Deadly Bounty: SCVC Taskforce Romantic Suspense Series, Book 11 Page 4

  Sam asked Joe to clarify, and he repeated her words. “So…quantitative and qualitative analysis helps you determine the odds of attack within a specific neighborhood by people who match a certain profile.”

  Kyle spoke with food in his mouth, but sounded happy Joe understood. “In laymen terms, yeah. It’s partially based on data from the Naval Research Laboratory, result patterns, and predictors by some of our international partners, like Israel.”

  “Israel?” Sam asked, and Joe echoed the question.

  “High amounts of terrorism in their history.” Chewing noises. “Suicide bombers, in particular, focus on accessible crowds such as shopping centers, synagogues, and mosques. What I’m doing is taking the research they and the NRL did and adding my own spin.” His smugness was obvious. “I can look for people who fit a parameter in a specific neighborhood with a defined background and a few other demographic and political variables.” A finger snap. “Bam.”

  Tense silence hung, and Sam imagined Joe holding back his temper. “Once you find them, what happens?”

  “I earmark them and send the info up the line to the QS team.”

  “You could be ruining people’s lives with this.” Sam heard the preachy tone in Joe’s voice and swore under her breath. “You’re predicting something they’re gonna do before they do it. What about free will?”

  Kyle made a soft grunt of dismissal. “Not my problem. The FBI and Homeland get to decide who they’re going after. If their undercover agent gets in deep and thinks there’s a high probability the subject is going through with an act, and my data backs it up, it’s up to the big wigs to decide if they should take out the terrorist. All I’m doing is giving them a more detailed methodology for proof of principle. That’s what they’re looking for.”

  Nothing moved on the street. Sam made sure the Marshal was still in his car. It appeared he was on the phone, probably checking Joe’s plate as suspected, and she made her way downstairs and out the back door of the empty building.

  “Ask who has access,” she said. “Specifically, who sees the analyses he comes up with.”

  In her ear, she heard Joe query Kyle, and the computer geek recite what he’d already mentioned. “Look, all I do is send the flags on to my contact on the Quiet Streets team. They take it from there. I don’t understand the inner workings of the gov.”

  “Who does?” Sam muttered, using the cover of a bus to cross the street and duck behind a series of older cars in the drive between Kyle’s building and that of the neighbors’.

  “But you know Director Dupé?” Joe asked.

  The students, still sleeping off last night’s drunk fest, had left cups and beer bottles on the assorted car hoods. The smell of stale beer hung in the air as she snuck behind that house and into Kyle’s backyard.

  “Only by his rep. Never talked to him personally.”

  The hedge was so overgrown, it perfectly hid the Marshal’s view from the lower rear entryway. It had been sealed off from the downstairs and was probably only used in bad weather.

  The steps creaked, nearly too narrow for Sam’s boots, but no one seemed alerted to her presence and she stopped on the outside of the door at the top to make sure she wasn’t about to walk into the kitchen where the two were having their conversation.

  In her earbud, she heard Joe again. “Seems odd you don’t send any of these directly to Dupé or even Dr. Walsh. He’s head of the Domestic Terrorism Taskforce.”

  “I know who he is. I only send him and Dupé agent analyses.”

  Agents? Like an echo, she heard Joe’s surprise. “They run this software on them?”

  “Sure. Guess they want to catch any who might go to the dark side.” Running water. “It happens, you know.”

  She could see Joe frowning but all she could think was, bingo! “Ask about local agents. Has he run a profile analysis on those working in San Diego?”

  Joe repeated her question.

  “Sure. That gal that set off the bomb at the parade. An agent on the QS team had me run an analysis on her—Rosenthal, I think her name is?—last year.”

  “Who?” she whispered.

  The floor inside creaked and she heard the sounds of the men moving to another room. As she suspected, the back entrance was unlocked, and she slowly opened the door, cringing as the hinges squeaked.

  “Who was the agent? Was it Walsh? Dupé?” Joe asked, “What did the analysis conclude?”

  “All the requests come through them. Can’t say anything definitive about the analysis. I don’t look at the results—top secret stuff—but I’m guessing the percentage was high since she went rogue. They should have caught that, huh?”

  There was the sound of clicking on computer keys. Sam stood in a tiny closet-like space that held a compact washer and dryer unit, some cleaning supplies on a shelf, and a hot water heater with an older bicycle haphazardly shoved against it. Two jackets hung on hooks. Dust and dirt clung to everything. The space smelled moldy.

  Carefully, she maneuvered past the obstacles and found herself outside the kitchen. Slipping in, she could hear them elsewhere and peeked through to view a living room that had been turned into an office space.

  Kyle sat at a desk filled with computer equipment and two large screens. Joe stood with his back to her, looking over the kid’s shoulder at something on one of them.

  Silently, Sam stuck a listening device behind a cheap pantry unit. The miniature camera went over the doorframe, facing Kyle’s workspace. To his right was the entrance that led to the outside steps at the front of the duplex.

  The kitchen smelled of cold pizza and looked like a scene from the movie Twister. Every surface was covered with dirty dishes and random items. The door of the older white fridge held flyers, notes, and pictures, all attached via magnets. Several held more than one thing.

  Front and center, a large magnet with the motto Dance like no one’s watching, Encrypt like everyone is held a used bar napkin with a woman’s loopy handwriting on it. Under her name and number, she’d left the outline of red lips.

  Hoping she hadn’t picked up any roach hitchhikers—there were bound to be plenty here—Sam let herself out, quietly closing the door behind her and going downstairs on silent feet.

  Kyle’s apartment hadn’t exactly been cool, but the heat and humidity hit her full in the face as she emerged outside. The info Kyle had produced pinged around in her brain.

  He hadn’t said it outright, but the data he relied on was about people repeating patterns, embracing their labels, whether cultural, political, or economic. People repeated patterns that got them into trouble sometimes, just like Jimmy T, who’d ended up on that top ten list of Kyle’s.

  She wanted to believe that this type of thing had only begun in an effort for the government to develop recommendations for heightened public awareness in certain areas. To keep explosions from happening thirty thousand feet in the air, or, like her bomber, from injuring innocent people at a well-attended parade celebration.

  Kyle was right about one thing; terrorism was no longer something that happened elsewhere. The battlefield was an all-out war fought by citizens as well as soldiers.

  As she drove away, she realized she needed a new plan. Her battle wasn’t on the street, but in a boardroom somewhere.

  Through the earbud, Joe snapped her back to the present. He’d said goodbye to Kyle and was headed to his car. “This is total bullshit. I’m all for protecting our country, but I can’t believe they’re moving on targets before they’ve even committed a crime.”

  She had no answer. When she’d agreed to go undercover to see if Jimmy T was indeed a strong probability to act on his beliefs and blow something up, she’d felt she was doing the right thing. Stopping terrorists before they could hurt innocent people was never wrong.

  “Sam? Are you there?”

  “I’m here.” Her voice cracked. Knowing someone had run an analysis on her made her gut fire up.

  “Where do you want to meet?” Joe asked. “We
need to come up with a plan.”

  Did he believe she was innocent? She still wasn’t sure.

  While it pained her, for now, she couldn’t risk putting him in any more danger. She needed time to think, to figure out where to go next.

  Hopefully, not prison. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Yanking the device off, she tossed it and the transponder out the window. Hearing the crack of it hitting the pavement and watching in the side mirror as it shattered into a thousand pieces seemed like a metaphor of her life.

  6

  Evening

  Dusk. The humidity had lifted and now everything was dry, heat rising from the pavement in waves as the sun blasted away for its last few minutes above the skyline.

  Joe drove slowly through a rundown neighborhood, the car’s air conditioner on full blast. Jack-Jack hung his head out the passenger window.

  Sam had left him when they’d gone to Kyle’s, which surprised Joe, and she hadn’t come back for him, which surprised him even more. He gripped the steering wheel tighter, thinking about strangling her if—when—he caught her for leaving him high and dry after the interview.

  He’d had her in his grasp again and let her get away. Following her had been a bust and he’d ended up back at his place with the ragtag dog and a note telling him she’d planted a listening device and a camera in Kyle’s.

  God, she was good. Too good. He’d heard her enter that damned apartment and kept Kyle from picking up on it. He’d purposely positioned his back to the kitchen, blocking movement while the kid monitored his social media accounts during the interview.

  Now, thanks to Sam breaking in, he had an illegal tap on the place. He wasn’t sure what to do about it—be happy he could keep an eye on the geek, or worried if he did come up with anything pertinent to Sam’s case, it wouldn’t be admissible in court. Joe could lose his license.

  His brothers would love that. He’d never hear the end of it.

  Not that Cabe or Malachi were above bending the law on occasion, but they were very careful to cover their tracks. The Marshal keeping an eye on Kyle’s would have evidence Joe had been there, and his fingerprints were all over both pieces of equipment, since they belonged to him.

  Joe turned on a street in one of the worst sections. Definitely not a place most went after sundown. Abandoned buildings, an empty warehouse with plenty of broken windows, and a strong gang presence kept smart people away. Tonight, thanks to the heat, the streets were deserted. The area felt like a ghost town.

  Volunteers all around the city were rounding up the homeless to get them in to air-conditioned places. More spread throughout the city, distributing fans to the elderly and those with low-incomes.

  As Joe drove by the warehouse, his eagle eyes scanning for any movement or a car resembling the one he’d caught Sam driving to Kyle’s, Jack-Jack suddenly stood. The dog looked right, tail wagging furiously, and let out a sharp bark.

  Joe slowed more, craning to peer in the same direction. Jack-Jack appeared quite different than he had earlier, thanks to a groomer friend. Jack-Jack had put up a fight when Joe dropped him off, but Wymetta had managed to get him bathed, trimmed, and even provided a flea treatment.

  “What is it, boy?”

  Joe did a U-ey and started back the way they’d come. The dog jumped into his lap, practically knocking his head into Joe’s window.

  As they came to a cross street, Joe took a chance and wheeled right. He wasn’t sure where this one led, but he could see an old abandoned viaduct bridge a few blocks away.

  Jack-Jack began to go crazy again, practically trying to jump out the window when Joe rolled it down. The dog barked loudly and fidgeted on his lap to the point Joe had to struggle to see around him.

  “Okay, okay. I got it. Is this where she is?”

  They crept down the street, partially because Joe was fighting to see around the dog’s head, and also because if this was where Sam was hiding out, he didn’t want to scare her away.

  As they drew closer, he pulled to the curb. Before the car came to a complete stop, the dumb dog launched himself free and started down the sidewalk at an all-out run.

  Joe didn’t take time to roll up the windows, slamming the car into park and taking off after him. He hoped there wasn’t anyone around, because if there was, he probably wouldn’t have much car left when he returned.

  The dog was fast, and before they’d gone a block, Joe was sweating hard. The bottom of the bridge came in to view, and Joe pulled up to catch his breath. What he saw made him do a mental fist pump.

  In the sinking glow of light, he could just make out three figures in the distance, an assortment of lawn chairs near the edge of a swampy looking pool of water. Most likely the industry around here that had long ago died away had pumped run-off from their manufacturing into it.

  As Jack-Jack barked furiously, running to greet the people, all three jumped to their feet, on alert. The one in the middle now had a flat brown hair color, totally nondescript, but he knew that sexy body and the exasperation coming off it, as she started toward him.

  The other two—an older, skinny female, and a tall, younger guy—watched as she kneeled and embraced Jack-Jack first. The dog threw himself into her arms, and she scruffed his ears, allowing him to kiss her face, before standing and putting her hands on her hips.

  By the time Joe was within earshot, the other two had joined Sam, one on each side of her in some weird solidarity. “That’s far enough,” she declared.

  The older lady held a knife, the last vestiges of light bouncing off the blade. The guy, hardly more than a teenager, carried a baseball bat. Jack-Jack trotted toward Joe, wagging his tail and looking between him and the group.

  “You forgot your dog,” he told Sam.

  “Told you, he’s not mine. How did you find me?”

  Joe pointed at Jack-Jack. “Like I said, your dog.”

  Sam’s gaze fell to the mutt. “Traitor.”

  Jack-Jack wagged his tail, trotted in her direction and sat at her feet, looking up at her with adoration.

  “I’ve got food and water in the car,” Joe said to Sam’s companions. Neither moved, although the woman licked her lips.

  “Leave it on the sidewalk and we’ll get it after you go,” Sam instructed.

  “How about I get it and bring it to you?” Joe argued. “Then you can tell me why you bugged that kid’s house and left me responsible.”

  Sam muttered something to her friends and walked forward, lowering her voice. The two walked a few paces away, but kept an eye on her and Joe. “It will help with your investigation. We need to know who’s contacting him or if there’s anyone he’s working for that he forgot to mention.”

  “Why him for this program?” Joe asked. “Why didn’t Homeland use one of their own?”

  Sam gave a shrug. “Asked myself that question a few times. I’m guessing he’s developed more than one program for us—I mean, the government. He doesn’t seem to have any problem with ethics, all he wants to do is code software. My understanding is he’s done a lot of beta testing for different organizations, and think about it. In all honesty, he’s fairly expendable. If anything goes wrong, he’s technically not on the payroll. They can put all the blame on him, if need be, or simply get rid of him if he causes any issues. No one will be the wiser.”

  That was one of the things that had bothered him while pondering this kid’s high intellect and lack of common sense. “Come home with me, Sam. Let’s talk this thing through from the ground up, and get you out of this.” He motioned around with his hands.

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Hey, you two, it’s okay. You can relax.”

  “You sure?” The young man tapped the end of the bat against his leg. “I’m happy to run him off for you.”

  The kid had balls, Joe had to give him that. He was underweight, possibly a junkie, and even with the weapon, Joe could take him down in a flat second. But he kind of liked the idea that Sam had somebody, two somebodies, watching out for
her.

  Sam gave the kid a smile. “If I holler, you come with that bat raised.”

  Reluctantly, her two friends returned to the camp, the old woman throwing glares over her shoulder at Joe. He started toward Sam at the same time she moved, and they met in the middle. Jack-Jack nosed around at their feet, wagging and trying to get their attention.

  Joe knelt and rubbed between his ears. “I swear, Sam, I’m on your side. I can’t sleep knowing you’re out here, exposed. Let go of your paranoia for a second and let me help you.”

  She bit her bottom lip and glanced around, nervously scanning the area. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to be on the run all this time, to be afraid to show your face in public. She’d become the number one terrorist on the U.S. top ten list overnight.

  She reached into a pocket and withdrew a crumpled piece of paper. Unfolding it, she read whatever was on it for a moment, then held it out to him. “Here is a list of suspects. I can tie each of them directly to the undercover operation and they possess the resources to pin the bombing on me. I don’t understand the motivation behind it, but this is the only place I know to begin, now that I understand Kyle’s program and the way they’re using it.”

  He took the paper, noticing the dirt and creases. “Okay, let’s go. We’ll start on the list tonight.”

  A shake of her head. “I can’t go with you.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  Her eyes darted away. “I do, that’s why I’m giving you the names. But I’m way too hot to stay with you. You’re under surveillance, and the risk is too great.”

  Frustration sang in his veins, hotter than the day’s heat on his skin. “Come for an hour, nothing more. Let me feed you. Take a shower—you stink. You can rest, then return here if you want. While you’re doing that, I’ll dive in to the list.”

  Her reluctant smile tugged at his heart. “You always did try to take care of me.”