by CW Browning
“Let me know as soon as you find out the cause,” she said. “I want to know what the hell happened.”
“You and me both,” Stephanie muttered. “Do you think Dominic did it?”
“I'd be very surprised.” Alina pulled out of the parking lot and turned North. “It's too big of a risk for him.”
“I can't think of anyone else who would set John's place on fire,” Stephanie said. “It just doesn't make sense if it's not Dominic.”
Alina was silent.
“Where are you? Do you want to meet for lunch?” Stephanie asked after a moment of silence.
“I can't. I'm out...running errands.”
“Oh. I'll just grab a hoagie at Wawa then.” Stephanie sounded disappointed. “What did you find on John's laptop?”
“I haven't looked yet. I'll do it when I get home. Don't worry. If nothing has international ramifications, I'll pass it all on to you.”
“I'm not worried about that,” she protested. “I'm just anxious. Blake wants to know what I found and so far, I've got nothing. I feel like a useless lump.”
Alina chuckled despite herself.
“Well, you're not,” she assured her. “Go eat something. You'll feel better. I'll let you know if I find anything.”
Alina disconnected and reached for the coffee again, her eyes on the highway. A crease formed between her brows. Stephanie was right. It didn't make sense for anyone but Dominic to set John's house on fire, unless he stumbled across the terrorist connection. The sooner she went through his laptop, the better. Her foot pressed the accelerator.
The sooner she had some answers, the sooner she could go after the bastard who started all this.
Chapter Thirty-One
Alina sipped her steaming, full mug of coffee and eyed the laptop case laying on the counter a foot away. She settled into her chair in the command center and sighed. Her security perimeter was set to away as if she weren't home, the Jeep was parked in the trees out of sight in case Stephanie decided to drop by unannounced, and she had come down armed with a thermos of fresh coffee and a 2 liter bottle of water. There was absolutely nothing to distract her from the task of prying into John's personal laptop.
Yet she continued to sip her coffee, making no immediate move to reach for the bag. If and when John found out they took his laptop from his house, he would be livid. Alina could almost see his thin lips pinched together and his jaw ticking. The worst part was, she wouldn't really blame him. She was about to invade his privacy, never mind why, and that was something she had never done to a friend.
Viper set her mug down and reached for the bag. It was time to stop being squeamish and get to work.
She opened the bag and reached in to slide out the computer. The picture frame slid out with it and Alina paused, staring at the upside down frame. Tossing the bag aside, she picked up the frame and turned it over. The photo was old and taken years ago, when she was young and naive and in love. Alina tilted her head and pursed her lips, studying the three of them. They were all so young! It really was a whole lifetime ago. What on earth induced her to grab it?
Viper set the photo aside and resolutely opened the laptop and powered it on. While it booted, she turned and opened a drawer behind her, sorting through the neatly bound and secured pile of cables within until she found the one she wanted. Turning back to John's laptop, she plugged one end into the computer and the other into an external hard-drive.
“Alright, John,” she murmured, reaching for her coffee again. “Let's see what you've been up to in your spare time.”
She sipped her coffee, set the mug down again, and cracked her fingers. A few minutes later, she was past the first layer of security and the laptop loaded up for her. With a slight shake of her head, she moved the mouse over to the start button.
“Windows,” she muttered. “Horrible operating system.”
Alina sat back a minute later after initiating a complete copy transfer of his computer to her external drive. As it copied the files, her eyes wandered inexplicably back to that photo.
It was taken while Dave was home on leave, the summer before he was killed. Now why did she suddenly remember that?
Viper frowned and drank her coffee, dragging her eyes away from the photo and back to the computer screen. The copy was about half finished. She watched the progress bar absently and her mind wandered again.
Hawk would be landing soon. He said he would call her once he was on the ground. Her lips curved and she shook her head. When he left this morning, he told her to stay out of trouble. Like that was going to happen.
Her mind was still pondering the merits of having Hawk next to her at dawn's first light when something on the computer caught her attention. Alina frowned and leaned forward, setting down her coffee. She had initiated a full transfer of all files being used. The file transfer showed the percentage of the used memory on the hard-drive that had been copied and moved. However, the laptop itself showed a higher percent of memory in use.
“Why John, what have you been up to?” Viper murmured, tapping on the keys rapidly. Within seconds, she unlocked the system control panel and was looking at a hidden drive, partitioned off from the rest of the hard drive.
Alina blinked, surprised. While hidden drives were the norm for herself and the targets she hunted, she was honestly astounded to find that John was more technologically inclined than any of them knew. Without hesitation, she keyed in a code to copy and transfer the partition to her external drive as well.
Watch it be porn, she thought to herself as she drained her coffee mug while the partition copied. That was something that would not surprise her.
With her coffee mug empty, she set it aside and watched as the partition finished copying to the external drive. At least now she knew where to look first. Anything worth hiding was worth checking out.
Alina selected the partitioned drive and opened it. Sucking in her breath, she stared at the screen, dumbfounded. Only two folders populated the desktop; one was labeled Dave, and the other was notated only with a question mark. It was the folder entitled Dave that held Alina transfixed, her eyes narrowed and her heart pounding. Almost involuntarily, she pulled her gaze away from the screen and her eyes darted back to the photo from the boardwalk that summer long ago. Surely not...why the hell did John have a folder on her brother hidden on a ghost drive on his laptop?
Viper turned her attention back to the laptop and opened the folder. Inside were six .msg files, date stamped twelve years ago: the year Dave died.
Alina sat back, stunned, and stared at the screen in a daze. Dave sent John emails? And he kept them? On a hidden drive on his laptop?
“What the hell?!”
Alina stood up impatiently and ran a hand through her hair, annoyed to find it trembling. She reached for the bottle of water and undid the top, pouring it into a clean glass. By the time she finished the routine task, the trembling in her hand had ceased and Viper was back in control. She sipped her water, staring down at the six emails. Her eyes narrowed and she leaned forward, looking at the dates. They were all sent within a two-week period, but the last one was sent just two days before Dave was shot.
Viper tossed back the rest of her water and set the glass down, sinking back into her seat and clicking open the first email.
Hi John,
How's things? Hope you and Lina are living the dream. What's the word on that wedding? Are you two ever going to get around to it?
Listen, I know this is going to seem dramatic, but I need your help. There's no one I can trust here, not with this, and I need someone I know can keep their mouth shut. Since Lina still has no idea about my drunken dive off the pier on your motorcycle, I know that person is you.
I think something's going on over here. I'm not really sure what to make of it, and it's probably nothing, but it doesn't feel right. I'm going to send you some files. Keep them safe for me, somewhere no one will find them.
Give Lina my love and take care of her. I'll write more soo
n.
Dave
Alina sat back, her mind racing. Dave was a gunny in the Marines. What could possibly have been happening twelve years ago to make him reach out to his little sister's boyfriend for help? Her lips tightened. So many questions!
Sitting forward, Viper accessed the heading information of the email and noted the sending IP address and message size. There was no attachment sent with this email. With a frown, she opened the next email.
Hi John,
If you're reading this, you figured out the encryption code. I wasn't sure if you would, but I can't risk what I'm about to write getting to anyone else. It would end my career. What I'm about to say is classified, so I'm trusting you to treat it as such.
Two weeks ago, my team was assigned to protect a convoy taking supplies to some native friendlies. The contents were need to know, and we didn't, but we heard rumors. We always hear rumors and I've learned not to listen. My role was to provide rifle support. The convoy was attacked by a small group of heavily armed hostiles. I took out their short-range missile launcher, but not before the last truck in the convoy took a direct hit. It was decimated. The rest of the convoy made it through with minimal damage.
Last week, I was on a routine recon sweep of a town nearby. I saw two black crates getting loaded into the back of a truck. The problem is that I'm ready to swear those crates were on that last truck that got hit and destroyed in the convoy. I watched them load the supplies on base. One of them had a dent in the corner and I remember thinking that I didn't know those things could dent. That same dented crate was loaded onto a civilian truck a week after it was supposedly destroyed.
I'm sending an attachment separately. Do Not Open it. Just keep it, and this email, safe.
I'll write more later. Give Lina my love.
Dave
Viper opened the folder with the question mark and scanned all the files within. None of them were time-stamped the same day the email was sent. Her lips thinned grimly. Going back to the main hard-drive, she searched all files, looking for any that may have originated from that time frame. After searching for about twenty minutes, she sat back with a low curse. Any files Dave sent John as attachments were not on the laptop.
Sitting back, she stared at the wall, her mind spinning. What the hell did Dave stumble on in Iraq? Never mind the hows and whys, what was so important he would risk his career, and life, to send classified information back stateside, encrypted or not? Alina knew her brother well back then. He was a true Patriot, the son of a bitch, and the only thing he loved more than his family was his country. He loved serving. So what the hell made him risk it all?
Viper's eyes dropped to the laptop and she shook her head in grudging admiration. John certainly followed Dave's instructions to the letter. Not only did he kept the emails safe, but he kept the separate files safer by not keeping the two together. Viper rubbed the back of her neck and rolled her shoulders, trying to loosen muscles stiff from sitting while she thought. John obviously saved the attachments somewhere else. The problem was that everything was destroyed last night when his condo burst into flames.
Viper froze.
The fire! It destroyed everything. It would have destroyed the laptop as well if she hadn't taken it just minutes before.
“Son of a.....”
Her heart started pounding and she stared at the screen, her eyes narrowed and her lips set in a grim line. John, the bulldog investigator that he was, obviously hit a nerve somewhere, twelve years later. This was about much more than a Cartel in bed with terrorists and drivers running bombs up and down the coast. Someone wasn't trying to protect a smuggling operation when they planted a bomb in his wheel well. They were trying to keep a decade-old secret buried in the past. The question was, how did they find out John knew anything?
Viper poured another glass of water before sitting forward and clicking open the rest of the emails. She would read those first, then go through the notes and files John saved in the other folder. The answers, or at least half of them, were right here.
She just had to read.
Stephanie swallowed the last of her hoagie and crumpled up the paper, tossing it into the trash can next to the park bench. A soft breeze blew through her hair and she sat back, staring out over the lake absently. This was her favorite spot. It was quiet today and she took a deep breath of the fresh, Spring air.
John looked better this morning. His color was coming back slowly and he seemed more lucid than yesterday. He just might pull out of this, she thought, brushing an errant curl out of her eyes. The lucky bastard was going to make it.
A strident ring tone disrupted her thoughts and Stephanie reached into her purse to pull out her phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey, where are you?” Blake greeted her. “I'm at your house and you're not here.”
“I thought you were leaving this morning,” she replied.
“I got delayed. I wanted to see you before I left.”
“I'm not far away, if you want to join me,” Stephanie said. “I'm at a lake. I can give you directions.”
“On my way,” Blake agreed. “Tell me the address. I'll plug it into the GPS.”
Stephanie told him and hung up, dropping the phone back into her purse. She was absurdly happy Blake was coming to join her. With John in the hospital and Lina doing whatever it was she did, Stephanie felt lonely and out of sorts. She stared over the water, unable to shake the persistent feeling that things were rapidly changing and falling apart. Just over a week ago, everything was normal in her world and everyone was healthy and good. Now, it had all somehow gone pear-shaped and Stephanie found herself wondering if anything would ever go back to the way it was.
This time she couldn't even blame it on Alina and Damon. This time, it was all John's own fault. Not for the first time, Stephanie lamented the fact that John was such a tenacious investigator. If he wasn't, he wouldn't be in the hospital and she wouldn't be on a forced LOA. If he had just accepted that Dutch was killed in an accident, none of this would be happening. Life would still be as it was two weeks ago with him chasing Nipples around town and her...well, she would be back at work.
Stephanie sighed and gazed out over the water. She supposed there was no use thinking about what could have been. John was a tenacious investigator and he had followed his gut the way he always did. In doing so, he uncovered something much larger than he could have imagined, but that was hardly his fault. In fact, Stephanie thought, if he hadn't poked around Dutch's accident, they would never have discovered drivers were moving bombs up and down the coast, bombs made for only one purpose. She shivered despite the warm sunshine.
Stephanie shook her head. Last year, they foiled two terrorist attacks on US soil. Now, another one was planned. Was the Casa Reino Cartel behind it this time? Lina didn't think so. She thought they were just couriers. But then who?
“Steph!”
Stephanie looked up and smiled as Blake came toward her on the lake path, his tall frame silhouetted against the sun. She shaded her eyes against the glare and watched as he ambled over to her bench.
“This is a nice spot you've staked out,” he told her, sitting next to her and stretching out his legs.
“It's my go-to thinking spot,” she answered with a laugh, lowering her hand from her eyes.
“How are you holding up?” Blake asked, glancing at her from behind his sunglasses.
“I'm OK,” Stephanie lied. “Just trying to make some sense out of everything.”
“Any word on John?”
“I was there this morning. He's awake and talking,” she told him. “His numbers are looking good. They're keeping him mildly sedated though, just to be safe. When I was there he was rambling on about something to do with a robbery in the desert. He was high as a kite.”
“They've got him on the good stuff,” Blake said with a laugh. “I was pretty torn up in Afghanistan once. When they finally got me to the medics, I don't know what they gave me, but Michael said I kept talkin
g about an old Dukes of Hazzard episode.”
Stephanie laughed.
“Nice. What happened?”
“When?”
“When you got hurt, what happened?” she clarified, glancing at him just in time to see his jaw clench.
“We were taken prisoner by insurgents,” he said after a pause. “They tied me to a tree and I watched as they tortured Mike.”
“Oh my God, I'm sorry,” Stephanie exclaimed, turning to face him. “I didn't realize...you don't have to tell me if you'd rather not.”
“It's fine.” Blake waved away her concern and shrugged. “It happened. Not telling you won't change it. Mike was bleeding pretty bad. When he finally passed out, they left us there. While they were gone, I managed to work my knots loose and get to Mike. I picked him up and was getting us out of there when they came back. They fired at us and I took a round in my side and one in the leg. We were far enough down the mountain I was able to get us to cover. Mike woke up and we got the hell out of there, but not before I lost a lot of blood. In the end, he was carrying me.”
“But you made it out.”
Blake nodded.
“We lived to fight another day. And so will John,” he added, looking at her with a smile. She smiled back, a warm feeling going through her at his words.
“Oh! Alina sent me that list of cars last night,” Stephanie said suddenly, snapping back to reality.
Blake raised an eyebrow.
“Were you going to tell me?” he asked in amusement.
“Sorry! With everything that happened, I forgot all about it.”
He looked at her sharply.
“What do you mean?” he demanded. “What happened last night?”
“I went to John's and Alina met me there,” Stephanie told him. “She seemed to have the same idea as you. She didn't want me going alone.”
“Smart woman,” Blake murmured.
“While we were there, someone picked the lock on the back door.”