Sins of the Titanic (A James Acton Thriller, #13) (33 page)

She not
only intended to plug the leak, she was going to mop up anything that had
escaped.

And it
had already started, Congressman Mahoney dead in what he was certain was a
staged car accident.

The
woman looked at him. “Where is the painting?”

Acton
quickly decided he needed to cooperate. Sherrie would be missed, he was sure of
it, and they needed time for additional resources to reach them. He had
swallowed the tracking device and it was still good for at least a day.

They
would be found.

The
question was whether they’d be found dead or alive.

And at
this moment in time, he had no leverage over this woman, but she had three
people he cared about, including one that was priceless.

He
looked at Laura.

“At the
university, in one of the archeology labs.”

“Then,
Professor, you and I are going for a ride.”

Operations Center Four
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

“What?”

Leroux
looked at the search result on the screen. There was only one other hit in
their database, and the contact on the record was him. And he knew immediately
what it was. “That’s the message.”

Morrison
looked at him. “What message?”

“
The
message.”

Morrison
looked confused for a moment then his eyes popped wide. “Oh. Are you sure?”

Leroux
nodded.

“Clear
the room!”

Everyone
looked at each other for a moment, puzzled, then jumped to their feet, the room
emptied except for Leroux and Morrison within seconds.

“What
are you saying?” asked Morrison as he sat in one of the now vacant chairs.
Leroux dropped into the chair vacated by Child just seconds ago. After the
BlackTide incident he had been tasked to try and find out who The Assembly
were. He had found absolutely nothing until the New Orleans plague scare when
all surveillance laws were suspended, automatically opening up Langley’s taps
to data sources they didn’t normally have access to. During that incident his
monitoring routines were still running and they found something. A single hit.

A single
email.

Sent
through the IP address in question.

Because
the email was discovered by accident, and would have been illegal to obtain if
it hadn’t been for the crisis, Morrison had ordered it quarantined, not to be
looked at, he concerned it could destroy any future case against those behind
the North Korean incident. Leroux had understood the decision but it had driven
him nuts since, his one piece of evidence forbidden fruit that might actually
help lead him from the purgatory he found himself in, constantly under
surveillance by a protective detail.

But
maybe that was all about to change.

“The
email you had me quarantine, our one lead to who The Assembly might be, went
through this same IP address.”

“You
mean—”

“The
Assembly is behind this entire thing, and this email might lead us to them.”

Morrison
leaned back in his chair, his lips puffing in and out. “So if we open this
illegally obtained email, we might find out who is behind all this.”

“Yes.”
Leroux bit his lip, stunned at what he was about to say, possibly causing his
boss to stick with his original decision, a decision he sensed was about to
change. “But the same was true all along. If I had opened it before it might
have led to their discovery.”

Morrison
nodded. “But until now, we didn’t have a corroborating piece of evidence. Am I
right in assuming that now that you have this IP address, you would be running
it against everything we have?”

“Absolutely.
Actually, it’s running now. That hit was just our own internal database.”

“So it
is conceivable that you would have found this email eventually.”

Leroux
knew what his boss wanted him to say, and his tone, with a slightly tilted head
and ever-so-slightly elevated eyebrow suggested he was right.

“Yes.”

Morrison
smiled. “Then it is no longer fruit of the poison tree as far as I’m concerned.
Open it.”

Leroux
hesitated, his heart pounding as he realized he was about to open what could be
Pandora’s Box.

Or spam
for penis enlargement pills.

He
clicked on the entry, entered his authorization code, and the email suddenly
appeared on the screen. He switched it to one of the large monitors so Morrison
could read it.

Eureka!

Morrison
rose from his chair, mouth agape. “This is it,” he whispered.

Leroux
couldn’t believe what he was reading. It was an email congratulating Ilya
Mashkov on his acceptance into The Assembly and assigning him a designator of
“Number Twelve” for all future correspondence. A simple reply at the top read,
“Number Twelve thanks you, Number One.”

We
have a name!

Morrison
snapped his fingers several times, pointing at the screen. “I want everything
we’ve got on this Ilya Mashkov.”

“Yes,
sir.” He paused. “My team?”

Morrison
nodded. “Get them all on this. I want to know everything, fast, before they go
to ground.”

Saint Paul’s University, St. Paul, Maryland

It was the dead of night, barely anyone about. Acton wasn’t sure
what time it was, his watch confiscated when he had been arrested, though he’d
have to guess around three in the morning. His captor had parked their SUV at
the rear entrance to the sciences building where the archeology lab was located
and the two of them were now walking down a deserted hallway, their footsteps
echoing on the hard walls, nothing being said between them.

He
stopped in front of one of the doors. “This is it.”

“Open
it.”

“I don’t
have the key.”

The
woman stared at him blankly. “Why not?”

“The
police took everything when I was arrested.”

“And you
decide to tell me this now?”

He
shrugged. “I honestly hadn’t realized it until this very moment.” The sad thing
was it was actually true. Now he wondered if it would cost him his life.

The
woman drew her weapon and he took a step back with his right foot, preparing to
disarm her.

A slight
smile appeared, almost genuine. “I’m not going to shoot you, Professor. Your
training from Colonel Leather will do you no good here.”

Christ,
she knows everything about me!

She
fired two rounds into the lock then kicked the door open, Acton breathing a
sigh of relief as she holstered her weapon. She jerked her head toward the lab.
“You first.”

He
nodded, stepping inside and reaching over to flick the light on. He looked
about to make sure they were alone, though he wasn’t sure why, there no
possibility of anyone being there at this hour.

“Quickly,
Professor. Somebody likely heard those shots.”

He
nodded, walking to a climate controlled storage room to the rear, his captor
following at a cautious distance. There would be no surprising her. From
everything he had seen, this woman was deadly. She wouldn’t hesitate to kill,
and there’d be no dramatic delays with flamboyant speeches before she killed
him.

She’d
just take the shot.

Leaving
no time for someone to rush to the rescue at the last, climactic moment.

He
opened the rear door, it a coded panel not requiring a pass.

The door
hissed, there a slight positive pressure on the opposite side to keep
contamination out. Stepping inside, he pointed at the painting, it laying on
one of the examination tables, still slightly curled. “There it is.”

The
woman stepped over and grabbed it by one end.

Acton
gasped. “Be careful with that, it’s priceless!”

She
looked at him. “You do realize, Professor, that this painting will be
destroyed. No one can ever know it existed.”

Acton
suddenly forgot about his own life that hung in the balance, a piece of history
now at risk. “Is that really necessary? Can’t you at least preserve it so that
one day, perhaps years from now, it can be shared with the world once again?”

She
quickly rolled the painting up then grabbed the case it had been delivered in
by Wainwright. She stuffed it inside then turned to Acton. “Professor, your
idealistic vision of the world we live in is curious.” Her eyes narrowed. “Does
everyone think like you, or are you unique?”

It was
an odd question, he immediately wondering if there was indeed a Terminatrix
under that beautiful exterior. For she was beautiful. Gorgeous in fact, and if
she wasn’t pure evil, he might have actually allowed himself to acknowledge that
fact. But beauty wasn’t only skin deep. Beauty to him extended far deeper, into
one’s heart, into one’s soul. And this woman had neither.

She was
the ugliest woman he had ever met.

Yet her
question made him wonder if she even knew how ugly she truly was. Or if she’d
care.

“I like
to think I’m your average guy.”

She
nodded slightly. “Interesting.” She motioned with the case toward the door.
“Let’s go. Quickly.”

He
stepped outside the pressurized storage room when a flashlight beam suddenly
blinded him.

“Professor
Acton, is that you?”

Acton’s
heart leapt as he recognized the security guard’s voice. “Tucker, get out of
here!”

Two
shots rang out from behind him, the beam of light suddenly broken.

“No!”

Poydras Street, New Orleans, Louisiana

“Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, NSA. They all piss me off. Who do they
think they are?”

Isabelle
looked over at her partner, understanding his frustration. Their case was being
taken away from them, and right now they were a glorified escort to the NOPD
transport van ahead of them. There was actually no real need for them to be there,
but she didn’t want to let these two men out of her sight until they were
delivered into the hands of the FBI.

Orders
from the Chief himself.

Apologetic
orders, but non-negotiable as well.

“They’re
the Feds,” she finally responded. “Nothing we can do about it.”

“Yeah,
yeah, it just pisses me off.”

“Then
join them.”

“Huh?”

“Join
them. Take the FBI exam, they’d be lucky to have you.”

“And
leave your pleasant company? What would you do without me?”

Isabelle
chuckled. “Don’t you worry about me, dear, there’s been many before you and
there’ll be many after you.”

“Careful,
Laprise, taken out of context some might think you were casting dispersions on
yourself.”

“You’re
a pig, Salinger. You definitely need to get laid.”

“I was
trying but you decided to take this case.”

“You
really think you had a shot tonight?”