Operation Zulu Redemption: Collateral Damage - Part 1 (6 page)

Wheels down. Frankie’s nerves thrummed as the plane rolled toward the gate where they’d deboard. She was close. Closer than she’d ever been to putting the Misrata tragedy to rest. Bringing justice to the children so needlessly and callously murdered. Cutting the legs out from under one of the most arrogant soldiers she’d ever encountered.

She stepped onto the tarmac, the unusually hot day sending heat plumes warbling over the blacktop. She tucked on her sunglasses.

“Lieutenant Solomon?” An airman stood beside a black sedan. “Ma’am, I’ll be your driver while you’re here. We’re ready when you are, ma’am.”

“I need to talk to the local authorities, Airman. Can you take me to the FBI field office?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The ride to the John Lawrence Bailey Memorial Building on West Lake Mead took twenty minutes, thanks to a lack of heavy traffic. The airman delivered her to the front door and went to park the vehicle. Frankie entered the building and showed her ID. “Lieutenant Frankie Solomon with
U.S.
Army Intelligence and Security Command
. I need to speak with the special agent in charge, please.”

She waited, refusing the opportunity to sit. Her nerves, her anticipation of resolution sending spurts of adrenaline through her legs.

“Lieutenant Solomon?”

Frankie spun as a woman in standard FBI attire strode toward her, flanked by a man in khaki slacks, a navy blazer, and white shirt. The guy was hard not to notice with his height and unusual gold eyes.

“I’m Assistant Special Agent in Charge Gloria Lopez. The SAIC is offsite right now. Can I help?”

Frustration squeezed the muscles at the base of Frankie’s neck. She wanted the top dog to deal with this, not an underling. But time was of the essence. “Yes, that’d be fine. Can we go somewhere private?”

Special Agent Lopez led her to a room where the three of them sat around a long table. Frankie was sure the agents did this to emphasize their position and authority. The Army kept everything small and cheap.

“Ten days ago, a woman died here. Her record of death”—Frankie slid the death certificate across the table—“states she died of a drug overdose.”

Lopez, her short hair curled softly around her ears, smiled. “I’m afraid that happens all too often here. Girls come looking for a big break, and they get one, but not the kind they hoped for.”

Frankie stemmed her frustration. Already being placated. She glanced at the male agent sitting quietly. He hadn’t introduced himself or said a word yet.

“I believe this girl did
not
die of an overdose. But I can’t prove that because her body went missing.”

Lopez tilted her head, concerned. “You know this how?”

“I phoned the coroner and asked for more information, but she couldn’t provide it because she couldn’t locate the body.”

“Maybe just a mix-up.”

“Possible,” Frankie admitted, “but I have another scenario in mind. While you do not have the clearance level necessary for me to share everything, I can tell you that a case I’m working on involves a tragedy that cost twenty-two innocent children and women their lives. I believe the man responsible for those killings to be behind this woman’s death.”

Lopez straightened. “And this man’s name?”

“Trace Weston. He’s currently a lieutenant colonel in the Army.”

“Then, isn’t this a JAG problem?” the man said casually.

“Yes and no. Right now, he is here in this city. I need your help to find and stop him,” Frankie said.

“We have protocols,” Lopez said.

“I know. That’s why I came prepared with this.” Frankie handed over a faxed letter from the FBI Director, a favor General Stevens called in to make sure they didn’t hit unnecessary dead-ends.

The man shifted. “Where is he?”

Frankie felt herself grimace but swallowed it. Couldn’t show a weak bone here. “Honestly, I do not have that information right now, but—”

“Miss Solomon—”

“Lieutenant.”

Lopez gave a placating smile. “Lieutenant Solomon, I’m afraid this is a little out of our area of expertise. If you have a solid lead, a place we could start, then—”

“The victim’s apartment.” Frankie shifted. “I’m not asking for a full SWAT force, just a few agents to escort me in and look the place over. If Weston is there, I will take him into custody.”

“Now
this
is what I’m talking about!”

As Houston squirmed into the three foot by eight foot cubbyhole in the wall, Trace couldn’t take his eyes off the wall-to-wall clippings, photos, articles, and grease boards that swam around the shelf that ran the length of the wall. Four systems lined up at chest height had streaming data.

“What is on the systems?”

“Algorithms, feeds. . .” Houston bent his knees as he leaned from one side to the other scanning the monitors. “And I have no idea what else. It’ll take. . .
weeks
, if not months to decipher this.” He focused on one laptop. Then moved to the next. “I. . .I think I’m in love.”

Trace ignored the geek. Stared at the walls covered with information. News clippings of the building burned down—half the walls missing, steel supports bending at unnatural angles, flames roaring against the black of night. . . There in full color was the tragic night they’d all lived with for the last five years. Hidden from.

An article clipping, printed off the Internet, showed the bodies of the eighteen children lined up and covered with white sheets that bore dark stains of the deaths.

God, help me.

Trace stepped back, as if he could put distance between that horrible night and the truth.

Despite every explicit order and command, Jessie had disobeyed. She’d been researching Misrata. His gaze hit the ceiling. Scrawled in big black marker:
I Want My Life Back!

“Behind you,” Boone said, from the other end of the crawl space.

Trace shifted around. A presentation board nailed to the wall. A Venn diagram. Names. Pictures. Yarn stretched out to the walls perpendicular to it, connecting locations on a map.

“What is it?” Annie asked from the other side of the wall. There hadn’t been enough room for all of them, and Trace had no idea what they’d find, so he didn’t want them in yet.

“Everything,” Boone muttered. He whistled and shook his head. “She was a serious head case.”

“As in she analyzed everything.” If anyone could’ve solved what happened, it would’ve been Jessie. And she’d apparently been trying to do just that.

Pictures of the girls—
where
had she gotten those? He’d wiped everything off the Internet to insure they had a clean start in their new lives. But now, they stared back. Condemning. Accusing. Jessie. Candice. Keeley. Even Annie, Téya, and Nuala, though they were alive—their teammates were not. And lives were still in danger.

He had to get out of here.
Get out. Now.

Trace bent and ducked through the cubbyhole. Annie was there, her expectant green gaze riveted to him. He could only shake his head as he moved to the Heller side of the apartment. The air conditioner kicked on with an annoying buzz. He lowered himself to the cream vinyl sofa and perched on the edge, forearms on his knees.

Was this why they died? Had Jessie’s curiosity, her insatiable tenacity—one of the very reasons he’d hand-picked her for Zulu—been what had gotten her killed? He couldn’t imagine her doing all that research, searching all those names and locations, and
not
arousing attention.

How’d we miss this?

How had she hidden her trail? He had an entire team dedicated to monitoring electronic intel for any sign of her. They didn’t know why he wanted her found. It’d been his way to make sure they all stayed off the grid. If they’d chatted, he would know. He made sure.

And now, now she was dead. Reyna was dead. And Shay. . .

Cool air swirled as someone joined him. He flinched as Annie perched next to him. She touched his arm softly. “You okay?”

“No, I’m not okay. Half the team is dead or dying.” He gritted his teeth, steeled himself against her presence.

She sat for a few minutes without speaking. “Her data wall is pretty impressive.”

“It’s pretty stupid.” Trace didn’t intend to be mean, but— “Did she seriously think she could find what an entire branch of the Army couldn’t?”

“I think. . .Jessie wanted vindication.” Annie rubbed her knuckles, swaying gently. Nerves. She was nervous around him. “She had this theory”—her voice went soft—“about who was behind feeding us the bad intel—”

“We all had theor—” Trace snapped a look to Annie. “How do you know she had a theory? That she wanted vindication?”

Her fair complexion went crimson and she yanked her gaze away.

“Crap!” Anger pushed him to his feet. “You were in contact with her, too, weren’t you?”

Annie stood. “Listen—”

“Do you people not understand the meaning of ‘no contact’?” Have I spent the last five years of my career dodging bullets and ambushes by investigators for you six to sink the ground beneath my feet?”

Annie scowled. “This was
our
lives, Trace! We killed children. We lost everything we had and everyone we knew and loved. Do you have any idea what it’s like to start over?”

“At least you had the chance to start over. You would’ve been behind bars for life or dead, if I—” His phone rang and he ripped it from his belt. Glanced at the caller ID. He turned away from Annie, more than ready to end that conversation. “Weston.”

“Colonel, it’s Baker. You’ve got trouble headed your way.”

Trace pivoted toward the hidden room. “What’ve you got?”

“You have military intelligence heading your way, Colonel. Might want to vacate. They just left here.”

“How long?” Standing in front of the window, Trace eyed the street.

“Ten mikes,” Baker said even as three black vehicles slid around the corner.

Trace hung up. “Boone!”

“Yeah?” he called from inside, but the sound of crunching told him Boone was moving.

“Company!”

“What about all this. . .stuff?”

“Tear it down,” Trace said, remembering the Styrofoam boards Jessie had mounted all her research to. “Take it with us.”

“Uh,” Houston whined. “I need at least fifteen minutes to get the systems packed and—”“You have two,” Trace warned, watching as the task force assembled by the vehicles. He turned to Annie and Téya. “You’re smaller. Get in there and pull that stuff down.” He unholstered his weapon and moved to the window.

Boone stalked across the apartment to the kitchenette. There, he dumped the trash on the floor and stalked back to the room with the can. He packed it with items from the space. “Move, move, move,” Boone said. “We’re eating time, people.”

In the walls, Trace heard the grunts and clenched his teeth as the task force streamed up the sidewalk and into the building.

“They’re inside,” Trace called. “Out, now!”

Téya appeared with three boards stacked. Annie crawled out, dragging a stack of boards that Nuala slid toward her.

“Window,” Trace whispered, pointing to the window that looked out on the fire escape.

Nuala emerged with a stack of papers in her hands, and Boone all but pushed her out.

“Quiet, quiet,” Trace hissed.

Even with the relative silence they operated under, they might as well have had a bullhorn. As Annie and Téya slipped out the window, Trace heard movement in the stairwell. He hurried to the door and peered through the peephole.

A tactical team swarmed up the stairs like a disturbed anthill. He bit back a curse.

He glanced over his shoulder and waved Nuala toward the window. Three down. Now Boone bent to pick up the bin—and Trace saw into 312. “Close the panel!” he hissed.

Hands full, Boone hesitated.

Trace threw himself around the big guy and eased the panel back into place. Even as the soft snap of the plywood resetting, he heard feet moving on the other side.

Boone muttered an oath.

Trace held out a hand, silencing him. Then gave him a questioning look.

“Bible,”
Boone mouthed.

Trace closed his eyes. The Bible had Boone’s name in it. A clear connection to them. Trace waved him out, toward the window, giving him a signal not to worry about it.

“That’s so strange,” a woman’s voice—the landlady!—filtered through the wall. “I never saw them leave. Oh, wait. Maybe you should check 313. They asked about her, and while I haven’t seen Miss Heller in weeks, maybe she was there. They might be chatting.”

This time the curse slipped free.

Boone gave him a wide-eyed look.

Trace waved him out. Backed up two steps. Gently pulled the closet door closed. Tugged the clothes back into place.

Houston was half out, dragging a box of computer stuff.

“Back,” Trace gave a stiff whisper.

Confused and sweating, Houston frowned. “But—”

“
Back!
”
Trace forced him back by pushing in after him, dragging a shoe box up to the corner with him as he did.

Behind him, Houston dropped something.

“
Quiet!
” For a second, Trace thought of killing the guy. He had a better chance of surviving without a green grunt like the geek. But that wasn’t an option.

Several thuds against the door stiffened Trace’s spine as he worked to tug the panel back into place. Only it wouldn’t budge.

“How strange. Would you like to see inside? I’m really—this just doesn’t make sense.”

Had he made a mistake? Hiding in here? Would it have been quicker to escape out the window? Maybe by himself, but Houston never would’ve made it.

Trace tugged hard on the board. Over his shoulder, he nodded to the bulb hanging overhead. “Light!”

Darkness doused the crawl space.

Feet moved around on the other side of the wall. The panel came free. Trace clicked it into spot even as beams of light probed the other side.

Trace drew back, lifted his hands, and aimed his weapon.