Omega Force 01- Storm Force

by Susannah Sandlin

  “The colonel’s trying to give you bail money?” he asked. “I thought they hadn’t arrested her.”

  “Not the colonel, but his aide. It’s a precaution, but I don’t think it’s necessary and it’ll take too long. There’s no evidence to charge Mori Chastaine with anything. In fact, if Homeland Security wasn’t involved, they wouldn’t have been able to detain her this long without charging her.”

  “You think the anonymous caller was the real bomber and was trying to set up the Co-Op for some reason?” Nik took a sip of scotch and rattled the ice around his glass.

  Good question. The colonel had told Kell that investigators had found nothing concrete to connect the Co-Op to the bombing except the anonymous phone call and some flyers left around the scene — one was even tacked to a support beam. “Every connection they’ve found is purely circumstantial. But whoever made that call fingering the Co-Op had some credible information. So the Co-Op is the place to start looking for answers. Either they’re involved or someone’s out to hose them. Then again, we might be wasting our time.”

  In fact, it wouldn’t surprise him if other Omega Force teams in other states were investigating the same case from other angles. It’s what he’d do if he were making the assignments. In case that Labor Day threat was real, he’d spread teams all over the place, exploring every possibility.

  Kell opened a new bottle of ibuprofen, poured four into his palm, and knocked them back with orange juice out of the new carton he’d bought at Randalls yesterday. He’d finally escaped the officious Taylor Stedman by late afternoon after learning more about the evils of habitat encroachment than he could ever want to know. Every single hairy spider and East Texas leech and scrubby species of bush was now in his vocabulary. He could be on fucking Jeopardy.

  He agreed with a lot of what the Co-Op preached, but not if they were willing to kill people. And it hadn’t escaped his notice that Taylor didn’t seem the least bit concerned that his boss had been hauled off as a potential ecoterrorist.

  “Where’s Robin staying now that she’s here and Gadget and the kittens have taken over her apartment in New Orleans?” Kell sat next to Nik at the table and pulled his tan canvas rucksack toward him, rummaging inside. Gator rose from a dead, snoring sleep in the far corner at the sound of the pack and padded over in hopes of a treat.

  “She’s at my place.” Nik’s attempt to sound casual was pathetic.

  Kell shot him a sharp look and tried to imagine Razorblade Robin in his friend’s downtown warehouse-turned-apartment.

  “What?” Nik shrugged. “She relaxes me. I can’t get visions off her, and she says such outrageous stuff it makes me laugh. Plus, she goes out flying all night, so I have plenty of privacy. God only knows what she does out there.”

  Kell arched a brow. “Don’t eagles hunt down rats and eat them, tail and all? I bet she has rat-ass breath.”

  Nik laughed. “I’ll not tell her you said that. Why don’t you like her?”

  Kell shook his head. “I like Robin fine. But a hundred-pound woman who can outdo me on the bench press threatens my manhood, and I’m man enough to admit it.” He finally found what he had been looking for in the pack. “Take a look at this.”

  He set the carved wooden tree on the table between them, and Nik studied it without touching while Kell slipped Gator one of the liver treats he always kept in his pack’s front pocket.

  “Beautiful work, but it doesn’t look like your style.” Nik nudged the tree with a finger to see another side of it.

  “It isn’t. I lifted it off Mori Chastaine’s desk on my tour of the Co-Op offices yesterday, after she got hauled off for an overnight stay with the DHS guys. Thought it was worth you trying to get an image. It was the only thing I saw that looked personal.”

  Nik nodded and pushed his drink aside, drying his palms on the thighs of his camo shorts. He reached out and gently lifted the tree, wrapping his fingers around it. Then both hands. He closed his eyes, and Kell watched in fascination as his friend communed with the tree, or the spirits, or whatever the hell caused the visions.

  Opening his eyes, Nik held the tree up to the light. “Weird.”

  “Weird how?” What was weirder than reading stories off inanimate objects?

  “I get stray images with no meaning behind them. I’ve never had anything read that way before. Usually, it’s either an onslaught of history or nothing at all.”

  Kell’s phone chirped, and he read the text. Mori Chastaine would be released at two. “Gotta head out in a few. Describe the images.”

  “Forests. Big, empty vistas. Dead cattle.” Nik took a sip of scotch. “An old man in a cowboy hat.” He set the tree down and shoved it back toward Kell. “Don’t ask what it means. I don’t have a clue.”

  Kell picked up the tree and studied it. The carving was old, and it had been cared for. The grooves were worn smooth, and the whole thing shone from handling. It should have a lot of tales to tell.

  But it would have to wait. He stuck the tree in his pack so he could slip it back in the Co-Op offices before anyone realized it was gone, and stuffed the bottle of ibuprofen in with it.

  “You’re gonna eat out the lining of your stomach with that shit.” Nik finished off his drink, gave Gator a quick ear rub, and ambled toward the door. “I’m heading over to the bomb site to handle some rubble — see if I can learn anything. Get something else belonging to Mori Chastaine and let me try again tonight.”

  He paused in the doorway. “I’ll do it while Robin’s out eating rats.”

  * * *

  All law enforcement offices smelled alike, whether a metro police department, an FBI headquarters, or a county sheriff. Entering the first-floor lobby of the FBI field office in northwest Houston, Kell inhaled the same stale-coffee-gun-oil-testosterone aroma he’d grown up with while hanging out in the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Department, where his dad had been a deputy. John Kennedy “Jack” Kellison Sr. always said he had stayed a deputy because he wasn’t mean enough to be elected sheriff. When he was a kid, Kell figured his dad was joking. Later, he’d seen what tough SOBs really looked like and figured his gentle, artistic dad was being honest.

  After inquiring at the information desk and learning Mori would be out shortly, he leaned against a wall in the back of the waiting area and watched the scurry of activity in and out of one of the country’s largest federal field offices. Kell was glad he’d only spent time in Houston between tours. No danger of being recognized or suspected of being anything other than an unemployed veteran with a bad back.

  He spotted her long before she saw him. Mori was a head taller than the young Hispanic officer who accompanied her out of the elevator. Kell didn’t need Nik’s expertise in reading body language to tell she was tense, depressed, and overtired. Her shoulders were rigid but hunched too far forward, and she kept stretching her neck from side to side.

  Mori shoved the envelope with her confiscated belongings into her messenger bag and turned with a terse thank-you to the female officer. Her gaze scanned the lobby clockwise, gliding past Kell before suddenly shifting back. Her mouth formed a small, involuntary “O” before clamping shut.

  That was his signal. Kell made his way toward her. “See, told you I could make myself useful. I thought you might need a ride home.”

  Dark circles ringed her eyes and she clutched her purse handle like she was trying to choke it, but she managed a small smile. “Thanks. Your name is Kell, right? Taylor sent you?”

  He didn’t want to tell her Taylor Stedman seemed to flourish in her absence and had given Kell the impression, without saying so, that he hoped she’d be arrested and detained indefinitely.

  “Everyone’s worried about you.” Tactful, thy name is Jack Kellison — or, for now, Jack Kelly.

  Mori laughed. “Sorry, but you aren’t that good a liar. Tay probably redecorated the office. He didn’t take my desk yet, did he?” She slapped a palm against her forehead. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. If you hang around the C
o-Op very long, you’ll learn I have a bad habit of speaking my mind before I think about how much trouble it’s going to cause. I’m not as bitchy as that sounded.”

  Kell thought she was giving Taylor too much credit. “You just sound like someone who didn’t get any sleep last night. Ready to go?”

  “More than ready. Oh” — she rested a hand on his arm — “and thank you. I’d left a message for my dad and thought he’d be here to pick me up, but I guess he got delayed or something.”

  So she had family in town. Kell’s gaze met hers as he opened the door and waited for her to go out ahead of him. Her eyes, which crinkled at the edges when she smiled, were almond shaped and a rich brown. Even without makeup, she was smooth skinned and kind of exotic looking, with high cheekbones and full lips.

  He’d be damned if he could see anything in that face to indicate she was capable of mass murder. No edge of manic energy, no hard aura of meanness, no pent-up anger. Just fear, which could come from any number of things, including suspicion of terrorism and a night in an interrogation room.

  The niggling suspicion he’d had about that anonymous tip grew stronger. While he was investigating Mori Chastaine, he also needed to figure out who might have wanted to frame the Co-Op or Mori herself. Maybe DHS was so desperate to pin it on someone they jumped at the first option.

  Ranger training had taught him to trust his gut. He didn’t know this woman, but his gut said either she was no killer or had fooled him so completely that she was very, very lethal.

  They walked through the parking lot as he directed her toward the Terminator, a boat of an old powder-blue Oldsmobile that had belonged to his parents for the past two decades. At the sound of her choked-back laugh, he felt the need to apologize.

  “I haven’t been in the States much the last ten years.” He shrugged and couldn’t help but return her grin, which had transformed her from pretty into a wholesome kind of beautiful. Something he didn’t need to be thinking about a suspect.

  “Therefore, you bought the ugliest thing you could find so you could look like an old lady while you were home?” She laughed, a hearty bray without a trace of self-consciousness. “Sorry, there I go again with my mouth. It’s, uh, lovely.” She cleared her throat. “Really.”

  Kell stopped and looked at the Olds. It was hideous, with geriatric-blue paint rusted off in spots. Why had he kept it? Probably because it was like the furniture. If he bought his own sofa or drove his own car, it would be admitting he was off duty for good. “I’ll have you know it has great family significance.”

  Mori’s chuckle as she slid into the passenger seat said she didn’t buy it for a second. He’d outed himself as a commitment-phobe and maybe a mama’s boy. Neither of which he could deny.

  He pulled out of the parking lot and drove back toward Near Town. She’d wanted to check in at Co-Op headquarters, see how the organization’s financial supporters were reacting, and get her car. Meanwhile, he could ply her for information. “Your family lives here in town?”

  “West of town, just across the Austin County line.” She looked out the window at the endless vista of traffic and concrete.

  Which meant farming or ranching, most likely. “What do your folks do?”

  She shifted to look at him, the sun glinting off her hair like a halo. Kell looked back at the inching traffic and gave himself a mental shake. Terrorists didn’t have halos.

  “My turn. Do your folks live in Houston, and are they aware you’ve stolen their prized vehicle?”

  Kell fought to keep the smile from inching its way onto his face. “They died five years ago in a car accident during a tropical storm — back in Jeanerette, Louisiana. You’ve probably never heard of it.”

  “I’m sorry about your family. Brothers or sisters?” Mori settled back in her seat and leaned her head against the headrest with her eyes closed.

  “No, only me. My turn.” Kell thought about how to reapproach the family thing. It seemed to ratchet up her tension level when he’d mentioned them before, pushing her to change the subject.

  Mori spoke again before he decided on a tactic. “Did you know there used to be tons of Louisiana black bears around Jeanerette, or north of there?” She still had her eyes closed. “They’re endangered now. You ever see one? Oh, and my dad’s in finance, but my parents live on the ranch we inherited from my grandfather.”

  Kell filtered and processed the bears, the finance, the ranch. He wanted to ask about the dad’s work — it might provide a motive or connection to the bombing since there was certainly high finance involved. But he was posing as an environmental nut, so he better play the role.

  “I’ve seen a couple of bears down in the delta when I was growing up. Shame about them.” Shit, that sounded lame.

  “A shame?” Mori turned toward him, the beginnings of a frown scrunching her brows together. “They’re beautiful animals and running out of space to live. We saved the alligators. We should be able to save those bears. Those are the species the original teddy bear was based on, you know.”

  Kell felt as if he’d received a gentle scolding from his elementary school teacher. He’d approached this all wrong. The assignment had come up so fast he hadn’t been able to do the kind of prep work he needed, so he’d fallen back on the easiest way inside the organization: volunteer. Stupid. He knew the rules: include enough of the truth to make it believable.

  “OK, look. Confession time. I’m not an environmentalist, and I’m sorry I lied about that. I’m willing to learn, but I don’t know much.”

  Mori had straightened in her seat and now wore a full-on frown. “So what are you doing here? Are you a cop?”

  “Christ. No, nothing like that.” Not technically. “I really did just get off active duty, and I need something to keep me from sitting around and getting inside my own head. I’ve driven past the Co-Op before and thought I’d see if you guys needed help.”

  She was still frowning, so he added the trump card. “I got injured last time out. I don’t know anything besides being a Ranger. I need to stay busy.”

  He’d said it to engender sympathy, which, sure enough, showed on her face. It had come out a lot more truthful than he’d intended, though.

  “Rangers are, what, like Marines?”

  Kell stared at her, aghast, and had to slam on the brakes to keep from planting the Terminator in the back of a flatbed truck right before the turn into the Co-Op lot.

  He was distracted from telling her all the ways Rangers were superior in the Special Ops hierarchy by the news van parked horizontally across two spaces.

  “Oh God, I hadn’t thought about the press.” Mori’s fingers tightened on the Terminator’s door handle.

  Kell eased the car past them, unnoticed. Guess Eyewitness News hadn’t expected to witness their target’s arrival in a senior sedan. “Leave everything to me.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Mori’s birthday had been far from cheerful, but remembering how Jack Kelly had handled the media made her laugh out loud.

  “Leave everything to me,” Kell had said, and then he’d ordered Mori to crouch on the floorboard while he calmly drove the big, ugly Olds into a tree. Barely hard enough to jostle them, but it got the news crew’s attention.

  “Get out fast and slip behind the bushes while I keep them busy,” he had whispered, and then he’d proceeded to act like a belligerent crazy man, yelling obscenities and charging at the camera crew, claiming they’d distracted him and caused the accident.

  And that was only the finale to the zoo of the last twenty-four hours. Happy birthday to me.

  Mori stood under the hot spray of the shower, her smile fading as she recalled what came next: the piles of messages and e-mails. It wasn’t simply Co-Op contributors expressing concern or canceling their pledges. There were calls from complete strangers. Threatening her. Calling her a terrorist. Accusing her of treason, of murder. Telling her to watch her back if she wanted to continue drawing breath.

  Kell had insisted on walki
ng her to her car and following her home after the media had finally drifted away.

  She turned off the water and wrapped herself in a towel, then wound a second one around her wet hair. A glass of wine and a nice, fat fantasy novel might distract her for a while.

  The humidity was ridiculous, and a cold, air-conditioned sweat coated her skin in the time it took her to walk the ten steps to the bedroom. She rooted in her dresser for something cool to wear. Even with the AC cranked down to icebox levels, the heat was oppressive. A line of tropical waves off the coast of Africa was marching across the Atlantic and would be one more thing for those along the coast to worry about in another week or so. At least tropical storms offshore would pull some of this awful humidity out of the air.

  She chose a pair of loose jogging shorts and a T-shirt, a glass of moscato, and a copy of Game of Thrones, which she’d been meaning to read for years. Surely swords and imaginary kingdoms and feast-laden banquet halls would take her mind off her problems.

  Only, they didn’t. The questions the agents had asked her swirled around in her mind like dancers on a ballroom floor: Where had she been when the bombing took place? Whom had she talked to in the last month? Would she turn over her phone records without a warrant?

  She’d called her father on the way to the station and left a message, at least hoping he’d recommend an attorney or tell her if she needed one. It wasn’t like she was guilty of anything. Despite their problems, she had thought her dad would come through for her. Instead, the only one who’d cared enough to see that she got home after a night in hell was Jack Kelly. Her parents hadn’t even called to wish her a happy birthday.

  Jack Kelly, who came across as a tightly wound ex-soldier and was probably no more an environmentalist than the governor — well, maybe a little more, but not much. Was he really the wounded vet he claimed to be?

  He definitely was in pain, and Mori’s guess would be that he’d had a back injury. He moved a little too carefully. And he did have the military look. His dark hair was starting to grow out, showing the least hint of curl, and he had a coiled energy that reminded her of the rattlesnakes she’d come across while growing up on the ranch. Alert, wary, paying attention to everything around him.