Deadly Sins (44 page)

Because it was an apt description, she nodded. But she was also careful to say little. She had no idea if this conversation would be repeated to the assistant director. Suspicion had started to haze every aspect of this case. She couldn’t afford for it to be otherwise. The stakes were too high.

They were heading for the front doors. “I know you don’t want to hear this. That Adam wouldn’t believe it, but Jaid”—the agent’s hand on her arm stopped her—“if Raiker isn’t behind these murders, then someone planted his print on that card. Where’d they get it? How? Only someone close to him would have that kind of access.”

His words made sense. And echoed similar thoughts she’d wrestled with in the wakeful hours of the night. “You think that someone might be Benton. To what purpose?”

Frustration stamped the man’s handsome face. “I haven’t gotten that far. But I’m not going to drop it. There are a lot of people in this agency who still hold Raiker in high regard. A lot who aren’t going to take this latest twist at face value. If someone is trying to frame him, it’s someone he trusts.”

And that, she thought sickly, was a harsh sentence for a man to whom the emotion came so reluctantly. “I agree. I hope your efforts turn something up on that end.”

He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “If you would happen to speak to him . . .”

Delicately, she freed herself from his grasp. “I won’t. But I hope you find something that proves your hunch.” Because if he didn’t, she thought as she turned and went through the front doors, the manhunt surrounding Adam would intensify. And even with his resources, he couldn’t stay underground forever.

The West Virginia site was tucked into a rural mountainous region where the black bears outnumbered county residents. Its seclusion had been one of the factors that had led to its selection for a backup facility when Adam had started his agency.

But having a process in place to vacate his primary location had simply seemed a security precaution at the time. He’d never imagined a time when he would have to utilize the code eight operation. Shutting down the Manassas facility and moving a smaller, more select group of operatives to this site.

He scanned the area with a careful eye but could find nothing that required his immediate attention. From the exterior the area looked like a camping property. Small cabins were scattered in a perimeter around a large structure that looked like a huge warehouse. Inside a mobile lab was housed in one corner. Alfred Jones, the one scientist who had made the trip, was currently inside it, fussily arranging his domain. There were large conference rooms set up with movable walls and flooring. And there was a small cyber center with operatives busy handling the download of backup files from the main server.

If things went according to plan, by the time law enforcement seized what remained of the computers at the Manassas headquarters, the motherboard of each would be fried and useless.

Paulie came up beside Adam and silently joined his perusal of the activity. “Should be ready to go in another couple hours.”

“Have they hit the main facility yet?”

“Served a warrant there a couple hours ago.” Paulie seemed to understand Adam’s black thoughts. “We knew, when they couldn’t find you at home, that the facility would be next. We had plenty of time to shut things down there. They aren’t going to access any information about our back cases. Or anything else. Gavin and I made sure of that.”

Gavin Pounds was their resident cyber wizard, currently in the e-center bringing their computers up to speed. Paulie matched him in brilliance with all things electronic. “I know.”

“But it’s the idea of law enforcement swarming in there and putting their grubby paws all over what we’ve built.” He laid a pudgy hand over his chest, which was clad in a light blue shirt decorated with tiny poker chips. “Believe me, I feel violated, too, and not in the way I usually prefer. But whoever is behind this will pay, Adam. Maybe the government will, too, when we hit them with a suit for unlawful arrest.”

“Since I have no intention of allowing them to arrest me, that may be a moot point,” he responded dryly. His cell rang, and he tensed. The news in the last few hours had only brought complications.

But recognizing the number of the safe phone he’d left with Jaid, something inside him eased. He turned away to answer it. “Jaid.”

“I’ve been removed from the case. You can either have me join you, or I’ll continue the investigation here alone. But make no mistake, Adam, I will continue with or without you.”

He wasn’t totally surprised at the first part of the news. But the last statement had ice-cold fear spearing through him. “I think it’d be best if you joined your son.”

“Two options, Adam, and that wasn’t among them.”

Cursing mentally, he shot a look at his friend, who was pretending to be interested in the activity in the corner. And wondered why he’d ever found independence in a woman to be so damned attractive.

“All right,” he bit the words out. “Follow directions precisely. And if you give my operatives any trouble, I’m giving them permission to drop you off, mid flight, without a parachute.”

The empty lot south of Manassas had a high security fence surrounding its perimeter. The fence was topped with barbed wire that carried an electrical current. At least that’s what the warning sign posted at the double gates said. Jaid could see no reason for the security. The huge open space that it encompassed was empty.

But she punched in the series of codes Adam had given her, and the light on the security modem flashed green. The gates slowly swung open, and she got back in her car and drove through. Parked a quarter mile inside near the center of the area.

The gates closed automatically behind her. Probably locked. She sat for about fifteen minutes. Long enough to peer anxiously in all directions several times to see if she had been followed. If she’d acquired a tail, it wasn’t visible. And there’d be no way to follow her from this point, at any rate.

She heard the ’copter long before she saw it. And she recognized that the area, the ownership of which couldn’t be traced back to Adam, had one purpose only. And that was to serve as a private landing strip.

She waited until the helicopter bounced lightly a few times, settled, and a door opened before she got out of her car. Taking her purse, briefcase, and a duffel bag out of the backseat, she locked the vehicle and ran in a crouch toward her ride.

All three occupants inside were unfamiliar. But Adam had told her whom to expect. The raven-haired woman with the brilliant green eyes would be Caitlin Fleming. The muscular dark-haired man next to Hank, the pilot, would be her husband, Zach Sharper.

“That all you brought?” Cait helped her stow her gear in the tiny interior space. “Good thing. We’re sardines in here.”

The door closed automatically as they buckled themselves into the two backseats. “Just so you know,” Jaid pitched her voice loudly enough to be heard over the sound of the copter’s blades, “if you have any thought at all of taking me somewhere other than where Adam is, I am armed.” She gave the woman next to her a cheerful smile. “I’ll shoot to maim.”

The helicopter lifted as Cait gave her a long, assessing look. Her sudden smile elevated her features to cover-girl status. “I like her,” she shouted, leaning forward to thump her husband’s bicep.

He looked over his shoulder at them, his expression indulgent. “I’m not surprised.”

Jerry Benton kissed the rosary he held, made the sign of the cross. Once again he was the only one in the small chapel. Alone with his regrets. His prayers. His despair.

He began the Our Father, hoping another decade of the rosary would bring him what confession hadn’t. A feeling of peace and forgiveness.

But he knew somehow that forgiveness was a long way off. He couldn’t deny Pastor Gleason’s words of absolution. He’d functioned for far too long believing, in some respects, that the ends justified the means.

It was the unintended consequences to plans set in motion long ago that brought the most grief now. The strength of his convictions had hurt those he worked with. Involved Adam in a way Jerry had never intended.

His head bowed, he prayed for a way to make it up to him.

“Has Macy run authorship matches on the written statements I got at Senator Newell’s yesterday?”

Jaid’s question was directed at Adam, but a small dark-haired woman with quiet gray eyes answered from the end of the conference table. “That’d be me. And yes, I ran the tests. None of them matched the author of the e-mail found on Lambert’s computer or the note Ferrell had.”

Slightly deflated, Jaid reached into a pocket of her briefcase. “I never was able to get a copy of Dr. Harandi’s statement. But I did find a couple papers he’s published that were accessible on the Web.” She took the sheets out and got up to walk them to the linguist. “Will that work?”

“It might. Although I would expect a research document such as this to be written in a more formal manner than, say, a paragraph or written statement, it’s my understanding that Dr. Harandi is not a native English speaker. In that case, his syntax may well tend to be more formal anyway. At any rate, it’ll just take an hour or so to diagram the samples and run the tests.”

There were nine of them around the table. Jaid didn’t know any of them, really, other than Adam and Paulie. But she’d met Kell a couple days earlier. Cait and Zach on the ride over. And the still absent Ramsey and Devlin Stryker had been the operatives tasked with driving Royce and her mother to Orlando. She assumed they’d be joining them later. There was something strikingly familiar about Risa Chandler, the long-legged woman with the dark blond hair on Adam’s other side. A dark-haired man flanked her. In the next moment Jaid recalled that both of them, along with Devlin Stryker, had been at the Philadelphia hospital when she’d gone to visit Adam after he’d been shot.

The sheer number of people who were involved in what should be a covert investigation made her nervous. There were a few others bent over the computers in the next room. An oddball of a scientist in the mobile lab with a black Mohawk and enough piercings to set off metal detectors. And Adam had mentioned another couple of investigators on the road checking out Lambert’s story about his childhood.