Shadows (Black Raven Book 1)

by Barcelona, Stella

  “Sarah,” Spring called out before disappearing up the stairs. “Give him one of each of the morning muffins. He’s doing a taste test.”

  Sarah gave him a nod as he walked towards the counter. “Muffins,” she said, with a pleasant smile, “and what kind of coffee?”

  “Double shot of espresso with a splash of cream.”

  “Take a seat,” she smiled. “I’ll bring it to you.”

  Sebastian would rather stand. He wasn’t there to socialize. Ask a few questions, get the necessary answers, and get the hell out of Mayberry. That had been the plan.

  Instead he was stuck in an unfamiliar world, where gleaming glass cases displayed neat rows of muffins, decorated in a riot of color that made his eyes linger. An open kitchen with stainless steel appliances and large ovens was in the back of the counter. The man who had been on the porch with Sarah was there, pouring batter into pans. To the side of the kitchen was a hallway, a back door, and on the opposite side of the hallway, another room, with a large glass window that looked out on the coffee shop. He walked to the window. On a table sat a three-tier cake and what looked like clusters of turquoise-colored berries nestled in orange leaves. A vase of flowers stood—he presumed for inspiration—on the counter near the side of the cake. Sebastian wondered idly if the younger sister might be colorblind.

  He made his way into one of the seating areas and sank into an overstuffed chair near the fireplace. It was angled so he had a view of the stairs and the business counter. He almost sighed, as it conformed to his body. Random chairs normally didn’t fit his tall frame so well. He accepted the espresso from Sarah, along with a plate of still-warm muffins. “Thank you.”

  She smiled and pointed to one of the muffins. “My vote is for this one, the apple.”

  His appetite, like other basic necessities of life, had been nonexistent since July. Lack of an appetite didn’t keep him from eating, though. Food was fuel, and he needed plenty of it to stay at his optimum weight, somewhere right above two hundred and ten. After July, he had learned to graze all day, even when he wasn’t hungry. Now his mouth watered and his stomach grumbled, as he inhaled the aromas of baked goods and fresh coffee. He bit into the apple-peanut-butter muffin, tasting sweet bits of apple, salty nuttiness, and brown-sugar crumble. As he wondered how apples and peanuts could blend to taste so damn good, Ragno’s voice grounded him. “Have you selected a favorite?”

  He chuckled as he watched the sisters descend the stairs. Spring now wore a pair of blue jeans, but otherwise, her outfit remained the same.

  Skye went behind the counter, while Spring went into the room with the cake. Good, he thought. With the sisters separated, he could talk to Skye without interruption. Before he could stand, three customers walked into the coffee shop and headed to the counter, where Skye had joined Sarah. Dammit. His opportunity to talk to her alone had, for the moment, disappeared.

  “Ragno,” he said, keeping his voice low as he watched Skye talk to the customers and waited for the customers to leave the counter. “Has there been any contact between the daughters and Barrows’ lawyer?”

  “None,” Ragno said, “but she called Black Raven yesterday evening to see if we had managed to locate Skye and Spring.”

  Sebastian had been present at the interview of Jennifer Root, the lawyer for Barrows. They had interviewed her within the first twenty-four hours of her client’s jailbreak, at her office. She had a reputation as a hard-ass lawyer, who’d made a name by pursuing, and winning, high-stakes copyright infringement actions on behalf of BY Technologies, Barrows’ company. Root also had been Barrows’ defense attorney, when he had pleaded guilty. She had called in criminal defense experts, but she’d taken the lead with the government in negotiations for the plea deal.

  In the interview, Root had claimed to be unaware of Barrows’ escape. News of the escape hadn’t hit the airwaves, and the only way she would have figured it out was from someone with the government, Black Raven, or Barrows himself. She had seemed believable.

  Root had assured the marshals and Sebastian she hadn’t heard from her client since the conviction, but she did say she was worried about Barrows’ daughters. Root couldn’t—or wouldn’t—tell them where the two women were. She professed to have no idea, shrugging off the secrecy as due to Barrows’ paranoia. The interview had left Sebastian unsettled, for reasons he couldn’t explain. He’d requested Ragno start a Black Raven-style profile on her, and Ragno’s team of analysts was now on the task.

  “Minero is holding for you,” Ragno said, interrupting his thoughts just as Skye handed a cup of coffee to the last person in the line. He had to take the call. Anthony Minero was the lead U.S. Marshal in charge of the manhunt. So far, the marshals thought Sebastian’s trip to Covington was a waste of time. That’s why Sebastian didn’t have a marshal with him. From Sebastian’s perspective, the biggest mistake the marshals had made so far was not immediately grasping how difficult it was going to be to find Barrows. It was also why the marshals had dragged their heels on putting together a cyber-felon-manhunt team of FBI agents and marshals.

  Despite what Minero thought, Sebastian’s gut told him Barrows’ daughters were worth pursuing, and that’s why he was sitting in their coffee house eating muffins. There was one giant, nagging problem with trusting his gut, and Sebastian knew it. In the past year, his gut instincts hadn’t always been accurate, and right now, even though he was following his instinctive hunch, he certainly wasn’t on the fast train to an answer for the question of the day.

  “Put him through.”

  “Holt’s at the jail, not giving us a damn thing on Biondo or Barrows,” Minero said. “We’re getting more leads from other sources on Biondo. We have nothing on Barrows. Have you made contact with his daughters?”

  “I just arrived.”

  “Anything?”

  “Not yet,” Sebastian answered. “Haven’t managed to have that conversation.”

  “Media’s getting close,” Minero said. “A local paper called the warden a few minutes ago, seeking confirmation on a possible escape. We think a prison employee leaked the info to the media.”

  Rubbing the pain at his temples with his free hand, Sebastian muttered a curse. The press getting a hold of this clusterfuck would make retrieving the remaining two prisoners that much harder. It would also diminish the likelihood of Black Raven getting more government jobs. Worse, Black Raven would be painted as incompetent.

  The other six prisoners hadn’t been noteworthy. On the other hand, Barrows’ escape was going to be front-page news for days. If Black Raven was publicly tagged for Barrows’ escape, their reputation would be pulverized. His company was going to be ridiculed for letting the paranoid genius walk out of prison. And this was just one of his current problems, but he didn’t allow himself to think of the other disaster he was facing.

  Minero continued, “We might have twenty-four hours before news of the prison break becomes public, but I doubt if we have that long. A few senators are getting nervous.”

  No shit, Sebastian thought, keeping his earlier conversations with various senators to himself. He had no plans to share with the marshals the identities of the power holders in Washington who were friendly to Black Raven.

  “They’re thinking it might be wise to release official reports before the media distorts the story,” Minero added. “Damage control. Earlier, rather than later. By tonight.”

  “Thanks for the heads up.”

  “I’m rethinking my strategy with the daughters. I’m sending a team to Covington. We need to talk to them.”

  “Not a problem,” Sebastian said, biting back the impulse to say, I told you they were important. “Do what you need to do.”

  “Also, my cyber-team is attempting a forensic analysis of any chatter involving Barrows prior to his imprisonment,” Minero informed him. “The problem is, his internet activity was encrypted in a manner that’s challenging, to say the least. We’re having problems breaking through. I know your people are a
couple of steps ahead of us. If we were operating from integrated systems-”

  “No.” Sebastian interrupted, his eyes on Skye. She glanced in his direction, but turned when Sarah said something to her. Together, they focused on the espresso machine. “Not an option.” No one accessed Black Raven’s systems, just as no one without clearance ever walked into the company’s Denver-based headquarters. Black Raven did not allow integration, from anyone, anytime. Period.

  He and Minero had become acquainted for the first time four days ago in the immediate hours after the jailbreak. Black Raven’s contract didn’t provide for this contingency, a what-to-do-in-case-of-jailbreak plan. Because Minero was the head Deputy Marshal in charge, Sebastian guessed that, technically, Black Raven was working for Minero. He didn’t care much about official lines of authority. His job was to get the prisoners back into custody, and that was also Minero’s job. So far, Sebastian liked the guy. The Deputy Marshal had made fast, cool decisions with the considerable manpower that he had at his disposal.

  Minero was a great tracker of escaped prisoners, and this wasn’t the first federal prison break where he’d taken the lead. Federal inmates could be drug distributors, felons who possessed a weapon, a bank robber, an illegal immigrant with a laundry list of prior felonies, men who loved internet kiddie porn, wayward politicians, or fraud conspirators. There weren’t many prisoners like Barrows, though, because the man was one of a kind. He was a computer genius, who, if given computer access, could manipulate security systems and walk the hell out. What had the man been doing before walking out of prison? Sitting at a goddamn computer with internet access, which the Bureau of Prisons, in their infinite lack of wisdom, had provided in the legal library, for fuck’s sake.

  “I’ll send you one of our best men for your cyber-team,” Sebastian offered. “He can liaise between my people and yours.” And let me know if you guys find anything that I don’t.

  “I’ll take him.”

  Sebastian didn’t like the near-desperation that he heard in Minero’s voice. Desperate men made bad decisions, and desperation was contagious. Hell. Minero’s superiors were probably breathing down his neck, hard. He too had crappy repercussions if he didn’t get the prisoners back where they belonged before their escape became a media circus. “Name’s Zeus. He’ll be knocking on their door in two hours.”

  “What kind of name is that?”

  Sebastian chuckled. “A damn good one.” It wasn’t the man’s name at all, but Minero didn’t need to know that. Zeus was the anglo-style nickname Sebastian and other Black Raven agents had given to Jesus Hernandez. The name Zeus fit the large, quiet man, who had as much brain as his ample brawn. Sebastian regarded him as an intellectual powerhouse, a partner who provided solid, reliable advice. He was also a friend Sebastian trusted without question.

  “How does Zeus know where to go? I haven’t told you where they are,” Minero said.

  Ragno chuckled, but Minero couldn’t hear her. Ragno muted her line when Sebastian had callers, unless the call was intended as a conference call. Unless he disconnected her, she was always there. It saved filling her in later.

  “My people figured out your location around midnight, we’re in your system, and we’re following them,” Sebastian said. “I figured Black Raven might benefit from your research. So far, your cyber-team is stumbling in the Dark Ages.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Minero muttered. “I’ll call you back in a few and let you know logistics on when my team will arrive in Covington.”

  “Before you go, have you made progress on unsealing the Barrows transcripts?” Sebastian asked, sinking further into the comfortable chair. Barrows had been thoroughly debriefed by the FBI in connection with his offense. Usually, sealed court documents weren’t an obstacle for Black Raven. Barrows was a special case, though. None of his records were in the federal court’s public access databases, and Ragno’s team couldn’t break into the sealed electronic records. It seemed that the government never wanted his rants to see the light of day and, four days post prison break, Sebastian was damn tired of asking for them.

  “We should have access this morning. I secured clearance. Now we’re just waiting on the word to travel through the chain of command,” Minero said. “Not sure I understand why the transcripts are such a high priority for you.”

  Sebastian swallowed back his exasperation, as he listened to the same thing Minero had been saying for two days. The marshals had been reactionary throughout the entire manhunt. Reactionary wasn’t how Black Raven operated. “We need to understand the man to know where he might be. To understand the man, we want to see what he had to say. About anything and everything.”

  He almost added that it wasn’t rocket science, then thought better of it. Instead, he bit into the carrot-walnut-cinnamon muffin, softly chewing on carrot shreds and crunchy walnuts. Ragno was used to hearing him eat. He didn’t care whether Minero heard him chewing. The muffin was too good not to eat.

  “Court personnel informed me that there are thousands of pages,” Minero said. “It seems like once Barrows had an audience of FBI agents and IRS investigators, he wouldn’t shut the hell up.”

  “Volume isn’t a problem for us.”

  “Well, good, because I don’t have the manpower to make sense of his rants or to search thousands of pages for clues. The summary in the public record is enough for me. At one time, the man was brilliant. Damn shame he couldn’t focus on something good. Also a damn shame he became obsessed with surveillance technology and its Fourth Amendment implications. What a waste.”

  Sebastian was actually looking forward to seeing the transcripts and, one day when he had time, if that ever happened, reading what the brilliant scientist had to say about the Fourth Amendment. The constitutional right protected by the amendment—freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures—was a concept that meant something far different in the digital age than when the country’s forefathers drafted the amendment. In law school, he’d found Fourth Amendment jurisprudence fascinating, and he continued to study it.

  Minero added, “Paranoia does strange things to brilliance.”

  Sebastian didn’t need or want Minero’s opinion. He wanted the data to form his own. “The transcripts are in electronic files, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “The minute they’re released, send them to Ragno.”

  “Will do.”

  “We’ll see how quickly we get those transcripts,” Ragno said, her tone indicating she wasn’t expecting great speed, as Minero ended the call. “We’ve been asking, and no one is giving. Senator McCollum’s office called while you were on the line with Minero. He wants to talk to you ASAP.”

  Robert McCollum, the senior senator from Texas, was the Chairman of the Bureau of Prisons Committee, a joint committee comprised of various senators and representatives. The committee had handled the bidding process through which Black Raven had been hired for the multi-million dollar contract for upgrading security systems at multiple federal prisons.

  Pete, who was also mic’d to Sebastian, said, “Two local cops are walking in.”

  “Thanks for the heads up. Ragno, call McCollum’s office back,” Sebastian said, glancing at his right hip and making sure his leather jacket was concealing his Glock. The two officers walked into the coffee shop. Early thirties. Fit. Uniform blues. Glocks holstered at their hips. Mace. Stun guns. Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses were on, and weren’t removed until they got to the counter. He didn’t need to worry about them noticing him, because their eyes were only for Skye. He didn’t blame them. If he were a local cop, she’d be on his radar every morning. She welcomed them with a slight smile, one that wasn’t anything like the radiant smile in the photographs he’d seen earlier.

  As two more people walked in behind them, her not-quite-full smile faltered. Not exactly what he’d expect of an owner of a brand new business. Interesting. He could tell she wasn’t happy to see the line at the counter. He wasn’t either. He hadn’t flown across the
fucking country so he could sit in a coffee shop, watch Skye Barrows pretend to be Chloe-the-barista, think about her in a topless bikini with her arms extended to a clear-blue sky, figure out nothing about where Barrows might be, and have telephone conversations that weren’t bringing him any closer to an answer for the goddamn question of the day.

  Ragno said, “Senator McCollum is on the line.”

  “Status?” McCollum asked. His curt question was a testament to the hard-ass truism that there was no need to say good morning when there was nothing good about it. Sebastian couldn’t agree more.

  “Same as eleven last night when I last spoke to you.”

  “Son of a bitch, Connelly. Find Barrows, get his ass back in jail, and do it ASAP. The others on the committee are pushing me to go public with the full circumstances of the jailbreak. I’m doing my best to keep the story under wraps, but it’s getting harder.”

  “I’d appreciate a bit more time before this hits the media outlets,” Sebastian said. “Front page news will only turn this into a circus.”

  “I’m trying. Embarrassment runs deep, though.” McCollum didn’t have to explain to Sebastian the reasons why, as the fuck-up had occurred under the largest outsourcing contract the Bureau of Prisons had ever executed for jail security. “I had a few allies on this outsourcing effort, but they’re now forgetting they were in my corner. The ones who weren’t in my corner from the beginning are gloating, chomping at the bit for a chance to throw egg in my face. It’s an election year. I have stiff competition. I can’t be tagged as the senator who allowed Richard Barrows to walk out of prison. I don’t want this blemish on my career. I also can’t afford to look like I’m covering up a story. I’m holding them off, but I don’t know how much longer I can give you. Understand?”

  “Got it,” he said. He’d worked with McCollum before, on security missions for the man’s oil interests and also on governmental matters. The man was a lifelong, powerful politician, but he’d always shot straight with Sebastian. “Thanks for the warning. Senator, minor issue. I know you made a call the other day on Barrows’ debriefing transcripts.”