Chain Lynx (The Lynx Series Book 3)

by Fiona Quinn

  “When will they arrest him?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, Chica. I’m sorry, but it looks like Frith went underground.”

  “How far underground?” I wasn’t blinking.

  “He sold his house and car. He closed his bank accounts and emptied his safe deposit boxes. Gone.”

  “So Iniquus and the FBI were already in action? Already trying to pick him up? This is icing?”

  Striker nodded.

  “Could Frith be holed up on the Omega campus?” I asked with the smallest glimmer of hope.

  Striker shook his head. “Not that we can tell.”

  “You have it under surveillance?”

  “Yeah. After Frith said Omega had eyes on our lawn, Command decided to reciprocate. We have cameras with face identification software tracking their comings and goings.”

  “No Frith.”

  “He never went on campus.”

  “Maybe he was disguised?”

  “Nope. Our cameras flagged everyone not identified by the computer program. We tasked one of the support staff with making a positive ID. I’ve gone over the files; they’re clean. Frith didn’t work or live at Omega Headquarters.”

  “Poop.”

  Striker gave me an “I love you” smile, the kind that is a little bit on his lips, mostly in the eyes. He planted a kiss on my forehead. “Echo team is working around the clock. We’re slowly moving the parameters wider. We’ll get him,” he said.

  ***

  I rolled over and untangled from the cocoon I made for myself with last night’s tossing and turning. I could hear Striker in the shower. The sun glittered on the Potomac outside the window. It was a beautiful end-of-summer day. The kind where fat, puffy, sheep clouds wandered around the sky. I stretched and gasped. The pain that shot down my spine was so intense that sweat beaded under my nose, and my feet went numb. I slithered out of bed onto the floor and lay there, staring at the ceiling with my knees bent up, my breath coming in shallow gasps. That’s how Striker found me when he came into the room, wrapped in a towel, looking totally edible with his wet hair and smelling of aftershave.

  “What are you doing down there, Chica?” He towered above me.

  “This is as far as I could get this morning.”

  “Do you need help?” He reached out a hand.

  I shook my head. “I’m going to lay here for a minute and see if I can’t get my back to cooperate. I need to call Laura’s office and see if she can’t work on me today.”

  “Today’s really not good. I can see you’re in pain, but Strike Force is out in the field today with Echo Team. We have a bead on Frith, and I need everyone involved. No one’s around to take you.”

  “I can go by myself,” I said. I needed help. I couldn’t just lay here for days until I fit neatly into someone’s schedule.

  “Not a good idea,” Striker said.

  “Why not a good idea? Besides our team, Cookie, Chris, and Andy no one knows about me. I’ll take a company car with tinted windows and drive around for a while, then circle over to Laura’s office. I think she said she was going to be in the Arlington office this week. I hope so, anyway.”

  “The cars are followed in Control.”

  “That’s easy enough to disable.” I tried rotating my knees to the left. Bad idea. “Agh!” I righted myself and panted with my hands shoved under my back.

  Striker had his hands on his hips. A man ready for an argument. I could see him weighing options. “I’m not going to get a say in this one, am I?” he asked.

  I looked up the length of Striker, his calves, his thighs, the muscles that rippled across his abdomen, and his goody trail that slid behind the low slung towel. If I was feeling better - it wouldn’t take much - a little tug would have that towel on the ground. Darned this pain. “I appreciate and understand your reasoning, Striker, honestly. But I need to go out for my sanity’s sake, and my back’s sake.”

  “No heebie-jeebies? No feelings that the bad guy is hanging over your shoulder?”

  “To be honest, I’ve not been able to shake the heebie-jeebies feeling since the attack on the bay house.”

  “You’ll take every precaution? You’ll have your gun?” That was his Commander checking on the troops before battle voice. Honestly. I was just going to see my PT; I wasn’t going hand-to-hand with Gaddafi-esque dictator and his battalion of Amazons.

  “The doctor said no guns until my brain settles down and my fingers stop twitching, despite what happened at your house.” Shame for destroying Striker’s beautiful house settled heavily on my shoulders. How would I ever make that up to him? “If it makes you feel better, I could take some pepper spray.”

  “No, it doesn’t make me feel better, but I’ll take what I can get.” Striker looked uncomfortably resigned. “If you go,” he pointed an emphatic finger at me, “you need to wear a communicator, and you stay in touch with Deep the whole time. He’s going to be point man for logistics today.”

  “I can do that.”

  Fortunately for me, Laura was in Arlington. Unfortunately, she had a full schedule. I must have sounded desperate on the phone because the receptionist said that she would squeeze me in during the last appointment slot.

  I iced, stretched, took pain meds, and kvetched. It was not a good day. I accomplished nothing beyond my little pity party.

  By the time I got in the SUV and barreled onto the highway heading south, I was only mildly improved. It was weird to be behind the wheel again. It was a good weird, a normalizing weird. I hadn’t driven a car since last January. Here I was, acting like an average person taking care of business. I was independent of my security detail – well, mostly independent.

  I depressed the button on my communicator. “Lynx. Check.”

  “Deep. Reception clear.” His voice rose from between my breasts where I had taped the wires.

  “I’m on I95. This should be boring, so don’t expect to hear anything from me.”

  “Good enough. I’d appreciate a check-in when you’re done with your appointment and heading home. I’m following coordinates from your phone. I have you up on my screen,” he said.

  “Roger that. Out.”

  When I got to the physical therapy office and signed in, I found out that the man before me was a no-show, so the assistant was able to get me right back on to a table. I lay on my stomach with my arms crossed under my head. Laura came into view. She stood there in her blue scrubs. Her jaw opened and shut, opened and shut like a marionette. She seemed beyond surprised to see me. She was awkward and processing. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. The assistant handed Laura my file.

  “I’m a last minute add-on. I hope this doesn’t mess up your plans for getting out of here early.”

  “No. You’re fine. I didn’t see you on the schedule this morning.” Laura lifted her hand to bite at her thumb nail.

  “I woke up in pain, and I wheedled my way onto your roster after you got started with the day. I bribed your receptionist with homemade brownies,” I smiled.

  The assistant attached e-stim pads to my back, and handed me the control.

  “I need to make a quick phone call, Annie. We’ll let the machine do its thing, then I’ll come back to do an evaluation.”

  “Thanks.” Huh. What was that all about?

  Laura wasn’t gone long. She felt different to me. There was a shift in her energy. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the change. There was a distance there – repulsion. I didn’t think I smelled bad. I did take a long bath this morning. When Laura came back, she was brisk and professional. No warmth.

  Laura kept me on the e-stim for a second round. My teeth were buzzing from all that electricity. The receptionist and the assistant left at five, turning off the lights in the waiting room and locking the front door. I had a major case of the heebie-jeebies.

  “Laura, look at the time. I need to leave. I’m meeting my publisher for dinner in the city.”

  “Can you wait another few minutes for me to st
retch you?” she asked, her eyes tight with anxiety, her hands trembling.

  The feeling of danger grew into something palpable. “Nope. Thank you for working me in. Thanks for the e-stim. It helped. I’ve got to go now.” I was off the table and moving towards the back door that lead to the parking lot.

  “Wait a second for me to grab my purse, and I’ll go out with you.”

  As Laura turned out the lights and followed me out the door, I depressed my communicator and whispered into my shirt, “Heads up, Deep. Something bizarre is going on.” I got a double buzz back acknowledging me. I moved quickly towards my car.

  Laura called, “Annie, wait!”

  I turned to see Laura standing by the door with a gun in her hand, pointing it at me. This was so antithetical to the way I thought about Laura, that it took me a full breath before my brain would register the image. I was too far away to get the gun away from her and too close for safety. “Laura, what are you doing with a gun?” I asked evenly, channeling my inner Striker.

  “I can’t let you leave. You have to stay here.” Her voice was high pitched and manic.

  “Why?” I offered her a sympathetic smile. “Laura, put the gun away and tell me what’s happening.”

  “You’re a terrorist. You’re plotting against the president.” Her hand was shaking so hard that the gun was visibly wavering, and I was afraid she’d accidentally put too much pressure on the trigger. My hands went up protectively in front of me as if to ward off any wayward bullets.

  “You weren’t writing a book. You were making actual plans. I need to keep you here until he comes to arrest you,” Laura said.

  I heard very quietly, “Jack and Randy, sixteen minutes out,” rise from my T-shirt.

  “Laura, I’m a writer. I write about terrorists who plot against the president. It’s fictional. No one wants to arrest me. Laura, accidents happen, lower your gun barrel.”

  I had my hands open so she could feel she was in control. “I’m not going to move. We’re going to talk this through.” I was using my EMT voice, the one of clear, reasonable authority. “Point your gun at the ground.” I saw Laura process for a moment, and the barrel moved down a few inches.

  “What are you going to do with the gun, Laura? You’re not the kind of woman who could shoot someone. I’m your patient. Your job is make me healthy again. You don’t hurt people. You help people. You can’t shoot someone; it’s not who you are.”

  “I could shoot someone to save the president.” Laura’s tone — solid and plaintive at once — told me she was trying to convince herself as much as me.

  “Laura, please tell me what you’re talking about,” I said. I needed her to talk. I needed to know where all of this was coming from. Laura had never shown signs of being unstable. She must be acting on someone’s directive.

  “I saw your picture on the news Saturday night when Wyatt and I were having dinner at my house.”

  “My picture was on the news?” Now I was really confused.

  “Your name isn’t Annie Henderson. It’s India Sobado.”

  Uh oh.“And you came to this conclusion because you saw a photo on the news of some girl who looks like me? Why was this girl on the news?”

  “You. You were on the news because Belize found a plane tail washed up on their shoreline. They said it was from a plane that disappeared over the Gulf during the tropical storm, and that India Sobado was the pilot who called in a mayday before they lost contact. I recognized you right away. It sent chills up my spine.” Laura’s face was ashen. Her cheek on the left side ticked spasmodically, making her wink and pulling up the corner of her mouth in a lopsided and incongruous grin. “You said that your injuries were from a car crash, but they weren’t.” Laura shook her head back and forth and raised the sight on her gun to level. She double-fisted the Glock with seriously shaking hands. This wasn’t a suburban housewife’s gun. Someone had given her this gun. A man.

  “You were injured when your plane crashed. I asked Wyatt why he thought you would lie about something like that. Why would you want people to think you were dead? And Wyatt said that there was a warrant for your arrest.”

  “Who’s Wyatt?” I asked.

  “My boyfriend.”

  “And why would Wyatt think there was a warrant out for my arrest?”

  “Oh, he told me everything. He was with the Homeland Security. He told me how they started investigating you two years ago as a terror suspect. You want to take the government down. You’re planning to kill the president.” Her shrill voice echoed from under the metal overhang about two octaves too high. “He said how he had seen you on tape cheering, when the towers came down on 9-11.”

  Wyatt. Wyatt? The only Wyatts I could think of were Wyatt Earp and a city somewhere in southwestern Missouri. Made up name? “Laura, think. I was sixteen years old when the towers were hit. I had just gotten my learner’s permit. I went to school on a bus, acted in the school play. I worked in an ice cream shop when I was sixteen.”

  “Not as a child; as an adult in your meetings,” Laura said. She was completely convinced. Her voice full of conviction.

  “My meetings?”

  “Your anti-government planning meetings with the anarchists. Wyatt said they have your plans to murder the president. It’s Wyatt’s job to stop you.”

  “You said Wyatt was with the Homeland Security. If he isn’t with them anymore, then how would he have authority to stop this India Sobado person?”

  Laura stopped and looked at her feet while she thought that one through. I took a careful step toward her. When she looked up again, her gun was aimed an inch lower. Doubt.

  “This is weird, Laura. Don’t you think it’s odd that I’m your patient, and you are dating a man who is trying to arrest someone named India from Belize, and we are one and the same? The likelihood of that happening has to be about one in a bajillion. Things like that don’t happen in real life. I couldn’t even use this scene in my novel. It’s too unbelievable. My readers would put the book down and say the plot was too cockamamie to keep reading.” I took a breath. “You don’t really believe this, do you, Laura?” I saw her waver. I saw her questioning herself. I took a step closer.

  “Tell me again, Laura. You were watching the TV, and there was a news report. They said that a plane tail was found in Belize, and that India had died?”

  “Yes.”

  “If the authorities think that India died, why would you think that I am India?”

  “Wyatt said you didn’t die. You were rescued by your group.”

  “This is the anarchist group?” I asked evenly.

  “Yes.” Laura held the gun in one hand while she reached to push a ginger-colored curl back behind her ear. She was breathing too fast. Anxiety. Good. I pushed harder. I wanted her gun in my hand before whoever it was that was coming actually arrived. Laura couldn’t shoot me on purpose, but I felt sure that, whoever this Wyatt guy was, he could and would.

  “It seems that if someone were rescuing India that that would cost a lot of money. Laura, you’ve seen anarchist groups on the news before. Did they look like they had any money?

  “Well, no,” she said. The gun got heavier with time and confusion, her conviction was wearing thin. The sight lowered to my hips. Still lethal.

  “And the news said that the plane went down over water over the Gulf of Mexico. Do my injuries look like injuries that could have been sustained in a water crash?”

  Laura was thinking hard. I took another step towards her. This was a little bit like playing Mother-May-I, with deadly consequences if I took a wrong step.

  “Some of them, yes. The sternal problem. The spine and head wounds. . .”

  Nope – don’t want her making any affirmations. Cut off that line of thought, now. “Laura, let’s be rational about this. How could I have survived a crash in the Gulf?” A mini-step closer. A few more, and I might be able get the gun.

  Laura took one hand off the grip to wipe the sweat off on her scrubs. Her hand left a wet
mark on the cloth. “Maybe if you had a floatation device?”

  “Come on, Laura. What if I did have a floatation device? What if I had a rescue raft with fresh water and supplies? It was a tropical storm. Fifteen foot waves. Waves as high as a two-story building. As high as this building.” I gestured up with my arms, and she turned to look. I took another step. “Do you think that in my physical condition, hurt as I was in the car accident, skin and bones, weak as a baby, is it possible that I could have survived until some anarchist group organized itself to come and find me?”

  She shook her head. Good. Some of this was getting through to her.

  “And once they found me, they had enough money and enough wherewithal to bring me to Maryland, of all places and hide me in Jimmy’s house? Jimmy, who is president of the local NRA? God-and-country, ex-marine Jimmy? Under the same roof with the war heroes who were planning to help other soldiers as they transitioned home? Is any of that probable or even possible, Laura?”

  “No, but Wyatt said. . .”

  I stretched my arms out and waved my hands to distract her as I took a final giant step forward. “Who is Wyatt?”

  Forty-Two

  “I’m Wyatt.” Jonathan Frith swung around the side of the clinic.

  “Oh, thank God.” Laura dropped the gun to her side. Her shoulders sagged. She had valiantly tried to do her duty as a good American to save the president, and her duty was over.

  “Hello, Frith,” I said loudly for Deep’s benefit.

  “Sobado. You’re very good. Clever as they come. You almost talked poor Laura out of her gun.”