“Exactly. So I figure it's one of two things. Someone is trying to backtrack through Sava's organization to find the mole. There's no way any other players saw Sava go down and didn’t suspect an informant.” Cam leaned forward and laced his fingers between his knees.
“Agreed. What's Option B?” Nathan asked.
“A couple of the guys Miguel got close to were poised to grab a piece of the pie the minute things went south with Sava. If one of them wants to start assembling soldiers…” Cam shrugged, letting Nathan finish the thought.
“That person might reach out to his old crew.”
“Got it in one.” Cam nodded.
“What did your former handler have to say?” Nathan asked.
“He said it's my call.”
“And what do you say?” Nathan steepled his fingers at his chin.
Cam's eyes met Nathan's. “Something tells me I should follow up on this.”
Nathan leaned closer. “Cam, one of the main reasons I hired you is that your instincts are strong. Hell, you wouldn’t have lasted in the field if they weren’t. I’d be one hell of a hypocrite if I told you to ignore them now. We’ve all torn apart a lot of haystacks over the years. What's one more?”
Cam rethought the offer of coffee, stood, and crossed to the sleek machine. He filled a mug from the fresh carafe, his back to Nathan, and spoke. “There's something else.”
Cam returned to his seat. He took a cautious sip of black coffee, set the mug on the edge of the desk, and gathered his thoughts. On a deep breath, he withdrew the worn leather journal from the pouch of his hoodie, thumbed the cover, then slid it across to his boss.
Nathan picked it up and turned to a random page. “What's this?”
“Have you ever heard of The Conductor?” Cam asked.
Nathan didn’t hide his surprise. “Aside from the rumors floating around the Intelligence community, I actually have. It was several years ago. I had just left the Navy. My father wasn’t the most scrupulous of businessmen. He was caught up in a Senate investigation for an off-the-books weapons sale. He was drunk one night, ranting about being extorted and that a senator had thrown him to the wolves. I was just about to leave him to his ramblings when he grabbed me by the shoulders and said, ‘He's in The Conductor's pocket.’”
“Who?” Cam asked.
“I assumed he was talking about the senator leading the investigation, Harlan Musgrave. I did a little poking around after that. Didn’t find much. From what I can discern, The Conductor is a myth.” Nathan flipped to another page.
“I think he exists,” Cam said.
Cam waited for Nathan to scoff, but his boss simply pressed on. “And this book? It documents your reasons?”
“Yes. Senator Musgrave is mentioned in there as well.” Cam pointed to the journal.
“Really?” Nathan sat up in his chair.
“He was staying at a hotel in Athens at the same time the yacht I suspect The Conductor operates out of was anchored there. I know it's a little thin.” Cam wobbled his hand.
Nathan turned a page. “Don’t dismiss your hunches. Yes, it's a wild proposition, but certainly not impossible or even improbable. I, for one, have seen too much crazy to dismiss the theory of an experienced operator.”
Cam's relief at Nathan's support propelled him. “It's all in there. Common procedures, the same men I’ve seen at meet-ups with different smugglers with no obvious overlap, shipping routes, customs protocols.”
Nathan nodded, still buried in the journal. “You’ve gathered a tremendous amount of information.”
“And possibly proof,” Cam said.
The declaration had Nathan looking up.
Cam pointed to the book. “In the binding is a flash drive. It's a video clip. I was tracking an arms dealer in North Africa. I filmed him boarding the yacht I mentioned docked in Rabat. The ship departed, and my target was never seen again.”
“How is this proof?” Nathan challenged.
“The name of the ship was The Maestro. I think it belongs to The Conductor,” Cam explained.
Nathan's eyes widened, and he felt along the journal's spine, detecting the outline of the device.
“So, what are you thinking?” Nathan asked.
Cam ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. He had skipped shaving in anticipation of returning to the field. “It's not like The Conductor haunts me. I don’t need to bring him down personally, but I know he exists. And I suspect some very powerful people are covering it up. I would have liked to at least have gathered enough intel for law enforcement to investigate. Shit.” Cam laughed. “I don’t even know what Luis wants, but maybe this is a chance for Miguel Ramirez to take one last look around. Either way, I don’t think I can turn my back on investigating whatever Dario Sava's men are up to now.”
Nathan set the book down and folded his hands across the cover. He met Cam's determined gaze with a look of pride. “I guess it's settled then. I know this is a solo op, but the team is here if you need us.”
“There's one other thing.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ve seen this car three times in the past forty-eight hours. Nothing overt. It just always seems to be where I am.” He passed the phone with the photo displayed to Nathan.
“Get it to Twitch. Let's see what the plates turn up.”
Cam nodded. As he stood, he noticed his boss recheck the screen of his phone.“Expecting a call?”
“Sorry about that. Emily's due next month. Apparently, it's no less nerve-racking the second go. Emily was early with the boys, but this one? I have a feeling our daughter is taking her time.”
“Daughter?” Cam repeated.
“It's a girl this time. Emily wanted to find out. She's not big on surprises.”
“Got a name picked out?” Cam asked.
Nathan came around the desk to walk with Cam out of the office.
“Yeah, but I’m nervous about it.” Nathan shoved his hands into his pants pockets.
“Nervous?”
Nathan stopped at the doorway and spoke in a low tone as if this information were more classified than the material they had just been discussing. “Emily wants to name the baby after Twitch.”
“Twitch Bishop?” Cam grinned.
“Her real name. I warned Emily, Twitch doesn’t ever use her name, doesn’t answer to it, and very few people outside of this office even know it, but Emily insists it's perfect.”
“What's her name?” Cam asked.
Nathan rechecked his phone. “You’ll find out in a month or so.”
Cam shook his head through a laugh, and both men headed for the exit.
Cam climbed into his 4Runner, both relieved by and grateful for Nathan's support. He didn’t have that kind of leeway in his former job, and the encounter left him feeling confident in his decision to join Bishop Security. He started the car, then, out of habit or paranoia, checked his surroundings. Despite his renewed sense of determination, a looming sense of dread lingered.
CHAPTER SIX
Valldemossa, Mallorca
November 26
E
van sat on the narrow balcony off her bedroom in the charming stucco finca she shared with her advisor, Dr. Omar Emberton, and the two other graduate students working at the dig site. She and the students each had a bedroom on the second floor, while Doctor Emberton occupied a small apartment on the main level. The rain had abated, leaving a dark sky and heavy air in its wake. An olive grove slept at her feet. Beyond, a meadow led to low hills. Evan knew, in just a few short months, this same view would burst with electric orange poppy blossoms and vibrant green olive branches. The current landscape was muted but no less spectacular in her eyes, the browns and darker greens far more complex and foreboding.
The view took her back to her childhood home in northern California. Her father was a vintner of some renown, and they had lived on the family vineyard in Santa Rosa. The view from her bedroom window, rows and rows of tangled grapevines lapping onto low rolling hills, was different in both topogr
aphy and vegetation. Still, it held the same juxtaposition of magic and disquiet.
In the spring, Mallorca was a fairytale. In November, it was a Gothic novel.
A bottle of sparkling water sat next to her tablet and attached keyboard on the small round table, the blank document, a white void, beckoning her to transcribe something: a thought, a theory, a conclusion, a course of action. Thus far, she could only contemplate the things that had bothered her about the excursion: the markers from the wrong era, those strange chain links, and of course, the frightening man.
In her mind, Evan had named him Diablo; it seemed to fit his demeanor, his subtle but malevolent accent, his threatening stance. He certainly wasn’t law enforcement, which begged the question: what was he doing in that remote cove dressed very much like her in cargo pants, military boots, and a slicker?
She dutifully noted her observations on the document then paused as she considered her next steps, the cursor blinking impatiently while she thought. What had caused that loud clanking noise? What were the tidal restrictions? How would she gain access to the sealed-off cave? When and with whom should she share her discovery?
First things first.
She needed to return to the caverns with the proper equipment to break through the last cave's sealed opening. She typed as she formed a plan of action. She had to extract the gold chain links from the limestone marker for testing. Her skin prickled as she imagined a great discovery. Not a cache of treasure or an ancient tomb, she pictured just the slightest clue: another breadcrumb on the trail of her search to prove the ancient peoples she was there to study were seafarers. On a dig in Djibouti, her doctoral advisor at Stanford discovered a bone that proved a prehistoric mammal species had a vestigial gizzard, changing an entire evolutionary chart. Her job was all about tiny needles in very large haystacks.
Evan wasn’t discouraged by the more recent objects she had found. If anything, they proved that this cave system had been accessible centuries earlier. And who knew? Perhaps those small piles of rock would lead her to something extraordinary.
“Anybody home?”
She recognized the voice of her mentor and pulled back the curtain to reveal her location. “On the balcony, Doctor E.”
Dr. Omar Emberton parted the sheers and squeezed around Evan to take the other seat at the table.
He pulled his glasses to the end of his nose and assessed her over the rim. “You don’t appear ill.”
She chuckled. “Not ill. Some kids pulled me aside the other day and explained they had found markers, similar to those at our excavation site, in a cave on the coast. I went to check it out.”
“And?” Emberton pressed.
Evan wanted to put this conversation off until she had something more noteworthy to report.
“The markers the boys found are interesting. Definitely not Talaiotic. I’m guessing Moorish, probably Fifteenth Century. I’d like to follow up, but it's not related to our project.”
Doctor Emberton circled his fingers on the glass surface of the table, paused in thought. “Take another day or two. See if you can determine if the markers lead somewhere. You’ll have a devil of a time in those caves. The limestone practically dissolves.”
She agreed. “The markers have badly deteriorated. I’m dating them based on a stalagmite that had formed on one of them.”
“I see. Well, it's a fascinating period on Mallorca—the Moors fleeing crusaders, hiding treasure. Did you know there are supposedly over a hundred shipwrecks in these waters?” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the Mediterranean. “And just a few years ago, some farmers found a stash of gold coins in a cave near their property.”
“I read something about that,” Evan replied.
“My point is we have a rather exciting excavation we’re exploring, but if I’ve learned anything in my years, it's to follow the clues history puts out. I’d be very interested in knowing what you discover. I’m descended from the Moors after all.” He rose from his seat.
“I’ll spend a day or two poking around. I don’t want to leave you shorthanded, and I need the Talaiotic research for my dissertation.” Evan stood with her mentor.
“Very good. I’d like to see you hooded this year.” He patted her shoulder, referencing the ceremony in which Ph.D. candidates were conferred their doctorates and received a hood for their gowns.
“So would I.” She smiled up at the man she respected beyond measure.
Omar Emberton parted the drapes and made his exit, leaving Evan to plan for another adventure in the caves.
CHAPTER SEVEN
South Island, South Carolina
November 26
S
tanding on the dark sand, Steady looked up at the beach house. It was still in disrepair but much improved after a day of intense labor with his makeshift construction crew. The stilts had been reinforced, and the shingles and shutters repaired. The deck was still a hazard, and the sliding glass door frame was boarded over, but in a few weeks, the place would be palatial. He turned back to the ocean, pleased with what he and his brothers had accomplished.
Telescope in hand, he trudged across the damp sand toward the surf. They were finally getting a clear night, and he was eager to do some stargazing. It was one of his fondest memories with his dad growing up. Each May, before they left Charlotte for the shore, they would spend time determining interesting and anomalous astrological phenomena and when they would occur. Then, throughout the summer, they would set up the telescope and canvas chairs on the beach and bring a bag filled with whatever treats they could swipe from the kitchen. They’d sit and talk until the start of a meteor shower or a planetary alignment. His father worked crazy hours and traveled extensively for his job running the family business, a small chain of boutique hotels. There were weeks during the school year that Steady rarely saw him. So those nights on the beach just sitting and talking to his dad—the telescope incidental—meant the world.
It wouldn’t be fully dark for another hour or so, but Steady spread the tripod and planted the telescope in the sand. He had plenty of time to heat the casserole Maggie Bishop—Herc's grandmother and the unofficial den mother of Bishop Security—had dropped off for him knowing his kitchen currently consisted of a microwave and a minifridge. Steady figured he would include a kitchen renovation in the repair work—in for a penny, in for a pound and all that.
As he turned to head back to the house, the headlights of a car pulling into the driveway next door caught his attention. This small strip of beach houses was active in the summer, but the places were far enough apart that it never felt overrun. This time of year, it was a ghost town.
He heard the muffled slam of a car door, and a moment later, a light came on in the home. More out of curiosity than suspicion, Steady aimed the telescope toward the house and bent to look through the eyepiece. When he spied the outline of a woman in a duster and beanie entering, he immediately jerked himself to standing. Eyes on the sky, creep. He knocked the heel of his hand against his forehead and headed back to the kitchen.
An hour later, Steady once again stood behind the telescope and pointed the lens skyward. He was just about to see what magic the heavens held when the low thump of bass had him looking up the beach. A football field away, every light on the first floor of the neighboring house was on, and Steady caught a flash of hot pink through the sliding glass doors that separated the living space from the wraparound deck.
The music—he thought it was classic Ramones. Suddenly the temptation was too much, and he swiveled the telescope toward the house and leaned down to take a look. Well, call it what it is. He bent to peep. There, in the large family room, a tiny slip of a woman was dancing around, more like jumping around, to the music wearing a T-shirt and boy shorts. Her clothes, however, were not the flash of pink that had caught his eye. That came from her head. The dancing girl had hot pink hair.
Could this get any weirder?
Then, as if the universe answered his question in the affirmative,
the pink-haired woman jumped her way over to a whiteboard, erased a section of a complex formula, and began rewriting it. Nothing in the night sky could compare to what was going on in that house, and Steady watched like his orbital bone was glued to the eyepiece. Until a voice sounded from behind him.
“Whatcha doin?”
Steady shot up, upending the telescope, and spun to face Cam, smiling like the kid who found the last Easter egg, hands in his pockets rocking back on his heels.
“Oh, eh, hey, Cam,” Steady said.
“Spot any heavenly bodies, Stead?”
Steady shot both hands to the top of his head.
“Fuck, I know, but seriously, it was too much. She's cranking music and dancing in her underwear, writing math formulas on a whiteboard.”
“Got a hot-for-teacher thing?” Cam quirked a brow.
“Doesn’t everybody? We all had that spank-bank teacher in middle school.” Steady kicked the sand.
“Mrs. Jones.” Cam sighed wistfully, then paused, rubbing the back of his neck. “Huh.”
“What?” Steady asked as he righted the telescope.
“I just realized she married a SEAL. Maybe that's what got me interested in the Navy, not all that service and honor crap.” Cam looked up at the sky.
Steady chuckled as he ran a hand through his hair. “Shit, is everything we do just to get laid?”
“Nah, I took out the head of Shining Path with the RPG he thought he was buying. That was for Uncle Sam.” Cam looked to the ground after the uncharacteristic disclosure, then circled back to the situation at hand. “So, is she hot?”
“So hot I want to walk over there and propose.” Steady threw his hand toward the house.
Cam stepped to the telescope, and Steady obliged, tipping the main tube toward him. Cam adjusted the focus. “Well, she's gone. The whiteboard is there, though. That's not a math formula. It's a chemical formula. There's molecules and shit.”
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