by Cindy Gerard
“Carry on, then,” Black said, and a collective breath of relief moved through the room. “Just keep it on the down low.”
“Yes, sir.” Coop worked hard to contain his relief.
“One condition,” Black added with a hard look. “Your other duties don’t suffer. That goes for all of you.”
“Count on it.” Coop had gotten damn good at lying; he fully intended to give next week’s security-check gig to Waldrop. That would get Burns out of his sight and off his mind and allow him to give all of his energy to this investigation.
“You need any of my team, say the word,” Black added. “If they’re available, they’re yours.”
“We can use all the help we can get. Thanks.”
“And I’m sure you can use this information, too.” He pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his chest pocket. “The ballistics reports just came in on the slugs they dug out of the walls in the restaurant and the four cartridges they found on the scene.” He handed the information to Coop. “No prints on the playing cards, but we didn’t think there would be. The guy is anything but sloppy. So far, no DNA, either.”
Coop skimmed the report.
“What are we looking at?” Santos’s expectant tone voiced the question that was on everyone’s mind.
“As we figured, the slugs dug out of the wall match the cartridges the shooter left at the scene: .223-caliber, hand-loaded.”
Carlyle gave a low whistle. “Anything special about the .223?”
“It’s heavy,” Black said. “Ninety grains.”
Waldrop sat forward. “The military issue is sixty-two grains. So he’s dead serious. A crack shooter behind the trigger can zap a target out to a thousand yards with that kind of load.”
Coop let out a long breath. “Yeah. It’s also too big to feed through an AR-15 or M16 unless you single-load it, which is a major pain in the ass.”
“So you figure he was probably using a bolt-action?” Santos asked.
Coop nodded. “Yeah. Which means we’re looking at someone who does both close and long-distance kills and knows what the hell he’s doing.”
“Contract hit?” Taggart asked.
All eyes turned to Nate Black, who said, “It’s sure starting to look that way.”
12
After Black left, everyone in the room relaxed, Rhonda included. He was an imposing man but clearly a fair one. And good to his word, it was only a few minutes before Gabe Jones and Johnny Reed from Black’s team joined them. Which delayed the briefing again as the men exchanged a little trash talk, along with relief at the optimistic news about Eva.
While Reed and Jones got up to speed on the ballistics report, Rhonda scrolled through the data feeding into her tablet. Being the only estrogen-fueled person on the team, she’d felt pretty darned overwhelmed the first time she’d been in the same room with this much testosterone. Frankly, it had taken a while to get used to them.
To a man, these guys were alpha warriors. Intelligent, insightful, skilled, and deadly. Along with Black’s team, they were the best of the best. She’d seen the proof when she’d been tasked to spend her first month reading after-action reports detailing their missions.
One in particular stood out in her mind. It involved an unsanctioned, off-the-books rescue of a U.S. soldier who had been presumed killed in action but who’d actually been held captive in Afghanistan for almost four years. They’d infiltrated a heavily infested Taliban stronghold in Kandahar Province, with nothing but very distant air support to back them up in case things got dicey.
Things had.
And speaking of dicey, she’d noticed how stiffly Cooper moved this morning, how he didn’t raise his left hand and ducked his head to hide a wince. He was hurting, but he didn’t want the team to see it. She probably wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been so tuned in to his frequency because of that stupid kiss at the hospital last night.
Oh, who was she trying to kid? She’d been tuned in since the first time she’d set eyes on him. He moved with purpose, strength, and a fluidity that was as natural as it was sexy. So, yeah, as much as he irritated her, he commanded way too much of her attention. And it was very clear to her that he was in a world of hurt today.
“Okay,” Cooper said. “Let’s dial down the BS and get this briefing back on track.”
She couldn’t help but admire the way he sucked it up and took control of the team in Mike’s absence. He must have been working all night, if the neatly compiled notes on the whiteboard were any indication.
She was also grateful that he hadn’t attempted to corner her this morning to talk about what had happened at the hospital. He’d actually avoided even looking at her ever since she’d arrived.
So . . . that was probably good. It probably meant that he was as eager as she was to forget it ever happened.
She still couldn’t believe she’d let him kiss her. Or that she’d kissed him back.
Or that she’d gotten lost in the feel and the heat and the scent of him, pressed against her.
She’d even dreamed about him last night. Woke up hot and bothered and . . .
“Rhonda?”
She jumped.
“Would you recap what you shared with Mike and me last night at the hospital?”
“Right. Sure.” She concisely told them about her computer searches in progress, her loosey-goosey profile, and the information she’d gleaned from DCIS.
“DCIS granted you access to their interview info?” Gabe Jones sounded skeptical.
When Rhonda glanced at Cooper, he gave her a nod. “Let’s just say, if they’ve logged the interviews on their computer system, I have access to it. And any other data pertinent to the shooting.”
“So what you’re not saying is that you’ve got crazy, badass hacker skills,” Johnny Reed concluded with a “hell, yeah” grin.
Rhonda grinned back. “You think I was hired for my cooking skills?”
“Oh, no, darlin’. Your cooking skills never crossed my mind.”
A cowboy and a comic, Reed never missed a chance to flirt. His wife, Crystal—Tinkerbell—couldn’t care less. Everyone knew that Reed adored Tink—not to mention that the little redheaded firecracker wouldn’t hesitate to separate him from his “package” if he even thought about cheating on her.
“Rhonda’s locked into the McLean PD and FBI databases, too,” Cooper added, quieting the room down again. “If they know it, we know it. What we need now,” he went on, “is luck. Something to pop up that makes a connection to Eva. To the teams.”
Then Coop said something that made Rhonda think he just might have that connection.
“Because there’s a chance La Línea cartel could be behind this.”
• • •
“Holy frijoles.” Santos glanced up at Coop. “La Línea? You fingering those drug lords for Eva’s shooting?”
Coop had been wide awake and restless most of last night. If it wasn’t his shoulder and calf giving him fits, it was his constant concern for Eva, not to mention the questions about the shooter who was clearly taunting them. And in between, weaving in and out of every thought, he saw Rhonda. Felt Rhonda. Tasted Rhonda.
Finally, he’d thrown back the covers, made a pot of coffee, and spent the wee hours working on theories to help narrow the search that Rhonda had so painstakingly started.
“It’s a good possibility,” Coop said now, answering Santos’s question.
“Why La Línea?” Waldrop asked.
Coop glanced around the room. “For the new kids in class, two years ago, Eva and Mike infiltrated a geopolitical ‘cult’ called UWD, United We Denounce.”
“As in denounce the U.S. government?” Waldrop asked.
Coop nodded. “Exactly. Their main compound was in Squaw Valley, Idaho, run by an anarchist type, Joseph Lawson. Lawson was taking his orders from a guy by t
he name of Brewster, a former Army general. Both are now deceased, thanks to Mike, Eva, Taggart, and yours truly. Mike and Eva went in posing as UWD devotees, hoping to find information to clear the three of us from false court-martial charges that dated back eight years—and involved Brewster.”
He noticed that Rhonda was paying very close attention.
“Once Mike and Eva got in and started gathering intel, they found that not only was Lawson linked to the false court-martial, too, but he was also planning an offensive against several government offices. And most pressingly, he was funding the operation by selling guns and ammo to La Línea.”
“Nice company,” Waldrop said with a grunt.
“Nate Black’s boys”—he nodded toward Reed and Jones—“located Taggart and me, and we joined Mike and Eva on the undercover sting. We destroyed their operation and exposed and took out the UWD top dogs, along with several high-ranking soldiers in La Línea’s organization.”
“There’s your vendetta,” Santos said. “La Línea’s been biding their time, waiting for an opportunity to take the four of you out. Payback for their lost guns-and-ammo pipeline.”
“If it was them,” Carlyle pointed out.
Coop conceded the point. “Rhonda, did you see anything in DCIS’s data banks that indicate they’re looking in La Línea’s direction?”
She shook her head. “No, but I haven’t been back on their servers since the middle of the night. Hold that thought.”
While she pecked around on the tablet, Coop walked over to the coffeepot and forced himself to pour a cup of sludge.
“Here it is.” Rhonda sounded excited. “Looks like DCIS has interfaced with DEA, DHS, CIA, FBI, Interpol, and . . . even the Mexican National Security and Investigation Center. So I’d say yes, they are definitely on it.”
“Then let’s let them run with it. Another possibility,” Coop continued, “is that there may be some disgruntled UWD disciples upset that we destroyed their stronghold, took out their leaders, and sent the majority of the fold to prison. It’s a good bet there could be an ex-military sniper in their ranks.”
He returned to the podium and, gritting through the pain that stabbed into his shoulder, dug into the folder of information he’d compiled last night. He found the profile he wanted and held it up. “This one in particular.”
“Looks like a real thinker,” Waldrop said, as he checked out the photo of the man with Charles Manson eyes, a bushy beard, and unkempt graying hair.
“Barry Hill,” Coop said as Waldrop passed the photo on. “Hill was Joseph Lawson’s number one disciple. A real fanatic. Former Army.”
Jones checked out the picture, then passed it on. “Hill’s not in prison?”
“He was,” Coop said. “He was released a couple of months ago on a technicality. I checked with a friend at DHS last night, and the word is that Hill continues to spout UWD rhetoric, labels Lawson’s death an unjustified execution, and has made promises on a UWD underground Web site to do something to make the ‘bastards’ responsible pay.”
“So we definitely have another horse in the race,” Reed said.
“Something we haven’t talked about,” Santos said, sounding reluctant. “Whether it was personal or not, hired or not, these kinds of birds who kill professionally are rare, and they don’t hang around waiting to be discovered.”
Santos was right. The shooter could have gone so far to ground and so deep in the shadows that there was a huge possibility they’d never find him.
“An organization like La Línea might bring in a professional long-distance killer, but considering that snipers are specialized and expensive to keep around, they might have attempted the hit by themselves instead. They also like to do their dirty work up close and personal.” Coop took a sip of coffee, then shuddered at the horrible taste. “Same for Hill. He sees himself as quite the killing machine.”
The room fell silent as the teams considered Coop’s theories.
“Opinions? Anyone?” he asked after several moments.
“Yeah.” Taggart looked thoughtful. “Some of those women at the UWD camp were pretty screwed up. Brainwashed, browbeaten, and force-fed propaganda that Lawson was the equivalent of the Messiah. Could this be a ‘stand by your man’ type of vendetta?” He shrugged a shoulder. “Nothing says revenge like a crazy woman with a cross to bear.”
He had a good point. They shouldn’t overlook the mind-set of women who’d been coerced into a dark, subservient lifestyle. Stockholm syndrome could come into play.
“So the cartel, Hill, and maybe some brainwashed UWD followers have incentive,” Rhonda said. “All are very familiar with you, Taggart, and Mike and Eva’s connection.”
“Just want to point out that leaving the playing cards and the cartridges behind smacks of a cartel calling card,” Reed said. “Both a promise and a threat.”
“True,” Coop said with a thoughtful nod.
Jones zeroed back in on Hill. “Does Hill have the chops to pull off something like this?”
“He looks stupid,” Coop agreed, “but he’s crazy stupid. The kind of stupid who would stage an elaborate ‘scene of the crime’ just for shits and grins.”
The room grew silent again while they all chewed on their thoughts.
“ICE just made that bust on Ibarra last month,” Jones said after a long moment. “My money’s on any drug- or mob-related players, including La Línea, to lie low for a while.” He frowned as he talked through his thoughts. “While it fits that they’d want their pound of flesh, I don’t think they’d have waited this long. And I don’t think they’d draw attention to themselves on the heels of the Ibarra arrest. It’s too risky.”
Coop was inclined to agree. “Hill, on the other hand, needed time to regroup and recruit reinforcements.” He looked out over the room. “We want to toss our marbles into that game?”
Slow, thoughtful head nods indicated agreement.
“All right, then. We go with Hill and let the alphabet boys look deeper into La Línea. Let’s track him down, see what he has to say about his whereabouts yesterday morning. And while you’re at it, see if you can get any leads on the women who were at the camp. Let’s not leave any stone unturned.”
“Hold on.” Rhonda’s voice rose over the sound of chairs scraping on the floor as they got up to leave. “This just came across from DCIS, and it’s something you all need to know,” she said, holding a hand in the air to keep their attention.
“They checked every security and traffic camera in a five-block radius of the shooter’s nest, and every single one of them had been disabled in the two hours before the shooting.”
“You’re shitting me.” Reed looked incredulous. “That takes connections. Just like it took connections to find out we were going to be at Brewed Awakenings yesterday morning at that time.”
“Which means your phones might be compromised. You’re all going to need new units.” Over their groans, Rhonda said, “You know where to turn the old ones in, and the sooner the better, so we can start mining the SIM cards for possible data.”
“Quick question,” Santos said. “I get why the shooter left the playing cards. He wanted to make certain you knew this was personal. Same with the four cartridges. It leaves no doubt they were the same as the ones that hit Eva and me and who the next targets are. But why leave bullets that might be traced?”
Coop shook his head. “I wish I knew. But I have a feeling that when we figure out that piece, we’ll know for certain who’s out to get us. Until then, the best bet we’ve got is finding Hill.”
13
Coop stood alone in his office after the team had gone to work digging up leads on Hill. They’d root him out, he had no doubt. UWD followers weren’t necessarily the sharpest knives in the drawer. They liked to bitch and brag. The boys would find someone who knew someone who knew Hill and knew where he was.
He only
hoped they were looking in the right place. Did Hill have the means to pull off the shoot? Would La Línea be a more likely suspect? Or was he looking in the wrong direction altogether? That thought chilled him to the bone.
• • •
Rhonda knew she was going to regret this—in fact, she already did. But she knocked on Cooper’s office door anyway and, on a bracing breath, opened it before he had a chance to say “come,” “go,” or “leave me the hell alone.”
He looked up from the papers spread across his desk and scowled when he saw it was her.
“I’m just as surprised as you are,” she said, reacting to the look on his face. “Don’t worry. This won’t take long.”
She closed the door behind her, walked to his desk, and laid out the medical supplies she’d gotten from the infirmary.
He looked from them to her. “What won’t take long?”
“You took shrapnel in your shoulder and in your leg yesterday.”
“The EMTs took care of it.”
“Yeah, and I’m betting they told you to follow up with a doctor today.”
“And?”
“Did you make an appointment?”
He grabbed a fistful of papers. “I’m busy. And I’m fine.”
Exactly what she’d figured. “Take your shirt off.”
He blinked, clearly taken aback by her sharp order. But he quickly recovered and made a show of looking shocked. “Why, Miss Burns. You just sent my heart all aflutter.”
She’d been hoping she wouldn’t have to deal with his nonsense, but she’d come prepared for it. “You know what your problem is?” she asked, holding his arrogant gaze. “You don’t know when to stop being a jerk. Apparently, you don’t know how to take care of yourself, either.”
“So you’ve taken it upon yourself to take care of me?” The sexy glimmer in his eye almost had her walking back out the door. But that was what he wanted. To goad her into leaving, so she wouldn’t see that maybe the big bad warrior was feeling a little exposed right now.
“If you don’t get those bandages changed, you’re going to get an infection,” she said. All this macho posturing really made her wonder if that was what he was trying to hide.