Still, she’d already hopped up far too willingly for someone with so little sleep and volunteered to run back to her desk to get the delivered documents.
As soon as she was out the door, Donovan rolled his chair next to Eleri’s, “What was Wade about?”
She spoke over him. “Wade says he’s getting out of town.”
Donovan pulled back. “Why?”
Eleri sucked in a breath. “He says we need to hand this up to the Terrorism Task Force.”
“Oh. Yes, we do.” Despite being in NightShade, they’d both been through the same training at Quantico as every agent. Donovan remembered the protocol for things like this, but he sure hadn’t remembered before Wade had suggested it for them. They still weren’t even sure what they had was bona fide terrorism. But since all the signs pointed that way, the rules were that the TTF was to be alerted and they would make the call on whether or not they should handle it.
“But he also seemed really anxious to get out of town and to keep his name out of the files.” She sounded as worried as the words did.
“Did he say why?” That was odd. Wade was a solid investigator. At least everything Donovan had heard about him said so. Wade had even made their raid on a Texas compound possible in their first investigation, proving himself steady, solid, and invaluable. None of this clicked.
“I didn’t really get anything except the idea that he thinks this is headed sideways and he can get out, so he’s going to.” Eleri shook her head, her eyes in the distance, her thoughts processing Wade’s words but not coming to any obvious conclusion.
Donovan held up his phone. “Then let’s do it. Let’s call Westerfield, then hand this up to TTF.”
Eleri nodded in agreement and let Donovan ring up their boss. Once he started the conversation she chimed in.
Donovan expected Vasquez to come back with the file on Kellen at any moment, but protocol was important—he understood that logically, even if he didn’t have an attachment to order in his own life. He didn’t want anyone accusing them of causing more problems by holding the investigation for themselves for longer than they had to.
Westerfield’s answer was not what he expected. “I just fought for full ranking for both of you. Are you suggesting that you’re not up to the task?”
Donovan almost recoiled away from the phone. “Shouldn’t we at least consult the TTF?”
Her ear pressed nearly to his, the phone not on speaker in case Vasquez did come back, Eleri turned her eyes sharply to meet his. At least it was comforting that she didn’t think that was their best course either.
“You’re NightShade. We’re a special division. We handle our assignments. Unless you’re resigning, this one is yours.” Their boss seemed almost disturbed that they had called. He was overseeing their case, was supposedly still even in the area, but his reaction concerned Donovan. “Follow your leads. Solve it.”
Eleri spoke up then. Her words more general, her thoughts probably just as convoluted. “So do we come to you before we follow protocol in general? Like if we have a child kidnapping do we not alert that task force? Or if we have a suspected international event, we keep it to ourselves?”
“That’s exactly what you do. We can call in backup as needed, but the second we do our hands are tied.” He sounded gruff, almost parental.
Eleri turned her head so her frustrated sigh didn’t broadcast into the phone.
It made an odd kind of sense. They had special skills and special directives. Even working with Marina was a balance between how much the other woman helped and how much they had to hide. But it didn’t make sense not to at least alert the appropriate people, to get help of exactly the kind they needed.
The silence on the phone was broken by the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway. Vasquez was coming. Donovan opened his mouth to speak, letting both Eleri and Westerfield know their privacy was about to shift, but Westerfield managed to be a microsecond faster. His words traversed the air before Donovan could make his first sound.
“You work it the way we discussed. Find them, figure out who’s on what side, and remember that you have permission to remove someone if you have the evidence.” Then he hung up.
That was the NightShade directive: Use whatever you had. Donovan hadn’t really been let in on that in the beginning. Neither had Eleri. But Westerfield had followed her ‘hunches’ when no one else had. He’d also encouraged them to make use of Donovan’s abilities. Then he’d told them to take out their target rather than aiming for an arrest. NightShade had that umbrella directive, too, apparently.
Though Donovan as a medical examiner had been much more comfortable with dead people, he’d never been comfortable with the idea of making them dead. His Hippocratic oath had been just as sincere as his classmates’ had been, even though they fought cancers and delivered babies and treated ear infections in the living. None of this sat well in him.
Just then, Vasquez entered awkwardly, unable to open the heavy door and keep her freshly topped coffee from tipping while clutching the packet of info on Ken Kellen in her other hand. She came in with a smile on her face. “There’s a lot here. It may take us a bit.”
Their conversation about Westerfield and their directive cut short, Donovan and Eleri turned to the paperwork. Vasquez divided it and they spent an hour wading through, grabbing stacks of pages then resorting them. Eventually they made it to an incomplete set of data that was still partially redacted.
“Most of the redacted stuff is the same as for Rollins.” Vasquez mused. “I wonder if that’s important?”
“Probably is.” Eleri muttered. “If it weren’t, they wouldn’t have hidden it from us. Twice.” She was still looking down at the last pages in front of her.
Donovan knew that look. Wondered if she’d gotten something. While no one was watching, he palmed the small headshot of Kellen, wondering if his partner could get anything from a reprint of a photo. A thought flitted through his brain about religions that didn’t allow photos, about witches not showing up on film, about pictures stealing your soul. While he didn’t believe any of it outright, he passed a musing thought that maybe there was a grain of truth in there, and that maybe Eleri could latch onto that grain and use it.
Despite her insistence that he didn’t want her ‘skill,’ he still did. It would be so much easier to handle it himself, tell her later what he’d found. He didn’t like pushing her, and she didn’t like being pushed. Still, Donovan couldn’t deny the results, so he shoved the picture down into his pocket and turned his thoughts back to the present.
“So Kellen is older than Rollins, definitely been in the army longer. It seems like it took him longer to get into Special Forces than Rollins. He’s a languages expert . . .” Vasquez sighed. “Which makes him a perfect candidate to turn.”
Donovan frowned, and she seemed to pick up on his need to hear more.
“It means he could converse with any of the locals, probably already understood their customs and values better than the other soldiers. He could also possibly have private conversations in the open and not have anyone understand. Not any of his fellow soldiers.” She shrugged. “We need our troops to comprehend the other side, but not too much. It’s always a risk. The more they blend in . . . the more they can blend in, the more they can change their minds.”
Eleri pointed to her page. “He also doesn’t have Rollins’ commendations. That could make him bitter or just an underachiever.”
Vasquez shook her head. “There are no underachievers in Special Forces. And they don’t have underachiever kids either.”
“Oh.” Eleri’s mouth went round with understanding, followed quickly by what was probably sympathy. Donovan remembered the junior agent saying her Dad had been Special Forces, too.
Vasquez waved her off. “So there’s no real overlap between these two until they’re assigned to the same team in Fallujah.”
“The team where the op went to shit.” Donovan supplied. “Was he discharged around the same time
as Rollins?”
Eleri nodded and held up her stack of pages.
Donovan was so used to e-copies from his old days; he still hadn’t quite gotten used to Eleri’s love of dead trees. But he had to admit that she retained so much more when she had her papers. Reaching into the stack she deftly pulled one out. “Same day. They went out on the same mission and were both discharged after returning from it. But get this, Kellen was not one of the four who returned together. I don’t have anything on how he came back to the base, or even if he did. You?”
Her eyes searched them both. Both shook their heads.
Asking what he really wanted to know, Donovan looked at her pages. “Bogus medical discharge, like Rollins?”
Nodding, Eleri added, “Within the same hour.”
“Wow.” It was Vasquez’ only comment. She was opening her mouth to say more when she startled.
Donovan was about to ask what it was, when the other woman jumped up, pulled out her buzzing phone and sighed, “I have to take this,” before wandering out into the hallway.
Apparently, it was just the gap Eleri had been looking for.
Her suddenly worried eyes rolled right to him. “Wade has me concerned. I don’t like what Westerfield said about the TTF or how he told us to handle this.”
“Me, either.” Donovan shoved his hands into his pockets, frustrated at his inability to act in the way he’d been taught, and the way he truly believed was in everyone’s best interest. For a moment he remembered the windowless rooms in the medical examiner’s office in Columbia. He remembered just how little he had to answer up the pipeline. It hadn’t been never, but he couldn’t recall feeling like this. He wondered if he’d regret joining the FBI.
Eleri’s next words didn’t help.
“Do you think he’s setting us up? Do you think this is all going to go to hell and he’s throwing us under the bus?”
20
Cooper fought the sensations swarming him. He wanted to sit on the curb and put his hands over his ears. Instead he had to stand, listen, even occasionally speak in coherent sentences.
He swallowed but didn’t let it show. Then he did it again.
Ken Kellen knew exactly who Cooper was. They’d traded stories about home, talked about women and kids and family. Kellen knew about Alyssa and Christopher. He even had a good idea where they lived. And if he didn’t, Kellen had the chops to get into the network—the same as any of them did—and find out exactly where Cooper’s family was.
Cooper didn’t put it past the man to do something to them.
Still he had no clue who Ken Kellen really was.
He’d been there the day it went to hell. But he didn’t seem to have any bad side effects from it. Cooper had PTSD—developed after years of being in war, but all from that one mission turned rancid. Cooper had no wife or child anymore. Not really. He’d come home to them, but he’d not been fit to live with a family. Alyssa hadn’t wanted him. Not like he was. She pushed him into counseling. He did it.
And now Dr. Gardiner was dead.
Gardiner had to die. Cooper could see all the strings, leading out away from him, as well as the ties between the people in front of him. Sometimes they spoke English, keeping him in the loop, but every now and then someone lapsed into Farsi, or Pashto, and he was left with fragments of words that embedded themselves like shrapnel. He didn’t understand what they said, only bits and pieces.
He also understood that Kellen understood everything. The man laughed with the others and turned to Cooper, translating. Though Cooper offered a conciliatory smile, the joke wasn’t funny anymore.
He laughed with them again. A false front of humor even when the joke was in English. They planned a meeting for the next week, then they split up.
As he headed back home, he felt Kellen following him. Was he trying to finish a job he hadn’t completed in Fallujah? Was he watching out for his friend, making sure that Cooper was okay? Or was he just suspicious of the new guy?
Cooper never actually saw the other man behind him. So he went home, and waited. Only then did he see Kellen pass by on the sidewalk about five minutes after Cooper was safely inside.
On a whim, he turned the tables.
Placing the phone with the tracker on his nightstand, he pushed another phone in his pocket and headed down the stairs. He still didn’t know who was tracking him, but if it was Fracture Five, they’d hopefully believe he’d stayed home.
This time, he followed Kellen.
The redhead went straight back to the apartment where they’d had the meeting. That was actually quite good. While he’d been in the meeting, Cooper watched out the windows, looked for vantage points to see inside. So when Kellen went in, Cooper went past. Into the next building, he wound his way up the stairs, and picked his way into the empty unit he’d spotted.
Field glasses revealed something surprising. Everyone was there. Except him.
Shit. He was still the new guy. Hadn’t done enough to earn their trust yet. He wasn’t all that surprised. He’d hardly done anything. Just moved a few pieces here and there. He wasn’t an idiot—he hadn’t opened any of the backpacks. That was not appropriate for a first run, or a second, or even a third. But while he made one of the trips, he had held the backpack he carried out a bit, pushing it near the noses of the dogs he passed. Most turned their heads, indicating that whatever he carried was something they didn’t like the smell of.
He’d waited to get tackled. To get taken down by the police, or the FBI people who kept trying to follow him. It hadn’t happened, and he’d delivered the plain, almost too-normal looking backpacks several times.
Still, the cell didn’t trust him. They had deliberately broken up the meeting, dispersed and regrouped once they believed he was home. Kellen was on the inside. But Cooper wasn’t.
He couldn’t hear what they said, but the conversation seemed more intense than the one he’d been part of—or almost part of—earlier.
Several hours later, the meeting ended and Cooper found himself following Ken Kellen again. This time, his ex-team member headed a long way down the freeway, and Cooper barely managed to keep up. Stealing a car was a bad but necessary tactic. He’d return it later.
It was a good call, as Kellen met up with another group. These guys looked like they were meeting for poker. Only when Cooper got a view through the window in the unassuming home, they sat around the table, no cards, no chips. Instead they were having a deep conversation.
Several of the men pounded on the table. Several women refilled glasses and brought small amounts of food but stayed part of the vehement conversation. Kellen fit in here as well as he did at the other meeting.
Only this time, the members clutched Bibles. Cooper could have sworn he saw several mouths say the passcode “Fracture Five.”
Eleri’s head hurt. She’d slept with the picture of Ken Kellen despite the fact that she hated that stuff. She did it despite the fact that she was rolling into old habits—putting the job before her own needs, pushing herself to squeeze everything she could out of any gifts she might have.
Those old habits had gotten her four months in the looney bin, and she’d only gotten to stay for three of those months. Westerfield had yanked her from her cocoon before she’d been finished. While inside, Eleri tackled her treatment with the same gusto and desire for success she brought to everything. Something her therapists pointed out was maybe not the best idea.
They wanted her to do things like ‘take up a hobby’ and ‘find a romantic attachment.’ So, ever the achiever, she’d taught herself to knit with a pair of chopsticks from the cafeteria. Apparently, actual knitting needles could fall into the wrong hands. Eleri bit her tongue to keep from pointing out to the kindly staff exactly how much damage she could inflict with chopsticks. And how much easier death would be from a pointy object.
She’d also developed imaginary relationships with fictionalized versions of several actors. Why settle for just one boyfriend? It wasn’t as if there were
any real prospects at the hospital. Just other patients and the staff. All inappropriate. And out here? Donovan was her partner and she didn’t think of him that way. Wade was gay. Westerfield was her boss, and everyone else was a suspect.
The man she was currently sleeping with was Ken Kellen—in photographic form. All she’d gotten out of it was waking cranky, unsettled, and with no additional information.
Now she was topping off her night with a very early morning ride out to the home of the fourth missing person. Donovan was driving, which was a good thing. She was downright pissy.
The sun was barely peeking over the horizon. They were heading out without Marina Vasquez, on purpose. Yet another thing they couldn’t tell their junior agent. And for some reason, L.A. was cold. Eleri almost hadn’t thought it could happen.
She was naturally warm blooded, but this morning the cold got to her and her hand lifted to her upper chest, touching the lump under her shirt and the jacket over it. It was probably pretty obvious, but Donovan hadn’t asked.
Another mysterious package, this one just for Eleri, had been on the dining room table this morning. Eleri told herself that Donovan had brought it in with the mail. Didn’t let herself even think back to whether it had been there the night before, or that mail didn’t come between the hours of eleven p.m. and five a.m. She ignored the fact that it was addressed simply to “Makinde” in Grandmere Remi’s loopy scrawl. And she didn’t let herself think that Donovan would have no idea that her Grandmere called her by that name. It had somehow been waiting on the table.
Inside she had found only the grisgris. No note, no warning other than the beautifully worked leather pouch strung from the gorgeous ribbon. This one had no scent.
Eleri had learned long ago that a love spell smelled, a keep-away smelled, the pouch to be worn next to the skin in order to bring harm to another smelled. This one had no odor. This one was for protection from the darkest of human hearts. Grandmere believed fully and deeply. Eleri didn’t know what she thought of it herself.
The NightShade Forensic Files: Fracture Five (Book 2) Page 17