Chapter 6
Taylor's body still hummed with the energy from their make-out session and then Kam's confession.
She wanted to pry the whole story from him, and if she had to use her kisses to do it, there were worse ways to gain the truth.
Although if she were honest, she needed to pull herself back.
It was too easy to get lost in the emotions that were their relationship.
They had never lacked passion when they were together, and as much as she wanted to fall back into that whirlwind of comfort, there were other, more important things to do.
Like, stop a terrorist from gaining access to US weapons silos.
"What did you find, Max?" Taylor stood behind him.
Max pointed toward the far wall. "There is another work station over there, but you can bring the chair over here for now."
Taylor dragged over the chair that was nicer than hers at the field office. "Is that an auction site?"
"Sometimes." Max opened a link. "Here."
Taylor scanned the screen as her stomach acid rose in her throat. "That's me. Well, Tina Miller, anyway. What is my information doing on this site?"
Max waved her back. His fingers clicked on the keyboard until another screen opened up. "I think that someone stole your information and sold it. People can buy profiles and use them to do whatever, then sell them again."
Max cleared his throat. "This site is where hot profiles go to be sold."
"Hot profiles?" Kam asked.
"Ones that might have authorities already looking into them. Some people use them as tools to enhance their reputation for cruelty, leading them to do worse. Think of it as lying on your resume for bad guys. It could also explain the hit."
Kam fisted his hands at his side. "If she's dead, that profile gets even better because now she's a ghost."
Taylor glanced at Kam, and in his eyes burned a silent vow — he looked like he’d take on the whole world if it meant keeping her safe. "So they are cleaning up loose ends, but we already knew that."
"That's not all I found."
Taylor watched as Max continued to type. "Your profile was already bought before."
"Can you figure out who bought it?"
"I'm still working on that." Max turned back to the screen. "But if I track that sale, then I can't track what they did with your profile."
"I can track that." Taylor wheeled toward the work station. "Send me what you have on my fake profile. Let's see what I was up to on the dark web."
Kam paced to the door. "I'm going to get us ready to move. We can't stay in one place too long."
Taylor spun the chair to face the door. "Could you find me a secure phone? I need to check in with Schulz."
"There are some phones and SAT phones in the closet with the guns. Down here is a large Faraday cage, so you'll have to go upstairs to use it," Max said without pausing his typing.
Taylor looked at Kam one more time before he disappeared out the door. It was irrational, but now that she had him back, she didn't want him out of her sight. He might not come back.
"He'll always come back for you." Max stopped typing and faced her.
"How do I know they won't make him disappear again?"
"We can't know the future, but Kam says his God has a bigger plan than we can understand. That the pain we go through, He can use for good."
"Do you believe that?"
Max looked toward the door, then back to her. "I know that Kam and you are different than the rest of the world that I knew. My wife believed, and she made sure that my son did too."
Max swallowed hard. "Someday, maybe I could ask you more about it, but right now, we need to set you free."
Taylor rolled toward Max. "As much as I want to live a long life with Kam now that I have found him, if I don't make it, I know that I'll be free forever." She rested her hand on his arm, letting her own words settle peace inside of her. "Just as your wife and son are."
Max turned away from her. "Yes, well. Let's get hacking. Kam deserves a bit of happiness in this life."
Taylor listened to Kam's footsteps carry him down the hall. She needed to get answers like Max said, then she could explore where their relationship would take them. Of course, she would be cleared and return to the FBI, but that wouldn't be the end of the world, right?
Kam's words echoed in her mind. I don't want to put you in a position where you have to arrest me or live with the knowledge that you should have.
One step at a time. For now, she was not technically an agent, even though her clearance was probably now suspended.
Taylor cracked her knuckles and started searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
She knew that her skills were better than most, but this wasn't like testing a system for weak spots; this was where criminals came to hide and do their business without the eyes of the world's authorities watching. She would need to be the person her professor warned her that she could become.
Is this what Kam felt like? Knowing that he was doing good, even if it was technically breaking so many international laws. She looked over her shoulder, where Kam had disappeared down the hall.
She took a deep breath and embraced a part of her she shut down many years ago.
This was to stop an international incident and a possible world war.
It sounded dramatic, but if the enemies of the US got those missiles, the destruction to follow would cost many innocent lives.
This is where Max was wrong. This wasn't just about her.
It was about saving millions of others. Even if she were never an agent again, she wouldn't stop until these people were stopped.
"I've got something," Max and Taylor said together.
Kam came back into the door from the opposite way he had gone.
"Ladies first, my dear." Max rolled toward her. Kam stood behind them with his arms crossed. Something had him on edge, but they'd get to that in a minute.
Taylor scrolled through the chat she found. "This is a chat between whoever stole my identity and a buyer. They are going to make an exchange at the Anchorage Airport at 1700 today."
"We need to stop that exchange." Kam was already taking a step towards the door.
"Hold on, Ranger. That's not all. I was able to hack the buyer's profile. Turns out our friends at the FSB are the ones buying the information."
"Interesting." Max rubbed at the stubble on his chin. "I was able to trace your profile back to a company called Inerrant."
"Spartak," Kam growled.
"Well, that's a bit of a stretch." Taylor guffawed.
Kam smirked at her. "No one ever accused them of being humble."
"Did you know that it was Spartak this whole time?" She watched Kam praying, she didn't see deceit.
"I had a hunch, but no proof." He held her gaze. "If I had known for sure, I would have stopped it before it got this far."
"But then we wouldn't have met again."
"I guess God knew what He was doing then."
A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "I guess He did. So what are we going to do to stop them?" She didn't want to ask, but she had to explore the possibility. "Can you make contact?"
"I'm not sure. I didn't exactly leave the organization on the best of terms. They blame me for abandoning Ian."
Taylor shook her head. "Who is running Spartak anyway? I thought that Alexis said his father passed away a month ago."
Kam didn't say anything. Taylor's gut sank. "Kam, who took over Spartak?"
"Rumor has it that Dasha Volkov took over when Alexis refused to come home."
Taylor furrowed her brows. "Ian's mother? I thought that she had died."
"She is not dead, and she will stop at nothing to amass her wealth. She will also do anything for her son."
"Ian is in a maximum security facility. There is no way she can get to him now."
"She might not be able to, but having the FSB in your pocket is a strategic move. The FSB would never side with Spartak. Not now that they were caught operating on US soil."
"We need to bring Schulz and VanKirk in on this. We need to make sure that this exchange never happens."
"I have an idea," Max said.
Kam needed to put the final nail in Spartak. His freedom, and now Taylor's, depended on it.
"What if we do an old KGB trick?" Kam stared at his friend. He had a feeling he wouldn't like this plan.
"You know. You take a fake briefcase and replace it with the real one. The guy goes to make an exchange and gets shot for bringing nothing with him to the deal?"
Taylor started to object, but Kam beat her to it. "Max, we'd like to keep the body count to as close to zero as possible. But you might be on to something."
Kam paced back to the computer where Taylor had been working. "What if we can switch the USB drive? How long would it take you to create fake schematics for a non-existent silo, Max?"
"Give me twenty minutes." Max slid back in front of his computer.
Taylor shook her head. "Even if we can switch out the drives, how are we going to identify who has it? And we aren't seriously going to let them get away with attempting to sell State secrets, are we?"
Kam smirked. "You always were a pragmatic thinker. We know that it was someone on the Senator's team. I might be able to cash in a favor and get someone to scan the people going through security at Anchorage. Compare it to a list of people on the Senator's team."
Taylor opened, then shut her mouth. He could tell she wanted to know what kind of favor he had saved to get him that kind of breach of security. He'd have to school her later on the ins and outs of who he worked for.
Kam tossed Taylor a SAT phone. "Call Schulz and tell him to meet us at the airport. He'll get his arrest."
"Why switch the files? We won't have much of a case if the stolen files aren't in their possession when they're arrested."
"I'd rather not take the chance that the KGB gets their hands on the file at all." Kam squeezed her shoulder. "Consider it a safety net in case this whole thing goes sideways."