Chapter 32
Daisy got in the minivan to be greeted with a resentful silence from her colleagues, all except Emilia, who was watching her with a gleam in her eye. Agent Crabtree climbed into the front seat beside Roger, who was driving. He wasn’t any help.
“Hey.”
No response from the crew.
“Oh, hey, Daisy. How are you? I heard you almost died yesterday. Yeah, but that’s okay. At least it was only my neighbors who were brutally murdered in a fire that destroyed everything I own.” Emotion, barely beneath the surface, threatened to bubble up.
“What about Amed? You got him arrested for terrorism for fuck’s sake.” Roger’s Yorkshire accent was deep and cutting. “You know he’s not like that.”
“I’m probably next,” Mira declared with a sneer. “I’m Muslim after all.”
“I didn’t get him arrested.” Although, thinking about the letter, maybe she had. Dammit. She hunched her shoulders. “I’m sick about what happened, but he made his own choices.”
“And your FBI boyfriend was right there to clean up. I bet they give him a medal for catching the Islamic terrorist planning to blow up the White House.” Mira directed a glare at Crabtree.
“That’s not my boyfriend.” Daisy almost laughed at the idea. “That’s Special Agent Crabtree. Jordan is one of the good guys.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” Roger said bitterly.
She crossed her arms over her chest and stared miserably out of the window.
Jordan was one of the good guys. So was her father.
She knew there were dirty and shitty law enforcement officials in the world.
She’d seen some in action and heard about many more, but she’d never heard or seen anyone in Gold Team do anything that made her doubt their commitment to saving lives, often at the risk of their own.
“At least now you can fast track your PhD on the back of Amed’s hard work, even if he is an evil jihadist,” muttered Mira.
“Leave her alone. They wouldn’t have arrested Amed if they hadn’t found evidence.” This from Les, the guy who liked to draw doodles of her naked.
Great.
She opened her mouth to say that she’d never asked for any of this when Emilia plopped herself next to her.
“I thought you and the FBI guy had broken up?”
Daisy shrugged.
“You said he cheated on you, and you dumped him.” The woman’s black brows slashed together over her eyes. “Don’t tell me you forgave him?”
She didn’t want to paint Jordan as the bad guy.
Not after he’d declared love for her knowing she might never say it back.
Not knowing that, however impractical and terrifying to her heart, she actually wanted him to be a part of her future.
She wanted to take that chance. Which meant it was likely he’d meet these people one day under circumstances not full of death and suspicion.
“I was mistaken about the other woman.”
“Or so he told you,” Emilia said silkily.
“What do you care?”
“I don’t.” Emilia popped up her shoulders in a jaunty shrug. “So, do the FBI believe Amed pushed Tremblay off his balcony?”
Daisy wearily shook her head. “I have no idea what they think. Believe it or not, they don’t tell me anything.” They probably told her a lot more than they should, but she wasn’t going to admit that. “Why don’t you ask Agent Crabtree there?”
Crabtree turned briefly and pushed his no-frame glasses up his long nose. “It’s classified.”
“Hmm.” Emilia gave the back of his head a curious stare as he turned away. “Where is he? This sexy FBI lover of yours? Do you have a photo?”
“He’s busy.” She hunched closer to the window.
“I don’t have any photos.” Which was a testament to the fact they hadn’t spent a lot of time together under ordinary circumstances.
Perhaps she was right to wait before telling him she had feelings for him.
Everything had happened fast. Searching for her dad.
The conference in Mexico. Tremblay’s death.
Being shot at. The private jet. Bocharov. The fire.
Maybe these feelings wouldn’t last. Maybe they’d reduce to embers that stopped glowing even when you forced air on them. Like he said, there were no guarantees. Maybe she’d be the one to break his heart for a change.
Maybe she already had…
She hated that. She wanted to pull out her cell and text him but not with Emilia sitting right next to her with her nosy smile. Not with a hostile audience listening to every word.
“How did you escape the fire in your house?” asked Emilia.
“I climbed onto the roof and was rescued by helicopter.”
“That’s…wild.” The girl laughed, her pretty eyes sparkling with amusement. “You’re like a cat with nine lives—a black cat because people who cross your path often seem to end up dead.”
Daisy flinched. Damn. “Then perhaps you should move away. Just in case you’re next.”
Emilia took the hint and went to sit next to Les, while Roger’s and Mira’s narrow-eyed resentment never wavered.
Man, she couldn’t wait for this to be over.
Forty minutes later, Jordan, Alex, and Cisco were on Highway 33 and headed past fields and farmland northwest toward Moses Lake, backtracking the route of the flight they’d taken last night in the dark—the flight that was the only reason Daisy and Cisco were alive today.
Hell.
Every time he thought about it, he felt sick.
Cisco was hunched over her laptop. She cleared her throat. “Uh-hm. Mr. Parker, if you don’t mind me saying, there’s something off about that image the traffic cam captured.”
“Call me Alex, and what’s up with it?” Alex glanced over into her lap, and Jordan unclipped his belt to lean over the console.
“I went back and tracked the car in question an hour prior to where it was flagged, and I see the same car, same driver, same clothes, but not the same face. I mean he’s a bald guy and the right build for Bocharov but no match with facial rec. It’s possible they swapped drivers afterwards but—”
“You think Bocharov deep-faked his face onto that driver in the system somehow. Which should be impossible.” Alex swore.
Jordan started dialing Novak and Mac on each of his two cells at the same time and put them both on speaker.
“What’s up?” Mac asked.
“Novak.”
“Listen up. Cisco suspects the image captured by the traffic cam might have been altered.”
He watched the woman hunch her shoulders, but he was confident in her abilities even if she wasn’t.
“How is that possible?” Mac yelled across the airwaves.
“Do we abort the mission?” asked Novak.
Jordan’s heart screamed “yes” but his head said they needed to be more cautious.
Bocharov was the master of manipulation and misdirection.
What if Cisco’s earlier image was the one that had been altered for just such an eventuality?
“Can you get plain-clothes cops to do a drive-by? Get visual confirmation on the driver?”
“Will do. We’re still traveling south. Do we continue?” asked Novak.
“Have someone pick up the driver regardless of whether or not it’s Bocharov,” Mac instructed. “He’s a bald guy, and he’s driving toward several sensitive military installations at this exact moment in time—”
“Diverting our attention at the exact moment those fuel rods are being delivered to the nuclear facility.” Jordan’s blood turned to ice.
The g-force pressed him back against the seat as Alex accelerated.
“We need to lock down that facility before the fuel rods and scientists arrive,” Mac ordered. “Split Gold Team. Half stay on the vehicle, the rest head to the reactor site. Mobilize SWAT teams for backup.”
“You hear that, Novak?”
“Affirmative. Sending Echo and snipers to the facility ASAP. Charlie and SWAT take down the vehicle. I’m with Echo.”
“I need to speak to the director,” Jordan told Mac, “but I can’t reach her.”
“She’s at the White House to discuss the Russia situation.”
“According to Daisy, she authorized this and sent Crabtree as Daisy’s protection detail.”
“She seems to really like that little weasel. I’ll contact her with an update. If I can’t reach her, I’ll talk to her boss.”
“She won’t like that.”
“I don’t care. I’m still in DC. If I have to go knock on the AG’s door, I damned well will. If that fails, I’ll have Dominic Sheridan call his godfather.”
Dominic Sheridan was a negotiator at CNU. His godfather was the US President Joshua Hague.
“Keep me informed.” Mac hung up, and so did Novak.
“It’s too late to intercept the scientists.” Cisco looked at another window on her laptop. The one tracking Daisy’s cell phone. “They just arrived.”