Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Harper
Jerry gets excited and shouts out, “We’re in!
” Everyone in the room and those connected via video chat all hold their collective breaths.
Anticipation fills the air until it becomes heavy.
Jerry notices the silence and waves a hand at the camera, “Please continue. I’m initiating a download, and it will take a few minutes to complete. ”
“Jaxon, how far away from the coffee shop are you? Is there time to get close and follow Eloise?” Ben asks.
My shoulders tense up at how guilty my parents appear to the team; a team that my father has always considered like family.
At this point, I can’t blame them because I’m struggling to advocate for my parents’ innocence.
“I’m approximately one mile from the location, and the main thoroughfare is crowded. It would be faster for me to get there on foot, but even at a run, we’re looking at ten minutes,” Jaxon replies.
Ben looks to the ceiling, searching the heavens for an answer. He must get one because he tells Jaxon to stand down. “Patrick, can you access the street cameras and follow Eloise that way?”
“I sure can. I need a few minutes, but it shouldn’t be a problem,” Patrick replies. He spins away from the camera and starts clicking away on his desktop. It has at least three screens that are visible, but the way his eyes are darting around, there are probably more.
“Why is Finnegan involving his wife?” Savannah asks. “She’s a civilian.”
I nudge Roger. “Do you want to tell them, or should I?”
Roger rubs his temples, careful to avoid touching his wound. “Eloise was once an FBI agent and Robert’s partner when they first started out. When she found out she was pregnant with Harper, she left the agency but has continued to be an asset ever since.”
“What?” Jessie shouts. “Sweet Eloise is a spy? No way!”
“We don’t have any record of FBI service in her file,” Savannah says. “That’s a pretty big miss on our part.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Roger says. “Eloise quit long before the FBI digitized their files, and as you know, assets are assigned a number for anonymity. And Eloise isn’t so much a spy as she is a contracted agent.”
Ethan narrows his gaze at Roger, unable to hide his disappointment. “You’ve known about Eloise all along and didn’t say anything? Why, Roger? We would have kept her secret.”
“When someone entrusts their very lives to me, I take that seriously. Unless we had proof Eloise was involved, I would have taken that secret to the grave. Heck, Harper didn’t even know until a few days ago,” Roger says in his defense. “Now that we have that proof; you know.”
I point out a glaring fact, “Whitman didn’t share that information with us either, and he should have. And speaking of Whitman, where are we at with my parents’ offshore account that Whitman found?”
Savannah shares her screen and a file is prominently displayed.
“Jerry’s fiancée, Rosie, is a great researcher and one of our top analysts.
As such, she was the first to look at the account.
She noted something amiss when she looked at the statements.
If you look here,” Savannah says, moving the arrow to the top of the screen.
“it shows a sequential number of 03012020MSD and the name Wesley Millstone.”
Savannah clicks her mouse, and a passport with my father’s picture and the name Wesley Millstone appears.
“The account was opened on March 1, 2020, and there are electronic deposits totaling around the billion-dollar mark. Over the past two months, withdrawals have been made that have nearly depleted the account.”
“Wesley Millstone is not one of my father’s known aliases,” I say. “He has three that I’m aware of, but that is not one of them. It can’t be a real passport.”
“It’s real, according to the State Department, and this is what’s on file with the bank.
Although this is where the discrepancy I mentioned comes into play,” Savannah says.
“The photo that the bank has on file shows that the passport was issued in 2019. Here is a picture of your father from five years ago and today.” Two pictures are in the upper right corner of the screen. “What do you notice?”
I stare at the images. “The picture from the passport that dates from 2019 shows a small scar on my father’s chin. He didn’t get that scar until two years ago when he fell off a ladder hanging Christmas lights and cut his chin wide open.”
Savannah grins. “Bingo! Someone has doctored the photo. It’s pretty shoddy work using Photoshop if you ask me. Here is a photo of the actual passport pulled directly from the State Department. Everything is the same except for the date of issuance. The real one was issued a month ago.”
“This could mean that someone is trying to frame my father,” I say, inhaling deeply and allowing hope to fill my heart.
“Maybe,” Ethan says, interjecting. “It’s certainly a point in his favor, but the passport does belong to your father using a new alias.
We’re looking into it further. I speak for us all when I tell you that we want your father, uh, parents to be innocent, Harper.
Unfortunately, there is still plenty of evidence working against them, and they are somehow involved. ”
There’s a knock at the door, and Roger gets up to answer it, knowing it’s Carter on the other side.
Roger grabs a towel from the bathroom and hands it to Carter, who is standing there dripping wet.
Carter holds a small rectangular tracking device in his hands.
“You’ll never guess what I found? You were right, Roger,” he says, smiling.
Carter wraps the towel around his waist and walks over to the computer.
He leans in so that he is in view and waves the device in front of the camera.
“There was a tracking device on the boat, just as Roger suspected. I found it mounted on the inside of the powerhead. It’s magnetized and waterproof.
Whoever placed it there, all they had to do was swim up underneath the boat, reach inside, and stick it to the inner casing. ”
Elijah snatches it from his hand and inspects it. “This is a fairly basic model and can be purchased online. It also requires a subscription, which we would be able to track if the serial number wasn’t filed off.”
Roger detours to the closet that has our equipment and returns with a Faraday bag.
He holds it open so Elijah can drop the device inside.
Roger seals up the bag and hands it to Carter, telling him, “Once this meeting concludes, you need to head up to Marathon and provide support for Jaxon. Take the tracking device with you.”
Carter gives Roger a two-finger salute. “I’ll get changed and be on my way.”
“Eloise is on the move,” Jaxon declares. “Patrick, she’s wearing a pink tank top, yoga pants with flowers on them, and canvas sneakers. She’s also wearing a soft pink baseball cap pulled low and a backpack slung over one shoulder.”
“I got her,” Patrick replies.
Ethan purses his lips and then barks out directions.
“Patrick, I want you to stay in contact with Jaxon the entire time. He is currently the only one in a position to take any kind of action should it become necessary. Use encrypted texts to keep the rest of us updated. Jaxon, Carter should be at your location within the hour. Get him up to speed and do it quick.”
Jerry grimaces. “The files are downloaded, and it’s going to take me some time to comb through them.
At a quick glance, there are copies of the bank statements from Wesley Millstone’s account with highlighted transactions.
There are also bank statements for Sergio Alavarez, also with highlighted transactions. ”
Jerry’s eyes flit between the two documents.
“The withdrawals from the Millstone account match the deposits into Alvarez’s account.
” He clicks his mouse several times, and a few seconds later, he tells us more bad news.
“Sergio Alvarez isn’t the only recipient of a funds transfer.
Several payments were made to another account in Kazakhstan, belonging to Droyda Ospanov. ”
“Who is Droyda Ospanov?” Roger asks.
Savannah pounds on her keyboard, and a minute later, she gives him an answer. “Droyda Ospanov is a Russian scientist who works for Global UraCorp, a uranium mining company based in Khazakstan.”
“Wait a second!” I shout. “Somethings not right. Why would my father be paying Sergio Alvarez when they aren’t working together?”
Savannah pulls up the account under Wesley Millstone. “The last transaction to Sergio was five weeks ago, so it’s anyone’s guess.”
“Maybe Sergio became a bit too greedy, and Finnegan cut ties with him. Now they’re at odds, and Sergio is taking his revenge! Muahahaha,” Jessie cackles, eyes wide and rubbing her fingertips together maniacally.
Roger rolls his eyes at Jessie’s overzealous delivery of her theory, but he also acknowledges its validity.
“That’s one very real possibility. Alliances are often fragile and easily broken.
It’s not as if The Demon Kings are a trustworthy group of individuals.
Another possibility is that Sergio served his purpose, then reached out to the CIA and changed his alliance. ”
I listen as more suggestions are thrown out there, each one crazier than the next.
“What if the account that belongs to Wesley Millstone does not, in fact, belong to my father?” I ask.
“The fact my dad had the files encrypted on his computer and highlighted the transactions would indicate he was investigating Sergio, not partnering with him.”
“I like it,” Ben says, and everyone else is in agreement. “Roger, you said that Zurkowski wanted to tell you the truth and that Finnegan wanted to bring you in on his plan, right?”
Roger sits on the edge of the sofa and cocks his head to the side. “I did, but Zurkowski never got the chance.”
“Roger, what’s your gut telling you?” Ethan asks.
“I wouldn’t trust my gut, my heart, or my head.
Robert Finnegan mentored me throughout my career and has been like a brother to me.
He, Eloise, and Harper brought me into their home and treated me like family.
I want to believe they’re here to stop someone from building and setting off a nuclear bomb, but then why aren’t they doing it in an official capacity?
Why the subterfuge? I have so many questions floating around in my brain, but there aren’t enough answers.
If you want my honest opinion, Robert Finnegan deserves the benefit of the doubt.
He’s had our back time and time again, and we owe him.
We need to find him before we make any judgments. ”
I smile at Roger and slip my arms around his waist, interlocking my fingers and looking up at him with pure adoration. “Thank you for believing the best of my parents.”
He kisses the top of my head and hugs me back. “They’ve never given me a reason not to, Harper. But…”
“But if they do, then all bets are off,” I reply.