Chapter Fourteen #2
Oh, well, they had their ways. Mostly, they had one way, and it was their AI assistant.
Well, Elizabeth’s assistant.
“MATE will get us in,” he admitted. “Have you met her?”
The man nodded.
“Yeah, she freaks me out when she pops in and scares the shit out of me.”
Well, in that case, they’d just use the tech and not use the antics that went along with her.
He turned off hologram mode for the man.
As he finished plugging in, and typing something into the screen, Dex watched.
“MATE, extract any phone numbers that might be connected to the general area where Elizabeth is. Go out about one hundred miles and pull up a list for the boss. Send it directly to her phone,” Brody said.
The man looked surprised.
“How long does it take?” he asked.
There was a very familiar chortling from MATE, who was not only working, but listening.
“It only takes me a few minutes,” she stated.
This was wild.
“That you can do that with your tech is crazy,” Dex stated. “That’s going to make your cases easier.”
Yes, yes, it would.
And that was the point.
“When do we get this tech?” he asked, wishing his detectives could have the same kind of advantage when working their cases.
Kate patted him on the back.
“Oh, well, that’s property of the FBI. I don’t think you’ll have it for a long time,” she admitted. “One day, maybe.”
He wished that was a little closer. Tangling with the phone companies was shit. If they could just get a warrant and go into a phone to pull up information would save them WEEKS.
Justice would be served quicker.
As MATE did her thing, Dex was watching the information in real time pop up on the tablet.
“You weren’t kidding, were you?” he asked, as numbers popped up on the screen. “She’s in that phone doing her magic.”
Yes, yes, she was.
Brody shrugged.
“MATE is using the SIM and memory to find any numbers that match the parameters. We’ll still get the warrant for a judge, but that’s just so the phone company can double-verify what we found for court.”
MATE chimed, alerting them to her finding something for them.
“I found the same call a few times. Once a few days ago, and then once two months ago. Then, when going back even further into the memory on the phone, that same number appears once, three years ago.”
Well, shit.
He was definitely planning in the long term if that number did, indeed, belong to Devon Slater.
Now, they would get down to work.
“MATE, get me that information of who owns that number, and see if you can get a tower to pinpoint where the call was coming from each time.”
MATE had bad news for them.
“That’s going to take longer. I won’t have it anytime tonight. I have to readjust my programming to acclimate to the tech used to protect the phone.”
They were aware.
It took as long as it took. Hopefully, though, they’d get something that could be used for Elizabeth to find Devon Slater.
Brody reassured MATE.
“Just do it as quickly as you can and also get that information to Elizabeth when you find it. Copy us, but priority one to the Deputy Director.”
The system chimed.
“On it, Agent Seaton.”
Then, MATE got down to work, and everyone there knew that the ball was in MATE’S court.
Hopefully, she found something.
Because time, and safety for the people around Elizabeth Blackhawk, was running out.
* * * The Blackhawks * * *
The Reservation
Ten P.M.
Rayna’s House
When the team pulled up to the woman’s cabin, deep on the reservation, the lights were on, and outside in front of Rayna’s home was the woman’s police cruiser.
She’d gotten the woman’s phone number from MATE, and she’d called her using a burner phone, so that Devon wouldn’t expect anything if he saw the call coming in.
What she hoped was that they’d catch him in the act, but deep down, she knew.
Rayna would already be dead.
Devon would be careful, and he’d also be excited to take this shot at her.
All the way there, she was praying that this would be just Rayna falling asleep and missing Caspian’s call, but deep down, she knew what she was going to find.
This was one more sin she would carry for the rest of her life. Oh, there were so many regrets, and not forcefully taking her into protective custody would be a big one.
Woulda.
Coulda.
Shoulda.
For now, she had to put it on the back burner and do her job. That was to stand up for Rayna and protect Caspian the best she could.
Still, for Elizabeth, this was the worst-case scenario, and she knew exactly why it was happening.
Evil lived among them.
Oh, and she’d gotten them all into this mess. It was going to be almost impossible not to carry this blame.
Damn.
Difficult.
“When we get back, I need you guys to be all over Uriel, so that we can get him through this,” she stated.
Her words made them curious, so Gryphen went there.
“You believe she’s dead?” he asked.
Elizabeth surveyed the scene as they all stayed in the vehicle, and her gut was telling her just that.
“Yeah, she’s going to be dead.”
Gunny was curious, too.
“How do you know?”
Elizabeth pointed.
“The passenger door isn’t closed all of the way on the car, and a cop wouldn’t leave it open. Rayna would secure her vehicle. There are guns in there.”
Yeah, she had a point.
Raphael didn’t like this.
“This is going to damage Cas. He’s going to crumble. He told me two days ago that she’s the one. He was just waiting for this to be over so he could ask her father for her hand in marriage.”
Well, that wouldn’t have gone well, but it didn’t really matter, now did it?
Fate had intervened, and that sucked.
“I know. We’ll get him through this. We’re his family, and that comes first. No matter what, we support him.”
That worked for them.
Elizabeth continued.
“I just have to piece it together so I can get on this asshole’s trail and make him pay. Uriel said she was working and then headed to the bar to break up a fight. He had to have gotten her after that.”
Gunny was curious.
“How do you know?” he asked, hoping he wasn’t annoying her with too many questions, but he wasn’t accustomed to guarding Elizabeth.
He tended to watch the house and back up Jet with the dogs or kids. Johnny had spent more time babysitting the boss when they were shorthanded.
She shared as they sat there, watching the place.
“Because if she didn’t show up at the bar, her deputies would have been looking for her.
So, we have to assume she got there, handled it, and somewhere between there and here, he managed to get her.
We all warned her not to let anyone she didn’t know approach her.
I know for a fact that I spoke to her, Ethan spoke to her, and Cas pleaded with her.
So how does this asshole get to a seasoned cop? How?” she asked.
It was rhetorical, but clearly, they didn’t know that.
Raphael went there.
“He would need a way to get her to approach him. So, a broken-down car? An accident? A person in distress will always lure a cop in. Then again, maybe he came for her here.”
Elizabeth took her time because she wanted to take it all in. There wouldn’t be a tech team here to find anything. Since they knew who it would be, if Rayna was dead, she wanted this kept on the DL.
For her father’s sake, and for the sake of her bodyguard.
As soon as she pieced it together, she shook her head.
“Again, the passenger door is slightly open. So, he was the passenger, or she was. He had to get her to stop and face him, so that tells me that he had to have been on the reservation since the bar is pretty far back. There’s only one on the reservation.”
She put her hand on the door.
And Ivan went there.
“Oh, Princess, we’re conjoined at the balls. You’re not wandering around this place alone. We go in together. He’s after you, and he could be in there waiting.”
She shook her head.
“No, he hits and runs. He did the damage, and he’d escape, so he doesn’t get caught. He wants me to walk in there and be leveled by what I’ll see. He won’t be in there, but he might have put cameras up.”
Well, in that case, Ivan wasn’t playing around.
“Raph, hit the button,” he said. “Someone isn’t getting his jollies off on watching this. We’ll plant the blocker somewhere in the trees, so he won’t know when we arrive or leave. Put it on loop, so he doesn’t see us moving around.”
The Archangel pulled one of the blockers out of his bag of tricks.
Bless the CIA and their goodies.
When he hit the button, he let them know it was clear.
“We’re good. All he’s seeing is whatever the last minute of footage was.”
Perfect.
Elizabeth had been quiet, but that was because she was thinking this through.
“He put the information out on the Dark Web to slow me down, and it got Jet killed. Then, he dropped flowers. That got Vivian killed. Both times, he went back under, so he’s going to be doing this out of rage. He likely didn’t leave me clues here. Just a massacre.”
Oh, well, that would be the best outcome for this shit situation, and Ivan knew it. While he hated that Rayna had likely been killed, and how it would take Caspian down, his main priority was the woman in the back seat of that ride.
Gryphen went there.
“This fucker is a coward, and that’s pissing me off. Running away makes him a pussy. That’s a shit-ass coward move if you ask me. Face us, and let’s play,” he stated.
Oh, she wished.
Only, she knew what was coming.
The Hunters.
His days of playing games were coming to an end. She just had to play along until they had something to find this piece of shit.
Elizabeth’s money was on her people.
Still, this pissed her off to no end, and she didn’t mince words around the Marines.
“If she’s dead, I’m going to blow his hidey-hole the fuck up,” she said.
“If I have to tell Caspian she’s been taken from him, I’m going to put so many bullet holes in him that he won’t be recognizable.
Jet was a mistake on his behalf, and so were Vivian and Rayna.
He’s rattled, and now, he’s going to make mistakes.
Those mistakes are going to get him killed by me. ”
Ruh-roh.
The director was going off the reservation, and they only hoped they’d be there to see it go down.
For Jet.