A View to a Thrill (Masters and Mercenaries Book 7) (28 page)

Someone had been smart. Someone tagged Jesse’s car.

And there was only one person who could have done that. Bloody hell. He would have to use that little piece of information for later. The last thing he wanted to do was tip off Ten that he was on to him.

“What else do you have?” Simon asked. “This can’t be an isolated incident.”

“I don’t think it is. I have four deaths I think might be linked. A US attorney, a whistle blower and two judges. Mostly cardiac incidents. One had a bad reaction to medication. Now all of these people were in their late forties through early sixties.”

“That makes sense because they were at the top of their game and to get to that level in the federal court system, they’re going to be mature,” Ace said. “This could all be coincidental.”

“Could be,” Ten allowed. “I don’t think so. They’d all been involved in cases that directly affected large corporations. I haven’t been able to link them to The Collective definitively, but the ties are there. I just have to find them.”

“What does your guy on the inside say?” Jesse asked.

“Who said it was a man?” Ten got a shit-eating grin on his face. “You a sexist, Murdoch? It doesn’t matter. My insider is working on it, but for now we need to figure out why they want Chelsea.”

Chelsea sat back, curling her legs up and letting her face rest against his shoulder.

It was a signal. She was letting him take control. He could tell Ten however much or little he wanted. She was ceding control.

In this particular case, sharing information could only help him. Any information the CIA and Ten could gather would aid them in figuring out where this package of Albert Krum’s was. “Is the flow of information going to go both ways?”

Ten tapped the folder in front of him. “I didn’t give you this information for my health. Yes. I’m offering to show my hand. You show me yours.”

“Chelsea is acquaintances with a man named Albert Krum.” He knew the language to use in case Ten was taping this conversation. He wasn’t about to call Chelsea The Broker or place her in the crosshairs. “I believe she met him while she was living in Europe.”

“I came across him on a dating site,” Chelsea said.

Cheeky girl. He stroked her hair as he spoke, deeply enjoying having her close. He didn’t give a damn what the rest of the men thought. It seemed to be calming her down and it was definitely making him feel better. “Krum was a hacker, a very good one.”

“Was?” Case asked.

Chelsea’s arm tightened slightly around his neck, the only sign that the conversation was bothering her. This was what she was so good at. Anyone watching her would think she was barely listening. She looked bored, but Simon knew the truth. She felt everything deeply, but she’d learned to never show it. He had to make her understand that it was safe to share those fears and feelings with him. He let his hand slide along her spine, firm pressure because she reacted so well to it. She relaxed against him.

“It’s our belief that Mr. Krum was killed by The Collective. The night she was sent the bomb, they called her.”

Theo held a hand up. “I’ve been monitoring Dallas Police bandwidths and that bomb was a dud. It was meant to scare the holy hell out of her, but it wouldn’t have gone off. The one on her car actually had a message on it. Some sort of code.”

Chelsea was up on her feet. “Can I see it?”

Ten nodded.

Theo passed her a piece of paper.

“While she’s looking at that report, you can tell me what happened with Krum,” Ten said.

“They called and put Mr. Krum on the line. He claims to have sent Chelsea a package, though she didn’t receive anything.” He watched her as her eyes ate up that report. Ian was wrong. She needed to work and she needed to be important. He understood why he’d placed her on the sidelines, only using her when Adam was out of pocket, but Chelsea needed more.

“She’d been in Europe,” Ten mused. “Have we checked her apartment complex? Did they receive her mail?”

“Al didn’t have that address,” Chelsea stated. “And this isn’t a code. This is another address. A Deep Web addy. I need a computer and I need Internet.” She frowned Ten’s way. “Come on. No one is going to do this better than me. You can stand over me and watch me, but let me put my hands on this sucker.”

Simon leaned forward. “This is about her. She should have some say in what goes on.”

“Hutch, give her yours and watch her. I don’t want to tip anyone off as to where we are.” Ten nodded the big guy’s way. “Hutch is our communications specialist.”

Hutch stood up, gripping his backpack and zipping it open to slide out a sleek-looking laptop. He was no more than twenty-five and had the kind of rugged good looks that screamed all-American. He grinned as he flipped open the top and powered it up. “Hutch is damn glad to get to see a master at work. The others might not know who you are but I do. Well, I know who some people think you are—allegedly, counselor. You want me to ping this signal around for you?”

Chelsea’s eyes lit up the minute that computer was in front of her. She was an addict, but it didn’t have to be a bad thing. She would always need the power she felt when she was hacking, but he could turn her just the right way so she was doing it for good instead of just doing it. She simply needed a firm and loving hand. And he needed one, too. He’d just started to recognize it. He needed her to give him a reason to get up in the morning, to color his bland world.

“I can handle it, Hutch,” Chelsea said, her hands already flying across the keys.

Boomer held up a hand like he was still in grade school. “Uhm, I’m going to get called a dummy for asking this, I’m sure, but what’s a Deep Web?”

Chelsea never looked up even as she answered the question. “Think of the Internet as being a massive piece of property and the web addresses are real estate they sell. The www is a part of town that’s easy to get to, safe for the most part until you add in a couple of words like anal hotties or free movies. Then it gets a little skeevy and someone’s coming out of it with a virus.”

“Don’t all sites have a www?” Theo asked. He sat next to his brother, and Simon had to stare from time to time. They weren’t exactly twins to Ian and Sean, but it was easy to mistake them on a casual glance.

“Nope. Not at all,” Hutch replied. “The Deep Web is off the beaten path, so to speak. These are sites that can’t be indexed by normal search engines. You can’t type in a name for these sites and find them. You have to know the very specific address. It’s kind of like a speakeasy. You better know the code word to get in or you’re on your own.”

“Like Silk Road?” Case asked.

Chelsea’s brows rose and he loved how cute she was when she was serious. “Yes, like Silk Road. Which despite reports, I had nothing to do with. Nothing. Mostly.”

“How about my client declines to answer on the grounds that every little sound she makes tends to incriminate her,” Simon offered, giving her a warning glare. Ten didn’t need ammunition.

“Fine.” Chelsea went back to concentrating on the screen in front of her.

Ten stood and walked around the table so he had a view of what Chelsea was doing. “So Krum found something that incriminated The Collective and he mailed it to her? Are we sure we’re talking about snail mail here? Why wouldn’t he just send it to her digitally? I thought all the hackers avoided the post office.”

Simon was fairly certain. “He said he sent her a hard copy.”

Chelsea sighed a little. “I just don’t know where he would have sent it to. He knew how often Charlotte and I moved and we haven’t talked much since Satan took over my life.” Her eyes strayed to Case. “That’s my name for your big brother, and he could so kick your ass. Hey, does the smaller one cook?”

Theo stared at her, obviously offended. “I’m not exactly small. I’m six foot three for god sakes. He’s only got an inch or two on me. And for your information, I’m pretty good. I’m not chef quality or anything, but I had to learn because our mom worked so much and Case there can burn an egg just by thinking about it.”

“Yep, Little Tag Two,” she said under her breath as she went back to work. “I got it. I’m going in. There’s no way anyone can trace this signal. I’ll get in, download whatever it is they want us to see, and get back out before they even know it.”

“How did they find us the first time?” Simon wondered.

Hutch had an answer for that. “Traffic cameras. You didn’t switch cars after the initial pickup. It would have been hard because not every intersection has a camera, but we know they’ve got some people on DPD, so they could track you and figure out where you stopped.”

“It’s probably how Adam did it,” Chelsea explained. Her face went white. “Oh god.”

Ten frowned. “Hutch, take over. Simon, she doesn’t need to see this.”

But he did. He nodded at Jesse, who had Chelsea pulled back as fast as he could get her up and out of her seat. She was shaking, but Simon had to see for himself.

It was a video playing on a loop. There was a woman kneeling in what looked like a hospital room. White and sterile, Simon could almost smell the bleach. But the man who entered the picture wasn’t a doctor. He was dressed in a suit with a mask covering his face. He stepped up to the camera.

“Mr. Krum, you missed your deadline. I believe we promised you a penalty.” He stepped back from the camera and it was all over in an instant. The man placed his pistol at the woman’s temple and pulled the trigger. Her body slumped over and the floor wasn’t white or sterile anymore.

“We want the files you stole and we want them now. You have four hours. We have your sister, too. She has four hours to live.”

The video went blank and then the man was on again. This time he was alone and someone had cleaned up that room.

“Miss Dennis, I’m sorry for the shock. I’m sending you this video so you understand the history of our interactions up to this point. Unfortunately, that woman’s four hours were up a long time ago. So were her mother’s when our very reasonable request went unmet. Apparently our employee, Albert Krum, has mistakenly sent you a package that belongs to us. The bombs you discovered are meant merely to show you that we do mean business. We know where you live, where you work, where you play. We know who you care about. We don’t want for those packages to be sent to your sister or perhaps to Mr. Weston. You look him up far too often on the Internet, dear. You’re getting a bit sloppy in your retirement. We’ll call you this evening. Find the package or Albert will be joining his mother and sister and then we’ll be forced to start looking at your family. Until then.”

Simon looked over and Chelsea had her stoic face on, but she was pale, far too still.

Ten took a long breath as he stared at the screen. “Hutch, I’m going to need another secure line. No matter how the man feels about me right now, there’s no way I’m not warning Tag. Chelsea, where would he send the package?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t like I got a lot of packages while I was moving around the world trying to keep one step ahead of my father’s men. It was a bad bet to leave a forwarding address,” Chelsea said.

Simon moved toward her, but when he put his hand close to hers, she moved away slightly.

She was shutting down again and at the worst possible moment.

Ten flipped the laptop closed. “Let’s clear out and I’ll make my call. I want every man looking into this Krum guy. Connect him to a corporation and that corporation to a lawsuit. I need straight lines to and from, people. And figure out where he would have sent this mysterious package of his. Weston, make sure your people get some sleep. We’re moving in the morning. Don’t ask me where. It’s better you don’t know.”

The room emptied as Ten and his men went to find another, more private location. It wasn’t lost on Simon that Boomer and Deke stayed behind. Their guard. It was good to know there were only two of them.

He could handle two of them, but not until later. Now it was time to truly bind her to him because he was going to make his move and he needed to make sure that when he did, she was by his side.

Chapter Thirteen

She wasn’t going to cry. She’d done enough of that. It was time to face the facts. She’d gotten them in this mess and working with Ten was the only way to get them out of it. She stared out of her balcony at the massive moon overhead. It didn’t look so big when she was in the city, or maybe she just never looked up long enough to really see it.

Three hours had gone by and she still couldn’t get the sight of that poor woman kneeling on the floor out of her head. Jesse had pulled her away before the shot that ended the woman’s life, but she could imagine it. She could certainly imagine feeling utterly helpless and alone in the world. It made her sick. Al’s whole family was dead. Al, with his shy smile and big eyes hidden behind thick glasses. He’d been a little chunky and the dude could have dressed better, but the time they’d actually met he’d been funny and sweet. He’d run all over Venice with her. It had been weird because she hadn’t pictured him that way, but he’d been one of the first real friends she’d made during those years on the run.