Covert Evidence

by Rachel Grant

  She nodded. “Certainly, Mr. Dominick. Anything I can do to help you nail Todd will be my pleasure.”

  Trina met Cressida’s gaze and could see the turmoil she held back with iron will.

  “Can Trina come with us?” Cressida asked. “I could use a friend.”

  Curt smiled, and his voice softened. “Sure.”

  As they drove to the DOJ, Cressida kept chanting Ian’s final words in her head. Holding on to them for strength. They’d made it through the first hurdle. She wasn’t going to Langley. But she was certain the CIA director’s interrogation would be difficult, even in Curt’s domain. And it wasn’t like Curt would go easy on her either. But at least she knew he was trustworthy.

  She needed to decide if the director could be trusted with the chip or if corruption in the agency went all the way to the top. And even if the director was clean, it didn’t mean the people he’d turn the data over to were safe. Ian had said to save it as a last resort, and she intended to do just that.

  Plus there were the lies she had to maintain until she knew who all the players were. She wasn’t a spy. She didn’t know how to play this game. But she’d do it, to save Ian. Who’d said he loved her. Which gave her strength…

  They rode in the back of a town car with facing seats. Having a dedicated driver was a perk of being in Curt’s position, and Cressida appreciated the fact that she, Trina, and Curt were the only passengers. It gave them a chance to talk in private.

  “Mara is sorry she couldn’t be there to greet you,” Curt said.

  “I understand.” She paused. “I’m so grateful—for everything.”

  Curt nodded to Trina. “It was all Keith and Trina. I had no part in your extraction.”

  Trina, who’d been gripping Cressida’s hand like a lifeline, squeezed. “I’m guessing you have one whopper of a story.”

  She nodded.

  Trina’s cell phone buzzed, and she dropped Cressida’s hand. Tension in the car went up a notch as they all met each other’s gazes. Cressida held her breath as Trina glanced at the phone. “It’s Erica,” she said and answered.

  Cressida’s mouth went dry. Please. Please. Please let Ian be okay.

  With a smile, Trina flashed a thumbs-up, and Cressida could breathe again. And then she was crying, because that seemed to be what she did these days.

  Trina said nothing after she tucked away her phone, making Cressida wonder how much Curt knew and how much he wasn’t allowed to know. The attorney general was an honest man, and he’d taken oaths he wouldn’t violate. Best not to tell him anything he’d have to divulge.

  At the Justice Department, the interrogation began with the director asking how they crossed into Syria, forcing Cressida to lie at the start. She didn’t feel guilty for lying to a man whose organization trained others to lie, but Curt was another matter. She hoped someday she could tell him about the tunnel and he’d understand why she couldn’t give that intel to a CIA that still employed Zack Barrow.

  She explained how Zack had detained her and Ian at gunpoint several miles outside of Cizre. Without flinching, she described overpowering him. The director replied Zack had been assigned the task of bringing Ian in, and she could be charged with assault.

  She asked how she could be charged in the US for defending herself on Turkish soil, but the director asserted it wasn’t self-defense. He viewed her as Ian’s accomplice in that she’d abetted his escape from Zack.

  He’d already decided Ian’s guilt. There was no question in his tone, in his words.

  Curt entered the fray, injecting Stockholm syndrome into the line of questioning, and she tensed, wondering if he really believed that. It was possible he’d said it just to muddy the waters. It certainly deflated the director, because he backed off, briefly.

  With the allegations that she’d committed crimes in Turkey along with Ian—and she had killed a man—it was a potential defense. But if she were forced to claim Stockholm to avoid prison, it would mean Ian had already been convicted. And she couldn’t live with that.

  Finally, hours later, when she was drained, exhausted, and miserable, Curt asked, “Cressida, have you told us everything?”

  She looked the attorney general in the eye and lied. “Yes. Everything.” Ian must have rubbed off on her, because she felt less guilty this time.

  The director suggested Curt provide accommodations at DOJ, so they could resume questioning in the morning, but Curt said he trusted her on her own recognizance and to report back to DOJ the following day for further questioning. For now, she’d given both the CIA and the DOJ enough details for them to begin fact-checking.

  She suspected the director agreed because he intended to have her followed, hoping she’d somehow give him a lead on Ian’s whereabouts—who he clearly didn’t believe was in the Tigris. “Before you go, Ms. Porter, you should know it’s a federal crime to reveal the identity of any covert CIA operative, so tread carefully as far as Zack Barrow is concerned. I’d love to have an excuse to bring you in.

  She glared at the director. “He’s the bastard who betrayed his country and outed Ian. You might want to investigate him.”

  “We’ve launched a full investigation into who outed Boyd. Right now it looks like it was someone from Hejan Duhoki’s cell, but rest assured, Agent Barrow is also being investigated.”

  She stood. “Good. Make sure he stays away from me.”

  She found Trina in the front lobby. Because of the classified nature of the questioning, she hadn’t been allowed to watch the interrogation, which meant Cressida had a lot of explaining still to do. She took a deep breath, gripped the pendant through her shirt, and said to a friend she now owed her life to, “Take me to Lee. We need a computer and a man who knows how to use it.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  “He’s like a boy on Christmas morning,” Trina said with a laugh as Lee cracked his knuckles and sat before the computer.

  Erica rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it.”

  It felt surreal to Cressida to be sitting in Erica and Lee’s Watergate condo again. The last time she’d visited had been for their wedding, the same weekend she’d gone back to NHHC and studied Lawrence’s map because the photo she’d been working from was blurred at the edges and some of the notes were unreadable. That was when she’d found his notes about the stone house and capstone he’d placed in the corner.

  Finding that little notation had saved her life and Ian’s, because even by last April, events had been set in motion that would have led to everything that followed. That one note was the only piece of information Cressida had that Todd hadn’t been privy to.

  And yet Todd hadn’t told Zack they’d been in the stone structure.

  Erica handed Cressida a glass of red wine, and she hesitated before taking it. She could relax and have a glass. It was safe to let her guard down.

  But Ian wasn’t here. How could she let her guard down without him?

  “Cress, tell me what you know about this chip,” Lee said after he’d inserted the plastic card into a USB drive and plugged it into his computer.

  She sat next to him and relayed the details. As she spoke, Lee’s fingers clicked away at the keyboard, and files opened and closed in rapid succession. Some files had Arabic text; others were in English.

  “The contents were meant for Ian,” Lee said. “Hejan’s English notes make that clear, but he ensured a non-Arabic speaker could access the data. Which is good, because my Arabic is rusty.” He winked at her.

  She gave him a weak smile. “Ian could help you. I wish Hill would bring him here.”

  “It’s better this way. Hill’s known for taking multiday cruises around the Chesapeake and can’t break that pattern now. If radar tagged the jet for flying low and circling around, or anyone caught a glimpse of Ian’s jump and reports it, everything needs to look routine on Hill’s end. Plus you know the CIA is watching everything you do, tracking everywhere you go. Unless we get this cleared up right away, you won’t be able to see him for a wh
ile.”

  “I’m that obvious?”

  “Um, yeah,” Erica said with a laugh. “But don’t worry, we get it.” She met her husband’s gaze and smiled.

  “Why can’t I call him? You can secure the line, Lee.”

  “Not on Hill’s boat. Too much interference with all the equipment—sonar, radar, all the underwater exploration goodies Hill likes to play with.” He studied the computer monitor. “Now this is interesting. This file is encrypted. None of the others were. It looks like I’ve got three shots at the password, then it wipes the drive clean.”

  Cressida gasped. They couldn’t lose this data.

  “Relax,” Lee said. “Hejan wasn’t sophisticated. He just didn’t want an idiot to get the information. I’ve already backed it up. We’re working off a copy.” He frowned. “Hejan left a clue for the password. Like a crossword. A six-letter word for revenge.”

  “Berzan,” Cressida said without hesitation. “He wanted revenge for Berzan.”

  Ian paced his cabin inside the luxurious yacht. It was agonizing being cooped up like this, knowing Cressida was undergoing interrogation. The CIA wouldn’t torture her, would they?

  He really didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t certain of the answer.

  Surely a woman allied with the US Attorney General was safe? If Dominick had gotten her out of CIA clutches, she’d be protected.

  Clutches? This was the organization he’d devoted his life to. And now he was thinking in terms that painted them in rotten shades.

  But there was something rotten in the state of Denmark. And it started with Zack Barrow.

  The doorknob to his cabin twisted, and Ian glared at it, certain he’d locked it. It had better not be Suzanne. The woman was off her meds or something.

  But the door opened, and it wasn’t Hill, nor was it Suzanne. It was none other than Todros Ganem.

  “I’m not sure I understand, Lee. Is this the money Hejan stole from a refugee aid organization?”

  Lee frowned as he scrolled down the long list of dates and numbers. “Yes and no. Yes, he stole the money, but no, it appears it was a dummy organization, a front for funneling money into his terrorist group. He took the money just a few hours before meeting you. He cleaned out the account.” He pointed to a number on the screen, then opened a spreadsheet with a matching number. “He provided a key. He didn’t want anyone to miss what was going on. The money was payment for weapons.”

  “Ian said his group had gotten into arms dealing.”

  “It appears that’s the only thing they were doing. Lots of money transfers in and out. Most of the deposits came from the same place.” He frowned as he studied the spreadsheet. “These are payments from the Syrian al-Qaeda group. Hejan took the income from selling weapons to al-Qaeda and hid the money in a numbered password-protected account. Anyone with this data can move the money wherever they want.”

  Erica sat in a chair on Lee’s other side. “How much?” she asked.

  “Nine million and change.”

  Trina let out a low whistle. “When he met you at the bar that night, Cress, he was a walking dead man.”

  Cressida bit her lip. She’d put the pendant back on after Lee had retrieved the chip, and she gripped it again. “He knew it too. That’s why he was so quick to send me off when Todd started pounding on the door. He had to get me out of there with the pendant, or we’d both have ended up dead, and the money would have gone right back to the terrorists.”

  “Do you think Todd killed him?” Trina asked, taking Cressida’s hand in a comforting grip.

  Cressida liked the way Trina touched her to let her know she wasn’t alone. She needed it. “Actually, I don’t.” She’d already told them about Todd’s lie to Zack. “What will happen to this money if we give this data to the CIA?” she asked.

  Lee shrugged. “No idea. My guess is they’ll seize it. It’s blood money, after all.”

  “Can you erase the current location of the money? So no one will know where Hejan hid it?”

  “Sure.”

  “And could you drop the money in the account of a real relief organization? One that’s an open book, which provides aid to Syrian refugees?”

  Lee grinned. “Absolutely. It might take me a few days to find the right organization and make the transfer.”

  They exchanged glances all around. “If we do this, none of us can ever tell. Agreed?” Cressida said.

  Trina held up a hand. “Can I tell Keith?”

  “Fine. And, of course, I’ll tell Ian. But that’s it. Agreed?”

  Everyone nodded.

  Cressida grinned, feeling lighter than she had in…hours? Days? Who knew? But it felt good. “Okay, Lee, where is that list of people who fund terrorism that Ian promised us?”

  “Working on that file now. Gimme a sec.” Another document opened on the screen. Lee blanched. “Sonofabitch!”

  Cressida looked at the screen. The list was there, clear as day. Third name from the top: Dr. Patrick Hill.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Ian took a swing at Todros, catching him on the chin. As it had in Antalya when Cressida slugged him, Todros’s head snapped back, and he went down, but the man didn’t make a sound. Ian went after him, grabbing his shirt and hoisting him to his feet.

  Todros covered his face with his forearms and shook his head frantically, whispering, “Quiet!” His gaze darted down the corridor. “We need to talk in your cabin.”

  Ian dragged him inside the stateroom and shut the door. He pulled his gun and pointed it at Cressida’s ex. “Give me one good reason not to shoot you.”

  “Because they’ll hear. Then they’ll know you’ve figured out what Hill is. Who he is. He’ll seize your gun and slit your throat. Just like he killed Hejan.”

  Ian kept his gun trained on Todros. “Hill killed Hejan?”

  “Yes. I was in the bathroom—Hejan shoved me in there just before Hill barged in. I heard everything. Instead of paying off some Russian arms dealers as instructed, Hejan stole the money. He told Hill the account number was on the chip, then Hill killed him so he couldn’t talk to you. He bolted out the back door. He had to get back to Suzanne before she noticed he’d been gone too long. Now the organization is desperate to get their hands on the cash before the Russians come calling.”

  “I can get on the boat. I can claim I want to see Suzanne. He doesn’t know I have the chip. Doesn’t know I’ve seen the contents.” It was early evening. They’d abandoned Erica and Lee’s condo in favor of Raptor’s DC headquarters, where Keith had called in every operative on his payroll in the DC area. Cressida paced the main room and tossed out her desperate plan, frantic to convince the mercenaries to help her rescue Ian.

  Prior to making the move, Lee had copied the money transfer information along with the money’s current location and passwords. He then erased the money’s location from the chip and restored the chip to the pendant. A quick call to Mara confirmed Curt was at his office. While Erica, Lee, and Cressida moved to Raptor headquarters, Trina delivered the microchip to the DOJ, placing it directly in Curt’s hand as she claimed Cressida had just realized the pendant was from Hejan and might have something inside.

  Now here they were, a dozen operatives plus Trina, Erica, Lee, and Cressida. Frantic and feeling ill, Cressida paced as she tossed out ideas for how to free Ian from Hill’s boat.

  The first question was whether or not they should move in before the FBI got involved. Curt didn’t know Ian had jumped from the jet—although he likely suspected—and didn’t know Ian was on Hill’s boat.

  They’d tell him if he showed up at Raptor headquarters, but it had been important to give him the microchip in a way that it could be accepted into evidence in court. Cressida’s understanding of the rules for covert evidence was limited, and she prayed the data could be used to convict Hill.

  In the corner of the room, Erica looked a little green. Cressida knew she felt guilty for suggesting Hill in the first place, but they’d all thought it was the perfec
t solution. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, it was masterful maneuvering on Hill’s part, ensuring he’d been in the loop and ready to sweep in and help.

  But then, Hill had been masterful from the start.

  He’d been in the bar that night with the dual purpose of watching Hejan make the drop and hooking up with Suzanne, which had given him an in to ingratiate himself with Cressida’s DC friends.

  Knowing Cressida’s secret about the tunnel, Todd must’ve turned to Dr. Hill when he was in a desperate legal situation. Of course Todd would contact Hill, the mapping expert Cressida had introduced him to, offering the man a chance for shared glory. Hill would have known immediately exactly how valuable the tunnel could be and must have pulled strings to get Todd out of the US. Todd had been searching for the tunnel for Hill all along.

  Did Todd know even then that Hill had his own agenda, or was that something he’d learned along the way? At what point did Todd balk?

  She wondered if Todd ever went back to the stone house and saw the jack. If so, did he tell Hill, or did he remove the jack and cover the evidence of recent digging? She suspected he’d done the latter, and wondered if he’d managed to escape Zack and maybe fled to his relatives in Jordan. There, at least, he could start over.

  Once upon a time, she’d cared about him very much. She’d never quite understand his motives—whether it was academic jealousy or if he saw the strategic importance of the tunnel—but one thing was certain: After being rash and stupid on his own, he’d then allied himself with the wrong people. Todd wasn’t evil, just immoral. He was foolish. Misguided. Childish. There were so many things not to like. But she didn’t hate him and hoped he’d escaped the hell he’d created for himself.

  “Cressida, why do you think you can get on the boat without getting shot? Hill’s got to be jumpy as hell and worried you’ve got the list. Plus he’s got Ian as hostage,” Keith said.