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When Alina pulled around the house, Michael's truck was parked in front of the garage next to Damon's motorcycle. The two men were standing near the trees at the back of the lawn with their backs to the driveway and Alina eyed them warily as she rolled to a stop. As she watched, Damon reached into his back holster and pulled out his weapon. Michael stepped to the side slightly to give him more room, watching as Damon steadied the handgun and fired off a round into the trees. Shaking her head slightly, Alina got out of the car and beeped it locked. Michael glanced over and waved.
“Do I want to even want know?” she called, strolling across the grass towards them.
“Probably not,” Michael replied as she grew closer. “We're comparing range.”
“Is that what you guys call it these days?” Alina retorted, raising one eyebrow slightly as she joined them in the trees.
“He modified his 9 mil,” Damon told her, nodding to Michael. “We're comparing notes.”
He moved out of the way and Michael pulled his weapon out of his side holster, aiming it through the trees. Alina looked in the distance and saw a can hanging from a tree branch about twenty-five yards away. Michael aimed and fired. The can flew up and around the branch.
“We both hit it,” Damon said. “I'll move it back another five yards.”
He headed off toward the can and Alina looked at Michael.
“Long time, no see,” she said. “How was Brooklyn?”
“Fine.” Michael looked at her. “Damon said you were sight-seeing.”
“Mmm.” Alina nodded. “An old prison museum.”
“Is that so?” Michael's eyes glinted green in the speckled sunlight filtering through the trees. “See anything interesting?”
“Nothing to lose my head over,” Alina murmured.
“I got a call from Blake this morning,” Michael told her. “You remember him? You left a gun on his dining room table?”
“I remember,” Alina said, amused. “How is he?”
“Fine. He still wants to know how you got past his pit bull,” Michael answered with a grin.
“Buddy and I came to an understanding.”
“How did you know his dog's name was Buddy?” Michael shook his head. “Never mind. I probably don't want to know.”
Alina laughed and watched as Hawk finished tying the can to another tree and turned to head back towards them.
“I'm assuming Blake didn't call you to talk about Buddy,” she prompted.
“No.” Michael glanced at her. “He seems to think that a Mexican Cartel Lieutenant is wandering around New Jersey,” he told her. “You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“A Mexican Cartel?” Alina asked. “In Jersey?”
“Well, its Lieutenant, at any rate.” Michael nodded. “The guy popped up on Blake's radar after he evaded DEA agents in Arizona and disappeared.”
“Interesting,” Alina murmured. “Why do you think I would know anything about it?”
“Your SEAL had some pretty unsavory people after him the last time I saw you two,” Michael said. “Now, here you are, here he is, and supposedly, here is a Cartel Lieutenant. It doesn't take much of an imagination to put it all together.”
“I think your imagination is getting a little ahead of itself,” Alina retorted dryly. “I'm not sure why Damon is here, but I'm fairly confident he's not chasing a cartel.” At least, not yet, she added silently.
“Well, I won't lie. I'm relieved to hear that,” Michael told her. “I don't need to tell you how dangerous those guys can be.”
Viper shifted her dark gaze to his and Michael shivered involuntarily at the look in her eyes.
“They aren't the only ones,” she said softly before turning to walk away. She went a few steps before pausing. She turned her head and Michael was relieved to see that the chilling look was gone from her eyes. “Just out of curiosity, did Blake give you a name?”
“Jenaro Gomez,” Michael answered.
“Never heard of him,” Alina murmured as Damon joined Michael again. “Happy shooting, boys.”
Angela glanced at her watch and tossed her gym bag across to the passenger's seat before sliding behind the wheel. Sunday mornings were sacred time for her. It was the one morning of the week when she never let anything interfere with her routine. She went to the gym and then spent the rest of the morning focusing on herself. Sometimes she went to breakfast. Other times she went to get a manicure. Still others, she went shopping. This was her time. She could do what she wanted with a few precious hours before she had to start preparing for another week at work.
Another week in hell.
Angela was confident that no one had any idea just how much she despised the company that paid her. She was careful never to say or do anything that would reveal how much she hated it there. She started working for the bank straight out of college and had worked her way up the corporate ladder. The bank had been a smaller, local bank then. When it merged with the larger national One District Bank, Angela had weathered the storm of layoffs and come out even higher on the ladder. Now, after ten years, she held a comfortable title of Assistant Vice President and was on a solid course to make Vice President within the year. She would be the first female to advance to the title in the AML department in the history of the bank. After clawing her way through the male-dominated halls of a traditionally chauvinistic building, Angela wasn't about to let a little thing like her loathing for the parent company to get in her way now.
Each day was a struggle to get through, but Angela was too stubborn to pack it in. So many times she was tempted to quit and walk out. Yet, inevitably, she powered through the battle to come back and fight another day. The stress was taking its toll, however. Her body was starting to betray her. Her blood pressure was chronically high and the dosage of her anti-anxiety medicines were becoming larger and larger. Angela knew she couldn't keep this up much longer. Once she made VP, once she broke that last gender barrier, she would re-evaluate her position.
Until then, she had Sunday mornings.
Starting the engine, she put the car in reverse and backed out of her spot. Glancing at her nails, she decided a trip to the nail salon was in order. Angela was just pulling out of the parking lot when her blackberry started ringing in her purse. Stifling a sigh, she hit the hands-free button on her steering wheel.
“Hello?”
“Angela Bolan?” a male voice asked.
“Yes.” Angela slowed to a stop at a red light.
“This is Lowell Kwan, from the IT Department at the bank,” the voice told her.
“Yes?” Angela frowned.
“I'm afraid I have some disturbing news for you,” Lowell told her. “I understand you were a friend of Rodrigo Frietas.”
“Well, friend would be a bit of an overstatement,” Angela murmured. “I know him through mutual friends. Wait. Did you say...were?”
“Yes.” The voice on the phone paused for a moment. “You haven't heard yet?”
“Heard what?” Angela hit the gas as the light changed and headed toward the highway that would take her to her nail salon.
“I'm sorry to have to tell you, but Rodrigo Frietas is dead,” Lowell said apologetically.
“What?!” Angela gasped, shocked despite herself. “But...I just saw him last Monday!”
“Yes, it's quite a shock,” Lowell agreed. “It was a nasty business with his head. I'm afraid it gets even worse. I'm calling you because it appears that, before he died, Rodrigo accessed the bank mainframe with your credentials.”
“WHAT?!?!” Angela swerved to the right, cutting across two lanes of traffic to get to the shoulder of the highway. Ignoring the indignant horns and hand gestures from the cars she cut off, she came to a stop at the side of the road and clicked on her hazards. Snatching the blackberry out of her purse, she hit the hands-free button again and put the phone against her ear. “What the hell do you mean he accessed the mainframe with my credentials? I barely knew him!”
“I understand.” Lowell's voice was much clearer now that she was hearing it through the phone itself and Angela detected the trace of an accent in his voice. “I'm not sure how he did it, to be honest. I'm going through his desktop and I came across a file buried on the root drive. I'm looking at the logs now. Someone accessed the mainframe with your credentials from this PC the day before he disappeared last week.”
“Wait a minute.” Angela shook her head, trying to make sense of what she was being told. “Just...back up a minute. Obviously you think I know more than I actually do. What do you mean, before he disappeared? I didn't even know he had disappeared!”
“Oh dear,” Lowell murmured. “Ok. Look. Maybe it would be better if you came into the office and I can explain everything to you.”
“Come into the office on a Sunday?” Angela rolled her eyes. “Are you insane?”
“I think you'd better,” Lowell said apologetically. “There's an awful lot to explain, and we need to figure out how he got your passwords. Not only that, but now you have to change them all.”
“This can all wait until tomorrow.”
“Miss Bolan, I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation. There's been a security breach, and he did it with your network credentials.”
Angela felt cold all at once as she stared out the window and her mind drained of thought.
“I really think you need to come into the office this afternoon so I can get this sorted out and prevent any more damage.”
“What kind of security breach?” Angela asked, her throat tight.
There was a short silence, then a sigh.
“That's just it,” Lowell told her. “I have no idea.”
Alina sipped her water and watched Hawk and Michael from inside the sliding door in the living room. They were still firing rounds into the trees and, as far as she could tell, they had moved the can three more times since she came inside. Clearly, they were evenly matched with their respective modified 9mm. She shook her head as Michael ejected his clip and pulled another one from the pocket of his jeans. The Marine and the Navy SEAL. They would be out there until kingdom come.
Turning away from the door, Alina capped her water bottle and moved to the laptop sitting on the bar. She settled down on a stool and opened it, setting her water down.
Jenaro Gomez.
What she told Michael was a bold-faced lie. Alina knew of Jenaro. He was notorious in Mexico, known to be one of the most ruthless and vicious men in the Casa Reino Cartel. Second in Command, he answered only to the head of the Cartel himself. When Hawk put a bullet in that head, Jenaro would have become the acting leader of the infamous Cartel.
Alina typed in a few commands, linking to her server in the basement. When the three heads were killed two months ago, the three largest cartels in Mexico were thrown into disarray. Power struggles erupted as the remaining leaders waged war on each other, trying to gain control of their cartels. The resulting disruption to the drug trafficking and regional control hurt them badly. The Mexican government was able to regain tenuous control over some of the regions previously controlled by the cartels, resulting in huge losses for the drug trade. The last she heard, the cartels were still in disarray and trying to regroup.
After a few moments of searching, Viper found herself staring at picture of Jenaro Gomez. His dark eyes were deep-set and his hair was thinning on top. A scar curved over his cheek from the corner of his eye and a tattoo covered half his neck. He looked like a sinister man who was capable of anything. Tilting her head slightly, Alina's lips curved.
He looked like a worthy opponent for Hawk.
She minimized the photo and pulled up a security portal into the government databases. After typing in her credentials, Alina stared into the kitchen thoughtfully while she waited for the security check to verify. If Jenaro was indeed in Jersey, then it was becoming more and more likely the Casa Reino Cartel was responsible for the head outside Damon's condo. Was that why Hawk had come back to Jersey? For Jenaro? If the cartel was responsible for the disappearance and dismemberment of Rodrigo Frietas, why him? Why would the Casa Reinos have any interest in Stephanie's informant?
Alina was still staring into space, lost in thought, when a text message alert went off on her phone. She frowned when she saw the incoming name. Her boss, Charlie, was sending her an image. He never sent images to her cell phone, preferring to use their secure email network for sensitive material. She touched the message file and raised an eyebrow when she found herself staring at another picture of Jenaro Gomez. There was no message or caption, just the photo.
Setting the phone down, Viper shook her head. She shouldn't be surprised Charlie somehow knew everything that happened around his agents, but she was surprised just the same. If Charlie was sending pictures of the cartel lieutenant to her phone, he had clearly not sent Hawk to Jersey after Jenaro. So why was Hawk here? And why was Charlie warning her that Jenaro was in Jersey? And what did any of this have to do with Stephanie's investigation anyway?
Shaking her head, Viper sent a secure email to Charlie. Once it was sent, she went back to the databases and started three searches: one on Jenaro Gomez, one on Rodrigo Frietas, and one on Jessica Nuñez. Somehow, all three of these people were connected and Alina had every intention of finding out how.
“I don't see what good it did having the Black Widow look at the head,” John said, unwrapping his hoagie. “All she did was confirm what we already know.”
Stephanie glanced up from her salad and watched as her partner bit into his Italian hoagie. Rodrigo's head had been taken away by Larry to join the arm, the Dungeon was locked up and under guard, and she had given the order to shut down the haunted walk. She had a BOLO out on the missing prison guide and the local police were already interviewing family and friends of the actors. When John suggested lunch, she jumped at the chance to take a break from the hellish day Sunday had become.
“I wouldn't say that,” she said now as she picked up her fork and dug into her salad. “She pointed out the possibility that the head is a warning.”
“Do you really think there's anything in that?” John asked. He wiped some oil off his lips and picked up a bag of chips. “Seems like a stretch. I mean, who leaves a human head on a stick as a warning?”
“Who leaves a human head on a stick, period?” Stephanie countered. “And yet, we have one.”
John picked up his hoagie again and they fell into a morose silence. Stephanie speared a cucumber almost viciously, her gaze fixed on a point somewhere beyond John's right shoulder. The whole situation was ridiculous and she was thoroughly stumped. Why put Rodrigo's head on a stake and leave it outside the prison? John was right. It was a stretch to think the head was a warning, but what else could it be? A warning at least made some sense out of a seemingly vicious and senseless act.
“Maybe we're allowing ourselves to be distracted,” Stephanie murmured.
John glanced up from his sandwich.
“You call an arm and a head a distraction?” he asked incredulously.
Stephanie's brown eyes moved to his and she nodded slowly. John stared at her and her lips started to curve.
“Yes!” she exclaimed suddenly, dropping her fork as the truth hit her. “Think about it! Rodrigo was going to give us information about a cyber-terrorist hacking ring working in the area, right?”
“Right,” John agreed, setting his hoagie down and picking up the chips.
“And then he disappears before he can tell us anything,” Stephanie continued, leaning forward. “What happens? We're looking for him, trying to discover what he was going to tell us, and we're covertly monitoring all the area banks for any signs of our mysterious hacking ring. Then, suddenly, his arm appears in a locked cell in an old prison museum.”
“Right.” John munched some chips, watching her. “And?”
“And we get so caught up trying to figure out how an arm got into a locked cell that we stop focusing on the investigation that brought us Rodrigo in the first place,” Stephanie said softly, her eyes glittering.
John's eyes narrowed suddenly in shocked understanding.
“Oh my God...” he muttered.
“We've spent the majority of the weekend buzzing around Mt. Holly Prison Museum, instead of focusing on the hacking ring that Rodrigo claimed was at work in South Jersey,” Stephanie murmured.
“And what about Rodrigo?”
“Whoever is behind the ring is behind his disappearance and murder.” Stephanie picked up her fork again. “Given his untimely demise, I think it's clear someone found out he was going to talk and went through some extreme lengths to make sure that he didn't.”
“Distracting us in the process,” John added disgustedly. “They knew he came to us.”
“Yes.” Stephanie chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “And they knew we would be called in as soon as he was ID'd. Are they buying time?”
“Possibly.” John dropped the chips and propped his elbows on the table. “They already bought themselves almost the whole weekend.”
“I need the transcript of my interview with Rodrigo,” Stephanie decided, pushing her chair back and standing up abruptly. “I'm going to the office. Why don't you follow up on the missing museum guide? She's the piece in all this that doesn't fit. We need to find her.”
“Got it.” John wrapped up the remainder of his sandwich and glanced up as Stephanie picked up her purse. “What?”
Stephanie was staring at him, her gaze suddenly arrested.
“When you had dinner with the blonde bimbo Friday night, you said she saw Rodrigo meet with someone else,” she said. “Who?”
“Philip Chou.” John stood up and shrugged into his jacket. “I was going to look him up yesterday, but got distracted with Rodrigo's arm.”
“Indeed.” Stephanie smiled grimly. “I think it's time I took care of that for you.”