Chapter 1 #2
"You might not have been."
"But I am."
He gave her an assessing look, then slowly nodded. "Okay. I need to get back to work. Take care of yourself."
"I will."
As she turned away, she saw two FBI agents approaching the scene, Monica Greer and Cy Barash, who worked explosives response. She'd been on violent crimes the past year, so their paths had crossed a few times.
Monica gave her a look of surprise. "What are you doing here, Reid?"
"I was getting coffee. I had just left when the bomb went off."
"That's lucky. Do you know anything about the explosive?"
"It was placed in a trash can next to the restroom."
"Did you see anything? Anyone running from the scene? Watching the fire afterwards?" Agent Barash asked.
"No, I didn't see anything. The police have been talking to witnesses. Hopefully, one of them saw something."
"We'll coordinate with NYPD. Glad you're okay." Monica paused. "And good luck with Colter's group. He's a good guy. I worked with him a few years ago."
"Nice to hear," she said as Monica and Cy went to talk to the NYPD incident commander, Captain Lisa Rodriguez. She wanted to join them, but she wasn't working for 26 Fed anymore, and it was time to get to her actual job.
Hopefully, this explosion was a one-off and not the beginning of something more.
An hour later, after stopping at her apartment to shower and change clothes, Kara drove to her new team headquarters, a three-story building in Murray Hill.
The central location made it easy to respond to issues anywhere in the city, but far enough away from 26 Fed to maintain its own independence.
There was no sign on the building, nothing to draw attention to their existence, as their team would operate covertly when needed.
After parking in the underground garage, she used a biometric scanner to enter the elevator and a fingerprint scan to take it to the third floor.
When the doors opened on an unimpressive hallway, she walked down the corridor and used another biometric scanner to enter through the double doors leading into the office suite.
Inside, there was a reception desk with a computer and a phone, but it was more for appearances than anything else.
She entered through another armed door, arriving in the open-concept office space with eight desks in the central bullpen and two glass-walled offices at one end, with a large conference room that looked over the city.
There were two agents at their desks: Natalie Ramon, an agent who'd recently transferred from an office in Latin America, and Zane McDougal, a former Wall Street exec with a background in financial crimes.
Natalie was on the phone, and Zane was on his computer.
She set her bag down on her desk and headed toward the conference room, where she could see Jason Colter standing in front of the monitors, while Alina Volkov and Tyler Brennan sat at the table.
Jason was in his mid-thirties, tall and fit with brown hair and light-blue eyes.
He had literally been born into the FBI.
His grandfather and father had both risen to the top levels of the bureau, but Jason had chosen a less politically ambitious path, refusing to rely on his last name to get him ahead.
He'd come up through the trenches, and in the past year, he had closed some big cases, leading to his new post as director of Strike Team East.
Alina Volkov was a stunningly pretty blonde in her early thirties, whose parents had fled Russia when she was a baby, but her Russian roots and fluency in multiple languages had taken her from a position in the State Department to the FBI.
Next to Alina was Tyler Brennan, who had started his intelligence career with the Army's Delta Force before joining the FBI two years ago, working in both LA and Chicago.
He had rugged good looks and an abundance of confidence.
As she opened the door, all eyes turned to her.
"Kara," Jason said with a nod. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm doing all right." She had some cuts on her knees and hands and a deep scratch on her forehead from some glass, which she'd put a small bandage over, but otherwise she was okay.
"You look better than I expected," Alina said, offering her a warm smile. "Considering you were at ground zero."
"Why were you in the café?" Tyler asked. "Were you meeting someone?"
"No. I had to drop off a file at the courthouse for my last case. I was just grabbing a coffee before I headed here. I've been to that café many times. It's still difficult to believe what happened."
"Did you get any more information?" Jason asked.
"The fire chief told me the explosive device was small and placed in the garbage can next to the restroom.
Special Agents Greer and Barash from 26 Fed were at the scene, as well as NYPD.
" She pulled out a seat at the table, noting the monitor behind Jason contained photos from the scene, including a photo of a woman, the same woman who'd given her a dark look when she'd gotten too close to her. "Who is that? I saw her in the café."
"Samantha Barkley, federal prosecutor," Jason replied. "She was pulled from the restroom in critical condition."
"Oh my God," she murmured, her gaze locked on Samantha's professional headshot. "She went into the restroom because a man spilled his coffee on her."
"Deliberately?" Tyler asked sharply.
"I didn't think so, but…maybe."
"Who was the man?" Jason asked.
"Middle-aged. He had on dirty jeans and a Knicks sweatshirt. His hair was a mix of brown and gray, not styled, long and messy. He apologized to her after spilling his coffee. She reacted with extreme annoyance. He shrugged and walked away."
"Did he stay in the café?" Tyler asked.
"No. He left. And Ms. Barkley went into the restroom.
To be frank, she was irritated before the coffee spill.
She was on the phone with someone, and when I got close to her, she gave me a glare and moved away.
That's when I first noticed her, and their collision occurred right in front of me.
" She paused, wondering where this was all going. "Are we working this case?"
"Yes. Damon has asked us to take over," Jason replied, referring to Damon Wolfe, who ran the New York field office, commonly referred to as 26 Fed.
"Apparently, Ms. Barkley has had conflicts with agents in Damon's office, and he wants a clean investigation.
Since you were at the scene, Kara, you'll take the lead.
You and Tyler can work with NYPD. Alina will connect with ATF.
We need to find out if Ms. Barkley was the target, with the others as collateral damage, or if she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. "
She nodded, surprised but also excited to have the lead, especially for a case that had literally exploded right behind her.
"Sounds good. There was another individual who stood out to me, besides the one who spilled the coffee.
A man entered the café just after Ms. Barkley went into the restroom.
He came inside and scanned the scene as if he were noting every detail.
Then he walked out. He was probably inside for less than a minute.
That said, after the bomb went off, he came back to the café to help rescue people.
If he were connected to the bombing, he probably wouldn't have done that. "
"Unless he wanted to throw suspicion away from himself," Tyler suggested.
"Possibly," she conceded. "I'm sorry I didn't get his name. I was helping someone when he went past me. We were both ordered out when the fire department arrived. I looked around for him later, but he had disappeared."
"Wes is pulling security footage from the scene," Jason said, referring to the head of their tech team, Wes Paulson.
"Let's see if either of the men you described was caught on camera leaving the scene.
If not, Kara, I'd like you to sit down with Elliott Briggs.
He's not only an analyst; he's also an excellent sketch artist. Any kind of description would be helpful going forward.
Let's get to work." As the others got up, he added, "Kara, hang back. "
She waited as Tyler and Alina left, then gave Jason a questioning look.
"How are you really doing?" he asked, his sharp blue gaze running across her scratched-up face. "And I want an honest answer."
"Honestly, I'm fine."
"You were in an explosion, Kara. It's okay to not be fine."
"I know. But aside from a few scratches and bruises, I'm in good shape, physically and mentally. You don't have to worry about me."
"Good. But I want to reiterate that needing time to process an attack like this is not a sign of weakness. This team will only succeed if we trust each other to tell the truth."
"I agree. And I'm energized to get to work. I have skin in the game—literally."
"Thankfully not too much," he said with a small smile.
"Thankfully," she echoed. "And I appreciate your confidence in me to lead this case."
"Damon told me you're a superstar in the making."
"That's a lot to live up to."
"I believe you're up to the challenge."
"Thanks. I won't let you down."
His words pumped up her confidence, making her believe this unit would be the right place for her to develop her career.
But she would have to do good work to make that happen.
And that work would be with people she'd only met in the past week.
Trust might be key, but they barely knew each other.
Still, she was used to hitting the ground running, so that's what she was going to do.
After leaving the conference room, she made her way into the operations center where Wes and Tyler were already reviewing footage from security and traffic cameras near the café and around the courthouse on several large wall monitors.
Wes had come from the San Francisco office, an expert in technology and cybercrime. He was in his late thirties and seemed to have an intense, private personality. She knew next to nothing about him, except that he was supposed to be very good at his job.
Tyler was a mystery as well, which probably wasn't surprising since he'd spent years working covert operations in the military and during his first two years in the FBI.
When Jason had hired her for the unit, he'd told her that he'd assembled a team of agents who would be the best of the best. She was still a little shocked she fell into that category, but apparently her history with the NYPD and Damon Wolfe's support had made her a good candidate for the team, and she intended to prove Jason had made the right decision in hiring her.
Taking a seat at an open computer in front of a blank monitor, she spent the next thirty minutes looking for the two men who had stood out to her.
Finally, she caught a break, squinting her eyes at a grainy image of a man in jeans and a sweatshirt three blocks away from the café.
"Got something," she said. "This could be the man who spilled the coffee.
The clothes look the same, but unfortunately, his back is to the camera. "
"And his clothes are fairly standard," Tyler commented, as his gaze moved to her monitor.
"True. I can't see if the sweatshirt has a Knicks logo, but I think this is the guy." She saved the frame as a screenshot and sent it to her phone. If anything, she could use it when she sat down with Elliott to draft a sketch.
"We'll see if we can get another look at him," Wes said as he and Tyler went back to work.
Fifteen minutes later, she spotted the mysterious, good-looking stranger who had acted both suspiciously and heroically.
He was standing about two blocks away from the café, on the other side of the street.
The timestamp appeared to be a minute before the explosion.
He was talking on the phone, but he froze when the flash of fire could be seen in the screen's corner.
He said something else, and then put his phone away and rushed out of sight.
She froze the video. "This is the man who went in and out of the café without ordering anything."
Both men looked at the image, then Wes's fingers flew across the keyboard as he picked up the same image and ran it through their system. "Got him," he said.
She looked at his monitor as a man's image appeared with the name: Max Malone. He was the owner of a company called MG Security, based in Manhattan. It looked like the company had only been in business for about nine months.
"This is unusual," Wes commented. "Max Malone has a big gap in his life.
Before the creation of his current company, there's no employment history for the previous twelve years.
At that time, he worked as a journalist for the Associated Press after graduating from Northwestern the year prior to that. "
"And then he's a ghost," she murmured, staring at his image.
"He has no social media," Tyler interjected. "I'm thinking he works in intelligence, maybe undercover work."
"For what agency?" she asked.
"Could be CIA, NSA, DEA. Hell, it could be the Bureau."
"We need to find out," she said, getting up from her chair. "I'm going to see what else I can dig up on him."
"I doubt you'll find much," Tyler said. "His slate has been deliberately wiped clean."
"Until nine months ago," she reminded them. "Maybe his reappearance in the world will provide some clue as to why he was in the café this morning." She returned to her desk, getting onto her own computer, as her mind raced with questions about the mysteriously good-looking man.
An hour later, she'd found little beyond what Wes had discovered in two minutes.
Max Malone was thirty-four years old, a little over six feet tall, with dark-brown hair and green eyes.
He'd been born in Chicago and had gone to college at Northwestern, where he'd played on the baseball team and graduated with a degree in journalism.
His first job had been with the Associated Press.
And then there was nothing until last year.
His company was also shrouded in secrecy.
No official website. No employees. No known clients.
He had a business bank account, a post office box, and a phone number that had gone to voicemail when she called.
It wasn't much to go on, and she couldn't afford to spend all her time on someone who might not even be important, so she put him aside and turned to Samantha Barkley.
Samantha Barkley's job as a federal prosecutor could certainly have made her enemies.
And Kara couldn't help wondering if Max Malone fell into that category.
The timing of his entrance and exit was certainly suspicious, and raised the question: Had he been looking for Samantha when he'd come into the café the first time, or when he'd come back?