Jason (Kings of Guardian #4) (15 page)

Jason leaned back in his chair as Gabriel continued to review several folders he’d passed to him. Jacob and Jared sat across the conference room table, talking low between themselves. Jewell was late. Again. It was nothing new for the woman. It was only because she was a genius at the IT shit that Gabriel put up with her tardiness—that, and she usually brought food to the meetings. Nobody would admit it, but he and his brothers would probably eat junk food 24/7 if they could get away with it. So food was always a good way to start a meeting, especially now that Tori had Jacob eating healthy—at least when she was looking. His brother had an insane sweet tooth and the workout regimen to ensure he never gained an ounce, but his wife had gotten it into her mind that they needed to eat healthy for the kid’s sake.

Jason would have laughed at that two months ago. Now? He could see her point. He wanted to be around in thirty or forty years. Seeing Reece and any brother or sisters he may have grow up, build a life, and start their own family. Suddenly, that was pretty damn important.

He flicked a glance out the glass wall to see his sister running down the hall, a couple of bags in one hand, her tablet in the other.

She burst into the conference room. “Sorry! But I think I may have something.” Jewell grabbed a tray from the side table, emptied two bags of cookies onto it and unceremoniously slid it in front of Gabriel. The man grabbed three cookies and leaned back in his chair.

Jason grabbed one and mimicked his boss’s actions, as did Jared and Jacob. “Alright, what do you have?”

“Wait… first, what did I miss?” Jewell grabbed a cookie and shoved half of it into her mouth. Her words were barely discernable as she continued, “I always miss stuff.”

“If you weren’t twenty minutes late to every meeting you’ve ever attended you wouldn’t,” Jacob chided his older sister.

Jewell shrugged in acknowledgment of the reprimand. She swallowed and stood, going to the side table for a bottle of water. Speaking over her shoulder, she asked again, “So?”

Jared repeated his people’s findings for Jewell. “The Boeing had a device rigged to the altimeter. Thanks to Jacob’s warning, we diverted before we reached our cruising altitude. There was enough C4 to blast a hole in the bulkhead. The plane would have torn itself apart with little likelihood of finding the device or us. We are tracing the chemical compound of the C4 to the manufacturer and then starting a trail on the lot it would have come from.”

She sat down and tapped the screen of her tablet. “What about the detonation device? Do you have anything?”

Jared shook his head. “Forensics has it now. I don’t have the results of any tests at this time.”

“Tell them to check for any DNA under any of the computer chips, diodes or converters in the device itself. Most common place to injure yourself while making a board is while installing the chips.”

Jared chuckled. “You would know. They’re the best team we have, Jewell.” He lifted a hand at her almost immediate objection. “I’ll tell them.”

“Thank you. Jacob, have you had any indication in movement or chatter from Europe?”

Jason and Gabriel leaned forward as one man. His brothers across the table immediately came to attention at their simultaneous motion.

“Why do you ask, Jewell?” He leveled a stare at his sister. Sometimes her scattered genius brain worked faster than the human element Guardian employed.

“Huh?” Jewell grabbed a cookie and looked at him in complete confusion. He wanted to bash his head against the table.
The woman is brilliant. You can’t strangle her.

“Why did you ask if there was any European involvement?” Jason’s eye twitched. His sister could wind him up fast.

“Sorry, I’ll be more precise, Russian involvement. Remember the incident over Afghanistan that downed your transport?” She didn’t look up and tapped away at her tablet.

Jason blinked to reboot his brain at her question. “I’m not likely to forget it. Two of my men were killed in that
incident
.”

Her eyes darted to his. Her mouth formed an O and she looked at the other three men at the table. “Jase, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think.”

“You rarely do when you’re interacting with people, Jewell. What
is
your point?” Jason lifted an eyebrow and waited impatiently. One hell of a lot of anger suddenly strummed through his veins.

“I, ah… well, I mean… I think someone hacked us again. I’ve been running an algorithm on over a hundred million lines of script from the time surrounding that… situation. Anyway, when Jacob put us on alert last night, I immediately implemented the same algorithm to determine if any of the script I had analyzed in the first situation had repeated itself in the second suspected breach. It did. The code ran something similar to a Trojan, but more modern and practically undetectable. The activation mechanism is sublime and can ride any standard transmission as long as the person who is sending the communication maintains his access here at Guardian.”

Jason held up a hand. “He? You said as long as his access here at Guardian. Do you know whose transmission was used?”

Jewell nodded. “Both times. Yuri Malentikov. The script propagated as a virus that was immediately isolated by my anti-virus programs, which is precisely what the creator wanted to happen. Once in the isolation vault, the script morphed and rode the email notification out of the program. It gained immediate access to everyone and everything Yuri’s clearance was allowed to see.”

“Who created it?” Jason and Jacob asked at the same time.

“Don’t know, but I want to meet that crazy son of a bitch. He’s beyond brilliant.” Jewell’s eyes lit up in admiration.

“He?”

“Definitely a man’s touch.”

“Did you contain the virus?”

“What? Of course I did. Deleted Malentikov’s account and neutralized the program to useless gibberish which is being eradicated by my program as we speak. I was able to trace the scripts origin.”

“To Malentikov?” Jared asked.

“Huh? No! Jeez, Jared, would you please keep up? He’s
not
the villain. Didn’t I say that?” Jewell looked at Jacob, who lifted his eyebrows and shook his head.

“Honestly, I have no idea what ninety-nine percent of what you just said means, Jewell.”

“Uggg… okay, for the ones who don’t speak English… he’s been compromised but he hasn’t done anything wrong. The bad guy is somewhere in the Ukraine, or at least that is as far as I could track him. My last ping off Yuri’s messages has him holding a position near Las Vegas. Malentikov’s messages were all done within established protocols. I was able to determine that the program hopped on through the Ukraine’s governmental data systems. Apparently our agent has been made and targeted specifically for this very purpose because the man has only made two contacts to this organization in the last two and a half years. The hacker’s script hopped on both, so obviously they know he is our asset. Whatever you have him working on is probably compromised too.”

“Jewell, this is excellent work. Jason and I need a report on our desk by the end of the day to include recommendations on how to safeguard against this type of attack in the future.”

Jewell nodded and stood as she grabbed a handful of cookies and glanced at her watch. “This is probably dinner.” She smiled and waltzed out of the room.

Gabriel glanced at Jason and nodded. He blew out a lungful of air and looked at his brothers. He threw his Mont Blanc pen on the file in front of him and leaned in on his elbows.

“Gentlemen, Yuri Malentikov is a deep undercover agent. His assignment has been to try to gain access and information on the Russian Mafia’s human trafficking businesses. He sent in a distress code indicating he believed his cover may have been compromised. Gabriel and I were to pull him out tomorrow. Our meet was scheduled to be just outside Los Angeles.”

Jared cleared his throat. “Let me go get him. I’m Domestic Ops. I’ll bring him in. Right now the emphasis on the source of
this
situation is overseas, and that’s Jacob’s baby. I can keep my fingers in the investigation and bring your guy home.”

“We can send a team, Jared. There is no need for you to go.” Jason dismissed his brother’s comment summarily.

“I disagree. This is Domestic Operations. What happened to Anna and Faith happened on U.S. soil. It
is
my responsibility. I’ll take a team, but if this guy has been deep he needs to be debriefed, and like it or not, I’m the best interrogator you have at the clearance level you need. I can build a report on the way back to the ranch. He can start his reintroduction, and I’ll have firsthand knowledge of an operation that will, sooner or later, fall under my purview.”

Jason leaned back and narrowed his eyes at his brother. Gabriel was doing an excellent impression of a wallflower. Jason realized that the man was literally handing him the reins. “This operation involves far more than Dom Ops. When I have signed off on it, the operation will encompass foreign and domestic assets and could bring down four separate organizations, all of which sell little boys and girls, young women and men, to wealthy Americans, Europeans and to people of wealth and stature in Asia and the Middle East. This is global, Jared, and exponentially larger than the Morales Cartel. The victims are harvested from around the world.”

Jared leaned forward, just as animated as Jason. “I ran point on the Morales bust. I have the experience. Don’t push me out because I made some stupid comments, Jace.”

“I wouldn’t. Your noted concerns about my appointment have nothing to do with this business. I’ll send you out, but you won’t be running this op, Jared. This is mine. Every facet of Guardian will be in play on this one.”

Jacob cocked his head. “What are you talking about? What concerns?”

Jason glanced at his youngest brother. “Ask Jared. In the meantime, gentlemen, I believe we have our way forward. Jacob, I need a black door operative to make his way to the Ukraine. If the Russian Mafia is using a computer genius in the area, somebody will know. Exploit the human intelligence factor. The mafia pays, we pay more. Jared, get your ass out west. I’ll send you the file on Yuri. I’ll call the training complex and make sure they are aware we have a deep asset inbound. After you get the man settled and debriefed, get back here. I have plans for you.”

The last comment got a double take from both his brothers. They nodded and left, each heading opposite directions down the hall.

“You handled that well. It could have gotten into a pissing contest between you and Jared if you hadn’t taken him in hand. He’s a great cop. Passionate and dedicated. But give him an inch…”

“He’ll take ten miles. Yeah, I got it. Jacob won’t be an issue. I’ll keep my guard up with Jared until I can get him down to the basement.”

“Ha! An excellent idea. You’ll be fine.”

“Hell of an introduction.”

“That it is. How are Faith and Reece?”

“Scared. It took forever to get Reece to settle down. Christian hung with him last night. All three of them were sleeping when I left this morning.”

“Does she now realize what she’s signing up for?” Gabriel asked.

“I’ve been honest with her, although I have minimized the danger aspect, to me… not her or Reece. Never in a million years would I believe our families would be compromised.”

“And yet they were. But the silver lining in all of this is we now know that mission you were on was doomed from the beginning. There was nothing you could have done to change the outcome and you did everything you could to minimize the losses we took.”

Jason swallowed. Hard facts, finally. Should he be happy? He wasn’t. Two men had lost their lives. He’d never get over that.

“You’ve taken to this command gig well enough. Maybe I’ll move up my retirement.” Gabriel’s eyes held a faraway look.

“How are Anna and the kids?”

“She’s shaken up, just like Faith. Hell, she wants to go home and hug her babies. Unfortunately, the twins are at Annapolis. Our oldest has obligations she won’t leave, and the youngest is climbing the walls because of the lockdown.”

Jason had a gut feeling. “Anna wants you out, doesn’t she?”

“Like now. But that won’t happen. I won’t leave before I know you are ready to take over.”

“Start making your plans, my friend. I’ll need you to stay until I can get Faith to Vegas and marry her. After that, you’ve paid enough. I’ll call if I need help.” He held his mentor’s eyes so the man could read his commitment.

“Two days ago I’d have fought you and dragged my feet. Yesterday, my wife was almost killed, and I thought for sure we would end up as a molten fireball on a Dulles runway. You’ve got me until you say go. Then
I will
go.”

Jason hit the remote that locked the conference room door and turned the glass walls opaque. He pinned Gabriel with a stare. “Now, tell me about Justin.”