Psychobyte

by Cat Connor

  “Broken nose, maybe,” Kurt said, watching the blood pool grow.

  “Face planting on a table will do that,” I replied, pushing my phone back into my pocket. The smell of the fresh blood tweaked a few barf strings and had me looking for an escape. “I’ll order take-out coffee for Sam and Lee then wait outside for the paramedics. Can you pick up the coffee when it’s ready?”

  Kurt nodded as he looked at me. I saw him jump into doctor mode.

  “Fresh air, Conway, go.”

  The paramedics arrived a few minutes later; I pointed them in the right direction and waited for Kurt to join me.

  He emerged with a smile on his face carrying two coffees on a tray. “Didn’t expect that reaction from Stevens. How long have we got before we meet the plane?”

  “Two hours,” I said. “Just enough time for me to do something.”

  “You want company?”

  I glanced at the coffees Kurt carried. They would get cold.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Where are we going?” Kurt asked as we walked back to the car.

  “Navy Yard.”

  “This is to do with Gerrard?”

  “Yep.” That and I needed to get away from the crazy case for a bit. Noel Gerrard disappearing bothered the hell out of me. He’d taken being a private person to a whole new level. Fifteen minutes later we were at the Navy Yard.

  My phone rang. Owen.

  Damn.

  “How can I help?” I said, trying to maintain some civility in my voice.

  “Have you made any headway with the case, Conway?”

  “Progress is being made.”

  “Have you made any arrests?”

  “Not yet. We have someone helping us with our inquiries.”

  “The woman in the hospital?”

  For a split second, I wondered how she’d heard about that so fast. Maybe the walls have ears or her flying monkeys are telling tales. My money was on flying monkeys.

  “Yes.”

  I drummed my fingers on the console.

  “The case files mentioned male Unsubs. What about Charles Locke?”

  “Is there something you want?” The temptation to hang up was high.

  “What are you doing in the Navy Yard?”

  Someone must’ve told her how to access the car GPS tracking maps. Idiot.

  Instead of drumming my fingers, I fiddled with a pen I’d found. “Conducting an avenue of inquiry.”

  “Your time would be better spent talking to Matthew Collins and Charles Locke Snr.”

  Holy shitballs, Batman, she’s stabbing my last nerve with her stilettos.

  “With all due respect, ma’am, I don’t think you’re in a position to tell me how to do my job.”

  I hung up. Backlash would be forthcoming. The Evil Troll Queen would make sure of it.

  Kurt never said a word.

  We headed into the NCIS building.

  “What are you two doing up here?” Jules’ good-natured voice flowed as I walked across the floor toward her desk while clipping a visitor’s pass to my pocket.

  “In the neighborhood. Thought we’d check out the rebuild,” Kurt replied.

  “Fancy up here now,” she said with an easy smile directed at Kurt.

  If it weren’t for an understated memorial plaque and hunks of a bomb called Big Boy embedded in the concrete, you’d never know what’d happened here.

  Last time I stood in the NCIS bullpen, the world rocked, cars crashed from the sky, and terror gripped Washington. Pushing screams and carnage aside I dragged myself back to the present and Jules.

  “It’s an impressive workspace,” I said, looking around. High tech, open, but comfortable feeling.

  Jules nodded in agreement. “Now, what are you really doing up here in the Navy Yard?”

  I perched on her desk. “Have you heard from Noel Gerrard?”

  He was her boss until he retired eighteen months earlier.

  “Not since the explosion,” she replied.

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “No. Guess he’s fishing or playing golf somewhere.”

  Fishing maybe, golf no.

  “So nothing since the explosion. Really? Nothing?”

  “Not a dickey bird,” Jules regarded me with interest, or that’s what I thought it was. “I take it you haven’t heard from him either?”

  “No. Had a phone call after the Hoover building explosion. Nothing since.”

  “Tried calling?” She grinned at me.

  “Disconnected.”

  “Been over to his house?”

  “A mutual friend paid him a visit. The house is empty and sold.”

  “How about his parents?”

  “Only his Mom, she hasn’t seen him or heard from him in six weeks.”

  Hence, I’m here. I’m picking she didn’t know he’d sold his house either.

  “He’s probably somewhere hot enjoying a vacation.”

  “She didn’t think so.”

  “Okay, what’s this about?” She looked up at me then glanced at Kurt. “Do we need coffee?”

  There were still two coffees in the car.

  “You might, I’ll settle for water thanks.”

  I knew it was a red flag statement but I just left it there and ignored her interrogative eyebrow and the heavy silence from Kurt. Jules stood up and motioned for us to follow her.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” she said, heading for the door.

  We walked along the waterfront past the USS Barry.

  “Why the sudden interest in Gerrard?” Jules asked, stopping at a coffee stand.

  “People don’t generally disappear the way he has.”

  “It’s Gerrard. He’s a reserved person.”

  That’s true.

  “His mom asked me to look into his disappearance.”

  “What do you have so far?”

  “Not much. He doesn’t have a credit card. His bank accounts haven’t been touched in six weeks. Before that, he withdrew five thousand dollars in cash.”

  “You sure it was him?”

  “No, not confirmed. I’ve got someone working on that,” I said.

  “State of mind?”

  “I spoke to a friend of his and he said he sounded okay a few months ago.” I had nothing to go on but Sean’s word. Last time I heard from Gerrard, he was angry. “Pretty angry when he arrested the Director of NCIS, so much so he resigned. Think that shook his faith in people a bit.” Understandably. Shook mine too. “How was he when you last spoke to him?”

  “He seemed a bit preoccupied. Hard to tell. It was chaos. We lost a lot of people and he knew all of them.” She sipped her coffee. Even the smell of it made me feel ill. “How was he when he called you?”

  “Concerned. Jut a short phone call. He established I was all right, Delta intact and that was it.”

  Jules considered what I’d said for a few moments. Kurt listened to our conversation but added nothing. I could see the cogs in his brain turning.

  “I saw him at funerals. But he didn’t join us. He hovered in the background.”

  “Unusual. Didn’t think anything would keep him away from you and Liz,” Kurt said.

  Kurt was right: that was unusual. Gerrard was all about his team. They were family.

  “You know him as well as I do, Ellie. He felt guilty. You could see it.”

  “Yeah, he would’ve. He left. Bad shit happened. He would’ve felt that he should’ve been there to protect his team.” I get it. I know exactly how it would’ve affected him. “I better get back to work.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  “Of course.” I turned away then turned back to Jules. “If you think of anything, or hear anything, let me or Kurt know.”

  She nodded.

  We took a shortcut back to the car. Something in the distance glinted. I tried to see behind the glint and followed it to a window on the far side of the parking lot. The angle changed, causing the glint to disappear then came back.

  Bin
oculars? A rifle scope?

  “Kurt, what do you think that is?” I asked, trying not to be too obvious with my pointing.

  “A reason not to be here,” he replied. “At worst a rifle scope, at best binoculars.”

  I lost sight of it once in the car.

  Someone watching.

  Instant paranoia rolled over me and mingled with the smell of coffee. One or maybe both made me feel ill all over again.

  Someone watching me and Kurt, or me, Jules and Kurt. Who would be interested in two FBI agents meeting with an NCIS agent? Something to do with our case or something to do with Gerrard. Could Gerrard be involved in our case somehow?

  Being watched gave me the willies. Just lately it felt like it happened a lot. I called Jules as Kurt drove.

  “We were being watched from the third floor of a building across from the parking lot. Facing NCIS from the Barry, the building on our left.”

  “You leaving?”

  “No, parking out of sight.”

  Kurt’s mouth turned up as I spoke. He pulled the car into a parking space behind the nearest building.

  “Coming?” Kurt said, opening his door.

  “Nah, you do it,” I replied, checking my weapon and laughing.

  “Third floor?” Kurt asked, pointing to a building nearby. “It was that building?”

  “Think so.” I climbed out of the car and shut my door.

  Kurt opened the trunk and passed me a bulletproof vest. Once upon a time, I would’ve felt weird about wearing a vest in the Navy Yard. Times change. Nothing will ever be the same again.

  Jules opened the door to the front entrance of the building as we got there.

  “Anyone leave?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I called and had the building put on silent lockdown before we got here.”

  “Good thinking.” No alarms. No scrambling around creating a scene. Just quiet locking of doors and arming of front-desk personnel. I looked toward the front desk. Two men in navy uniforms stood on either side of the civilians manning the desk.

  “Access to the upper floors is via two elevators and two stairwells,” she said. “I’ve got three agents and a couple of marines inside.”

  Liz waved from across the lobby where she stood talking to two marines and a couple of people in civilian clothes. I guessed they were the other two agents.

  After brief introductions, Kurt and I took one stairwell, the marines the other, and the NCIS agents took the elevators. Halfway up the stairs, I questioned the wisdom of being in another stairwell. Distracting myself with potential scenarios once we reached our destination helped.

  Kurt paused by the door to the third floor. “Okay?”

  “Yes,” I replied with more confidence than I felt. “Let’s go.”

  My phone beeped. I glanced at the screen as Kurt swung the fire door open. A map of the floor with a circle around the room Jules thought the glint came from. We took the left stairs. I counted rooms.

  “Kurt, go right, it’s the tenth room on the left of the corridor.”

  “Got it,” he said. We stepped into the well-lit corridor. At the other end of the hall, I heard an elevator ping followed by the sound of a heavy door closing. Seconds later I caught sight of marine uniforms walking toward our position.

  Every room had large glass windows into the corridor. That would make a stealth approach tricky and potentially impossible.

  Brazen it out then. We had one option, stroll on in and announce our presence.

  NCIS, Marines, and us, converged on the room at the same time. I stepped back with Kurt to let Jules and Liz handle the entrance. Their jurisdiction, not ours. I could see through the large glass window. A male wearing civilian clothing ducked behind a partition near a workstation.

  “He look familiar?” Kurt asked.

  “I don’t know. Didn’t get a good enough look.”

  The door opened. Marines and NCIS swept the room. Jules held up a rifle with a scope for me to see. A marine lifted a long black case off the floor and opened it. I could just make out the foam inside it. Moments fter a short scuffle, they lead a handcuffed male toward the door with a smirk on his face.

  “How about now?” Kurt asked, holding his hand up for the procession to halt.

  He did look familiar. My brain darted through memory drawers and files.

  “Remember me, Conway?” he drawled, the smirk grew into a sinister smile.

  Everything fell into place. My right hand closed into a fist and I punched him so hard his head snapped back.

  Bet he didn’t expect that.

  Pain shot up my hand into my arm. I shook my hand. Sharp stabbing pain zapped from my knuckles into my wrist and up my arm. Worth it.

  Kurt grabbed my right arm before I could strike again. My left fist connected with the other side of the idiot’s face. His smile disappeared. He spat blood and a bit of tooth onto the floor.

  “Yeah, I know you, asshole,” I said as Kurt pulled me away and a marine stepped in front of me.

  “Conway?” Kurt said, pushing me against a wall as NCIS marched the bleeding man away.

  Jules looked back at me. “We’ll talk.”

  I said nothing.

  “Let’s go,” Kurt said, taking my arm.

  Blood trickled from the knuckles on my already swelling right hand. Not good. I looked at it closely. Grazed not cut. Good. But it hurt like a sonofabitch.

  Damn.

  I inspected my left hand. Bit grazed across the knuckles but otherwise unscathed. Kurt opened the fire door and ushered me down the stairs and out to the car. He opened the passenger door. I climbed in. Kurt went into the back and came out with his backpack. He dropped two cooling packs in my lap then nestled the backpack in the footwell by my legs.

  My door closed. The driver’s door opened. Kurt settled into the seat then reached out and bent one of the cooling packs; it cracked and ice spread throughout the pack. He placed it on my right hand.

  “Hold it there,” he said, reaching around me for the seatbelt. He clicked it into place. “We’re running out of time before we meet the plane. You need X-rays.”

  “Let’s just go to the airport.”

  “Conway, you’ve probably got a boxer’s fracture.”

  My right eyebrow rose all by itself. More like a bar room fracture. My own stupid fault. I shouldn’t have hit him or I should’ve hit him with my elbow, not my fist.

  “I’ll live. Airport.”

  An awkward silence filled with unasked questions draped its arms around the car. The need to tell Kurt why I did what I did fought with my desire to block out the past and ignore what just happened.

  He shouldn’t have been there anyway. Why was he there, watching? How the hell did he get a rifle into the building? And the target? Jules? Kurt? Me? Someone else?

  Someone else.

  My mind hummed.

  I saw him by accident. That was his nest. He would’ve been set up to stay there as long as it took. He should’ve been more careful.

  If one of us were his target, we’d already be dead. He was one helluva marksman. I fumbled for my phone, trying to get it out of my pocket. My right hand didn’t want to move and my left was too awkward. The vest didn’t help. I took Kurt’s phone from the console without asking and called a number I knew by heart at the CIA.

  “Tierney,” I said as soon as the ringing stopped. “Did you know John Miller was in town?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Where did you see him?”

  “Navy Yard. Any clue who his target is?”

  “No.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “Because you are not very trusting, Ellie.”

  True.

  “He’s one of yours and you didn’t know he was in town?”

  A loud rumble and screech of metal accompanied thoughts a they jammed together and created a picture.

  “Stay safe, Ellie, I have a meeting,” Tierney’s tone sounded dismis
sive.

  “Call him off, Tierney. Or I’ll finish him.”

  “I got notification NCIS arrested him. Not your call, Ellie.”

  “You’ll have him out within the hour. You forget, Tierney, I know how it works.”

  “You’ll never see him again.”

  “Call him off.”

  “He’s got a job to do. Just like you. I advise you to do yours and leave him to do his.”

  “He should’ve been more careful. Now he’s on my radar.”

  I can’t let him do his job now. Taking someone out on US soil. That’s not how the game is played.

  My mind swung back to my last brush with a CIA operative. He went off the reservation big time and tried to take out Tierney.

  “Tell me this isn’t anything like the last time I came across one of your operatives in D.C.”

  “John Miller is on a sanctioned assignment.”

  I looked at my watch. Fifteen minutes had passed since I smashed my fist into Miller’s face.

  “He’s already free, isn’t he?” And I just bet he planted audio or GPS trackers on Jules or Liz. Whoever he wanted had to be tied to NCIS. My thoughts stampeded through my mouth. “The target. Miller’s only just picked up the scent. God. It’s not a coincidence that I’ve just started looking into Noel Gerrard’s disappearance and Miller turns up.”

  “How’s your hand?” Tierney asked.

  Yep, confirmation that Miller was free and had checked in.

  “Better than his face,” I said. “Call him off.”

  “He has a job to do.”

  I hung up.

  Kurt’s hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white but he remained focused on the road and traffic. I didn’t want to talk. He’d heard enough to worry him and make him think and there wasn’t much I could do about that. My thoughts radiated in many directions but each avenue pulled me back to Gerrard. Something was very wrong. He hadn’t disappeared. He’d gone to ground. The only trail Miller caught was mine as I tried to find Gerrard; he must’ve had Gerrard’s mother’s phone bugged. I wasn’t going to lead a killer to Gerrard. I called Sean.

  “Hey, about Gerrard … pull back. He’ll find us if he needs to.”

  “El?”

  “Trust me. Don’t look for him.”

  “Explain.”

  I couldn’t. I had a gut feeling and a bit of circumstantial nonsense that said Gerrard was Miller’s target. Half a smile floated across my lips. I’d had less and done more with it. This time, I’d trodden on CIA toes with steel-capped boots and the potential for ugly backlash was extreme.