CHAPTER TWENTY
Three weeks later, The Gravediggers were back in Last Stop and Sergey Egorov and Ivan Levkin were nowhere to be found. The coded messages had stopped, and there was no trace of the false identities they’d taken. The only other useful information Dante had been able to extract from the code was the month of September and several references to the Day of Destiny.
It would be in September. He could feel it in his gut. And their time was running out.
Colin was still in the hospital, but he was alive. An emergency team had been waiting for them when they’d returned to Alaska, and he’d been loaded up and flown off without a word. Eve had relayed in a briefing a week later that he could no longer fulfill the role of an active agent, and that he’d be reassigned to fulfill his contract. Deacon had no idea if he’d ever see Colin again or what Eve’s plans were for him. That was the problem with Eve. No one knew. And her word was law.
Life had returned to somewhat normal since they’d come back to Last Stop. There’d been two funerals the month of August, and it had mostly kept Tess preoccupied. She’d changed since their mission—it was impossible not to—and he noticed she watched things differently now. There was no longer the small-town naïveté.
Miller hadn’t noticed Tess’s brief absence from the funeral home since she’d been holed up in her house on a deadline, but the rest of the town noticed. By the time they returned home, her voicemail was full and there were notes stuck to the door asking if everything was all right. They’d barely been gone three days.
Tess had also returned home to find that her mother had come back, without Carl, and she’d opened the salon as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Theodora had brought Tess back a snow globe from the casino and given her a sweet hug before flitting away to do whatever Theodora spent her time doing.
Tess had become more comfortable moving in and out of the carriage house, though one of them still had to let her into the restricted areas, and she couldn’t be left alone in classified areas. But she’d not slept a night out of Deacon’s bed. Though some of that had to do with the fact that her suite was a construction zone.
Eve had been pleased with Tess’s translations—as much as Eve was pleased by anyone, and because there were so many issues with the Russian Mafiya in power at the moment, she’d had her listening to recordings from surveillance equipment and translating them.
Deacon had given Tess a watch like the one he and the others wore, and explained that if she was ever in distress all she had to do was press the little button on the side and they’d all be alerted. Once she pushed the button, in case she was injured the watch would automatically begin to take her vitals and relay the information.
When her workday was through at the funeral home, she’d sit at one of the corner workstations at HQ for hours, headphones over her ears, typing furiously.
Deacon looked over from his own work area in time to see her stretch and take the headphones off. She stood and did a couple of yoga poses, as she did every hour or so, and it never failed to make his mouth water and his body ache for her.
She caught his stare and smiled, a secretive, Mona Lisa smile that made him wish they could escape upstairs. He wanted her alone. He just wanted her. Period. She was still dressed in her work clothes of black leggings and green blouse that made her eyes seem even more vibrant than usual. The weather was still miserably hot in early September, and the air conditioner was cranked high. She had her hair piled high on her head, and little tendrils had escaped at the nape of her neck.
She came toward him and he squeezed her hand, just a simple touch, but he’d come to treasure those small moments of connection between them.
“Any news?” she asked.
“Egorov and Levkin are here in the United States somewhere,” he said, getting to his feet.
He was frustrated. They all were. Because it felt like the enemy was just within their grasp.
“They’re together,” he said. “Which is why there’s been silence. They don’t need to communicate through code any longer. They’re talking directly to each other. But where the hell are they?”
He could feel the countdown looming closer, and the frustration of knowing they were skirting the edges but hadn’t found what they were looking for was weighing on him heavily. The others stopped to look at him.
“They’ve put too much time and money into trying to direct all traffic into Texas,” he insisted. “It’s going to be here. My gut says it’s here.”
“Your gut is good enough for me, mate,” Axel said.
Deacon appreciated the vote of confidence. “Pull up every major event in the city for the next few weeks,” he told Axel. “Events where attendance numbers are in the thousands—concerts, sporting events, amusement parks, festivals.
“Dante, I want you to search satellite imagery. Let’s see if we can locate a few potential hot spots. We’ll be looking for locations with warehouses. Once they’ve delivered the XTNC-50, they’ll need room to equip it to whatever detonation device they’re using. They’ll want plenty of space. The more remote they are from civilization, the better. Use thermal imaging and satellite to watch traffic patterns. There’s going to be a lot of in-and-out activity.”
“If Egorov and Levkin are both here already,” Axel said, “we should assume that they were able to bring in smaller quantities with them as backup. But they’ll need the larger shipment to carry out plans of that large of a scale. They have an unending supply, as XTNC-50 was created by Russian scientists. We just need to figure out how it’s crossing our borders.”
“There are only so many modes of transportation,” Elias offered. “Land, air, sea, and train. They’ve failed at land and sea. I’ll cross-reference all the flight plans that have come through in the last few months and see if anything pops.”
“How do we know they didn’t succeed in getting it in before they bombed the stadium at the College World Series?” Tess asked.
“They don’t have enough for an attack the size and scale they’re hoping for,” Deacon told her. “If they did, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to bring more in. There’s no doubt they have some in their supply. But the Day of Destiny is an attack nationwide. They need enough product to spread to multiple states and venues. They need a coordinated team.”
They worked tirelessly for hours, sifting through mountains of data, and eliminating locations where Egorov and Levkin might be planning their master attack. It was some time after midnight when Eve Winter’s face appeared on the screen.
“Status update,” she said, her gaze zeroing in on Deacon.
“Still looking,” he said. “We’ve narrowed it to three locations.”
“Narrow it faster,” she said shortly. “There’s a United Nations summit scheduled for this weekend. We’ve just received intel that Putin plans to cancel his appearance, and that he’s not sending any high-ranking government officials in his place. They’re steering clear of the U.S.”
“Not a good sign,” Deacon murmured.
“Exactly. Focus on Egorov. Levkin is nothing more than a lackey. He’ll be the sacrificial lamb. I doubt Egorov lets him live to see their plans come to fruition. Egorov isn’t the kind of man who’d want to share the spotlight. If calculations are right, you have less than a week to hunt them down. I don’t have to tell you what is at stake.”
She finally turned to look at Tess. “Good to see you’re settling in, Ms. Sherman.”
“Thank you,” Tess said simply, her voice neutral.
It was never a good sign when Eve’s voice went from all-business to friendly. Deacon didn’t think friendly was in her DNA.
“I’m glad our little experiment worked out. I’ve decided you might be more use in the D.C. office. We can arrange a transfer once this mission is complete.”
“No, thank you,” Tess said automatically, the ghost of a smirk hinting around that wicked, wicked mouth that seemed to have been created for the sole purpose of driving Deacon crazy.
Eve’s smile was cold, and then she looked back at Deacon. “Didn’t you tell her it’s in her best interest to never tell me no?”
She didn’t give him a chance to answer. The screen went black and the air was thick with unspoken words.
Tess’s face was red with anger, and he shook his head when it looked like she was going to make a comment. They were all on the same team, but things had a way of getting back to Eve. They all turned back to their work, Deacon trying to forget the threat that had lurked in Eve’s voice.
“I think I’ve got something,” Dante said a few minutes later. The three big screens on the wall flickered on, and multiple views of satellite imaging came on.
“This area didn’t rank too high on my radar the past few weeks because it’s a high-traffic construction zone. They’ve got bulldozers and dividers blocking the entire way around the area. But I just checked with city records and there’s nothing scheduled for construction, and hasn’t been for a couple of years.”
“It sure looks like something is going on there,” Axel said.
“What are we looking at?” Deacon asked.
Dante tapped a few keys so the image became a 360-digital view. “This is what used to be Texas Stadium. Just north of where we are now. When the Cowboys moved to the new stadium in Arlington several years ago, this one was set for demolition. Notice the industrial area that surrounds the empty space where the stadium once stood. There’s an old train depot, and several large warehouses. That’s where the thermal vision is lighting up the screen like Christmas. When I compare it to the thermal vision from a month ago, you’ll see a noticeable increase in activity from the past few weeks.”
Deacon whistled as he watched the time lapse of the satellite and heat sensors. “Like Christmas,” he agreed. “That’s a lot of semi trucks going inside the warehouses.”
“But they’re not coming out,” Elias said. “They’re outfitting them. There’s got to be at least twelve of them.”
“Thirteen that I counted,” Dante corrected. “It’s a good location now that I’ve started digging. The area has been in limbo since before the demolition. The developers don’t really know what to do with it, so it’s mostly forgotten about. The city itself is so busy no one is going to stop to check whether or not there’s supposed to be construction. People just follow the detour signs and go on about their lives. Construction in this area is par for the course, so it’s not like they’re not used to it.”
“Does satellite give us any visuals?” Deacon asked.
“I’m running a cross-comparison now with facial recognition. But this is the clincher.” Dante used the keyboard to zoom in on the screen on the left. The men had looked like ants from a distance, but the closer they got the more he could see what Dante was talking about.
“Automatic weapons,” Elias said. “Definitely something in those warehouses that is worth protecting.”
Deacon stared at the screens and started running scenarios through his head. It would be an almost impossible mission.
“We’re one man short.” Axel read his mind.
“No you’re not,” Levi said, coming into the room. “I’m more than field ready. You all know it. I’m tired of being kept here like a prisoner on her orders. She might as well have let me die.”
“You’re right,” Deacon said, not caring that Eve would probably be pissed.
He wasn’t sure why exactly Eve was holding Levi back, but it was almost as if it were some kind of punishment—the way she forced him into testing and recovery early, only to have him do grunt work when he was as well trained and operational as anyone on the team.
“We need to move in tonight,” he said. “The way traffic has picked up on-site makes me think they’re getting ready to roll out. They’ll need time to drive to their destinations. What’s happening this weekend?”
“The United Nations summit is the big one,” Axel said. “But it’s concentrated in New York. It’s scheduled to start Sunday and finish up Monday. It’s also the anniversary of 9/11. There are several large memorial services and concerts planned from state to state, and they’re expecting attendance to be in the thousands. Most of them have been turned into fundraisers for families of fallen officers and members of the fire department, so they’re all-day events.”
“That has potential,” Deacon commented. “And it seems like something a man with Egorov’s ego might attempt. To wipe out the events of 9/11 with his own day of terror.”
“It’s also the start of the NFL season,” Axel added. “Twenty-six teams playing around the country to sold-out stadiums.”
“Twenty-six teams,” Deacon said. “Thirteen stadiums. Thirteen trucks in those warehouses.”
“If that’s where they’re going, they’ll need to pull out within thirty-six hours,” Elias said. “There are rules and regulations for when things from visiting teams have to be delivered to the stadiums.”
“What’s the projected casualty count?” Deacon asked.
Axel pulled up the data. “If they hit every major NFL stadium in America with sold-out crowds, you’re looking at a potential casualty rate of close to a million people.”
“Jesus,” Elias said. “Catastrophic.”
“Right, and it doesn’t change the fact that there are still only five of us to stop all those trucks from leaving the warehouses.”
“I guess I’m not completely understanding,” Tess finally said. “The five of you are planning to invade these warehouses, with armed guards, and stop thirteen trucks from leaving the grounds that are supposedly all carrying a chemical weapon that kills almost instantly?”
“That pretty much covers it.” Elias grinned. “Crazy, huh?”
“It’s insane,” she said incredulously.
“Five is all we need,” Deacon told her. “A highly skilled five-man team can take down an entire army if it’s done right.”
“And what exactly is the right way to do it?” she asked.
The men all stared at her silently.
Tess nodded. “Yep. That’s what I thought.”