The Shadow of Mudflap (A Foxtrot Team Novel #1) (17 page)

Shanae

TC started out the Monday practice with a huge team meeting. He let the players know exactly what was going on with the threats, the attacks, the intel. Everything he could, he told them and then he told them a little bit more. Shanae shook her head mentally. She liked TC. He just wanted these kids to be protected, above everything else, even if it got him into trouble.

He’d discussed his plan with Mudflap this morning over breakfast when she’d been there. The two brothers decided to buck the government orders, thinking the more the team knew, the more likely they would be to thwart whoever was messing with them. She’d just pretended to be deaf and blind while they discussed it. She didn’t know anything about what TC planned to tell the team…that was her story and she was sticking to it.

Mudflap…she was worried about him. She knew as a nurse that a headache could linger for days after a concussion, but he was in a lot of pain. She planned to sneak back over to his house during her lunch break to check on him. It didn’t seem right to leave him there all day alone, especially when they seemed no closer to catching whoever was doing all this.

She didn’t think he was in danger, but until they figured this all out, she planned to be on high alert. He’d been shot at before.

Which brought her back to what exactly was going on here. She’d visited the explosion site this morning even though the team was temporarily relocated to one of the high school practice fields this week. The construction crew was working round the clock to ensure the team could be back in their training facility by the end of the week and the final conference game against Kansas State that weekend.

She found the construction foreman and asked him about the coin, knowing the odds of finding it in the rubble were slim. But for once, she lucked out. They had found the coin the evening before and it had been unusual enough that he slid it into a plastic baggie to turn over to the crime scene investigators. She was able to sweet talk him out of it and now had it in her pocket. She planned to compare it to the coin Mudflap had from Grant to see if she could come up with any clues.

Three hours later, she let herself into Mudflap’s house with the key he’d given her. She didn’t want to ring the doorbell in case he was asleep. But when she peeked into his room to check on him, he was sitting on his bed with a shoebox full of paperwork spread out all over his bed. Watching him for a moment, she lingered across the bruises on his gorgeously defined bare chest, but it was the dark circles under his eyes which concerned her. He still had a headache. Whatever he was doing with all that paperwork couldn’t be helping the state of his head.

He must have sensed her or smelled the bag-full of food in her hand, because he suddenly glanced up at her with an alarmed look in his eye. It immediately eased into a slow smile when he saw it was just her.

“Hey, you. I brought some lunch if you feel up to eating a sub sandwich.”

“That sounds great. Let me just put a shirt on.”

She took a moment more to ogle his bare chest as he extracted himself from the paperwork on the bed. Even with the bruises visible there, her mouth went dry as she watched the play of his muscles as they flexed and contracted across his tight stomach. “Don’t put one on for me. I’m good,”
like really, really good
, “with you just like that.”

He smirked at her and it was nice to see some light in his eyes instead of pain, as he sauntered toward the doorway where she stood. Reaching down, he grabbed her by her waist and pulled her flush up against that hard chest. He kissed her passionately and suddenly she didn’t care at all about eating anymore. Her panties moistened as his tongue invaded her mouth, claiming her. She threaded her fingers around the back of his head.

Yanking away, he hissed.

“Damn, I’m sorry. I forgot all about your head.”

His eyes shut as he leaned his head on top of hers. “It’s okay. You distracted me from the drummers in there for a moment, but now,” he thrust his erection against her pelvis, “I’m throbbing in other places instead. Wanna take care of that for me?” He leered at her.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Didn’t your doctor tell you to take it easy for a few days?”

“I’d be willing to let you do all the work.” His grin was so boyish and flirtatious.

She couldn’t hold back the giggle. “You are corruption incarnate. Come on, how about I feed you instead?”

He pressed a single finger against his chin. “I just don’t see how that’s going to be as much fun for either of us, but okay, if you insist.”

As they sat down at the table to eat, Mudflap took some more painkillers.

“How’s your headache today?”

“I took a nap this morning and that seemed to help.”

“So what was that spread all over your bed?”

“Darlin’, that was me. Has it truly been that long since we had sex? You don’t even recognize me anymore?”

She rolled her eyes at him. He was in a mood today. “All the paperwork and the box.”

“Oh, that. It’s actually Grant’s stuff. We were doing some research on his dad when we had downtime at the fire station. When I cleaned out my locker, the paperwork had been shoved into my stuff, so I brought it home. I heard something on the radio this morning that made me think about it.”

“Grant’s dad… I seem to remember something about him from his files. He thought his death should have been investigated, right?”

Mudflap watched her strangely for a moment. “How much did you know about me before we started dating?”

Blood rushed to her cheeks. “Um, quite a bit before we actually started dating. But when we met in the hospital corridor, I didn’t know anything except I wanted you.”

“Good.” He gave her a hard, quick kiss. “Hang on and let me go get the stuff so you can see what I’m talking about.”

When he came back into the dining room, he had his hands full of various papers and books which he spread over the table. A lot of them were journals and newspaper clippings.

“Grant’s dad was a conspiracy theorist. He was always sure that there was a big brother entity standing by out there to get us and constantly researched various things in the news he thought were suspicious.”

“Is that why Grant doesn’t think his dad’s death was an accident?”

“Yes, that and the fact his dad used to be a dirt track racer. They said he lost control of his car in the rain that night. This was a guy who raced in mud and water for over ten years. He knew how to drive in slick conditions. Add that to the fact that his truck blew up on impact, it just doesn’t add up. I agree with Grant. I don’t think it was an accident.”

“Okay, but what does that have to do with what’s going on right now?”

“There was a caller on the radio station spewing crazy talk about the football team and the explosion, but something about the way he phrased it struck me as familiar. I couldn’t figure it out at first, but when I woke up from my nap, I remembered… It was just like some of the notes Grant had from his dad.”

He opened a journal filled with newspaper clippings. There were certain phrases highlighted from quotes within the articles. All the quotes came from eye-witness accounts from crimes— shootings, bombings, bank robberies. Over and over again, three words showed up: justice, liberation, domination.

The oddest thing about it though is that when those words were used, they were in almost nonsense comments. One you could brush off, but these articles covered years of incidences. For it to occur this many times…Grant’s father had definitely been onto something.

“The guy on the radio used all these words when he talked about the car bombing over the weekend. And honestly, listening to him, the phrasing and the way he said it was wrong. It didn’t even sound right. It means something. I’m sure of it.”

“Okay, let me call Daniel so he can get the transcript from the radio station. Maybe we can also track down who the caller was.” As she pulled her cell phone out, she looked back over the papers. “Grant’s dad found the pattern. Have you been able to figure it out? Was he able to piece together who did this?”

“No, but I did find this.” He opened a notebook and within it was a drawing of the five-point Celtic star coin identical to the one Grant had found at the cotton gin fire. He placed the notebook open on the table and placed the matching coin on top of it. “He also has the numbers five, three, one, written in the journals several times.”

Seeing that, she dug in her pocket for the baggie the site manager had given her. “They found this at the training center.” The second coin was an identical match. “It definitely all ties together. Now we just have to figure out what it means and who’s responsible. If Grant’s father died for this, the odds are good that the answers are here in his papers somewhere.”

Mudflap rubbed at his temples, while Shanae made the call into Daniel. When she finished with him on the phone, she turned back to Mudflap. “Daniel would like for us to come in with all the information Grant’s father gathered. He’s sending someone over the get the transcript from the radio station and he’d like for us to work with Quirk, LiFT’s techno geek, on this. He’s sending someone in to cover for me at the stadium. Are you feeling up to it?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just let me shower and get dressed.”

She examined his eyes. They already looked much duller than they’d been when she’d arrived home. If she were to guess, his headache was pounding at him with a vengeance.

“I know you’re hurting. Let me help.”

He stared at her for a moment before he bowed his head against his chest and agreed. “Okay.”

And that right there proved to her just how much pain he was really feeling.

Mudflap

Two hours later, Mudflap was pretty sure his brain was about to start oozing out of his ears, his head hurt so much. With Grant still in a nursing home, recovering from his long coma, he couldn’t help, so it was up to Mudflap to explain all the ins and outs of Grant’s dad’s journals.

Quirk was pretty nonchalant about it all as he input the information into his computer, until they got to the coins. He gasped when he saw them and yanked them out of Shanae’s grasp. He whirled around to place one under a microscope mumbling while he examined them. “I’ve heard about these, but never thought I’d see one.”

“They aren’t just coins?” Mudflap asked.

“Oh, no.” Quirk actually grinned in what could only be considered a gleeful manner. It was a little disconcerting. “These,” he held up the coin not under the microscope, “if they are what I think they are, are the finest in micro-GPS technology.”

“GPS? Should we be worried that we brought the coins here?” Shanae glanced around LiFT HQ.

“No, we have a dampening field around the whole building. Even if they were trackers, they couldn’t lead anyone here. But I don’t think that’s what these babies are.” He had some tiny tweezers that he used on the coin in the microscope.

“Bingo,” he whispered. “Come to Quirk, baby.” He withdrew the tweezers, the prongs now holding a tiny fleck of metal.

Both Shanae and Mudflap leaned forward to look at it. “What is it?” Mudflap asked.

“I’ll have to test it, but I think this may just be the key to blowing this case wide open. If my guess is correct, this is a transmitter and it’s sending out information that we need.”

Three hours later, Quirk had decoded the information within the chips from the coins. Each chip had a series of numbers sent out to four different phone numbers. The first coin’s series of numbers was 335835660 and the second coin had the number 1013450110. The general consensus was the numbers were some sort of code, but no one had been able to crack it yet. Quirk had several different computers working it for him.

From what Quirk had been able to ascertain from the coins and the chips, the transmission was activated by heat, which meant the signal only went out if the detonation was successful. There were a total of five phone numbers that the transmissions went to—three of those were the same on both chips. All the phone numbers were for throw-away cell phones, so they were at a dead end there.

The final game of the season was Friday and they all knew that if something was going to happen, it was probably going to happen then. They had to figure the puzzle out and they only had three days to do it.

Shanae

Shanae glanced down at her ringing cell phone and debated not answering it, but that was just asking for another unwelcome visit. She had enough on her plate this week already without Seth breathing down her neck. It had been a couple of days since they found the clues in the coins, but hadn’t made any further discoveries.

She pushed the talk button. “Hello, Seth.”

“Hi. I know you told me to stay away, but I just wanted to let you know I’m going to be in town on assignment this weekend. I’d like to see you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Mudflap knows about everything and I’m pretty sure we’re in a relationship now.”

The line grew quiet as Shanae waited for his response. She didn’t want to hurt him. At one point in time, she’d thought she’d spend the rest of her life with this man. He may be overbearing, but part of that was because he loved her. She knew that, but that didn’t change the fact they weren’t meant to be together.

His voice was quiet and subdued when he finally spoke. “Okay, I’m not happy about it, but I’ll accept that. For now. Just know that if you ever need anything…. Anything, baby girl, I’ll be there for you. Always.”

“Thanks, Seth, and I’m sorry.” She disconnected.

Week 10 (second half): Don’t Fumble Now…

Mudflap

By Friday, everyone’s nerves were frazzled because they were no closer to breaking the code than they’d been on Monday. The stadium was covered by local and Federal security personnel. Anyone who could be called in to help had been, but a pall of foreboding lay over this final game of the regular season.

Mudflap stood at the top of the stadium, scanning the entire venue as well as the vistas surrounding it where snipers could hide. He looked for any sign of danger or something out of place. Everything seemed normal. Satisfied with that for now, he headed down to the lower levels of the stadium. They were only two hours out from game time.