Cold Silence, page 11
None of them could really talk about it yet. It hurt too damn much.
“Don’t mind Hugo.” Shane inclined his head toward the dog who was clearly picking up on Yael’s nerves. “Friendliest mutt in the FBI, but don’t tell the bad guys.” Although the dog would bring down the Pope himself should he be given the command.
“Can I pet him?” she asked.
“Sure. He’s protective of his pack. He simply needs to know you’re part of it.” Ryan handed her a dog treat. “Tell him to sit and then give him this. He’ll love you forever.”
Shane didn’t miss the look Ryan shot him when he said those words. Shane rolled his eyes behind Yael’s back. The guy was implying that Shane was smitten which was bullshit. Sure, he liked her, but he was trying to get closer to her for intel, not because of her body.
Leaving Ryan behind, Shane led Yael inside the main building which housed support staff, their lockers and equipment cages. Gold team’s space was packed to the gills with high-end tech and smelled vaguely like a cross between a football locker room and a mechanics workshop.
Thankfully it was empty with most of the team busy training. He checked his watch. Almost time for the teams to switch out at the shooting house but this was another opportunity to gain this woman’s trust and he wasn’t sure how many more chances he’d get. He could watch the guys anytime.
“Any trouble after I left last night?” he asked.
“No one came around asking to borrow a cup of sugar if that’s what you’re worried about.” Her dark eyes flashed with unexpected humor.
“You can never be too careful.” He smiled.
She dropped her gaze.
Was she shy? He thought that might be part of her story, but not all of it.
He opened his locker and scooped his keys off the top shelf. He removed Yael’s keyring from the fob to his truck. “Here you go. Why Myrtle by the way?”
She shrugged as she took them from him. “She felt like a Myrtle.” She gave him a quizzical glance. “You don’t name your vehicles?”
He grinned. “I might name my guns but never my truck.”
Her eyes widened. “You name your guns?”
He laughed because she looked as if she thought he’d lost his mind when she was the one who’d named her freaking scooter.
“Nah. Not really. The snipers name their long guns though, but assaulters are not as sentimental as those softies.” He closed his locker door and headed to his cage to put the carbine on the rack. He needed to clean all three weapons before he left for the day but considering his useless arm, he figured he had time. He planned to visit the joint task force headquarters later and see if they had any updates.
“This is where you keep all your stuff, huh?” Her eyes widened when she took in the biological weapons suit and the heavy equipment go-bags.
“Yeah. The whole team can be wheels-up in four hours. That includes loading vehicles, helicopters and gear into the transport plane out of Andrews Airbase.”
“That’s impressive.”
He nodded and then frowned as he received a notification on his work cell. It was a code red which meant he had to report immediately to the main classroom for a briefing.
“Damn. Sorry.” He looked up and she seemed to realize something was going on. “I have to report in.”
“No problem. I have what I came for.” She dangled the keys from the chain and slipped it into her tight jeans pocket. His fingers itched to follow their path.
“I’ll walk you to the main office and someone will show you out.”
“I can find my own way,” she protested.
“Rules, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, duh. Makes sense.” She nodded and he let her lead the way down the corridor in the direction they’d come toward the main atrium. Operators were filing through the doorway, some of them sweaty and stinking of gunpowder having finished up in the shooting house.
Yael hugged the side of the hall as the wall of testosterone streamed past them into the classroom. Some of the men glanced at her with obvious interest and Shane tried not to feel territorial. He and Yael worked together. He never got involved with people he worked with. Too much room for conflict. Except this was temporary…she wasn’t in HRT. She wasn’t even in the FBI.
Maybe after this was all over…
He pushed the thoughts aside. Finding the serial killer who’d boobytrapped that crime scene and murdered his best friend was his priority. Not dating. He leaned over the desk and asked Maddie Goodwin who was the main receptionist and gatekeeper to the front office if she could find someone to escort Yael to the gate.
“Of course.” The woman was usually cheerful but right now she looked pale.
His stomach clenched. Something bad had happened.
“What is it?” he asked her quietly.
She glanced sideways at the bosses who marched out of the backroom and refused to answer him. Shane felt a shiver of apprehension slice down his spine. It had to be really bad if the top dogs were attending this impromptu team meeting. Operators from Red and Blue teams who were on base also headed inside.
Shit.
“Come this way, Yael, I’ll walk you out. Sorry for the chaos.” Maddie’s smile was forced as she came around the counter, giving Shane a tense expression that said he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.
“See you tomorrow.” Shane called to Yael, but she’d already started to walk away, clearly recognizing something important was going down and that he needed to be in that room right now.
He tried to force her out of his mind. If she was in danger, she should be safe enough on base. He hated the push-pull of his thoughts though. The genuine concern that EG might target her, balanced against the insidious disquiet that someone on the task force might be dirty.
It was a stretch to think that that someone might be Yael, but Shane wasn’t ready to discount anything when it came to the man who’d murdered his best friend. Not yet.
He shook his head and moved into the classroom. Found a spot on the wall next to Novak.
“What’s up?” Shane asked.
“Don’t know but it can’t be good.”
Could be anything from a major terror attack to an impromptu training exercise designed to keep them on the tips of their tactical boots. Could be a prison riot or a nuclear threat or the lead up to the next world war.
Shane inhaled and tried to calm the race of his pulse. Cowboy came and stood on his other side.
“Yael, huh?”
“She’s on the task force,” Shane gritted out.
“Then you won’t mind the fact she gave me her number when I passed her in the corridor?”
Shane stared at his friend and whatever was on his face made the other guy grin.
“Kidding, buddy. Just kidding.” Cowboy crossed his arms over his chest and settled in against the wall. “I gave her mine…”
Shane wanted to tackle the guy even though he knew Ryan was lying. Probably.
Yael didn’t strike Shane as the type to fall for superficial sweet talk or charming smiles. But judging from the number of women Ryan dated maybe Shane didn’t really know what women liked.
They worked together.
She was a means to an end.
And Shane had kissed her and she’d kissed him back. Even if it had been for show.
Shane growled out of the side of his mouth. “Go anywhere near her and I will kill you and toss you into the sea for the fish to feed on.”
“Hah. I knew it.” Cowboy chortled and elbowed him and Shane shook his head. The guy was one of the best operators on the team but he rarely took anything seriously. Shane knew it was deeply rooted in the fact Ryan was a widower even though he never spoke of his dead wife.
Everyone quieted down when the HRT Director himself walked into the room and took his place at the front.
Daniel Ackers had served on the teams for eight years before heading to DC for a few years at JEH. He’d returned to HRT as the boss two years ago and was a straight shooter who understood their job in a way no outsider ever could.
His mouth was grim. Eyes cast down. He raised his hand to get everyone’s attention. “I have some bad news and, considering what happened in Houston recently, I wanted to be the one to break it to you all. You probably know Kurt Montana was due back from a TDY today.” He looked up, his usually twinkling brown eyes flat and reddened.
What the fuck…
“Twenty minutes ago, I received word from the State Department that Kurt’s flight leaving Harare was involved in a crash. Everyone on board died. There are no known survivors.”
It took a second for the information to sink in, to penetrate the instinctive, insistent denial. What followed felt like a lightning strike to the heart.
Montana was a hard man, but he always had your back and would literally take a bullet for his men.
Dead?
It was incomprehensible.
In an accident?
Shane stared hard at Jordan Krychek who’d arrived back at work yesterday. The guy was sheet white. What had they been doing in Africa? Who’d they been working with?
Was this a mechanical error or a terrorist attack? Or some sort of military fuck-up? Questions lined up on Shane’s tongue but he knew it was too soon for anyone to have real answers.
“We’re obviously going to be searching for more clarity and members of Red team are being deployed to investigate on the ground.” Ackers cleared his throat. “But to my immense sadness, I have every reason to believe Kurt Montana died last night. I’m about to go break the news to his family. Agents Novak and Angeletti, I’d like you to accompany me, if you don’t mind.”
Shane saw Novak draw in a shuddering breath and was grateful the guy had his FBI negotiator girlfriend for emotional support. Charlotte Blood was a sweetheart. Despite his own inner turmoil, Shane made a mental note to text her and warn her. Angeletti looked as if he was gonna hurl. This had hit everyone hard.
Grief and loneliness swelled and settled over Shane as he thought about the lack of emotional support in his own life. Sure, he could call his parents or his sisters, but this would only worry them.
Fuck.
A sudden surge of energy pulsed inside him with nowhere to go. The world had been turned upside again and was now slamming down on his head.
Cowboy swallowed tightly as a tic worked in his jaw. Then the man pushed away from the wall. “Time to run some drills in the shooting house.” He glanced at Shane. “Coming?”
Shane nodded as everyone filed silently out of the room.
He felt hollow inside. To have lost one member of the team was bad enough. To lose two in as many weeks was devastating.
10
Yael yawned so widely it felt as if her jaw was going to dislocate. It was eight a.m. and she was once again trapped in a morning task force briefing at Quantico.
“Last night we zeroed in on a hit on a cryptocurrency payment to a former soldier who was a munitions expert based out of Fort Bragg.” ASAC Carly Sloan stood at the front of the room and explained the information that Yael and Alex had spent most of the night ferreting out after Laura had identified activity on currency linked to one of the murders via the Ethereum platform late last night.
Once Yael and Alex uncovered an ID that suggested the guy might be a viable suspect for Evi1Geni-us’s explosives expert, Alex had made a few phone calls.
Judging from Alex’s absence from the meeting this morning and the fact that half the seats in the room were also empty, the FBI was presumably already en route to execute an arrest warrant.
Yael wasn’t the only one who’d noticed how many people were missing. She could sense Shane’s seething tension.
“What details do we have?” Shane asked. He appeared stern today, focused, and closed off, not at all the easy-going guy she’d grown used to. She had to wonder if the change in demeanor had anything to do with that urgent meeting that had everyone buzzing yesterday at the HRT compound. Or maybe she’d mistaken attraction for genuine concern about her security. Maybe she was the only one who had been thoroughly disconcerted by that stupid kiss.
“Lloyd Zenko was an infantry soldier who trained with the Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit, but he was kicked out of the program and dishonorably discharged after turning up for duty while drunk sixteen months ago.”
“Drinking on the job is not a great quality in a bomb disposal guy,” Shane stated bitterly.
Yael yawned again and he shot her a look.
She covered her mouth. Damn. She hadn’t gone to bed last night. After she’d left Cramer, Parker & Gray’s new Quantico offices at five a.m. she’d decided to shower and then head straight here. She’d arrived even earlier than she had on Monday but Shane had still beaten her in. She’d given him a brief nod and set up in the same spot as last time per Ashley Chen’s instructions.
The guy had then once again casually parked himself beside her as soon as she’d settled in. She’d be lying if she said it hadn’t given her an unwanted little buzz.
And maybe the seating arrangement was Ashley’s doing? The female agent seemed to coordinate everything and everyone. Yael was probably reading too much into things like who sat next to whom. Perhaps Ashley had told him to keep an eye on her. Did the FBI agents suspect her of something? That thought was an unexpected shot to the heart. Or perhaps Shane simply hoped to get her into bed.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about the latter, but better than people doubting her integrity. It had been a while since she’d had sex and that kiss had certainly fried her circuits. It had reminded her of all the things she was missing with her self-imposed exile from the world. Loneliness was a given, but she didn’t usually notice the lack of physical intimacy quite so acutely. He’d made it obvious he wasn’t looking for anything long-term or for any deep emotional connection. But, even so, getting involved with someone she worked with seemed like an unnecessary risk.
She pushed the errant thoughts out of her mind. She needed to listen to Sloan talk about the case, not moon about a hot FBI operator who handled assault rifles with the same ease as she wrote code.
She yawned again and Shane eyed her narrowly this time as if she was deliberately hiding secrets from him.
Technically she was, but she refused to feel guilty about that. It had nothing to do with the case.
She was tired but satisfied. The fact she, Alex, and Laura had discovered this clue from the blockchain data meant maybe Evi1Geni-us wasn’t as savvy as he thought he was. It was a good lead and hopefully would make up for her failure in Houston.
Her mood soured.
It wouldn’t bring Dave Monteith or Anya Baker back to life though.
“We’ve since verified that Zenko’s cell was turned off on December 30 and not turned on again until January 2. This suggests to anyone with a working brain he didn’t want his movements tracked during that period, which is a huge red flag.” Sloan must have confirmed Alex’s initial findings. “In the meantime, we are searching for license plate captures or any records of him renting a car and traveling to Houston from North Carolina.”
“What’s the plan?” Shane asked.
Sloan put her hands on her hips. “HRT have sent a team to assist FBI Charlotte’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Squad led by SSA Lucas Randall who some of you obviously know—”
“They’ve already left?” Shane cut in.
Sloan nodded. “Flew out an hour ago. We were keeping this strictly need to know.”
Shane audibly ground his teeth and Yael glanced at him. He caught himself and pulled his lips back into a smile that didn’t come close to reaching those viridian eyes.
“They are taking bomb squad technicians with them and the plan is to pick Zenko up when he leaves his apartment.”
“Do we have a visual of the suspect?” Shane asked.
Sloan shook her head. “Not yet but we know from radar there is someone asleep in bed inside his apartment. We don’t know who yet. We only discovered this information in the early hours of this morning thanks to Alex Parker and Yael.” Sloan nodded to her.
She pressed her fingers to her warm cheeks and wished she didn’t blush so easily. She wasn’t shy. She was simply allergic to being the center of attention.
“You found him?” Shane asked.
“I helped.”
“I wish you’d called me. Nice work though.” He held her stare for so long her pulse skipped.
She gave him a nod. His gaze fell to her mouth before pulling back to her eyes. Then he looked away as if annoyed with himself. The kiss had apparently unsettled them both.
She didn’t like how many times her thoughts had strayed to this man over the last few days. Her finger had hovered over the delete button on his number in her contact list a dozen times, but why delete something she might need during the course of this investigation?
No matter how valid that excuse, she knew she was lying to herself. She wanted to call him. She wanted to spend more time with him even though he really wasn’t her type—because hot guys weren’t her type? She mentally rolled her eyes at herself. She was a complete idiot.
Shane drummed his pen on the table. “What are we supposed to do back here?”
Sloan’s eyes narrowed. The task force leader clearly recognized Shane’s obvious resentment at being left behind. “Keep searching for this UNSUB and I believe you are to report back to HRT with our findings.”
“Seems like they know more than I do.” He sounded pissed and didn’t seem to care if Sloan knew it or not.
Yael glanced at him in surprise.
“I’m not here to babysit your ego, Agent Livingstone.” Sloan’s expression as well as her tone turned frosty.
“It isn’t my ego that’s bothered by the situation.” Shane rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’d like to contribute in a meaningful way and being kept out of the loop means I’m redundant.”
Sloan nodded. “Understood, but there is more than enough leg work to go around. Pitch in however you feel will be most helpful.”
“Ma’am.” He nodded and somehow it didn’t sound facetious. “Any idea how Zenko connected with the UNSUB?”
