Chapter 13 #2
Kara ignored her buzzing phone. "Is Whitney all right?" she asked Jason, who had just called the team into the conference room for an urgent briefing, which revealed an attack at the safe house.
"Ms. Holden is scared but unharmed," Jason said tersely.
"How the hell did this happen?" Tyler demanded.
"Obviously, the location was leaked. The agent in the hallway was knocked unconscious.
The gunman shot the lock off the door. Fortunately, the agent inside reacted quickly, hitting him with gunfire before he could get to Whitney.
The attacker was injured and retreated down the hall, where he disappeared into the stairwell. "
"Description?" Alina asked.
"Medium height, ski mask over his head and face, oversized jacket, dark pants, and he had a large ring on his left hand. Wes and Charlie are going through security cameras now. The jacket and mask were dumped down the laundry chute. We may get lucky with DNA evidence."
"And Whitney?" she asked.
"The U.S. Marshals will take over," Jason replied.
"I'm meeting with Damon in an hour. The information about the safe house most likely came from either his team or ours.
Going forward, we'll set up our own safe house, but in the meantime, we need to tighten the circle.
Damon and I will discuss how best to divide up the work, but for now, continue on as you've been doing.
" He let out a breath, turning to Kara. "Are there any updates? "
She hesitated, almost afraid to say anything now that she knew the safe house had been breached.
Her team might be comprised of experienced agents, but she didn't know any of them well.
In fact, she knew the agents at 26 Fed better, and she couldn't imagine one of them being a mole.
But Jason was waiting for an answer, and she had to say something.
"I've been digging into Samantha's case files, looking for a connection between her and James Cooper, but nothing yet. I also contacted Wexler Properties, the owner of the building in the second blast. He is in Tokyo with his executive team and will be back tomorrow. I'll speak to him then."
"I've been researching James Cooper and his financials," Tyler interjected.
"He's had several unexplained large cash deposits in the last several years.
All for different amounts, all cash, none reported on his taxes.
I spoke to his wife, who said she didn't handle the banking.
She barely knew how to get into their accounts.
I also talked to another woman in the Building Department, Grace Wilcox.
She said James was a quiet man, kept to himself, did his job, and never had any arguments with anyone. "
"The cash deposits are interesting," she muttered. "Maybe someone was bribing him to sign off on work that wasn't quite right."
Tyler nodded. "I haven't found a trail yet, but I'm looking into it. Also, followed up on Vincent Castellano. Hasn't been home or at work. But he used his credit card at a bar in Brooklyn yesterday, so I'm going to follow up on that."
"Castellano's employer, Petrosyan Automotive, is under investigation for tax fraud by Samantha's team at the DA's office," she interjected. "But there's nothing to tie that case to James Cooper."
"Alina?" Jason said.
"I've been looking into the Novik brothers," Alina replied.
"Sergei Novik has been in Prague for the last month.
He's expected back in the US this weekend.
Alex Novik has been MIA at the Crimson Club since Cray was killed.
He's allegedly sick, but he's not at home, and he hasn't used any of his credit cards since Tuesday night when he bought dinner in Soho.
Judging by the bill, the meal was shared by more than one person.
I was just about to start looking at cameras by that restaurant to see if I can identify him or his companions. "
"And Cray's shooter—an individual possibly named Cal?" Jason asked.
"The car he was using was dumped in Chinatown," Alina said. "He's in the wind."
"All right. Let's get back to work," Jason said. "We need to figure out what connects those two bombings so we can prevent a third."
After the meeting, Tyler followed her back to her desk.
"I'm going to meet with a friend of mine at the ATF," Tyler said. "He's going to go over the explosive devices with me, see if we can find a signature, a part we can trace to a common buyer. After that, I'll follow up at the bar in Brooklyn, see if anyone knows Castellano. Do you want to come, or…"
"I want to keep going through these files, unless you need me."
"No, I've got it." He paused, looking like he wanted to say more.
"What?" She gave him a searching look.
"What's the situation with Malone?"
"What do you mean?"
"He was with you last night when I gave you the location of the safe house."
Her eyes widened as she realized what he was suggesting. "Max didn't leak the information."
"Are you sure? He drove you and Whitney to the building, right?"
"Why would he leak the address?"
"Because he's working for Dominic Ashford," Tyler said with irritation in his voice. "He has a conflict of interest."
"There's no conflict. Max is trying to find out what happened, same as us. And I don't believe Ashford is involved in the explosions."
"You don't know that for sure. Ashford could be responsible for everything that's happening.
He worked with Cooper, and he was dating Samantha.
He's the link between those two. And Max is his protector.
Haven't you considered the fact that staying close to you keeps him in the loop on information that he can then feed to his boss? "
She didn't like his tone or his question. "You need to back down, Tyler. I know what I'm doing. And you have reasons for disliking Max that have nothing to do with this case. If you want to share what those actually are, maybe I'll be more interested in listening to your opinion."
Tyler's jaw tightened. "I can't tell you. But I know he doesn't always stay on the right side of the line. You're going to have to trust me on that."
"And you're going to have to trust me not to make poor decisions."
As the air grew heavy between them, Alina came over. "Everything okay here?" she asked, making Kara aware that several people in the room had stopped what they were doing to listen to their discussion.
"It's fine," she said, sending Tyler a pointed gaze that he should think twice about contradicting her.
"Fine," he echoed. "I gotta go."
As Tyler walked away, Alina turned to her. "What's going on between you and Tyler?"
"We're just getting to know each other," she said. "There's no problem."
"Tyler can be a hothead, but he's a smart guy. If he's worried about something, you should listen."
"I always listen, but his concerns are not valid."
"Are you talking about Malone?"
"They have a history, Alina. Neither one wants to tell me exactly what that history is, but something happened in the Middle East, when Malone was CIA and Tyler was Delta.
None of that is pertinent to now." She took a breath.
"And I don't like being second-guessed or accused of letting someone use me for information. "
"I'm sure Tyler didn't mean it like that."
"I hope not. But none of us know each other well. We're going to have to give each other leeway, find a rhythm. I'm sure we can do that, but right now I'm only concerned with this case."
Alina nodded. "Me, too, so I'll get back to it."
As Alina walked back to her desk on the other side of the room, Kara let out a breath.
She didn't need to get into fights with her team, not when they were in the middle of a case.
But she also didn't need a fellow agent questioning her decision-making.
She knew what she was doing, and she felt like she knew Max better than she knew Tyler.
With what had happened at the safe house, the only person she was going to trust was herself and her own gut instincts.
Those instincts told her that Max was genuine in his desire to help.
Despite that affirmation, she couldn't ignore the tiny seed of doubt that Tyler had planted. Ashford was a link between Cooper and Samantha, and Max did work for him. But she could see no reason why Dominic Ashford would want to kill anyone or blow up two buildings.
She needed to find another connection, something that would lead them to the bomber.
Picking up her phone, she called Max back, wondering if he'd already found something, but his phone went to voicemail, so she hung up and got back on her computer.
Several hours later, her eyes were blurring from reading through the lengthy files the DA's office had sent over.
She still had a couple more years to go through, but it was almost five, and she needed to get out to Queens for her uncle's birthday.
She sent the remaining files to an encrypted folder she could access from home and would dig into that after she spent a little time with her family.
She had just gotten into the car when Max called her back. "What's up?" she asked. "Did you find anything?"
"I have some information. It's not verified yet, but I want to talk to you about it."
"That sounds a little mysterious."
"Can we meet?"
"I'm just leaving work. I have to go to Queens for my uncle's birthday bash."
"Maybe after?"
She hesitated. She didn't want to wait to hear what he had to say. "Or you could come with me…" She regretted the invitation as soon as it left her mouth, but it was too late to take it back.
"Are you sure your family won't care?"
"The family mantra is the more the merrier. Are you at home? I can pick you up. I'm just leaving work."
"I'll be waiting."
A little tingle of excitement ran through her. She told herself this was just about work, but she knew that was a lie. She just hoped he didn't know it, too.