SEAL on a Mission

by Paige Tyler

  “If we assume the person who came after my dad was someone he’d been investigating in the months right before his death, and that he or she needed to have access to money to hire Stavros, then yes, I think there’s a good chance his killer is on that list,” she said.

  “There are a lot of assumptions in there,” Andrew pointed out. “While it makes sense the person who hired Stavros is someone your father was recently snooping around, there’s always a chance it could have been a person who had a grudge from way back finally coming after him. Your search criteria would eliminate anyone like that right off the bat.”

  Kyla sighed. Andrew was right. “I know, but we have to start somewhere. My dad has files on thousands of people he collected data on. If we don’t trim it down to something more manageable, we could be searching for days. And while I appreciate that you guys are willing to skip class to help me, I’m pretty sure you don’t want to miss any more of them than you have to.”

  “We’re here to help as long as you need us.” Owen picked up the monster-sized energy drink he’d been drinking they’d started their marathon research session the night before. If not for caffeine, they all would have crashed out hours ago. “Besides, Andrew and I were going to blow off classes today anyway so we could go to Comic-Con.”

  Crap.

  She’d been so wrapped up in her own stuff she hadn’t even remembered that July was Comic-Con time. Heck, it was practically a local holiday in the San Diego area. She hadn’t even known Own and Andrew were planning to make a pilgrimage to geek heaven.

  “I already know what you’re going to say and you can forget it,” Owen said, interrupting her before she could apologize. “You’ve been dealing with some serious crap lately. Missing Comic-Con isn’t nearly as important to us as you are.”

  She gave them a grateful look. “I know and I love you guys for it. Especially since I’ve been ditching you lately to be with Wes.”

  “We’d never begrudge you that,” Owen said. “You deserve something good in your life.”

  “Not to mention the fact that if Owen and I had women willing to sleep with us on the reg, we’d be ditching your butt, too,” Andrew added, not looking up from the file he was reading.

  “Speak for yourself, bro,” Owen said. “I would never ditch a friend to get laid.”

  Andrew snorted. “Of course you’d never ditch a friend to get laid because you’re never going to get laid.”

  Owen looked so offended Kyla couldn’t help laughing. The guys ragged on each other for a little while longer, but then Andrew got them back on track.

  “Okay,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “How are we going to winnow down our list of suspects?”

  She thought a moment. “Let’s split up the list three ways and do a deep dive on each person. Look for any connection to my dad and Stavros, then see if that person was in San Diego when my father was murdered. Dig into their finances and get a feel for whether they’re hiding money. Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt to look for a history of violence.”

  Her friends sighed, obviously knowing how long that would take, but then they got to work.

  “I’ll take the first seven people,” Andrew said.

  “I’ll take the next seven,” Owen said.

  That left eight people for her to check out. Kyla didn’t mind have the one extra person. She was fast at this kind of stuff. Besides, her friends were missing Comic-Con for her.

  As she worked her way through the list, Kyla found herself daydreaming about Wes. They’d spent every evening together at his apartment since he’d come back from Guatemala three days ago. In between ordering takeout, playing video games, and watching TV, they made love. They also spent a lot of time lying in bed, talkin,g and getting closer to each other. She’d even brought some clothes, toiletries, and college stuff over there. It was the sensible thing to do. Much easier than trying to race over to her place early on the mornings she had class. At least that was what she told herself. Occasionally she even believed it. And Wes was all about it.

  Unfortunately, things at work were still rough for Wes and his Teammates. The animosity between SEAL Team 5 and the CIA had only gotten more intense since the latest debacle in Central America and leadership at both organizations were adopting a scorched earth policy when it came to laying blame for the recent failures. While Wes hadn’t said as much, it was easy to figure out that Chapman had disappeared and no one had any idea where he might be.

  Being privy to the whole situation made it easier for her to understand why Wes was so stressed out. She didn’t want to think about how hard it would have been to watch him go through this without knowing why. They didn’t talk about the details—which was a little aggravating for her—but at least she was able to be there for him. She could tell Wes appreciated that from the way he breathed warm and fast against her skin after they made love—and in the way he looked at her before sliding out of bed for work.

  They hadn’t put a label on their relationship yet, but Kyla knew she was falling like the proverbial rock. She now understood what Hayley had meant when she said being with a SEAL was harder than anything but so worth it.

  “I think I got something,” Owen said excitedly, interrupting her musings.

  “Already?” Kyla asked.

  Andrew made a face. “Already? We’ve been digging for five hours.”

  Kyla looked out the window, surprised to see the sun glowing brightly outside, even though the blinds. She glanced at her cell phone on the table to see that it was after noon. Where the hell had the time gone?

  “Okay,” she said. “What did you find?”

  Owen gestured toward the screen on the wall directly in front of his computer. On it was a picture of man in his late fifties or early sixties, a few specks of gray in his dark hair and mustache.

  “This is Arda Kaplan.” Owen clicked a few keys, pulling up several more photos of the same guy over a period of maybe twenty or thirty years. “Your father had dozens of files on him, covering a span of about six months.”

  “What’s his story?” Kyla asked.

  “Kaplan came to the U.S. from Turkey with his parents, who were both chemical engineers, in the early eighties. He followed in their footsteps and graduated with degrees in chemical and biological engineering, but rather than work for top level chemical companies like his parents, he started his own own business selling oil, natural gas, and industrial chemicals. He took the company international within five years and is now worth billions.”

  Kyla studied the man’s face, wondering why he might have wanted her father dead. “Why was Dad investigating him?”

  “It looks like your father was interested in Kaplan’s overseas travels. Kaplan’s business took him all over the world, but in 2015 he started to spend a lot more time in the Middle East and southern Turkey. I still need to do some digging to confirm it, but my guess is we’ll find out Kaplan was sending large sums of money to various terrorist groups. He fits the profile of a radicalized supporter.”

  Kyla nodded. “If he thought my dad had proof of that, it gives him motive for sure, and since he’s a billionaire, paying Stavros wouldn’t have been a problem.”

  “Exactly.”

  Owen brought up an image that to most people would be nothing more than a baffling stream of letters and numbers similar to an old-style telegraph message, but Kyla immediately recognized it as a Bitcoin transaction record. The way Bitcoin values constantly changed, it was hard to figure out exactly how much money was involved, but it seemed like a big number to her.

  “The receiving ID number immediately cashed out, then the money was bounced around through several different filters to hide the trail,” Owen added. “Until it ended up in this Cayman Island account. Any chance you recognize the number?”

  Kyla gave him a sarcastic look. “Sure, because I go around memorizing random overseas bank account numbers.”

  Both of her friends snorted.

  “Point taken,” Owen said. “I thought you mi
ght recognize this one since we’ve seen it before. It’s Stavros’s account, the same one Nesbitt put money into right before your father’s death. Except Kaplan put his money into the account a full two weeks before Nesbitt, which was also three weeks after your father started deep-diving into Kaplan’s background. It looks like Kaplan picked up on what your dad was doing and paid Stavros to kill him, then Stavros pinned it on Nesbitt for reasons I can’t even attempt to explain.”

  Kyla stared at Kaplan’s picture on the monitor. This was the man who’d murdered her father.

  “Okay,” she said. “I think we all agree Kaplan is almost certainly the person we’ve been looking for. The question now is whether we have enough to put him in jail.”

  Her friends exchanged looks.

  “The money connection to Stavros is tenuous at best,” Andrew pointed out. “Especially with how difficult it is to follow a Bitcoin transaction.”

  “And while the CIA might be receptive to our theory about Kaplan being involved in terrorist activities, there’s definitely not enough to bring him in,” Owen added.

  Kyla silently agreed. “Then that’s what we need to focus on next. Let’s figure out what Kaplan is up to now and see if we can come up with enough to get the cops or the feds interested in him.”

  Owen and Andrew turned back to their computers and got to work. Kyla joined them and for the next hour or so, the only sounds were of keyboards clicking.

  “Guys, I found something I think you two are going to want to see,” Andrew said. “Check this out.”

  Kyla studied the screen, not sure at first what she was looking at first. It was a photo of Kaplan in the middle of a crowd apparently at some society function. From the irritated look on the man’s face, it seemed like he knew someone was taking his picture and wasn’t thrilled about it. She was about to ask what was so significant about the picture when a tall, handsome, dark-haired man standing behind Kaplan caught her eye. She leaned forward to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was.

  “Yeah, that’s what caught my attention, too,” Andrew said. “Pretty sure Kaplan doesn’t hang out with many Navy SEALs, which means that guy isn’t Nash.”

  “It’s Chapman,” she finished, realizing who she was looking at and the implications of it. “He’s the arms dealer who tried to kill Wes and his Teammates twice.”

  “What the hell is an arms dealer doing meeting with a billionaire industrialist?” Owen asked. “Even if it is someone with possible terrorist connections.”

  “It seems obvious to me,” Andrew said. “He’s arranging a weapons deal. Kaplan is upgrading from merely providing money for overseas terrorist organizations to buying weapons for them.”

  Kyla scanned the background in the photo, taking in the fancy table settings and the crystal wine glasses. They were at some kind of upscale restaurant. It definitely wasn’t the kind of place you’d expect people to negotiate an illegal weapons deal.

  “Where was this picture taken?” she asked.

  “Right here in San Diego,” Andrew said. “The Marine Room in La Jolla. Supposedly, it’s one of the ritzier restaurants in the city.”

  She did a double take. “Kaplan and Chapman were here in San Diego? When?”

  Andrew scrolled down the article below the picture, his eyes going wide. “Last night. The society column says he was in town for some kind of charity event and that he’s going to be in town for a day or so on some personal business. He’s staying at the Pendry Hotel near the Convention Center.”

  “The Pendry? No shock there,” Owen said with a snort. “That’s one of the most expensive hotels anywhere near the waterfront. Of course that’s where Kaplan would stay.”

  Kyla wasn’t really listening to Owen complaining how rich people got to stay at all the best places. She was too busy thinking there was no way in hell Kaplan and Chapman had simply shown up in the home town of SEAL Team 5 by coincidence. They had to be here for a reason and her instincts were telling her it had to do with Wes and his Teammates.

  “Chapman has tried to kill Wes and his Teammates already,” she said. “Maybe he’s here to try again, especially since no one would ever expect it.”

  Grabbing her phone, Kyla pulled up Wes’s number, eager to tell him what they’d found, cursing in frustration when it went to voice mail. She quickly left a message, telling him to call her as soon as he, that she had something important to tell him. She then ran through the other contacts she had on the SEAL team, calling everyone in her phone. Sam, Holden, Chasen, Noah. Every single one of their phones went to voice mail. That wasn’t surprising. There was a good chance that all of them were together in the secure parts of the SEAL complex where cell phones weren’t allowed.

  Dammit.

  “Should we call that CIA guy who keeps bothering you?” Owen asked. “Maybe he can do something if we tell him everything we’ve learned.”

  Kyla shook her head. “The CIA and SEAL Team 5 aren’t on the best of terms lately. We have no idea what they’ll do with this info on Chapman if they had it. I wouldn’t be shocked if they blatantly kept Wes and his Teammates out of the loop. I’d feel better telling Wes and letting him decide how to use the information. If he wants to call the feds in, that’s fine. But until he says so, I’m not going to do it.”

  She briefly considered calling Hayley, but quickly dismissed the idea. Hayley wouldn’t be able to reach any of the guys from the team easier than Kyla could, and being the reporter that she was, Hayley was likely to go sticking her nose into the situation without even knowing what she was up against and end up getting herself hurt. Kyla couldn’t let that happen.

  “So, what are we going to do?” Andrew asked. “If we wait around, Kaplan might leave town and Chapman is probably going to ambush Wes and his Team. If we’re right about any of this, I mean. Because there are a lot of gaps in our information.”

  Kyla thought a moment. “You’re right. Until we can get in touch with Wes, we’ll try to collect more information on exactly what Kaplan and Chapman are up to.”

  Owen frowned. “How do we do that?”

  “We go over to the Pendry Hotel and see what we can find out.”

  Her friends gave her dubious looks.

  “Is that really a good idea?” Andrew said. “We’re hackers. We’re better at lurking behind a keyboard than a hotel door. What if someone sees us?”

  “All we’re doing is snooping around a hotel. Nobody is going to see us,” she assured them. “We’re The People. We’ve done stuff a lot more dangerous than this while digging up dirt on Nesbitt and all those other corrupt politicians we caught. I promised Wes I wouldn’t do anything stupid, so all we’re going to do is sniff around a little and then call Wes again. Piece of cake.”

  Owen looked at Andrew. “I wasn’t worried until she said that part about it being a piece of cake.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE TENSION IN the room was so thick Wes could have cut it with a knife. Fortunately, no one in the room had a knife, because at the moment, it was more likely one of them would slit someone else’s throat.

  It was official. The relationship between the Navy SEALs and the CIA was absolute toast. The distrust had gotten so bad he couldn’t imagine them ever working together again. It would be insanity to consider going into a firefight when you didn’t trust the person next to you.

  “Any idea why we’re here again?” one of the SOG operatives who’d been roughed up during the ambush in Guatemala muttered, throwing a disgusted glance in Wes’s direction. “We should have left here days ago after these assholes nearly got us killed down in Central America.”

  Shit.

  Wes moved to stop Holden even as his Teammate launched himself across the table at the CIA agent. Even though he still didn’t want to put too much weight on his leg, Noah quickly stepped in to help, Sam was right behind him.

  Wes was tempted to let Holden go. He couldn’t believe any of them had ever risked his lives fighting with these CIA guys. Because right n
ow, they were being a bunch of dicks.

  “Holden, knock it off!”

  Wes looked over his shoulder to see Commander Hunt come into the conference room along with Chasen, Joe, and a bunch of the CIA analysts, including Lucero.

  “Sit down,” Hunt added. “We don’t have time for this juvenile crap.”

  “They started it,” Holden grumbled.

  Wes bit his tongue to keep from laughing as Holden covertly gave the SOG guy across the table from him the finger. Luckily, Hunt was too busy taking a seat at the head of the table to see the move.

  “As Commander Hunt said, we don’t have time to waste, so I’ll get right to the point,” Lucero said as the projection screen at the front of the room lit up with a snapshot of a blue sedan driving through a toll booth plaza.

  “Chapman slipped across the border at the Nogales checkpoint in Arizona two days ago,” Lucero continued. “We had people on him within minutes, but he’d already dumped his vehicle and transferred to another one. If Chapman is here, then so are his drones.”

  Hunt scowled. “Two days ago? And you’re just now getting around to mentioning it to us?”

  “I could say that’s because the Navy has no law enforcement responsibilities within the U.S. but I doubt you’d buy that reasoning, so I won’t bother to try and sell it to you.” Lucero shrugged. “Regardless, we’re telling you now. Chapman crossed the border and we have no idea where he went.”

  “And what, you want us to help search for him?” Wes asked.

  While the thought of Chapman selling those armed drones here in the U.S. was scary as hell, he didn’t think the CIA would ask for Navy SEALs to help them track him down, especially considering the current status of the relationship between the two agencies.