Cold Silence, page 13
“How come you ended up working for Alex Parker?”
She tucked a strand of hair back into the red woolen Bulldogs knit cap he’d found for her. Wearing his old college colors suited her and affected him more than he wanted to acknowledge.
“I contacted the DoD a little over a year ago and informed them I’d found a vulnerability in one of their systems that they might want to fix. They offered me a cash reward which I refused. Turned out it had been set up as a kind of test by Alex Parker to catch any would-be black-hat hackers looking for zero-day vulnerabilities to sell off to the highest bidder.”
“He offered you a job?”
“Yeah. Much to my surprise.” She nodded. “Before that I was writing code for a startup company in California. I was about finished there and figured why not? I started working for Cramer, Parker & Gray at their DC office last January.” She shrugged. “You pretty much know everything that happened since then.”
He laughed. Hardly. There was that deflection again. “That’s a big move.”
“It was time for a change.”
Had she left behind a lover? Family?
Shane bet there were intelligence officers more talkative than Yael Brooks. He wanted to know more about her. Figure out what made her tick. Plus, the last thing he needed right now was some jealous ex turning up. Especially not when Billy had been busy kissing Betty on the front step of her new home.
“Who was it who actually uncovered the Zenko connection?” He changed the subject because drawing her out was obviously a full-time job. Thankfully he excelled at stubborn persistence.
“Laura Bay, you know, my friend from Friday night?”
He nodded.
“She’d flagged some cryptopayment information in regard to Evi1Geni-us. The crypto appeared online again yesterday. Alex and I went through the blockchain information and I set up a web crawler that tracked the payment to a shell corporation in the Caymans. Alex somehow managed to identify Zenko from there. I’m not sure exactly how he did it so quickly. I didn’t ask.” She shot him a look from under her lashes.
“I’m not about to rat him out.” But he understood how easy it was for a case to fall apart because someone hadn’t followed lawful procedures. Alex Parker wasn’t FBI but he did consult for them so they had to be careful.
They drove down increasingly narrower roads with fewer and fewer houses visible, and an ever-increasing number of trees whose limbs overhung the asphalt and made him feel like he was traveling through a tunnel into another world. Shane followed the directions on his Satnav as he was unfamiliar with the area.
“There’s a hiking route on the hill behind Zenko’s mother’s cabin. I plan to park on the other side of the ridge and hike the trail until we are above Zenko’s place. Then we can cut down through the woods and find a position in the trees to observe the cabin. I have some binoculars so we don’t have to risk getting too close. If it looks like the place deserves a closer look, I’ll go ahead and check it out and rendezvous back with you in the woods.”
She stared at him silently. He wished he knew what she was thinking.
“It won’t be dangerous. We will both wear ballistic vests under our rain gear just in case.”
“Do you really think he might be here?”
The niggle between his shoulder blades had started itching as soon as he’d seen that cabin listed in Zenko’s mother’s name.
“Honestly?”
She nodded.
“I do. Or he’s on a beach sunning himself in Mexico. What he likely isn’t doing is sleeping late in some shitty apartment in Fayetteville.” Shane tamped down on his anger at the fact this fucker had killed his friend. Emotions clouded his ability to do his job and he wasn’t about to screw up.
She rubbed her forearms as if cold and he turned up the heat.
“He might be oblivious to the danger. A lot of people don’t realize crypto can be traced. Lloyd Zenko might assume wrongly that we’ll never be able to link him to the crime.”
Shane took another turn. They were getting close now. “Wouldn’t this Evi1Geni-us dude have warned him about that fact?”
“Presumably. Doesn’t mean Zenko believed him or listened.”
She was right. Criminals weren’t always smart and a drunk bomb tech probably wasn’t the sharpest blade in the knife block.
Yael turned to him, her eyes suddenly huge. “Do you think HRT are walking into another trap? Are they in danger?”
He shook his head. “Not this time. HRT operators and the bomb squad will clear the place before they move in. If the person inside doesn’t come out voluntarily, I suspect the FBI will manufacture a fire alarm or something else to get him out of there. They will be evacuating the units close by regardless.”
“Isn’t that a risk?” Her brows crinkled over those dark eyes of hers. “What if someone warns him? Or he sees people leaving.”
“Servare vitas.” He recited the Hostage Rescue Team’s motto. “Our primary objective is to Save Lives.” He shrugged. Making sure people were safe trumped bursting in on this guy. He’d come out eventually. Should a barricade situation develop, the negotiators could talk to him and maybe do a plea deal that led them to EG who was orchestrating the murders. Sure, it would sting if Zenko—the man who’d probably planted the bomb that killed his best friend—got a lighter sentence, but the guy was going to federal prison regardless. It wouldn’t be easy. It wouldn’t be fun.
“If he’s in that apartment he isn’t going anywhere, but I still have my doubts.” Shane believed Zenko was here, in this old family cabin.
They arrived at a pull in that had spaces for about six vehicles. His was the only one parked there probably due to the overcast sky, light snow on the ground, and the fact it was the middle of the week.
He reached into the back seat and handed Yael a green Kevlar vest. “Put it under your sweatshirt.”
Her mouth tightened in consternation as she took it from him and pulled off her sweatshirt. He forced himself to look away so he didn’t ogle her figure. She had curves in all the right places and smelled like his favorite dessert.
He grabbed another vest for himself and slid it easily over his head, tightening the straps with his good arm almost from muscle memory. Then he dragged on a plaid shirt over the cast followed by his green Gortex raincoat. He ditched the sling for this hike. Instead, he buttoned the shirt to where he could rest his broken forearm comfortably inside against his abdomen whenever his arm started to ache. He checked the weapon in his side holster.
Locked and loaded. Ready to go.
Yael’s hair was mussed and he couldn’t resist watching as she gathered it up and tied it into some sort of knot at the nape of her neck before pulling the woolen hat back over her head.
Her eyes flashed to his, her expression a frown. She seemed always to be looking for disapproval, or a fight. Why was that?
Her jacket was bright red like the hat he’d lent her, but not a lot he could do about that right now.
“Wait here.” He climbed out of the truck and jogged around to the other side. He opened her car door and she looked surprised.
“That’s why you told me to wait? In order to open my door?”
“I was raised in Georgia. I appreciate not everyone likes southern manners but I’m more scared of my grandmother’s ghost than I am of any pissed-off feminist.”
She snorted. “You weren’t that polite with ASAC Sloan earlier.”
“That was different. The FBI didn’t spend millions of dollars training me so that I kept my mouth shut in team meetings—not unless ordered to that is.” And that had happened a few times when Kurt Montana had been the team leader.
An enormous wave of grief crashed over him but he shoved it firmly aside.
There wasn’t much any of them could do about not surviving a plane crash. Montana would have wanted Shane to do his job, catch Scotty’s killer, and raise a few glasses to them both later when the threat was neutralized.
Shane forced the thoughts from his head. Distraction could get him killed.
He held out his good hand and stood back so Yael could climb down from the truck. And even though her fingers were cold he forced himself to let go, to remember this wasn’t a date and it wasn’t up to him to warm her up. This was work and it might be dangerous so he had to maintain situational awareness at all times.
He dug into the backseat and pulled out the Nordic poles. Adjusted them to her height and handed them over. “Figured these will help on the trail and be useful weapons should you encounter anyone—or want to beat me.”
She tested them out and leaned on them, smiling up at him with dark eyes and ruby lips. “It’s beautiful around here.”
He was surprised by her enthusiasm, especially given the mist clinging to the upper canopy of the trees and the cold edge of frost that had morphed into the wet drip of moisture from the few remaining leaves that clung to the branches. He loved being outside in any weather. He handed Yael binoculars to loop around her neck and suddenly found himself wishing that they could do this for real sometime.
He closed the truck doors quietly, locked it. “Let’s go.”
He led the way, which went against his ingrained manners but he’d rather be the first to encounter any potential danger as they trudged up the steep narrow path. At the top of the first incline, it widened so they could easily walk side-by-side.
“Makes me wish I had a dog,” he admitted.
“Really? I’ve never had a pet, but I’ve thought about getting one.” A sad expression settled over Yael’s features.
“Not even a goldfish?”
She pulled a face and shook her head. “We moved around a lot.”
Her expression closed down and Shane let it go.
Baby steps.
The mist hung low on the branches as they climbed higher up the ridge. After about a mile he checked the GPS, which was accurate to within ten meters.
They were only a quarter of a mile from Zenko’s mom’s cabin now but it was down a steep, heavily wooded incline. The sound of birds singing and squirrels chattering were the only noise that filled the air. The taint of woodsmoke rose on the breeze. Someone nearby had a fire going.
He quelled his excitement. There were at least ten cabins on the other side of this ridge, any one of which was likely to be occupied.
Surely Zenko knew it wouldn’t take the FBI long to be onto him? Surely, he’d appreciate the cabin in the woods would be one of the first places the FBI would locate and search?
Yael slipped and he caught her with his right hand before she went down into the mud.
“Easy. The leaves are slippery.” He reluctantly let her go.
“Thanks.” She shivered and whispered, “Where are we?”
He showed her on the GPS system. She glanced in the direction of the property. Her cheeks wore small flags of color and her lips were a little pale.
“You cold?”
“A little,” she admitted, crossing her arms and stamping her feet. “I’ll be okay.”
The last thing he wanted was Yael succumbing to hypothermia.
“Let’s climb a little higher and then cut down through the trees. Here.” He slid out of his raincoat and slipped it over her shoulders. “It’ll help you blend in a little better.” It was better quality than her own raincoat and should keep her warm.
“Won’t you get cold?”
“I run hot.” He gave her a wide grin and was surprised when she laughed at him.
“I bet you do.” She pulled up the sleeves before planting her poles firmly in the ground.
He stared after her in surprise. Was she flirting with him?
They climbed for another hundred feet or so. Then Shane cupped her elbow to get her attention. When she turned to him, he murmured, “Sound travels farther than you might think so let’s keep it down when we leave the trail, ’kay?”
She nodded without a word and he led the way down the side of the ridge.
He placed his feet carefully, grateful the leaves were wet rather than crunchy even though that meant they were slicker underfoot. Nothing in the world was louder than dead leaves. Moving through them quietly required skill and a patience he didn’t have time to teach Yael. The hillside was steep in places and he held out his good hand to assist her. He would have held her hand the whole way to make sure she didn’t fall except he needed to keep his gun hand free.
The poles definitely helped stabilize her in the mud.
On a rocky outcrop that was screened by several large evergreens, he paused to get his bearings. Then he pointed to the right and they eased through the suddenly silent woods.
The hairs on his nape prickled and he stilled, wondering what had set off his survival instincts. Yael paused behind him. She was much better at stealth than he’d anticipated.
He scanned the area looking up for any possible surveillance cameras like the ones they’d encountered in the mountains of Washington State last month when a compound full of survivalists had harbored a suspected killer and HRT had been called in to help resolve the situation. Those guys had installed cameras in the woods around their property, but Shane didn’t see or hear anything like that here.
The terrain became rockier and he helped Yael over a couple of larger boulders, enjoying the connection despite the circumstances. It had obviously been a long time since he’d been in the company of a woman if holding hands in the damp woods while trying to do surveillance rang his bells.
They had a partial view of the cabin now even though it was still some distance away. He paused behind a stand of birch trees to observe. Yael put the binoculars to her eyes and adjusted the focus.
“See anything?” he asked quietly.
“Not really,” she whispered, her voice low and sultry. “Too many obstructing branches.”
“Yeah. We need a better position.” Which meant getting closer.
They moved around a large conifer and he thought he heard voices. His foot slipped in the loose soil. Yael grabbed the back of his vest and he turned and gave her a grateful smile before helping her down another step.
A no trespassing sign warned him they were approaching the property line. A thick swathe of scrub and bushes blocked visibility and he was forced nearer to the cabin than he’d planned. That was the nature of any op. Adjust as necessary.
A narrow game path ran behind a gnarly old box elder. He went to take another step when something made him glance down. He might not have seen it if it hadn’t been for the drop of water about to fall from the wire strung tightly between two tree trunks low to the ground. He froze—grabbing Yael’s arm with his uninjured right hand to stop her from moving forward.
“Tripwire,” he murmured. “Stand completely still.”
12
Tripwire?
A freaking tripwire?
What the…?
Yael’s heart thundered in her chest and she found it difficult to inhale especially wearing the constricting flak jacket and several layers of clothes.
Shane gave her a shit-eating grin that reminded her exactly how handsome he was. He looked positively thrilled by this development. He probably trained for this sort of scenario every day.
“Is that an explosive?” she asked, gripping the bicep of his bad arm so tightly it was a wonder he didn’t wince. He did gather the walking poles out of her hands, probably so she didn’t accidentally blow them up.
“Not sure. Could be an explosive but much more likely to be some kind of early warning system rigged to prevent anyone sneaking up on him.”
“Oh my god. He’s here, isn’t he?”
Shane’s hunch had been dead on. Lloyd Zenko was here and the sicko had boobytrapped his own property.
“I’d say there is a very high likelihood he’s here. Yes.”
“My heart is pounding,” she admitted, letting go of him and putting her hand to her chest. Everything had suddenly become a lot more real.
“That’s my fault. Sorry. Don’t step anywhere. I want to quickly check the area before we move. I doubt Zenko has many of these else the local wildlife would be setting them off constantly, but the fact he is this worried tells me not only is he here—”
“He’s also guilty as hell,” she whispered back. “Do you think Evi1Geni-us is here too?”
“I doubt it. EG is too careful to risk getting caught. This Zenko character is a loose end that I doubt EG gave enough thought to. EG wanted to send a message to the FBI,” he said, bitterness dripping from every word, “but he forgot he was going to leave more clues as to his identity when he did so.” Shane scanned the ground behind them to confirm it was clear, then took her gently by the arm and led her to a rock which he checked to make sure was free of wires and explosives, before propping the walking sticks upright against it.
She released a massive breath as she sat. She wasn’t used to this rush of adrenaline. And that’s why people like Shane trained non-stop. So this internal freak-out didn’t screw with their critical thinking skills. In order to function calmly in extreme circumstances—and still hit a target with a bullet when they needed to.
She’d read somewhere that the accuracy of shooting a moving target was around 4%. Unfortunately, she’d seen what 4% with an automatic rifle could do.
Shane crouched down in front of her and she drew her knees together and leaned forward to hear what he had to say. She didn’t plan to screw this up. The thought she might have some part to play in finding this guy who everyone else thought was in North Carolina made her clench her jaw with determination. They hadn’t caught him yet, she reminded herself.
“What do we do next?” she whispered.
Shane was so close she could smell his skin over the earthy scent of mud and rotting leaves. He pulled out his cell. “Damn, no reception.”
She checked her cell and scanned the area. “I expect we’d get a signal at the top of the ridge.”
Shane stared toward the cabin.
