In Too Deep (Strike Force: An Iniquus Romantic Suspense Mystery Thriller Book 1)

by Fiona Quinn

***

  Lacey could feel Deep grinning at her from the driver’s seat, but her nose was stuck in the domesticity of the phone log. “Agatha, I would like cabbage soup and sausages for dinner.” “Agatha, the birds would enjoy some fresh fruit.” “Sir, I telephoned Miss Stuart, and she said she will be over in the morning.”

  “Deep, here’s something really odd.”

  “Odder than crazy rocks, two birds that are MIA, and a body that’s disappeared into the hands of some doctor when the family all thinks it’s buried at the cemetery?”

  “Agatha called me ‘Miss Stuart.’ She knew I was associated with Uncle Bartholomew.”

  “Well your uncle was dating Radovan, right?”

  “Dating – that sounds too public. They were lovers. I don’t think it was merely about sex, I thought they were actually in love. I didn’t know Radovan was bisexual, that’s for sure.”

  “How long were your uncle and Radovan together?”

  “A few years.” Lacey tilted her head and watched the naked trees fly by as they drove toward the city.

  “Did you go over to Radovan’s house frequently?”

  Lacey flicked her attention back on Deep, tucking her hair behind her ears. “On occasion for work. But I’ve never met Agatha before. She knew me, though, so that means she knew Danika as me. She knew Danika as me before the funeral, because she thinks that Radovan and I were engaged. And she also thinks I’m the subject in those photos.” Lacey scowled, which won her a chuckle from Deep.

  “Those were quite the photos to have framed and on display in the family room. I bet Agatha enjoys having to dust them.”

  “Shhh, that is so disgusting, I’m not paying even a smidgeon of attention to what you just said. Now, listen. Radovan was already dead the day of my accident. Therefore, if my logic classes aren’t failing me, Danika was using my name and posing as me prior to his death. And not only that, but my uncle must have known and cooperated. When you speculated that this all began with the accident, that simply cannot be true. It doesn’t fit the timeline.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Is this what you do all day in your job?” Lacey asked.

  “My job has never looked anything like this before. Usually I’m fast roping into a hot zone, taking care of business, and fast-tracking it out of there. Or I’m hacking computers. This is more along the lines of what Striker and Lynx do. Each member of our team has a specialty, so when you put us all together, we’ve got the bases covered.”

  “Like a criminal crew?”

  “Except for the criminal part.” He sent her a grin. “You handled that well, though. And you got the notebook, which I think is going to be important.”

  Lacey focused on the highway sign. “Where are we going? This isn’t the way to Lynx’s house.”

  “I’m headed to the Smithsonian. I have a friend who curates the mineral sciences database. I’ve helped him out with a few software glitches. So I thought we’d pay him a visit. See what he can tell us about this space rock and why someone might be boiling it on the stove.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Steve

  Wednesday

  Steve’s computer felt warm on his knee as he sat outside McDonald’s with a large coffee. He was playing the video of Lacey’s tackle and retreat at the press conference. The thing that he was stuck on was the roll. Whoever dove across the portico and into Lacey did two things that made Steve think that this was a rescue, and not an abduction. The guy hadn’t taken her out at the knees, which could easily have hurt her legs and made her unable to walk and, based on the angle the guy was lunging in from, would probably have required orthopedic surgery for Lacey. Instead, he’d grabbed her around the hips. Second, he hadn’t landed on top of her. Jumping on top of someone usually went a good ways into subduing them: they were winded, in shock, and demoralized. Landing on top of them was half the reason for making the tackle. Steve played that section again. Yup, the guy pulled Lacey tightly into his arms like he was tucking a football, then he rolled, taking the brunt of the force with his own body, flipping over, checking on her, and in a split second pulling her up and slinging her over his shoulder.

  Who does that? Someone who’s saving the girl. Someone who is protecting an asset. Someone who’s had a ton of training. Steve considered and rejected the CIA, someone Black and Green had sent in. He went over the various people who’d been a part of this case. They were all trained and all capable, but this guy was practically defying human ability. Beyond capable. A highly trained, highly utilized special operative. The whole thing read like an Iniquus intervention.

  He’d said that before. He pointed it out to Monroe right away that he felt Iniquus might be involved, and the FBI immediately signed a contract with Iniquus to find Lacey and bring her in to their protection. But had this been an Iniquus operator, then they would have notified him that they had Lacey in hand, because Iniquus would have been contractually obligated to move her through the system. Yet that’s not what had happened.

  How could this video be explained? Maybe Omega had grabbed her for some reason—maybe someone had hired Iniquus’s competitors to go in and extract Lacey without causing her harm. Could be. But who would hire Omega? Her uncle? The Assembly was closely associated with Omega. But Lacey’s uncle had been using her at every turn and in every way possible. Her uncle was largely responsible for Lacey’s predicament. He was the seminal actor that brought her into the fray. Who am I kidding? I’m the seminal actor that churned up this shit storm.

  “I’ve got to make this right,” Steve chanted through gritted teeth.

  The guy who tackled Lacey is a good guy. He had to be.

  Steve refused to believe, until he had proof positive in his hands, that Lacey was really dead. The thought of her dead sapped him of energy and his ability to think and process. Hope that he could find her whole and healthy filled him with energy and power. The only possibility that she was whole and healthy and walking into a dry-cleaning shop with a smile on her unstressed face, as far as he could tell, was that Deep Del Toro had grabbed her.

  And he had something besides this tape to pave the path for those thoughts. Joseph Del Toro was supposed to be on a flight to Costa Rica last Friday, but he didn’t claim his seat. There was no data showing that he left the country. None. And Lacey had called him.

  So where would Deep go? Higgins had told Steve that Strike Force lived on campus in the Iniquus barracks; only Lynx had a home in her own name. India Alexis Sobado, aka Lexi, aka Lynx lived at 369 Silver Lake. And that was where Steve was headed, on the off-chance that Deep was hiding out with Lacey at his teammate’s home.

  He drove through the neighborhood a few times. No lights were on at Lynx’s house, but oddly, the drapes were drawn in the front room. He made another pass, moving forward at a crawl. He noticed the house had automatic lighting systems and probably had state of the art detection systems. He moved on by, turning a block up and over, and then parked.

  Steve continued his search on foot, walking up the alley behind Lynx’s house. Again, he saw no lights on, so he took a peek in the garbage can out back. He opened the lid and rifled through the trash. As his hand stirred through the debris, he only found kitchen waste. No telltale sign who was living here, or how many. And it certainly could be that Lynx was at home. A car with a woman driver moved very slowly down the alley. Steve stepped quietly into the shadow of Sobado’s garage. He thought the car hesitated for a moment when it pulled flush with him, but soon it resumed its progress and turned left out of the alley. Steve let out his breath. Stepping back into daylight, he pulled the two paper napkins he’d grabbed with his fast food breakfast from his pocket and wiped off the goop. He threw the napkins away, then moved around the side of the house, checking the tall fence lining the sidewalk and wondering what the best way to breach her security might be.

  As he got to Silver Lake, a middle-aged man with the authority and shoulder set of a cop was waiting for him. “Lose something?” he asked in a ton
e that said, busted.

  “Yeah, my puppy. He jumped out of the car faster than I could grab his collar.”

  “And you think he’s up on the top of this fence?” the guy asked.

  Steve shook his head and offered a half-smile. Shit.

  “Where was this that your puppy got out?” the man asked.

  “Over on Sorrel. I live in the blue house.”

  “Hell of a long way for a puppy to make it from Sorrel to Silver Lake. What kind of puppy is this?”

  “Husky,” Steve said. This guy knew that he was full of shit. Steve was just trying to figure a clear path out of there before he was told to put his hands against the fence. If the guy frisked him, that pat-down would produce two guns and a knife, but nothing in the way of FBI identification. Steve thought for sure he was going to be on his way to jail for an attempted B and E. He needed to think his way through this. At that moment, the only plan he could conjure was to slug the guy across the jaw and run for it.

  As that thought became more solid in his mind, a woman came out on the front porch across the street. She was barefoot and hopping from toe to toe with her sweater pulled tightly around her body. She cupped her hand around her mouth. “Dave,” she yelled.

  Dave didn’t turn; he was still giving Steve the stink eye.

  “Dave,” she yelled again.

  “Looks like your wife needs you. So, hey, if you see a husky pup, I’m in the blue house on Sorrel.” Steve raised his arm in salute as he turned on his heels and walked slowly away, sweeping his gaze left, then right, intermittently whistling a come-here tune and calling, “Klondike. Klondike Mike, here boy,” until he got to his car.

  Now here he was sitting at McDonald’s, once again at an impasse. He knew for damned sure he wouldn’t be able to go back to scope out Lynx’s neighborhood. He put his Styrofoam coffee cup into the cup holder and closed his computer. He clunked his head back against the headrest for a single, exasperated sigh, then dropped his chin to check the clock. He cranked the engine and put his car in gear. Time for the powwow.

  ***

  Steve still wore the same jeans and boots he’d had on for the last few days when he got to Fourth Street, went up the elevator, and slogged into the FBI conference room. Higgins and Monroe had already claimed seats on either side of the dark shine of the mahogany conference table. A screen had been pulled down at the front of the room. Andersson walked in, looking smoothly professional in black pants and boots and a black turtleneck with her blond hair slicked back into a ponytail. Steve hoped she wouldn’t sit next to him. It would only make his rumpled appearance seem worse in comparison.

  “You look like shit,” she said as she moved next to Monroe and pulled out the high-backed leather chair. “Have you been sleeping in your car?”

  “I’ve been busy,” Steve said. Though his answer made no sense, everyone left it be.

  There was a tap at the door, then a tall, grey-suited man moved into the room with a determined stride, searched their faces, and arrived at the end of the table. “Looks like I’m the next to last one to the party,” he said without a trace of joviality. He reached into his pocket and distributed a card to each of the others in the room. John Black. Everyone reached into their pockets and wallets and pulled out their cards to exchange. Mr. Black arranged each of the cards in front of him. He pulled out a small device that he held secretively in his palm. He used his phone to contact someone. “349LK9US7,” he said. The video screen filled with the scene of a darkened office. The man sitting in front of the camera was merely a shadowy form.

  Mr. Black gestured toward the screen. “This is my colleague, John Green, also CIA. Would everyone please take a moment to introduce yourselves?”

  “Monroe, Human Trafficking, and I’m the task force liaison for this case.”

  “Higgins, Violent Crimes.”

  “Andersson, Arts.”

  “Finley, Terror.”

  Mr. Black remained standing at the end of the table. He obviously felt he was in charge of proceedings. “Mr. Green has asked that we gather so our counterparts in Eastern Europe could share some information and make sure that everything is going as planned. Ms. Andersson, if you would please begin with the transfer of art – just a brief overview at this time.”

  “Of course.” Andersson cleared her throat. “The artwork was gathered by Danika Zoric, who was playing the role of Lacey Stuart. She procured all of the paintings from the Zoric family’s wish list and employed a counterfeiter to produce copies. Tomorrow, Thursday, the fake paintings are scheduled to be moved to the Bartholomew Winslow Gallery’s annex in Alexandria, Virginia in advance of the agents’ arrival on Friday. Meanwhile, there are three Zoric family members, all females, who will divide the original paintings between them and take them on separate flights to Europe, each landing in a different hub city and travelling on to Bratislava, Slovakia. This is also happening tomorrow. The first flight is scheduled for zero-seven-twenty hours. We have filed all of the flight information, and our counterparts at Interpol will be meeting the planes and watching the women while they travel. The original art will be confiscated in the United States and will not be placed in the baggage section of the planes when the women fly. Instead, we have had our own copies generated with a computer system. They are not of the same quality as the hand-copied pieces, but without the originals for comparison, we’re hopeful that they will pass inspection, and the family will be none the wiser.”

  “And what is the plan from there?” Mr. Black asked, finally taking his seat.

  Monroe leaned forward. “Our sources indicate that each woman will pick up two children to bring back with them on student visas Saturday. We expect six more children to enter the Zoric’s prostitution system. We’ve arranged for them to be held at US customs—all nine, the children and their handlers—so we can follow the best route for the children’s safety, and arrest the women for human trafficking.”

  “Age range of the children?” Mr. Black asked.

  “Fourteen to seventeen, all females this time,” Monroe responded.

  “Very well. And the means by which they plan to destroy the counterfeit paintings?” Mr. Black sat rigidly in his chair as if he were a soldier at attention. Steve had worked with Black on various cases over the last five years. Black was damned good at what he did, but he never looked like he’d had a rod welded to his spine like this before. Steve thought it was probably very telling how tightly Black was holding himself at this meeting. Steve needed to pay attention to these clues.

  Andersson rubbed her finger under her lower lip. “We haven’t yet discovered what they plan to do.”

  “Alright, let’s change gears for a moment. I’d like Mr. Green to tell you what’s going on in Slovakia because it’s going to start playing out here in America, unless we can figure out a way to stop it. And let me pause here and say the arts sting has gone extremely well. If this continues and we’re able to take the Zoric actors off the stage here in America, things will be a lot safer for our citizens. So kudos, and keep up the good effort. We’re days away from realizing the results of years of hard work. Mr. Green?” Mr. Black’s words were congratulatory, but his delivery laid the words out flat and cold in front of the special agents.

  Mr. Green sneezed into a hanky and then see-sawed his elbow as he rubbed at his nose. “We understand that the Zoric family and the Krokov family have found a way to coexist and even offer each other a little mutual aid and crossover participation during various cons on American soil. However, that’s in the US, and the picture is very different here in Eastern Europe.” He stopped to take a drink from his mug. His voice was artificially deep and mechanical as it moved through the voice alteration software on the video feed. “Both families are becoming more and more ideologically entrenched. Old wounds from the war are festering. The two families, in essence, are battling each other using various means to make their points. The Krokov family is working towards a firmer EU connection and western ties and is pro-American, whil
e the Zorics are firmly attached with Russia and the Middle East. But don’t let the Krokov’s affiliation fool you—they are not the good guys in this picture. The Krokov and Zoric families both believe that terrorism is the best means to their own ends. Their politics and goals are outside of the scope of this meeting. Just know that the helpful attitude that the Eastern United States Krokov and Zoric families have enjoyed together is quickly imploding.”

  Monroe sat forward in his seat. “And this means their terrorism is headed to American soil?”

  Mr. Black gave Steve a hard look pregnant with meaning. “The first moves have already been made.” Then he focused back on Monroe to answer his question. “You understand that Radovan Krokov was murdered by the Zoric family. The Zoric family was ordered to remove him from leadership because Radovan’s brother moved into a more aggressive role in Slovakia.”

  “There’s been a mistake. Radovan Krokov died of natural causes. He had a heart attack,” Higgins said, shooting Steve a bewildered look. Steve shifted uncomfortably.

  “No,” Mr. Black said. “He was murdered. I’ve brought Dr. Nadeer with me to bring us all up to date on that element of the case. He’s sitting outside, and I’ll call him in after our briefing. Mr. Green?” Mr. Black directed the conversation back to his colleague.

  “The Zoric family has been killing off their enemies one at a time, and we don’t know how they’re doing it. The murders always look like natural causes—a heart attack, asthma, and etcetera.” Mr. Green rolled his arm out to show how this was a continuation, like waves on a shoreline. “We can’t understand how this is happening, except that they have developed a drug or poison—some sort of biological weapon that can’t be found in the bodies after death. There is no sign of foul play. For example, there is no external asphyxia. There are no wounds present. Toxicology has turned up no poisons in the system. The Zorics have discovered another way to kill. Our concern here is that the Zoric family in America are puppets of the Zoric family in Eastern Europe. The Zoric family in Eastern Europe have extremely unfavorable feelings about the United States.”