2. the yellow bus

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** picture: Falcon 20

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** picture: Falcon 20

Cassidy just had to laugh when he showed out of the Bureau's jet—an elegant twelve-seat Falcon 20—and found the whole team recording him with their phones, as if he were a rockstar arriving to some distant location. He waved for them to come up the steps and into the plane, and went from rockstar to flight attendant, shaking their hands as they came in and telling them to pick a seat. He frowned at the heavy plastic trunk Fred helped Ron to carry up.

"What's that, Bellison?"

"The limbs of the last one who asked, sir."

"Good. There's a fridge at the bottom."

Cassidy bumped fists with Connor and nodded with a polite smile at Andrea. Despite Brock's serious scowl, both teens sat together, commenting on how cool it was, taking a private jet on Connor's birthday. They'd had a great time together last night with Connor's friends, and now they enjoyed the plan of a couple of days together in DC. Andrea was already working on such a long list of places to show him that Gillian warned them that they would need a year to go through all of it. They didn't care, of course. They were happy and excited at meeting again, after so many months staying in touch online.

To Gillian's surprise, she didn't detect any sign of tension between them. Looked like they'd grown too close to have a crush on each other. Which was good—mostly for Connor's survival, considering the way Brock had been watching him all the while at the airport.

Now Brock turned to the rest of the seats and scowled deeper, because the picnic spirit of the punks was at their prime.

Cassidy stood by him with a mild smile, not the least bit annoyed at the loud voices and the teases and the laughter. "Welcome onboard the Hoover High bus."

All of them wore their usual informal gears, and Gillian sent Kurt to hang their suit covers at the small space past the toilet. She had just sit down with Aldana and Tanya when she smelled Brock's cologne floating by her side, and he walked past them to take the individual seat left, since Hank had already taken the other.

Cassidy came to sit at a lateral couch, facing them. "Morning, people. What d'you have for me?" he said, as the jet rolled to the runway.

"Sleep deprivation, hunger and a serious concern about our accommodations," Hank replied.

"I see, poor things. Gillian?"

"We have the complete list, sir. Tanya and Connor are almost done with their plan to hold the mainframe, they just need a look at the real thing."

Cassidy frowned. "Connor...?" He glanced at the teens, chattering oblivious to the world. "Thought he was visiting."

"Not exactly, sir. He's Tanya's best student. If anybody can help her pull this off, it's my son."

"But we can't do it all by ourselves," Tanya hurried to say. "We do need more people working with us when the Ghost comes for us."

"Don't worry, Lawrence. You'll have every tech in DC at your orders."

"If you think I can find twenty qualified whitehats among them."

"You'll be the judge of that. We're meeting them in a while." Cassidy turned to Gillian. "What about that list?"

"Twenty-eight addresses. About fifteen cities and towns. We're gonna need backup to take them all in at the same time, so they cannot warn each other and the Ghost."

"Good. Locations?"

Gillian flashed a quick grimace. "From Portland, Maine, to Norfolk, Virginia. Agent Cooper already alerted all our resident agencies."

"Okay, I'll take care of the rest. Now enjoy the flight, we'll be landing in an hour."

As soon as he said that, Fred produced a deck of cards. Russell fixed the side table between them, as Ron turned to Cassidy. "Wanna lose some bucks, sir?"

"Lose? I'll show you lose."

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