Page 82 of Her Fearless Warrior

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Linc was surprised to see Kostya smiling when he opened the door to the two-story colonial in Columbia, Maryland. “Leila, it’s good to see you again.”

She smiled at him. “It’s good to see you, too. How’s Lark doing?”

Kostya’s smile got bigger. “She’s at the cranky stage. She’s having to do more research on articles at home. More phone time, instead of gallivanting all around the world. I’m thrilled. Her? Not too much.”

Kostya ushered them into the formal living room.

“We’re set up in the study. It’s big enough to act as a conference room for all of us. Your rooms are upstairs. You can unpack later.”

“Can I bring my laptop?” Leila asked.

“What for?” Kostya wanted to know.

“I’ve been trying to put some scenarios together. I want to share them.”

“Then definitely.”

They followed him to the back of the house where there was a spacious home office. Gideon was sitting behind one of the two desks. He was on the phone and he had a laptop open in front of him, as well as a tablet lit up on the desk.

“Thanks, Riley. This is exactly what I needed,” Gideon said, finishing his call.

He looked up and smiled. Apparently, there was good news. He stood up and rounded the desk to give Leila a hug. “How’s your dad?”

“Mom will give me an update when she’s at the private hospital and has spent a little time with him.”

“That’s good.”

“Okay, let’s sit down. Leila, why don’t you set up at the other desk,” Kostya suggested. He turned to Gideon. “She has some theories she wants to run by us.”

“Good. In the meantime, I’ll let you know what I’ve found out. I can’t name methods and sources, but this isn’t coming from the CIA, so I’m sure the data is accurate. I actually talked to the person who found this out.”

Linc relaxed. That meant it was most likely another SEAL team member. This was good. Very, very good.

“Vugar’s name has come up in Somalia. He is a regular supplier of arms to the Al-Shabaab in Somalia, and he’s missed delivering on the last three shipments. This is a first for him. He’s been the most reliable arms dealer in Africa for the past seven years.”

“Okay, so Vugar is screwing up. How recent?” Jase asked.

“The latest intel is he missed a shipment two weeks ago. Now, this next part has not been substantiated. It is rumor only. But Vugar has a younger brother, and he’s been Vugar’s right hand since he started. He went missing five months ago. Nobody’s seen hide nor hair of him. The rumor is that Vugar killed him.”

Linc winced. “Killed him, or had him killed?”

“Killed him,” Kostya interjected. He said it softly, knowing about Linc’s childhood. Linc gave a brief shake of his head, indicating he was fine.

“I’ve been trying to track down if this is true or not,” Gideon said.

“Okay, he killed his brother, and he’s failing to meet his commitments. How does that tie into Syria?” Leila asked.

“This is my other piece of firm info. Again, I can’t go into methods and sources, but—”

“Would it be better if I left so you could talk more freely?” Leila asked. “I could rustle up lunch,” she offered.

“No, it’s irrelevant where I got the information, just that it is golden. My source found out where on the dark web that Vugar does most of his business, the buying and selling of arms. He uses one of the ugliest private sites around. He’ll put up what he has for sale for forty-eight hours, then people shop, and he’s done. Five months ago, about the time Vugar’s brother went missing, Vugar was saying he had two Russian nukes for sale. Within five hours, all mention of that was taken down.”

“Then how did your source find out about it?” Linc asked.

“My friend has spiders out on the dark web crawling for certain words. When they pop up, he goes in and looks. He’s always felt that the CIA was doing the same thing, so there wasn’t any reason for him to report it. But he did a screen capture, just for his personal files.”