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“Sharing my screen with you now.” She replaced herself with the view of her laptop. “I was able to trace the source of a wire transfer to an account in the Caymans for Jared Felsely. The money was deposited at the same time he went MIA.”
“Of course,” I grumbled. “Someone’s setting him up.”
“Oh, it gets way more interesting.” She pulled up photos of two people, then added a split screen of a clip from my personal footage from Amsterdam, pausing the camera right at the point when Diana and Bahar had been talking about time travel.
I had to squeeze the chair arms so I didn’t lose my shit all over again, remembering the bastard who struck Diana, knocking her out. “I recognize the one photo. That’s Diana’s colleague from the fire, Bahar. Who’s the guy, and why is my footage on screen?”
“That’s Bahar’s brother. He’s in cybersecurity in Turkey. Like the best of the best in cyber. He wasn’t on my suspect list of hackers who could’ve been connected to this, because he’s not a hacker.”
I pushed away from the desk and stood, not liking where this was going. “Not only is he capable of pulling off all the cyber stuff, he’s also tied to the lab because of his sister. And you’re about to tell me you traced the origins of that wire transfer to Turkey.”
“Exactly. Two hours ago, Natasha let me know the CIA intercepted ‘chatter’ about Deniz and his possible involvement to help take down a ‘multi-government’ project.” Her air quotes suggested we were on the same page in not believing any of this garbage.
I set my hands on the desk, hanging my head in frustration. “Let me guess, since Bahar left the lab right before the attack, and we never see her on screen again after that, she was also an insider and working with her brother.”
“And our bad guys in charge are tying up loose ends, which is why she’s dead. And why the CIA believes her brother will be targeted next, if he hasn’t been eliminated already.”
“Please tell me you’re calling to let me know your grandfather doesn’t believe this bullshit. That he’s aware someone’s baiting us to Turkey, setting a bear trap for us to step in.” Pushing away from the desk, I locked my arms over my chest. “Either that, or they set up this lead to direct us where they want us to look, get us off their backs and also off Craig Paulsen’s.”
“My grandfather ran all of this over with Bravo, and they’re with you on this. They believe Bahar and her brother, Deniz, are innocent. They think they’re being set up, and, as you mentioned, if we go there, we’ll find the evidence these dickheads want us to find. Probably blame a terrorist group for all of this in hopes we wrap up the case and move on. This was just another one of their backup plans.”
Thinking out loud, I shared, “Something tells me whoever’s behind this isn’t a head of state or one of America’s main enemies.” I shook my head. “I think our so-called puppet master may have military and war experience. They know our playbook. Not just because of their inside man at the White House.”
Gwen switched the screen back so she was on camera again. “American military?”
I hated to believe that, but there were a lot of people from within our own country looking to destroy it. “Possibly even someone from JSOC or who worked with them.” Having once reported to the Joint Special Operations Command with Delta, something in my gut told me this had JSOC’s fingerprints all over it. Well, someone who’d either been a Tier One operator themselves, or had a hand in directing Tier One operations for DEVGRU, Delta, and the like. “We know they have D.C. connections, too, which is how they pulled in Jared or Craig for help. It’s going to be someone with a lot of money and influence. Ties to the Intelligence community given how they’d had that intel to blackmail Alyona at their fingertips. Craig wouldn’t have access to that, let alone Jared.”
“There’s no way they’re coordinating with the Chinese government?”
“Doubtful. Whoever’s behind this is fine with us believing that, though, just like they want us to blame Bahar and her brother.” My guess is blame Jared, too, and Craig’s the guilty one. Each thought was clicking together in a way it hadn’t before, and I suddenly knew why I was hitting a roadblock when searching through the belly of hell in the underground world. “You said Deniz never made it to your hacker suspect list because he’s a legitimate cyber expert not a criminal.” At her nod, I continued, “What if that’s our problem now, too? What if we’re looking in the wrong place?”
She stood, eyes going wide. “Bloody hell,” she began, her English accent slipping through, “you’re right. We need to come up with a suspect list of ‘good’ people who’d have a reason to take us down.”
My focus fell to my phone, to thoughts of Diana. “Whoever we’re dealing with is tied to Diana in some way. This is beyond Craig, Jared, or her parents. This is someone who Diana must personally know, and they’re confident she can not only stop their plan to attack us, but also identify them.”
“Then why not kill her? Why risk it? Why didn’t they drop a Hellfire on you in Poland instead?” She lifted her hand in apology. “I mean, glad they didn’t, but . . .”
Sifting through my memories, I muttered, “Andrew Cutter went to great lengths to keep Jesse’s sister alive even though she could’ve been the end of him. The psycho was in love with her. So much so he manipulated Rebecca and destroyed her life just to distract Rory from finding out he was The Italian.”
“And as a byproduct, Rory wound up taking out Andrew’s competition for him, which then led to Rebecca’s death.” She frowned as if regretting having to mention that detail, one which I knew all too well. “But are you saying whoever’s behind this is keeping Diana alive because they care about her in their own sick and twisted way, like Andrew did for Rory?”
“Fuck, I don’t know. Maybe?” I dropped back into my desk chair. Is it Craig? Does he love Diana? Has he been stalking her? How would I have missed the fact she had a stalker while I’d been doing the same? No, that doesn’t add up. “I need to think.” Gripping my temples, I asked, “Just tell me what the President’s planning to do with this intel about Bahar’s brother?”
“He’s about to reroute Bravo from Scotland to Turkey. They’re hoping they can intercept whoever will come after Deniz. Well, that’s assuming he’s still alive. At the moment, Deniz is their only lead, whether it was planted for us to find or not.”
“You said the hackers you’ve been tracking have a signature or something like that.” I dropped my hand to my lap. “Was the wire transfer a match to the other hacks?”
“Yeah, and my guess is the hacker went to Turkey and completed the transfer there in order to set up Deniz and lead us to Istanbul.”
“Then, throw in the bullshit chatter the CIA suddenly intercepted . . .”
“I’m going back to the drawing board of hackers who could actually pull this off. Based on our conversation, maybe he or she’s also a legitimate cyber expert with no priors in hacking, which is why I’m struggling to pinpoint who’s behind this.”
“Because they’re also not a known criminal.” I turned at the subtle sound of shuffling behind me to see Gray and Griffin in the doorway, hanging back. “I have to go.” I motioned for the guys to join me. “Thanks for the heads-up. Good work. Keep me posted.”
“Oh, and, Carter?”
“Yeah?”
