by L. T. Ryan
Bear wiped the sleep from his eyes and rolled out of bed. When he answered the door, she looked him up and down with an eyebrow raised. He realized he was only wearing one sock.
“You look like shit,” she said.
Sadie, on the other hand, looked like she’d been up for hours. She was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and boots. Her hair was tied back and she held both her phone and a tablet in her hands. She looked like she could blend in anywhere in the city.
“Thanks,” Bear said. He rooted around in the sheets to find his other sock. “That’s the look I was going for.”
Sadie didn’t entertain the joke. “You want the bad news or the bad news?”
Bear groaned. “Why can’t we ever get good news?” He retrieved his sock, put it on, and then walked over to the desk to make them both a cup of terrible coffee. “Let’s go with the bad news first.”
“Langley called. We have a major problem. Maria’s setup was an internal job.”
Bear looked at her over his shoulder. “You’ve got a mole?”
“Looks like it.” She sat down and swiped a finger across the screen of her tablet a few times. “They took a look at her computer and went through her search history. All the information the informant told her? Fake.”
Bear leaned down to inhale the smell of freshly brewed coffee. It might be hotel coffee, but it’d still get the job done.
“How is that even possible?” he asked. “She verified the intel.”
“They planted evidence. When the tech guys followed the trail on her computer, everything showed up just like Maria said. But when they matched it on one of their own, it wasn’t there. Doesn’t exist.”
“They specifically targeted her IP address.” Bear poured the first cup of coffee. “Cream? Sugar?”
“One of each,” Sadie answered. “And yeah, looks like it.”
Bear handed her the coffee. “That seems complicated.”
“It is. Or at least, that’s what the tech guys tell me. To be honest, they kind of lost me halfway through the explanation, but in order to gain access to her computer like that and build up the evidence to look authentic enough? They were working on it for quite some time.”
“What about her phone? Or a library computer? How did they know she’d use her own?”
Sadie shrugged and watched as Bear poured himself a cup of coffee. “Maybe they had backups in place. But her computer would be the most secure device. And if she was constantly looking up information and verifying intel, Thorne probably instructed her to use something they had control over.”
“I still think he’s in on this somehow,” Bear said.
“Maybe.” Sadie blew on her coffee. “But he was using Maria to his own ends. He could’ve found a hundred straightforward ways to do this.”
“Thorne’s good at covering his tracks.” Bear ignored the burning of his tongue as he took a sip of his coffee. “And we already know he thinks of Maria as disposable.”
“That’s fair. I guess we can’t rule him out.”
“What’s the other bad news?” Bear asked.
Sadie set her cup down and swiped her finger across her tablet again. “Director Winters reached out again about the five men named in the video.”
Bear recalled his conversation with Dottie. “Do you trust her?”
“Winters?” Sadie didn’t look up from her tablet. “Yeah, I guess. She seemed to be upfront with us. I appreciated her keeping me in the loop even though she reached out to Langley herself. She didn’t need to do that. Why?”
“Just curious. Was there any connection between the men?”
“Hardly anything of significance,” Sadie said. “Different crimes, different cities, different arresting officers. Serving different times in different jails. All of them had priors and none of them are close to finishing up their sentence.”
“Why would a terrorist organization pick them then? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Only two of them have any ties to terrorism, and not even the same groups.” She finally looked up and locked eyes with Bear. “Maybe we’re missing something.”
“Or maybe it’s a distraction.” Bear finished his coffee, set his cup down, and swung his arms out to the side and back again to stretch them out. “They could just be wasting our time. Having us look in one direction while they do something somewhere else.”
“But why reach out at all?”
“What do you mean?”
Sadie settled further back into her chair. “They reached out to us first. We knew the agents were missing, but we didn’t have any evidence as to where they went. The video was our first major clue. They had no reason to try to distract us.”
“Rookie move?” Bear said.
“I guess.” Sadie didn’t sound convinced.
“Maybe they figured it was just a matter of time. That video was sent before the fire, which could mean they planted the body but didn’t strike the match.”
“That also means we have two players on the board unrelated to each other,” Sadie said.
“Not unrelated,” Bear said, “but definitely not working with each other. There’s a reason why that Marine wanted to burn the place down that’s related to the terrorists. We just have to figure out what that is.”
Sadie made a note of something on her tablet. “The cell was definitely sending us a message. They wanted the body of that agent found. They wanted our attention, but I’m not convinced it’s to get these guys out of jail.”
“I might have gotten some good news in another department,” Bear said.
Sadie’s eyes lit up. “Jack?”
Bear nodded. “He was in London three weeks ago.”
“What? Why? How do you know?”
“You’re not the only one with contacts.” Bear smiled, but it faded almost as soon as it formed. “And I don’t know why he was here. He disappeared as soon as he landed. I’m still looking into it.”
“Another dead end.” Sadie held the paper cup to her chest like it was the only thing keeping her warm. “We keep hitting brick walls, Bear. I don’t think we’re meant to figure out what’s going on here.”
“There’s one avenue we haven’t fully explored yet,” Bear said. “The kid.”
“What about him?”
“Someone instructed him to pickpocket me. That means they knew I was here and they wanted to know why.”
“The question is whether they’re tied to the agents and the terrorist group or Jack.”
“Or something else.” When Sadie tilted her head to the side, Bear shrugged. “Given how this week is going, I wouldn’t be surprised if the universe decided to throw something else at me.”
“Keep your voice down, Bear.” Sadie’s voice was even, but she was smiling. “Don’t anger the gods. We don’t need that kind of trouble right now.”
“We need to talk to Seamus again.” Bear grabbed his jacket from the chair he’d tossed it on last night. “We need to find out who was behind his little scheme.”
16
The first clue that something was off was the fact that they weren’t greeted in the driveway when Sadie pulled up to the safe house. Bear leaned forward and noted all the lights were on, but there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of movement inside. One of the cars was missing.
“What did I tell you about angering the gods?” Sadie said.
They stepped out of the car in unison, each one putting a hand on their weapon. Bear had a sinking feeling in his stomach. The safe house was secure. It was in a good location. But sometimes things went wrong. He hoped he wasn’t about to find his worst nightmare inside.
Sadie led the way to the house, but as soon as they reached the steps, the door opened and Agent Bhandari filled the frame.
“Did HQ send you?” he asked.
“No,” Bear said. “Why? What’s going on?”
Bhandari ran a hand through his hair. There were several strands out of place, and Bear had a distinct feeling he’d been giving in to the nervou
s tic for a while now. “Seamus ran away.”
“What?” Sadie’s voice echoed around the entranceway. She took a step forward. “What happened?”
Bhandari put his hands up in surrender. “I don’t know. I wasn’t here. I left two of my agents to watch over him. They said he was sound asleep on the couch one minute and gone the next.”
Bear muscled his way past Bhandari to check for himself. There was no Seamus in sight. And his shoes were gone too. “How long ago was this?”
“Couple hours,” Bhandari said. “And before you shoot the messenger, Director Winters specifically told me to keep it quiet. My first suggestion was to bring you in, Mr. Logan, given your relationship with him.”
“Lot of good that does us now.” Bear tilted his head to the side, listening for any movement upstairs. “Where is everyone?”
“Scouting the neighborhood. He’s gotta be out there somewhere. We’re a ways from London. He wouldn’t walk back all by himself.”
“He’s used to living on the streets,” Bear said. “He’s young and he’s got a lot of energy. He’s resourceful. He’d be able to do it.”
Sadie paced along the center of the living room. “Run me through everything that happened since we were last here.”
Bear could see the hesitation on Bhandari’s face. “Winters doesn’t need to know you told us,” he said. “Let us help. We all want to find him, right? At the end of the day that’s all she’ll care about.”
Bhandari rubbed a hand against the back of his neck, but Bear saw the moment he gave in to the logic.
“You left and we had him go through the Marines on the computer,” Bhandari said. “Took a while. We had to do it in batches so he wouldn’t get confused or too tired and miss something. On the fourth round of pictures, he pointed out the man he’d seen in the apartment.”
“Who was it?” Sadie asked.
Bhandari grabbed the printouts from the table and leafed through a couple photos before pulling up the man’s picture. “His name is Logan Miller. He has no record prior to enlisting in the Marines when he was eighteen. He’s twenty-two now. He has an Other Than Honorable Conditions Discharge on his record. After that, he sort of fell off the map.”
“Until he showed up in London and set fire to an apartment building,” Bear asked. “What’d he do to get the discharge?”
“Excessive violence. He was a bit of a loose cannon. Drank a lot. He became a security threat.” Bhandari traced his finger down the page and kept reading. “It says here he crossed the line on more than one occasion. Never did anything overt, but there were too many instances where his CO thought he was pushing his luck. Gave him a handful of warnings that Miller ignored. The CO decided to take action and he was discharged.”
“Someone must’ve snatched him up,” Bear said.
Sadie stopped pacing. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen guys like him before. Enlist at eighteen. Think they’re gonna save the world. They like the action, the violence. They think they’re hot shit and can get away with whatever they want. And when they get discharged, their life falls apart. They don’t have anything else, so they do something drastic.”
Sadie started pacing again. “Like what?”
“Like fall in with the wrong crowd,” Bear said. “There are organizations out there that take advantage of guys like this. Someone like Miller wants that sense of family and purpose back. He was already used to stepping out of line, so doing something off the radar or straight up illegal doesn’t really matter to him. Especially if it means he gets a slice of his old life back.”
“You think he’s working with someone else?” Bhandari asked.
“I think he’s working for someone else,” Bear said. “He’s probably just a lackey. Hired to clean up a mess he had nothing to do with in the first place.”
“But if we find Miller,” Sadie said, “we’ll find who he’s working for.”
“Exactly.” Bear turned to Bhandari. “There’s no other information in there about what he’s been up to since he was discharged?”
Bhandari turned his attention back to the paper. “He went home to Georgia. Spent a couple months living with his mom, and then he just up and left. HQ is working on finding a paper trail, but if he’s trying to keep a low profile, it’ll likely be minimum.”
“Georgia?” Sadie asked. She paused in her pacing and stared at Bear.
“That mean something to you?” he asked.
“He sounds like an all-American boy, doesn’t he? Maybe someone who could have a hint of a Southern accent?”
“I feel like I’m missing something here,” Bhandari said.
Bear didn’t bother explaining. His mind was racing through the conversation they had with Maria. “We can’t know for sure it’s him. It could still be anyone.”
“Could be, but what are the chances a Southern boy calls her up and gives her bad intel, and then another Southern boy turns up to clean up the mess that’s left behind?”
“Not likely,” Bear admitted. “You gotta find this guy.”
“Me?” Sadie asked. “Where are you going?”
“Back to the apartment,” Bear said. “I gotta find the kid.”
“You think he’s going back there?”
“I have no clue.” Bear ran a hand down his beard. “But it’s the last place he was before we transferred him here. He was hanging out there looking for me. Maybe he went back for some reason. Or maybe it’s close enough to where he’s used to hanging out that I’ll find him eventually.”
“That’s a stretch, Bear,” Sadie said. “He could be anywhere in London.”
Bear shrugged. “Gotta start somewhere.”
17
Bear relegated himself to spending the night walking London’s streets looking for a kid. He knew it was an impossible task, but he was tired of speculating about this or that. He needed to move. He needed action. He needed to get his hands dirty.
Right now, this was the closest he’d get to that. He leaned against the cold façade of a brick building, shrouded in shadows. The temperatures were likely below freezing, and the wind had whipped itself into a frenzy. He’d bought a scarf and a coffee to stay warm, but his fingers and ears were still suffering. It was going to be a long night if nothing happened.
He didn’t have a plan other than keep his eyes peeled for Seamus. If he spotted him, what would he do? He could try to talk to him, ask him why he ran away. Or he could follow him and hope he’d be led back to his boss. Both scenarios were a needle-in-a-haystack proposal.
And there were other factors at play. He didn’t know what Annie or their boss looked like, but it was clear both of them knew him. He’d have a hard time keeping a low profile. Suddenly his impossible task seemed like a complete waste of time.
But Bear didn’t turn back. He finished his coffee, dumped the cup into a garbage can, and pulled his scarf up around his head, doing his best to hide as much of his face as possible. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and started his trek toward the apartment building.
Bear had Sadie drop him off a couple blocks away before she returned to HQ to talk with Director Winters and help with the search for their Marine. The Director wasn’t going to be happy that both of them had been brought into the loop thanks to Bhandari, but there also wasn’t much she could do about it. They would’ve found out eventually. Bear figured Winters had wanted to find the kid and make sure he was okay before she troubled them with the news that he ran away.
But while the agents kept searching the residential area around the safe house, Bear made a beeline for Camden. Seamus had already been on his own for a couple of hours. If he was able to grab a train or a bus, it was likely he had already made it back to London.
Sadie was right, of course. Seamus could be anywhere, and as far as they knew, he had no reason to return to this area. But he also had a close relationship with Annie, who he’d been separated from for about a day now. They would’ve had a backup plan, or at least a meet
ing place, if something had gone wrong. It’d likely be close to where they had last seen each other, rather than somewhere across the city. This was the best starting point to look for the kid, even if everyone else thought he was crazy.
So he kept his head down and trudged on, following the circuit around the apartment building he had established when he was first staking it out. He wound his way closer and closer until he was on the same street. He could see the building in the distance. It was probably just his mind playing tricks on him, but he could swear he still smelled smoke in the air.
As he got closer, keeping to the shadows on the far side of the street, Bear noticed that the area around the building was void of any movement. It was like people thought it was cursed. By now reports would’ve come in about the mysterious dead body and the gas leak. He wasn’t sure how much Winters was able to keep out of the newspapers, but rumors spread, regardless. Even if the rumors were unsubstantiated, people let their imaginations run wild. And that always got the best of them.
Bear was just deciding whether he wanted to slip into an alley and keep an eye on the building or keep walking when a blur of color caught his attention. Bear knew immediately it was Seamus in those damn new shoes. The kid was running down the sidewalk, jumping from shadow to shadow, pausing every so often to make sure he wasn’t being watched. Bear froze, but he wasn’t too worried about being spotted. He was wearing all black and Seamus was in a rush.
“What are you doing, kid,” Bear muttered to himself. He was worried. Seamus wasn’t paying close enough attention, and his shoes practically lit up every time he ran through one of the pools of light from the street lamps.
But just like before, Seamus relied too much on his speed. He was clearly after something, and he thought that as long as he got to it quickly enough, he could escape without getting into too much trouble.
Bear held his breath as he watched Seamus veer off the sidewalk and into the grass in front of the apartment building. He looked around once, and then made his way over to the front steps. To the right was a small garden just beginning to turn green thanks to all the rain it’d been getting over the last couple days.