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Alina rolled to a stop at the red light and sat silently, her lips pressed together in displeasure. John had stirred something deep inside her, something she spent eleven years carefully locking away. It was an emotion she never wanted to feel again, and yet there it was, fluttering deep in the dark recesses of her memory, waiting to be released.
“Stupid!” Viper hissed as the light turned green and she pressed the gas.
Whether she was referring to herself or John, she didn't know.
Alina switched lanes impatiently and pressed the gas pedal down as she zoomed off the exit and onto the highway that would carry her away from Camden. She didn't want to remember her life with John. She didn't want to remember the feelings she worked so hard through boot camp to bury. And she certainly didn't want to realize that John had been as devastated by the abrupt end of their relationship as she had been. Before she could stop it, a little voice whispered in her ear, wondering what would have happened if she hadn't run away to the Navy.
“Ugh!”
Viper made a disgusted noise and rolled her eyes, reaching for the radio. She pressed a button and hard rock exploded out of the Jeep speakers.
There wasn't time for emotion in her life, not where John was concerned. He was alive and awake, and Alina was happy for that. She was glad he wasn't dead. She would have hated to see him go out like that. A bullet in the line of duty would be preferable to getting blown up by...by whom? Tito may have planted the bomb, but he wasn't the one behind it. Was it Dominic? Was it Asad Jamal's order? Viper shook her head. No. Asad would have no interest in an FBI Agent asking questions about a car accident. Dominic was the most likely culprit, but why would he risk using a rash of shrapnel bombs that clearly had the ear-marks of Middle Eastern extremists?
Alina sped down the highway, her nerves and heart rate settling down as she turned her mind from the unsettling thoughts of her past. As was her habit, she pushed aside the emotions John stirred up, focusing instead on realities she could understand and control. When the hands-free system alerted her to a phone call, she pressed the button on the steering wheel to mute the music and answer, feeling almost herself again.
“Yes?”
There. Her voice was even and normal. John hadn't upset her as much as she thought.
“What's wrong?”
Hawk's voice filled the car and Alina frowned.
“Nothing,” she said shortly.
“Huh. You sound irritated,” Hawk told her. “Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“I heard from my man in Belize.”
“And?” Viper prompted.
“It's not good,” Hawk said. “The Casa Reinos have branched out. They've always been skilled smugglers, but it was mainly for themselves. Now, they're smuggling for known terrorists.”
“Such as?”
“I've got a list here. You'll recognize most, if not all, of these names.” Hawk paused and Alina thought she heard seagulls in the background. “It's worse than we thought.”
“It always is,” she muttered. “Any word on what they're smuggling?”
“I'm getting there,” Hawk said, amused. “You have to have the meat and potatoes before you get the pudding.”
“Says who?” Alina retorted. “I like my dessert first.”
“Oh really?” Damon drawled. “I'll remember that.”
“Don't tease me,” she shot back before she could stop herself and Damon chuckled.
“One of the couriers that meets the drivers in Miami has a loose tongue,” Hawk continued, getting them back on point. “Dominic isn't running just one driver. He has a whole network of them. Turns out this courier met someone in Dulles who passed him a package, which he then passed on through the driving network. Ask me where the package came from.”
“Where did the package come from?” Alina asked obligingly.
“Qatar,” he told her soberly. “I'll give you one guess who was in Qatar at the same time.”
Something Michael said on her deck popped into Alina's head and she sighed.
“The scientist we traded for,” she muttered. “Holy hell.”
“One day, you're going to tell me how you always know things before I tell you.” Damon sounded disgruntled. “His name is Sergeant Curtis, and he passed the package to someone who helped it on its way straight to Dulles Airport.”
“Not an explosive, then,” Viper mused. “They couldn't get it through security.”
“Well, that's debatable,” Hawk answered, “but you're right. It's not an explosive, not on its own anyway.”
“You know what it is?” Viper demanded.
“They're calling it a trigger. My man down there says it's not a standard bomb trigger, but something else. Given the fact that Sergeant Curtis is a Biochemical Engineer, I think it’s safe to assume it's a chemical trigger.”
The words fell heavily between them, enunciating what Viper had already realized.
“For the love of all that's Holy, can the government get any more inept?!” she finally exploded after a moment of silence. “They enabled this!”
“Don't ask that. You don't want to know the answer,” he answered grimly. “The trigger got passed to the courier at Dulles, who passed it to your friend Dutch.”
“And Dutch somehow figured out what it was,” Viper finished. “You're right. This is not good.”
They were both silent again for a long moment, then she shook her head.
“You said they're saying it's not a bomb trigger?” she asked. “Then what the hell is Asad building? He's got a bomb-maker in Cancun who's been there for eight months. Where does this chemical come in? Are they planning two attacks?”
“All good questions,” Hawk said. “Let me add another one: How did this Dominic guy get involved with the Cartel and Asad Jamal?”
“I have to contact Charlie,” Viper decided. “This is getting ugly. We have three of them in the country, heading toward the East coast, and now we probably have a chemical trigger lost in Jersey.”
“We have confirmation they're headed here?”
“We will shortly. They've left Cancun and are believed to have crossed the border.”
“You'd better get the little sister and find the package before Dominic does,” Hawk advised.
“I'm already on it,” Viper told him, taking an exit to lead her to Atco. “When you get back from the shore, meet me at the house. Hopefully, I'll have instructions from Charlie by then.”
“How do you know I'm at the shore?” Damon demanded, amusement lacing his voice.
“Seagulls,” she answered shortly. “I'll see you later.”
It was just turning noon when Alina pulled into the dirt driveway leading back to Dutch's house, now Lani's. Lack of rain had caused the ground to harden and dust flew up around the Jeep as she bounced along the driveway. She pulled up in front of the house and her eyes narrowed sharply as she glanced at the front porch. The front door was ajar behind the closed screen door and something didn't feel right. This morning, that door was closed firmly. When she left, she watched in her rearview mirror as Lani went back into the house, closing the door once again behind her.
Viper turned off the engine and got out of the Jeep, pushing the door closed quietly. A frown creased her forehead as she moved around the back, glancing up onto the porch. Everything was still and quiet, but her instincts told her something was out of place. Instead of going onto the porch, Alina skirted around the house and followed the drive to the back, as she had done this morning. This time when she rounded the corner of the house, the back was empty. There was no sign of the CJ and all four garage doors were closed and locked. After a sharp look around, Alina turned back to the front of the house, her eyes falling to the hard-packed dirt of the driveway. Multiple tire tracks streaked the drive and she shook her head, raising her gaze and scanning the trees on the other side of the driveway. The feeling of disquiet persisted and, as she rounded the front of the house to go up the steps to the porch, Viper reached behind her to unsnap the holster in the small of her back.
She reached out to knock on the edge of the screen door and Viper's hand stilled midair. Looking through the screen, she could see around the front door and into the living room. With one smooth motion, Viper pulled the .45 from her back holster and silently opened the screen door, flipping the safety off as she stepped into the house.
The living room was in shredded chaos. Chairs and the sofa were cut open, stuffing yanked out and thrown around the room until a carpet of fake snow covered the wood floor. All the pictures from the walls lay on the floor, surrounded by broken glass. The drawers from a side table were out and their contents strewn across the floor, leaving empty yawning caverns in the table. Nothing was left untouched. The room was completely trashed.
“Damn,” Viper breathed, glancing down the hallway. From where she stood, she could see the destruction extended to the kitchen.
She stood very still in the mess, listening. The house was utterly silent. Viper pursed her lips and moved silently down the hall, from room to room, taking in the devastation. Someone systematically destroyed Lani's house, leaving no picture or knick-knack unturned in their wake. They were very thorough, evidence that they were searching for something small.
Once she determined that the first floor was free of another human soul, Viper turned toward the stairs. So far, she'd found no sign of a struggle amidst the mess, no blood splatters or broken furniture. As she moved up the stairs silently, Viper kept her ears tuned for any sound outside of the silence. Perhaps, just perhaps, Lani wasn't home when they came to search her house and tear what was left of her world apart. Perhaps she had no idea of the mess waiting for her when she returned.
Viper reached the second floor and went right, keeping her back to the wall as she moved down the hall to the master bedroom. Had Dominic sent Tito to look for the trigger? Viper couldn't imagine the boss in the Italian suit getting his own hands dirty. He had to be getting desperate. If the trigger was for Asad Jamal, and it was looking more and more likely that it was, Dominic was a walking dead man if he didn't get it back. He would know that. The abject devastation surrounding her was proof enough to Viper that Dominic was running out of time.
She entered the master bedroom and side-stepped an overturned lamp stand to skirt through the debris, heading for the adjoining bathroom. If the trigger wasn't for Asad but for the Cartel, the situation would be just as dire. There was no scenario where Dominic won without the trigger. His driver took it, and he killed that driver before finding out where he hid it. Viper shook her head as she scanned the bathroom before moving to the closet. Idiot. Why kill Dutch before finding out what he did with the trigger? And why on earth would he risk exposing his terrorist affiliation by using a shrapnel bomb with all the earmarks of Al-Jibad's bomb-maker?
Viper paused in the closet, pursing her lips thoughtfully. In Dominic's defense, what were the odds of local law enforcement recognizing a signature on a small bomb that took out a street racers’ tire? What were the odds of them even looking close enough to see that it was a bomb that caused the accident? Her lips tightened. In fact, if it weren't for an FBI agent asking questions, no one would have thought twice about the accident that took Dutch Baker’s life.
Alina strode out of the master bedroom and moved across the hall to the next room. How many of these things did Dominic have access to? Had Asad been running whole bombs up from Cancun through the driving network? That would be reckless, and didn't add up with what Viper knew of Asad Jamal. He was careful and well-trained, and knew better than to entrust his precious bombs to strange infidels in America. So how the hell did Dominic end up with not one, but two of them?
Viper spent the rest of her search puzzling over how the bombs ended up in Atco, but by the end of it, she was no closer to figuring it out than when she pulled into the driveway. There was no sign of Lani or of any struggle anywhere in the house, nor was there any trace left behind of the people who had so thoroughly searched and destroyed. Back in the living room, Viper tucked her gun into her holster and looked around thoughtfully. She bent down and picked up a shattered frame of a photo of Dutch and Lani standing in front of the Shelby. Viper looked at it for a moment, then dropped it onto the side table, turning toward the door.
Lani was the only one who could locate the trigger. She had to find her quickly.
And Viper suddenly knew just how to do that.
Michael walked out of the gate at the airport and straight into his boss. He never even saw him, his head bent and eyes on his phone as he typed a text to Viper.
“Ooof!”
Michael instinctively reached out to steady the man he barreled into, but his exclamation turned to a grin when he saw Chris's face.
“Chris!”
“Whoa, no need to run me over,” Chris exclaimed, steadying himself.
“What are you doing here?” Michael asked, tucking his phone into his pocket and turning to walk with Chris towards the exit. “I was going straight to the office.”
“I wanted to meet you alone,” Chris replied. “I have my car. We can talk freely inside.”
Michael glanced at his boss, a frown creasing his face.
“We can't talk freely at work?” he queried, raising an eyebrow.
Chris lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug.
“I don't know anymore.”
Michael came to a dead stop in the middle of the commuter crowd, facing Chris.
“What happened?”
“Someone rifled through my office,” Chris told him. “I swept it and found two bugs. I'd rather not take any chances.”
“What the...someone went through my office as well,” Michael said, “the day you came back from vacation.”
“Did you find any bugs?” Chris asked sharply.
“No, and nothing was missing.”
“What were you doing in Cancun?” Chris asked as they stepped outside into the brisk Spring air. “I know you didn't go all that way to check up on an agent who didn't report in for a few days. So what was it? When I told you to go on vacation, you indicated that you would rather stay and work.”
Michael grinned.
“I was working,” he assured his boss. “I was just doing it in a more exotic location.”
“Well, you didn't stay long enough to get a tan, so you must be telling the truth,” Chris said with a short laugh. “Does this have to do with your suspicions that another attack is being planned?”
“It does.”
“Then I'm glad I came to meet you here,” Chris said, nodding to an airport police officer as they walked up to his black sedan, parked in a reserved spot near the front of the terminal. “Thanks, Ron. See? I told you I'd only be a few minutes.”
“For once, you weren't lying,” the officer retorted with a friendly grin.
Chris beeped the car unlocked and circled around to the driver side. Michael got into the passenger seat and tossed his overnight bag into the backseat.
“Let's start with what led you to Cancun,” Chris said, getting behind the wheel and starting the engine.
“It was more of a whom,” Michael muttered, reaching for his seatbelt.
Chris glanced at him, a faint frown between his eyebrows.
“Your not-so-rogue agent of days past?” he asked. Michael nodded and Chris groaned. “It's as bad as that?”
“Unfortunately.”
There was no trace of amusement in Michael's tone and Chris sighed, pulling out of the spot and into traffic.
“I was expecting this,” he admitted. “I liked Paul. He was a good agent. Tell me what was important enough to get his throat slit.”
“The FBI are running a joint investigation with the DEA into what they believe to be a smuggling operation run by the Casa Reino Cartel,” Michael said, leaning his head back. “The Agent in Charge is an old Corps buddy of mine. He mentioned to me that high-speed, precision drivers are running something up and down the East coast. Then he showed me a business card that's been popping up at known hand-off locations. It had Riviera Gardner Cancun, handwritten on the back.”
“So you think there's a link between whatever the Cartel's running up and down the coast and the crackpot, hippie group that fund-raises in Cancun?” Chris asked. “Ok. I'll run with it. Where does your rogue agent come in?”
“She's not a rogue agent,” Michael muttered irritably. “Why don't you just call her the Black Widow like everyone else?”
Chris let out a bark of laughter.
“Is that what she looks like?” he demanded.
Michael shook his head, regretting his words. Chris didn't know anything about Viper except that she was a target of theirs last year and she’d been vindicated by the agency that employed her. Michael managed to keep it that way for almost a year. Clearly, he was more tired from his trip than he realized.
“There's some resemblance,” he admitted, his lips twitching despite himself.
“Hmm. Well, her boss is intimidating enough, so I suppose it's only natural for his employees to be bad-ass.”
Michael glanced at him sharply.
“You met her boss?”
“He bought me a beer,” came the unexpected answer. “Seemed friendly enough. Very concerned about you, as a matter of fact. He was worried you'd end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“You never told me this,” Michael exclaimed.
“Didn't I?” Chris glanced at him. “It was last fall when you went and got yourself embroiled in that mess up north.”
Michael was silent for a minute, digesting this unexpected news.
“What was he like?” he finally asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
“Let's just say I don't ever want to be on the wrong side of him,” Chris murmured. “If your Black Widow was trained by him, I imagine you know what I mean by that.”
“Well, that's not something I need to worry about,” Michael replied, a grin curving his lips.
“I'm very happy for you. How does she tie into Cancun?”
“She passed me some intel,” Michael said slowly, choosing his words carefully.
“What kind of intel?”
“The kind you don't ask where it came from,” he replied dryly. “Three men, possibly terrorists, left Africa traveling under Turkish passports and headed to Cancun.”
“Terrorists? For whom? That covers a very large area, Mike,” Chris pointed out. “Who are they?”
“She didn't say.”
Chris glanced at him incredulously.
“She didn't say?!” he repeated. “And you went traipsing off to Mexico anyway?”
“Chris, you have to understand what these people do,” Michael said tiredly. “They don't talk. They don't share information. I'm lucky if I get a complete sentence out of her most of the time. Frankly, I think the only reason I got the sketchy intel that I did is because she's using me to get the information for her.”
“Why would she need you?” Chris asked after a second of thought. “If she's feeding you intel on terrorist movements, what can you offer in return?”
“Boots on the ground.”
Chris's brow cleared in sudden understanding.
“Ah.” He glanced at Michael's profile. “Well, at least we know where you stand. So what did you find? Besides Paul's body, that is.”
“Three men traveling under Turkish passports,” Michael replied dryly. “They arrived, stayed about a week, and left.”
“Left to go where?”
“I have a friend in Border Patrol checking for me, but the Black Widow seems convinced they're heading here.”
“That's it?” Chris demanded. “Three men traveling under Turkish passports arrive at a resort in Cancun, stay a week, and then leave. That's all we've got?”
“Look, I know it doesn't sound like much,” Michael said, turning his head to look at his boss. “I spent the flight home trying to convince myself that this is all a wild goose chase and Paul got his throat slit by some guy over a bad poker hand, but I couldn't do it. My gut tells me this is all connected somehow.”
Chris was silent, thinking, and Michael turned his head to stare out the window at the bumper-to-bumper traffic around them. Chris knew that Paul was onto something before he was killed in Cancun. Michael knew his silence was not because he thought the trip was a waste of time, but because he was trying to think of a way to convince the President the threat was real. Unfortunately, Michael couldn't tell him the main reason he was convinced three terrorists were on their way to Washington was because Viper had marked them as targets.
“I can't go to POTUS with this,” Chris finally broke the silence. “I'm with you. I think this is a real threat, but I know they won't change anything without more credible information. You can't prove these men were anything but tourists. Even if we could convince them otherwise, we can't prove they're headed East. They could be visiting the Grand Canyon for all we know. How long before you hear back from your friend in CBP?”
“Soon. He knows it's a priority.”
“Keep working it,” Chris told him. “I'll try to buy some time, but we need answers yesterday. Are you in contact with the rogue – Black Widow?”
Michael threw him an amused glance.
“Yes.”
“I never thought I'd say this, but good,” Chris said. “Tell her to get us something we can use.”
Michael's lips twitched.
“I'll be sure to pass the message on,” he murmured with only the slightest tremor in his voice.