Chain Lynx (The Lynx Series Book 3)

by Fiona Quinn

  “The geese are Hector, T-Bone, Julio, and Maria, and the one who got his eyes open was Brody,” Striker said.

  “Bingo.” I played with the end of my ponytail, twirling it in my fingers.

  Striker pushed me up to sitting as he came upright. “When did you start thinking about Old Man Coyote?”

  “Today, why?”

  “No. Exactly what time did you start thinking about Old Man Coyote?”

  “Um. It was on the treadmill. Fourteen thirty, maybe Fifteen hundred.”

  “Have you switched channels on your psychic network?” Striker asked.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I was going to tell you that we have a line on Brody. Axel figured out where he was about sixteen hundred our time. You had him by an hour. It seems to me you’re picking up your information differently.”

  “My psychic antenna is definitely bent. I’m not picking up much of anything. Though ever since the crash, my brain has been dancing with bizarre dreams and children’s stories. With only the occasional ‘T-Bone is dead’. But as far as the Old Man Coyote tale goes, I’ve always had stories as analogies as part of my ESP repertoire. Where’s Brody?”

  “Your Honduran prison.”

  I sat straight up, my arms stiff at my sides. “How did he get there?” I whispered. “Vega?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out. It would help if we knew who Old Man Coyote was.”

  “Ah, well, I’ve been trying to figure that out all day.”

  “Who’s on the table?” Striker swiveled around and looked at me intently.

  “The obvious players: the Sylanos Cartel, Omega, and a wild card. Maybe the wild card’s name is Vega. I think I’m missing someone.”

  “You’ve been working on the Frith files. Do you think Frith is caught up in this?”

  “There’s no evidence trail. Mostly I was trying to use the files to figure out how he knew I saved his life in the gold-for-dope debacle. I was looking for the way that my name comes up in his files. Do you know whose name came up?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “Travis Wilson.”

  “At the fire? We know that.”

  “Wilson’s name came up before the fire. He was a member of Patriots United.”

  Striker moved towards my file stacks. I reached out to get him the right one and opened to the page with the Post-it Note.

  “Right. Go on,” he said, scanning down.

  “Frith had Wilson flagged as dangerous/to be watched. This seems to parallel the explanation Deep and I considered for why Frith was in the photo of Wilson at my fire, and why Frith tailed Wilson to the New Jersey motel. There’s even a record in there of him signing out an agency car that night. Which, by the way, is a little peculiar. Normally, agents don’t take cars with government plates out on a tail.”

  “Which leads to. . .?” Striker tried to lead the conversation in a straight line.

  “Me being confused.” I put my hands on either side of my head and scratched at my scalp as if by digging a furrow, I could sprout a thought. “I wish I knew why Frith left the FBI. And why they wouldn’t give him back the stuff from his drawer.”

  “I had the same questions,” Striker said. “I talked to a contact up there, and they did some snooping for me. Rumor has it that Frith was double dipping — working for Omega at the same time as he was working for the FBI. It’s nothing that they could prove. There may have been an overlap, but then again, maybe not.”

  “Here’s a string of ifs: what if Frith worked for Omega and the FBI at the same time? What if Omega wanted his help on the Sylanos file – protecting Sylanos from the FBI, CIA, and Iniquus? Maybe Omega put Frith on their team and tasked him to check on the FBI front. What if Frith saw my name as the puzzler and did a little digging, and he did a background check on me?”

  Striker’s face got that hard-edged combat quality that he gets when he thinks I might be in danger. “It’s not hard to find out that your name changed when you married, or where you had lived,” Striker said. “But, Chica, that’s a lot of ‘what ifs.’ And still leaves a lot of important questions unanswered.”

  “What do you think is the priority question?” I asked, hoping he could help me sieve out the gems and let the debris fall to the side.

  “How would he have figured out that you as an Iniquus agent, are the same person who saved him from the drug deal gone bad?” Striker said.

  “Okay. Let’s start there, since I think I have that answer. Spyder was down range when I figured everything out about that case. I called my information directly in to our FBI contact. In Frith’s file, there is a communication log with a transcript of that conversation, my cell number, and my AT&T contracted name, India A. Rueben. Ha! And here I thought I was calling in anonymously. I guess they auto-track incoming calls. Beginner’s mistake coming back to bite me in the butt.”

  “Why would he go to the trouble to follow that trail?”

  “Curiosity? That’s my theory. I’d want to know who saved my life,” I shrugged. “Let’s leave this alone for now. I don’t have anything concrete to tell you. Let’s talk about Axel, instead. He called you and told you he thought he found Brody? How’s the operation? Is there a time line?”

  “Axel’s in the air. He’s do in tonight. I told him we’d debrief him in the morning.”

  I shot Striker a dumbfounded look. “Morning?”

  “I know you’re anxious, Chica. A few hours won’t matter right now. He’s been going full throttle since he left. He needs a good night’s sleep. He’ll be clearer if we wait until tomorrow.”

  “What about the dogs?” I asked.

  Striker threw his head back and laughed.

  I sent him a questioning look, wondering why in the hell my asking about the dogs would be such a source for hilarity.

  “I win the pool.” He grinned.

  “What are you talking about?” I was annoyed. I didn’t like to be the subject of the team’s speculation pools and games. It made me feel like a sideshow, since they usually had something to do with me.

  “The team threw money in the pot on what your first question would be. I said the dogs, hands down.”

  “They let me escape. I owe them my life.”

  “I hear you, Chica. That’s why I put money behind it.”

  “What did everyone else say?”

  “Ah, let’s see. Deep thought you’d ask how many people they pulled out. Gater thought you’d ask what’s going to happen to the people who ran the prison, would they lose their jobs, how would they eat? Randy thought for sure you’d ask if anyone was arrested, and could you interrogate them. Jack thought you wouldn’t ask anything; that you’d say that reminded you of a story you heard when you were little. And Blaze is still in the hospital and didn’t get to play.”

  “How much was the pool?” I asked.

  “Twenty a piece.”

  “Oh yeah? Got any special plans for your eighty bucks?” I slithered onto his lap and smiled at him.

  Striker put his hands on my hips settling me against him, and returned my smile. “I’m taking you out to dinner when you’re not a wanted woman.”

  “There’s going to be a time when you don’t want me?” I batted my lashes.

  “I can’t imagine that. Let me rephrase – I’ll take you out for dinner when you’re not a hitman’s mark.” Striker hugged me to him as he stood up. He lowered me gently until my feet touched the floor, and reached for my hand. “It’s late. Come to bed, Chica.”

  “I will in a minute. I want to read this one thing more. I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep a wink, anyway.”

  “Come to bed, and I’ll distract you from your mind jumble.” His voice was warm with a touch of spice.

  “Oh yeah?” I looked up. Striker had that look in his eye, the one that gave me a rush and left me breathless. As he watched my reaction, his eyes dilated to black.

  “I’m up for a little distraction,” I smiled at him.

  �
��Little distraction?” Striker pulled me to him, and nuzzled at my neck, tickling me with soft lips.

  “I’m up for a sizable distraction,” I giggled and squirmed.

  Striker’s hands were under my camisole, over my breasts, giving me goose bumps. “Sizeable distraction?” He pulled my hips tight against him.

  “Huge. I’m up for a huge distraction.”

  Striker scooped me up and kissed me all the way to the bedroom.

  Forty

  I was up before Striker’s alarm clock sounded. True to his words, Striker had worked every drop of anxiety and distraction from my body. I was able to sleep with a smile on my face. But now, Beetle and Bella tapped impatient feet on the bedroom floor, wanting their run. I’d just stood up when a knock sounded at the front door.

  Jack leaned against the jamb in jogging shorts and sneakers, and nothing else. The bronzed Adonis getting ready for his morning workout.

  “Hey Lynx, I came for the pups.”

  “Oh, great, thanks.” I turned and tapped my thigh to call the girls out of Striker’s room where I had left them in a sit-stay.

  “I saw Axel heading over to Headquarters. He said he has a quick meeting with Command, and then he’s coming back here. I’ve given everyone the heads-up, they should be gathering up soon. Thought you should know.” He reached out to tweak the label on Striker’s T-shirt, which I had pulled on inside out and backwards. “So you could get some clothes on.”

  I blushed hotly. Shit, Jack knows what I’ve been doing with Striker. That felt way too personal. I thanked his back as Beetle and Bella followed him to the elevator.

  Striker went to take a shower. I pulled on some yoga pants, put my hair back in a ponytail, and went to the kitchen to make everyone breakfast.

  Gater knocked at the door. “Did someone already take the dogs?”

  “Jack. You just missed him. Come in and talk to me. I’m getting some breakfast together.” I moved back to the fridge and scanned for ideas. “What do you want?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at him.

  “Some of your blueberry muffins,” Gater said with a grin.

  “That was on the tip of your tongue.”

  “Always. So tell me, when you heard Axel was in, what was your first question?”

  “Striker won. I asked about the dogs.” I piled ingredients on the counter and set the oven temperature to pre-heat.

  “Okay. I got me another question for you.”

  “Shoot,” I said, reaching for a wooden spoon.

  “All them dogs down at the jail. They ain’t lap dogs by any means.”

  “No. They’re the real deal. The jail staff kept them mean and hungry.”

  “But you got out passed them,” he said.

  “I did.” I poured a cup of sugar over the butter in my bowl and started to cream it together.

  Gater rubbed his jaw line with his thumb. “I can see how you could use your sleight of hand skills, and maybe under the right circumstances, your shadow walking skills when you escaped. But I can’t figure how you got past them dogs.”

  I cracked an egg into my batter and paused with the shells in my hand. “You have a bet laid on this, don’t you, Gater?” I turned to throw the shells into the trash.

  Gater paused. “Yes, ma’am,” he admitted.

  The hangdog look he gave me was endearing. But again? Really? I didn’t like to have bets laid on me. True, it was better than having bets laid against me. . .still. “And the guys sent you in to figure out how I did it. You’re on wire right now, aren’t you?”

  “Uh. Yes, ma’am.” Gater dipped his head, looking like a five-year-old caught with a face covered in chocolate smears and cookie crumbs.

  “Nice,” I sighed. “All right, it’s pretty simple. I trained the dogs to follow my command and to ignore the command of their handlers.”

  “You did what?”

  I tapped my index finger to my temple. “I trained them using my mind.”

  “Not even you can do that, Lynx.” Gater stuck his thumbs into his belt loops, and shook a disbelieving head.

  “No? Look at yourself. What are you doing?” I rested my elbows on the counter with my hands interlaced under my chin ready to have some fun of my own.

  Gater looked down and saw that he was balanced on one foot, the other foot perched uncharacteristically against his knee in tree pose. He stomped his foot down and looked at me with narrowed eyes.

  “Don’t worry, Gater.” I stood up, laughing, and moved back to my batter. “I can’t move you like a marionette. We have a connection, as you well know. I used that link to send a picture to you with my mind — stand on one foot— and some part of you heard me, trusted me, and acted on my suggestion. It’s something like that with dogs.”

  Gater didn’t look convinced.

  “Training dogs with the mind is not an impossible concept,” I said, swatting away Gater’s finger when he reached out to swipe it through my batter. “You’ve seen wolves on TV when they’re hunting caribou?”

  He nodded.

  “Then you’ve seen that they can be well outside of their pack mates’ visual field, and yet every one of them is coordinated. Dogs pick up information in the ether just like you and I can.” I pulled over the next tin and started to fill it as well. I had made a quadruple batch. My team ate big.

  “Did you speak to the alpha in Spanish?” Gater asked.

  “No words. I used pictures. Feelings. It was a learning process for me as well as for him.”

  “And you can do that to people as well?”

  “Only special people that I love, and who love me back,” I smiled and slid the tins into the oven. “Thirty minutes until muffins.”

  The men trickled in, ready to eat. Blaze set the table while the casserole cooked in the oven. Now that Striker was up and dressed, I took my turn in the bathroom.

  When Axel walked in, all of the men rose to their feet and gave him a well-deserved hero’s welcome with whoops and back slaps. Axel’s dark skin took on a slight pink flush as he nodded his acknowledgement to the team. Humble amidst the celebration.

  Four hundred and twenty-seven. That was the number of people they found in the prison. They looked like Dachau survivors. The rescue team listed most of the prisoners in critical condition, but at least now they had a chance.

  I set the food on the table and started pouring orange juice. I went over, jug in hand, and gave Axel a kiss on the cheek. “Good to see you home safe. Thank you for everything.”

  “What was her first question, Striker?” Jack asked.

  “About the dogs,” Striker grinned and did an end-zone victory dance. Boys.

  “Axel? I’m sorry, but could you start with the dogs?” I asked.

  Axel took a seat at the table and put his napkin on his lap. “Sure. Alejandro Castillo ordered that the dogs be locked in their kennels. We loaded them on a transport and brought them to Maryland to the Millers’. That happened on day one. The Millers are doing vet checks and assessments on all of them. Once they’re done, Command will make the final call. They think it might be good for us to have a stable of working dogs.”

  “Good. That’s good. The Millers don’t speak Spanish, though, and the dogs do.”

  “They hired a guy. It’s covered,” Deep said.

  I nodded. If the Millers were involved, those dogs were golden. I leaned both elbows on the table, cradled my chin on my palms, and waited for Striker to start the debriefing with an overview. As he moved to stand at the head of the table, the team focused on him.

  “Axel has returned from a Honduran rescue mission developed as a joint venture with the State Department. They have a humanitarian fund that we tapped for funding. We also got them involved for diplomatic reasons, and they were a big asset to have onboard. Much of Iniquus’ success in rescuing the hostages is due to State’s behind-the-scenes work with the Honduran government.” Striker stood with his knuckles on the table, looking like Captain America. “We were working in conjunction with the Hondura
n Army. They let us go in and interrogate Castillo on his own turf. After that, the army arrested Castillo and took him to the capital. And of course, Iniquus handled the dogs.” Striker gave me a wink. “A South American humanitarian group, similar to Doctors without Borders, set up a field hospital in the prison. The storm hampered operations considerably, but the medical team did the best they could under trying circumstances. They were documenting everyone and their country of origin. So far, no Honduran nationals were in the prison. A lot of Iraqi and Afghani men. The preponderance were Colombian citizens. There was a handful of Americans. The identification effort is still in progress, since some of the prisoners are incoherent.”

  “Was there any documentation indicating who incarcerated these people?” I broke protocol by asking out of turn.

  “Nothing,” Axel said.

  “But you think you found Brody?” My jaw tightened.

  “I believe so,” Axel replied. “The guy I found was badly beaten. His jaw was broken, and he was in and out of consciousness. Honduras let me bring him back to the States. He’s hospitalized; his prognosis is listed as guarded.”

  “Did Castillo say who brought him in?” Striker asked.

  “James Vega. It’s the right timeframe for this to be Brody Covington based on Castillo’s statements. Once he was arrested, Castillo turned the Honduran version of state’s evidence, so he was still cooperating. Why don’t I show you the initial interview?” With Striker’s nod of assent, Deep hooked up Axel’s laptop to the wide screen TV.

  In the video, Axel was wearing his cam-wire. His arm came up and knocked at the door. The sky was periwinkle, and the time stamp in the lower left read zero-five-hundred.

  A man with a gray mustache came to the door with a pot of shaving cream in one hand and a shaving brush in the other. Foam covered his face. He wore military-styled pants and a wife beater T-shirt with a towel slung over his shoulder, which he used to remove the shaving cream when he saw Axel standing there. To me, Castillo looked only slightly taken aback by Axel’s presence—inquisitive, but not afraid.

  “May I help you?” Castillo asked in Spanish.