Up in Smoke (Firehouse Three, #4)

by Sidney Bristol

  Dion had always bought his shoes a size too big, biting off more than he could chew. Mikel and Dion had been on the outs as of late. Maybe if they hadn’t Mikel could have done something. Warned Dion against trying to double-cross Mr. Smoke.

  The thing about women doing what they did...they were ten times as mean and ruthless, because they had to be. Mr. Smoke was a slick woman, but Mikel didn’t doubt that under all that stuff, she was every bit as tenacious and dangerous as Dion, only worse.

  Mikel leaned forward.

  There.

  He picked up his phone and hit dial.

  “He’s driving the truck. They’re headed your way now.”

  “Copy that.”

  Mikel started the car but didn’t make a move to follow the fire truck.

  From here on out, they were playing it by ear. Watching and waiting for their opening.

  16.

  Holy. Shit.

  This was the warehouse fire all over again.

  Chaz checked the water pressure with one eye, the other focused on his team battling the blaze. The fire was too big, too fast to be a coincidence.

  Turf war?

  Deep Ellum had quite a few nightclubs that were vacant, waiting to be remade and turned over or converted to something else. This two-story building had once been a jazz club, then a techno place. Last he’d driven by, wasn’t it some sort of fancy rock and roll bar? Wasn’t this the place that Reid had his last birthday booze-a-thon? Yeah, and the top floor had been some sort of pricey, event-party space. Only, now there were apartments up there, according to the chief.

  Chaz hated the destruction fires caused, but when it ate up a historic building it was worse.

  The radio attached to Chaz’s shoulder crackled.

  He studied the face of the building, looking for his guys, any other survivors. Was that movement in the right, front windows? It was hard to tell with the thick, dark smoke billowing out the way it was.

  “We’re still missing one. Tenant on the top floor said his neighbor’s daughter was home alone.”

  “I’ve got her in my line of sight,” Chaz said into the radio.

  “Right behind you.” Abby peeled off the hose, leaving it to two other guys.

  Everyone else was busy trying to keep the fire from spreading. He and Abby could retrieve whoever was upstairs.

  He jogged to the left side of the building. There was no easy way up, except through the bottom floor.

  “This way,” Abby yelled.

  She ducked down the alley. A side door stood open. The fire was eating up the stage on the other end of the building. Part of the ceiling in the middle had collapsed for no apparent reason.

  “Careful,” Chaz bellowed.

  This was no accidental fire.

  There were multiple origins.

  Whoever had set this did it deliberately.

  It wasn’t a grease fire out of hand. It wasn’t candles left burning unattended. No, someone did this.

  They climbed up a back set of stairs marked PRIVATE USE ONLY. Chaz kicked the door in and ducked, smoke streaming out overhead.

  A high-pitched, thin scream spurred Chaz on, Abby at his back. One side of the hall was crawling in flames, tongues licking up to the ceiling. The other was as of yet untouched.

  At the end of the hall, huddled under the window, was a young girl, no more than twelve, paralyzed by fear.

  “We’ve got her,” Abby said into the radio. “There’s accelerant everywhere.”

  “Come on, sweetheart, I’m going to get you out of here. Give me your hand.” Chaz reached for the little girl.

  She was sucking in deep breaths of toxic air, eyes wide, terror etched into every line of her face.

  They had to get out now, before the flames cut off their exit.

  He grabbed her by the hand and as gently as he could, picked her up.

  “Go, Abby, I’ve got her.”

  The fire was inching across the floor.

  Abby went first, kicking some debris out of the way.

  “Winters, Fairchild, get out of there.”

  They ducked into the stairwell. Below, the fire had already spread to the low wall in front of the stairs. Another few seconds upstairs and they might have been trapped.

  Chaz nearly ran into Abby in the alley.

  “Fuck—move,” Chaz growled.

  The dark-skinned man standing in the alley, a bandana around his face, gun up, brought Chaz up short, too.

  “Easy. Easy, man,” Abby said.

  “Fairchild, Winters, where are you?”

  “Put the girl down,” the gunman said.

  Was this a kidnapping? Was the young woman something to this man? Chaz would never hand the child over to the guy.

  “I’m not—”

  “I said—put the girl down and come with me.”

  The gunman didn’t want the girl.

  He wanted him. Chaz.

  “Abby? Abby, take her.”

  “Chaz—”

  “Abby, take her now.”

  Chaz kept his eyes on the man. This was something to do with Payton, her case. That was the only thing that made sense.

  He handed the little girl to Abby, momentarily locking eyes with her.

  “Tell Tate,” he said as low as he could.

  “Chaz—”

  “Come on!”

  “Winters? Fairchild? Does anyone have eyes on them?”

  “I’m coming.” Chaz held his hands up and side stepped Abby and the little girl.

  They had to get out okay. Before the fire spread. Before the nervous gunman did something.

  The gunman walked Chaz through the building next door and out the back, directly into a van.

  The whole thing—it was all a trap.

  Alice stared at the man tied to the chair. The whole place smelled of bleach and cleaner. They really should have waited to tidy up the mess that had been Dion. Maybe faced with the gruesome reality would have shaken this one up a bit.

  Who was he to Payton?

  She had a name.

  Chancelor Fairchild.

  What a god-awful name.

  He was a firefighter.

  And at the first opportunity, Payton had run to him.

  Which told Alice he was important to her.

  Everyone had a pressure point. Even Alice, as much as it galled her to admit it.

  The firefighter stared back at her, his strong, stubborn jaw set in a hard line.

  Whatever she said first would set the tone for this. If she chose her words wisely, she could break him without lifting a finger. That took talent and time she didn’t have.

  She’d like nothing more than to stick him in a room with no water, food or light for three days, then haul him out once she’d dug into his life. But the reality was every day, every hour, every God damn second Payton was out there with the phone was another chance for the feds to snatch her up.

  Brent was right. Payton had informed on them, but thus far no one had tampered with the phone. Alice would know when the safety precautions were triggered because they would email her failsafe account.

  A blinking green light on her phone caught her attention.

  She glanced down, swiping her thumb across the screen.

  No email.

  But...there was a text.

  An image loaded of an older woman with a wide smile.

  Martha Fairchild. On a cruise in the Bahamas. Makes port in two hours. We can maybe get her.

  Brent was far more resourceful than he gave himself credit for.

  Alice glanced up and smiled at the man. She could practically hear his teeth grinding together.

  “Let’s talk about mommy dearest, shall we?”

  Payton smoothed her hands down the front of her blouse. She’d traveled with one office-ready outfit for this day. The weight of Alice’s phone in her pocket was heavy. Chaz could so easily have been hurt because of this phone. Payton was ready to be rid of it. To get Alice, and move on with her life. One where sh
e could be with Chaz.

  The elevator dinged. Tate held the door for her, keeping an easy pace. She liked him. He didn’t need to talk to fill the silence, he was easy to get along with and whip smart. He was wasted being her bodyguard, but she still appreciated his presence. Until she was officially back on the books as an agent and her record cleared, Tate was all that stood between her and a couple dozen arrest warrants.

  The Dallas DEA office was located in an unassuming office building on the north side of town. The suite comprising Webb’s task force was busy with activity. Quite a few of the men openly stared at her. Was it the hair? Or had they assumed someone else in the organization was their man? Yeah, female undercover agents were rare, and this time, she was it.

  Her stomach clenched. From here on out, it was going to get worse before it got better.

  No doubt Webb had seen her request for a transfer by now. As her case agent, he’d be part of the process, like it or not.

  He’d fight it.

  She knew he would.

  “Deep breath,” Tate whispered with a smile.

  Payton glanced at him, caught off guard by the comment.

  “You got this.” He winked at her.

  She smiled back and focused on taking an easy breath.

  She’d walked into rooms full of some of the biggest names in narcotics trafficking and had less anxiety about what she was going to do. Webb got to her because of their history. To him, she’d always be that nineteen-year-old girl, petulant and angry about everything. A born fuck-up. He was the kind of man—agent—she detested. And she’d done her time working with him.

  Payton stepped into the inner room. Webb’s War Room.

  Images were tacked to the wall.

  Dry erase boards held tiny, cramped notes.

  Webb sat at a long table across from two men in similar slacks and polos, every one of them wearing a badge and a gun.

  She could do this.

  “Harris. Sit. We’ve got a lot to cover.” Web leaned back in his chair.

  There was only one empty chair at the end of the table.

  She glanced at Tate. His duties were done, at least until it came time for her to go back to the safe house. She took her place at the end of the table.

  “Where are we with finding Alice Douglas?” she asked.

  “Best we can tell, she escaped from the delivery site.” Webb flipped back through his notebook a few pages. “Her man, Brent, we haven’t found him at either of his residences.”

  “Which ones?” Payton leaned forward.

  For the next hour, they retraced Alice and Brent’s movements over the past ten days. What they knew boiled down to, Alice had escaped somehow, Brent was in the wind, but they were reasonably certain Alice was coming after Payton. And the phone.

  “You know how to think like her.” Webb clasped his hands together, gaze pinned on her. “What is she most likely to do? Where would she go?”

  “Well, she has several buyers in Dallas,” Payton said slowly. “We didn’t come here, she usually sent one of the guys. We met a few of her Dallas clients in Florida or California a few times.”

  Payton leaned back in her seat and stared at the ceiling.

  Think like Mr. Smoke.

  “She’d look for someone indebted to her. Someone she could manipulate. She likes the smart, younger black men, Latinos. Says they really get where the product is going. Someone with a good delivery system and wide distribution. She’ll need to offload what product Brent can scrounge together because without the phone...I’m pretty sure all her financials are tied up in it.”

  “She wants the phone.” Webb leaned forward.

  “Yes.” Payton’s fingers were cold. She didn’t want to say this...but it was the truth. “The best way to get Alice to come to us is to use the phone—and me—as bait. Unless she’s heard something, she likely thinks that I informed on her and am in custody.”

  “The phone. You still have it with you?”

  “I do.”

  “And you can break it?”

  “I believe so.”

  “You haven’t tried?”

  “I...no.”

  “Get on with it.” Webb threw up his hand, his scowl lines deep.

  Payton glanced at the other two agents. She’d briefed them on the breadth of Alice’s security measures. The risks. They were in agreement that she had to be on-hand to begin the process. And they wanted her to just...have a go?

  “Webb—”

  “Harris, if we don’t get whatever’s on that phone now, we’re going to have to let those other guys go. Their lawyers are going to punch holes in our case if we don’t produce some hard evidence. I need that now.”

  Payton bit her lip.

  Alice was who they wanted, so what was the big deal about the other guys getting let go? They’d go back to Alice. Likely spill their guts to her. And then what? What if they knew Payton was a fed?

  “A forensic team should do this,” she said, because she needed to.

  “You programmed it to accept your finger print.” Webb spread his hands. “What can they do you can’t?”

  “We have one shot at this.”

  “Then don’t fuck up, Harris.”

  She pulled the phone out of her pocket and sat it on the table.

  It was evidence, but half the time, when she was still undercover, it’d been in her possession anyway. Her DNA was all over it.

  “What’s the deal with the safety measures? I didn’t get to read all of that part of your report.” The dark-haired agent on the end leaned forward. She wasn’t familiar with him, then again there’d been some recent turn over in the department.

  “Alice is paranoid.” Payton set the device on the table. “Her phone is...it’s more like a highly secured, encrypted tablet. She stores her contacts, all of her production information, the cocktail for her signature drugs, and all of the dirt she has on this one device. No back-ups. No copies. Only on this.”

  It looked like an older smart phone, a bit thick, but that was by design.

  “What model is this?” the agent asked.

  “It isn’t. She had it made for her. There are likely parts and pieces from different phones, but it’s all an original design.”

  “Nothing can be that safe. I mean, she connects to Wi-Fi and bam. Virus.” The agent snapped his fingers.

  “It doesn’t have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth capabilities. My understanding is that the systems are separate. You have to flip a switch, here, for it to change displays and stop being a phone. Seriously, stop thinking of it as a phone and more like...the smallest, most powerful computer you’ve ever seen.”

  “And you can crack it?” Webb asked.

  “I hope so.” Payton blew out a breath and powered the device on. “I have no idea if she can trigger it remotely. There are charges inside the phone. It could literally blow up in our faces.”

  She flinched as the screen flickered to life.

  The prompt for a fingerprint filled the screen.

  Payton pressed her thumb to it.

  She’d never tried this before. She’d been too scared it wouldn’t work, that it would reveal her as a traitor.

  The phone scanned her thumb once, twice, three times then went dark.

  “What’s happening?” Webb asked.

  Payton held her breath.

  The screen blinked, opening to the password portion.

  “It didn’t work,” Webb grumbled.

  “No, it did.”

  Payton keyed in Alice’s password.

  The numeric sequence.

  Alice’s pressure point.

  Her daughter.

  The child didn’t know Alice was her mother, and the father would prefer to keep it that way. Still, Alice was aware of her child. More like a spider watches something wiggling in its web than a nurturing mother, but aware all the same.

  “How’d you get it to accept your finger print?” the other agent asked.

  “Alice got into the habit of handing me
her phone, unlocked, after calls. I would remind her, show her I was locking it until she didn’t even care. She’d give it to me; ask me to check emails, messages. She trusted me. I sent a...code to her email, installed it and ran it, creating the back door, but I never tried it. The information should all be here.”

  Payton sank back into her chair.

  It’d worked.

  She’d always assumed Webb would want forensics on-hand to control the situation when they did finally access the phone. From the looks of his team though, she might just be all they had for figuring out the phone.

  It shouldn’t be too hard.

  With the phone unlocked she should be able to attach a mini-USB cord to it and extract all the information. Even if she couldn’t break the code, someone at the FBI should be able to figure that out.

  This was it.

  Bye, bye Alice.

  Hello, new life.

  “Payton?” Tate stepped back into the room.

  “Not now,” Web snapped.

  The look on Tate’s face chilled Payton’s blood.

  “What? What happened?” She didn’t want to know, but she needed to.

  “Abby—she just called. Someone took Chaz.”

  Chaz’s arms were numb. The rope around his wrists had his shoulders bent backward. He’d lost the feeling in his fingers first, which was honestly a blessing.

  He shook his head, bits of spit and blood dribbling down.

  “Where is she?” A different man from the two he’d seen before now bent forward, staring Chaz in the eyes.

  “I don’t,” Chaz sucked down a breath, “know.”

  What time was it?

  Abby had been right there. She’d been safe. As soon as she was able, she’d tell Tate who could tell Payton and the feds what’d happened. He just had to hold on. Tell the truths he knew.

  He had no idea where Payton was...right now. Or what she was doing. Or who she was working with.

  The man hauled back and backhanded Chaz across the face. His very bones throbbed.

  “Mikel. Enough.” The woman—the one who was trying to look like Payton—walked into the room. Her heels clicked on the floor.

  Mikel backed up, shaking his hand.

  “Chaz, that’s what you prefer to be called, right?” Alice took a few steps forward. She had an eight by ten...photograph?

  He shifted his jaw. It was hard to see out of his right eye, likely because it was swelling shut.