“Angela . . .” Sydney heard Angie’s footsteps as she bounded down the stairs. “Your sister’s on the phone.”
“Sydney?”
“Hey. You remember which box you packed my old laptop in?”
“Yeah. The one marked ‘Doodads.’ Why?”
Sydney glanced at the box marked in her sister’s writing at the very bottom of all the others. Apparently Angie considered a half-working laptop as odd. “I just need a backup computer.”
“But the wi-fi’s broken, and— Oh . . .” she said, her voice taking on a conspiratorial tone. Angie was all about mystery, and wanted nothing more than to grow up and follow in Sydney’s footsteps, much to their mother’s regret. “You don’t want to connect to the Internet. I get it. What kind of case are you working?”
“None of your business, squirt. And what makes you think it’s related to any case I’m working?”
“Because you wouldn’t have called home first off, and second you wouldn’t have said it’s none of my business.”
“It just so happens I need an extra laptop. That’s all.”
“Yeah, right, because—”
“Angie . . .”
“Your secret’s safe with me. Here’s Mom.”
“What secret?” her mother asked.
“Nothing, Mom. Angie’s just being her usual silly self.”
“I can’t believe you haven’t finished unpacking. I could fly out there some weekend to help—”
“Gosh, look at the time, Mom. Don’t you have to get Angie to school?”
“She’s fine.”
“But I’m running late. Have to go. Love you, bye!”
She hung up before her mother had the chance to pin her down for some visit she wasn’t ready for. Not in the midst of this can of worms. She turned to the closet, saw the box on which Angie had scrawled, “Doodads, Odd Items.”
Most of what was in the box was junk, she realized, after hauling it to the bed, opening it, finding the laptop, then digging around for the power cord. Hating any sort of mess, even in a room she didn’t use, she repacked all the boxes, returned them to the closet, then finally carried the bulky laptop to her kitchen table. The thing was as slow as molasses, the battery had long since given out, and, as Angie had mentioned, it was not wi-fi capable. That, however, meant no one was going to tap into this machine unless it was hardwired to the Internet via Ethernet. And since she wasn’t about to do that, it was probably the safest machine she had to look at the files Scotty had given her.
She only hoped it still worked. She plugged it in, then made herself a cup of tea while the thing booted up.
There was only one folder on the thumb drive and she double clicked.
A list of case files. Or rather the face sheets, which included names and a few lines stating what was in the original report, which was not attached. She read the first one, an anonymous report that the lobbyists at Wingman and Wingman were paying off lawmakers to curry favor for certain bills.
Nothing new there. Wasn’t every lobbyist and lawmaker guilty of that? In fact most of the older reports were of a similar type, she found, after quickly scanning several.
Her stomach knotted as she read the next report’s synopsis. Even though Scotty had warned her, she hadn’t expected that seeing her father’s name as a suspect on an actual case file would still hurt.
He and Robert Orozco were accused of breaking into a travel agency in Washington, D.C., that was suspected of being a front company for Wingman and Wingman’s lobbyists. Apparently the FBI had been investigating the company, because they’d received a tip that the travel agency was giving congressmen bribes and gifts of stays at exotic locations, all expenses paid. The company closed down shortly thereafter, and the matter was dropped after they inexplicably declined to press charges.
Her father was implicated with Orozco in a second burglary, this one being at Wingman and Wingman.
This was six months before her father was killed. That knot in her stomach tightened, and she felt nauseous.
Scotty was right. She didn’t like seeing it.
Reading her father’s name on that type of case made her feel as if he’d somehow betrayed her by pretending to be someone other than the man she thought he was.
This was not the father she had loved her whole life.
And even though this wasn’t the first time she’d been faced with this fact, she knew that if she let it, the knowledge would tear her apart. She couldn’t let that happen again, not after the emotional toll it took when she’d first looked into his decades-old murder, and she told herself that the man listed on these FBI files was what her father did when he went to work. It was not who he was when he came home at the end of the day.
That man had truly loved her, and after all, wasn’t that what counted in the end?
Exactly what counted, she told herself. When she finally managed to look at this with clinical detachment, she realized Scotty was right. Her father was connected to Wingman and Wingman.
The list of numbers she had locked in her desk drawer were the numbers her father and Orozco had stolen from Wingman Squared.
And all these reports were somehow connected.
But apparently not enough to have made a case to go after Wingman.
Somehow there was a thread in here that connected them . . .
Brilliant thought. Of course there was a thread. Her father had also been involved in the theft of money from a bank called BICTT. The acronym stood for Bank of International Commerce Trade and Trust but was better known in the intelligence world as the Bank of International Crooks, Terrorists, and Thieves. It was operated by a group called the Black Network, a cabal of criminals, politicians, and businessmen involved in a number of enterprises such as arms trafficking, drug money laundering, even terrorist funding if it furthered their own ends.
Everything she knew about the Network was from working with Griffin and ATLAS, and they had also implicated the Network with the BICTT scandal. What she knew very little about was Wingman Squared.
Her father, she was sure, had somehow been involved with both. Which, in her mind, at least, meant they were connected.
So why was Wingman and Wingman still up and running if it was a Network firm?
Unfortunately, she couldn’t tell from reading the face sheets of these cases.
But then, at the end of the file was a list of names with no explanation. Some were listed as witnesses on the cases she’d just read, others not listed at all. Curious, she wrote the names down on a sheet of yellow legal paper, tore it from the pad, then set it by her purse, wondering how to research this without using the Internet or her work computers.
A knock at her door startled her, and she glanced out the peephole to see Scotty and two other FBI agents she recognized as working for Pearson standing beside him.
She opened the door, noticed the tense expression on Scotty’s face. “What’s going on?” she asked him.
“Pearson needs you down at the office.”
Her heart started a slow thud. She knew what for, and she was acutely aware of the laptop sitting behind her, along with the flash drive connected to it. Scotty’s flash drive. No wonder he looked upset. “Why?”
“Is it okay if we come in?”
Sydney didn’t move. “For what?”
Scotty took a deep breath. “Permissive search for the list of numbers you recovered from Mexico.”
She told herself to remain calm. “I can save you the trouble of searching. They’re locked in my desk drawer in my office at Quantico. Have at it.”
“Pearson would like to search your apartment, as well.”
“Do I need an attorney?”
He looked her right in the eye and lowered his voice. “You know I’d tell you if you did. It’s . . . more a matter of national security. And your safety. Pearson will ex
plain when we get to his office. He’s asked that I escort you.”
Still she didn’t move. It wasn’t because she didn’t believe him. She knew Scotty enough to realize he wouldn’t lie about something that important. If he said they were searching as a precaution, she believed him. Her concern, at this point, was for the laptop with the files on it. Actually not the laptop, which could only be traced to her. If, however, they were to discover a flash drive in its port that might very well have Scotty’s fingerprints on it?
“Fine. Let me get my phone and my keys. I’ll drive myself. You can follow me.”
She turned around, knowing they’d be watching her like a hawk. She walked straight to the kitchen table, keeping her back to them, hoping she could palm the flash drive without them seeing.
“Don’t touch the computer,” one of them said.
“You need the flash drive?” She pulled it from the port, smeared her thumb and forefinger across it to smudge any prints, then held it out.
The dark-haired agent closest to her reached over, took it from her. She eyed the notes she’d made from the flash drive files, wondering if they’d take that, too. Maybe they wouldn’t connect it to the flash drive. Losing the laptop, she could handle. Losing the notes?
Unfortunately one of the investigators looked at it at the same time, then picked it up along with the laptop.
She wondered if her day could get any worse.
9
Sydney had been holed up in Pearson’s office ever since she and Scotty left her apartment. He did allow her to make one stop, to her across-the-hall neighbor, Tina, so that she could explain that a couple of her coworkers were going to be doing some work at her place and not to be alarmed if she saw them removing any property. Once at HQ, Pearson explained their position, his concern being only for her safety—look what had happened to the young man in South San Francisco who’d found the numbers on the copy machine and been shot as a result.
That she understood. Even so, she paced the room, feeling like a criminal. Pearson eventually left, had been gone for a couple of hours, and Scotty had been assigned the job of babysitter. And for what? To make sure she didn’t run off? They undoubtedly had the list by now. So what the hell was taking them so long? she wondered, looking at the clock. It was almost five P.M.
“This is utter bullshit,” she said, yet again. “Why are they searching my apartment? What are they expecting to find, when the list they want is—was—locked up in my desk drawer at Quantico?”
Scotty was seated in one of the chairs in front of Pearson’s desk. “You heard what he said. They’ve just got to be sure. Protocol and all.”
“What’s there to be sure of? I wouldn’t lie to him.”
Scotty got up out of his seat, looked through the partially open blinds out to the main floor, then turned back to her. Up until now, he’d been fairly quiet, not commenting on the case. Probably because he was worried about what they might find that could lead to him. Not that she was about to say anything. Not here. Not when she didn’t know if there were any listening devices.
“You made a copy when you knew it was a classified document,” he said, his look almost pleading with her to shut up. “That’s not exactly telling the truth.”
In this case, truth was subjective. The last thing she wanted to do was get Carillo in trouble over this, so she wasn’t about to mention that he’d made the copy, not her. “An oversight on my part. How was I supposed to know the thing was some national security document?”
“Because I told you so.”
“No, what you told me was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about once those documents were recovered, the objective changed, and it was all about damage control. What the hell does that mean? You knew I thought those documents had something to do with my father’s murder. You also knew I thought they were offshore bank account numbers from BICTT,” she said, referring to the international CIA bank scandal that had also been connected to her father’s case. “Anyone who asked knew exactly what I thought, so thinking I wouldn’t make a copy was probably stupid on their part, don’t you think?”
Scotty threw her a dark look. “Are you serious? That’s your weak excuse?” He stalked back to his seat and dropped into it, clearly upset with her.
She didn’t care. Right now she had bigger issues, and, looking out the window, she saw one of them was about to hit. Pearson approached, carrying her old laptop.
Scotty happened to look up at the same time, saw it, then turned an accusing glance her way. “Please tell me he’s not going to find anything incriminating on there?”
When she didn’t answer, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then wiped all emotion from his face before Pearson walked in and deposited the laptop on his desk.
“Is this yours?” he asked Sydney.
“Yes.”
“The files on it?”
“What about them?”
“You put them on there?”
“I did. I don’t recall seeing any marks showing them as classified.”
“Except they all pertain to a classified investigation we’ve been running for years.”
“The only thing I was aware of was that they pertain to my father’s murder.”
“How did you acquire them?” Pearson asked.
She could feel Scotty’s gaze burning a hole in her back and she didn’t dare turn his direction. “Lots of digging over the years.”
“The files are dated a few months ago.”
Which was interesting, since she’d only downloaded them today. But then she remembered which computer she was dealing with. The date was probably set wrong, never mind the battery had been dead forever. Apparently he thought the laptop date was correct, not the flash drive date. So be it. “If you recall, a few months ago, I was actively pursuing my father’s case. These are the files I felt were somehow connected.”
“And what was the connection?”
“Honestly? I haven’t a clue. Which is why they’re still sitting there. It’s hours of research over the years that finally led me to believe that my father’s case was possibly tied into other cases, some of which are still going on today. That and the bits and pieces I was able to gather after talking with Robert Orozco down in Mexico,” she added, since she damned well knew he’d have a hard time checking into that. “But what does this have to do with the list of numbers you were looking for?”
He didn’t answer.
Not a good sign, she decided. “You did find it? In my desk drawer, where I said it was?”
“Yes.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“No.”
“Am I being investigated?”
“No. As I’m sure Scotty explained, this is about national security and your safety. The only reason we asked to search your apartment and office—which we thank you for your cooperation—is because of the last few missions you’ve worked. You’ve been exposed to things beyond your clearance level. Things that, when you started looking into them, you could never have realized the implications.”
She stood there a moment, trying to think of what to say, what might help her case, but nothing came to mind. “Can I go?”
“Yes.”
She glanced at Scotty. Normally she had no trouble reading him. He was mad, she knew that. She just wasn’t sure where that anger was directed. At the Bureau or at her? Probably her, she decided, and walked to the door, opened it.
“Fitzpatrick?”
She stopped, waiting for whatever it was Pearson was going to throw at her. She did not, however, turn around.
“I know it doesn’t seem like it right now. But I’m on your side.”
He was right. It didn’t seem like it. Not that she was foolish enough to say so out loud. “Thank you, sir.”
She left, and headed down the corridor, and it was everything she could do to keep calm. She jab
bed the elevator button, then lost the effort, fuming as she waited.
Scotty ran up just as the doors opened, and they rode it down in silence. It wasn’t until they reached the parking garage that he said, “We need to talk.”
“Ya think?”
“Come back to my place.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Moral support? Company? Someone to vent to?”
“Thanks. But right now, I just need to be by myself. Think things through.”
He studied her face for a moment, as though making sure she really should be alone. “Call if you need anything.”
Both turned toward their respective cars, but after a few steps, Sydney stopped, called out to him. “That offer of taking the weekend at the B&B? Is that still on the table?”
“Of course. I can’t use it. And Amanda doesn’t want to go without me.”
“The prospect of sitting in the middle of the forest completely alone is suddenly very appealing, even if I do have to wait until next weekend.”
“It’s on my desk. We can go back up and get it.”
“If it’s all the same . . . ?” Running into Pearson was not high on her priority list right now.
“Back in a few.”
She waited at the elevator, glad for a moment to just regroup. She could deal with being under the microscope. Nothing new for her. The fact they’d found the files Scotty had given her on her laptop had shaken her, though. The last thing she wanted to do was jeopardize his career.
When he returned, handed her the envelope, she reached up, hugged him. “Thanks.”
“I should be thanking you,” he said quietly. “For not throwing me under the bus.”
She looked down at the envelope, fingered the edges. “I’d never do that. Not after . . . you know. I’m only sorry I dragged you into it as far as I did. I never meant—”
Scotty reached out, lifted her face so that she was looking right at him. “I’m not sure I would have done any different. If I were you, that is.” He smiled at her.
“But you’re glad you’re not me?”
The Kill Order Page 6