Web of Shadows

by Susan Sleeman

  Nina made one last sweep. The whole street was dark, even Mrs. Johnson’s house next door. Her husband of forty years died a few months ago. She’d walked the floors all hours of the night, bless her heart. But lately, she’d finally managed to sleep again.

  She blew out a breath. This was ridiculous. She was ridiculous.

  What an idiot. Just head to your car.

  All the talk of terrorists the last few days had her jumping out of her skin. Reacting like a scared little girl instead of an agent. Her emotions were exacerbated by the fatigue, she supposed.

  “Well, get a hold of them, Nina,” she warned herself as she unlocked her car door with a beep of her remote.

  Too bad Becca and Kait weren’t at the office. They’d both help shut down her emotions. Becca in her straightforward way, encouraging Nina to be more disciplined and work toward a goal. Characteristics that made Becca a great team leader. Kait would be direct and decisive, maybe pushy, as she was the team perfectionist and she handled team details. Nina liked to think that she brought empathy to the team, remembering the human side. That, though important to their friendship, often didn’t advance the FBI’s agenda.

  There was nothing worse than an agent thinking with her heart. At least, that’s what her supervisor had told her so many times that she’d rather wrestle an Alabama swamp gator than go into the office wearing her emotions on her sleeve. Even if the sleeve was part of a nicely tailored Hugo Boss jacket she’d picked up for a song at Nordstrom Rack.

  THE DARKNESS WAS Wiley’s friend now. The shadows hid him from Brandt as she walked to her car. He slumped as far down as he could in Kip’s junky Honda. He probably shouldn’t have come over, but after the disappointment in the geocache, he needed to be within spitting distance of her as he planned how to take her down.

  Her car suddenly revved, the roar of her engine exploding through the quiet neighborhood. He heard the car thump out of the driveway. Saw a plume of white smoke drift up. He felt the car move past him. His heart pounded hard, sounding in his ears as he held his breath.

  She was only a few feet away.

  He wanted to jerk open the door and confront her. Taunt her. Shout out little snippets of what he had in store for her. See her fear.

  That would be a mistake. A freaking big one. She would be armed. She’d draw her gun and arrest him.

  No! He wasn’t going to let her arrest him. Ever!

  He needed to be more careful. Expect the unexpected. Like her stepping onto the wide porch of her house in the middle of the night when he thought she’d be sleeping. With the powder-blue color and white trim, the place looked like the home of a nice person. A normal person who didn’t arbitrarily target people to make themselves feel better. She’d likely heard he’d been released from prison and was hell bent on arresting him again. Meant he had to be even more careful. First thing in the morning, he’d pick up a GPS tracker for her vehicle. That way he’d know her whereabouts at all times.

  He waited for the sound of her engine to disappear into the night. He slid up. Slowly. Inch by inch until he could see out the windows.

  All clear. The witch was gone, and now Wiley could begin to set his plan.

  THE SEA HAWK skimmed the ocean, winging Lieutenant Quinn Stone and his squad of sixteen men home. The familiar whump, whump, whump of rotors sounded overhead as murky sea water rolled below, dark and ominous with the moon hiding under thick clouds.

  It was a perfect night. Perfect end to another intense special warfare training. One of hundreds, maybe thousands, of training exercises in Quinn’s seven-year career as a SEAL.

  Man, he loved this job. Loved the missions and training. Learning new skills and perfecting old ones. Fast-roping. Diving. Tactical ambushes. Raids. You name it. He loved it all.

  “We debrief in five,” Lieutenant JG Cooper’s no-nonsense tone cut through the comms loud and clear. “No messing around. Straight to the vans.”

  The men didn’t listen. They were hyped up on adrenaline. Getting rowdier by the minute.

  “I mean it, guys,” Coop barked. “Stow it. The longer you ignore my orders, the longer it will take to debrief and get you started on your leave.”

  The promise of leave was enough to make the guys take it down a notch and gather their equipment. When the helo touched down on a Naval Amphibious Base helipad, they jumped down and made a beeline for the vans waiting to take them to a meeting room.

  They dumped their packs in the back and climbed in a van that had seen better days. Quinn hung back, slowly shouldering his pack. He had no plans. No family waiting for him. Just three days of nothing. On his own. And that was the way he wanted it right now.

  He dropped to the concrete, his boots landing with a thud. When he cleared the swirling winds under the rotors, heat radiated off the concrete. It was usually cooled by a fresh breeze over the naval base jutting into San Diego Bay, but not today.

  The van was hotter still. The air was thick with sweltering heat mixed with body odor from a three-day exercise. Quinn lowered his window and breathed in salt air as they followed the first van down Trident Way. His teammates were still laughing. Some arguing. Nearly brawling. Typical behavior.

  Quinn shook his head. Give a bunch of SEALs downtime and they had no problem finding a way to get into trouble. For some reason, he couldn’t manage to join in. He wanted to. These were the guys, the men, he lived with—worked with—day after day, in dangerous situations where you learned who to trust, who to count on. But something had changed. He was off-kilter. Had been since recovering from the explosion in Afghanistan and coming back to active duty.

  Could be because he hadn’t gotten his command back. Coop continued to direct ECHO platoon. It made Quinn mad. Not that Coop wasn’t a top-notch commander. He was. As a junior-grade lieutenant, he’d served as Quinn’s number two for years, but Quinn had expected to resume his status when he’d returned from medical leave. Two months had passed since then and all Quinn had gotten from his CO were excuses. Lame ones at that.

  At their low-slung building, he was first out and headed inside for the debrief before downstaging their equipment. Then he’d take a long ride along the ocean on his Harley and grab a beer and Texas-sized steak before tumbling into bed dog tired.

  Inside, large fans hummed in the background, making the hallway cooler. Quinn’s CO, Commander Hall, stood beside the door. Tension lingered on his face, and he was engaged in a serious discussion with Coop.

  Hall eyed Quinn for a moment. He knew his CO was on campus for the debrief, but the fact that he kept staring at Quinn didn’t bode well.

  Already on the move, Hall called out, “Stone, a minute.”

  Quinn had no patience for a conversation with his CO right now. Unless, of course, he was planning to tell Quinn he’d be stepping back into his rightful slot.

  A few inches shorter than Quinn’s six-foot-two, the steely-eyed officer joined Quinn. “I’m gonna cut right to the chase, Stone. You’re a good soldier. One of the best. I’ve tried to be patient, but this isn’t working out. It’s time to clue me in on what’s going on with you.”

  Quinn had no idea what Hall was talking about. It wasn’t the training exercise. That had gone perfectly. “Not sure I follow, sir.”

  “You’re here, but you’re not here.” Hall held up a hand. “Don’t bother to deny it. I see it. The platoon sees it. You do everything with precision as usual—like a machine—but your heart’s not in the game anymore.”

  “If you mean the injury, sir.” Quinn looked at his hand, the pink puckered skin a reminder of the explosion. The fire. The searing burns. “I’m carrying my weight. The exercise came off without a hitch, and I’m ready to take charge the minute Coop is reassigned.”

  “That’s not what I said.” Hall paused to lock gazes with Quinn. “You haven’t been yourself since you came back. The men deser
ve better from you.”

  Ah-ha, the real reason Quinn had been sidelined. They thought he was losing his edge. A bogus reason if you asked him. Which, of course, no one did. He might be a bit out of sorts, but he wasn’t a liability.

  “The men don’t need to worry about their backs,” he said firmly. “I got ’em covered.”

  “Again. Not the point.” Hall lifted his cap and ran a hand over thinning hair. “Look. You have a few days of leave coming up. Take the time to think about what I said. Maybe you need to talk to someone. Work it out. There’s no shame in that.”

  Right, like Quinn would sit with a shrink and cry about his boo-boos. The only way he’d do that was if they ordered him to. Which they might well do if he didn’t shake this thing off, whatever it was. They could force him to choose between the shrink and leaving the team.

  Hah! Talk about a foolish idea. He’d never leave the one thing that made sense in his life.

  “You hear me, Stone?” Hall asked.

  “Roger that, sir,” Quinn said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  After Hall stepped off, Quinn joined the other guys in the conference room. They were hanging around the table, staring at him, waiting for him to recount Hall’s conversation as they always did after little powwows with the CO. Maybe to tell them he was okay and things could go back to normal. He couldn’t do that. Not when he wasn’t sure it would.

  He dug his cell phone from his pack for a distraction and turned it on. In case of an emergency, Quinn brought his phone when training exercises allowed it, but he didn’t like to be distracted, so he always turned it off. After it powered up, he found four missed calls and messages. All from his mother. That was out of character for her.

  A hint of apprehension settled in his gut as he played the messages. She urged him to call ASAP. Her tone rose higher with each message, heading quickly out of control. His dad was an Air Force general, so she was used to dealing with life on her own. If she was sounding this freaked out, something major had gone down.

  Ty. It has to be Ty.

  Quinn’s kid brother had recently turned seventeen, and he was doing his best to put himself in the running for the “rebellious kid of the year” award.

  Quinn stepped out of the room and dialed. “Mom.”

  “Thank goodness you called.” She sighed out a relieved breath. “It’s Ty.”

  Of course it is.

  “What’s he done now?” Quinn gritted his teeth as he waited to hear.

  “I’d rather not talk about it on the phone.” She was always uneasy when discussing Ty’s latest screw-up, but there was an extra edge to her voice tonight. “Can you come home? To help figure this out.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as you can get on a plane.”

  “I take it Dad’s not available.” Quinn’s voice came out all surly, but he didn’t care. He no longer tried to hide his disrespect for his father. He might be a top-notch general but he blew it as a family man.

  “I didn’t call him. Not this time. He’d . . .” She stopped. Not that it mattered if she finished her sentence. Quinn knew what she would have said.

  His dad only made things worse. He’d shout orders at Ty as if he was one of his airmen, and Ty’s back would go up. Then the kid would escalate his pranks and find another way to make the old man mad. As the older brother, Quinn would step in to repair the damage. At least with their dad out of the loop, Quinn only had to deal with the problem, not with their father’s exacerbation of it.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Quinn offered.

  “No, Quinn. This isn’t a see-what-you-can-do kind of situation. If you don’t come home and fix this, Ty will go . . . he’ll . . .” Her voice caught. “He’ll go to jail.”

  “Jail?” Quinn yelled, drawing the attention of the last teammates filing into the room. Stepping down the hall, he lowered his voice. “If you want me to drop everything and come back to Portland, then at least tell me what he’s done so I can spend my time on the plane thinking of a solution.”

  “Can anyone overhear us?”

  “No.”

  Dead silence came through the line for a moment. “He’s hacked into the No-Fly List.”

  “He what?” Quinn shouted before controlling his voice. “The No-Fly List, as in the one that keeps terrorists off airplanes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why in the world did the little punk do that?” he spat out.

  “For a girl.”

  A girl. “Of all the lame—”

  “Think back to your first girlfriends,” she interrupted. “You did some pretty lame things, too. You just didn’t have the computer skills Ty has.”

  “No, I actually lived my life instead of hiding behind a computer.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I try to understand Ty, but I don’t get him. Not that it matters.” He blew out a breath. “Tell me about the girl.”

  “It was an online relationship. She lives in Phoenix and wanted him to fly out to take her to prom.”

  “Let me guess. Dad said no,” Quinn said, knowing his father was against all fun.

  “Yes.” She sighed. “So this other kid from school stepped in as her date, and she dumped Ty. He was mad. He didn’t want the other kid to be able to go to the prom, so he put him on the No-Fly list.”

  One part of Quinn was amazed at his brother’s skills. The other part was disgusted at the way he chose to use them. “Where does he come up with these ideas?”

  “Doesn’t matter now. On top of the hack, his computer’s missing. He thinks the kid he put on the No-Fly List took it so he could turn Ty in. If the authorities find out about the hack, he’ll likely do time.” She lowered her voice. “They could accuse him of being a terrorist.” A sob followed her words.

  “C’mon, Mom, don’t go off the deep end,” Quinn soothed. “Ty’s not a terrorist, and they won’t think he is.”

  “You don’t know that. It’s serious business.” He heard the tears behind her words.

  His heart broke for her. She was a wonderful mother. The best. Tough, strong, independent. Loving. Kind. She didn’t deserve this. He’d do whatever he could to fix this situation. But what could he do to keep the kid from being prosecuted for potential federal charges?

  He had no clout. “I don’t see how I can help, Mom.”

  “Don’t say that,” she cried. “You’re the only one I know with a federal law enforcement contact who can make this go away.”

  Law enforcement? He only knew one person who fit the bill—his ex, FBI agent Nina Brandt, and she wouldn’t be happy to hear from him. “If you mean Nina, that won’t work.”

  His mom sniffed. “Just come home, Quinn, where we can talk about this face to face and figure something out.”

  Thankful for his upcoming leave, Quinn glanced at his watch. “I have a debrief. Then I’ll hop on the first plane. Might not be until the morning though.”

  “Thank you, Son. You know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t believe it was the best course of action.”

  “I know, Mom. See you soon.” He hung up and headed into the meeting room, already pondering the steps needed to enlist Nina’s help.

  He couldn’t call her. She’d ignore it. Ignore him. When they’d broken up a little over a year ago, it had been messy. Shoot, it was worse than messy. He’d screwed things up big time. And he knew he was the last person she wanted to see. She’d told him as much when he’d helped on a case with her FBI cyber team a few months ago.

  So what? He couldn’t let that stop him. He’d make sure Nina agreed to see him and let him plead Ty’s case. He wouldn’t let his kid brother go to jail without doing his best to stop it. And as a SEAL, his best was better than most.

  Chapter Three

  RESIDUAL ADRENALINE kep
t Wiley wide awake and jittery. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts, to relive being so close to Brandt. But Kip worked nights and wasn’t about to change his schedule for the weekend. He was in the kitchen making popcorn so Wiley stepped to Kip’s computer and logged in as administrator on the Hacktivist website to see who was dumb enough to have left the ultrathin computer in a cache.

  Wiley had no problem getting in. He’d co-founded the Hacktivists, had set up the website, and served as administrator until ugly old Brandt put him in prison. The group had cut all ties with him and made Kip and another dude co-administrator of the account.

  Didn’t matter. Wiley had left a backdoor. He always left a backdoor. After his first sign-on when he got out of prison, he’d learned Kip’s login and password. Now he used Kip’s login for everything. Wiley wouldn’t want to violate his parole conditions that banned him from the internet. Right. Like he would ever abide by that.

  He located the database containing details for the member who listed the computer cache.

  Hamid Ahmadi. Interesting.

  Did the computer Wiley found in the cache belong to Hamid? Was he dumb enough to put his own machine in a cache? Wiley thought the kid was smarter than that. He’d met Hamid at a geocache Meetup right before Wiley went to prison. The kid was a computer whiz and like many others in the group, hacked sites for the thrill of it. Maybe the machine Hamid left in the cache held data that Wiley could trade for cash.

  He grabbed the computer and pressed the power button. The machine immediately whirred to life and booted up.

  “Dude.” Kip flashed a look at Wiley. “I figured if someone put that machine in a cache, it had to be toast.”

  “Me too.”

  The laptop continued booting but stalled at a Windows password screen. Not something that would stop Wiley. Hacking was his specialty.

  The microwave dinged in the background as he dove into cracking the password. Time ceased to exist until he beat the machine.