by Paige Tyler
Alina sighed as she watched his naked backside disappear into the bathroom. Considering she’d gotten a grand total of two hours of sleep last night, she should be a complete zombie. Instead, she felt amazing. Great sex could do that.
She was still lying there when she realized she hadn’t heard the water turn on. Trevor might be fast in the shower, but he couldn’t be that fast. Rolling out of bed, she headed for the bathroom.
She found her partner standing in front of the vanity completely naked and staring at his phone, an intent—dare she say worried—expression on his face.
“Did you miss a call?” she asked. “I never heard it ring.”
He nodded absently. “Yeah. Tanner called earlier, but he didn’t say what it was about, and his phone went to voice mail when I called him back. There’s an email from Seth Larson, too, but I haven’t read it yet. I got caught up in a text from that friend at the FBI I told you about—Tony Moretti.”
That caught her attention. “The one doing the bomb analysis? What did he say?”
“It’s a long report,” Trevor said, scrolling his finger down his phone. “But the most interesting thing is that the bomb was made with military grade C-4 and military blasting caps. Tony was able to use the chemical markers they put in the C-4 to track the explosives back to a specific lot number, most of which are from the black-ops world.”
“You mean like the CIA?”
He looked up at her. “Or the DCO.”
She frowned. “Okay, that is scary. Anything else?”
“Nothing that will make you feel any better.” He scrolled through the report some more. “There was a partial lot number on one of the blasting caps as well. It traces back to the black-ops world, too, except a friend of his at the CIA is sure they consumed all of those caps in training years ago, so Tony doesn’t think our bomber could have gotten them from the Agency.”
She considered that. “So either his friend at the CIA is lying or we’re looking at a blasting cap that might have been issued to the DCO?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
She walked over to lean around him so she could look at his phone. “Any way we can check?”
“I’ll never get anywhere near the DCO’s ammunition inventory system, not without raising a bunch of red flags,” he said. “But maybe Jake could. One of his additional jobs in the DCO used to be helping with the monthly inventories before everything went to crap and he got labeled as persona non grata thanks to his association with me.”
“Call him,” she urged. “Let’s see what he can do.”
Trevor’s brow furrowed. “I’ve been trying to keep him out of this, so he won’t get any more screwed over than necessary.”
Alina nudged his big, strong shoulder. “How about you let Jake decide that? I’m pretty sure he wants to catch John’s killer as much as anyone.”
Trevor sighed but didn’t say anything.
She nudged him again. “So are you going to call him?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Let me see what Seth has to say first, then I’ll call Jake. Why don’t you go ahead and jump in the shower? This might take me a second.”
Alina had barely stepped in the shower and gotten the water turned on before she heard Trevor curse. She opened the glass door and looked out. “What’s wrong?”
“Seth identified three people going into the main DCO building about thirty minutes before the blast. John Loughlin, his secretary, Olivia, and this guy.”
Trevor turned his phone around, showing her a photo of a guy with dark hair cut military style and blue eyes.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
He turned the phone around and stared at it, as if to assure himself he was seeing straight. “It’s Ed Vincent, my former teammate—the one who quit the DCO within days of the bombing without ever bothering to tell me. Oh, and by the way, Ed used to help with monthly ammo inventories, too.”
Alina gaped. “Wait a minute. Are you suggesting one of your former teammates provided the explosives that Shishani used to make the bomb? That Ed’s the one who brought the thing onto the complex and put it in John’s office?”
Trevor frowned. “I don’t want to believe it, but what the hell am I supposed to think? There’s no reason Ed should have been there at that time of the morning. Hell, he shouldn’t have been anywhere on the DCO complex. He was supposed to be with Jake, doing some kind of training that week. It’s one of the big reasons they didn’t go with me on that mission up in Maine.”
Alina wanted to ask what the mission up in Maine had been about but decided against it. There would be time for that later, after they dealt with this.
She turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, then placed her hand on his chest. His heart pounded beneath her fingers. “You need to call Jake and get him on this. Because right now, we’re merely guessing.”
Trevor nodded, his brow still furrowed. “All right. I’ll call him now. But I can promise you, Jake isn’t going to like this. Go take your shower.”
Alina cleaned up as quickly as she could. Over the running water, she could hear her partner arguing with Jake. Apparently, Jake wasn’t happy with the idea of checking up on an ex-teammate. After Trevor told Jake why he was suspicious, the other man must have calmed down and agreed to do a little digging, because Trevor hung up.
She turned off the water, then grabbed a towel from the hook and wrapped it around herself.
“Jake said he’d do a quick check of the DCO ammunition inventory system, then call us back.” Trevor sighed. “I pray you’re right and that I’m seeing stuff that’s not really there.”
Alina hoped so, too.
She finished up and was drying her hair when Trevor’s phone rang. Her partner had already showered and dressed and was waiting with phone in hand.
“What do you have?” he asked Jake.
Trevor listened, jaw clenched. Finally, he hung up with barely a grunt of acknowledgment. For a minute, she was sure he was going to sling his phone across the room.
“Well?” she prompted, setting the dryer on the vanity.
He took a deep breath. “The ammo inventory system is a complete train wreck now that so many people have left, but Jake was able to confirm that there’s a box of electric blasting caps and a case of C-4 missing. It looks like the stuff disappeared early Sunday morning of the weekend before the bombing. It’s not like Ed signed for the crap, but his passcode was used to turn off the alarm in the bunker, so it’s pretty damn evident.”
Crap on a stick.
Trevor shook his head. “Fuck, he really did it. Ed stole the explosives and gave them to the bomber. Then he brought the damn thing on the complex and put it in John’s office. No wonder he left. He knew we’d figure out his code had been used to get into the storage bunker at some point.”
“What do we do now?” she asked softly.
“We go after him,” Trevor said, his voice as soft and low as hers.
“You know where Ed is?”
“I don’t, but Jake does,” Trevor said. “Turns out he’s talked to him a couple of times in the past few weeks. He didn’t tell me, because I always seemed so pissed at the way Ed left. Ed’s been working private security under a fake name at an industrial place outside Gainesville, Virginia.”
Alina twirled her hair up in a twist, then hurried into the bedroom to put on some clothes.
“Are we going to arrest Ed…or something else?” she asked as she pulled on her jeans.
Trevor didn’t flinch. “That all depends on him.”
Chapter 15
“If Ed was so worried about the DCO figuring out he was behind the bombing, why hang around the area and get a job?” Alina asked. “Why not flee the country?”
Trevor shrugged as he and Alina approached the address Jake had given him earlier, momentarily distracted as he realized the place was a
decrepit-looking hazardous material storage site. Of all the jobs he could imagine his former teammate taking, security guard at a hazmat site wasn’t one of them. The operation was nothing more than a large collection of mismatched metal warehouses surrounded by endless piles of beat-up drums and long sections of rusted chain-link fence. Not only that, but it stunk to high heaven. Trevor’s nose was already burning, and they hadn’t even gotten inside yet.
“Ed and I worked espionage cases for a long time together, digging out sleeper agents and moles who had been hiding in plain sight for years,” Trevor said as he slowed the SUV. “Maybe Ed thought changing his name and blending into a sea of humanity was the best way to disappear. He’s seen it work in the past.”
“Okay. But then why contact Jake?”
Trevor didn’t have a good answer for that. “No clue. Unless he thought Jake might be willing to clue him in when trouble was on the way.”
Trevor pulled up to the gate of the hazmat complex, expecting to see guards there—maybe even Ed—but there was no one around. Just a wide-open gate and an empty guard shack. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and his senses began to tingle. This place was like a ghost town. Something didn’t feel right.
“Are you sure this is the address Jake gave you?” Alina murmured as he drove through the gate. She took in the discarded, rusty drums stacked up against a few of the buildings. “It doesn’t look like there’s anyone here.”
Trevor was thinking the same thing. “It’s Sunday, so maybe the place is closed.”
Alina made a face, clearly not buying that idea. “More likely the EPA shut everything down, and everyone who used to run the place is in jail. Maybe Ed is watching this place until the feds send someone in to clean it up.”
Considering that his eyes were practically tearing up from all the strange chemical odors, Trevor could believe that.
He stopped in front of a building that looked like it was the main office and climbed out of their vehicle. Alina did the same. They were confronted with rows of squat, metal buildings marked with various hazmat signs, warning the structures contained everything from flammable liquids and gases to poisons, corrosives, and explosives. He could see why they needed guards in a place like this. It wasn’t exactly the kind of facility you’d want people wandering around in. Which begged the question, why had the gate been left open? And if there were guards around, why hadn’t anyone challenged them yet?
“Are we wasting our time here?” Alina asked.
Trevor was tempted to say yes. Then he looked down the row between two of the buildings and spotted a truck with a security decal plastered on the side. The driver’s side door was open, and it was parked in front of a big two-story building with flammable signs posted on both sides.
He caught Alina’s eye and jerked his head in that direction. She nodded, falling into step beside him. As they got closer to the truck, he expected Ed to step out of the big warehouse and ask them what the hell they were doing here, but there was no one in sight. The big, sliding double doors of the warehouse were open, a rusty lock hanging off the hasp and heavy petroleum fumes rolling out of the building in waves.
“Can you smell Ed’s scent in the truck?” Alina asked. “At least confirm he’s here?”
Trevor leaned and took a sniff. With the fumes, he could barely smell anything. He thought he was picking up a man’s scent, but it didn’t seem familiar. With this stench, he simply couldn’t trust his nose.
He shook his head. “I can’t be sure.” He motioned toward the warehouse. “But we’re here now—might as well check the place out.”
The interior of the building was dark, the only light coming from the overhead skylights and a few windows scattered along the upper and lower floors. The windows might have let in a bit more light if they hadn’t been filthy—and covered with heavy-gauge security wire.
The second level seemed to be more catwalk than actual storage area, with its only apparent purpose being to provide access to the various overhead hoists and to let people move around the stuffed warehouse more easily.
The fumes were worse inside, making Trevor’s nose tingle and eyes water more than they already had been. He closed his eyes and focused on his sense of hearing, trying to shut out the stench long enough to figure out if he and Alina were alone.
His eyes snapped open when he heard a creak of metal somewhere in the back of the place.
“Which way?” Alina asked.
She had her sidearm out and had clearly been covering him while he’d been standing there with his eyes closed. Maybe her instincts were saying the same thing his were, that there was something strange going on in here.
Trevor pulled his own weapon out as he motioned with his chin toward the rear of the building. “That way. It sounded like footsteps.”
They carefully made their way between stacks of barrels and boxes, every one of them marked with either a flammable-liquid or flammable-gas label. Trevor hoped no one started shooting in here. This wasn’t the environment for it. One shot into the wrong box or drum, and this place would go up like a Roman candle.
Trevor scanned the dimly lit rows and aisles between the boxes and drums as well as the second-floor catwalk that ran around three sides of the building and overlooked the main floor. If there was someone in here, he couldn’t see them.
He tried to move and listen at the same time, straining to catch the sound of another creak—or better, the sound of a heartbeat—but he didn’t pick up anything. Maybe that was because the space was large, and sound bounced around funny because of all the metal.
Or maybe it was simply because there was no one here.
He and Alina were near the back wall when he picked up a scent that didn’t belong. It was hard to believe he could smell anything with all the petroleum odors cloying his nose, but this odor was peculiar enough to grab his attention. It smelled a little like blood mixed with something seriously nasty.
Trevor turned and headed in that direction, letting his nose lead him. Alina followed silently. The stench only got stranger the deeper they went into the building. It was definitely blood. And it smelled fresh. At least he thought it did. It was hard to tell with the other odors nearly overwhelming it. Shit, what the hell was that smell?
When he rounded a stack of boxes, Trevor discovered exactly what it was—and really wished he hadn’t.
There were two metal containers in the center of the floor, filled with viscous, yellowish-green liquid. Inside each was a decomposing body. One looked fresh, still mostly recognizable and wearing the remains of a dark-blue security uniform. The other wasn’t so fresh.
“Is that…acid?” Alina asked in horror.
Trevor couldn’t blame her. He’d seen a lot in his time in the army, DIA, and DCO. But nothing like this.
All he could do was nod as he slipped his weapon back into his holster and stepped closer to get a better look. The fresher body wasn’t too bad, but the other one was hard to look at. The acid had eaten away most of the guy’s skin and organs. About the only solid parts left were one arm and a leg that had been too long to fit into the cramped space of the metal shipping container.
Trevor wasn’t sure what the hell was going on here and wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He hated to think it, but it looked like Ed had killed two of the security guards who’d worked here and attempted to dispose of their bodies. Why? He had no idea. Just like he had no idea why Ed had killed John and Olivia.
He was about to take out his phone to call the cops when a glint of something shiny along the badly decomposed man’s leg caught his attention.
Ignoring the acid fumes and the horrible stench, he leaned over the container and took a closer look. A long, slim piece of metal was attached to the man’s lower thigh bone just above the knee joint.
Shit.
Heart pounding, Trevor yanked his weapon out and spun to look around t
he warehouse space.
Alina spun around with him, her eyes trying to dart every direction at once. “What’s wrong?”
“Ed broke his leg jumping out of a helicopter when he was in Air Force Pararescue. He had a long plate attached to his lower femur to stabilize it,” Trevor said. “This body is Ed’s. We’ve been set up.”
Somewhere along the catwalk on the far side of the warehouse, a man clapped his hands in applause.
Trevor and Alina pointed their weapons that way as Jake stepped forward to stand in the beam of late-day sunshine streaming in through one of the overhead skylights. Wade and two other men were with him. Judging by their size and the telltale red eyes, they were hybrids as well.
“So you finally fucking figured it out, huh, Trevor?” Jake sneered. “Took you long enough.”
Then the shooting started.
Trevor tried to stay with Alina, but as the four people up on the catwalk started blazing away at them with automatic rifles, that became impossible, and they both had to run for their lives. He turned and headed deeper into the warehouse, popping off an occasional shot at Jake and the others as they moved down the stairs from the second level. He hoped he could draw them away from his partner and give her time to get out of here.
“What happened, Jake?” he shouted as he ran, wanting to make sure they knew exactly where he was. “Ed catch you planting the bomb, or is there another reason you killed the man who covered your back for all those years?”
He didn’t really expect an answer, not in the middle of a firefight, but Jake surprised him by laughing. From the sound of it, the man wasn’t more than three or four rows away.
“He didn’t catch me,” Jake called out as he headed in Trevor’s direction “But I knew he was onto me. The stupid idiot confronted me after the bombing. I had no choice but to kill him.”
Trevor wasn’t naive. Jake wasn’t confessing out of the goodness of his heart. He and some of his hybrid buddies were probably trying to home in on Trevor’s voice right this second. Knowing that, it would likely have been smart to shut up. But Trevor had never professed to be that smart, not when it came to dealing with a traitor. He was pissed, and he wanted Jake dead.