Chapter Eighteen
Contrasting textures and temperatures nudged Aidan toward consciousness. Something cold and smooth rested on his hip, something warm and soft blanketed his back. He nuzzled into the heat and shifted away from the chill, chasing the blissful cocoon of sleep, until a hand covered his mouth and rocketed him awake.
Before he could strike, a big, heavy arm looped over his torso and pressed the butt of a gun into his chest. The pistol registered as familiar, as did the muscled arm and Southern drawl in his ear.
“Someone’s at the door.”
Stilling, Aidan heard it—scrape, scrape, scrape—against the front lock. He rotated his head, eyeing Walker over his shoulder as he tapped two fingers against the gun. “Spare?”
“In the closet safe. Take this one.” Walker handed over his gun and rolled off the rumpled bed the opposite direction.
Aidan dove off his side, spotted a pair of jeans on the floor, and yanked them on. He stopped to listen again.
Muffled voices, two at least, outside the front door.
Flattening himself against the wall, he edged over to the bedroom door, gun held at the ready. Walker, in nothing but gray boxer briefs, appeared out of the closet, backup weapon in hand, and assumed a similar position against the opposite wall.
The voices outside quieted and Aidan chanced a peek. A tall man stood on the other side of the glass door, an ominous figure in the early morning darkness. The stranger knelt and the lock-scraping resumed. Aidan motioned for Walker to follow. Crouched low, they scurried past the dining table and hid, weapons drawn, between the barstools under the dining bar.
The lock on the front door gave with a loud click.
Familiar with their surroundings, he and Walker had the advantage in the darkness. Aidan motioned for a takedown. When the intruders pushed through the door and came around the front of the bar, they sprang from their hiding place, Aidan in the lead.
It took less than five seconds for him to wind up facedown on the floor, divested of his gun, with a knee to his back and his arms pinned behind him. The overhead lights flipped on and Aidan lifted his head. At the far end of the bar, scattered papers and files lay next to an open briefcase on the floor. Above the mess, Walker pressed a dark-haired, suited man against the wall, his weapon trained on the back of the intruder’s head.
An intruder Aidan recognized all too well, even from his awkward angle.
Face turning toward him, Danny widened his coal-black eyes, and his booming laugh filled the room. “Bro, you got taken down by a girl. Hard.”
“Says the man pressed against a wall with a gun to his head.”
“Yeah, but Jamie’s a lot bigger than her.”
“Her” was the sole focus of Walker’s anxious gaze. He lowered his gun and backed away from Danny. The bruises on his sternum and temple and the bite mark on his tattoo were vivid on his blanched skin. “Ma’am.”
Aidan didn’t need to look over his shoulder to know who the “Ma’am” was pinning him to the floor. Only one woman could take him down that fast and that hard, as Danny so aptly put it.
“You want to get your knee out of my back, Mel? I’ve got enough bruises as it is.”
Snickering, she removed her knee and hauled him up, hands still clutched behind his back. His left arm ached and the rest of his body protested yesterday’s activities.
All of them.
“You gonna perp walk me to my room?” he asked.
“I might need to. In case you get tangled up in Walker’s jeans.”
He didn’t need to look down to know what she saw. Too-long denim bunched beneath his feet, the frayed ends tickling his toes.
Danny whistled low. “Busted.”
Walker’s insta-blush tanked any chance of denial. “I’m gonna go get dressed.” He avoided eye contact with everyone and cut through the kitchen and into his room.
Once the door shut, Mel spun Aidan to face her. She was impeccably dressed, as always. Not a wrinkle in her designer pantsuit, not a curl out of place, despite a late-night flight and textbook takedown. She grasped his chin and tilted his face side to side, inspecting yesterday’s damage. “You want to explain?”
The injuries or the fact that he was wearing Walker’s clothes? Neither was a question he intended to answer before coffee and pain pills. He needn’t have bothered though, answering or holding his tongue. Releasing his chin, Mel stepped aside and swept the room with her assessing gaze. The answers were apparent everywhere. Melted ice packs in the sink, two bottles of pain pills on the bar, balcony doors open, abandoned mugs of tea and phone on the railing, a trail of clothes littering the path to Walker’s room.
Her dark eyes, identical to Gabe’s, swung back to him, and the guilt he’d put out of his mind the past six hours rushed back in, closing off his throat, strangling his words, and heating his face. Her stern expression softened. “I didn’t see anything.”
What didn’t she see, or rather, chose not to see? His betrayal of her brother, his husband? Or his and Walker’s blatant disregard for Bureau policy?
She click-clacked on mile-high heels into the kitchen, making a beeline for the coffeemaker. “Go get changed. I want a full debrief.”
Grateful for the reprieve, Aidan shuffled to his room, picking up scattered clothes on his way. He’d almost made a clean getaway when Danny stuck an arm in the bedroom door.
“Not so fast.” He followed him inside and closed the door behind them. “Mel might have let you off the hook, but I’m not.”
“Why the hell were you picking the lock to your own condo?” Aidan deflected. He grabbed a clean pair of boxers and jeans from his suitcase and headed for the bathroom. “And why the hell are you even here?”
“I forgot my key.”
“You didn’t think to knock? Or ask the concierge to let you in?” Aidan grabbed a washcloth, ran warm water over it, and wiped down his stomach, wincing as hairs came unstuck from his skin.
“Where’s the fun in that? And I didn’t know you were here. We thought you were still at the hospital. I suggested we get you and Jamie a change of clothes before heading over. Should’ve known you’d check yourself out against medical advice.”
“The hospital called you?” Aidan inspected the rest of yesterday’s damage, gently prodding the bruises on his head, chest and side.
“No, Mom called me, after you talked to her and Katie last night. I already had the jet ready. I was planning to personally deliver those cargo manifests.”
Aidan brushed his teeth and spat, then, after rinsing the washcloth out, wiped it over his mouth and face. “I told you to stay out of this.”
“When did that ever work?”
Never. Aidan didn’t know why he expected it would this time. He’d been the one to train Danny as the perfect accomplice. By age ten, his little brother’s lock-picking skills far exceeded his own.
Aidan was pulling on his jeans when the dark-haired devil appeared behind him in the mirror, blocking the bathroom exit. “Spill it.”
Turning, he rested against the sink and clutched the vanity’s edge. “It’s not going to happen again.”
No matter how much he wanted it to. And after last night, he did. He wanted to run his hands through Walker’s silky hair, drag them down his body, and grasp that most intimate part of him again. He wanted to drown in his lust-darkened blue eyes, his rich taste, his firm yet gentle touches. He wanted to feel that big, hard body on top of him again, and he wanted to know if the inside of Walker was as warm as the outside.
But he couldn’t.
“You’re allowed to move on,” Danny said softly. “And there is no right or wrong time. Everyone’s grief is different.”
Aidan scrubbed his hands over his face. “It’s only been eight months.”
“Closer to nine now.” Danny’s hand landed on his shoulder. “See how fast time flies when you’re having fun.”
Aidan smiled weakly, melancholy tempering his usual fondness for Danny’s good-time antics. His reticence to start something with Walker was about more than honoring Gabe. Last night had been good. So good he’d forgotten not only his husband but also the pain that came from losing something that good. Yesterday reminded him of that. So did seeing Mel. He had to shut down this thing with Walker before he wound up with another hole in his chest.
“Ai,” Danny started, but then they both froze as the smell of something cooking wafted under the door. “Please, God, tell me Mel’s not cooking.”
Shaking off his brother’s hold, Aidan shoved his feet into his flops and jerked on a T-shirt, wincing. If Mel was about to burn down the condo, he had to get out there and stop her, aches be damned. He bolted past Danny, then came halt in the living area. Mel sat on a stool, legs crossed, foot bouncing to some tune in her head, while Walker, dressed in jeans and a tee, stood in front of the stove.
“He cooks, too.” Danny jostled past and climbed onto the stool next to Mel. “Smells good, Jamie. What’re you making?”
“Sausage biscuits and gravy.” Walker smiled over his shoulder, eyes snagging on Aidan before diverting to Danny. “Well, technically, biscuits and sausage gravy, but I grew up saying it out of order. Everyone says it out of order where I’m from. It’ll be ready in a few.”
Walker was rambling, uncharacteristically nervous. For someone who didn’t like attention, he had garnered all the wrong kind this morning, from his boss no less. Aidan wanted to make it better, but he was confused enough as to his own feelings. Under the watchful eyes of Mel and Danny, he settled for fixing their coffees instead.
“So boys,” Mel said, “you want to tell me exactly what trouble you’ve been getting up to?” Her gaze bounced around to each of them.
Danny raised his hands in mock surrender. “I’m just the hapless accomplice.”
“Hapless, my ass.”
He stretched an arm over the back of Mel’s chair and tilted toward her. “And a mighty fine ass it is, Ms. Cruz.”
She leaned into his space, forcing him to lever back. “That’s Agent Cruz to you, gringo, and if you don’t watch it, I’ll take you to the floor too.”
“Is that a promise, chiquita?”
Mel rolled her eyes and Aidan and Walker laughed, Danny’s ribbing breaking the heavy tension. Aidan finished fixing coffees, popped open their pill bottles, and tapped out two for himself and three for Walker. He placed a mug and pills on the counter next to the stove and got a thankful smile for his efforts. He downed his own then set mugs in front of Danny and Mel.
Once everyone was caffeinated, Aidan launched into his debrief, filling Mel in on the case and events leading to yesterday morning’s accident, Walker adding technical details as needed. Midway through, Walker set a basket of biscuits, a big pot of sausage gravy, and four plates on the clean end of the table. Without having to be told, the rest of them moved to the table, following the enticing aromas. Aidan and Walker finished bringing their boss up to speed, pausing frequently to eat the first good meal either of them had had since Monday night.
“And what does the civilian have to do with this?” Mel asked, side-eyeing Danny.
“My brother has a contact at the Port who provided certain information. Speaking of—” he turned to Danny “—you mentioned manifests.”
“Ah, yes, the hapless civilian being useful.” Smirking at Mel, Danny retrieved three bulging pocket files from the mess still on the floor at the far end of the bar. He dropped the first one in front of Walker. “The list of ships docked at the Port during each breach.” He pushed the second across the table to Aidan. “Manifests for the commercial ships on Walker’s list.” He handed the last file to Mel. “High-value targets currently at or coming into the Port this week. Pulled that one together myself.”
“Look at you being the self-starter.” Aidan rifled through the manifests in his folder. He stopped when he reached a commercial vessel whose point of origin was Morocco. “It’s all here.” He placed the alarming manifest in the center of the table. “All the parts for a biological dirty bomb, minus the toxin.”
Danny pointed at the departure date on the manifest. “That ship’s gone.”
“So the bomb parts were moved off.”
“But not out of the Port,” Walker said. “The hacks on GNL are twofold—to remove a biological agent and to draw first responders away from the Port.”
“The Port’s the target.” Mel slapped down another piece of paper, her red nails pointing at two entries. “Luxury liners scheduled to dock this afternoon. Two thousand plus passengers each. Combined with the Port workers, the number of casualties would be huge.”
“Maximum loss of life, no responders,” Walker said. “It’d be the biggest terrorist attack on American soil since nine-eleven.”
“We don’t have the time or manpower to search all the containers and ships at the Port, and no one there is going to help us,” Aidan said. “They closed up tight when we went in last time and all our evidence was ruined in the crash.”
“Not to mention they tried to kill you in that crash,” Mel said.
Aidan saw the shudder Walker failed to suppress.
“We need to keep you two out of sight as long as possible,” Mel added.
“Use the civilian,” Danny chimed in.
Aidan furiously shook his head. “No fucking way.”
“They’re used to seeing me around.”
“You don’t think they can connect one Talley to another, especially that union rep?”
“I’ll avoid him and Marge. As for the rest, you were accompanied by a very attractive, very distracting former basketball star, and name aside, we look nothing alike.”
Mel tossed aside her file. “He’s got you there. On both counts.”
Aidan stewed in silent concession. There was no denying the distracting power of Jameson Walker, having fallen victim to it himself, nor that Danny, with his black eyes, black hair, and freckle-free skin, looked nothing like Aidan.
“I’ll go with him,” Mel said. “They don’t know me.”
“As my assistant,” Danny suggested way too cheerfully.
“If by ‘assistant’ you mean the brains of the operation that keeps your ass in line,” she shot back. “We need to take this to Gary.”
“Don’t.” They were finally getting to the topic Aidan had dreaded. Gary was Mel’s friend, but someone on his team was conspiring with terrorists. “There’s a mole in his shop, and I won’t put either of you in jeopardy. This stays between the four of us, for now.”
“Fine,” Mel said after a long, atypically indecisive moment. “But if you get even a whiff of an attack in progress, you converge on the Port with all the manpower you can muster. Can you narrow down the who or the what we’re looking for?”
“We know the who already. Eric Hamilton and Terry Altman. We’ll get you the rest.”
* * *
Aidan ducked into the observation room on the other side of the two-way mirror from where Walker and Torres were questioning Jo Ann Richmond.
“Anything yet?” he asked Gary, who stood in front of the glass.
Removing his cowboy hat, Gary tossed it on one of the chairs behind them and wiped his brow. Nine in the morning and the A/C was already struggling against the blazing late summer heat outside. “Just getting started. You get everything settled with Detective Helms?”
“I told him what I remembered, which I gathered from his scowl was less than Walker.”
“Sorry I couldn’t spare you that. He was waiting for us to unlock the doors this morning.”
“He’s just doing his job.”
“You didn’t recognize the drivers or the SUVs at all?”
“Like Walker said, the drivers were disguised and the vehicles were generic. Helms said the plates turned up stolen. They’re checking dental records against the bodies.”
Gary made a stumped “Hmm” sound, and Aidan returned his attention to the other room. Torres was still going over introductory questions with Jo Ann, who had forestalled questioning yesterday by requesting an attorney. She didn’t look any more comforted today by the public defender sitting by her side.
At the short end of the table, Walker sat relaxed in his chair, suit jacket open, shiny black shoe resting on his knee. Other than the bandaged cut at his hairline and the lines that appeared around his eyes and mouth if he moved too quickly, he showed no signs of yesterday’s roller coaster.
None of it.
But out of sight didn’t translate to out of Aidan’s mind. While Walker’s light blue dress shirt covered most of his bruises, including the one Aidan left in the center of his tattoo, Aidan could still taste the lingering salt of his skin, could still feel the remembered heat of him and the phantom touch of those powerful hands.
Stop it.
Even if thinking of Walker that way didn’t feel like a betrayal of Gabe’s memory, there was no getting over the insurmountable fear of loss keeping Aidan from making any romantic attachments. He refused to go through that again. If being afraid kept him safe, so be it.
“You’re afraid of Eric?” Walker’s question, his use of the very word in the forefront of Aidan’s mind, brought him back to the present. Walker leaned forward, voice calm and soothing. “We can help you, Jo Ann. You don’t need to be afraid anymore.” He expertly coaxed their suspect, and Aidan felt like he was being coaxed too.
The slight, haggard-looking blonde cowered on the other side of the table, her green eyes locked on Walker like he was her last hope. “If I confess to hacking GNL...”
“You don’t have to confess to anything, Ms. Richmond,” the attorney said.
Walker ignored the interruption. “There will be consequences, but if you help us find Eric and Terry, we can recommend those consequences be minimized.”
She bit her bottom lip, wavering, and Walker nodded encouragingly. She looked to the attorney. “Is he telling the truth? Will my sentence be reduced?”
“Most likely, yes, we’ll be able to work out a deal.”
Looking back at Walker, she took a deep breath. “What do you want to know?”
“You and Eric were foster siblings, is that right?”
“Yes, in New Orleans.”
“So he knew who you really were? Who Emily was?”
She nodded. “Emily and Eric dated in high school, before he left for the military.”
“When did you first see Eric here in Galveston?”
“I’ve been dating Terry off and on for a while. About three months ago, we went back to his place after a date. He wanted to show me his new apartment and introduce me to his roommate.”
“Eric Hamilton,” Torres supplied.
Of course.
Hamilton wasn’t just a dockworker and former EOD specialist. He was a trained mercenary. He did his research, knew Terry had ties to GNL and dated Jo Ann. He could leverage them both. They were his way in.
“Eric said if I didn’t help him, GNL and the authorities would find out what I’d done, that I’d stolen Emily’s identity.”
There had to be more. She could hack her way out of those offenses, if necessary. What else was she holding back?
“Was that all Eric threatened?” Walker asked, following the same train of thought.
Jo Ann swiped at the tears leaking from her eyes. “He said he’d tell our foster family where to find me.”
By the twisted look on her face, half anger, half shame, Aidan didn’t need to hear more.
Torres asked anyways. “What happened with your last foster family?”
“He...” She paused and took another deep breath. “My last foster father took liberties, with all of us. Even after I moved on campus, he would show up at my dorm and at school. He used to call at all hours of the night. He wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“So Emily died in a boating accident after your senior year at Tulane, and you assumed her identity in order to disappear?”
“And to take care of Dad. I mean Emily’s dad, Dale. He’s the only real parent I’ve ever had. He didn’t have anyone left and neither did I. We were all we had left,” she said, crying in earnest now.
Torres snagged a box of tissues from the credenza behind them. They waited for Jo Ann to pull herself together, before Walker asked, “Did Eric or Terry tell you what the purpose of the hacks were? What you were after?”
“All they told me was which locks to hit and when to hit them. They wanted me to time how long I was in the system before I got booted out.”
“Response times,” Aidan said to Gary.
“Seems so,” the other agent replied.
“There was a hack yesterday morning, Jo Ann,” Torres said. “Did you set that one to run in advance?”
“The last one I ran was Sunday afternoon, before I came on shift.”
“How were you getting into the system without being flagged?”
“I piggybacked in on someone else’s login. Once inside, I used a randomly generated IP address.”
“But you had to have already laid a groundwork of openings. Did you do that with your own login?” Walker asked, and Aidan recalled the unusual network activity Kevin had spotted.
Jo Ann nodded.
Walker leaned forward. “Did Eric or Terry ever give you any indication that they intended to remove a biological agent or toxin from GNL?”
“That was the odd thing. Terry would rattle off toxins from time to time, but Eric was always more concerned with timing and how long I was in the system.”
A terrible theory formed in Aidan’s mind. One he and Walker, with Mel and Danny, had touched on that morning. Now, with Jo Ann’s responses, the idea became frighteningly concrete. He tapped twice on the glass and waited for Walker and Torres to excuse themselves and join him and Gary in the observation room.
“The bomb’s already there,” he said, the instant the door closed behind them.
“But they only accessed the materials cabinet yesterday,” Gary said. “Dr. Altman reported nothing missing. They don’t have everything for a bioweapon.”
Aidan shook his head. “Diversion.” He still didn’t know who on Gary’s team was the mole, but the time for withholding information had passed. He had to follow Mel’s orders. “This morning, we received cargo manifests for the ships in dock during each hack. We were looking for parts for a biological dirty bomb, and they were all there.”
“Except the toxin,” Gary reiterated.
“They don’t need it,” Walker said, catching on. “Put those existing bomb materials together with explosives already on-site at the Port, and you’ve still got a deadly explosive.”
“Exactly,” Aidan said.
Barnes burst into the crowded room. “We finally got Hamilton’s discharge papers.” He handed each of them a file folder, and Aidan skimmed through the papers as Agent Hipster continued to speak. “Hamilton was suspected of selling arms to local warlords and other known arms dealers. Never proven, so they didn’t charge him, but it was enough to get him discharged. One of the parties he’s suspected of dealing with is Pierre Renaud, a French émigré residing in Morocco, who Interpol believes is linked to terrorist attacks in Europe and North Africa.”
Aidan flipped back to the photo he’d passed several pages ago. A color shot of a Caucasian male with green eyes and white-blond hair, standing in what looked like a North African or Middle Eastern bazaar. Taller than anyone around him, Renaud stuck out like a sore thumb, but he stood with a nothing-can-touch-me air of confidence that came from power and money. Lots of both. Usually obtained illegally.
“Six months ago,” Barnes said, “Hamilton received three million dollars, routed through a Swiss bank and deposited in a Caymans account Walker tagged.”
“Origin?” Aidan asked. “Any more deposits?”
“Origin still unknown. As for additional deposits, three million was deposited on the day of the first hack and another four million was deposited less than an hour ago.”
Ten million total.
Aidan would lay even money on the attack occurring today.
And he’d sent his best friend and brother in alone.
“We’ve got a team on-site at the Port,” he told Gary. “We’ll have them see if they can find anything on Renaud there. In the meantime, we need to get back-up, evac, and search teams out there right away. Call Helms, get everyone you can. I’ll run it on the ground, you run it here.”
“We’re on it.” Gary grabbed his hat and headed for the door. “Torres, Barnes, with me.”
Barnes moved to follow, but Walker grabbed him by the arm. “Were there any payments out of Hamilton’s account?”
“Yes, transfers were made out of Hamilton’s account to two others. We assume those belong to Terry and Jo Ann, as Hamilton’s accomplices. We’re running those down.”
Walker signaled Aidan to wait and followed Barnes out the door. He slipped back into the interrogation room and sat across from Jo Ann. Aidan watched from the other side of the glass.
“Jo Ann, just one more question. Did Terry or Eric pay you for helping them?”
Tears filled her eyes again. “They didn’t have to. The threats were enough.”
Walker covered her hand with his. “Thank you, Jo Ann. You’ve been a big help to this investigation.” She smiled through her tears, the Walker charm working its magic. He waited for two officers to arrive to escort her back to holding before he stepped back into the observation room.
“That other account isn’t Jo Ann’s.”
“No, it’s not,” Aidan agreed. “It’s for Hamilton’s other inside man. The one here.”