Secrets of the Dead

by Kylie Brant

  Her voice was husky when she spoke. “What we’ve found on her computer lead us to believe that Royce was kidnapped because Malsovic, and Sun Yanyu, who was arrested last night, believe he is the son of Rizqi bin Osman, a man who escaped the city seven years ago after running a very similar human trafficking operation that was operating in the hotel recently. Adam had shared the fact that Jaid Raiker’s father somehow ended up with the infant and took him to Jaid for safekeeping.”

  “When Burke and I located Malsovic’s apartment last night, we found a cardboard box behind the couch filled with information on Royce Benning.”

  “Jaid’s father.” Paulie nodded. Declan had the distinct impression that the details about how the boy had come to live with Jaid weren’t news to the other man. “He left when she was eleven.”

  “That might coincide with the timing of when the man started working for bin Osman.” He’d managed to surprise Samuels. “According to the documentation we found, Benning owed the man for drugs and began dealing for him to pay off his debt. Then there isn’t much information until nine years ago. Details of friends the man had. Places he’d been seen. People he’d been seen with.”

  “Which correlates to the time Jaid’s father was killed. So where will Malsovic go?”

  “Bin Osman is in Malaysia,” Declan told him. “In Johor Bahru, specifically. It’s located in the southern portion of the country, with over a million residents and a substantial tourism industry, thanks in large part to its proximity to Singapore. FBI Agent Stillions has been involved in this case, and has learned that bin Osman has a sprawling criminal network operating in the city and beyond. The man has nine daughters, but no other sons.”

  “And this Malsovic is working for bin Osman?” demanded Samuels. “Is that what this is about?”

  “I don’t think so, although he appears to be familiar with Royce’s parentage. He hopes to sell Royce to him,” Eve put in quietly. Paulie’s face went fierce. “Yanyu put out an offer for a million dollars to deliver the boy to bin Osman. It’s still unclear, but there may have been bad blood between her and Malsovic. Or maybe he decided to cut her out of the operation and strike out on his own. But there’s no doubt that finding Royce means going to Malaysia. To bin Osman.”

  “Yesterday Adam got started on getting Malsovic’s name and face to all the airports and border security.”

  The rage that threatened to well at the thought of the boy at the mercy of the ruthless Malsovic had to be tucked away. Put aside. Declan concentrated on doing just that before going on. “Catching the bastard at a border, an airline, a port…that would make things a whole lot easier. And safer for Royce. But Malsovic’s an expert forger. I figure all the IDs for the women he trafficked here were his creations. He’ll manufacture one for the boy. He likely had the equipment in his room at the hotel, but it was missing when it was raided last night. Nor did we find it at his apartment.”

  Eve spoke again. “The IT people in Raiker’s lab were able to recover two attachments from the last encrypted email Yanyu sent bin Osman’s contact. One was what looks like a telephoto picture of Royce. The other was a copy of prenatal DNA paternity testing done nine years ago. The female’s name was Lexie Walker, possibly American. The male was bin Osman. The fetus was a boy. The results showed ninety-nine percent certainty that bin Osman was the father.”

  “I’ll have an agent dig up what everything they can find on her. Have another couple keep up the pressure on the airlines, ports and border customs. I’m sending Kellan Burke and Finn Carstens with you.” For a man unused to being in charge, Paulie fell seamlessly into the role. Royce will probably safe enough until he’s delivered to bin Osman, but we don’t want to take any chances. He’s now been missing four hours and thirty-six minutes. Get the first flight out that you can. The clock is ticking.”

  His sign off was every bit as abrupt as Raiker’s. Declan looked at Eve. “How soon can you be ready for a twenty-four hour flight to Malaysia?”

  All signs of the shock and regret she’d shown when she heard the news hours earlier had vanished. Her expression was as determined as he’d ever seen it. “I’m ready when you are.”

  _______

  It had been close to forty hours before they reached their destination. Six hours to wait until they could get a flight out of Reagan National. A full day in the air, counting the layover. Four hours to clear customs and collect their luggage in Kuala Lumpur. Another four hours to rent a car and drive to Johor Bahru. Find a hotel. All in the middle of the night in a blinding rain storm.

  They could look forward to more of the same weather, since it was monsoon season. “He couldn’t travel to the South Pacific. A nice beach somewhere,” Eve muttered as they were led to their rooms, rain running off them in rivulets as they took an elevator to the twelfth floor with their bags. “No. We have to have eighty degree temperatures and one hundred percent humidity.”

  “I’ll take eighty degrees over the temps we’ve been having in DC, rain or not,” Kellan declared. Finn Carstens just gave her one of his quick smiles. With the man’s slightly dreamy hazel eyes and dark wavy hair, he looked more like a poet than a doctor. And that’s just what the man had been, Declan had told her, prior to joining Raiker Forensics. She still couldn’t figure out the connection.

  “Two doubles in each room.” Burke pushed open the first door and swept it with his gaze. “The guys can take one room and leave you to hog the other yourself, Eve.”

  “I don’t want her alone. Not even with us next door.” Declan put in before she could say anything. “One of us needs to stay with her. Like you say, there are two beds.”

  The other man’s smile was wide. “I’m guessing you’re volunteering for the duty. What the hell. You guys are married.”

  “What?” Finn looked a bit confused. “Really?”

  “For the assignment,” Declan clarified.

  “Ah.”

  “We’ll drop off our luggage and be back in a few minutes.” Already he was steering Eve to the next door. “And then we need to go over the intelligence the team has on bin Osman and Lexie Walker.” Updates had come frequently during the trip, but they needed to put them all together for a clearer picture of the man Malsovic would likely be dealing with.

  And figure out their next move. He closed the door behind him and eyed Eve knowingly as she dropped her bag next to one of the beds. “How jet-lagged are you?”

  “No more than you three are, I imagine.” But there was exhaustion stamped on her face despite her words. Probably on his own, if he cared to look. There was an eleven-hour time difference. Where it would have been one in the afternoon in DC, it was about midnight here. “I’ve never been to Malaysia before. I was shocked by the high rises and traffic.”

  “And the rain.”

  “I was prepared for that. But not happy about it. And the umbrellas I brought were in my bag, so a lot of good they did me.” She was studying him with a slight smile on her face. “You know your insistence of sharing my room did not go unnoticed by the other two.”

  He tossed his bag near enough to the other bed to satisfy him. “What I said was true. You’re not going to be left alone. This area of the country isn’t particularly safe to begin with. A woman alone would be asking for trouble.”

  “A woman in a motel room with Declan Gallagher is asking for trouble.”

  Something lightened inside him at the amusement lacing her words. “You’re in exactly as much trouble as you want to be,” he assured her. He wasn’t going to let her out of his sight. Nor suffer through an inevitable argument by bringing that up. This situation was too urgent for either of them to focus on anything but the job at hand. There were things they had to talk about—but not with the other two agents with them every minute, and not with their most important task still ahead of them.

  Finding Royce and taking him home to his parents.

 
He slipped their computer bags off his shoulder and crossed to set them both on the desk tucked into the corner of the room. Opened them to take out the laptops, before stopping to aim another glance at her as a thought struck. “You know, your blond hair is going to make you stand out like a sore thumb here.”

  “I’ve thought of that.” She gave a quick grimace as she dug in her purse and came up with a hairbrush. “I’ll be too memorable. Later today…it is the next day here, right?” At his affirmation, she went on. “I packed a scarf I can wear on my head. As much as this pains me to say, we’re going to have to go shopping. I think it would be best if I bought a hijab to wear. It wouldn’t look out of place with the Muslim population here, and it would keep my head covered.”

  He nodded, a feeling of relief filling him as he picked up their laptops and headed to the door. A hijab would cover her head almost completely, leaving only her face bare. It would be an effective disguise. But no one looking at her light skin and blue eyes was ever going to take her for a native. “You’ve given this some thought,” he murmured, as she trailed behind him out the door.

  “I’m full of ideas,” she said cryptically.

  The words didn’t exactly ease the band of tension in his chest. There was only one thing that would. To make sure they kept a tight lid on any ideas that put her front and center of this operation.

  _______

  Zupan was snoring loudly. Malsovic shot the man a murderous glance from his spot two seats over. The boy was between them, whether asleep or still barely conscious from the latest injection he’d been given, it was hard to tell. Nor did it matter.

  The kid was a troublemaker. Just as he had been in the Suburban, during that first plan to take him. Hobart had fucked up, of course. But all would have been well had the boy not made hassles.

  The flight to Malaysia was a long one, but Malsovic had always had a problem sleeping on a plane. And now there was too much to worry about. He had many contacts in Malaysia, as in all of Southeast Asia. Contacts that could get a message to bin Osman. And to others, who might be compelled to pay for the boy if bin Osman could not be persuaded.

  But despite the plans he’d put into motion, he was aware of the many ways they could go awry.

  He hadn’t expected to keep Zupan alive this long, but the man had come in handy dealing with the boy. So Malsovic had grudgingly paid for the man’s cruise fare to the Bahamas along with the two tickets he’d already purchased. And the flight from Nassau to Johor Bahru. It was more expensive to fly there than to Kuala Lumpur. But Zupan had plumped up Malsovic’s bankroll when he’d managed to divert Gallagher’s payment from Shuang’s account to his own.

  Smiling as he thought of the extra cash, he gave a nod. Yes, Zupan came in handy. He had shaved his beard and then dyed his own and the boy’s hair to a similar mud brown for the passport photos. The two could pass for father and son even if one looked closely at the passports and birth certificate that Malsovic had produced. Malsovic had let his own beard grow, so his photo with the Band-Aid below his eye and the shadowed jaw looked a bit different than the picture on his last passport. There was also the fact that authorities would be looking for two people traveling together and not three.

  A man who made himself useful deserved to live a bit longer. So Zupan would survive for a while more.

  Exactly as long as it took Malsovic to trade the boy for a lifetime of riches.

  _______

  “Our intelligence tells us that bin Osman has three homes. The one here is only a few miles away.” Finn was reading from a missive they’d received from Paulie. “He has another on Danga Bay, but we can probably figure he isn’t using that one during monsoon season.”

  “Where’s the third?” Kell asked around a gigantic yawn.

  “Chiang Mai, Thailand.”

  “He could be there,” Eve put in. She was sitting cross-legged in a chair, accessing the Internet on her laptop. “Dry winters, unlike in Malaysia.”

  “Let’s hope it’s just an occasional getaway. His business interests are here. How old a guy is he?”

  Finn checked through the reports he’d brought up on his computer. “Sixty-two.”

  “Shuang seemed to have trouble getting to the man, even through email,” Eve said without looking up from her screen. “That could have been because of the bad blood between them, or because he insulates himself. Possibly both. We have the advantage of knowing who she communicated with in her attempt to get a message to bin Osman, though.”

  Something in her tone alerted Declan. “So you think we need to try and go through the same channels?”

  Their gazes met over the top of her computer. She was going to have to broach this carefully. She already knew Declan well enough to realize he was conditioned to object to any plan that increased her visibility. “I think we can skip right to Ahmed Pascal. From Shuang’s recovered communications, he seemed to be the closest to bin Osman. We should send him an email. Today. Ask for a meeting.”

  The three men looked at each other warily. “For what purpose?”

  “We know Malsovic will be contacting bin Osman some way. Chances are his request for a meeting will be channeled through Pascal, or someone close to him. We find Royce by finding Malsovic. We don’t know where he is, but we know where bin Osman is. Hence, we use bin Osman—or his emissary—to find Malsovic.”

  “We can do that by putting the residence under surveillance,” Kell pointed out.

  “We’ll do that, too. But what’s wrong with a direct approach?” Eve gathered steam as she presented her argument. “It gives us a chance to see Pascal for ourselves. We don’t mention Malsovic’s intent for contacting them. We make it clear that it’s Malsovic we want. We pay cash for Pascal to let us know if the man gets in touch with him. And more for his location.”

  Declan shook his head. “That seems like an unnecessary risk. We do surveillance tomorrow. Today,” he corrected. “We may find a rental close to bin Osman that will give us a good view of his exits. If not, there are enough of us to cover the whole place.”

  Finn had looked up from his laptop and was considering them. “I’m not sure there’s much of a downside to what Eve is suggesting. Why not try it in addition to the surveillance? Yes, Pascal might try to tail her after a meeting. Probably will. But that should be easy enough to circumvent. And if there’s even a slight chance he’ll tip us off when Malsovic contacts him, that seems a risk worth taking.”

  “We find an Internet café later and send the communication from a computer there,” Kell suggested. “That way if Pascal responds and we’ve thought of another way, he can’t trace the email back to the server at this hotel.”

  Declan didn’t like it. Eve could see that. And she had no doubt she’d be hearing about that later. Deliberately she changed the subject. “What’s the intel say about Lexie Walker? Was she American?”

  “A seventeen-year-old runaway from Round Hill, Virginia,” Kell told her. “Hard to say how she crossed paths with bin Osman. There’s no death certificate on file for her and her case is still open. Only family is a father doing a thirty year stretch for raping an eleven year old girl, and a brother on death row for killing two police officers.”

  Little wonder that the girl had run away, Eve thought, with a flash of empathy. But she hadn’t found a better life in DC. “What’s the latest on Jaid’s prognosis?”

  Finn hesitated. “She was in surgery for twelve hours. They took her back in a while ago. There was another internal bleed.”

  His words cast a pall on the group, and effectively voided Declan’s earlier objection. She’d make sure of that. It was his nature to want Eve out of the line of danger. Raiker had probably felt the same about his wife. They could mitigate the risk she was suggesting. She already knew he’d insist on going with her.

  With Jaid Raiker’s life in the balance…with her son missing…they
could really do no less.

  _______

  They’d agreed to get a few hours sleep. All four of them resembled the walking dead after their long flight. Declan was stretched out beside her, his arms folded behind his head. But she wasn’t sleeping. He didn’t think she was either. As exhausted as they both were, too much was running through her mind. It would be the same for him. Worry about Jaid. Her son. And what the boy might be going through at Malsovic’s hands.

  “How old were you when the State Department recruited you?” he asked suddenly.

  Of all the things she might have guessed he was thinking about, she wouldn’t have predicted this. “I was a sophomore at Harvard. Majored in multiple languages and international studies.” She’d been taken aback when she’d been approached by two DOS personnel. Intrigued by the later rigorous testing and the final offer.

  He shifted on the bed and she felt him curve against her back, tucking her in against his warmth. And immediately felt a bit lighter in the telling.

  “I really did start out translating documents and interpreting diplomatic conversations.” It all seemed so long ago now, although it’d been only eight years. “But then I started being sent to various trainings. Weapons. Self defense. Communications. And I knew I wasn’t going to spend all of my career stuck at a desk all day.”

  “I already know how disappointed you were by that.”

  She smiled at the low rumble in her ear. “Since I have a feeling you have a similar taste for adventure, you’re hardly one to talk.”

  “Raiker called you a secret weapon. I’m guessing that isn’t far from the truth.”

  Her shrug was impatient. “Hardly that. But the element of surprise is an advantage. Sometimes I’m the element of surprise used in…delicate situations.”