by Layla Reyne
“Does this happen often?” he asked. “Warning messages and resets?”
“Once every few months.” Nate didn’t look up as his caffeine-fueled fingers flew across the keyboard. Aidan hadn’t seen anyone, except Jamie, type that fast. “When it does, we have to reset keys and update the encryption directory.”
A directory where everyone’s encryption data was stored. “Who has access to the directory?” Encryption security was not the focus of Aidan’s audit of Aurora or Pearl, but months working alongside the Bureau’s best Cyber agent had fine-tuned his hacker antennae.
“Chief of Information Security. And you.”
Aidan slid forward in his chair. “Me?”
Nate shot him a “well, duh” look. “Legal Compliance has full access.”
“Do you know who set off the alarm?”
“Spencer. Messed up his manual entry.” He jutted his chin at the bullpen. “With these overgrown frat boys, it always seems to happen right after a big sporting event.”
“The Final Four was this weekend.” Jamie and Byrne had gone. Aidan would have liked to go with them.
The interest must have shown on his face. “You a basketball fan?” Nate asked.
Aidan smiled and another bit of anger fell away. “You could say that.”
“I’m sensing a story there.” Nate rose and stepped to the side, making a sweeping Vanna White gesture toward his laptop. “That should do it. Just need you to test it.”
Aidan reclaimed his desk chair and once the computer rebooted, logged in.
Nate tapped at his phone, almost as fast as he had at the keyboard. “All right, incoming message.”
An Aurora notification popped up on Aidan’s screen and he entered the new encryption key Nate had scribbled on a Post-it. There was a system key and another the user had to manually enter. Two layers of encrypted protection.
The Aurora box blinked “Match,” then uploaded an image. Of UNC’s logo. The interlocked N and C Jamie had inked on his chest.
Aidan’s face fell and he rubbed the heel of his hand against his sternum, heart hurting not from anger but from its other half’s absence.
“Oh,” Nate said softly. “Not a happy story.”
“A work in progress. Ending yet to be determined.”
Nate clapped his back. “Choose your own adventure. Make it a happily ever after.”
It was a nice thought, a fresh perspective that brought a half smile back to Aidan’s face, until a familiar form passed outside his office door. African American, tall, close-cropped black hair, a lean runner’s build. He’d only gotten a glimpse, but the person looked like Kevin Currie, the MD/PhD student and hacker who’d assisted him and Jamie in Galveston. What was he doing here at Pearl?
Standing, Aidan rounded the desk and hurried past a bewildered Nate.
“Was it something I said?” Nate asked.
Aidan peered out the door...to a bullpen like any other day. No Kevin in sight. He scanned left, right, then one more time ahead, before turning back to Nate. “No, just thought I saw someone I knew.”
“What’d he look like?”
“Younger version of Usain Bolt, basically.”
“Ah, that was probably Leon.”
“Leon?”
“Leon Masters. Wharton, by way of a competitor firm. Total whiz kid.”
Aidan surveyed the bullpen again, including the glass conference rooms in each corner. No Kevin or his lookalike. Was he seeing hacks and ghosts where none existed? Is this what happened without a partner to ground him?
* * *
Jamie stood behind the bar in SFO’s Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse, his laptop open and mounds of flight manifests teetering on either side. Opposite him, Lauren twisted on the black leather stool as she sifted through stacks of her own. Between them on the glass-top bar, for easy reference, were the two pictures of Renaud.
Mel had flashed her badge and secured the Clubhouse as their on-site war room. While luxurious, the space was tight for the mess he and Lauren had made and for the path Mel was wearing into the adjacent lounge area carpet, weaving between tables and chairs as she gave some poor airline exec hell on the phone.
“I don’t care how many people you have to pull off of gate duty, out of baggage claim or out of bed. Get me every fucking flight manifest for yesterday’s arrivals from JFK and get them to me within the next half hour or I’ll have your job.” She paused in her circuit, a deep crease forming between her brows, then let loose again, her SAC tone ratcheting up. “Oh, you don’t think I can? This is an international terrorist we’re talking about. He nearly perpetrated an attack on US soil last year. You want a successful one on your hands today?”
The pause that followed was much shorter.
“I didn’t think so.”
She dropped the phone in her jacket pocket and issued orders to the two TSA agents waiting at her end of the bar. They’d been at her command all afternoon and evening, running back and forth to check-in counters and airline offices. After Mel’s latest tirade, they looked more terrified than ever. Jamie thanked all that was holy she hadn’t been on the Academy lecture rotation when he’d come through. She might have scared him back to crypto academia.
She hadn’t let up once in the six hours since they’d charged into SFO and demanded all security footage from Terminal 2. Unfortunately, for all her blustering and his and Lauren’s efforts, they hadn’t found any additional footage of Renaud or clues as to his whereabouts or identity. He’d either donned a disguise before leaving or knew how to avoid the cameras, when he wanted to. He was a ghost, the skill perfected over at least a decade, according to Interpol.
When security footage didn’t yield results, they’d moved onto passenger manifests, particularly from inbound JFK flights arriving at Terminal 2. Lauren had zoomed out her original picture, refocused on the surrounding passengers’ luggage, and identified an abundance of JFK tags. Assuming Renaud had just reentered the States, JFK would have been on the list of likely connections, along with a dozen other high international traffic airports. Narrowing that list had helped. They’d looked first at the flights arriving around the same time as the picture, then at those arriving over the past twelve hours, in case Renaud had already been in the airport.
But of course he wasn’t listed on any manifest as Pierre Renaud. Not a surprise, which was why they also checked the lists against all his known aliases. So far, they were SOL, which prompted Mel to get on the horn and demand manifests for all inbound flights arriving at Terminal 2 and at the rest of SFO’s Terminals. They were looking for a goddamn needle in a massive fucking haystack.
Jamie tossed his last folder onto his precariously leaning “done” stack and stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the Bay, the setting sun casting an orange glow across the runways and water. Renaud was here, in the Bay Area. While Jamie banged his head against a brick wall, Renaud could be targeting his loved ones, including Aidan. Mel had ordered extra security outside Pearl’s office building and at Aidan’s parents’ estate in Woodside, where she’d told Danny to gather the rest of the Talleys. But Jamie wouldn’t let up until they had some notion of Renaud’s plan and whereabouts.
He drummed his thumbs on the bar top, thinking how to approach this another way. “Let’s go over the search metrics again.”
Lauren’s head jerked up, long strands of brown curls falling out of her makeshift pencil bun. Makeup long worn off, she looked closer to twenty than thirty. But she was the crack analyst who’d gotten them this far and he was the Bureau’s best hacker. They could do this.
They had to do this.
“At present,” Lauren said, “we’re searching name, aliases, appearance, JFK as the departure airport, and past travel history in Morocco, France and Switzerland.”
Home, the assassin had said.
“Change-up,” Jamie said. “Let’s assume this is home. The Bay Area. Narrow the pool to one-way flights and knock out the rest of the parameters.”
“All of them?” Her eyes widened round as saucers. “You’re joking, right?”
That probably was too big a pool. “Keep it limited to Terminal 2. Two-hour time window on either side of the security footage. Male.”
“And local address.”
He nodded. “Use all the greater Bay Area zip codes.”
“Give me height too. That’s the only thing he can’t really alter about his appearance. He’s six-three plus, regardless.”
“I’ll give you that.”
New parameters set, it took less than twenty minutes to identify twelve individuals of interest. When Mel dropped another stack of manifests between him and Lauren, Jamie waved them off. “Don’t need those.”
“What’ve you got?” Mel asked.
Jamie picked up the stack of twelve, the two Renaud photos and his laptop, waited for Lauren to lift her own, then used his free arm to sweep the rest of the manifests and files off the bar and onto the floor. Mel rolled her eyes, like Aidan would, and Jamie’s chest constricted, missing the absent member of their team. The pang of melancholy was eased by Lauren’s failed effort to hide a smile.
He set his laptop on the ledge above the bar. In front of it he laid the two pictures of Renaud and the twelve highlighted manifests. On his laptop screen were displayed corresponding DMV records of the twelve males matching Renaud’s approximate height, who had a greater Bay Area address, and had arrived in Terminal 2 during the specified time window.
Mel stepped around Lauren and pulled the pictures of Renaud closer, her dark eyes bouncing between them and the laptop screen. “Maybe this one.” She pointed a manicured nail at Thomas Dean, home address in Belmont, California.
Lauren’s gaze whipped back and forth—screen, pictures, screen, pictures—until she snatched the photos out of Mel’s hands. “Sorry, I’m sorry, bad manners,” she babbled, as she brandished the pictures in the air. “But look at this.” She slapped the photos back down on the bar top, facing Jamie, her index fingers on Renaud’s head in each picture. “It’s tilted, in both.”
“Because he’s a deep thinker?” Jamie said, not following.
“No,” Mel said. “Because he can’t hear as well out of that ear. Good job, Ms. Hall.” She laid a hand on Lauren’s shoulder and the younger woman beamed. “His bad ear is angled toward the loudspeaker here.” Mel tapped at the airport picture. “And to the bazaar stall owner in this one.” She tapped at the original Renaud picture. “Same direction. And in the other one too...”
Her words trailed off, owing to Lauren’s presence, but Jamie knew Mel was referring to the other picture that had destroyed the most important person in their lives. The one with Renaud and Gabe. He recalled it perfectly, like the fiery nightmares he couldn’t shake, and she was right. Renaud had his bad ear canted toward Gabe in that other picture.
Jamie studied the DMV pictures again and zeroed in on the second to last one. “Him,” he said, tapping the screen. “His head’s tilted the same way. Like he was listening to the DMV worker taking the picture.” The man’s hair was on the longer side, a shade darker than his brown eyes, and his nose was crooked, as if he’d broken it multiple times. He looked nothing like Renaud on first glance—no white-blond hair, no pale green eyes, no perfect patrician nose—but on closer look, the face was similarly long and lean, and his height and age were right.
“Lauren, capture this image and open it in appearance manipulation.” Jamie rounded the bar and stood behind her, waiting as she opened the facial recognition and manipulation program. “Make the hair and eye color match Renaud’s,” he directed.
She altered the image. Closer, but the nose still threw him.
“Prosthetic,” Mel said, reading his thoughts. “Match the nose too.”
“Pretty damn close,” Jamie said, once the adjustments were made.
“Peter Wald of Los Altos, California,” Mel read from the driver’s license.
“Holy shit!” Lauren yelped, hands flailing, then covered her mouth when Mel shot her a sharp look. “Sorry, sorry. Holy crap, I meant.” She split a glance between them. “Renaud is a combo of the German words ragin and wald.”
“And Pierre is the French form of Peter,” Mel added.
“That’s him,” Jamie said, hope surging. Finally, a fucking lead. He yanked his laptop off the ledge, opened the FBI’s search engine, and entered “Peter Wald.” A profile loaded, Jamie began to read, and a quarter of the way down, hope died a quick and violent death. His heart stopped and his knees went weak.
Seeing him sway, Mel shot out an arm and clutched his biceps. “Jamie, what is it?”
He closed his eyes, inhaled a shaky breath, and brushed a trembling thumb over the cufflink at his wrist. “Look at his place of employment.”
Jamie knew the instant she saw it, her nails digging painfully into his arm.
Pearl Investments.
The same place Aidan was undercover.
Chapter Five
911. Tavern. 11:00.
Mel’s text chimed at half past eight, just as the first of two nightly cargo planes landed at Moffett, shaking Aidan’s office windows like her message rattled his nerves.
What’s going on? he texted back.
Eyes on your six. Stay in your office until you leave. Two cars outside are mine.
She’d assigned him a protective detail. Only one reason for that—Renaud—which meant Aidan wasn’t the only one in danger. Jamie, family okay?
Yes. Yes. See you at 11.
He spent the next two hours pacing, one hand twirling a pen, the other compulsively checking his phone. He nearly gave in to the urge to call Danny or Jamie, but stopped himself, finger hovering over their names in his favorites list, not wanting to compromise God only knew what was going on.
Come ten-thirty, Aidan blew past the security guards and hauled ass across the parking lot. Tugging off his tie and suit coat, he ditched them in the Chevelle’s backseat, revved the engine, and peeled out of the lot. Jamie’s muscle car wasn’t equipped with flashy blue lights like the Vanquish, but between the roar of its engine and the Bureau-issue sedans on either side of him, the rest of the cars on the freeway got out of the way.
He took the Woodside Road exit, tires squealing, and when he swung into the Tavern’s lot a mile later, his escorts sped up the hill, to his parents’ estate, Aidan suspected. But at least one family member was here, Danny’s Maserati parked next to Mel’s Benz. The car he most wanted to see, though, Jamie’s Jeep, was nowhere in sight. Only a couple random cars, staff probably, and another Bureau sedan with two agents inside. Aidan tapped their window as he passed by, gave them a nod, and opened the Tavern’s heavy wooden door.
He hadn’t been here since the night Jamie first coaxed him into a dance. In his then-new partner’s arms, possibility—hope—had bloomed for the first time since Gabe’s death. Those memories of Jamie here, and the memories of Gabe that Aidan always associated with this place—his late husband’s proposal, their wedding reception, his sister going into labor with their goddaughter mid-toast—had kept Aidan away.
Inside, the lights were up and the evening’s patrons had cleared out. So had most of the staff. Only Roy remained behind the bar.
The bartender held out a hand. “Hey, stranger.”
“Good to see you again,” Aidan said, shaking it.
“Wish it were under better circumstances.”
Aidan followed Roy’s drifting gaze to the back corner of the dining room. Mel, Danny and Lauren Hall sat gathered around an oval table, poring over stacks of papers, their faces grim.
“Sidecar?” Roy offered.
“This looks more like a Maker’s, double, kind o
f night.”
Movement in the short hall by the bathroom drew Aidan’s attention. And stole his breath when Jamie stepped out of the shadows. His tall, strapping partner walked with a hitch, his right pant-leg bulkier from a cast or brace underneath, but otherwise he looked good. Better than good, even if rumpled and weary. His tie was gone, his wrinkled shirtsleeves rolled up, and his hair was a tumbled mess, like he’d run his hands through it all day.
He did it again, right hand raking through the light brown waves, and Aidan bit his bottom lip to stifle a groan.
Not well enough.
Bright blue eyes shot up and Jamie rocked to a stop. Aidan’s heart triple-beat over itself, waking from hibernation. The anger still lingered in the back of his mind, but the desire to go to Jamie, to take him in his arms again, far outweighed it.
Jamie’s lips moved, a silent Baby.
Aidan felt it all the way to his balls. Realizing how desperately he’d missed the endearment, how desperately he wanted to hear it whispered in Jamie’s deep, Southern drawl, he started forward, only to be thrown off course by Roy’s gruff, “Double,” and the click-clack of Mel’s approaching heels.
Trance broken, Aidan claimed his whiskey. “What’s going on?”
“Renaud’s here,” Mel replied.
He nearly dropped the glass, but Jamie was there, wrapping a hand around his and steadying the glass. His partner’s grip was big, warm, and Aidan couldn’t tear his eyes away from it.
Until the implications of Mel’s words sank in.
Anger flared and he yanked out of Jamie’s grasp, taking two steps back. “And you’re just telling me now? Did we not learn our lessons?”
Jamie reached for him again, and Aidan warned him off.
“Ai,” Danny called from the table. “Come and sit. Let them explain.”
Was this some sort of ambush? “So, what, now you’ve forgiven them?” For once, he and Danny had been on the same side of things, both betrayed by the ones they loved the most.
“Far from it.” Danny looked even more tired and drawn than Jamie. And scared most of all.