“You’re really not a lug, are you? You’ve got a sexy mind,” teases Beth.
“Don’t let Sean hear you say that. I like all my teeth.”
Beth smiles widely at me, and I put the bag through the arm in the shirt that I’ve cut, then Tula puts her arm through it, keeping the canula in place. Beth grabs the tracksuit pants, and Tula does up the shirt. When she’s finally dressed, I pick her up and take her back out to her bed.
“How’d it go?” asks Sean.
Tula smiles and nods.
“She did great,” Beth answers for her as she pulls back the sheet on the bed and hangs the drip back up.
“You’re only going to feel like this for a little while. Give it a day or two, and you’ll be back to normal.” Sean holds up her chart. “You got lucky with the bullet. It was a through and through and only nicked the artery. If baby brother here hadn’t gotten you to the hospital so quickly, it could’ve been a different story.”
Tula’s big blue eyes find mine, and tears well in them.
“No, no, no!” The words rush out of me. “Don’t do that.” I stare daggers at Sean. “What did you do?”
Sean grabs Beth’s hand and winks at me. “You got this, bro.”
They go back to the dining table, and Beth resumes her meal.
The tears that were welling in Tula’s eyes spill down her cheeks, and she tries to quickly brush them away.
Sitting on the edge of her bed, I pat her knee. “Don’t cry. You’re safe.”
Tula shakes her head. “I was stupid.”
“Try whispering, less strain on the vocal chords. Sean says they’ll be bruised for a while.” Standing, I pick up the tissue box and hand it to her. “Why do you think you were stupid?”
“They must have been following me. Brian worked at a Black Ops site in a small province in South Africa, not that he ever told me. He was my big brother, but I wanted t-to…” Tula’s voice cracks, and she stares at the floor.
“You wanted to make sure he was okay.” Tula nods. “How’d you track him? Black Ops is hard-core secretive.”
“Everyone needs to be paid, so I followed the money. Every base requires equipment and supplies, one of the payments looked odd so I followed the funds. They were laundered through a series of sites which finally lead me to the information I was seeking. To be honest, I wasn’t sure it was right, but now, I’m sure it is. Brian was only a grunt. The site was hard to nail down, flights disappeared from records, and there were no manifests.”
“So, you followed the money?”
“Yeah, but I had no idea where it was going to lead. After what happened to Brian, I spent every waking hour tracking them down. I’m not sure exactly what happened, except he’s dead. The army said he was killed in the line of duty, but Brian was in transport logistics. He wasn’t on the front line.”
Glancing at Sean, I signal for him to come over. He kisses the top of Beth’s head and walks to us.
“Are grunts in transport logistics on the front line?”
Sean shakes his head. “Not usually, but sometimes when I was keeping my identity secret, I’d say I was in transport logistics. Any chance your brother was a Specialist in the Army Special Operations?”
“None, he was a lousy shot.”
“Tell me about the site where he was posted.” Sean sits in an armchair and faces Tula.
“Apart from what I’ve told you, it was in South Africa, run by our military.” Tula frowns as she nods. “But it was hinky. Military but not.”
Sean nods and looks at me. “In third-world countries, the military is involved, but they don’t control everything. I came across a site like this once. It was privately owned, and they paid off the locals and would operate with impunity.”
“Why would our government be involved in something like that?”
“Bioweapons,” answers Tula.
Sean nods. “She’s right.”
Sean injected Tula with a sedative to help her sleep, changed over her drip, and now we’re outside. I’m drinking a whiskey, and he’s staring out into the darkness. Slowly, his gaze comes to me, and he grits his teeth, clicking his tongue behind them.
“Why was her name important?”
I hold out the glass to him to take a sip, and he shakes his head. “Tula was the name of the character in the Star Trek episode where our hacker names came from, and the actress was Brioni Farrell.”
“Fucking nerds.”
Chuckling, I nod. “Yeah, I guess we are.” I throw back the rest of the whiskey. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
Sean purses his lips and claps me on the back. “Yeah. I’ll put out some feelers and see who bites. Contact the Fed, see if he can make discreet inquiries. If he trips one of their red flags, he’s as good as dead.”
“What’s the saying the only good Fed is a dead one?”
Sean shakes his head. “We’re all on the same side, brother. If it is bioweapons, they aren’t on our side or this country’s side, and they need to be made accountable.” Sean shakes his head and looks me in the eyes. “Remember, family first, always. We look out for each other.”
Sean has a staunch black and white view of the world, but I have to agree it’s not good for anyone if we’re tied up in bioweapons. It’s an unspoken rule in our family that no matter what, family always comes first above anything else.
I’m sitting on another park bench, but this time it’s the middle of the day, and there are plenty of people walking around. Just like in the movies, Special Agent Stephen Jamieson sits behind me on another bench.
“What the fuck are you tied up in now?”
“Aww, don’t be like that. I’ll think you don’t like me.”
“No one is watching you. Not us, not the Feds, or any of the other agencies you asked me to look into. Whoever you lot have pissed off now, it isn’t the federal government.”
“Are you sure? Did you dig into the data I sent you?”
He laughs. “Yes, I’m sure, and fuck, no. The minute I read Black Ops, I deleted the information. That kind of shit can get you killed. If it’s what you think it is, walk away. I know you think you’re a super fucking hacker, but there will always be people who’ll have secrets they want to protect.” He stands and walks beside the benches, so he’s next to me. “You have a nice day, now.”
I watch Jamieson walk away, then pull out my cell and call Kyle.
“Yeah?”
“It’s not the government.”
“We know.”
“How? What’s the plan?”
“Stay hidden. We’ve got it handled.”
Kyle ends the call, and I slowly make my way through the park, trying to make sure that I’m not being followed. When I get to the park’s entrance, I continue on until I reach a mall, where I take my time. Every window I walk past, I make sure no one is following me.
My paranoia is worse than normal, and it takes me another three hours to get back to the cabin, but at least I’m sure I wasn’t followed.
Locutus
“Have we found her or him?” Anger drips off each word as I look at the men in front of me with disgust. It’s imperative to our mission to find the next Black Ops site, and that pretty little hacker has all the information we need.
“No. They’ve disappeared. We’re tracking members of the MC, but they’re tracking us, too.”
This MC is smart.
We should’ve expected that.
I underestimated them.
They have no idea what they’ve got or how valuable it is, and my men failed to secure the information. Instead, one of them acted on his own when they saw Landru hand off a flash drive to Archon. Archon, who turned out to be Angus MacKenny, whose brother is the president of this small enterprise. No doubt they thought we were government, but things have changed. If they are tracking us, they know by now we aren’t.
Sighing, I sit forward, staring at the phone on my desk. “Arrange a meet. Discuss terms. Find out where the fuck she is. I want that informatio
n. Don’t fail me again.”
I end the call and stare out at the party below. My so-called friends are laughing, drinking my alcohol, and appear to be having a good time.
“Patrick, did our friends acquire what we seek?”
Turning, my uncle has entered my office. “No, uncle.” I look back down at the people below. “Soon.”
“Without the delivery system, this weapon is useless to us.”
Inwardly, I smile. Useless? A bioweapon capable of killing a million people is far from useless. But he’s right. Without the proper delivery system, we can’t achieve maximum carnage. Our cause will go unnoticed, and all those who came before us will have died for nothing.
“A hacker has what we need. All we need to do is flush them out.”
My uncle flicks his cigarette onto my expensive Persian rug. “Then do it. Use your contacts and get us what we need. We’ve only managed to find the first site by pure accident. Don’t fail me, nephew. Your mother couldn’t withstand another death.”
Turning, I stare at him. Keeping my facial expressions neutral, he flicks his cigarette again and walks out of the room.
Walking back to my desk, I open a chat window. Landru led me to the first Black Ops site without even knowing, but once she found out what she had, she became more careful. I couldn’t track her movements or break her code.
Using an encrypted password, I go into our chat room. There are about a dozen of us in there, all Star Trek fans, all world-class hackers. My uncle never had much need for me before. He thought my pursuits were trivial, unworthy of his cause. He has no sons, only daughters, so under sufferance, he was forced to spend time with me. I’m the youngest male in my family, destined to take over when he’s gone. His daughters are mere pawns in his games to be traded for a better position. My uncle is powerful, but I know where he keeps all of his secrets.
The cursor flashes at me, waiting for me to make a post. Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly and begin to type.
Landru, Archon, I’m sorry about the misunderstanding. You have something I want. Let’s meet.
Locutus.
The associate who shot at her and didn’t finish the job is buried in a shallow grave. Initiative is one thing, but fucking it up is another. Had he killed Landru and Archon in the park and retrieved the flash drive, I’d have rewarded him, but he didn’t.
A knock at my door draws my attention. Looking up from my screen, my mother’s standing there.
“Patrick, your friends are waiting. Surely, work can wait?”
Standing, I smile at her. “Yes, of course.” I close the laptop. “Come, Mother, let’s join the festivities.
Angus
Tula is out cold. It’s mid-morning, and I received Locutus’ message an hour ago. It makes sense that someone in our world would’ve portrayed themselves as a friend. I never trusted him. The one time I asked him for information, he pushed me to know the whole story, and in our world, we don’t do that. The less we know, the better off we are. It means we have deniability. Locutus was way too inquisitive.
“You going to wake her up?” Sean moves to stand beside me.
“Yeah.”
A part of me doesn’t want to. Tula looks peaceful in sleep, and she’s going to feel as betrayed as I do. He must have been tracking what she was up to. I’m not sure how. I’ve never met a hacker so security-conscious, and that fact makes me wonder what happened to her to make her this way.
“You going to wake her soon?”
“What the fuck is your problem, Sean?”
My brother rocks back a step as though I physically hit him, my outburst taking him by surprise.
“Shit, I’m sorry. She’s been through a lot, is all.”
Sean backs away and walks outside. Shaking my head, I look down at Tula, and she’s watching me.
“What’s happened?” Her voice sounds a little better, slightly clearer.
“We got a message from Locutus.”
A frown furrows her brow, and she sits up, putting her feet on the floor. “What does he have to do with this?”
“He’s the one who set us up.”
Tula shakes her head. “I thought he was a friend.”
“Apparently not. I’ve done some digging, and he’s a ghost. He’s using an Onion Router. There’s so much encryption, I can’t even get a lock on his location.” I pause and assess her. Tula’s color looks better, and she seems sharper. “I think he’s behind the surveillance at the MC compound. My brother, Kyle, said they know it wasn’t the Feds but didn’t elaborate. Has to be him.”
Tula stands and tentatively takes a step. Nodding to herself, she takes another. It looks like she’s checking to see if her body can withstand her weight.
“Get Sean.”
I walk to the back door and stick my head out. Sean is talking in hushed tones to Cutter and Beth.
“Sean, Tula wants you.”
Sean nods at Cutter, and he slowly nods back. Whatever they were talking about must have been important. Cutter walks to Sean’s bike, starts it, and rides away.
“Something I should know?”
Sean walks past me and into the house. Beth shrugs and squeezes my arm as she passes but remains silent.
“You’re up.”
Tula smiles at him. “Can you take this out?” She points to the drip in her arm.
Sean frowns. “It’d be best to keep it in.”
“I don’t care. I want to go to the bathroom, and this…” she holds up her arm, “… will make things difficult.” Sean shakes his head. “Look, man, either you do it, or I will.”
Sean gives me a sideways glance, quirking an eyebrow.
“You heard her.”
He shrugs, walks to his bag, pulls out supplies, then removes the tape holding in the canula. Lastly, he puts a cotton ball over the drip area and secures it with tape.
“Happy?”
Tula looks at me. “I need to think. I’m going for a shower.”
“Do you need help?”
Tula doesn’t turn around. She waves a hand at me and shakes her head.
Sean waits until the bathroom door is closed. “Angus, I know you and I aren’t always on the same page.” He points at the door. “This woman is trouble. She nearly got you killed.”
“What are you saying?”
Beth touches Sean’s arm, stopping him from answering. “He’s saying he’s worried about you, but he’s doing it wrong.”
“Not just him. All of us,” Sean replies, looking down at Beth.
“I’m going to make coffee.” On her tiptoes, she kisses him and walks into the kitchen.
“Where’d Cutter go?”
“To fill Kyle in.”
“On what? What the hell do we know?”
“We know this Locutus person is probably the one behind it all.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, we know it’s not the government. Our FBI guy confirmed that and you said that Kyle said he knew it wasn’t the Feds, so I’m thinking private army.”
It makes sense. If the government isn’t involved and I’ve been trying to track Locutus with little success, it would indicate he has something to hide.
I sit at the dining table, and its highly polished surface gleams in the light. Sean has always been the protector of our family. I understand he wants to keep us safe, and if I know him at all, he’s going to ask me to let Tula dance in the wind. But I can’t do that. Even if we let Tula go, they’ll come after us. I would if I was worried about keeping the existence of a Black Ops site secretive, whether I was the government or someone else, and I’d wipe us all out. If I were the government, I’d want to keep our dirty little secrets hidden. If I were a bad guy, I’d want to keep it under wraps so I could pull off my devious plans. Either way, it doesn’t look good for us.
Sean doesn’t think this way. He’s all about family, honor, and country in that order. He moves to stand opposite me, hands gripping the back of a chair, his knuckles white as he stares at me.
“Let me talk to Tula. We’ll find out what Locutus wants. Right now, it’s all we can do.”
Sean pulls out the chair and turns it around before straddling it and sitting. “Not true. You could hand over the flash drive to this guy, Locutus.” He grits his teeth together, baring them at me, which tells me he’s about to say something that even he doesn’t like. “And… we could hand over the girl.”
“As those words spewed from your mouth, did your stomach roll over on itself?”
“Fuck.”
I stand, point at him, and raise my voice. “Not. Going. To. Happen.”
Sean rises, his face flushed red. “Don’t be an asshole.”
“Sean MacKenny.” We both turn to look at Beth, who’s carrying four mugs of coffee. “We aren’t giving up anyone. You let that girl go… she’s as good as dead, and you’ll never forgive yourself.”
“Better her than you.”
Beth’s eyes widen. “Are you forgetting we’d never have gotten Lola back without her help?”
Lola is our brother’s woman who was kidnapped recently, and Tula was instrumental in getting her back.
Beth puts the mugs down on the table. We both stare at her until the sound of Tula clearing her throat draws our attention. Turning around, she’s standing there in a towel, looking more than a little angry.
“If we give up the information, we’re all dead. You think by handing it and me over, it’ll save you all? It won’t.”
“You got your bandage wet,” replies Sean.
“Yeah, I washed my hair.”
He points to the room he’s sharing with Beth. “There’s clothing in there. Go get dressed. There are some women’s clothes in the bottom drawer of the dresser. When you’re done, we’ll change the bandage.”
She gives him a quizzical look, turns, and heads into the room.
“Brother, she better be worth it.”
I turn to stare at him. “What?”
“The look on your face just now shows she means something to you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I scoff.
“You keep telling yourself that, but I saw your reaction to her. You stood up straighter, ran a hand through your hair, and smiled when she gave me sass. You like her.”
Spark of Deception: MacKenny Brothers Series Book 4: An MC/Band of Brothers Romance Page 5
