep your heads on a swivel so I can get us back to home base."

The task kept them from trying to take each other's heads off, and-more importantly-it gave Archer room to think. He considered the facts, parsing through every detail before turning to what the guard had said and dissecting that, too. Options and alternate plans formed, fell apart, then formed again in his head, and by the time they'd reached the rental house and pulled into the garage, then shut the door nice and tight, Archer knew what needed to be done.

Shedding their tactical gear and storing their weapons, he and Thorn and Portia made their way into the kitchen. Thorn's scowl told Archer that despite his best efforts, the guy was still dialed up to at least seven, and he didn't waste any time jumping in with both boots first.

"I told you. I told you we shouldn't leave any witnesses," Thorn said, stabbing a hand through his greasy hair as he paced the well-worn kitchen linoleum.

Archer stood his ground, albeit with care. "The whole point was to stay under the radar, not blow it up. If we'd shot everyone in all these banks instead of just robbing them, the cops would've launched a national manhunt. We'd have never made it past the fourth job."

But Thorn wasn't having it. "We're not under the radar anymore, though, now are we? That whore from the vault saw Portia's eyes, and someone figured out that she's a woman. That bitch is a witness. Now we have to find her and shut her up." "No." Archer loaded the word with enough steel to make it clear this wasn't up for debate. "Killing the guard in the bank today was bad enough. It's going to take us weeks to shake off the heat from that."

"It needed to be done, just like Camila needs to be dealt with." Thorn turned toward Archer, his eyes flashing. "You said that if she became a problem, I could deal with her."

"That was before you shot a goddamn cop in the face, Thorn. We'd never get away with hurting her now."

"Nah." Thorn shook his head and sneered. "You're just too much of a p***y to pull the trigger."

It took all of Archer's willpower to stay the course he'd set when he'd first come up with this plan. "No, I'm just not going to do something that'll get us caught. How long do you think it will take the cops to find out that guard ran his mouth?" "Who cares?" Thorn asked.

"You do," Archer told him. "Because I'm willing to bet the first thing the cops do after making sure no one else is hurt and pulling the video feed from today's cluster f**k is conduct some very detailed interviews. And every last person who was in that bank is going to tell them what that guard said just before you killed him."

For all his reckless cruelty, Thorn wasn't stupid. "They'll know we know that Camila saw Portia's eyes."

"Exactly. Which also means they'll be keeping close watch on Camila to be safe. And with the FBI involved, now, on top of it? Going after her would be suicide."

Portia chose that moment to stop chewing her bottom lip and say, "Okay, but she saw me. Thorn's right. She's a witness, Arch. That's dangerous."

Here, Archer paused. "She is a witness," he said slowly, because Portia wasn't stupid, either. He had to play this just right. "She obviously saw your eyes, and she told the cops about it. But it's not going to get them anywhere." Thorn grunted his disagreement. "It might. Half the time they do witness IDs from photo arrays now. All they'd need is a picture of Portia's eyes, from a DMV photo, or whatever, and if Camila gives up a positive ID, that's it." "What?" Portia asked, her gaze moving wildly from Thorn to Archer. "Can they seriously do that?"

"You need to stop watching so much f*****g TV," Archer told Thorn, partly because it was true, and partly because what Thorn had said was also technically true. Not that he could tell Portia that without freaking her out further. "Are the cops going to look for people with heterochromia? Yes. But they're looking in police databases, and you don't have a record. A DMV photo wouldn't show enough detail for anyone to ID you on your eyes alone, and-I'll play Devil's Advocate, here-even if the cops somehow managed to come up with your name, they can't connect you, or any of us, to these robberies. As far as they're concerned, you're a perfectly respectable resident of the great state of Arkansas who just happens to have one blue eye and one brown. There's no proof you're anywhere near Remington. Why do you think I gave you the best fake ID money could buy when we started this whole thing?"

"To keep me under the radar," Portia said quietly.

"Exactly." And as long as they stayed there, he could figure out their next move.

Portia whispered, "Do you really think I'll be safe?"

Archer nodded, still very aware of Thorn taking in every word from beside him. "I don't think the cops have a chance in hell of connecting you to these robberies based on what they've got. But I also think we need to be careful. And we obviously need a new plan to get the last of the money we need to disappear."

"A new plan. How the hell do we do that?" Thorn's voice was laced with doubt, but Archer was taking back control, once and for all.

"Research, for starters. We need to find out what the cops really know. And if the FBI is really involved." He couldn't make a solid plan without knowing exactly what he was up against-and who.

"How are we supposed to do that?" Portia asked. "It's not like you can just call them up and ask them to tell you."

An idea formed in the back hallways of his mind, and oh, that wasn't half bad. He put a pin in it, then said, "That security guard knew things he shouldn't have, and I guarantee he wasn't in Intelligence." With the way the chucklehead had run his mouth, Archer would be surprised if he'd graduated from the academy more than six months ago. "If he had access to that information, that means it's not as secure as they think. And that means I can get to it. I just have to figure out how."

"We only have one more bank to hit," Thorn said, knotting his arms over the thick wall of his chest. "Why f**k around with all this cloak and dagger shit? Let's just do the last job and get the hell out of here."

Jesus, it was like he was trying to land them in prison. "The last job isn't going to get us enough money," Archer said. "I'm going to need some time to come up with a way for us to make up for today's loss and end up with the final take. Plus, hitting another bank right now is way too risky. We have to lie low for a few weeks and let the heat from today die down."

"Maybe we should just get the hell out of town," Portia said, and Archer had to admit, on the surface, the idea had merit. Except...

"We chose Remington because it's a big city. Big cities have big payouts, which we need now more than ever. I'm not saying we won't skip town." If it was the smartest play, he wouldn't hesitate. "But there are three hundred branches of over fifty different banks in Remington. The cops couldn't possibly put eyes on all of them. There might still be an opportunity here for us to do what we came to do."

Thorn stared at Archer, his eyes dark and calculating. "Alright. So, you want to come up with a new plan. But I still say we kill that bitch from the vault to cover our asses, just in case."

Anger flared, hot and heady in his veins, but it wouldn't serve him. Not yet. "No."

"Archer-"

"No." He wasn't going to let Thorn f**k this up. Not when he was so close to daylight. "Look"-Archer made eye contact with Portia first, holding it for a steady beat before turning toward Thorn-"I haven't steered you wrong yet, and the endgame hasn't changed. I'm not stopping just because we hit a snag. But I'm also not about to proceed with a plan that will get us caught or killed, and that means I need time to come up with something new. Okay?"

Portia was the first to nod. "Okay. Yeah."

After what felt like an eternity, Thorn blew out a breath, his shoulders hitching in a shrug. "I'm not going back to jail, man. No f*****g way."

Archer nodded. "Then let's come up with a way to end this and get what we all deserve, yeah?"

Now more than ever, Archer was determined to do whatever was necessary to make that happen.