Next Exit, Dead Ahead

by CW Browning

  “You know, you're picking up her bad habits,” John informed her, sliding back to his desk.

  Stephanie grinned and turned to face him.

  “Tell me about the blood samples,” she said.

  John grabbed the papers Matt had giving him and got up to go over to her desk, perching on the corner.

  “One is a 97% match to Gomez,” he told her, handing her the read-outs. “The other is a 27% match.”

  Stephanie looked up sharply.

  “Family?”

  “Half-brother,” John said. “Blake says his name is Turi Alvarado.”

  “So it was Turi who ran away from the house?” Stephanie asked. “Is that what we're thinking?”

  “Yes, and he was wounded pretty badly. There was a lot of blood on the couch.”

  “Are you checking the hospitals?”

  John nodded.

  “And the clinics. We should be able to find him.”

  Stephanie nodded and dropped the read-outs on her desk, leaning back in her chair thoughtfully.

  “If Turi is still alive, Blake won't go home empty-handed,” she murmured. A slow smile curved her lips. “She said she owed him.”

  “Who?” John raised a sandy eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

  Stephanie shook her head, looking up as Rob yelled her name from his office door.

  “Nothing,” she said, getting up. “Where is Blake?”

  “He went to get some coffee from the shop on the corner,” John said, going back to his desk as she turned to head towards Rob's office.

  Stephanie nodded and strode down the aisle to her boss's office. She stepped into the open door and glanced around the small office.

  “Morning, Rob!” Stephanie said cheerfully.

  He nodded to her as he rounded the corner of his desk and settled into his chair, waving her into one of the seats in front of the desk.

  “Morning,” he replied. “Blake told me about last night. Have you spoken to him yet?”

  “Briefly, last night,” Stephanie answered, sitting down. “John just filled me in on the blood samples.”

  “Well, first things first, where are the Nuñezes?” Rob asked, sitting back in his chair.

  “At home, with their family,” Stephanie told him. “I took them there this morning. I have two agents in the house with them, and left two more outside down the street.”

  “Jenaro and Turi are still out there,” Rob pointed out. “Why aren't you putting them somewhere safe?”

  “I don't think there's a real need,” Stephanie replied carefully. “Jenaro wasn't here for them. The Nuñezes were just a tool to him. Now his soldiers are dead and someone is going after him, I don't think he's going to worry about them.” I don't think he's ever going to worry about anything again, she added silently to herself.

  Rob studied her for a long moment.

  “That's a mighty big risk to take with four lives, when he already kidnapped the boy and tried to kill the wife,” he finally said. “Please tell me you're basing your decision on more than just a hunch.”

  Stephanie squirmed a little in her seat.

  “I would say it's more than just a hunch,” she murmured. “If we don't have any answers in the next twenty-four hours, I'll see if they'll consider protection. However, I don't think it will be necessary.”

  “Stephanie, I've trusted you before and you haven't let me down,” Rob said slowly. “For God's sake, don't start now.”

  “I'll try not to.”

  “Well, then, that brings me to what happened last night,” Rob said, moving on. “Do you have any idea who may have gotten to Jenaro before us?”

  Stephanie swallowed and resisted the urge to cross her fingers.

  “Someone who had more information than we did,” she replied briskly. “I've been concentrating on Lowell Kwan, but Blake was making good progress on Gomez. I have no idea what happened.”

  “Blake thinks it was a professional hit,” Rob told her, absently picking up a pen from his desk and turning it over in his fingers.

  “Professional?” Stephanie raised an eyebrow.

  “He couldn't find any trace of the attacker, either inside the apartment or out,” Rob explained. “He thinks they came and went by the fire escape, but there was nothing to confirm it. No witnesses, no fingerprints, not even a footprint.”

  “What about inside?” Stephanie asked with a frown. “There's always something.”

  “Not this time.”

  Blake spoke from the doorway behind her and Stephanie turned around sharply. He smiled and came into the office carrying a coffee carrier with three cups in it.

  “I brought coffee for everyone. I figured we needed it,” he continued, walking over to Rob's desk. He pulled out one of the cups, handing it to him. Rob nodded in thanks. “There were four bodies inside the apartment, two with broken necks and two with gunshots. It's the bullet wounds that make me think we're dealing with a professional.”

  Blake handed Stephanie a coffee and held the carrier out for her to pick up some packets of sugar and a few creamers from the stash in the extra cup slot.

  “What was different about the bullet wounds?” Stephanie asked, smiling in thanks as she took two sugar packets and two creamers. “I haven't had time to look at the crime scene photos yet.”

  “One body had one shot, perfectly through his heart,” Blake told her, sitting in the other chair across from Rob's desk. He pulled out the last remaining coffee from the carrier and dropped the carrier onto the floor. “The second body had a gunshot through the chest, but he also had one perfectly centered on his forehead. The precision of the shots was remarkable. Not many people have aim that good.”

  “Same caliber?” Rob asked, pouring sugar into his coffee.

  “I don't know yet,” Blake answered. “Larry almost had my head off this morning. He has bodies lined up outside autopsy and he told me he's getting a deli ticket machine for the door.”

  Stephanie chuckled despite herself.

  “Poor Larry,” she murmured.

  “So, we have precision shooting and broken vertebrae,” Rob said. “What about the blood stains?”

  “The one matching Jenaro's DNA was on the floor, behind the sofa,” Blake said. “There was no blood trail, so he was probably dropped there and then picked up. The other one, the one we believe is from Turi, was on the sofa. That had a history. He was wounded outside in the hall, then dragged into the apartment and put on the sofa.”

  “Blood trail?” Stephanie asked, glancing at him.

  Blake nodded.

  “And not a very long one,” he told her. “If he was trying to get away, he didn't get far. Only a few feet. We found minute splatter on the wall outside, but only a few drops on the floor leading to the couch.”

  “Sounds like a stab wound,” Rob said thoughtfully, sipping his coffee and sitting back in his chair. “If he was stabbed in the hall and dragged inside with the knife still in, there would be little blood.”

  “Exactly,” Blake agreed. “I think they pulled him in, put him on the couch, then pulled the knife out. The amount of blood soaked into the couch is consistent with a deep wound.”

  “And, in all of this, they didn't leave any trace of themselves?” Stephanie demanded, raising her eyebrows. “How is that possible?”

  “I don't know.” Blake shook his head. “A few techs are still there, trying to find something, but I'm not optimistic.”

  “Why would they take Jenaro?” Rob wondered. “Why not just kill him there?”

  “That's the million dollar question,” Blake said. “And why leave Turi alive?”

  “And the two women didn't see anything?” Rob shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

  “What two women?” Stephanie asked, looking up sharply.

  Blake looked at her.

  “There were two women in the apartment when we got there, both unconscious,” he explained. “Neither of them saw anything.”

  “Well, that's not entirely true,�
� Rob murmured, a grin breaking over his face.

  “I don't think hallucinations of a female skeleton in a black, flowing dress qualifies as reliable evidence,” Blake retorted. He looked at Stephanie. “One of the women was convinced it was La Catrina, the skeletal Goddess of Day of the Dead, who went in and took Jenaro.”

  “Wow.”

  “Ok!” Rob sat forward and put his coffee down. “Let's get away from Jenaro for a minute. What's going on with Kwan?”

  “He's ditched his car and disappeared,” Stephanie said, “but I don't think he's going far yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the virus,” she told them. “If Matt is right about the way the virus works, it's still in the mainframe of the banks. We haven't had any word that millions of dollars have suddenly gone missing. Kwan isn't going anywhere until he gets paid. In the meantime, we're looking for him.”

  Rob nodded.

  “Any thoughts on whether he could have been involved last night?” he asked, glancing from Stephanie to Blake and back again.

  “He doesn't have the training for that,” Blake said, shaking his head.

  “No, but...” Stephanie started, then stopped.

  “But what?” Rob asked, looking at her.

  Stephanie hesitated, glancing at Blake, then sighed. Getting up, she went to the office door and closed it before going back to her seat.

  “Jin Seung Moon,” she said simply, seating herself again.

  Rob sat back and studied her.

  “What about him?”

  “Lowell Kwan has been a follower of Moon since college,” Stephanie told them. “He made no secret of this. We have a direct link between Kwan and Moon, Moon is in New York, and Kwan just inserted a virus capable of crashing whole economies into a bank mainframe. If Kwan is selling the virus to Moon, and Moon found out Jenaro Gomez wanted the money, is it too far-fetched to think Moon could have sent his men after Jenaro?”

  Rob and Blake both stared at her in silence.

  “If he did, we can't prove it,” Blake finally said.

  “Even if we could, we can't touch him,” Rob muttered.

  “I'm not saying that's what happened,” Stephanie said, “but it's a theory.”

  “It's a good one,” Blake muttered. “Damn.”

  Silence fell in the office as Blake and Rob mulled over the ramifications of Moon being involved while Stephanie silently prayed to God for forgiveness in deliberately misleading her boss. Rob's phone rang suddenly, making her jump, and he grabbed it.

  “Hello?” Rob answered impatiently, then grew still while he listened. “Are you sure?” he finally demanded, his tone grim.

  Stephanie glanced at Blake, who was watching Rob with a slight frown.

  “Ok. I'll send over our analysis team with the agent,” Rob said after another lengthy silence. “Try to keep the press out of it for as long as you can.”

  He hung up and looked at Stephanie.

  “The virus just did its thing,” he told her. “Between One District Bank and New Federal, $57.6 million just disappeared.”

  Alina looked up sharply at the gasp of shock from the dining room table. Angela was ensconced in her chair, laptop and blackberry set up in what Alina gathered was her daily workstation. Right now, she stared at her laptop screen, a look of pure shock on her face.

  “What's wrong?” Alina asked sharply, closing her laptop and getting up from the sofa.

  “The bank...” Angie mumbled, fumbling for her blackberry.

  “What about the bank?” Alina demanded.

  “He did it.” Angela sounded stunned. “It's been robbed.”

  Alina frowned and rounded the table to look over Angela's shoulder.

  “How much?” she asked.

  “Well, the system thinks $28 million is missing, but that's not possible,” Angela said, hitting speed dial on her blackberry and hooking her blue-tooth onto her ear. “It's not possible that he could have hacked the system and taken that much without any red flags going up.”

  Alina straightened up slowly, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. She turned away from the dining room as Angela started talking urgently on the phone. Crossing the room to the living room, she picked up her phone and sent a text to Stephanie.

  Kwan just extracted the virus.

  Alina sank onto the couch, her lips pursed. If Kwan had the money now, he was free to run. He would want to get as far away as quickly as possible. He knew the FBI was on his tail. Where would he go? Where would he run?

  I know. We're on it.

  Alina glanced at Stephanie's message and stared at the phone thoughtfully. After a long moment, she reached out and pulled her laptop onto her lap, flipping it open. She glanced behind her, making sure Angela was still engrossed on her blackberry, then turned her attention to the screen, pulling up a portal and typing in her credentials. A few seconds later, she paused, the cursor blinking on a search box.

  Viper lifted her eyes and stared across the living room at the fireplace, her fingers still poised over the keyboard. Charlie would have her head on a platter, sliced off and served with caviar. Hawk was right. He wasn't her target, wasn't her responsibility. If Kwan ran to him, it was up to the Fearless Feds to handle it.

  Viper's eyes narrowed. Her lips compressed grimly and, for the briefest of seconds, a glint of uncertainty flashed in her dark eyes. In an instant, it disappeared and she lowered her gaze to the screen, typing a single name into the search field.

  Jin Seung Moon.

  Stephanie strode into Matt's lab and went straight to the remote on the far table. Picking it up, she turned off the loud, god-awful music blaring from the hidden speakers and dropped the remote back on the table. She ignored Matt's indignant protest and turned to face him.

  “The virus was activated,” she told him bluntly.

  Matt stopped what he was doing and stared at her.

  “When?”

  “Twenty minutes ago,” Stephanie said. “You need to get the analysts who worked with you and come with me now. You have your free pass into One District Bank's mainframe.”

  Matt shoved his glasses up on his nose and turned to grab his backpack from under one of the long tables.

  “How much money is missing?” he asked, tossing the bag onto a table and crossing the room to grab a laptop.

  “$56.7 million between One District and New Federal,” Stephanie told him, watching as he opened a drawer and fished for a flash drive. “One District Bank is reporting $28 million.”

  Matt whistled and stuffed the computer and flash drive into his bag.

  “I bet they're panicking like never before,” he chortled.

  “You'll be panicking if you can't find the money,” Stephanie retorted.

  Matt looked at her.

  “We might be able to find where the money was taken from, which accounts, but if the virus worked the way I think it did, I'll never find the money,” he told her.

  “You better hope you're wrong, then,” Stephanie said grimly. “Who are the analysts who helped with Rodrigo's computer?”

  “Terry and Anna,” Matt said, grabbing his cell phone. “I'll text them and tell them to meet us in the parking garage.”

  “Do you think you'll be able to do this?” Stephanie asked.

  Matt glanced up at her.

  “I don't know,” he answered honestly. “It all depends on whether or not I can locate where the virus stored the money. I'll do my best.”

  “What will it take to get the money back?”

  Matt shrugged.

  “The virus itself,” he answered. “If I have the virus, in theory, I can reverse it and find out where the money was transferred. Unless they used a different algorithm for the transfer, in which case, it could take months.”

  “We don't have months,” Stephanie muttered.

  Matt grabbed a four-pack of Red Bull out of one of the huge refrigerators used to store samples and tissues and tucked it into the backpack. Stephanie grimaced.

  “What
?” he asked, catching the look.

  “You keep your Red Bull in the same fridge you keep blood samples,” she said.

  Matt grinned.

  “So? It's not like the samples are touching the cans.”

  “It's just....gross.” Stephanie shook her head and turned to leave the lab.

  Matt slung his bag over his shoulder and followed her.

  “This is really bad, isn't it?” he asked seriously as they stepped into the elevator.

  Stephanie glanced at him grimly.

  “It's certainly not good,” she retorted. “If we don't find the money, we can kiss our jobs good-bye.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Hawk slid his pen into his uniform shirt pocket and tucked his clipboard under his arm.

  “I'm glad you made it over so quickly,” the assistant manager of the Rittenhouse Hotel told him, coming out from behind the counter and leading Damon across the marble floor to a back hallway marked Employees Only. “I have three suites with no air. We had the air conditioner guys out, but they think it's the wiring.”

  “No problem,” Hawk replied easily, his blue eyes noting the position of all the security cameras in the lobby as he followed the manager. “You ever have problems with the wiring before in that section?”

  “Not since I've been here,” the man answered. “I'm Paul, by the way.”

  The opulent luxury present in the lobby disappeared as they entered the employee hallway. The wide, long corridor had multiple doors on either side and was painted a pale taupe color. It was lunchtime, and the smell of food coming from one of the break rooms seemed to permeate the entire hallway.

  “Jerry,” Damon introduced himself. “Well, here's hoping it's just a short.”

  “That would be great,” Paul said, leading him down the hallway toward a service elevator at the end. “I've got a hectic day. This is the last thing I need, what with three VIPs coming in today, and one of them in that section.”

  “Has the guest checked in already?” Hawk asked, his eyes never still, noting the cameras, doors and exits around them.

  “No. You have a few hours yet,” Paul replied. “He's expected around five-thirty. Hopefully, it won't take that long.”

  “I hope not,” Damon said with a grin. “I have a date tonight.”