Chapter 5
5
“How are you doing?” Mateo asked Jase, after he let him into his condo. He really didn’t have to ask his friend; Jase was clearly wound up tighter than an eight-day clock.
“How do you think I’m doing?” Jase growled.
“Probably—”
Jase held up his hand to halt Mateo’s words as he stalked over to Mateo’s refrigerator, pulled out two beers, and handed one to Mateo before he yanked the cap off his. “Wait a minute, you can have one of these, can’t you?” Jase suddenly thought to ask.
“Or for God’s sake, it’s been a week now. Of course I can. If one more person worries about me and my head, I’m going to punch them in their head.”
“Great, now we’re both going to be out of sorts. Tell you what, let’s both of us agree that your place is a neutral zone? How about it? Anyway, I’m still not over my debt of gratitude.”
Mateo squinted his eyes and glared at his friend. “You know, I had to take all that gratitude shit from your wife, but you and I both know that what I did was the job. It’s exactly what you would have done. So not only will I punch you in the head for worrying about my head, I’ll punch you in the throat for saying thank you…again. What’s more, it’s fucking understood, got it?”
Jase started to laugh. “We’re sure a pair, aren’t we?” He settled down in the chair across from where Mateo was now lounging on his couch in gray sweatpants and a Rush t-shirt.
“You’ve got that right,” Mateo said as he took a pull of his beer. Damn, it tasted good. Almost as good as having someone to talk to. “When is the Lieutenant pulling us together again?”
“Speak for yourself,” Jase muttered. “He’s pulling us sad saps together every day at the base and working us over like new recruits. My muscles haven’t ached this bad since BUD/S.”
Mateo laughed. “You know what I mean.”
“That’s why I came over. Kostya was going to call you, but I said I’d come and pick you up. We’re heading back to his house. Which is a bummer. Liked it better going to Gideon’s. A lot more room.”
Mateo did his best not to shudder. Jase must have caught it, though.
“Sorry, man. I wasn’t thinking. Shouldn’t have brought it up.” He stood up and paced across the room to Mateo’s window and looked out. After a minute he turned back to look at Mateo. “Are you having nightmares?”
“I’ve had one or two. Just imagining I didn’t get Bonnie and Laura down the drive. But none for the last four nights.”
“Bonnie is still having them. She took a room at the Springfield B&B far away from the twins in case she screamed in the night. She finally went to a doctor for sleeping pills.” Jase ran his hand through his hair, then pulled at it. He turned around and gave Mateo a long, considering look. “She needs a counselor.”
Mateo nodded.
“She said now’s not the time.”
Mateo nodded again.
“This is so fucked up. I’m going to kill these motherfuckers!”
“Stand in line,” Mateo said as he got up and took his half empty beer to the kitchen. “You done?” He asked Jase.
The man nodded. He brought his half empty bottle to the kitchen, and they left Mateo’s condo to head over to Kostya’s home.
“We’ve had a couple of breaks in the case. Nothing we can totally sink our teeth into yet.” Kostya turned to Lark, who was sitting in the couch's corner with him sitting on the arm—not hovering over her exactly, more like he didn’t want to be far from her. Mateo had noticed the same thing with all of his teammates who’d paired up.
“Why don’t you tell them what you found, Lark?”
“Brady wasn’t Ephram’s last name. It was his middle name. His last name was Hicks. He was born in Peacetime, Oregon.
The ‘oh shits’ and ‘what the fucks’ went flying around the room.
“Let her finish,” Kostya said quietly.
Mateo hadn’t been living in the States when the showdown at Peacetime took place, but he’d heard about it. Mateo had run into the type of men in the military who came down on the side of the men of Peacetime who called themselves the Peacekeepers. They had wanted no government interference in how they operated their society, taught their children, or governed their town. They especially didn’t want anyone involved in how they handled any problems within their group. They lived in a compound out in the mountains in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in the Northeast Oregon border. They did their best to stay off everybody’s radar, and it worked. Mostly. Occasionally, some camper would come out of the woods and bitch about the maniacs with guns who threatened to kill them if they didn’t get off their property, but mostly, they just went about their business.
That all changed when two women escaped with five children in the dead of winter. One woman was beat to hell, but she helped carry the youngest kid out of there, and they were spotted close to a campground. Turned out there was a flu going round at the Peacekeeper compound, and these kids now had pneumonia, so the women were desperate to get them to a hospital, no matter what they had to do. The husband of the one who wasn’t beaten-up had helped them escape and stayed behind to buy them time.
When they were finally brought to the hospital, authorities questioned them. Olive, the woman who hadn’t been hurt, told them what was going on. She explained that some of the women wanted to leave, but they couldn’t. She said the men had amassed guns and explosives, and they were determined to defend themselves if anyone from the government ever came onto their land.
The raid hadn’t been as bad as Ruby Ridge or Waco, but it had been bad. The leader of the Peacekeepers was Ezariah Hicks. He had three wives and fourteen children. The woman who had been beaten so badly and escaped was one of his wives, and she taken three of his children. One of them died at the hospital from complications of the pneumonia.
“Ephram was one of his younger sons. He was in the compound when it was raided. He saw his dad and two of his older brothers killed that day,” Lark explained.
Mateo winced.
“How old was he?” Jase asked. Of course, he asked. He might be a big guy who you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of, but he had a gentle heart.
“He was seven,” Lark answered.
“What happened to him?” Jonas asked. “Did he go with his mother?”
“His actual mother wasn’t the woman who escaped. His real mother was a zealot, just like her husband. When she saw her husband die, she slit her throat in front of her children.”
Great, it just kept getting better and better.
“So this is how Ephram started out. No wonder he was a psychopath.” Braxton shook his head. “He never stood a chance.”
“Did he ever check in with his other brothers and sisters?” Mateo asked.
“I’m still working on that,” Lark said. “Ephram and one brother and one sister were sent to live with a family in Bend, Oregon. The mother was a child psychologist. The social workers thought that would give them the best chance at a normal life. I’m going to fly out tomorrow to talk to her.”
“You didn’t tell me that. I thought you were just going to call her.” Kostya frowned at his wife.
“This is the best way to get the information I need. A phone call just won’t cut it.”
Mateo could see the frustration on his lieutenant’s face. He knew both Kostya and Gideon had wanted to send their women into hiding, but their help was too valuable. And now, Mateo would bet his bottom dollar that Kostya wanted to go along with Lark to keep her safe, but Kostya, missing from the base, would be too noticeable. Mateo thought about volunteering to go with her, but he didn’t. He wanted in on the action. He wanted to play an offensive position.
“I can go with her,” Keegan volunteered. “Nolan and Linc can work on the C-4 angle, I’ll make sure Mrs. Barona is covered.”
“You’re sure as hell not coming with me if you call me Mrs. Barona,” Lark said as she rolled her eyes. “My name is Mrs. Lieutenant.”
Everybody laughed, breaking some of the tension.
“Do you have anything on Ely Roberts?” Jase asked Lark.
“My God, man, I give you all this good data, and you want more? What do you think I am, a magician?”
“Yes,” pretty much everyone said at once.
Lark laughed again. “I’ve got some feelers out on Ely, but I think Jada is further along than I am. We should have something solid in forty-eight to seventy-two hours.”
“But I have something,” Gideon chimed in from where he was sitting at the dining room table beside Jada. They were both behind their laptops.
“Spill it.”
It was clear Kostya was losing patience. Mateo knew he didn’t like the idea of someone besides himself having to do protection duty on Lark when she went to Oregon.
“Franklin Talbot’s hedge fund wired out a substantial sum the same week we were in Turkey trying to rescue his son.”
“So?” Mateo tilted his head as he looked at Gideon. “Their hedge fund is one of the biggest in the country. They must take in and send out money thousands of times a week. How could you pinpoint something that would be related to the Kraken?”
“Well, my smart friend who told me to follow the money.” Gideon flashed his blindingly white smile. “One thing the hedge fund does not do is handle cryptocurrency, but?—”
“But every bad actor in the world is using cryptocurrency to handle their transactions,” Mateo finished for him.
Gideon and Jada both nodded.
“Where did they send the money?”
“To a smallish bank that has its headquarters in Annapolis. It’s called Lionel Security and Trust Bank. The money sat in an account there for over a month, before it was converted to cryptocurrency and half of it was transferred to the Cayman Islands and then smaller amounts to banks here in the States and overseas. Jada and I are still working on who those accounts belonged to.”
“There are a shit-ton of government regulatory and compliance issues when dealing with large cryptocurrency transfers. How much did the hedge fund deposit?” Lark asked.
“One hundred million dollars. The hedge fund paid in cash. It was the bank that converted it, so they were the ones who did the currency exchange. It’s not unheard of, as long as they follow the rules,” Jada responded.
Landon whistled. “I can’t imagine that much money. Imagine paying any company that kind of money.”
“It was for his son’s life,” Jada pointed out.
Landon shrugged. “I guess if you’re a billionaire…”
“Who handled that transaction?” Mateo wanted to know.
“They’re no longer with the bank, and no longer living in the US. They took their payoff and ran, is my guess.” Jada grimaced. “But another big deposit was made to the same account two weeks ago, and it was converted to cryptocurrency and deposited to a different account in the Cayman Islands. It was handled by MacLaine Taylor Simpson. Jada and I are looking to find more information on him. He’s our target. What we do know is that he started within two weeks of the other guy leaving.”
Before anyone could say anything, Mateo spoke up. “I’m on it.”
“You don’t even know what that means,” Kostya looked over at him.
“It means while Gideon and Jada backtrack the money, I get close to MacLaine and find out what he can tell us about the depositor and what he can tell us about the account he transferred money into. Better yet, he can also tell us about the transfer that was made a couple of months ago.”
“Just how do you intend to get close?” Lark arched an eyebrow at him.
Mateo laughed. “I’ll wing it.”
“Not good enough,” Lark said, shaking her head.
“Yes, it is, Solncè. Let it go,” Kostya murmured.
Mateo had heard Kostya call Lark that Russian word a few times, so he’d looked it up. It meant Little Sun. It fit. Kostya turned to him.
“Mateo, are you sure your head is?—”
“Lieutenant, I wouldn’t volunteer if I wasn’t one-hundred percent good to go.”
Kostya nodded. “All right then. Is your truck one-hundred percent good to make it up to Maryland?”
Mateo glowered at his team as they all laughed at Kostya’s question.
“She sustained some injuries during the blast. I’m still working on her,” Mateo sighed. “I’m having to drive the Challenger.”
The chuckles continued. “My question still stands.”
“I’ve worked out the bugs,” Mateo promised. “She’s road-trip worthy. I just want to give her a rest, that’s why I’m taking the Challenger.”
Gideon looked up from his computer. “Email me with your expenses. I’ve got you covered.”
“I can cover my own damn self. Anyway, what do I need an expense report for? Annapolis is only four-and-a-half hours away.”
“Gas and food,” Gideon answered. “Keep track and expense it.”
“I want this done right. I want Mateo to get housing up there, and ID to go with his cover. Got it?” Kostya looked at Gideon.
“I’m on it.”
“I can cover my expenses,” Mateo ground out.
Everyone in the room knew that Gideon Smith had made himself a vast amount of money when he sold off most of his company stock when he left a Silicon Valley start-up company to join the Navy. But just because he could afford to cover the cost of his adventure up in Maryland, didn’t mean he should.
“Mateo,” Kostya shook his head sadly. “If you don’t submit an expense report, Gideon’s just going to buy you a new truck or somehow put money into your account. Just deal with it and submit an expense report.”
A sudden memory of one of the closets in Gideon’s house popped into his brain.
“Gideon, aren’t you going to need all that money to replace Jada’s shoes?”
Lark barked out a laugh.
“I buy my own shoes, thank you very much,” Jada said as she looked up from her computer. “Submit an expense report.”
“Fine.” It was no skin off his nose if cancer research got a bigger check from him this year.
“When are you leaving?” Kostya asked.
“First thing tomorrow morning, since the bank is closed now.”
Kostya turned to Gideon. “Work fast.”