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He had a daughter in high school. She had worked with him for years. He was going to retire after this assignment. Go into private security, he had told her once. Plenty of money and none of the hassles. A man made it to forty, and he wanted a chance to enjoy just a few years danger free.
And he was gone.
“There is a bomb under your car that was not there this morning,” he told her then. “Dawg and Rowdy checked that car before we went out to it. I checked it before you got into it; do you remember that, Chay?”
She nodded slowly staring back at him as she tried to think, to figure out where and how and why.
“Someone planted that bomb after you arrived here. Are you still safe, Chay? Did you check that motherfucking car before you got in it?”
She licked her lips slowly. “I ran the transmitter over it. I always do that. I did it this morning. I used the mirror in my bag to look beneath it. ”
“But it was hidden,” he snarled. “Do you realize that? A pro put that bomb in there, sweetheart. Tell me, Chay; do you realize that?”
His voice was rising, his hands tightening on her shoulders until she was afraid he might start shaking her.
“Natches, I am neither a moron nor a candidate for suicide,” she informed him coolly. “I didn’t find the bomb, which means it was well hidden and expertly placed. And someone has already taken out one of the other agents, so this assignment is severely in danger. ” She pulled her cell phone from her bag, flipped it open, pressed the secured speed dial and waited while he glared at her.
“Cranston,” Timothy barked into the phone.
“We just lost Denton to a car bomb. We’re compromised. ”
“Are you with Mackay?”
“Natches, yes. ” She stared back at Natches.
“Keep your ass there. I already have calls out to the other agents to park their vehicles immediately and contact the sheriff for pickup. I just received word myself. I’m on my way. ”
He disconnected and Chaya slowly flipped the phone closed.
“Who is he after?” Natches snarled again.
“Military intelligence and DHS have tracked the persons responsible for the hijacking and theft of military weapons, including those missiles, across the nation to a paramilitary group. Freedom’s League. Five years ago, Freedom’s League was hijacking and stealing weapons in Iraq as well. Their members are military and ex-military. They steal the weapons by hijacking them one at a time here and there, or in large shipments. Some they sell, evidently to fund other missions they undertake.
“It was Freedom’s League members I was investigating when I was captured by Nassar in Iraq. It was those same members that executed a false order for those missiles to be launched on the hotel Craig and Beth were staying in when he was trying to escape. They’ve managed to infiltrate the military to a degree that DHS is now desperate, and Timothy is rabid to capture one of their generals.
“The League is located in the eastern, southern, and western states, and their leaders are well trained and well organized. ”
“I didn’t ask you what. I asked you who,” he snarled back, so furious she flinched.
“I don’t know who,” she screamed back at him, her fists striking his chest to get away from him, to escape the ragged pain she could see in his eyes, that she could feel in her heart. “If I knew who, I would have killed him myself, and Cranston knows it. ”
She jerked around, staring out the windshield, watching as the other Mackays, the sheriff, and several deputies worked to tape off the area and roll other vehicles away from her rental car.
“All I know is that one of the head members of the League has been tracked here, through the operation with the missiles. The Swede attempting to buy the missiles finally made a deal with the government. In exchange for a lighter sentence, he gave them the information he had on this one buy. The League was involved and he was contacted by someone he trusted and had dealt with in the past. He wasn’t originally contacted by Johnny Grace. He didn’t know his name, didn’t have a description, all he had was the fact that his contact had been in the military, and he was based here in Somerset, working within the League to gather the funds and the arms to launch a future revolution in America. ”
She watched as Dawg and Rowdy rolled another car out of the way. The agents who were still at the hotel were now marking their vehicles, but it looked like four were out.
“You’re in danger, Chay,” he told her, his voice throbbing with his anger. “They obviously know why you’re here and who you’re after. ”
She shook her head. “That’s not possible. I don’t know who. I don’t think Timothy knows. He makes his list night by night, his questions as well, based on the answers I pull in from each interview. You know how this works,” she repeated. “It’s not an easy process, and this link is the only one Timothy has managed to find in five years. If we can manage to identify one of the head members and take him alive, then we can bust the organization. ”
“Until they re-form?”
“But even that takes time. ” She turned back to him, staring into his tormented eyes, seeing the same fears that plagued her. The fear of loss. “Sometimes, even a lifetime, Natches. We fight one battle at a time, as long as we can fight, then we turn the rest to the new generation and pray they’re as diligent. What more can we do?”
THIRTEEN
Four of the six agents’ vehicles had been wired, Chaya’s among them. Three of the four, including Denton, were assigned to watch the subjects after interview. It was obvious someone was getting spooked, and Chaya couldn’t figure out how.
