For a moment, the thought of personally helping to bring down al-Jihad sent a thrill of anticipated victory through Romo’s bloodstream, muting his frustration with how other things were going in his life. Or the life he meant to reclaim as soon as all this was over. Still, though, there was a small kernel of sadness at the back of his brain, one that said he might not come out the winner in all things. In the end, he might not win Sara, despite having done the best he’d known how, under the circumstances.
Yes, he hadn’t been fully honest with her, but his secrets had been on the level of national security. Surely she could see the difference there? He shook his head, telling himself she was being unreasonable, telling himself to ignore the buzzing suspicion that she hadn’t been wrong about all of it, that he was still missing something.
“If they were researching the prison even before the bombing, then this entire thing has been part of one overarching plan.” O’Reilly leaned over Romo’s shoulder. “Yeah, that looks like the ARX, all right. But if that’s the case, then his message to you doesn’t make any sense. He’s already out, and he’s got his own copy of the plans. Why would he care about having you return this one?”
“There’s another file.” Romo pulled it up, showed his boss a second set of schematics. “It’s a tunnel system of some sort—maybe mine shafts? I don’t know where they start or end, though.”
There was dead silence from O’Reilly.
Romo looked over his shoulder, and decided he didn’t like the look on the senior agent’s face one bit. “What is it? You recognize the second map?”
“I sure do,” O’Reilly growled. “Except there’s a tunnel that shouldn’t be there.” He pointed to a long, straight line that started at the very edge of the clustered shafts, and headed due west.
A cold chill shimmered down Romo’s spine. “Don’t tell me. This mess is east of the prison.”
“Okay. I won’t tell you.”
Romo ignored that and paused, frowning. “But why the hell would they want to get themselves tossed in the jail, go to the trouble of escaping, but then, what? Try to break back in?”
“They must’ve needed to set up something on the inside,” O’Reilly muttered. “Something al-Jihad himself had to oversee.”
Romo sent him a sardonic look. “This can’t be the first time the possibility has come up.”
The senior agent’s expression went shuttered. “There are a million theories, any hundred of which could fit the evidence, depending on the details.”
In other words, O’Reilly wasn’t sure how far he trusted Romo, who was a newcomer to the Cell, lacked federal training and had been undercover for most of the time he’d been affiliated with the group. Rather than taking offense, Romo nodded. “Understood.”
O’Reilly’s expression flattened and the men stared at each other for a long moment before the senior agent sighed heavily. “Oh, what the hell. We’re at a standstill here. Maybe you’ll see something we’ve missed.” He nudged Romo aside and called up a trio of files onto the computer screen. “These are encoded—maybe encrypted?—transmissions we’ve intercepted over the past week. The chatter says something big is coming down the pipeline, and thanks to the intel you just brought, we can guess where it’s going to happen, but we need more than that before we can move. We’re pretty sure al-Jihad is planning a massive jailbreak, partly as an outright terror attack on the region, partly as a means to release a number of key operatives from other major terror groups. Some of the rumors suggest that he’s looking to centralize all the major anti-American groups, with the aim of striking a fatal blow against the country as a whole. If he gets the political prisoners free, earning their loyalty—or at least putting them in his debt—well, what happens next will make the Santa Bombings look like a warm-up act.” The senior agent sighed heavily, the prospect cutting deep grooves in the tired lines of his face. “We need a timeline, and details. Al-Jihad is smart. Too smart. There’s no way he doesn’t have backup plans within backup plans. Take a look at the transmissions, will you? Maybe you’ll see something we missed.”
Romo swallowed heavily, appalled by the picture O’Reilly had painted. “I’ll see what I can do.” He glanced up at the senior agent. “You want me out of your office?”
“No. Stay. That computer is a closed system, not networked to anything. It’s as safe as you’re going to get.”
“Gotcha.” But the mention of safety brought up the specter that hovered far too near Romo’s conscious mind at all times these days—the safety of the people in Bear Claw who had become so important to him. “How are Fairfax and McDermott doing?” he asked, guilt stabbing as he realized he hadn’t yet asked, when he’d been at least practically responsible for their injuries. Amnesia or not, he should’ve been smarter about setting up the meeting, more careful about the peripherals.
“McDermott is on the mend. Fax was discharged yesterday, though he’ll be on restricted duty until those ribs heal.” A faint smile touched O’Reilly’s lips. “I gather his fiancée is sticking him with the remainder of the wedding planning while she finishes her training.”
Romo snorted appreciatively at the image that brought, of petite, dynamo Chelsea turning into a superagent, while Fax—who already was a superagent—ordered flowers and sorted RSVPs. In the craziness of the situation, Romo was only just beginning to realize how much more than just himself he’d regained when he’d gotten his memory back.
“Any word from Sara’s detail?” he asked next, knowing they both knew she was really the one he wanted to know about.
He couldn’t get past the look she’d had on her face as he’d told her the truth about his memory. He’d made a judgment call in not telling her right away that he’d regained all of his memory, and even after the fallout, he still thought he’d done the right thing. True, if he’d copped to the other memories right away, he could’ve returned to the Cell a few hours earlier. But he’d wanted—needed—that time for himself, damn it. He’d needed it for them, as a chance to tell her all the things he’d wanted to tell her months earlier, but had instinctively known she wasn’t ready to hear. He hoped to hell when all this was over she could forgive him for it, that she could find a way to understand and be flexible.
Unfortunately, that thought bumped up against the fear that she wouldn’t be able to find that flexibility, or that he’d damaged their relationship so deeply she wouldn’t want to try.
“The agents with her checked in on schedule,” O’Reilly said, voice faintly dismissive, as though protective custody of a single medical examiner was the least of his worries. Which it probably was. For Romo, though, it was a primary concern.
Making love to her the night before had been incredible. It had been healing. Cleansing. A homecoming. But at the same time, his timing had been off. If he’d been fully in control of himself, he probably would have waited. Then again, he acknowledged inwardly, maybe not, because there was no guarantee that there would be a tomorrow for either of them. Not unless he and the others made some major breakthroughs, fast.
“I’ll get to work on this,” he said, nodding to the information on the computer screen.
“I’ll lock you in,” O’Reilly said on his way out, and suited action to words.
Months ago Romo would’ve taken offense at the show of caution, becoming angry that he’d walked away from his life, sacrificing himself in the name of justice without gaining the trust that sacrifice should imply. Months ago, he’d been an idiot, he admitted inwardly as his fingers flew over the keyboard in familiar patterns, beginning the decryption process. Or if not a complete idiot, at least far too caught up in his own wants and needs, his own bruised ego and what he perceived himself as being owed. Being dead had taught him a few things, not the least of which was that there were times and places where the individual didn’t—couldn’t—matter.
When he’d been a kid, watching his family nearly fall apart under the strain of the false accusations against his father, he’d been dimly aware o
f the larger scope of things, and how the ripple effect of the embezzlement had hurt families beyond his own. But his parents, their lawyers and the cops who’d eventually cracked the case and arrested his father’s partner instead…they had all focused on the small stuff, the little details. They’d had to—that had been the nature of the case.
That had been true for most of the cases Romo had investigated throughout his career, too. He and Alicia had worked at the local level, albeit on the high-dollar scale intrinsic to Vegas. Even the corruption they’d stumbled on had been very personal—a handful of dirty cops and two very powerful moneymen. After her death, he’d run from his grief—he was willing to admit now that he’d run rather than dealing, rather than healing. He’d wound up in Bear Claw working internal affairs, which had suited his need for justice while staying on the small, familiar scale. Then al-Jihad had escaped from the ARX Supermax, and that small, familiar scale had widened abruptly.
At the time he’d thought he’d been doing everything right, bearing down on the hints of local-level corruption and conspiracy because that was what he knew how to do, and because it freed the federal agents to do the bigger-picture stuff. But over time he’d realized this wasn’t the sort of case that could be deconstructed to the smaller scale, not really. In leading a witch hunt in his own PD, he’d taken attention away from where it needed to be—higher up the food chain.
Which, he realized as he came up against a dead end in his decryption, backed up and tried a different route, wasn’t unlike what he’d done with Sara. He’d accused her of being intransigent, and dared her to give him another chance. As with making love to her under only partial honesty, the challenge had seemed like a good idea at the time, but as he worked on the encrypted transmissions, he started to wonder whether that hadn’t been another misstep on his part. He had, whether he’d intended to or not, asked her to give him a pure pass on one of her most fundamental beliefs—that of fidelity.
Yes, he’d apologized for what he’d done, and he’d explained the situation, at least partly. But he’d never really admitted he’d been wrong to do it. And he’d never promised not to do it again. Without those assurances, how was it fair to put the fault back on her?
“Damn,” he muttered under his breath. “I am an idiot.” However, on the plus side, it’d only taken him a few hours to realize it this time, rather than the weeks or months he’d gone previously. Surely that was evidence against her belief that people couldn’t change?
He should call the safe house and—
His fingers paused as his eyes locked on a piece of code. One part of him had been hard at work while his heart thought of Sara, and damned if he didn’t think he’d found what the other analysts had missed. Maybe he’d seen it because he’d looked at so many other of the terrorists’ files, maybe because he hadn’t been trained in the FBI program, who knew? What mattered was that he was pretty sure he could break the damn thing.
Focusing, setting aside his other thoughts and worries, he got down to the serious business of decrypting. When O’Reilly checked on him fifteen minutes later, he was halfway there. The senior agent left the door unlocked when he ducked back out, and coffee appeared at Romo’s elbow a few minutes later.
Something unknotted inside him—a tightness he’d been carrying for so long now, he hadn’t really been aware of it until it was gone, banished by the feeling of finally having come in from the cold, finally being a part of something larger than his small, angry world.
Just under an hour from when he’d entered O’Reilly’s office, Romo pushed away from the computer with a sound of satisfaction. “Gotcha, you bastards.” His satisfaction, though, was badly tainted with dismay, because the information he’d uncovered meant that they didn’t have much time to counter al-Jihad’s nefarious plan.
O’Reilly appeared in the doorway, though Romo hadn’t been aware of the senior agent hovering. More than likely, he’d tasked an underling to keep an eye on Romo’s progress and signal him when it looked as though things were getting ready to break free. “Tell me something good,” O’Reilly demanded.
“I can tell you something, all right.”
“But not good.”
“Not so much.” Romo waved the senior agent forward, so they were both looking at the screen. After a quick rundown of the methods he’d used to crack the encryption, he summarized, “It’s a set of instructions to Weberly.”
“Damn it.” A muscle pulsed alongside O’Reilly’s square jaw at the news. Weberly was the new head warden of the ARX Supermax, having been promoted into the position following his predecessor’s death during the prison riot. “The riot wasn’t just designed to cover your death,” O’Reilly growled.
Romo shook his head. “I think that was a side benefit. The main goal was clearing the way for Weberly. Hell, for all we know, that was why al-Jihad, Feyd and Mawadi orchestrated their arrest and incarceration, as a means to develop the most useful contacts inside the prison.” He grimaced. “It houses the worst of the worst, which is why the terrorists targeted it. Al-Jihad and the others wanted to do some internal recon.”
“But why al-Jihad himself?” O’Reilly wondered aloud, then shook his head. “Never mind. What else did you find?”
“A timetable of sorts.” Romo brought up the message on-screen. “Even decrypted, it’s couched in doublespeak. You’ll probably want to have the pros go over it, see if they’re seeing what I am.” He pointed out a couple of key phrases he thought referred to the planned jailbreak, along with what he thought was a schedule. “Which means that if I’m right,” he continued, “and if they’re still on this same schedule, we’re less than a day away from the jailbreak.”
O’Reilly cursed under his breath. “You got any idea how it’s going to go down?”
“No details,” Romo said with ill-concealed regret. “There are a couple of references I can’t place. Maybe your agents will be able to provide some insight.”
“I’ll get it right over to them.” O’Reilly stuck his head out into the hallway and barked some orders. Moments later, the laptop was whisked away by two heavily armed, grim-faced men. O’Reilly himself, though, stayed behind in the office. “We’re getting somewhere, at least.”
The senior agent’s body thrummed with barely restrained eagerness, and some of the lines in his face had eased. That, more than anything, proved to Romo that O’Reilly was the right man for the job at hand. Although a few years older than the average field operative, the senior agent was clearly chafing at the Cell’s recent lack of action, and the knowledge gaps that had rendered the task force unable to respond to the growing terror threat. That was why Romo had agreed to fake his own death and go undercover, he remembered now. Not just because it had been the right thing to do, but because he’d believed in his backup.
Hoping he wouldn’t find out that his belief had been misplaced, Romo said, “Al-Jihad gave me forty-eight hours to return the flash drive to him. I don’t know why he wants the thing back, or why he gave me so long to retrieve it, but if—and that’s a big assumption, granted—he truly wants the thing back, we might be able to use it as bait.”
O’Reilly regarded him steadily. “What did you have in mind?”
Romo lifted a shoulder. “We’re running out of time to figure out what else is on the drive that he’s so anxious to recover—frankly I don’t see it, period, which makes me think the countdown was intended to get me focused on the wrong things.”
“Misdirection.” O’Reilly nodded. “It’s consistent with al-Jihad’s overall actions over the past eighteen months. Hell, the FBI didn’t catch the significance of the hidden flash drive until it was almost too late. They were so busy trying to protect Mawadi’s ex-wife, they let him get away with the drive.”
Romo remembered that part of the investigation, and knew there had also been some infighting within the federal arm of the task force, and an affair between Mariah and her FBI protector, Grayson, which had further complicated things. But again, that had been
the nature of al-Jihad’s plans all along: sleight of hand and, as O’Reilly had said, misdirection.
“So what if we do some misdirection of our own?” Romo suggested.
O’Reilly’s eyes narrowed with interest. “What do you have in mind?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Romo thought for a moment, frowning. “Al-Jihad’s men tried to kill me, to keep me from escaping from them in the woods. I get that. What I don’t get is why they didn’t move in on me while I was at Sara’s, but instead went after Fax and McDermott before I could make contact in person. Then, instead of chasing me down, they herded me to the old apartment, where they’d planted a message that gave me enough clues to break the amnesia.” He glossed over Sara’s involvement in that aspect, hoping to keep her out of trouble. “Which suggests they knew about the amnesia somehow and wanted me to get my memory back. But why? The first thing I did was bring you guys the flash drive.” He stalled, sucking in a breath. “Which might mean…”
“He wanted us to learn about the tunnels, but feel clever about it,” O’Reilly said, then cursed viciously under his breath. “So we have to go on the assumption that either it’s another misdirection, or it’s a hell of an ambush.”
“Or both,” Romo muttered.
Before O’Reilly could say anything else, the office door swung open to reveal one of the heavily armed men, looking even grimmer than before. His eyes flicked to Romo and away.
“What’s wrong?” Romo asked, surging up from the desk chair as every warning bell he possessed started clamoring all at once. “What happened?”
The agent looked at O’Reilly, who said, “I’ll be right there.” The younger agent nodded and hurried from the room without looking at Romo, making him wonder whether the emergency had something to do with him, or whether he simply wasn’t in the circle of trust.
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