The Hacker

by Herkness, Nancy

  “He’s wearing a bulletproof vest?” Her nerves tightened again.

  “Just as a precaution. Tully always plays it smart.” Leland flipped open the second case, which held a more normal-looking laptop. “This is for monitoring the data traffic.”

  When the display booted up on that one, it was filled with gobbledygook, as far as she could tell. “Any change in the node?” she asked.

  “Still going strong. I assume your customers continue to complain about their phones.”

  “Most of them turn off the data when they’re at the gym. Vicky promised to make an announcement when the problem is fixed.”

  “Which leads me to believe that Tully is right. They’re going to move the node soon.” Leland began typing, his face and shoulders taut with concentration.

  “You’re really sexy when you work on the computer,” Dawn said.

  His fingers stilled on the keyboard and he turned his head to look at her, the light of the screen flashing on his glasses as he gave her a long, slow smile. “I don’t believe anyone has ever said that to me before.”

  “I guess I have a nerd fetish.” She grinned. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

  He laughed full out. “My head has already felt the effects of your presence.” His expression abruptly became serious as his gaze traveled over her face. “In the midst of all this”—he swept his hand through the air over the laptops—“you make me smile. Thank you for that gift.”

  Delight and something deeper, something she couldn’t quite bring herself to find a name for, fizzed through her. She’d given this incredible man a gift. It was a gift she didn’t take for granted herself because she’d struggled to learn how to smile again. Maybe that’s why she could help Leland do the same thing.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to distract you,” she said. “Go back to catching the bad guys.”

  He planted a quick, hard kiss on her mouth. “You inspire me to work harder. The sooner I catch them, the sooner I can concentrate on you.”

  “As a personal trainer, I use every tool I have to motivate my clients.”

  “Consider me highly motivated,” he said, going back to his keyboarding. “Tully, can you hear me?”

  “Ten four, good buddy, you’re humming in my ear like a mosquito at a blood bank.” Tully’s voice issued from the heavy-duty laptop’s speaker.

  “Could you dispense with the CB radio slang? Dawn won’t have a clue what you’re talking about. I’m not sure I will either,” Leland said, but the corners of his lips twitched. “What’s the latest news on Chad’s whereabouts?”

  “Evening, Dawn,” Tully’s voice said.

  “Hi, Tully.” She felt a little reticent with him, given his law enforcement background and extra years of experience, but she decided gratitude was always welcome. “Thanks for sending your guardians. Knowing they were there made me feel better when Chad insisted on walking me home.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. We’ll keep someone with you until this is over.” Tully switched back to business mode. “After Chad left Dawn at her building, he went to the gym. He has a key and let himself in through a back door.”

  “He has a key?!” Dawn exclaimed. “I thought I was the only trainer who has ever been given a key to the gym.”

  “Useful to know,” Tully said. “He’s more than a trainer, I’m guessing.”

  “Yeah, I’m beginning to grasp that,” she said.

  “So you’re not going inside the gym now that we know Chad is there,” Leland said sharply to Tully. “Observation only.”

  “We’ll see how it plays out,” Tully said. “How’s the data traffic?”

  Leland glanced at the other screen. “Steady.” He bent closer to the laptop. “Tully, swear to me you won’t do anything stupid.”

  “The question is how you define ‘stupid,’” Tully said.

  “You know what I mean.” Leland’s posture telegraphed frustration. She almost expected him to leap through that screen and drag Tully away from the gym physically.

  “I’m not going to spook them, so you can rest easy, partner. However, I am going to get out of the car so I can get a better view of the door Chad used. Don’t panic when you see me move.”

  Leland straightened up and rolled his shoulders. “Don’t get too close.”

  Dawn nudged a counter stool toward him. “Sit down and be comfortable.”

  He nodded and turned the stool toward her before he sat. “Tell me what that scumbag Chad said to you.”

  “Can Tully still hear me?”

  “No, our mic is off now. We can hear him but not vice versa.” He took both her hands in his, his grasp warm and comforting.

  “I don’t remember everything because, honestly, I was trying to figure out what to say back to him half the time.”

  “I can imagine that wasn’t easy.”

  “Two things stood out for me. One, that he decided to walk back to my apartment with me. But not immediately. It was kind of weird that he caught up with me. I think he’d expected me to walk faster and was afraid I might have noticed him behind me.” She gave Leland a slanted smile. “I was walking slowly to make sure my bodyguards could keep up with me.”

  He gave her hands a light squeeze. “I appreciate that you followed my suggestion. Sorry it stuck you with Chad.”

  “His presence convinced me he’s involved somehow, so that’s useful.” She shrugged. “The second thing was that he referred to my past experience. Which means either Ramón or Vicky told him. No one else at the gym knows about what happened to me. I only told Ramón, although I’m sure he shared it with Vicky.”

  “That ties them together even more closely.”

  “I hate that Chad knows.” She shivered. And she didn’t want Ramón to be the one who had told Chad about her.

  Leland’s grip tightened around her hands. “I hate it too. I wish I could erase it from his memory the way I can delete a file.”

  She looked down at his long, supple fingers curled around hers and thought of all the ways he’d touched her. Suddenly, it didn’t matter so much that Chad knew because Leland had given her back the joy of being touched without fear.

  “I need to tell Tully this.” He released her hands and turned back to the computer, keying on the mic and relaying the salient points of the conversation to Tully.

  “No surprise,” Tully said. “Okay, I’m going to move now. I want to be in position before any shit hits the fan. Pardon my language, ma’am.”

  “Don’t edit your language for my sake. I’ve heard it all at the gym,” Dawn said.

  The image on the heavy-duty screen began to change as Tully exited his car and moved swiftly along the street. After a few minutes, he turned, and Dawn recognized the alley that ran behind the gym. The image was clear and bright, even though it was about eleven by now.

  “How come we can see everything so well when it’s dark?” she asked.

  Leland smiled as his fingers danced over the keys. “Some enhancements I made to the camera and software. Video technology is becoming quite advanced, so I simply built on what existed. Now I’m going to pick up all of Tully’s watchers on-screen.”

  Windows began to pop up around the periphery of Tully’s image. Each one showed a different view of the gym from various distances and angles. Tully’s was the closest, though.

  For half an hour, nothing happened other than an occasional car passing.

  “The TV scriptwriters never show you this part,” Tully murmured into his mic. “A whole lot of waiting.”

  “And patience isn’t your strong suit,” Leland murmured back.

  “When there’s a goal in sight, I can be as patient as an alligator eyeing a nice, fat muskrat on the riverbank.”

  Dawn choked back a laugh. Tully’s imagery was certainly vivid.

  Leland hissed in a breath and swiped at the computer screen, enlarging one of the small windows. A procession of six black SUVs cruised down one of Cofferwood’s quiet streets. Dawn thought it might be Elm Aven
ue. “Showtime,” Leland murmured. “You’ve got six SUVs coming in your direction.”

  “Yeah, my guy on the roof just told me. He says it looks like they’re one convoy. But no trucks. If they’re moving inventory, they’d need bigger vehicles.”

  Leland pulled up multiple screens to track the vehicles, occasionally tapping the track pad with one long finger. “I’ve got screenshots of all the plate numbers,” he said to Tully.

  “Send ’em to Novak. Tell him to put a rush on it. This is some major honcho coming to inspect the goods.”

  Dawn watched as Tully started to move again. Leland swore and snapped, “Tully, you’re close enough.”

  But Leland was typing and swiping as he spoke, undoubtedly getting the license plate numbers to Novak, whoever that was.

  “Just want to make sure I get a clear view of whoever gets out of those cars. You want to get good screenshots, right?”

  “Not at the cost of your life, you asshole. Stay where you are!”

  The view on the screen continued to shift and Leland swore again.

  “Keep it down, partner,” Tully muttered. “I need to be able to hear what’s going on.”

  “You’ve got a directional mic in that vest. Just face them and I’ll pick up the sound,” Leland gritted out. He hit the key that she recognized as turning off their mic before saying in a normal tone of voice, “I don’t want to have any unexpected sounds from our end getting Tully killed.”

  Tully himself went silent as the SUVs hulked past him, seemingly almost close enough to touch. Dawn hoped the video camera had a zoom lens. Otherwise she agreed with Leland about Tully being way too close.

  The cars halted and the doors seemed to fly open at once, disgorging an assortment of men dressed in black. They fanned out, heads swiveling constantly. She held her breath as one seemed to look straight at Tully for a long moment before he turned his head and moved on.

  “That looked close,” she said.

  “The camera has a long lens, but he’s close enough to be spotted,” Leland said, his face tight with anxiety.

  Some of the men took up what were clearly guard positions around the cars and door.

  “Those guys are professionals,” Leland said. “And I can see the guns under their jackets.”

  One of the men walked up to the third SUV and opened the back door, saying something in rapid-fire Spanish so that a phalanx of men formed up around him. Dawn gasped when a woman emerged from the car, wearing high-heeled pumps and a long black raincoat cinched around her waist. Her silver hair was pulled back in a low bun and her earrings flashed in the light. Really big diamond studs, Dawn guessed. She barely glimpsed her before the woman moved into the protection of the phalanx and disappeared through the gym’s back door.

  “Holy shit!” Tully’s voice was so low it barely came through the mic, but she could still hear the excitement vibrating in it. “That’s Griselda Rodriguez, one of the most violent drug kingpins in the world. The DEA has been trying to catch her for years. I’m pulling back so I can call in the cavalry.”

  The camera began to back away from the scary-looking guards very slowly. Dawn glanced at Leland to find his eyes locked on the screen, his jaw tense, his mouth set in a grim line. “Easy, Tully, easy,” he whispered as the camera swiveled away and picked up speed. “Don’t catch their attention.”

  Tully’s car came into view. Dawn blew out a breath of relief as the image showed the interior of it as Tully got in, started the engine, and drove down the street at a careful speed. As soon as he reached the next block, he turned the corner and roared forward so the streetlights strobed past at high speed.

  “Leland, get me the best shot of the woman you can,” Tully said, swerving into a municipal parking lot and braking to a stop. “Send it to my cell because I’m going to forward it to my contact at the DEA immediately.”

  Leland’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “Done!”

  Tully was already on his cell, clearly waking up whoever he had called. He used some colorful language to get the person’s attention but then he relayed the information. There was some waiting and he repeated his story. He slotted his cell phone into the stand on the dashboard and turned on the engine again. “I’m going back to keep an eye on things until the DEA gets here.”

  “Tully, you’ve got your guys everywhere. Let them keep an eye on things,” Leland said. “You’re going to draw attention to yourself if you keep driving by.”

  “Don’t worry. I have very clear instructions not to be seen.” He sounded grouchy about that. “They want to follow Rodriguez back to wherever she came from, try to round up more of her top lieutenants. There are a couple of bad dudes they really want to nab.”

  “What’s wrong with that plan?” Leland asked.

  “She’s slipped through their fingers before. We know where she is right now. I say grab her. A bird in hand and all that. But it’s not my call.”

  “Thank God,” Leland said under his breath.

  “I heard that,” the other man said. “I’d say Rodriguez’s presence confirms that the weapons are being stored in the gym. So at least we’ll be able to keep those out of the cartel’s hands.”

  He turned onto the street where he’d originally been parked and slid into the same spot. “Don’t worry, Rockwell, I’m staying near this car. I don’t argue with the DEA. Much.” The image shifted as he climbed out and walked into the recessed entrance of an empty storefront. When he turned, Dawn could once again see the alley. However, only the back of one SUV was visible from Tully’s vantage point.

  Leland muted their mic before he said, “Tully may be worried about losing Griselda Rodriguez, but it’s better for everyone at the gym this way.”

  She thought about that for a moment. “Because Griselda won’t know that it was someone at the gym who tipped off the DEA?”

  “Drug lords have a long reach, even from prison. I’d hate to have you in the crosshairs.” She could see fear in the set of his mouth and the tightness in his jaw. His caring reached deep inside her. “Even Chad and whoever he’s working with are better off this way.”

  “I guess I’m glad about that.” Especially if one of Chad’s collaborators turned out to be Ramón. Even if he was selling guns, she didn’t want her boss to be murdered by drug dealers. “I sure don’t want anyone innocent getting hurt because of Griselda’s capture.”

  “I don’t want you hurt.” Leland brushed a finger down her cheek, making her feel a curl of comfort in her chest. He unmuted the mic. “Tully, you need to make sure Work It Out is not mentioned anywhere in any report about Griselda Rodriguez’s capture.”

  “It’s not my call. It’s the DEA’s but I’ll do what I can.”

  “I want to talk to your connection there.”

  “You don’t need to talk to my connection.”

  “Then I’ll trust you to get it done.” Dawn had never heard that tone in Leland’s voice before. It was like hardened steel sharpened to a point. Not a trace of southern honey in it.

  “I heard you, buddy, and I know why you’re asking. I’m on it.” Tully surprised her by sounding sympathetic and reassuring rather than insulted.

  “Good.” Leland sat back on the stool and rolled the well-defined muscles of his shoulders. “Thanks.”

  He sat for a moment, his long legs encased in that sexy black denim and stretched out to brace on the floor despite the height of the stool. The short sleeves of his black T-shirt pulled tight over his biceps but left the chiseled ridges in his forearms exposed. She wanted to run her finger down one. The sculpted planes and angles of his face caught the illumination from the computer screens, painting them with light and shadow.

  But the heat that raced through her was fanned as much by his confrontation with Tully as by his lust-inducing body. Leland had pressured his partner, a man he considered more than a brother, to protect her. That stirred her in a way she didn’t want to analyze because it went far beyond sex.

  “Are you and Tully okay?
” She preferred not to have a wedge driven between them on her account.

  He glanced away from the screens, his expression still hard. “If he keeps his promise.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “For asking him.”

  “The DEA will owe you as much as Tully, so that’s the least they can do. I just hope he can convince them of that.”

  He still looked tense and unsettled, so she decided to drop the subject and let him work.

  For another half hour, Leland monitored all the cameras, but nothing changed until Tully said, “The DEA is here.” He turned so the camera was pointed across the street. “There’s one of their agents.”

  Dawn could just barely make out the shape of a man in black clothing working his way toward the alley.

  “Guess my job is over,” Tully muttered, his voice laced with disappointment.

  “Get out of there, partner.”

  “Don’t worry. I was one of them once, and I didn’t want civilians around to gum up my operation. I’m pulling my guys out too.”

  “Don’t sound so dejected,” Leland said. “You’re the one who had the smarts to recognize a drug kingpin. They wouldn’t be taking her down without you.”

  “Don’t underestimate Griselda Rodriguez. She’s not in custody yet.” But the camera headed back to his car.

  “What about the guns?” Dawn asked Leland.

  “That’s the FBI and ATF’s area,” Leland said. “The DEA should bring them in for that. Interagency cooperation.”

  “I’ll keep you posted about the guns,” Tully said. “The DEA may want to leave them in place until they’ve rounded up the Rodriguez crew. They won’t want to tip anyone off that Griselda has been spotted.”

  “Hell and damnation!” Leland said. “I don’t want Dawn having to face Chad again.”

  “Chad’s small potatoes compared to Griselda Rodriguez, as far as the authorities are concerned,” Tully said, his visual showing his car on the move again.

  “But Chad has a lot of guns,” Dawn said.