“Shut up,” Skye said, tossing her phone and earpiece to the ground. Evan did the same. Skye stripped Sean of all his equipment and dropped everything at Colton’s feet.
“Stop!” the guard called. He was on his radio but didn’t pursue. Sean knew both guards in the building carried guns.
Two sets of arms picked him up—Evan and another man, someone who came out of the woods at the edge of the property.
Sean’s hands twitched, and he was getting his bearings even though he felt like he was going to puke.
“I need. A minute.” He needed to buy time. Noah should be here by now, if he’d gotten Sean’s message. But Noah wouldn’t know where they were. Had he cracked the radio code? Did he know what happened?
Sean reached into his pocket for his handheld computer. He could send a message by feel. But the Taser might have damaged it.
Skye grabbed his wrist and squeezed, pulling it out of his pocket. His small computer fell to the ground. She grabbed it and was about to pocket it when Evan said, “I don’t trust him—destroy it.”
“But—”
“No buts, Skye. He’s a sneaky bastard.”
“Fine.” She put the device on the ground and stepped on it. The screen cracked.
Evan swore and shot it.
“I think it’s dead now,” Sean said sarcastically. “That was a prototype, bastard.”
Evan hit Sean with the butt of the gun. He fell to his knees.
“We need him alive and coherent,” Skye said.
“He’s a prick.”
She smiled down at Sean and said into her phone, “We need help with the baggage.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Sean said.
“You don’t have a choice.”
When Sean wouldn’t cooperate, she motioned into the dark. A man Sean didn’t recognize showed himself and, with Evan, they half-carried, half-dragged him toward the road. They must have another car. There was only one way to get in and out of PBM. If Noah was here, he’d stop them.
Sean had no idea what their plans were, or why Skye had shot Colton and not him, or what Skye meant by needing Sean.
He had to find out what Evan had stolen from the lab. Sean feared the worst: the bio-toxin.
Could he stall? Delay until Noah arrived? Something bigger was going on, far more deadly than Colton exposing company secrets. Even bigger than Jonathan Paxton killing Joyce Bonner’s abusive husband.
The feeling was coming back into Sean’s limbs. His shoulder, where Evan had Tasered him, was sore and he had minimal use of his left arm, but he had to work with what he had. There were lights and activity at the lab. All Sean had to do was delay.
Into her radio, Skye said, “Get ready, two minutes to takeoff.”
Takeoff? What the hell?
“You don’t know how to fly.”
“You do.”
“I’m not flying you anywhere.”
She laughed. “I brought my own pilot.”
Sean made himself a deadweight. As the men stopped and shifted to pick him up, he elbowed the one on the right—Evan—in his groin. Evan dropped Sean. Sean slammed his fist into the second man’s face. He made contact but didn’t have enough momentum to force his captor to drop him. Sean pushed him to the ground and they grappled. Sean tried to get his gun, but the man had decent training. Cop? Military? Sean fought back but was losing ground.
Skye said, “We don’t have time for this bullshit!”
A crack of a gun and instantaneous pain in his ass.
She shot me. She shot me.
His unknown captor pushed Sean off and jumped up. “Bastard,” he spat at Sean and kicked him in the stomach.
Sean reached over and found something sticking out of his ass. He pulled it out and tried to inspect it, but his hand became numb and he dropped it.
“Pick him up,” Skye said. “We’re about to have company.”
Sean’s vision blurred, then turned black. The last thing he remembered was the sound of an idling plane.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
By the time Noah pulled into the parking lot of Pham-Bonner Medical the security lights had flooded the main building and he heard on the police band that an emergency alarm had been tripped. “Be alert,” Noah told Suzanne.
It was just the two of them; SWAT was still a good fifteen minutes out. Rick was going to have his ass if anything happened, but Noah would deal with that in due time. He warned Suzanne that he didn’t have authority to go in ahead of SWAT, but he’d take the hit for disobeying orders.
She dismissed him and was out the door first.
With their guns drawn, Kevlar vests protecting their chests, badges hanging around their necks, and FBI in big white letters on the back, no one would mistake them for the bad guys. Still, one of the guards came out of the building with his gun drawn.
Noah shouted, “FBI! Lower your weapon!”
The guard put his hands up.
“Status?” Noah ordered.
“We don’t know what happened, but there was a fight outside at twenty-three thirty. My partner heard it when he was doing his rounds. He put on the floodlights and went outside to inspect. I told him to secure the door, but he went out. I tripped the alarm.”
“No one broke in?”
“No, of course not. This is a secure facility. This happened outside.”
Noah looked at his watch. It was 11:45. He knew that the team had planned to be in and out in twenty-five minutes. They could easily have completed the mission, then had a fight outside. For all of Sean’s flaws, breaking into this building wasn’t a problem for him.
Noah called the SWAT team leader, “ETA?”
“Fourteen minutes.”
He said to the guard, “Wait for SWAT. Do not confront any hostiles. Go inside and secure the building. I need all security tapes ASAP.”
The guard looked confused but agreed.
Noah motioned for Suzanne to flank him and they ran toward the back of PBM, staying to the shadows as best they could.
They approached the rear entrance. Pine and maple trees liberally dotted the uneven landscape. In a group of trees just outside the entrance, Noah saw a body, all in black, facedown.
Suzanne sucked in her breath.
Noah circled the area. No one was here. What was he going to tell Lucy? He’d promised Sean that he would watch his back.
Training took over and Noah pushed emotion aside. Though he shouldn’t touch the body before ERT arrived, he had to confirm the man was dead. And confirm the identity.
Noah turned the body.
Colton Thayer.
Noah’s relief that it wasn’t Sean lasted only a moment.
“He’s alive,” Noah said. “Two bullets to the chest. Call an ambulance.”
There were obvious signs of a fight in the area around Colton’s body. Equipment had been tossed around—burner phones, earpieces, pieces of electronics. The fight had been loud enough to attract the attention of the guard. But where were the others? Where was Sean?
Noah pulled his knife out of its sheath and cut through Colton’s jacket and shirt. One bullet was in his upper right shoulder, the other below it, to the right of his sternum. There was a lot of blood. Noah said to Suzanne, “Go back and get the emergency kit from the trunk. I have to stop the bleeding.”
“I’m not leaving you when—”
“He could die! He’s the only one who knows what happened here. Dammit, Suzanne, it’s an order!”
Noah pushed his hands on the wounds. Colton gasped as he regained consciousness. He tried to talk.
“Hold still,” Noah said.
“Sh-sh-sh—”
“Don’t talk, Colton.”
Was he trying to say “Sean”? Sean could be nearby. He could need medical attention. He could be dead.
“Skye,” Colton whispered. “Sh-sh—”
“Where’s Sean?”
Colton shook his head back and forth. His mouth moved, but no sound came out.
A scream
cut through the trees. “Colton!”
Suzanne’s voice: “FBI! Stop or I will shoot you!”
The woman stumbled and fell to her knees. Suzanne ran over and cuffed her.
“Carol,” Colton mumbled.
“Suzanne, I need the bag,” Noah said.
Suzanne walked the sobbing, cuffed woman over to them and dropped the bag next to Noah.
“Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod—”
“Shut up or I will put you in the car,” Suzanne said. To Noah, “Ambulance is on its way. It was dispatched at the same time as the police call went out. ETA two minutes.”
As Noah pulled out gauze and replaced his hands with the mesh, he heard a plane overhead. It sounded like a twin prop, not far away.
“Is there an airstrip nearby?” Suzanne asked.
“PBM has a small airstrip a quarter mile from here,” Noah said. He and Sean had cased out the place once Sean knew the target.
What the hell had gone wrong? Was Sean on that plane? Was he flying the plane?
It was all Noah could do to stay here instead of following the tracks. By the time the paramedics arrived and took over, the plane was long gone.
Local police were right behind the ambulance. He ordered them to put Carol Hattori in one of their vehicles and secure the scene; then he and Suzanne followed the trail that had been left by Sean and the others.
“We should wait for SWAT,” Suzanne said.
Noah didn’t respond. He knew what he should do and what he had to do.
He moved forward and found, about a hundred yards from Colton’s body, another sign of a fight. In the middle of it was a large yellow feather that looked like a small badminton birdie. Noah carefully picked it up by the end of the feather. There was weight to it.
“That looks like a tranquilizer dart,” Suzanne said.
“It is. Do you have an evidence bag on you?”
Suzanne reached into her back pocket and opened up the bag. Noah dropped the dart in.
“You think they used that on Sean?”
“Yes.” Sean had seen his friend shot. He’d obviously been half-dragged to this spot. There didn’t appear to be blood, but he certainly had not cooperated. He’d found an opportunity to fight, and they tranqed him.
Why? Why did they need to kidnap Sean? Why not just kill him?
And why had they shot Colton?
Noah and Suzanne followed the tracks all the way to the small airstrip. Another body lay at the edge.
The body moved. Noah approached cautiously and identified himself. It was the guard.
Suzanne helped the guard sit up. “Are you injured? Shot?”
The guard shook his head. “Someone knocked me from behind.” He put his hand to the back of his head and came away with blood.
“What happened?” Noah asked.
“I heard a fight outside, saw a woman shoot a man in black; then another man was Tasered. I called to them, and they left through the trees. I went back in to call for help, then pursued. By the time I got to the airstrip, they were loading someone unconscious onto a small plane.”
“They—how many?”
“I saw two men and a woman, plus the unconscious guy. Maybe he was dead; I don’t know. But I think there was also a pilot.”
“Then who hit you?”
He frowned. “I guess there was someone else.”
“You guess.”
“Noah,” Suzanne said quietly.
“Stay with him,” Noah said. “I’m going to talk to SWAT.” Not that they can do anything now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Thursday
Lucy and Dorothy brought in dinner and worked together until after midnight, when Dorothy said, “The assistant director told me to make sure you left by eight. I’ve already disobeyed, but midnight is my witching hour. If I don’t leave now, I won’t be able to make it home. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
Lucy smiled and yawned. She rubbed her eyes. “Sleep will help. Maybe I’ll see something different in the morning.”
“We already have a lot done. We’ve connected Skylar Jansen with Kurt LeGrand and we’ve found a discrepancy in his testimony that no one in the U.S. Attorney’s Office or on the Avery and Block defense team caught. It’s enough to have the AUSA sweating bullets that her conviction will be overturned on appeal.”
“You found it,” Lucy said. “I would never have seen it.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Lucy.” They walked out of the J. Edgar Hoover Building together. “You are diligent and focused and asked all the right questions. I have forty years on you.” She stopped. “Where did you park? The garage?”
“I took the Metro.”
“I’ll drive you home.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Where do you live?”
“Georgetown.”
“Hop, skip, and a jump from here. I’m not taking no for an answer.”
Dorothy had an assigned parking place in the garage, right next to AD Stockton. She saw Lucy looking at the sign. “It doesn’t mean anything except I’ve been here a long, long time.”
“The assistant director thinks highly of you.”
“And of you,” Dorothy said. As she pulled out of the garage she glanced at Lucy. “You’re preoccupied. Why?”
“I’m frustrated,” Lucy admitted. “I want to know what Obsidian is, and there is nothing on it anywhere.”
“In my experience, which isn’t all that limited, there’s always something somewhere. It’s just a matter of looking in the right place. If Obsidian isn’t a business in the United States, it could be that he had a foreign client.”
“Or,” Lucy said as a thought came to her, “he had a foreign shell corporation set up. Can we get the tax records of the company? They had a U.S. tax ID number.”
“We can—with a subpoena.”
“Damn.”
“The wheels of justice may turn slow, but they do turn. Tomorrow morning I’ll get a subpoena.”
“You can do that?”
“No, but I can make the right calls and get it done. It’s all about who you know—and what names you can drop. Outside of the director himself, ‘Rick Stockton’ is probably one of the most powerful names that can be dropped. The AUSA will jump.”
“Maybe we should ask him first.”
Dorothy laughed as she pulled up in front of Sean’s house. “Sweetheart, you’re adorable. I’ll tell Rick what I’m doing, but I’m retiring in six months. There’s really not anything he can do to me if he disapproves. And I know Rick very well—he’ll do it, on your recommendation.”
“Why?”
“Because he trusts your judgment. And if he trusts you, so do I—otherwise I wouldn’t have given up my night to help.”
Lucy thanked Dorothy and went into Sean’s town house.
It was strange being here in the middle of the night without Sean. Without even her brother to talk to. She petted Chip and gave him fresh food and water. Her mind was working overtime, but she felt sluggish.
She showered to wake herself up. She should sleep, but she wanted to explore more of Kurt LeGrand and Skye Jansen’s connection to Avery & Block. The discrepancy in his testimony, about how he found the proof of fraud, was a small point, but it told Lucy that he was lying and forgot the lie for a moment.
She slipped on sweatpants and a white tank top from her growing waredrobe at Sean’s, then loosely French-braided her hair down her back. She sat at Sean’s computer and stared, willing her mind to start working again.
It was one in the morning and she didn’t want to call Dorothy, but she had told Lucy she could call her with anything.
Lucy dialed her cell phone. “Dorothy?”
“I thought you might be calling.”
“Are you still driving?”
“No—I live in Chevy Chase. Already home and in my pajamas.”
“I took a shower and thought, what if LeGrand and Skye were responsible for either embezzling or hiding the money from
Avery and Block?”
“Hmm. That would explain a lot, except, to be the devil’s advocate, the FBI is really good at tracking funds. Where is the money and why didn’t the FBI find a trail?”
“Did the three principals accused of embezzling deny taking the money? Or did they admit it?”
“Why would that matter?”
“If they admitted it, then it wouldn’t be necessary to talk to them; if they denied it, then we should interview them and figure out if they were lying or maybe the money was stolen out from under them.”
“Or they could have been involved in something illegal that they didn’t want to admit to. If the FBI can’t find the money, then it’s harder to get a conviction.”
“One of them committed suicide.”
“Chester Block. The brothers, Greg and Brian Avery, are in prison.”
“Was there a suicide note?”
“If there was, it didn’t make it into the FBI files I saw. But all we have are digital files. There are thousands of pages that were part of the trial.”
Lucy was on the cusp of the truth, but she was so damn tired that her mind was working too slow.
“The FBI said there was at least six million dollars missing. Is there that much money in mortgage fraud?”
“Mortgage fraud is fairly straightforward. On the surface it’s confusing, but in the end it’s similar to graft and corruption. They padded their fees, received kickbacks, but the big-money program for this scam was PMI.”
“White-collar isn’t my strength. What is that?”
“Private mortgage insurance. When a buyer puts less than a certain percentage of money down on the house, the lender often requires PMI in case of default. The beauty of the Avery and Block scheme was that they padded the closing documents with a five-year prepayment of PMI, when in fact that money was going directly to them and not mortgage insurance. The money was rolled into the loans. Then, the real PMI was labeled differently, because they were smart and covered their tracks. So homeowners were being defrauded, as well as banks.”
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