Page 45 of Yankee in the Wind

“I like a little beast in my man.”

“That’s a good thing, ‘cause I don’t know how to turn off the beast when I’m with you.”

21

It was midday, when Jack went to the computer room in the mansion, where Fox and Ace were hard at work. Ace sat at a computer and looked over his shoulder for a moment then continued with his work.

Fox greeted him. “Ace filled me in on what happened last night. The news is all over it.”

“They won’t find anything. Shame she bled out so quickly. I’m afraid I didn’t get much out of her before she died.”

“Well, it’s something. At least we know that they are using that big MRI-type machine to scan the brain, not that I have any idea why.”

Jack nodded. “And that it’s so invasive that the patient dies.”

Ace turned away from the computer. “We must assume that they put Thomas in that machine, and that it eventually killed him. It would make sense that they couldn’t allow for his body to fall into the wrong hands, or an autopsy might have revealed what really happened.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, “and that means the medical examiner whom they got to sign his death certificate had to be eliminated too. No loose ends. Did you guys find anything on Deja Lashae? Who was she really?”

Ace pointed to the computer. “She was in the military until she gave birth to a son. No father in the picture. She worked private security after that.”

Jack looked over his shoulder into the screen where Deja’s military record was displayed.

“That’s why she knew her way around a gun. Did she have sniper training?”

“Yes.” Ace scrolled farther down.

“So she was the assassin from earlier?” Jack asked.

Fox stood up and joined them. “Confirmed. Her cell phone pinged off a nearby cell tower around the same time as she tried to kill Lilly in the plaza in front of Delta Labs. Guess her private security jobs included assassinations.”

For a moment, Jack thought about what Deja had said before her death. “I don’t think so. She mentioned that she wanted to protect her son. Maybe Smith had something on him?”

“Let’s see,” Fox said and nudged Ace aside, before he started tapping away on the keyboard. A few moments later, he pointed to the screen. “There it is. Her son, Kobe Lashae, is in the military and has been accused of sexually assaulting a female soldier in his unit. He’s facing a court-martial. Apparently there were no witnesses. It’s her word against his.”

“Twenty bucks says the charges are false,” Jack said. “Smith fabricated them so he could force Deja to do his bidding, first by spying on Will Reed to find out where Thomas was, and then by using her sniper skills to kill Lilly when she was asking too many questions.”

“Looks that way,” Fox said. “We might find something similar in Dr. Amy Price’s background. Smith used her to cover up how Thomas died.”

Jack grunted. “For all we know, the ashes they sent to his father weren’t even his.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You said you guys checked Deja’s cell phone. Anything else on it that might help us?”

Fox switched screens. A map of Washington D.C. and parts of Virginia and Maryland appeared. Lots of dots were sprinkled over it. “These are all the places where Deja’s phone pinged off various cell towers.”

“She got around,” Jack said. “That’s not gonna help much.”

Ace pointed to a spot on the map. “That’s where we found the microdrone in the warehouse. Deja was in that same area around the time of Thomas’s death.”

“Which is around the time of the power surge I mentioned yesterday,” Fox interjected.

Ace nodded. “So we think Deja’s story checks out. She might have handed Thomas over to Smith, or at the very least, disclosed his location to Smith so he could capture him.”

Jack shook his head. “There’s one thing that doesn’t quite fit with this scenario.”

“What do you mean?”

“Thomas found the warehouse and not only had time to make a recording, but also hide that recording at his father’s house. And Will Reed said that they were in his house, and that she lied to him, that it was her, and that the government sent her. I think either Thomas or his father found out that Deja was working for Smith. Maybe Thomas was able to track her movements to that warehouse, and that’s how he was able to record what was inside. Perhaps he tried to take Deja down later at Will Reed’s house, but Smith or Deja had already deployed the microdrone so they could get the drop on him.”

Fox and Ace exchanged a look.