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cracked eggs into a bowl when his cell rang. Tossing the eggshells in the sink he unclipped the phone from his belt and held it to his ear.
    "D'Amato."
    "It's Jimmy."
    "Got anything yet?" There was a long pause, enough to make Gus nervous.
    "Jimmy, that's not a hard question. Just a yes or no answer."
    "Not exactly." The man's voice sounded strange. "Are you alone?"
    Gus looked over his shoulder. John had disappeared somewhere, maybe to check the camera feed. "For the moment. What the hell is wrong?"
    "I came across some stuff while tracking down the visitors from the logs." Another pause. "Gus, something isn't tracking right here."
    "What do you mean?" Gus tensed, leaving the eggs for the moment.
    "The names on Branson's log? None of them are real."
    Gus nearly dropped the phone. "What the fuck? What do mean they're not real?"
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    Escape the Night
    Jimmy was almost whispering now. "I mean, there are signatures on the logs and even some video footage, but the names lead to nothing. They're all phonies."
    Gus tightened his grip on the cell, nearly crushing it. "If that's true, this is more than a couple of Virgil Branson's thugs figuring out a way to break him loose. You know that."
    "Roger that. It means there's a bad apple at the prison."
    Gus swallowed back a surge of bile. "Or at the office."
    More silence. "Gus, I'd hate to think the latter is true. We put our lives on the line every day with the people we work with."
    John had come back into the room now and was looking at Gus questioningly.
    "Problems?"
    Gus shook his head. "Nothing we don't already know. Or to be more exact, more things that we don't have answers for. Breakfast will be ready in a few if you want to grab a shower first."
    When John headed for the bathroom, Gus turned his attention back to the call.
    "Jimmy, if you're right, that means we can trust each other and that's it."
    "Not even Dean," Jimmy agreed, "although I don't think our fearless leader is on our suspect list."
    "Right now, much as I hate to say it, everyone's on that list. You'll keep digging, right?"
    "Yeah. I'm going to review the visitors' tapes myself as well as call the warden. And start looking at everyone here in the office to see if I can find a connection to Branson."
    "Keep your head down," Gus warned him.
    "I actually decided to go home and work from there. I can get into the files I need from my computer."
    "Jimmy, don't hack the system," Gus warned. "They'll find your cyber fingerprints."
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    "Trust me, buddy, I know what I'm doing. And getting caught at anything isn't on my agenda. But if someone in our office is connected with Virgil Branson, that means we didn't really get the whole story out at his trial."
    "True enough," Gus agreed. "We never found out how he gets his so-called clients here under the radar and how he gets the women out. Or moves them around."
    "Right. We just focused on the operation here in San Antonio. All right. You watch your back, okay?"
    "Same goes."
    Gus disconnected the call. Replacing the phone in the holster on his belt, he turned his attention back to breakfast. John would be out of the bathroom shortly and Gus needed to pull himself together to make sure he didn't let anything slip, do or say anything to give John a hint of what was going on.
    He thought about asking for a replacement on the night watch but knew that would look too suspicious. He'd just have to figure out how to handle that when he was asleep. Too bad he couldn't have Jimmy here but the other agent had work to do. Without him Gus might never figure out how this thing had blown up in their faces. If there was one person he trusted it was Jimmy. They were friends from college who'd applied to the FBI together, gone through training at Quantico together, and managed to get assigned to the same field office. But it pained him to think that any of the other men and women he worked with could be mixed up in this. Especially his boss, Dean Barton. But he'd learned a