by Misty Evans
Grey cleared his throat. “No more stalking half-naked females. It’s for work purposes only.”
Mitch rolled his eyes, sat at the table, and opened a file. “Caroline said to tell you hi and welcome to the team.”
Brice gritted his teeth. “I’m not joining the team.”
Batman and Robin exchanged a look that said they knew differently. The smallest of grins passed over Grey’s lips before he turned back to his board.
Whatever.
Teeg motioned him over. His eyes were bloodshot, probably due to no sleep.
Made two of them.
“What’s up, man?” Brice asked, pulling up a chair next to the command desk.
Teeg’s nails were bitten down to the quick like Brice’s. His fingers darted over the keys. “I was digging into those dating sites last night. The ones Bigley is in? I came across a private forum, with kind of an odd name for a dating site. I took a screenshot to show you.”
He hit return and the middle screen in front of him changed. A typical forum layout, where a user asked a question and members of the forum replied. The users in this particular forum had odd names, but not the kind Brice expected on a dating site. No TeddyBearForYou or MissGrins&Giggles. The names weren’t made up of letters at all. They were all numbers.
“What am I looking at?” Brice asked.
“This site is called Assassin’s Creed.”
Brice’s mind immediately went to roleplaying and Joel. “Like the computer game?”
“No, man.” Teeg shook his head. “This is on the Deep Web.”
“A dating site for assassins?”
“Guess they need love too.” The joke fell flat and Teeg cleared his throat. “We’re definitely talking murder for hire.”
“On a dating site?”
Teeg nodded. “Paid assassins who specialize in risky targets are most likely using it for a cover. Homeland and the FBI are too familiar with the Deep Web these days, so the bad guys are digging down a little further, looking for unusual places to hide.”
A cold, hard lump formed in Brice’s lower stomach. At the same time, his pulse raced the way it always did when he smelled a scoop. “What does this have to do with Turner?”
“Read the post.”
He did, and it made no sense to him, so he read it again. “Is this some kind of code?”
The kid looked slightly surprised Brice didn’t understand it. “Uh, yeah.” He pointed to some random words about a shark. “This refers to a judge, someone high in the food chain. This,” he moved to another set of words about being eaten alive, “means he needs to disappear. As in die. Those numbers under the code are longitude and latitude coordinates.”
“Let me guess. Washington D.C.”
Teeg nodded. “And the set of numbers at the bottom is a day and time,” he finished. “The exact day and time of Turner’s death.”
“Was the poster looking for bids on who would do it?”
“Nah, he only corresponded with one guy. Offered him what amounts to $65,000 in cash.”
Brice’s mind flashed to the store of cash in Kostas’s closet. But the cabbie hadn’t been the shooter. “And did the assassin respond?”
Teeg moved the cursor down, bringing up a message. “The proof of the hit was posted in a private chat room thirty minutes after Turner died. It took me a while, but I was able to hack into that room.”
He clicked on a second screenshot and Brice’s entire body went cold. The proof of death on the screen was definitely a picture of Chief Justice Turner lying on the bridge, bleeding out. Gerard was in the shot, leaning over him, trying to stop the bleeding.
“Shit.”
Lodestone was never wrong.
Brice’s gut was never wrong either. “I need to know who this killer is, and more importantly, who took out the hit.”
“Like everyone in the Deep Web, these guys are invisible, Brice. You know that. I can hack into these chat rooms and forums and find stuff, but there’s no way I can track down the people behind the scenes. And, dude, I don’t want to. You don’t mess with these guys.”
Not if you want to live. Brice scrubbed his face. “There has to be away to bring this to light. We can’t let them get away with it.”
“There’s something else you need to see.” Teeg tapped the keyboard and moved his mouse around, pulling up a new file.
Grey came up behind them. “You need to back down, Brice.”
“Why? I’m not scared of going head to head with whoever’s behind this.”
“Because of this,” Teeg hit the return key. “It was posted an hour ago in the same forum.”
A new image appeared on the main screen and Brice sucked in his breath.
The eagle logo Brice used for his blog stared back at him. Superimposed over the top was a large, red bulls-eye.
“It’s open season on the Patriot Blog,” Grey said. “You’ve just become a target.”
Brice’s mind went back to the picture of Turner bleeding out on the bridge. On the heels of that came the memory of the car bearing down on Hope. “Goddamn it,” he said, jumping up.
Hope, Hope, Hope. Get to her!
He ran for the door.
Chapter Twelve
Hope sat in her car rhythmically banging her head against the steering wheel. Bump, bump, bump. In the last twenty minutes, the future she’d imagined for herself, the rise in the ranks, the ultimate goal of reaching the White House, had just slipped from her grasp.
Not that she ever had it in the first place. But she’d been working toward it and succeeding—at least she’d thought so—until Hawk and his tip showed up.
Damned bloggers.
Always creating chaos. Well, he’d better damn well hope this conspiracy theory panned out or he’d owe her a career.
From the middle of her forehead an ache spread to her temples and she stopped pounding, just let her head rest on the steering wheel. Just one little second to wrap her mind around the fact that she might be on her way to being unemployed.
Somewhere in this mess she’s have to find the upshot. She sat up, set her shoulders back, breathed in. I can do this.
Of course she could. Since the third grade when that mean girl, Jennifer Jacobs, had told her she was boring in front of the entire class and everyone laughed at her, she’d been finding the upshot.
Back then she’d figured out that if she put on her happy Hope face and acted upbeat and positive everyone would love her. Flock to her, wanting her to share all that good, never-ending energy.
From that day on, no one had ever called her boring again.
And Jennifer Jacobs? By the eighth grade, she was regularly giving blow jobs in the boys’ bathroom and being labeled a slut. A fact that shouldn’t have made Hope feel some sort of satisfaction, but most certainly did. Because Hope, by transforming herself into sunshine on a rainy day, had survived the trials of adolescence while Jennifer Jacobs, her tormentor, hadn’t.
Find the upshot.
That’s all she needed to do.
Her phone blared.
“Not now,” she muttered.
Whoever it was would have to wait. Rob probably. She’d barely had time to talk to him on her way out. She’d been standing in her cube, scooping up her purse and briefcase and he’d—as usual—peeked over the wall. Then she’d hit him with it. Suspended.
Adios.
Vomit backed up in her throat. She gagged once, tasted the nastiness in her mouth, that acidic, foul taste of puke that people never forgot. Don’t.
She wouldn’t do it. Wouldn’t sit in this car feeling sorry for herself, wallowing in her misfortune. Allowing herself to become physically ill over a job.
A job.
No one was dead. And she hadn’t been fired. Yet. Only a suspension pending an investigation into her actions. She’d have to hang on to that.
Her phone rang again and again she ignored it. A few seconds later, her voicemail chimed followed by three staccato knocks. The knocks were a text.
Then the phone rang again.
Three calls, a voicemail and a text in the last ninety seconds.
Someone wanted to talk to her. Quite badly.
She dug the phone out, hit the button and Hawk’s name filled the screen.
“Ha! Of course. The troublemaker himself.”
She clicked on the envelope and his message popped up. WHERE ARE YOU??? CALL ME ASAP. URGENT!!!!
And, oh. My. God, the man was a total drama queen. King. Whatever. She tossed the phone down and the minute it hit the passenger seat, it rang again.
Hawk.
“Are you insane?” she shouted at his name on the screen.
As desperate as she was to ignore him, she knew, sure as she was sitting in this damned car anticipating her career being sucked into oblivion, he’d keep calling. Like her, he had that dogged personality. Whether chasing a story or a person, he’d keep bugging her.
Just as she’d do.
Without picking the phone up, she tapped the speaker button. “What!”
His response to that was nothing but a few seconds of dead air.
“Hope?” he finally said, his voice clipped and questioning.
As if she didn’t have a right to be crabby. As if for just a few minutes she didn’t have the right to not be an optimist, to not be the sickening mixture of Perky Patti and Little Miss Mary Sunshine and be upset, no, be flat-out pissed that she was on the verge of losing a career she dreamed of.
I’m pissed. Huh. So, that’s what it felt like?
“Yes,” she said. “What is it?”
“Where are you?”
“In my car.”
Again, dead air. “Your car? Why? You need to be in your office. Your thoroughly secure office.”
“I’d love to. It’s not happening today.”
“Why?”
She let out a loud and more than a little sarcastic snort. “Well, Hawk, here’s the thing. That little stunt with Joel last night, the one I didn’t want you and Tony to pull?”
“What about it?”
Oh, he’d love this. And she’d make him wait a few seconds. Let him sit there and stew while she lined up the money shot. Four, three, two, one.
“Joel squealed,” she said.
Money.
Shot.
Apparently, she’d made her point because more dead air filled her car. Then again, she was in a parking garage. She could have lost the signal. Wouldn’t that be just perfect? The one time she wanted to be scathing and the call drops.
She finally picked up the phone, checked the signal.
“He did what?” Hawk’s voice boomed.
Still there. “He filed a complaint against Tony and I. My boss called me into her office the minute I arrived.”
“And?”
“She suspended me. I’m betting Officer Gerard suffered the same fate. He’s a cop for crying out loud.”
“Um, yeah. I can’t believe she suspended you. Wait. What am I saying? Of course they suspended you. Because that’s politics and bureaucratic bullshit. This kid files a complaint and they want to save their asses—never mind asking why we’d go to those lengths. Same shit, different year. Pricks.”
Great. Him and his anti-government rhetoric. Just what she needed right now. She half agreed with him because—come to think of it—Amy sure jumped to that suspension thing pretty quick. No thought, no warning, no consideration.
Just bam.
Which meant, Amy knew before Hope stepped into her office how that meeting would end. No matter what Hope had said, a complaint had been filed. Period. No back up. No protecting her employee. No loyalty.
Damn that Hawk. Now he had her preaching his message.
She stared straight ahead at the dull, gray cement support beam of the parking garage. Beyond that, a cloudy day only reinforced her mood. What she needed now was to leave here. Sitting here stewing did her no good. All it did was churn the acid inside her and one thing she never wanted was to give into the negativity.
She started the car, shifted and backed out of the parking space. “Hawk, I’ve gotta go.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Home I guess.”
“No!” he hollered.
His harsh tone made her pulse jump and she hit the brake hard enough that her head snapped forward. Having lived in D.C. for years, she’d gotten used to public transportation. Something that dulled her driving skills, made her reflexes a little less sharp. Meaning, she’d become a crappy driver. And Hawk screaming at her while performing said crappy driving might get her killed.
“Dammit! Don’t scream at me. I’m driving!”
“Hope, I’m on my way to you.”
“What? Why?”
“Check around you. Is anyone following you?”
The man’s paranoia had reached an all-time high. Still sitting in the middle of the full garage, she glanced around, then checked her mirror. Nothing. She lifted her foot off the brake and swung the turn for the first floor of the garage.
Parking garages were creepy anyway and Hawk was only making it worse.
“No. I don’t see anyone. Why?”
“Okay. Good. Just drive Hope. Blend into traffic, but keep moving. I’m three minutes from your office. Just stay on the line with me and tell me what streets you’re on. I’ll find you and then we’ll go someplace safe.”
What in hell was he talking about? “Hawk, seriously, it’s barely nine in the morning and I’m already exhausted. I don’t have a safety drill in me today.”
“Honey, this isn’t a drill. Teeg found something and it’s bad.”
At the garage exit, she braked again. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll explain later. Just keep moving.”
The garage gate lifted and she pulled forward, checking her mirrors and glancing around again. No cars following. A nerve in her jaw throbbed and she bit down. Don’t let him spook you.
“No. You’ll tell me now. What’s going on?”
“Are you still driving?”
“Yes! I’m driving,” she hollered. “I just pulled out of the garage. Now spill.”
“Someone is after me. And probably you too.”
At the sight of Hope’s car half a block ahead of him, relief flooded his body and Brice let go of the mental breath he been holding. “I see you,” he said into his phone. “I’m three cars back.”
“Now what do we do?” She came to a stop at a stoplight.
His phone dinged with an incoming text. Grey.
Safe house, it said. Ask for Ling-Ling. Tell her I sent you. Attached were GPS coordinates.
How does he do that?
Brice drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, anxious for traffic to start moving again. “Let me pass you in the next block and then follow me.”
“Where we going?”
“Somewhere safe.” I hope.
The light changed and traffic began to flow. Hope did as instructed, and soon Brice was in the lead. He followed the GPS coordinates, all the while listening to Hope ream him out.
“I knew I shouldn’t have let you and Tony hammer on Joel like that,” she said. “He didn’t do anything except make a stupid mistake accepting a vacation from a lobbyist to impress his girlfriend. And now I’m paying for it instead of him because I can’t tell my boss how you had Teeg illegally hack into the Supreme Court email system. Even if I don’t lose my job over this, it will be a blot on my record forever. I’ll never make it to the White House now. In fact, I might as well kiss any job in our nation’s capital buh-bye.”
Had she even heard what he’d said about someone being after them? At least she was still alive to complain. Thank God.
Probably not the best time to tell her about his little B&E earlier with Gerard.
But when I catch up to that pompous little ass, Joel, he won’t know what hit him. “Our lives could be in danger, Hope. Can you stop bitching me out long enough for me to get us to a safe place?”
Silence from the phone
met his ears.
He’d take that as agreement.
The arch welcoming them to Chinatown loomed ahead. The place they were heading to was on I Street. Where the hell was Grey taking them? Brice turned north on 7th Street before the arch. Several American businesses lined the street, their names in Chinese as well as English.
“If you think Kung Pao Chicken with a side of fried rice is going to make me feel better,” Hope said through the phone, “you’re sadly mistaken.”
Brice followed the GPS around the corner to an alley. Should he go down it? The coordinates indicated the place was in the middle of the block.
He took the plunge, driving into the alley. In his rearview, he saw Hope hesitate at the entrance.
“Are you sure about this?” Her voice sounded small and unsure. A trick of the speakerphone, he assured himself. She was going to beat his ass as soon as she had the opportunity.
Although he wasn’t sure about anything at the moment, he lied. “Of course.”
A section of parking opened up just past a line of dumpsters. As he wheeled into one of the open spots, he was facing the back of a nail salon. A glance up showed the entrance to a second-story apartment.
A set of wooden stairs went from the ground up to the apartment’s covered doorway. A clothesline ran between the support beams and a bunch of pots with dead plants lined the railing.
Hope pulled in next to him. “What are we doing here?” She was still speaking via her phone.
Brice turned off his car, snagged his phone and got out, cutting the connection and motioning for her to stay put. He hopped the single concrete step to the back door of the salon and buzzed the doorbell.
A short, dark-haired woman answered a minute later. Her nails were impeccable; her hair as shiny as the hood of his truck.
She looked him over but didn’t say anything, so he spoke first. “Ling-Ling?”
“Who is asking?”
Her accent was so faint, he wasn’t sure it even existed. “Grey sent me.”
She stepped back and shut the door in his face.
What the hell? All the adrenaline coursing through his system needed an outlet and he punched the wall. The ragged brick cut his knuckles and sent a sharp pain up his arm.
He was texting Grey when the woman reappeared, a key in hand. She shoved it at him, pointed up the outside stairs, and disappeared back inside.