Chain Lynx (The Lynx Series Book 3)

by Fiona Quinn

  I picked up the album and went to the west wing to search for Deep. I found him in the puzzle room. “Are you busy?” I asked, with as much nonchalance as I could muster.

  Deep scrubbed a hand over his head and stretched. “I’d appreciate a reason to set this aside. I’m going cross-eyed.”

  I moved forward and put the album in Deep’s lap. “Am I going crazy, or do you see what I see?”

  Deep looked down at the photo. “That’s Angel with you?” He pointed.

  “Yes.” I was barely breathing.

  “This is your apartment building on fire?” He looked up at me, and I nodded my head. I was in a holding pattern – no words formulated on my tongue.

  “What is it you want me to see, Lynx?”

  I pointed at the cars parked on the right. Deep leaned down over the photo. “Holy cazoli.” He reached over to the lighted magnifying glass and swung it around on its metal arm. Deep gazed through the lens. “I’ll be damned, it’s Travis Wilson.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Who’s that with him?”

  “Tom Matsy. The fire originated in Mr. Matsy’s apartment. We were told that he was drunk, fell asleep with a lit cigarette and caught his bed on fire.”

  Deep’s brow creased. “A cigarette wouldn’t start a fire like that one. It would melt the mattress and make a lot of smoke.”

  “Right. There was also a bottle of Jack Daniels involved,” I whispered.

  “Still.”

  “Exactly. Still. . .” I cleared my throat. “I have a few questions.”

  Deep grinned. “I bet you do. Where should we start?” he asked, rubbing his hands together.

  “Can you get a better image of the license plate? We could trace that. Let’s put a line out on Matsy. I want to know why he’s with Wilson.”

  Deep took the newspaper clip from its protective sleeve and put it on the scanner plate.

  “All of us neighbors were sort of cast to the wind after the fire. I don’t remember hearing about where Mr. Matsy went. I guess I figured he was keeping his head down in shame and not talking to folks.”

  I sat back while Deep punched the keys on his computer. A close-up of that portion of the photo came onto the screen, the extra pixels filled in by the computer program.

  “Son of a gun,” I leaned in.

  “What are you seeing, Lynx?”

  “That’s Frith.” I pointed at the man standing with his hand on his open car door, climbing in. I followed Frith’s line of sight. He was focused on Matsy and Wilson.

  Deep moved his cursor around the screen and punched a few keys, and Frith, bundled in his winter wear, came into better view. Frith’s car had government plates. Deep played with the picture again.

  “Here we go. Wilson’s plate is X94 NB87. Hang on.” Deep pulled up one of our search programs. “Yup. This car is registered with Potomac Auto Rental. Their address is north of here. Let’s see who’s in place.” Deep tapped the keyboard again, then pulled out his cell. “It’s Deep. Are you having doughnuts, man?”

  Jack’s voice came over the speaker. “I wish. I had to run over here to check on a possible witness. I came up empty handed. You need something?”

  “I need you to follow up on a car rental. I’m sending you a file with the particulars.”

  “Wilco. I’m heading out now,” Jack said.

  Deep put an explanation and all of the known data – date, plate, etc. into a file and sent it over to Jack, and then started a search on Matsy. An alarm sounded two short blasts. Deep looked over at a monitor. “Laura’s here for your torture session.”

  “Poop. I’d rather do this,” I scowled.

  Deep quirked his lips. “I bet you’d rather eat raw snake.”

  “I hear it puts hair on your chest – makes a man out of you.”

  “You’d have to ask Gater about that. I cook my snake,” Deep said.

  “Nancy-boy.”

  Deep raised his eyebrows. “You want to go there?”

  “Not at all. I just don’t want to go there.” I pointed to the door. Deep laughed as I hefted myself out of my seat and went out to the great room to wait for Laura. Thank goodness, she’d be gone by lunch.

  ***

  “Lynx, today I’m your best friend.” Deep smiled at me as I reemerged from the gym soaked in sweat.

  “Yeah? What have you got?”

  “I have news about your neighbor, Tom Matsy. The night of the fire, he got dead.”

  “Shit. You’re kidding me.” I swabbed at my face with a hand towel. “This is getting ridiculous.”

  “I’ve got more. Matsey drove his rental car to a motel in South Jersey. He and Matsy went in to register. Wilson walked Matsy to his room and left him at the door. Wilson got in a different car and drove away.”

  “Wilson didn’t kill him?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Who was the room registered to?”

  “Matsy. And to answer your next question, we knew that Wilson didn’t kill Matsy, because Matsy left his room to buy cigarettes at the vending machine near the stairwell at the other end of the outdoor walkway. It’s on security camera.”

  “That was fast. How’d you get hold of it?” I went around to sit on a chair.

  Deep leaned back with his hands laced behind his head. “Jack was already north of the city for the car rental. Turns out they had to tow Matsy’s car back from a motel up the road. Jack paid the motel a visit. The motel manager was very cooperative.”

  I smirked. “Jack greased his palm, huh?”

  “The guy’s probably enjoying a bottle of good scotch and a fat-bottomed girl as we speak.”

  “Can I see the video?” I asked, chomping at the bit.

  “Jack’s getting a copy. The motel’s system was VHS. He’ll have a file made by dinner tonight. I watched it on the cam-wire when Jack did.”

  “You saw Matsy walk back into his room?”

  “More than that. I saw Frith heading in to Matsy’s room, and then Matsy heading back with his cigs.”

  “Frith?” God, what was the connection? How did these two players get their paths to cross?

  “Frith was bundled up in a hat and scarf, but I recognized his get-up from the fire picture. He was wearing gloves and carrying a black bag.”

  “Holy cow. He killed Matsy?” My eyebrows stretched up as if they wanted to jump right off my head.

  “Matsy’s autopsy report reads: opiate overdose, accidental.”

  “You’ve been busy.”

  Deep gave me a satisfied grin.

  “But why, Deep? That is all so weird.” I let my brain churn for a moment. “Let’s follow the obvious line.” I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. “Frith was FBI at the time of the fire. He was working on some cases with Iniquus and the ATF. Do you think his target was Wilson or Matsy?”

  Deep offered up a shrug.

  “Wilson could have been at the fire, because he had targeted me already and was there on surveillance. But why would Wilson hook up with Matsy? Why would Frith go into Matsy’s motel room? I’m guessing Frith followed them, went in to the open motel room to do a quick shake, and see if there was anything interesting there.”

  “Like what?”

  “The fire originated in Matsy’s apartment. Fire first, then explosion. Perhaps Frith thought - and maybe rightly so - that Matsy and Wilson were cooking a bomb, and it got away from them. Did Frith think that Matsy or Wilson was involved in a criminal plot? Huh. Matsy really didn’t seem the type. I didn’t know him very well, though. He had only lived in the apartments for a couple of months.”

  “That would make sense. Frith slipped in to look around, taking advantage of the open door. Matsy went in, did some recreational drugs, had a bad trip with no support, so he died.”

  “What’s the timeline on the tape of Frith leaving?”

  “Frith goes in, Matsy smokes a cig, Matsy goes in, light from the TV can be seen, thirty minute lapse, Frith sneaks out, walks head dow
n to his car, and is gone.”

  “What car?” I asked.

  “Agency car.”

  “Same as at the fire?” I reached for a pencil, drew some bubbles on a sheet of paper, and layered in thought prompts.

  “Yup,” Deep confirmed.

  I stared at the paper, trying to reason out what could explain this chain. “So Matsy gets in before Frith can get out. He hides behind the curtains, lets Matsy settle, waits for him to go to the bathroom or whatever, and sneaks out.”

  “That seems reasonable.” Deep reached for my paper and read it over.

  I gave him a minute. “Do we have a time of death?”

  “No. And here’s a weird little detail: the manager said that Matsy booked the room for the week, and he specifically said he didn’t want maid service.”

  “No maids, so no one to find the body? Innocent track: Matsy didn’t want to be disturbed, maybe he was afraid of publicity from the fire. Not so innocent track: Wilson helped with those no-maid arrangements, gave Matsy some bad dope, knowing Matsy would die so Wilson couldn’t be named in interrogation. Wilson wanted to make sure that he was long gone, and the body was in bad shape when it was found.”

  Deep snorted. “Bad shape, that’s an understatement.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “It didn’t take the week to find the body. The heat was on full blast and the body could be smelled in the lobby.”

  “Oh, gross.”

  Deep snorted. “I’m glad it wasn’t my job to pour him into a bag. What’s next?” He laid my paper back in front of me.

  “I want to see the files from Frith’s work on the FBI side, and see what Iniquus has from our side. I wonder if Tom Matsy’s name is going to show up in either. Hell of a coincidence that Wilson would know Matsy and be after me.”

  “Could Travis Wilson have put you on his radar screen at the fire?”

  “I imagine he was busy with Matsy, and I wasn’t a random tag. Wilson was after me because I’m like a daughter to Spyder. I was the sacrificial virgin for our agency. The other women that Wilson stalked were either the wife or daughter of an agency head. Each agency on Wilson’s list lost one woman, which gives me another interesting ping.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Frith is the agent who was handling the murder of the girl who died for the FBI. He was the one that hired Iniquus and got you all involved. Could he have picked up on Wilson at that point, and been tracking him for the murders instead of for his anti-government doings? Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.”

  “I have one for you.”

  “Shoot,” I said.

  “What if Wilson knew Matsy from the group Frith was watching, what was it called?”

  “Patriots United.”

  Deep shook his head. “That’s a stupid name. Okay, what if Wilson and Matsy knew each other from Patriots United? Wilson was doing his bit for God and country by trying to demoralize the various agencies by making their loved ones the target of his insanity. Wilson was over at Matsy’s, and happened to see and recognized Spyder. He figured out which apartment he came from, figured out who lived there, figured out from watching you two together that Spyder loved you, and boom, he’s got you in his sights.”

  Shivers went up and down my spine. It took me a minute to process. “Deep, that timeline works. I got my first letter at the Red Cross housing the day I married Angel. That was three weeks after the fire. The fire was at the end of January. Spyder went off grid in September; Matsy had moved in by then. I remember him at our apartment at the Labor Day picnic at the pool. Yes. It was sometime in late July or early August that he moved in. Spyder and I were working non-stop on the Sylanos case at that point. Matsy and Wilson would have had lots of opportunities to spot us. Deep?”

  “Yeah, Lynx?”

  “You’re my new best friend.”

  “Don’t I know it?”

  And that’s when all hell broke loose.

  Thirty-Six

  The speakers’ high-pitched wail heralded an intrusion into our infrared protected bubble. I scanned the monitor, expecting to find more turkey buzzards swooping in to eat whatever had died in the woods at the entrance of the peninsula. Instead, the cameras focused on two Little Bird helos, rising ominously over the rock cliff that protected the bayside of our compound. Surely, if our team was coming in, they would have given Deep a heads-up. I tapped the computer button and the cameras locked on the moving target, zooming the picture in tight. Gunners, in black BDUs, perched on the runners with their M-4s nestled into the flesh of their cheeks, their eyes scanning through the telescopic lenses.

  Deep jumped to his feet, his chair toppling behind him. Over the intercom system, he broadcast the attack. A Blackhawk UH60 rose into sight.

  I tried to deflect Deep’s hand as it slammed the panic button. “Andy and Beetle are outside,” I yelled.

  Deep easily averted my move, and the mechanics of Striker’s house ground the bulletproof shutters and locks into place. I watched on the monitor as Andy, dressed in full security gear, took a knee on the back walkway. Beetle dashed from the tree line to flank him, salivating as her teeth chomped at the air. Andy pointed his rifle skyward. Two blasts sounded nanoseconds apart. Andy lay prone and unmoving on the slate. Beetle, followed her training and covered his body with hers. A man swung lifelessly from his harness as one of the Little Birds bugged out.

  Deep yelled past the helo uproar into his comms, “Man down. OpFor fast rope insertion, targeting roof.” He grabbed his Glock from the desk in front of him. I turned my attention to his monitor. Men, with three-hole balaclavas hiding their faces, slid from the massive Blackhawk onto the roof’s landing pad. The sound from the engine and rotors was deafening, but Striker’s house stood solid against the wind and vibrations.

  At the door, Deep turned and pointed a directive finger at me. “Get to the safe room and shut her down. Use the sat phone to get Iniquus here stat.”

  That’s when the explosion ripped the roof hatch open, and I flew from my body.

  When I’ve walked behind the Veil in the past, it was a cognitive decision on my part to separate body and consciousness, sending myself out at a distance to seek information. This time, I hadn’t had time to think, to plan. The tether securing my awareness to flesh and bone had become weak to ineffectual during my time in prison. Astral projection had been a daily habit during the time Maria sequestered me in the eight-by-eight hellhole. I needed my body to function — to follow Deep’s directives and contact Iniquus – but instead my corporeal self collapsed in a heap on the floor and my awareness broke free to fasten to Blaze.

  The explosion had knocked Blaze on his ass. Now he scramble to his feet in the dorm room. Barefooted and dressed in black boxers and grey T-shirt, a bandolier draped over his shoulder. He peeked past the door frame, squinting through the smoke and particulates that filled the air at the hole made by the blast. Coughing hard to rid his lungs of the debris, he pulled the neck of his T-shirt up to cover his mouth and nose. His rifle snugged firmly against his shoulder. As the first bad guy dropped into the house, Blaze squeezed the trigger for a triple tap. Two to center mass. One to the head. Then he dove to the right to reach the staircase. Hunkered against the wall, he covered his ears and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, as a flashbang dropped into the hallway. Blaze bounded down the stairs, turning and pushing Deep, who barreled toward the enemy.

  They leaped down the stairs in two jumps. Blaze threw himself into the right hand corridor, the one that lead to the offices where I had left my body. Deep covered left — where I should be right now — whole and protected in the safe room. Blaze pressed his back against the wall, and sucked air into his lungs, steadying his nerves. I registered the cold and the solidity behind us, but Blaze’s attention was sharply focused on absorbing information, scanning the corridor, and forming a plan.

  Cookie stuck his nose around the corner, and Blaze waved him back. I could hear Bella growling viciously from the gym, scraping at the door. I must have shut th
e door on her when she fell asleep, keeping me company during my workout. Shit. I had to get to her and get her back to the safe room. I willed myself back to my body, but stayed solidly attached to Blaze.

  Deep took a knee, his 9mm at the ready. Blaze’s rifle rested at a forty-five degree angle aimed at the floor. There was time for one more breath before a four tango stack stormed down the stairs, moving into Blaze’s line of vision. Deep aimed a head shot, then swung into a doorway out of the way of a follow up shot from the enemy, as the first in line went down.

  My guys were grossly outnumbered, out supplied, and out dressed. I hoped Cookie and Chris got to the closets in my room and strapped on combat gear, and did what I was supposed to be doing, getting Iniquus in the loop and deployed. I needed to get back in my body and get help. I wouldn’t be much in the way of hand-to-hand, but surely I could do something. Again I tried to will myself away from Blaze and back toward my physical form. But my spirit clung to Blaze like a nearly-drowned swimmer who had reached a buoy.

  The tangos vaulted over their teammate’s body. Two turned in Deep’s direction. The massive one sprang at Blaze.

  With the reflexes trained into a SEAL, Blaze parried the barrel of his weapon to the side with his left hand. Pressing his rifle flat against the bad guy’s body, Blaze squeezed the trigger in three staccato bursts while pushing his elbows outward. As the giant fell away, Blaze reached his rifle around, shooting past him with another three shot burst as a second tango rounded the corner. Fire and ice exploded my awareness as a bullet seared Blaze’s shoulder. Blackness enveloped him, and he dropped.

  “Lexi,” Deep yelled. And with a pull to my abdomen, I merged with Deep. He focused down the hall on my open bedroom door. “Fuck,” he spat as he swung his head back toward the command center where one of my lifeless hands was visible, stretching away from where I fell.

  Bullets strafed the great room as two tangos aimed at Chris and Cookie.

  Deep sprinted toward my form. A flashbang exploded, dropping him to the ground. He was so close. If I was just in my body, I could reach out my fingers and touch him. Help him. I had to help him.