Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
C assidy looked over the file her Uncle Cy and his brothers had made up. “Who is Nicholas Houser?” Cassidy asked her uncles.
“He’s the man we think ordered the hit on your boyfriend’s parents,” Cy told her.
“How did you get this information?” Cassidy asked, looking at the incredibly thin file on DS Agent in Charge Nicholas Houser. Even his picture was too grainy to see well.
“Old-school ways. We know people who know the right people,” Cy told her.
“Why didn’t you take this to Warrick?”
“Because of this.” Miles turned his tablet and CCV of her ambush in Crusina. She watched and saw the moment Warrick entered the fight.
Her breath caught though and it wasn’t from seeing Warrick in action. “He just disappeared? How?” she asked about the man who had been talking to her. He’d been there and then he disappeared into the shadow at the other end of the alley.
“We got a buddy to go search the area. He found a false fence panel that was really a door that led out of the alley. It looked like a dead end, but it wasn’t. He went and took prints off the door,” Cade told her.
“Can you guess whose prints popped up?” Marshall asked.
“Nicholas Houser,” Cassidy said, with excitement. “We got him. Great!”
Cy nodded his head. “Nicholas Houser was declared dead two weeks after the Crusina Embassy attack. He was presumed dead after his transport was hit by a roadside bomb. But, he had no family to identify the body, so they used the body’s identification they found in his pocket since his head was missing. Now, eight years later, his prints show up in the same alley you were ambushed in.”
Cassidy sat back in her chair and looked at her uncles. “The man who somehow infiltrated the DS with a false identity, set up the murder of the Hawkins family, and has resurfaced to get me to join him after I took down Naylor. I’m tied into this now. Full circle.” She looked up at her uncles. “We need to talk to Naylor.”
Cy frowned. “Naylor is dead. He was found hanging in his cell this morning.”
“He committed suicide? Why now?” Cassidy asked.
“I never said it was suicide,” Cy told her.
“There’s no evidence to the contrary, except the timing is too coincidental. I talked to an officer I know at the base. He’s done some training here,” Miles told her. “Naylor had a visitor yesterday. A government official with all the proper paperwork. He spoke to Naylor for under five minutes and left.”
“Who is it?” Cassidy asked.
“It was a fake name with good fake credentials. The person doesn’t exist. Plus, because it’s a black site, there are no cameras. Our lead is dead,” Cade told her.
“It’s not dead,” Cassidy told them. “Did the guy touch anything? Get fingerprints.”
“Already asked,” Marshall told her. “It was wiped clean. All we got was it was a man of average height around forty years old.”
“Nicholas Houser,” Cassidy said, knowing it had to be him.
“That’s our guess,” Cy said. “We know from the evidence Warrick collected that Naylor collected information on the DS in Crusina from Percy and passed it to Milward. We know that Nicholas worked for the DS and that the attack on the embassy had DS agents assigned in low numbers that night.”
“If we follow the crumbs we get to the point. Percy got the information on the DS agents from Houser, and passed it on to Naylor, who passed it on to Milward,” Cassidy said, seeing the timeline being to form.
“That’s what we thought,” Marshall said. “So, we found Percy and were going to ask him. Only...”
Cassidy cursed. “Only he died suddenly, didn’t he?”
“Exactly,” Cy said.
“And let me guess, he had a visitor from the government recently?”
“Nope, this time he was killed in prison by another inmate. An inmate who suddenly was able to afford a new, high-powered, attorney,” Miles answered.
“An attorney, we learned through office gossip, paid entirely in cash. There’s no lead on who paid it or where the money came from. Our leads are dead, except for that one print in Crusina that belongs to a dead man,” Cy told her.
“We need to tell Warrick. We at least have a lead.”
Cassidy and her uncles found Warrick, Kale, Nash, Kori, Walker, and Aiden walking up the steps to Mo and Dani’s house.
“You won’t believe what I found out,” Cassidy and Warrick said at the exact same time.
“Let’s explain it all inside,” Cy said, ushering them inside.
“You all are expected. Go to the large conference room,” Veronica said, stepping out from her office.
“We are?” Warrick asked as Nash took the lead and headed to the large conference room.
Warrick slipped his hand into hers and squeezed. “I can’t believe after all these years that I’m finally getting close to the truth.”
“We won’t stop until we learn it all,” Cassidy promised and then stopped short as they entered a conference room that was already half filled. “Jameson? What’s going on?”
Jameson stood, assuming the posture of a soldier more so than a prince. “I was wondering that too when Val and Grant Macay showed up with some friends. Val and Grant helped me protect Ariana.”
A blonde woman stood and held out her hand, clearly taking the lead. “Hello, I’m Elizabeth Cage.” Cassidy noticed they were talking to Warrick, not her. “And this is my husband Dalton Cage. I believe we have a great deal to talk about.”
Warrick looked around the table and frowned. “Military, not military, military, almost military, but I think it’s just a lack of respect for the rules that gives you more of the badass vibe.”
The woman introduced as Val laughed. “You’re right. I’m former DEA and Lizzy is former FBI. My husband and Dalton were PJs together. Now, would someone be so kind as to tell us why we left our children to immediately fly to Keeneston? Did Marcy bake some more pies?”
“Where’s Greer?” Warrick asked.
“Meeting with Birch,” Elizabeth told him. “But she said it was crucial we get here now. What’s going on and why can’t we tell anyone, including Birch, why we’re here?”
“You’re the off-the-books black ops group Greer told me to trust,” Warrick said as everyone took a seat. “The one who took down Mollia Domini.”
“What do you know about Mollia Domini?” Elizabeth asked in a way that told him he was about to wade into shark-infested waters. He was no longer the hunter, but the prey.
“I think they killed my parents.”
“Ah, lad, sorry to hear that,” Grant said with his slight Scottish accent. “Who were your parents?”
“Erik and Jennifer Hawkins.” Warrick realized it was the first time he had said their full names since they died. His heart broke a little more, but it seemed to bounce back stronger. He was owning who he was and getting justice for his parents.
The table sucked in a surprised breath.
“You’re Warren Hawkins?” Elizabeth asked, suspiciously.
“I am. I’m happy to provide DNA to prove it.”
“I think you better,” Elizabeth said, clearly not believing him. “Why don’t you tell us why we’re here.”
So Warrick did. He added in all the information Kale had learned as well. Dalton and Grant cursed fluently when he mentioned the diplomat captured by ISIS and how his father thought it had been a government setup. He told them about Culpepper and Cummings and how his father took all of it, including the orders Culpepper had given him about Viktor, to President Mitchell. “Is something wrong?” Warrick asked.
“It’s a disaster is what it is,” Grant said to Dalton.
“What?” Warrick asked again.
“It can’t be a coincidence,” Dalton said to Grant.
Warrick slammed his hand on the table, getting their attention. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Dalton turned to Warrick, and Warrick would never forget the look Dalton gave him. It made shivers run down his back and the hair on the back of his neck to stand up. “Grant and I are the PJs that disobeyed the order to leave that politician for dead and rescued him only to be thrown in jail when we landed back at base.”
The room was silent.
“Well, I don’t think we need the DNA test anymore, Lizzy,” Val whispered.
“I don’t either, Val. Go on, Warrick, or do you want to be called Warren?”
He shook his head at Lizzy. “Warren died eight years ago. I’m Warrick.” He took a deep breath and finished his story only for Cassidy to jump in with what her uncles had learned.
“Nicholas Houser is our only lead left alive.” Elizabeth leaned back in her chair and looked at her team. “Did we not get them all?” she asked of Mollia Domini.
“I have a feeling asking the DS about Nicholas will send up flares, but I think I have to,” Jameson told them. “My boss in New York has climbed the ranks. He would know Nicholas or know of him. I can try to have him keep it quiet. If he knows something off the top of his head and doesn’t have to search the database, we have a better chance of keeping it quiet.”
“I would say do it, but I think I’m here solely as an adviser. It’s up to Warrick. It’s his case. Or is it Cassidy’s?” Lizzy asked.
Warrick reached over and took Cassidy’s hand in his. “It’s our case. If Cassidy agrees, I say do it and see what you can find out.”
Cassidy nodded. “I agree. Somehow Nicholas is key to the attack in Crusina and Warrick’s parents’ murder.”
Jameson stood up and left the room.
“You should let us fill in Birch and Humphrey,” Elizabeth told him. “I now understand why Greer said we couldn’t, but you can trust those two.”
“Do you trust the secret service agent standing next to him? Do you trust the aide running papers or the secretary who can hear everything? Do you trust every single person in the White House?”
“Hell no,” Dalton said with a snort.
“The office pool is gossip central,” Val agreed. “We only see Birch under very controlled situations.”
“Tunnels, right?” Walker asked. “I always figured there were tunnels.”
“Do you think it’s someone else?” Elizabeth asked. “We were very thorough when we went over all of the emails and documents we confiscated when we took down Mollia Domini.”
“I actually mentioned that,” Nash said.
Warrick nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it since Nash brought it up. What if Nicholas started off at Mollia Domini, somehow disappeared so he wasn’t taken down in the sweep, and reinvented himself?”
He saw several heads nod in agreement.
“And now he’s poised to lead this new group. He had a hand in your parents’ deaths, and we know he had a hand in the attempted overthrow of Deming,” Cassidy said as puzzle pieces began to click into place.
They were discussing possibilities when Jameson came back into the room. “Joseph, my former DS boss in New York, told me Nicholas Houser was immediately put in a leadership role by one Secretary of State Sandra Cummings. There had been lots of rumors about why. Family connection or young lover being the top two.”
“Family?” Elizabeth said, confused. “I don’t remember her having a son.”
“On it,” Kale said, his fingers flying over his keyboard.
“Me too,” Cade said.
“Interesting,” they both said a minute later.
“What?” Warrick was trying not to jump out of his skin.
“Sandra didn’t have a son. The only family she had was a sister,” Cade told them.
“Only,” Kale said, turning his computer around to show them an old newspaper article. “Her sister had a horrible accident when she was sixteen years old that resulted in losing her uterus during emergency surgery. She couldn’t have children.”
“Then where did she get the baby from?” Cade asked, turning his laptop to show pictures of a little baby in the arms of Sandra’s sister from a family wedding picture posted in the newspaper.
“Could he be adopted? When was he born?” Warrick asked.
“Forty-one years ago,” Kale told him as everyone held their breath. That’s around Nicholas’s age. “Birth certificate says his name is Dustin Fieldhouse. Mother, Stephanie Fieldhouse. Father, Dennis Fieldhouse.”
Warrick looked to Cassidy who mirrored his confused look. “Not adopted then, but how could a woman with no uterus have a baby?”
“Surrogate?” Cassidy suggested.
“Forty-one years ago,” Cade said to them, “surrogacy wasn’t as common. The laws have changed since then. But based on their state law, if a surrogate was used, the surrogate would be the mother listed. And then after some legal work on a ruling from a judge, a second birth certificate would be issued. That was not the case here.”
“Which means, Dustin Fieldhouse is who?” Aiden asked what everyone was wondering.
“The Fieldhouse family died ten years ago. House fire during one of the California wildfires.” Kale looked up from his computer.
“That wraps up the family motive for the out-of-nowhere appointment,” Warrick said. “Lover?”
“Good for her if that were true. He was half her age, and her husband was an asshole,” Elizabeth said. “What do we have on Nicholas? He has to have a birth certificate and a history.”
“Calling in Alex,” Kale said, putting his phone on speaker.
“Dude.”
“We need the personal file on Nicholas Houser,” Kale said, turning on the television and sharing his computer with it. “We already have his work file.”
“Dude.”
“That’s Alex,” Cassidy whispered to Warrick. “He’s a computer genius like Kale.”
“He’s part of our group,” Elizabeth added.
“Dude,” he said with finality. A second later Kale got an email alert.
“Got it,” Kale said, opening the file.
They looked over his government file and frowned.
“It’s been cleaned as if he were a CIA operative undercover,” Cy said with a frown. “We already saw it was all scrubbed of real information. Is there anything new in the personal file?”
There was very little information. A home address, a phone number, a clearly fabricated résumé, and a similarly fabricated letter of recommendation. Then they looked over at his employment file again. It contained a grainy government identification photo, a social security number, his fingerprints, and a date of hire at the State Department about two years before he was sent to DS. All of which were faked except his fingerprints. His record is all positive and states he worked as a liaison with DS. When a leadership position opened up, he was appointed to it. That was the entirety of the file except to say that he died in the roadside bombing.
“Dudes, I searched. Nicholas Houser is a ghost. He never showed up in any records until the fingerprint in Crusina last week,” Alex said over the phone. “I searched everything. Dude also didn’t exist until he was hired by the State Department. Nicholas Houser is clearly a fake name, but I don’t know when or how he assumed it.”
“Could he be leading a new branch of Mollia Domini?” Warrick asked.
“Oh, that’s me,” a perky woman’s British voice said over the phone. “Hi. I’m Roxie. I’m Alex’s wife. So, I went down the rabbit hole big time. I figured I would start eight years ago when we started to dismantle Mollia Domini. The Panther was a big part of the scene in recent years on the dark web. It’s why I probably didn’t pick up on the other rumblings. There’s no real name mentioned except for Exspiravat . It’s Latin for Ghost. However, when I tried to look into it more, I found nothing. Not a thing. Any public thread ended as soon as it began with ‘chat taken offline.’ Dude’s old school. No digital records of them anywhere.”
“Any recruiting for a group like Mollia Domini?” Elizabeth asked.
“No. However, I did find social media ads and fake news stories that were running in countries with strong political divides. The strange thing is they’re riling up both sides and seem to be pushing for extremism. It reminded me of Mollia Domini’s use of the media.”
“Who is running them?” Warrick asked.
“Can’t really tell. They’re fake accounts out of the usual suspects, but they can easily be spoofed. That’s all I’m finding that is sticking out. I think this is a long game, not a short game,” Roxie told them. “We’ll keep digging.”
“Thanks, Rox,” Kale said before hanging up.
“What do you want us to do now?” Walker asked Warrick and Cassidy.
“We need to find out who Nicholas Houser is and who he was,” Warrick said.
“We’ll get to work on it,” several voices said at once from Elizabeth to Kale to Nash to Cy.
Wow, so this was really what it was like to have a team. He looked around as the group talked with each other. They socialized, they debated the case, they partnered up, and divided duties. Warrick was no longer alone, yet he felt alone standing there as everyone worked around him.