The Lynx Series Boxed Set II: Books 4-6 (Iniquus Security Action Adventure Boxed Set Book 3)

by Fiona Quinn

  “I was at the CIA looking over some information for them last week. I used the metaphor of Monty Hall’s three doors game to explain to them what I saw happening at the crime scene.”

  “A car and two goats?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “This is very similar. They are built on each other.”

  “Yes, but your metaphor is much more elegant.”

  Spyder offered me a slight bow of the head. “Here is how they played their game. Barnabas purchases some B99 oil silently financed by Karl Davidson. It is mislabeled as ‘cooking oil’”

  “Cooking oil is B100, not yet mixed with alcohol,” I said.

  “Correct. This oil is shipped straight down the Mississippi. Cheaper than overland. It was loaded onto a Sylanos ship. This ship goes to Central America, where it is off-loaded, driven across the breadth of the land, then reloaded onto a second ship. The second ship takes the product up to The Grove in California.”

  “Barnabas takes the mislabeled cooking oil and says tada! B99?”

  “Yes. And each gallon provides a dollar of government subsidies.”

  “Paid straight from the IRS,” Striker added. “That’s quite the scam.”

  “Indeed, quite the scam if it circulated only once in this way. However, they need not purchase another supply of B99 to mislabel as B100. Once they have started this circuit, there is no reason to stop. The same product just continues to move in a circular pattern.”

  “Why go through all of that trouble?” I asked. “With the unloading the ship and driving it across. There’s the Panama Canal.”

  “Yes, shipping is Sylanos’s specialty. Corrupt shipping more precisely. Paperwork is the reason. Of course, with this seeming volume of production, the EPA and the IRS are stakeholders in preventing fraud. By shipping the oil in this manner, there would be legitimate documentation that masked the falsified records. Faked invoices and production records looked correct when layered with the port and customs paperwork.”

  “Ah,” I said. “I can see how Karl would use his Assembly contacts with all of their law enforcement and judicial members playing their games to keep things running smoothly.”

  “Indeed.”

  “How did Modesty fit into this picture?” Striker asked.

  “Modesty was offered to Barnabas Blackburn as his newest bride. She was seventeen at the time. She escaped and went to the FBI for a walk-up appointment. She had run away barefooted and in a nightdress in the middle of the night. Quite the brave young woman. Because of her appearance at the FBI walk-up and her fancifully strange story about B100 and B99—”

  “Which few people would have heard of,” I threw in. “I know I’ve never heard of it anyway.”

  Spyder nodded his agreement. “They discounted her tale. Word, though, did reach me. I found her here. One presumes she came to Washington D.C. thinking this would be the place to find safety. From the FBI intake interview back in California, I learned she believed that if Barnabas was arrested, she’d be safe. She felt like she knew too much, and they would chase her down. Along the way, she stopped trusting authorities. The FBI and I determined that you would be a means for her to grow in trust and that we could work with her.”

  “I didn’t save her.”

  Striker tightened his arm around me.

  “Saving her was not your role. I am very pleased that you emerged from such a crime scene whole and seemingly healthy?”

  “Yes, sir. The doctor says I’m fine.”

  “Well then, we can move forward with our next mystery. Striker says that your parents have shown up hovering over your shoulder as ghosts. Shall we discuss this?”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Striker excused himself and went upstairs.

  “You frown,” Spyder said.

  “Not having Modesty’s information is a loss to stopping the corruption. But I’ll persevere. We will.”

  “No, Lexicon. Any other action on your part would expose too much. It can’t be risked.” He offered me a gracious nod. “Thank you for what you’ve done.”

  “You’re welcome. Though, I feel like I failed.”

  “This is the beast of our work. We see things and pass them on, and we almost never know what comes of it. It is a difficulty that many professions don’t have. An architect can walk into their completed building. A movie producer can watch their final product on the big screen. We must be contented to know that we did our part, but we are merely components of a whole.”

  “Isn’t that a metaphor for human existence?”

  “In many ways, it is,” he acknowledged. “Now, tell me how you are.”

  “I am living the human condition—we suffer, then we die.”

  Spyder threw his head back and laughed. “True. May your suffering be a mere inconvenience. May your death be in the distant future.”

  I picked up my mug and held it aloft as a toast. “And to you.”

  “Now, to your parents.”

  “Mom’s birthday was last week. It seemed that the day before…a couple of days before, my parents arrived with some kind of warning for me.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s possible this has to do with the area of town where I lived and worked with Destin—Modesty. I passed the site of Dad’s crash. I was staying in a garage apartment just on the other side of the road from the bar where I used to watch Hanasal.”

  “Tell me one of these memories.” He flicked a finger at me. “Lie down comfortably. Close your eyes. And tell me what memory bubbles up for you.”

  “Yes, sir.” I arranged myself as instructed. I let myself go back in time and relived the memory:

  Sixteen days since my father’s burial, fourteen days into my mission, Spyder and I went on our typical six-mile morning run. I thought that Spyder had upped our normal pace considerably. Maybe it just felt that way on three hours’ rest. Sleep hadn’t come to me.

  Panting and holding the stitch in my side, we went inside to meditate in front of the altar in my living room. It was adorned with orchids from Dad’s funeral. Mom had added a bowl of salt to represent our tears and a lemon to represent how bitter life could taste. I sank into my practiced place of peace, but it was short-lived. Eventually, Spyder dinged the bell, bringing me back to my earlier state of angst.

  We unfolded from our lotus positions and pushed our kneeling pillows under the altar.

  “I was surprised by your stamina this morning after such a long night out.”

  I went to the counter, poured a glass of green juice for Mom, and put her pills into a small dish. I raised a brow at Spyder as I walked without a word from the kitchen to Mom’s room to wake her just long enough for her to take the pills, then go back to sleep.

  I walked back into the living room and sat on the couch as Spyder slid his phone into his pocket. There was no censure waiting for me. There never was. According to Spyder, there is no such thing as a mistake. Everything—the bad and the ugly as well as the beautiful—had a place of teaching in our lives. Once we learned a lesson, that didn’t mean anything except that one’s soul was now free to learn another lesson. A cycle of pain and joy. Both had importance. I hadn’t yet internalized this philosophy. I guessed it would come with maturity. Still, I waited to hear just how much Spyder knew about my activities last night.

  “Show me what you found in the backseat.”

  Ah, he knew everything. I was out-surveilled. He had been watching me, and I never knew. Obviously, I had more to learn. If I had no clue Spyder was trailing me, then others with his experience could put me in their crosshairs when I was a real intelligence officer working for the government. I chastised myself for not considering the possibility that I, too, would be followed.

  I showed him the picture. White label; his name, the name of the antibiotics. Child-proof cap. If I was the woman who gave this guy a blow job, I’d want the antibiotics, too. I didn’t blame her at all for taking them. Spyder examined the photo and video and handed my phone back to me.

&nb
sp; “What else?”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out Hanasal’s key ring. It had a fob, a car key, and what I assumed was a house key.

  “Hanasal experienced some grief this morning when he came to. He had to have the dealership tow his car to their lot for repairs. He had to take a cab to his house to get his spare set of keys. A locksmith came to open his door. And then he had to return to get his car. Well done.”

  I lifted my chin. Well done? Wait. How would he know this? Spyder was running with me this morning. “Someone just called it in?”

  “My partner took over watch when forces split, and you drove away.”

  “Two people were watching me? You and who else?”

  Spyder chose not to answer me. “What are your plans?”

  “To make sure this guy never kills an innocent civilian again.”

  He nodded. And waited.

  “I don’t know what that means. I’m gathering information and waiting for my anger to calm. There’s another beacon of wisdom I need to follow: ‘Revenge is a dish served best cold.’”

  Spyder said nothing.

  “I’ll go out every night until I have a better handle on things. I’ll videotape if I see something that I think might be helpful. I’ll keep his car from functioning if he’s drunk.”

  And that’s exactly what I did. Night after night. Night after night. Days started to head into weeks. I was exhausted.

  And Spyder said nothing more to me.

  Mom did, though.

  She noticed I wasn’t getting enough rest. It made her worry. Her worry made the pain worse.

  It was as if I had invited Hanasal into our living room to hurt us some more.

  I was getting tired of my watch duty. Nothing new was happening. The pattern was fairly well set.

  One night, I sat in the tree looking down at Hanasal’s newest car. This was the third one. Spyder said that Hanasal was threatening to sue the dealership because the cars didn’t work. This had been going on too long. Certainly, I would be caught on some video feed if I kept this up. To get his newest fob, I had to walk by Hanasal on his way into the bar and sleight-of-hand it from his jacket pocket. I didn’t want my face anywhere near his, no matter how good my disguise was.

  XYJ, the license from the person who continued to meet him in the parking lot, showed up again. And again, the windows went down, and a prescription bottle changed hands. Hanasal walked into the bar. I gave him time to settle, then started wiring his car with a remote kill switch and a GPS. I figured it would be a heck of a lot more fun to let him drive down the road a bit, kill his engine when it was safe for other drivers that I do that, wait for the tow truck, and flip it back on. I snapped the panel back in place. That’s when I looked over at the pill bottle tucked between the seats.

  I used my t-shirt to take the vial with me. I could sit in my car around the block, and my phone would alert me if Hanasal’s car moved. I looked at the vial. It was the same antibiotics as before, just a different date on the label. I twitched my mouth to the side and checked on the date. Had I lost a day from my lack of sleep? No. This label was definitely for tomorrow. I snapped a picture of the label.

  I pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves, unscrewed the bottle top, and looked at the pills. I checked the label again. I knew this antibiotic from dolling out Mom’s medications. It should be a bright yellow solid pill. This was a blue and white capsule. This wasn’t the drug from the label. I folded a piece of paper and emptied the vial into the crease. One by one, I lifted and examined each pill. Why not? I had hours to kill. There were forty-two pills in all—three times a day for fourteen days. On the twenty-sixth pill, something was different. When I rolled it between my fingers, it didn’t feel like granules that shifted as they were pressed. This felt solid.

  Slowly, I pulled the capsule apart—no medicine granules. Instead, a piece of paper was rolled tightly and shoved inside. I reached into my glove compartment and pulled out a tool kit. I picked up my pointed tweezers and ever so carefully pulled out the contents, spread the slip of paper—smaller than a Chinese fortune—on my lap, and read what it said. There was an Internet website address and a time. I took a photo and then worked to put it back exactly as I had found it. I inspected the rest of the pills. One other had information, too; this one said Dusty Roads. I swallowed hard, took the picture, put everything back in the vial, gave the vial a shake, and replaced it exactly as I had found it in Hanasal’s car.

  At the library on the other side of town, the day after the pill bottle date, I looked up the web address and found a forum for “hipsters who like ferrets.” I scrolled through the messages until I found one posted by Dusty Roads. It looked like a recipe, half in English and half in gibberish, and at the end, it said, “Lastly, add the .onion” and stir.

  .Onion meant this was a deep web address.

  Last night, Hanasal had received another vial, and I replicated the task and had found another website and another code name. Its posting would go up tomorrow. I waited and got that information as well before I approached Spyder.

  “Spyder, I need your help.”

  “And how is it that I might assist you, Lexicon?”

  I went through my pictures and my actions. Spyder nodded with the utmost of attention and seriousness. “I don’t think I should search the dark web from the library computer. I don’t want to let anyone know that I have this information—they might erase what’s happening. I thought perhaps you might take this to your office at Iniquus and use an encrypted computer.”

  Spyder leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead, then left.

  That night found me behind yet another tree. There was another handoff, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. I had just decided to slip forward and grab hold of the vial when my phone buzzed against my hip. Spyder. I swiped the screen and sniffed so he’d know I was there.

  “Take cover,” Spyder said.

  Cover? Cover. Cover meant weapons would be out. Conceal would mean make sure I wasn’t getting caught. Weapons and cover usually meant guns, I processed. I ran behind the brick wall and plastered my eyes against a crack so I could see what was going on. My phone buzzed again.

  “Good girl.”

  “You can see me, Spyder?” My eyes traveled around. I saw nothing and no one that I didn’t expect to see.

  “I want you to watch for Hanasal and let me know the second he comes out the door.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I couldn’t see the door from where I was crouched. I duck-walked to the edge of the wall and held out my phone, so I could use the camera to see what was happening at the entrance. After a while, my hand got tired, and my arm sagged ineffectually. I perched my wrist on my knee and waited. And waited. Oh, dear god in heaven, seriously? I waited. Finally, Hanasal came staggering out with his arm around the shoulder of some guy. I buzzed Spyder.

  “Cover,” Spyder said, then hung up.

  Within seconds the parking lot was filled with FBI SWAT. They were fearsome to behold in their black armor and balaclavas. Hanasal freaked. With his mind mixing alcohol and adrenaline in vast quantities, he took off at speed I would never have attributed to a man of his bulk. He dashed away from the SWAT unit, out into the street where a shriek of tires and a loud thud was quickly followed by screams as the driver leaped from her car to hover over Hanasal.

  Sirens soon followed from around the corner, where I guessed the SWAT unit had staged an ambulance—a precaution they took when they thought their arrestee would fight. Certainly, they wouldn’t have foreseen him running in front of some woman’s car.

  I stayed behind my wall. A good operator didn’t risk being seen. But I could see. I saw the local PD come and administer a field sobriety test. I saw the woman’s wrists being cuffed behind her back and saw the police officer helping her into the back of his police cruiser. I saw the ambulance pull a white sheet over Hanasal, slide his body into the back of the rescue squad, and leave without lights. I pumped my fist in the air victorious
ly. It wasn’t my kill. It wasn’t even my intention. But Hanasal was dead. Just desserts. Killed by a drunk driver—now that was karma biting him back. I wanted to feel triumphant. But my little victory dance felt like a farce. I slunk back to my apartment, feeling oddly defeated.

  Sliding my key into the lock, I pushed the door open to find Spyder waiting for me in my living room. “An eventful night, Lexicon.”

  “Yes, it was. Why was the FBI on scene?”

  “The Darkweb addresses turned out to be a plethora of information about illegal arms trade with Al-Qaeda operators. Hanasal was involved in terrorist activity. We wished we could have him under arrest for interrogation. But destiny cannot be thwarted. You helped that along.”

  I nodded. I thought I’d feel more fulfilled than I did. Lighter. I thought if Hanasal had died, that some kind of burden would be off my shoulders. But I felt just as bad this morning as I did yesterday morning—as I did every morning since Dad was killed.

  “My dear, keeping your eyes closed. I wish to ask you if I may use hypnotism.”

  “Why is that, Spyder?”

  “I have latched onto your phrases, ‘I wanted to feel triumphant. But my little victory dance felt like a farce. I slunk back to my apartment, feeling oddly defeated.’ There is something rich there. Some piece of information that your mind knows but is hiding from you. I wish to explore it, if I may.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Hypnotism was a technique that Spyder and I had used frequently. As he moved his chair over to the couch where I lay, I followed his instructions into a trance.

  “Find the place and time that will give you the most information,” Spyder instructed.

  I was back at the funeral. Back in the mud. Spyder carried my mother. I held the umbrella. Her wheelchair was lifted from the mud and was being carried just behind me. I described the scene to Spyder.

  “And what did I do?”

  “You put my mom in the back seat. There was a pillow there, and she clutched it to her stomach. It took a moment to get her to be aware enough that she released the pillow for you to put on her safety belt.”