Chincoteague, VA

1800 EST

The location of Diavolos’s servers was found on the micro USB that Kaylee had brought from Madrid. They were in Virginia, which surprised Mick, since normally these kinds of server farms were in other parts of the world. The fact that they were hiding right under their noses wasn’t lost on Mick.

Ramona and Jeff were both brought into the meeting after the director left. In part because they were the most familiar with Diavolos’s online presence, and also because the director agreed with Mick that they could use the mole to track Diavolos. Sam also didn’t think that HQ was the safest place for the geek squad now that it had been potentially compromised by Dirk Thomas.

They’d pinpointed the house they thought the servers were in, and were going to be deploying there. Bringing Kaylee and her team on this mission was the last thing Mick wanted. He planned to keep them isolated and protected until the location had been secured.

“We’ll be splitting up as we did the last time. Each group will meet at the designated location and we’ll apprehend whoever is there. Hopefully, Kaylee, you and your team will be able to get information from the servers that will help identify exactly who Diavolos is.”

“Sounds good to me. Why aren’t we all going together?” Kaylee asked.

“It’s easier to make sure we aren’t being followed if we take different routes. We can use smaller vehicles,” Linc answered.

“Everyone ready to move out?” Mick asked.

There was a chorus of yesses and they all stood up and left the boardroom.

Kaylee pulled Mick aside as they reached the elevator. “Go on, we’ll catch up.”

The rest of the group got on and he arched an eyebrow at her, wondering what the hold-up was.

“Are you doing this because of Dirk?” she asked.

“Doing what?”

“Separating me from the rest of the team?” she asked.

“We’re splitting up everyone on your team,” he said.

“You’re still not sure you can trust me?” she asked.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “You, I trust, your dad, not so much.”

“Fine.” She jabbed at the elevator call button and said nothing else as they rode the elevator down to the garage and got into their vehicle. In fact, she was silent the entire drive.

Mick pulled the nondescript sedan that he’d been issued from Grimaldi Global off the road a few hundred yards from the area where they were rendezvousing with the rest of the team.

He should never have told her he had doubts about her loyalty, but he’d never been one of those people who could lie. He wished he was, but there was no point in it. He’d been taught from an early age to say whatever was on his mind. No one he knew cared about sparing feelings or any of that crap.

She shoved her bag back in the rucksack and reached for the door handle, but he stopped her.

“I…I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said. Then immediately felt lame.

“Did you mean what you said?” she asked.

“Yes, I did,” he said. “Being nice doesn’t keep you alive. The truth is, someone has to be giving up information, otherwise how would your dad have known where you were today? We scanned your devices and none of you were broadcasting on the plane and everyone was clean last night.”

She leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked over at him. He was glad that the darkness of the early evening kept him from seeing the expression in her eyes. He was pretty sure she wasn’t too pleased with him.

“So if it’s not me, it must be one of my people?” she asked.

“I feel like we’ve been over this before. Someone knows what’s going on…” he said, trailing off to let her draw her own conclusions.

“You’re right. I know that. But I don’t want to think about it. Like you said, I was betrayed by my dad when I was a kid, and I want to believe I’m smart enough not to fall into that trap again.”

“You are,” he said.

“Or I could be an evil mastermind.”

“I didn’t say evil.”

“But I could be a mastermind?”

“You’re damn smart, and you know it. So yeah, I think you could be a mastermind.”

She smiled—he caught the flash of her teeth—and then she shook her head. “I could really like you.”

“If I wasn’t an asshole,” he concluded. He’d heard it a few times before. At least Kaylee’s tone had been lighthearted and not angry.

“I don’t think you’re an asshole. I like your honesty,” she said. “So what do we do now?”

“Meet up with the team and then we’ll go into the house, secure the servers, and find the person that’s broadcasting,” he said, reaching up to double-tap his earbud. “Three, are you in position?”

“Yes. And deploying,” Cory said.

Mick hoped the drone would pick up some good images so they’d know what they were facing before they entered the house. Most of the time, he hated tech. It didn’t work like it was supposed to, and it made simple ops complicated at times. But this tech he liked.

He muted his mic and turned to Kaylee.

“Get out of the car quietly and walk along the side of the road toward the stone wall. Crouch low when you get to the edge. I’ll be behind you.”

She nodded, opening the door and doing as he’d told her too. He shrugged into his pack as he exited the car, checking his automatic weapon. He always had to confirm it was in the holster. He never knew why, he just automatically did it.

Kaylee moved quickly and quietly and as he followed her, he thought about her childhood. She’d probably learned to move that way back then. To avoid being noticed. There was something about learning to be invisible that Mick knew he’d never forgotten.

She crouched down and he moved in front her. He saw Cade and his team crouched on the other side of the drive. He used a hand signal to Cade to tell him to stay put.

“Three here. Looks like we’ve got three heat signatures inside the building and a room on the third floor that has some sort of security around it that makes it impenetrable to infrared cameras,” Cory said.

“Stay put,” Mick said. He turned to Kaylee. “Is it possible a computer server or farm could be hidden in that room?”

“Yes. Or it could be a location for one of their back-up servers. Seven, Eight and I could check it out,” Kaylee said.

“Four, are you in position?” Mick asked.

“I am. You’re good,” Frank said. As a sniper, he’d been dropped off before his team had reached the location and was watching from a higher vantage point.

“Okay. Five, take Six, Seven and Eight to the room after we give you the all clear. Two and Three, you’re with me,” Mick said. He knew he didn’t need to say anything more to his guys. They would take out the men or woman who were giving off the heat signatures and then they could figure out what they had.

Maybe they’d finally find the answers they needed.

He started to move and felt Kaylee’s hand on his back, he turned to look at her.

“Be safe.”

He nodded. “You too.”

He didn’t want her words to mean that much to him, but he knew they did. He didn’t think about it, instead he focused on his job.

* * *

Kaylee, Ramona, Jeff and Cade waited outside of the house. Cory, Linc and Mick were inside, doing whatever it was that they needed to in order to neutralize the threat in the house. Cade was quiet, just standing next to them with his arms crossed over his chest. He seemed like he was about to fall asleep as they waited, and then Mick’s voice came over the earpiece.

“Good to go, Five.”

“Let’s go,” Cade said, turning to them. He pointed to Jeff. “You’re last, watch our backs.”

Jeff nodded and Kaylee put herself in the middle of the group, letting Ramona go first behind Cade, who led the way into the house. The floors were finished with tile, but the walls were bare, and it was really an empty shell of a house. Ramona was walking carefully in her stilettos, and Kaylee followed her up the stairs to the room in the corner that had been blacked-out to the camera’s sensors. Cade held his hand up, signaling them to stop moving, and they waited for a second while he picked the lock and opened the door. Cade entered first and then signaled for them to follow him in.

It was a large, cold room with a bank of four computers on one wall and some servers in the corner stacked on a table. Kaylee moved to the servers to see if they were hardwired or wireless. Jeff and Ramona both waited while she checked.

“Hardwire,” she said to them.

They all moved to the computers and Cade stood by the open door, again looking as if he was going to fall asleep at any moment. The terminals had a log-on with a complex encryption on them. Kaylee almost smiled at the challenge. She could hear Ramona and Jeff’s fingers moving over their keyboards as they all worked to break into the system.

She knew several key code combinations that might work and tried them first before taking off her bracelet and removing the hidden thumb drive that she’d taken from her bag before they’d moved out. She used it to run a program that quickly broke through the firewall and let her into the system. As soon as she was in, she handed the drive to Ramona who took it and did the same before passing it to Jeff.

“Six here. If we have thirty minutes I think we can get all of the information to take back to analyze.”

“Take your time. We’ve got the place secured,” Mick said.

Kaylee turned to her team and divided up the files, so they could make the most of their time. Most of the information that flashed on her screen wasn’t anything new, so while she was copying the files onto the jump drive she’d retrieved from her bag, she pulled out her laptop and plugged it into the port to trace where it was sending the information.

She had a location that she thought was Diavolos, but she wanted to know the other hotspots he used as a hub. She worked while sitting on the floor, avoiding the forum where she’d left her message for her dad.

Talking to Mick had made it harder for her to believe her own motives weren’t self-serving—after all, what would she do if he actually responded? She couldn’t go and meet her father. She wasn’t sure she could trust him.

Eventually, as she heard the terminal she had been working on beep, she knew she had to make a choice. She was either going to confront her father or just leave it.

She closed her laptop, slipped it back into her messenger bag and went to collect her jump drive from the terminal. Ramona and Jeff looked like they were finishing up as well.

“Anything new?” Kaylee asked as they both stood up.

“I caught a glimpse of some code I’d like to analyze further. It’s either a very good mimic for ConnectU, or it’s the same code,” Jeff said.

Kaylee paused as she was walking toward the door. “Do you think that means the same person wrote the code for both?”

Jeff shook his head at her. “I don’t know. I’m just saying it looked really familiar. You know I worked on security for ConnectU, so that’s what twigged when I saw it flash up. I’m going to need some time to look at it before I can confirm anything.”

“Maybe once we’re back at headquarters you can. I think the director will be interested in that,” Kaylee said. Her gut was twitching like she was missing something. She was tired and had been through the wringer since she’d made that call just over a day ago.

And it was time to head back.

“You ready to go?” she asked Ramona.

Ramona nodded. “I can help with the analysis.”

“Great. We might need everyone on it,” Kaylee said. “I have the virus ready to deploy. Are we sure we got everything?”

“Yes,” Jeff said.

“Yup,” Ramona added.

Kaylee went back to her terminal, accessed the virus file that she’d uploaded with her decryption key, and deployed it. The virus would work its way from the terminal to any devices that tried to log in to it.

She wiped the information from the servers and then moved to join her team.

Cade led the way downstairs, where Cory and Linc were standing guard over three men who had on zip cuffs binding their hands. “Local law enforcement is on their way to collect them.”

“Mick is talking to the director. Frank is on his way to pick us up with a larger transport. We’re going to need room for the computer equipment.”

“Do we have to stay inside?” Ramona asked.

“No. But where would you go?”

“I’m dying for a cigarette,” she said.

“Me too,” Cory said. “Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all,” Ramona said. The two of them stepped out the front door, which they left open.

Kaylee stood off to one side, running through the possibilities of what Jeff had said earlier. They had known going in that Diavolos used the same sort of social media platform as ConnectU to traffic on the dark web. But if he was using the same code, then he could be grooming or even harvesting people from the legit site and bringing them into the underworld—as victims or as new recruits. This was going to add even more pressure to the analysis of the information, it had to be correct and verified quickly.

* * *

Mick’s body ached when he used his arms to pull himself up on the lower branches of the tree in the front yard of the house. Earlier, he’d left his weapon in its holster, preferring to use his fists. He felt good though. Null. It was what he needed. Frank was on his way in, and Mick had gone out to keep watch over the house. He saw Ramona and Cory come out to have a smoke and watched them from his vantage point.

Cory finished his cigarette and then went back inside. Ramona tossed her cigarette and ground it out with her toe, glancing around to ensure she was alone before taking something from a pocket on the inside of her sweater. He noticed her tapping on the device, glancing over her shoulder and lifting the device closer—he assumed to read a response—and then tapping out something else before tucking the thin device back under her sweater.

She fluffed her hair and walked back into the house.

Mick sat there for another moment, weighing his options. He couldn’t alert the team to change channels on their earpieces without raising suspicions with Ramona. But he could give them a head’s up to be on their guard.

“One here. We’ve got a fly in the ointment,” he said.

“Affirmative,” Linc said.

“Do we need to change the rendezvous?” Frank asked.

“Not yet,” Mick responded.

He stayed where he was, watching the house, and a moment later he saw Kaylee walk out the front door and look around.

“Mick?” she called.

He climbed down from the tree, muting his mic.

“Over here.”

She canted her head forward, trying to see him in the shadows, and then carefully made her way over to him.

“Um…what’s up?”

He didn’t know if her entire team was compromised, or if it was just Ramona. He had no idea. But he was going to err on the side of caution, as he always did. So he double-tapped her earpiece to mute it, which startled Kaylee.

“Just saw something,” he said at last, leaning his back against the trunk of the tree and realizing that the agitation he’d felt earlier was back.

Damn.

He’d known it was sexual in nature, but he’d hoped for a few more hours of surcease before it came back.

He was smarter than this. He didn’t have time to lust after a woman who may or may not be working both sides of the law.

She moved closer and he noticed that she looked tired. He didn’t blame her. He was exhausted himself. It seemed like a lifetime ago when he’d testified in The Hague. The last few days had taken some surprising turns.

“I’m not playing you,” she said. “I didn’t even go and look online to see if my dad tried to make contact with me. I could have, but I didn’t because my loyalties are with Grimaldi Global, and for now, Ares Team.”

“Good to know,” he said. He was glad to hear it. Though he couldn’t show her he wanted her to be free of her father. No connections, nothing to bring a cloud of suspicion to her.

She shook her head. “Must be nice to sit in judgment all the time.”

“Are you looking for a fight?”

“Maybe,” she admitted. “You said I could hit you.”

“Did you come out here to do that?” he asked.

“No. I came out her for something else.”

Every nerve he had came alive. His skin tingled at the thought of what she might be implying, and he shifted so that he was leaning the slightest bit toward her. This had bad idea written all over it, but he wanted her. He knew it, and he was tired of denying himself.

He’d never met a woman like Kaylee and she was here. Right in front of him.

He spread his arms open and she nibbled on her lip for a long minute before she stepped closer and then just sort of threw herself at him. He wrapped his arms around her, letting the feel of her curves settle into his body. Her hair was soft against the side of his neck, her touch tentative when she put her hand on his back and rubbed it up and down his spine.

“This is bigger than I thought it would be,” she said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Suddenly he wasn’t sure she was out here for sex. Of course she wasn’t. It was like because he’d talked to her and shared things with her that he normally kept to himself, he’d forgotten the kind of man he was.

She shook her head. “Never mind.”

“No, not never mind,” he said. “Ramona was secretly communicating with someone when she came outside. Now you’re saying something is bigger than you thought it would be. What’s going on?” He set her aside, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Ramona did what?”

“She took a device from her sweater and typed something into it. Waited for a response and then typed something else,” Mick said. “Is that what you meant when you said it was bigger?”

“No. Jeff found a code similarity to the social media site ConnectU, which is huge. If they’re using that to find victims…forget it. That’s something I can worry about later. Are you sure about Ramona?”

“As sure as I can be from here,” he said.

“Damn. The director said that we had a mole in the Madrid office, but I assumed it was an analyst who wasn’t on my team.”

“He didn’t know who it was, or he would have told you,” Mick said.

“How can we find out for sure if it’s her?” Kaylee said.

“I’m not going to alter our plans,” Mick said. “Grimaldi will come and take the three men we apprehended into custody, but not until after we’re clear, so that they don’t lead anyone to our position.”

“So if someone follow us, it’s down to Ramona,” she said.

He nodded.