Blowback (The Black Cipher Files Book 1) (18 page)

“They were looking for a scapegoat and I got elected.” He dropped onto the sofa next to me, our thighs touching. “I finally quit when the stink started spreading to my friends.”

“What kind of stink?”

“About eleven years ago, we’d had some success with an informant on a group of men who had ties to the first bombing of the World Trade Center. Before 9/11 someone higher up decided we didn’t need the guy anymore.” He stopped.

“So....”

“So I started seeing the guy on my own, compiling information, mainly in my spare time, about this group. And the higher ups caught wind of my obsession with the group and pretty much ordered me to stop.”

“Of course you didn’t.” Look at how freaking tenacious he’d been about trailing me to find Johnny.

“No.” His gaze cut away from mine, sorrow in his eyes. “I was supposed to let it go...instead I got a friend to check some things out for me.”

“And the friend got in trouble?”

“The friend got dead,” Lucas replied evenly. “He was in one of the towers when it collapsed.”

I shut off the emotion at his obvious sorrow. I turned over his explanation looking at it from several sides. It made sense. And suddenly, information snapped into place. “Johnny’s father.”

“Yeah.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“I kept in touch with the informant. Some of the information he’d given us was dead on.” Lucas clasped his hands together. “I still believe he could have helped nail some missing connections to al Qaeda.”

“So why the OPR?”

“I used discretionary bribe money to pay the guy.” He hesitated. “Technically it wasn’t against policy, except that the someone I pissed off, wanted me to pay for disregarding his orders. So, they opened the OPR and started examining every single move I’d made. Which put my friends and colleagues into an awkward spot of having to defend me and worry about their own careers coming under scrutiny.”

“Okay.” Except that still didn’t eliminate the inherent danger in associating with him.

“Your turn.”

What was he talking about?

“Jamie Hunt.” He said my name like a curse.

I’d held nothing back. I’d given him free rein of my mind. I’d taken him to Staci Grant’s house. I hadn’t lied to him.

In fact, I’d been more honest with Lucas Goodman in the past four and a half days than with anyone in my entire life–-even before my world was shattered by a car bomb.

I wondered how he thought he could turn this confrontation. He couldn’t win. He’d lied by omission.

In my line of work, I expected people to lie to me. Frankly I was more shocked when someone told me the truth. But I’d begun to trust Lucas Goodman and his breaking that faith wounded me.

Lies shouldn’t hurt. They might get people killed but they shouldn’t hurt. Yet there was an ache in my chest that sat like an elephant on my lungs.

I realized then, I wasn’t really mad at Lucas. He’d withheld information but I’d known he wasn’t telling me everything. Carson, on the other hand, had lied to me. On so many levels I wasn’t sure where to start.

I shouldn’t take my fear and anger and frustration out on Lucas. He didn’t owe me anything. Not even the truth.

“That’s me.”

“No.” He shifted on the sofa, opening his body language, spreading his arms, rolling his shoulders. “Question number two.”

“Fine.”

He watched me, carefully, intensely. “What is your real name?”

I’d given him my name. “We’ve been over this. Jamie Hunt.”

“And you were lying,” he said savagely.

“I was not.”

“Jamie Hunt is a legend, a cover developed over years and years. You have another name.”

I’d forgotten.

I’d had the name Jamie Hunt since I was fifteen years old, since the day I’d agreed to work for the United States government, since the day I’d vowed to protect my sister.

Anguish pierced my heart.

He meant the name I was raised with. I shifted my gaze to those biographies. I’d wiped that name from my memory.

He jammed his hands in his pockets. “Admit it.”

“My name is Jamie Hunt.”

In thirteen long years, no one had questioned my background. I wasn’t about to reveal the details to a disgraced, ex-FBI agent.

I crossed my arms over my chest, drawing his gaze to my breasts. The action was unintentional and automatic. Distract the target away from their true purpose. Good thing my subconscious was paying attention.

“You weren’t always Jamie Hunt.”

And in that moment, I saw the hurt in his eyes. Even if I wanted to tell Lucas about my prior life, it was forbidden. “You investigated me?”

“You knew I would.”

He got up from the sofa. “I told you. I can spot a fake background.”

“You’re off this time.” I lied without compunction. Even if I wanted to tell Lucas my real name, I could never reveal anything which would link to Bella.

“What is your real name?” He wasn’t going to give up.

But neither was I.

I answered the only way I could. “Jamie Hunt is my real name.”

We stared at each other.

I’m sorry.

I could come up with several good stories. I’d told a number of fabulous lies about my background over the last thirteen years. A runaway girl escaped from tyrannical, overbearing parents. Traveling the world on a yacht, my whole family washed away at sea. An epidemic of influenza wiped out my whole village.

But I didn’t want to lie to him again. “I can’t.”

His gaze was steady on mine. “Parents?”

“Told you before. Gone.”

“Siblings.”

I thought about Bella. So far out of my reach. Even when the ache to connect with her was so strong it hurt. “Not an issue.”

“Then why keep it a secret?”

“I can’t tell you.”

He leaned in closer. Suddenly I could smell the musk of his scent, the heat of his body warmed me.

“I can’t.”

Some of my frustration must have made it through because he backed off. “I’ll let it go...for now.”

I gazed at my barren living room. Staci Grant’s townhouse made me realize not everyone in my line of work lived the way I did. So sparingly, so blandly, so unremarkably.

Her house looked normal, like a photograph from one of my biographies. I found myself wanting to reach for that illusion of normalcy, to reach for that illusion with Lucas. Even though I knew it was false. I offered him an olive branch, small though it was.

“You want to know what I found out about Johnny?”

“Yeah.”

I handed him the file. “It’s more what isn’t in that report than what is.”

Lucas flipped through the pages slowly, his eyes skimming the meager contents.

“No mention of Staci Grant.” He fingered the edge of the paper. “She should have raised a flag somewhere.”

“I would have thought so.”

“This is all you could find out?”

“That’s all that was given to me.”

“Really.” Lucas picked up on my meaning. He tapped the file against his palm. “Can you get me more?”

I hesitated.

I shouldn’t even be seen with him, let alone look into Johnny for him. But something strange was going on. Johnny and Staci Grant. Staci’s 5491 file and mention of the same numbers in the mission file.

Staci Grant seemed to be connected to both of our cases. It wouldn’t hurt to pass along any information I discovered. “I’ll...see what I can do.”

“Fair enough.” And with that, he forgave me. I could see it in his gaze, hear it in his concession. An emotion I refused to identify trickled through me.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Lucas nodded.

“Were the people who kidnapped me FBI?”

“No.” His response was emphatic.

“How can you tell?”

“The moves were wrong.”

I knew exactly what he meant. Every law enforcement agency had their own training maneuvers and practiced team moves until they had them down pat. “Did you train in Hogan’s Alley?”

“Yeah. And their routine was not anything we practiced.”

“Did you recognize it?”

He hesitated. “Could have been DIA.”

The Defense Intelligence Agency?

Lucas added with a shrug, “CIA, maybe.”

“What would the CIA want with me?” And why not just go through official channels? It was a lot of effort to kidnap someone.

I stared at the biography of Ronald Reagan on my glass-topped coffee table.

“Maybe they’re trying to smoke out whoever is impersonating Staci,” he theorized. “And got you instead.”

“Fishing expedition?”

“Yep.”

But the chemicals in that syringe were real enough. And their intent to inject me certainly had been real. The old man had said,
the program is in place
. But just what was the program?

Were they looking for security leaks? Finding them among the kidnapped agents? Researching the efficacy of their drugs?

I thought about Agent Johnson’s death. About Staci Grant’s capture and death. Could they be the results of this program?

Upstairs someone dropped a heavy object, shaking the ceiling.

The sound jolted through me.

“We can’t stay here,” we said in unison.

“Took the words right out of my mouth.” I grabbed my pre-packed ‘gotta roll’ duffel. “How long will it take you to get ready?”

“I’m already there.”

“You could have left without me.” After all, he had the data from Staci’s computer. He didn’t need me. But now I needed that data.

“No, I couldn’t.” His grey gaze was steady on mine.

He scooped up his black duffel. “We need to go to Staci Grant’s office.”

My heart jolted. At the university? That close to Bella? No way.

“It’s the logical place to look next.”

I deflected the idea. “What we really need is to figure out how to break into Staci’s files.” I’d effectively told him I needed to see her files too.

I needed to sit down with all the evidence files from my mission and to analyze the information I’d stolen from the NSA. If we could break into Staci’s files maybe I could tie it all together. The answers to my questions had to be in that data somewhere.

Lucas slung the duffel over his shoulder. His black t-shirt rippled across the muscles in his chest. “I already found the closest library.”

I’d been warned off associating with Lucas. If I left with him, I was making a choice. One that would jeopardize my job and my ability to protect my sister.

But strange things were happening. I couldn’t trust Carson and the evidence pointed to someone within the NSA being involved.

Lucas had been honest with me.

I had to go with my gut and hope I wasn’t making a huge mistake.

TWENTY

The library existed in a time warp. Or someone had gone for a totally retro 60's look.

Utilitarian Danish furniture in light wood held the books. In a reading area, chairs in orange, yellow and pea green circled square tables littered with periodicals. A rug with a psychedelic swirl led from the card catalogs to a rounder with tattered paperback books.

Card catalogs? We were in trouble.

“I should have worn my leather headband and striped bell bottoms,” Lucas murmured.

I prowled through the stacks looking for a side room, any place, that looked more modern. Lucas shifted his black leather computer bag to his left shoulder.

Found it tucked away in a little corner.

Internet Computer Room.

Lucas beat me to the room with a stride to spare and pulled open the door.

A row of study desks with dividers had been converted into computer stations. We had the room to ourselves. I sat down at the first open seat. Lucas sat at the empty bay next to me.

I contemplated how to tell him to bugger off. It wasn’t like me to be wishy washy and that annoyed the hell out of me.

He turned to me. “Promise me you’ll share anything related to Johnny or Staci Grant.”

He’d solved my problem for me. Which annoyed me even more. “Fine.” As long as it didn’t relate to national security.

The library computer was on and ready to go.

After plugging in the flash drive, I used Zeke’s keystrokes and bypassed the encryption on the files taken from the warehouse. The scientists’ files were set up numerically. One through ten.

Ten. Yet, I’d been told, there had only been six agents kidnapped. Seven if you included me. I mentally ran through the information I’d accessed in the mission file. They only referenced six agents.

I opened the first file. No identifying information beyond sex and age, everything else was codes and numbers. I studied the scientist information, mostly numbers. On a whim I did a search for 5491, but came up empty. Again.

It looked like it might be blood work analysis but I couldn’t be sure. To verify my conclusions, I’d need another pair of eyes on this. And I knew I couldn’t go to anyone at the NSA.

“I need a consult,” I said starkly. It was possible since she had knowledge of the drug, she could extrapolate the information in these files. “You think Barb would do it?”

“She’ll do it.” Lucas rattled off Barb’s email address.

I sent her two of the subject files taken from the scientists with a request for explanation of the numbers and data in the file.

I wondered if I was completely destroying my career and my sister’s life. But I needed to move forward with trying to discover who had kidnapped me. I also really wanted to know what chemical they had been going to inject in me.

I leaned over the partition to check on Lucas.

He had set up his own laptop and was busy clicking away. “What’s that?”

“My people search program.” His fingers flew over the keys. “I requested a full asset check on Staci a few days ago.”

The disparity between my life and Staci Grant’s had hit me hard and curiosity ate at my attention like a virus at a cell. I peered at the screen.

The asset check showed her debts. She owed three thousand dollars on the fancy plasma television in her living room and ten thousand to an art gallery in Washington, D.C.

“Huh.” Who spent ten grand on art? “She’s tossing around a lot of cash for a professor.”

“Trust fund.”

“How much?”

Lucas scrolled back up the screen and pointed to an account. “Preliminary asset search shows a net worth of nearly thirty million.”