CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

 

WES STIFLED A yawn as he drove to Kyla’s dorm. Thanks to all the aches and pains from his run-in with that white van, then the packing crate that fell on him, he hadn’t gotten much sleep the past two days. The long bumpy ride from Puerto Quetzal to the airport in Guatemala City in the bed of a pickup truck hadn’t helped, either. But as bad as all of that had been—and it had been bad—it didn’t compare to the mission debriefing he’d gone through when they arrived in San Diego. Actually, debriefing wasn’t the right term for what he’d experienced. Interrogation was definitely a much better word for it.

The moment they landed at the North Shore Naval Air Station, he, Holden, and Sam had been separated and taken back to the Imperial Beach facility in different cars. From there, he’d been grilled for six nonstop hours from every federal agency that had a stake in this mission. The CIA had been the worst, blatantly accusing him of leaking information on the raid directly to Chapman. The fact that Wes had almost gotten killed in the ambush was an inconvenient tidbit of information not worth considering.

Wes tried not to get pissed at the accusation. Two of their operations had gone bad, and the CIA was taking that embarrassment out on him and his SEAL Teammates. Wes was a big boy. He could handle a little heat.

But then they’d started asking about Kyla and suddenly, the situation had gotten very real, very fast. During the questioning, he said he’d been with her when he’d gotten the call to go wheels up, mentioning he hadn’t told her anything about where he was going, especially since he hadn’t known at the time. He expected that to be the end of the conversation.

It wasn’t.

They wanted to know how long he and Kyla had been seeing each other, and whether they were sleeping together. Had he initiated the relationship or had she? Who’d pushed for it to transition from friends to lovers? They brought up the stuff with Nesbitt, poking, prodding, and questioning his involvement in the councilman’s death. They even implied she was only sleeping with him to gain access to classified information. He’d almost vapor locked when the jackasses asked if Kyla knew the location of the Guatemalan mission, terrified they already knew she’d hacked into their computer and called his motel room.

But somehow, he’d kept it together and didn’t give anything away, even when the CIA had gone well beyond the point of reason with their asinine questions. Finally, he’d simply stopped answering them. Why bother when they seemed to have all the answers anyway? Chasen and Commander Hunt had showed up a little while later, demanding they either bring in a polygraph or end their silly game.

That’s when the CIA had let him go. Thank God. Because if it had come down to a lie detector test, he would have been beyond screwed.

Wes called Kyla the moment he’d gotten out of the debriefing, but she hadn’t responded to any of his calls or text messages even though he knew she didn’t have classes today. Part of him worried the a-holes at the CIA had already swooped in and picked her up for questioning. Which was why he was doing almost twenty miles over the speed limit. If she wasn’t at her dorm, he’d try her mom’s place. If she wasn’t there, then Owen and Andrew were next on the list. From there…well, he wasn’t sure.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted her Prius parked in her usual space in the parking lot, practically running the two flights of stairs and down the hallway to her room.

Wes slowed when he heard Kyla’s voice coming from inside. A moment later, he picked up a man’s. He knew most of her male friends and it didn’t sound like any of them. Was it someone from the CIA here to confront her?

He resisted the urge to kick in the door, instead, knocking a few times like a civilized person.

Kyla opened it almost immediately. She stared at him, eyes wide, then threw herself into his arms, squeezing him so tightly he had to hold back a groan of pain. His injuries were better, but the bruises were still there. Kyla wouldn’t be happy when she saw them.

But she was happy now. That was enough.

“I missed you,” she said as she buried her face against his chest. “Why didn’t you call when you got back?”

“I did,” he said. “You didn’t answer.”

Wes cupped her face in his hands and kissed her long and hard. It had only been a few days, but damn, he’d missed her, too. Slipping his hand into her hair, he pulled her even closer. He was ready to take her up against the nearest wall in her dorm when he heard a man clear his throat. Crap, he’d forgotten she had a visitor.

He lifted his head and immediately froze as he recognized the blond guy standing there.

Shaw.

Wes had only met the CIA agent once briefly at a SEAL team cookout, but he was sure Shaw was the same guy who’d been part of the joint SEAL/CIA operation down in Mexico half a year or so ago that had put Chapman on the radar.

Now, he was standing in Kyla’s dorm room. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Was he the agent the CIA had sent to question her?

“Petty Officer Marshall. I was wondering when you’d show up,” Shaw said. “Good to see you survived your mission. I heard rumors it didn’t go well.”

Kyla stepped out of Wes’s arms to close the door, then moved over until she stood halfway in between him and Shaw, curiously looking back and forth at the two of them. “You two know each other?”

Wes hesitated, trying to figure out what he’d walked in on. It didn’t seem like an interrogation. But then what was it?

“Not really,” he said, looking at Kyla. “Shaw was involved in a mission with Nash a while ago. I didn’t realize you two were friends.”

“Friends?” Kyla snorted. “That would be a no. Shaw is here to make me an offer.”

Wes got a sinking feeling in his gut. He had a hard time thinking of any offer Shaw or the CIA might make Kyla that he’d be down with. If he had to guess, Shaw was here to either offer her some kind of deal if she confessed to hacking the Navy’s computers or a job at the agency so she could hack for them.

He wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of either of those things.

“What kind of offer?” he asked.

Kyla started to answer, but Shaw cut her off.

“The exact nature of the offer I made to Ms. Wells is classified. And while you might have the clearance, you don’t have the need-to-know.” Shaw gave Kyla a hard look. “What we talked about isn’t something you can share with anyone. Not even your boyfriend.”

Kyla’s mouth tightened, but she nodded. The look of frustration in her eyes was something he was familiar with. He’d experienced it many times himself. At the same time, Wes hated there were things going on in her life he couldn’t know about. The shoe being on the other foot sucked ass. He didn’t like the idea of her keeping secrets from him.

“I’ll check in with you in a few days so you can give me your answer,” Shaw told Kyla before giving Wes a nod. “Petty Officer Marshall.”

Wes glared at the CIA agent as the man left. He seriously didn’t like the guy.

The moment the door closed behind Shaw, he pulled Kyla back into his arms, and for a long time, they were too busy touching, kissing, and reveling in the sensation of being back in each other’s arms to say much of anything.

“Are you really okay?” Kyla asked when they came up for air. “And I want the truth please.”

He nodded. “I got a little bounced around and picked up a few more bumps and bruises you aren’t going to like, but I’m okay. Really.”

Before she could say anything, he wrapped his arms around her and buried his nose in her hair. Damn, she smelled good.

“So,” he said slowly, “you and Shaw?”

She sighed. “You know I can’t talk about that. Like he said, it’s classified. Which are two words I never expected to hear coming out of my mouth. At least when it comes to me not being able to talk about something.”

He winced, hating the sound of that. But he couldn’t expect her to behave and follow the rules if he wouldn’t.

“Okay, you can’t talk about Shaw. I get that. What can you talk about? Because I can tell there’s something bothering you.”

Kyla didn’t answer right away and when she finally did, her voice was so soft, he could barely hear her.

“It’s my dad. He was working for the CIA as an independent hacker.” She looked at Wes, her eyes glistening with tears. “And I never knew.”

Whatever Wes had expected her to say, it wasn’t that. “Um, okay. How did you find out?”

Kyla took a small step back, like she needed space to breathe. “I stumbled over his hacker’s nest. One thing led to another and Shaw showed up and told me everything. Without saying anything classified, I can tell you that he’s hoping certain skills run in the family.”

That confirmed his assumption about Shaw wanting Kyla to work for the CIA. But before he could ask if she was considering taking the job, she spoke again.

“You want to know the worse part out of all this?” she said. “It looks like Nesbitt was telling the truth. The CIA had my dad snooping around some really dangerous people. Stavros was probably working for one of them when he killed my dad.”

Wes was exhausted, so his head was probably a bit fuzzy right now, but he should have been able to keep up. “How do you know what your dad was investigating?”

Kyla gave him a sheepish look. “Remember that part where I said I’d stumbled over my dad’s hacker nest? Well, I never got around to turning it over to the CIA because I don’t trust them to do right by him. I’ve been digging through all of it and discovered Dad was going after some seriously bad people. If they realized what he was up to, any one of them could have had him killed.”

Wes stared at her, the implications of that hitting him. Not only was she playing the CIA at their own game and keeping secrets from them at the same time she was considering their job offer, she was also digging up dirt on the people who might have murdered her father. It was brilliant—and terrifying—and he wanted to tell her to back off before she got herself killed, too. But he knew saying the words would be a waste of time. Kyla wasn’t the kind of woman who’d ever back off even if he was the one to ask her to do it.

So, he decided to ask her for the next best thing.

“I’m not going to even try and ask you to stop, but I am going to ask you not to do anything stupid that will get you hurt,” he said. “Don’t go anywhere or do anything without letting someone else know. And if you run into anything serious and need backup, ask for it, okay?”

Kyla draped her arms around his neck with a teasing smile. “What’s your definition of stupid?”

Wes didn’t bite. “Kyla, I’m serious. If you’re right, one of the people your dad was looking into figured it out and had him murdered. I won’t let the same thing happen to you. I’ve just found you. I can’t lose you.”

The mere thought of something happening to her about made his heart stop.

The smile disappeared from Kyla’s face. “Nothing stupid. I promise.”

He kissed her, so grateful she wasn’t fighting him on this. It was crazy, but hearing her promise made breathing seem a little bit easier.

“You look tired,” she said. “Do you want me to fix you something to eat or would you rather just go to bed?”

Wes chuckled and nibbled her soft perfect lips again. “Bed sounds good. As long as you’re okay with not getting any sleep for a while.”

Giving him a smile that lit up the room, Kyla took his hand and tugged him toward the bed.

 

* * * * *

 

THAT’S IT?” OWEN asked, staring up at the twenty-two names displayed on the large monitor mounted on the wall on the far side of the Bat Cave. “These are our suspects? You really think one of the people on this list is responsible for your dad’s death?”

Kyla looked up from the text messages records she’d been digging through for the last twenty minutes. They were from a small-time director in Hollywood, and while the texts were salacious, creepy, and made her want to take a bath, there was nothing indicative of some master scheme to take over the world or even commit a crime. It made her wonder why her dad had wasted his time looking at the guy. Tossing the stack of texts aside, she focused on the monitor full of some of the scariest people her father had been spying on.

“If we assume the person who came after my dad was someone he’d been investigating in the months right before his death, and that he or she needed to have access to money to hire Stavros, then yes, I think there’s a good chance his killer is on that list,” she said.

“There are a lot of assumptions in there,” Andrew pointed out. “While it makes sense the person who hired Stavros is someone your father was recently snooping around, there’s always a chance it could have been a person who had a grudge from way back finally coming after him. Your search criteria would eliminate anyone like that right off the bat.”

Kyla sighed. Andrew was right. “I know, but we have to start somewhere. My dad has files on thousands of people he collected data on. If we don’t trim it down to something more manageable, we could be searching for days. And while I appreciate that you guys are willing to skip class to help me, I’m pretty sure you don’t want to miss any more of them than you have to.”

“We’re here to help as long as you need us.” Owen picked up the monster-sized energy drink he’d been guzzling since they’d started their marathon research session the night before. If not for caffeine, they all would have crashed out hours ago. “Besides, Andrew and I were going to blow off classes today anyway so we could go to Comic-Con.”

Crap.

She’d been so wrapped up in her own stuff she hadn’t even remembered that July was Comic-Con time. Heck, it was practically a local holiday in the San Diego area. She hadn’t even known Owen and Andrew were planning to make a pilgrimage to geek heaven.

“I already know what you’re going to say and you can forget it,” Owen said, interrupting her before she could apologize. “You’ve been dealing with some serious crap lately. Missing Comic-Con isn’t nearly as important to us as you are.”

She gave them a grateful look. “I know and I love you guys for it. Especially since I’ve been ditching you lately to be with Wes.”

“We’d never begrudge you that,” Owen said. “You deserve something good in your life.”

“Not to mention the fact that if Owen and I had women willing to sleep with us on the reg, we’d be ditching your butt, too,” Andrew added, not looking up from the file he was reading.

“Speak for yourself, bro,” Owen said. “I would never ditch a friend to get laid.”

Andrew snorted. “Of course, you’d never ditch a friend to get laid because you’re never going to get laid.”

Owen looked so offended Kyla couldn’t help laughing. The guys ragged on each other for a little while longer, but then Andrew got them back on track.

“Okay,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “How are we going to winnow down our list of suspects?”

She thought a moment. “Let’s split up the list three ways and do a deep dive on each person. Look for any connection to my dad and Stavros, then see if that person was in San Diego when my father was murdered. Dig into their finances and get a feel for whether they’re hiding money. Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt to look for a history of violence.”

Her friends sighed, obviously knowing how long that would take, but then they got to work.

“I’ll take the first seven people,” Andrew said.

“I’ll take the next seven,” Owen said.

That left eight people for her to check out. Kyla didn’t mind having the one extra person. She was fast at this kind of stuff. Besides, her friends were missing Comic-Con for her.

As she worked her way through the list, Kyla found herself daydreaming about Wes. They’d spent every evening together at his apartment since he’d come back from Guatemala three days ago. In between ordering takeout, playing video games, and watching TV, they made love. They also spent a lot of time lying in bed, talking and getting closer to each other. She’d even brought some clothes, toiletries, and college stuff over there. It was the sensible thing to do. Much easier than trying to race over to her place early on the mornings she had class. At least that was what she told herself. Occasionally, she even believed it. And Wes was all about it.

Unfortunately, things at work were still rough for Wes and his Teammates. The animosity between SEAL Team 5 and the CIA had only gotten more intense since the latest debacle in Central America and leadership at both organizations were adopting a scorched earth policy when it came to laying blame for the recent failures. While Wes hadn’t said as much, it was easy to figure out that Chapman had disappeared and no one had any idea where he might be.

Being privy to the whole situation made it easier for her to understand why Wes was so stressed out. She didn’t want to think about how hard it would have been to watch him go through this without knowing why. They didn’t talk about the details—which was a little aggravating for her—but at least she was able to be there for him. She could tell Wes appreciated that from the way he breathed warm and fast against her skin after they made love—and in the way he looked at her before sliding out of bed for work.

They hadn’t put a label on their relationship yet, but Kyla knew she was falling like the proverbial rock. She now understood what Hayley had meant when she said being with a SEAL was harder than anything but so worth it.

“I think I got something,” Owen said excitedly, interrupting her musings.

“Already?” Kyla asked.

Andrew made a face. “Already? We’ve been digging for five hours.”

Kyla looked out the window, surprised to see the sun glowing brightly outside, even through the blinds. She glanced at her cell phone on the table to see that it was after noon. Where the hell had the time gone?

“Okay,” she said. “What did you find?”

Owen gestured toward the screen on the wall directly in front of his computer. On it was a picture of a man in his late fifties or early sixties, a few specks of gray in his dark hair and mustache.

“This is Arda Kaplan.” Owen clicked a few keys, pulling up several more photos of the same guy over a period of maybe twenty or thirty years. “Your father had dozens of files on him, covering a span of about six months.”

“What’s his story?” Kyla asked.

“Kaplan came to the U.S. from Turkey with his parents, who were both chemical engineers, in the early eighties. He followed in their footsteps and graduated with degrees in chemical and biological engineering, but rather than work for top level chemical companies like his parents, he started his own business selling oil, natural gas, and industrial chemicals. He took the company international within five years and is now worth billions.”

Kyla studied the man’s face, wondering why he might have wanted her father dead. “Why was Dad investigating him?”

“It looks like your father was interested in Kaplan’s overseas travels. Kaplan’s business took him all over the world, but in 2015 he started to spend a lot more time in the Middle East and southern Turkey. I still need to do some digging to confirm it, but my guess is we’ll find out Kaplan was sending large sums of money to various terrorist groups. He fits the profile of a radicalized supporter.”

Kyla nodded. “If he thought my dad had proof of that, it gives him motive for sure, and since he’s a billionaire, paying Stavros wouldn’t have been a problem.”

“Exactly.”

Owen brought up an image that to most people would be nothing more than a baffling stream of letters and numbers similar to an old-style telegraph message, but Kyla immediately recognized it as a Bitcoin transaction record. The way Bitcoin values constantly changed, it was hard to figure out exactly how much money was involved, but it seemed like a big number to her.

“The receiving ID number immediately cashed out, then the money was bounced around through several different filters to hide the trail,” Owen added. “Until it ended up in this Cayman Island account. Any chance you recognize the number?”

Kyla gave him a sarcastic look. “Sure, because I go around memorizing random overseas bank account numbers.”

Both of her friends snorted.

“Point taken,” Owen said. “I thought you might recognize this one since we’ve seen it before. It’s Stavros’s account, the same one Nesbitt put money into right before your father’s death. Except Kaplan put his money into the account a full two weeks before Nesbitt, which was also three weeks after your father started deep-diving into Kaplan’s background. It looks like Kaplan picked up on what your dad was doing and paid Stavros to kill him, then Stavros pinned it on Nesbitt for reasons I can’t even attempt to explain.”

Kyla stared at Kaplan’s picture on the monitor. This was the man who’d murdered her father.

“Okay,” she said. “I think we all agree Kaplan is almost certainly the person we’ve been looking for. The question now is whether we have enough to put him in jail.”

Her friends exchanged looks.

“The money connection to Stavros is tenuous at best,” Andrew pointed out. “Especially with how difficult it is to follow a Bitcoin transaction.”

“And while the CIA might be receptive to our theory about Kaplan being involved in terrorist activities, there’s definitely not enough to bring him in,” Owen added.

Kyla silently agreed. “Then that’s what we need to focus on next. Let’s figure out what Kaplan is up to now and see if we can come up with enough to get the cops or the feds interested in him.”

Owen and Andrew turned back to their computers and got to work. Kyla joined them and for the next hour or so, the only sounds were of keyboards clicking.

“Guys, I found something I think you two are going to want to see,” Andrew said. “Check this out.”

Kyla studied the screen, not sure at first what she was looking at first. It was a photo of Kaplan in the middle of a crowd apparently at some society function. From the irritated look on the man’s face, it seemed like he knew someone was taking his picture and wasn’t thrilled about it. She was about to ask what was so significant about the picture when a tall, handsome, dark-haired man standing behind Kaplan caught her eye. She leaned forward to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was.

“Yeah, that’s what caught my attention, too,” Andrew said. “Pretty sure Kaplan doesn’t hang out with many Navy SEALs, which means that guy isn’t Nash.”

“It’s Chapman,” she finished, realizing who she was looking at and the implications of it. “He’s the arms dealer who tried to kill Wes and his Teammates twice.”

“What the hell is an arms dealer doing meeting with a billionaire industrialist?” Owen asked. “Even if it is someone with possible terrorist connections.”

“It seems obvious to me,” Andrew said. “He’s arranging a weapons deal. Kaplan is upgrading from merely providing money for overseas terrorist organizations to buying weapons for them.”

Kyla scanned the background in the photo, taking in the fancy table settings and the crystal wine glasses. They were at some kind of upscale restaurant. It definitely wasn’t the kind of place you’d expect people to negotiate an illegal weapons deal.

“Where was this picture taken?” she asked.

“Right here in San Diego,” Andrew said. “The Marine Room in La Jolla. Supposedly, it’s one of the ritzier restaurants in the city.”

She did a double take. “Kaplan and Chapman were here in San Diego? When?”

Andrew scrolled down the article below the picture, his eyes going wide. “Last night. The society column says he was in town for some kind of charity event and that he’s going to be in town for a day or so on some personal business. He’s staying at the Pendry Hotel near the Convention Center.”

“The Pendry? No shock there,” Owen said with a snort. “That’s one of the most expensive hotels anywhere near the waterfront. Of course, that’s where Kaplan would stay.”

Kyla wasn’t really listening to Owen complaining how rich people got to stay at all the best places. She was too busy thinking there was no way in hell Kaplan and Chapman had simply shown up in the home town of SEAL Team 5 by coincidence. They had to be here for a reason and her instincts were telling her it had to do with Wes and his Teammates.

“Chapman has tried to kill Wes and his Teammates already,” she said. “Maybe he’s here to try again, especially since no one would ever expect it.”

Grabbing her phone, Kyla pulled up Wes’s number, eager to tell him what they’d found, cursing in frustration when it went to voice mail. She quickly left a message, telling him to call her as soon as he could, that she had something important to tell him. She then ran through the other contacts she had on the SEAL team, calling everyone in her phone. Sam, Holden, Chasen, Noah. Every single one of their phones went to voice mail. That wasn’t surprising. There was a good chance that all of them were together in the secure parts of the SEAL complex where cell phones weren’t allowed.

Dammit.

“Should we call that CIA guy who keeps bothering you?” Owen asked. “Maybe he can do something if we tell him everything we’ve learned.”

Kyla shook her head. “The CIA and SEAL Team 5 aren’t on the best of terms lately. We have no idea what they’ll do with this info on Chapman if they had it. I wouldn’t be shocked if they blatantly kept Wes and his Teammates out of the loop. I’d feel better telling Wes and letting him decide how to use the information. If he wants to call the feds in, that’s fine. But until he says so, I’m not going to do it.”

She briefly considered calling Hayley, but quickly dismissed the idea. Hayley wouldn’t be able to reach any of the guys from the team easier than Kyla could, and being the reporter that she was, Hayley was likely to go sticking her nose into the situation without even knowing what she was up against and end up getting herself hurt. Kyla couldn’t let that happen.

“So, what are we going to do?” Andrew asked. “If we wait around, Kaplan might leave town and Chapman is probably going to ambush Wes and his Team. If we’re right about any of this, I mean. Because there are a lot of gaps in our information.”

Kyla thought a moment. “You’re right. Until we can get in touch with Wes, we’ll try to collect more information on exactly what Kaplan and Chapman are up to.”

Owen frowned. “How do we do that?”

“We go over to the Pendry Hotel and see what we can find out.”

Her friends gave her dubious looks.

“Is that really a good idea?” Andrew said. “We’re hackers. We’re better at lurking behind a keyboard than a hotel door. What if someone sees us?”

“All we’re doing is snooping around a hotel. Nobody is going to see us,” she assured them. “We’re The People. We’ve done stuff a lot more dangerous than this while digging up dirt on Nesbitt and all those other corrupt politicians we caught. I promised Wes I wouldn’t do anything stupid, so all we’re going to do is sniff around a little and then call Wes again. Piece of cake.”

Owen looked at Andrew. “I wasn’t worried until she said that part about it being a piece of cake.”