Chapter 10 – Dominic
DOMINIC
Stakeouts were my least favorite part of my job.
Even with the windows cracked on the SUV, the air inside the car was stale, smelling of old fast food and sweat.
Most of the stench was coming from my partner’s side of the car.
Mike shifted in his seat again, sending a wave of body odor to wash over me as the headphones hung loosely around his neck.
He wasn’t even trying to make the appearance he was listening in on the parabolic microphone we had pointed at the building.
Not that I really thought we were going to hear anything from anyone entering or exiting the lobby, but it was something.
And more cases than I could remember had been blown open by a seemingly innocuous piece of evidence.
Not that this case was anything like the normal cases I had worked.
First of all, the case was opened via a memo and not because any evidence had actually been submitted.
A memo that seemed to come straight from the director’s offices, although it lacked his signature or anyone’s signature, for that matter.
It was one part of a string of strange occurrences in the FIA over the last few years that had set off my radar.
It started with a case like this one, where evidence fell into our lap about a nationwide trafficking ring.
The ring hadn’t even been on our radar when a pile of evidence showed up on the FIA’s servers.
I had been assigned to the case and had been told the work was collected by a field agent, but I never found the agent’s identity.
Undercover agents weren’t uncommon, but they were usually at least logged in our system under a pseudonym.
The director had been heavily involved in that case, like he had been at the start of this one.
The whole thing reeked of something fishy, which is why I had volunteered for this case after it was opened from just a memo.
Something was going on in the FIA, but I couldn’t tell what.
Was it corruption? An informant? I wasn’t sure, but I had a list of people I suspected. Including my new partner.
I had been assigned to Agent Mike Holden after Mike’s former partner had died in the field.
He had been gunned down by a drug cartel.
But when I discreetly dug into it, I found that they hadn’t even been working a case with the cartel.
Mike and his old partner investigated white-collar crimes, so how had they been wrapped up in a cartel?
Either way, the FIA closed the case citing “insufficient evidence.” That was the cherry on top for me.
Now, I was trying to figure out if there was a pattern to these strange occurrences, and I wanted to uncover who was involved.
I got into this work to make a difference and put criminals away, not to work with them.
I had to tread carefully, though. I didn’t know who was involved.
I didn’t want to suspect the director, but there were too many coincidences.
Hopefully, this case would give me more information.
Although so far it had been pretty boring.
Evelyn Harper went to work in the morning, worked all day, sometimes till late in the evening, although she was usually out of there after six, then went back to the new apartment she had recently signed a lease on.
Coincidentally, the lease was with Stone Dynamics Security, the company she worked for.
Her old apartment was in a more rundown area in the South District by the old train tracks.
After Miss Harper had been kidnapped at the gala, she had moved into the new apartment, courtesy of her bosses, no doubt.
They seemed a bit overbearing at our first interview, men who were used to being in charge.
Alexander Stone, Marcus Stone, Sebastian Stone, and Adrian Cross.
These four men, related by blood and brotherhood, hovered around Miss Harper after the event.
I didn’t blame them. If her statement was to be taken at face value, she was kidnapped at gunpoint by Ryan Jacobs, one of the three men who led Citadel and had made attempts on her bosses’ lives earlier.
When I interviewed her, she had seemed shaken up, but there was a steely thread that wove through her movements and words.
She probably wasn’t even aware of it, but I had seen it before in soldiers who had seen battle.
I saw it in Marcus Stone’s and Adrian Cross’s eyes.
This woman had seen some shit, but did that mean she ran a vigilante organization? I wasn’t sure yet.
Information on the Archers was hard to come by.
We had very little of it, and I wasn’t sure if that meant it didn’t exist or if it was a closely guarded secret.
The memo had called them dangerous and subservient to law and order, but from the little snippets on the dark web our team had managed to glean about them, they functioned more like a Robin Hood organization.
But I couldn’t find any substantiated proof.
If Evelyn Harper was their leader, then she did a good job of hiding her tracks.
She didn’t have so much as a parking ticket, although I guess SDS probably wouldn’t have hired her if she did.
To the world, she was their efficient executive assistant.
The few client companies of SDS that were willing to talk to us after we introduced ourselves had nothing but good things to say about SDS and the men who ran it.
Alexander Stone was a ruthless but fair boss, and he was navigating Citadel’s fall from grace with a graceful efficiency as SDS collected their former clients.
With his military and legal experience, Marcus Stone negotiated SDS’s contracts with extraordinary attention to detail as he protected his company.
Sebastian Stone gave off playboy genius vibes and had grown SDS’s in-house tech program to be one of the best in the country.
He hid his sharp tactical mind under a charming grin and closed the contracts that his brothers couldn’t.
Adrian Cross, with his special forces experience, was everything you imagined the head of security would be.
He was built like a brick house, and his sharp blue eyes seemed to peer into your very soul when he was present.
It was hard to imagine that Evelyn Harper could hide her leadership of a vigilante organization from these four men. Or if they had known that they would be okay with her leading it. Something didn’t add up here, and I would figure it out.
I snapped a few more pictures as employees streamed from the SDS building.
It was lunchtime, and a good chunk of employees left every day to pay patronage to the surrounding restaurants, although Alexander Stone had a state-of-the-art cafeteria inside the building.
My own stomach rumbled, but I ignored it.
Mike, on the other hand, was never one to turn down a good meal.
“I’m hungry,” he announced, not looking up from his phone. “I’m going to go get lunch. I’ll grab you something. Be back soon.”
I tried to tamp down the thread of irritation that rose up in me at his brusque words, but it was no use.
I knew from experience that Mike would be gone for at least an hour and a half when he went to visit the sports bar around the corner.
Maybe I could drop the windows and air out the car while he was gone.
Pay a visit to the trash can around the corner and dispose of the garbage his side of the car was collecting.
Mike tossed the recording equipment up on the dash, takeout wrappers rustling. I winced at the thought of having to submit another request form for new equipment, but it looked like the takeout wrappers cushioned the microphone’s landing.
He heaved himself out of the car and slammed the door. I winced at the sound, but the air immediately smelled better. I cracked the windows, letting the breeze blow through. After I finished documenting the lunch rush, I would empty the car of trash.
For the next few minutes, the only sound in the quiet car was the camera shutter as I documented who left the building. The car door opened as I held the camera to my face.
“Did you forget your—” I trailed off as I realized it was not Mike who had opened the door and slid into the car.
Adrian Cross stared cooly across the car from me. “Agent Hayes, a word if you didn’t mind?” He said it politely, but I had a feeling I wasn’t moving him from his spot until he had said what he came to say.
I put the camera down, pictures forgotten as I regarded the titan of a man who sat next to me. Adrian was a decorated ex-special forces veteran, and while the FIA provided field training, I was no match for him.
“If you have complaints about the surveillance, you should know that we are engaging in perfectly legal behavior.” We weren’t parked on SDS property and were following parking guidelines for the local street.
“I know. Marcus already checked,” he said simply, letting me know that they knew we were there. I knew the odds of our surveillance going unnoticed were slim to none, especially when our targets ran a security firm, but the director had insisted on a surveillance package.
“Then what can I do for you?” I asked, raising my eyebrow. What was so important for him to say that he had to ambush me in my car to do so?
“I joined the military to escape my abusive father,” Adrian stated.
My eyebrows shot up before I schooled my expression. Of all the things I thought he would say, that wasn’t close to the top of the list.
“I didn’t want to leave my mom,” he continued. “But she insisted I get out. She said my presence provoked him, and like an idiot, I thought he’d stop hitting her if I left. But he didn’t. Because men like him don’t stop.”
He stared out the windshield, his expression somber.
I knew what he meant. My own father had been a member of our local police force growing up.
He was the one who had inspired me to join the FIA and bring about real change.
I remember when I was just entering high school, he and his partner had been called to the same house four times in one month.
Each time, the woman refused to file a police report.
The fifth time they were called to the house, it was because the husband had beaten her to death.
Their six-year-old daughter called the police because her mother wouldn’t wake up. That case haunted him.
“My mom wrote to me every week. Didn’t matter where in the world I was. She wrote to me every week for two years before she stopped.”
My heart sank. Unfortunately, I knew this story. I had heard it too many times.
“I didn’t get another letter for three months. In that letter, she explained that a local organization had helped her out, and she had left my father. I was thrilled but also suspicious.”
I nodded as I furrowed my brows. I would be too. Men like that didn’t change. If anything, it was more dangerous after a woman left her abusive partner.
“When I got home, all I could get out of my mom was the organization’s name.” Adrian leveled me with a look, his gray eyes piercing into me. “The Archers.”
I exhaled heavily at the information. This was confirmation of those rumors on the dark web, not that I had a feeling Adrian would ever sign a witness statement.
“And you never asked any more questions?” I asked hesitantly, not sure how much else I could get out of him.
This was confirmation that the organization existed, but there was no confirmation that they did anything illegal.
Plenty of organizations existed to help DV survivors.
But why all the secrecy around the Archers?
“The Archers helped my mom get a divorce. My father moved three states away and signed over the deed of their house. I came home to a woman who looked like new life had been breathed into her. I had my mom back. All I needed to know was that the Archers saved my mother’s life.
They’ve saved lives all over this city.”
His father signed over the deed to the house? And just left? That part didn’t make any sense, but I understood what he was trying to tell me, and it fit what I already knew about them.
“I’m just trying to find out who the real bad guys are here. Surely, you can understand that.”
If someone was using the FIA to take out the Archers, then that was a problem. Although any organization that stayed in the shadows this much probably wasn’t all sunshine and roses. I doubted that the Archers had convinced this man to leave without employing some less than legal means.
Adrian regarded me carefully for a few moments before nodding. “If we can help you catch the real bad guys, let us know,” he said, handing me a business card. He got out of the car, and I was left staring at his retreating back.
I had more questions than answers, but one thing was clear; this was a lot more complicated than a “vigilante organization conducting illegal activities.” Maybe the Archers did participate in illegal activities, but all the evidence was also pointing to them doing those activities for good.
As a federal agent, all illegal activities were supposed to be prosecuted, and all criminals should be arrested.
As a young man who listened to his father sob for hours after coming home from that shift all those years ago, would an organization like the Archers have saved that woman’s life?
Would they have spared that six-year-old from making that call or prevented my father from spiraling into alcoholism for a decade before he got help?
I still wasn’t any closer to answers an hour later when Mike opened the door.
“Good news,” he said as he hefted himself into the SUV. “I just heard from headquarters that we got a recording submitted through the tip line. Something that’s going to nail that bitch.” He gestured towards the building. “Let’s head back to headquarters. The director wants to brief us.”
A recording submitted? Just out of the blue?
I kept my expression neutral as I shifted the SUV into drive and pulled away from the curb.
Something about this whole situation was starting to stink.
With Adrian’s words in my ears, I was putting together pieces to this puzzle, and I had no doubt that Evelyn Harper was the key piece.