Elite Ops: Easy Target Part 17

"Video." There was something rea.s.suring about seeing another man's face and reactions when this much was at stake.

Bear tapped a few keys, and a window popped open on the computer screen. Nick Donovan was in the center of the monitor with Jennifer Grayson seated next to him. Beside them were Leland Hollis and Anna Mercado. Leland's leg was propped on a coffee table in a walking boot. A crackling fire was visible behind the two couples.

Bryan recoiled internally. He hadn't been expecting Leland, and the expression on Nick's face was grim. But Nick was ex-CIA; he'd always looked grim until earlier this month, when Jennifer had appeared on the scene.

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?" Apparently Nick could only see Bear on the screen.

Bear smiled into the monitor's camera. "I'm just tech support. Here's Hollywood." The big man stood and gave Bryan his seat. "I'll put you on the headphones so you can have some privacy. I'm going to fix something to eat."

Privacy? Bryan shook his head. What for? Nick had invited the entire flippin' world. "That's not necessary. We need all the help we can get to figure out what's going on."

He caught a glimpse of Sa.s.sy coming down the stairs in Bear's huge robe. He might have to eat those words. He didn't want her here, looking like that. Was it as obvious to everyone else that they'd just had s.e.x?

The velour garment came to her ankles. Seeing her in another man's clothing bothered him. If she was going to wear any man's clothes, they should be his.

What the f.u.c.k was happening to him? He shook his head to clear that bit of insanity and focused on Nick and Leland, rea.s.suring himself with Bear's earlier declaration that no matter what, this call couldn't be traced.

He was surprised when Jennifer started the conversation. "You guys in a safe place?" she asked.

Bryan nodded. "You?"

Nick put his arm around Jennifer as he spoke. "Safe as we can be for now. We're at Gavin's lake house."

Bryan wasn't sure how they'd managed to gather there with the cloud of suspicion Gavin was under, but it made sense. Once the cabin had been searched for evidence and ruled out by investigators, the house would no longer be on anyone's radar.

Sa.s.sy stood just out of sight of the computer monitor's camera. "Is it okay if I join you?" Her scent wrapped around him once again and messed with his head. He so did not need this right now. But she seemed oblivious to her effect on him.

Bryan nodded without looking up at her. Why the h.e.l.l not? They were practically having a slumber party here. This was not what he'd envisioned when he'd planned to talk with Nick.

Jennifer smiled as Sa.s.sy came into view on the camera. "I'm so glad you're okay. I was worried for you."

Sa.s.sy nodded, surprisingly quiet, and took the seat beside the desk Bryan had just vacated. He glanced at her, but she didn't meet his gaze.

Was she regretting what had happened upstairs between them? He wasn't sure, but right now that was the least of their problems and definitely not something he should be focusing on.

Could he do that?

"What is going on with you, Hollywood?" Leland's deep, Southern-fried voice sounded so clearly through the computer's speakers, he might have been across the room rather than across the country.

Was it that obvious?

Bryan was shocked by the question before he understood what Leland was really asking. And wasn't that the question? What was going on with him?

Bryan was still recovering from the shock of seeing Leland there on screen with Nick and Jennifer at the cabin. Nick was the most suspicious-natured person on the AEGIS team. But if Leland was clear in Nick's eyes, the man must be clean.

Even so, it bugged the h.e.l.l out of Bryan that every time he'd talked to Leland about where he and Sa.s.sy were, someone had found them. The obvious answer to that was to avoid discussing their location. But there was no way to go forward until he dealt with the issue head-on.

"Someone is tailing us," said Bryan. "They have been since we got back to the U.S. First there was a break-in at our hotel room in New York, then the train crash. Leland, it happened every time I talked with you. I think someone has a trace of some kind on your phone. You need to do a sweep."

Leland tilted his head as he peered back into the screen but said nothing.

"What are you saying exactly?" Nick leaned forward with an intensity that would have intimidated most people, but Bryan was used to it.

"I'm not accusing Leland of anything. However, I am pointing out the obvious. Someone knows Leland is the contact person in AEGIS we all call when we need something. Whoever this is has a bug or a trace of some kind on him. Our conversation is going to be over before it starts if you won't accept that and do something about it."

Leland nodded, looking unhappy but resigned. "Of course I'll do something about it. I just can't figure out how anyone could've gotten to me or my phone. I haven't been anywhere or with anyone that had access since this start-" He stopped. "Holy s.h.i.t," he muttered under his breath.

"What?" asked Bryan and Nick together.

Anna's eyes widened in alarm as Leland stood.

"I don't want to believe this. Give me a minute." Leland hobbled away from view of the camera with one crutch.

"Do you need your other crutch? It's in the bedroom with Zach," said Anna. There was a garbled reply, most likely positive, since she stood as well.

Nick glanced over his shoulder at something not visible onscreen. "Okay, he's checking it out, in another room I might add. What do you have?"

"The train wreck. This sounds crazy, but after everything was over, it looked like some of the drone attacks I saw in Afghanistan."

"Tell me about the crash." Nick took a sip from a coffee mug on the low table before him.

"After the initial derailment, the back of the train was intact and undamaged. Several minutes later, there was a ma.s.sive explosion."

"But couldn't that have just been a secondary detonation from a leak inside the crash?" asked Nick.

"When I saw the train right after the wreck . . . when we got out of our sleeper car, the back cars were on the track and the least 'disturbed' part of the entire wreckage site. They hadn't been touched. It doesn't make sense that something in the back of the train exploded after the initial impact up front."

Bryan heard the fire popping over the computer microphone as everyone absorbed the information. Jennifer leaned her head against Nick's shoulder, twisting a ring around her finger. Anna settled into the sofa cushions.

"Then the attack on Tilly and Otis, the nurse and her husband who helped us in South Carolina. I can't figure out why that happened, but I have to believe it all goes back to things that went down in Africa. I don't know if it's wrapped up with the human trafficking or the cartels themselves. But someone is driving all of this. I just can't pull the pieces together. That's why I wanted to talk. I thought if we laid everything out from the very beginning, it might make more sense."

Nick nodded. "When do you think this all started? When Jennifer was taken?"

"No," Sa.s.sy spoke up for the first time. "If everything is connected, it started long before that. It started last summer, when Elizabeth was taken. She and my brother were at the resort in Mexico where Tomas Rivera and Ernesto Vega were meeting at the same time. Elizabeth disappeared and Trey was found pa.s.sed out in the boat they'd rented, covered in blood. He was arrested almost immediately for Elizabeth's alleged murder."

Anna nodded. "At the end of November my son was taken by the Riveras, and Leland went to Mexico to get him."

Nick took a sip of his coffee. "When Anna and her son were safe and it was over, Carlita Vega, Rivera's wife, was dead in what Rivera says was a drone attack on his compound that no one has yet claimed responsibility for. Carlita's brother, Cesar Vega, died the next day, trying to kill me."

Jennifer reached for his hand as Nick kept talking. "While I was recovering from the gun battle at Rivera's compound, Jenny was taken from my brother's home by Ernesto Vega in retribution for his own brother's and sister's deaths. Vega put Jenny in a cartel-run brothel in Mexico and joined forces with Tomas Rivera to get even with me and AEGIS because he thought we were the people responsible for killing their loved ones."

"How did Jennifer get away from the brothel?" asked Sa.s.sy.

Bryan turned in his chair to answer her. "Nick and I went to get her out. We had help from an informant. But there was a deliberately set fire. Everyone at the brothel was killed in an ambush, except Jennifer. It didn't make sense then, and it doesn't now. That place was run by Rivera, but Vega was supposedly cooperating with him at the time." Bryan turned back to the screen. "Do you think Vega was playing both sides?"

Nick took another sip of coffee as he contemplated an answer. "In Algeria, just before we left Africa, Rivera told me he'd learned that someone else was responsible for the attack on his compound where his wife died and the vet clinic where his brother-in-law Cesar was killed. He claimed that someone he trusted had betrayed him. By then Ernesto Vega was already dead. So it couldn't have been Vega that Rivera was referring to. If what Rivera said about a betrayal is true, it makes sense that the same person could have been responsible for the attack on the brothel and the attack on the Niamey dig site as well."

Bryan hadn't been there when the Niamey dig site attack occurred, but he'd seen the aftermath. The camp had been burned to the ground. Several Tuareg guards had died, along with a professor from Abdou Moumouni University, but no foreigners. So there wasn't much news coverage for what had been labeled a "tribal uprising" in an area of Africa that hadn't seen "tribal uprisings" in decades.

Nick was still explaining his part of the story to Sa.s.sy. "When Jennifer got home from the brothel kidnapping in Mexico, Rivera came after her and bombed her house. He came after her in Niamey last week, too. There was an actual contract on her life. Rivera thought killing Jenny would be the best way to get revenge on me for what he saw as my part in killing his wife, Carlita. Until a few days ago, he was convinced that I had something to do with bombing his compound where Carlita died. In Skikda, he claimed that he knew who the person was who had 'betrayed his trust.' "

Bryan nodded. "So someone else has been playing both sides against the middle, maybe trying to pit the two cartel leaders against each other. The question now is who?"

"And why did Jennifer end up on that truck with me?" asked Sa.s.sy. "Was it all about revenge, or was someone else after her? Rivera had her in Mexico at the brothel-why didn't he just kill her there if that's what he was all about? At the time he still thought Nick was responsible for his wife and brother-in-law's deaths." Sa.s.sy leaned toward the computer screen. "Sorry, Jennifer, I have to ask."

Jennifer nodded her understanding at the bald statement. Sa.s.sy kept talking.

"If Tomas Rivera wasn't responsible for the attack on the Paleo-Niger Project, who was? And why did they take you and Nick from the site and put you on those trucks, instead of just killing you there at the dig site? Every other time Rivera's men got near you, they tried to kill you."

Jennifer stared a moment, not speaking, along with Nick. That hadn't occurred to either of them. Finally Nick spoke up. "You're right. Taking us from the dig site wasn't about revenge. Rivera made it clear that his attempts to hurt Jennifer were all about hurting me. Killing her would have been the most painful thing for me."

Sa.s.sy nodded. "But taking Jennifer from the dig site was different. Who did that and why? Did she see something in Mexico she wasn't supposed to?"

"I considered that after the house bombing," said Nick, "but we never came up with an answer."

Bryan listened as Sa.s.sy put pieces of the puzzle together that his team had been too close to see. Her reporter's mind was making some connections he hadn't considered before.

"I've been over and over the time there in Mexico," said Jennifer. "It's fuzzy. I was drugged until just a few hours before Nick arrived. I only talked to one of the girls. Mia." She shook her head and turned the ring on her middle finger once more.

"Could you have overheard something from her that would explain or reveal who this other person w-" Sa.s.sy quit talking.

Bryan glanced over to see what had interrupted her train of thought. She was riveted to the screen and leaning even closer.

"Jennifer, could you hold your hand up to the camera, please?" Her voice shook when she asked the question.

Bryan turned to her as Jennifer's hand filled the screen, along with a very distinctive ring-an older silver design with a large crystal stone in the center and several smaller crystals around it.

"Oh my G.o.d," Sa.s.sy whispered. "That's Elizabeth's engagement ring."

Chapter Nineteen.

"HOW DO YOU know that's Elizabeth's ring?" Bryan asked.

"I was with Trey when he bought it," said Sa.s.sy, her eyes never leaving the monitor. "It's a one-of-a-kind estate piece. Where did you get it?"

Bryan watched as Jennifer pulled her hand back from the computer screen and her eyes filled with equal parts surprise and sadness. "A young girl at the brothel gave it to me. Her name was Mia. She died in the ambush. She said I was kind to her 'like the other guera' there had been. I a.s.sumed it was costume jewelry. I had no idea."

Bryan's gut clenched remembering the little girl and how scared she'd been when he'd met her. He'd given her his shirt so she'd have on more clothes than the sleazy lingerie the madam had dressed her in, and he'd almost gotten her out of that place. h.e.l.l, he'd thought she was out and safe, until he'd met Jennifer and Nick behind the house and learned the child was dead. One more person who'd died on his watch.

The parallel to Sa.s.sy's experience after he left Mississippi that long-ago summer was too painful to think about for long. At least he hadn't gotten Sa.s.sy killed . . . yet. He mentally pushed those unproductive thoughts away. He couldn't brood over that right now, or he'd completely lose focus.

Jennifer gazed at the ring on her hand before looking up again. "Rivera noticed this ring, too, when Nick and I were in the cafe in Skikda. What would your brother's engagement ring have been doing with a child in a Mexican brothel?" She reached to take it off as she looked at Nick. "I can have it sent to you."

Sa.s.sy nodded. "Yes, thank you. But not for the reason you think." She was way ahead of both of them. "Don't you see? That's the proof Elizabeth was alive after Trey was arrested. She was there at that brothel, and she was alive. Trey gave her that ring the night she disappeared. He told me about it when I saw him at the prison." Sa.s.sy squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember exactly what Trey had said.

"He proposed to Elizabeth the night they rented the boat, but she wanted to think about it. She was still upset about their argument over the Peace Corps. He convinced her to put the ring on anyway, especially since they were out on the water. That was part of the reason the Mexican authorities were so sure he'd killed her. They were convinced he'd flown into a rage because she'd turned down his marriage proposal after their argument earlier."

Bryan was shaking his head. "Sa.s.sy, just because her ring was there doesn't necessarily mean that Elizabeth was at the brothel. An argument could be made that whoever killed her would have taken valuable and identifying jewelry off her body before dumping it. It could be that one of the murderers involved went to the brothel later and perhaps paid for services with the ring."

"But the girl who gave it to Jennifer said she'd been kind to her 'like the other guera.' Guera can be a reference to a fair-skinned Latino, but it can also mean a blonde woman. Elizabeth is blonde."

"Sa.s.sy, that's a stretch." Bryan worried she was twisting the facts to fit the story.

"No, that's reasonable doubt. Combined with my source who claimed they saw her board a boat in Venezuela."

"A source that's notoriously unreliable," argued Bryan.

Sa.s.sy ignored him. "She's alive, or she was after Trey was arrested. This is exactly the kind of evidence we need for the judge."

Bryan heard the determination in her voice. There would be no changing her mind. He recognized that set of her chin.

"But how can we prove it? I understand this is the right evidence for reasonable doubt. But no judge is going to take our word for it, particularly now that AEGIS, and you and I in particular, are under such suspicion," he said.

"I'm afraid he's right," said Nick. "None of us are considered reliable witnesses at this point."

"Don't worry about that. I can get traction for this if I write a story putting it all together like we've done here."

"I hate to point out the obvious, but you're wanted for murder right now," said Nick.

"And what editor wouldn't want that kind of an exclusive? They'll t.i.tle it something outrageous like 'Why I Did It' or some such nonsense. I can get this story out. I know I can. But I want to make sure I have more detail. Can we go over it again?"

Bryan sighed inwardly but listened carefully as everyone talked through the details once more. He didn't want to rain on Sa.s.sy's good news, but he didn't think this was going to work. Leland hobbled back into view on his crutches as Nick was recounting the sniper attack at the Grand Hotel du Niger. His expression was more intense than Bryan could ever recall and rivaled Nick's at this point.

"What is it?" Nick asked.

"We've got to get out of here, now. There was a bug in my phone." Leland's voice, normally smooth and calm, sounded ragged and weary.

Nick stood, pulling Jennifer with him. "What kind of bug are you talking about? Where's the phone?"

Leland reached for Anna's hand as he spoke. "It's the efficient kind. And the phone is now at the bottom of the lake. I tossed it from the pier in a plastic bag with a brick. I couldn't get any further away on these sticks. I don't know if the person on the other end listening realizes what's going on yet, but we need to leave. They could have been tracking us before this video chat started."

"Who could have bugged your phone?" asked Bryan, understanding-possibly better than they did-the eminent danger. Without a word, Nick disappeared from the screen, taking Jennifer with him.

Leland turned to the computer as he tucked Anna to his side. "Several people have had access besides you and Nick."

"Who?" Bryan pushed and heard the dread in his own tone.

"Gavin, Marissa, Anna, and Zach."

Police sirens suddenly echoed in the background, and on screen everyone froze for a moment.