Wanted (FBI Heat Book 3) (8 page)

Fuck! I screwed up. I should’ve done a better job of reconnoitering before I picked Kat up. But why were they hiding on a side street where they couldn’t see her house?
They must have sophisticated surveillance equipment.
Who the hell are we dealing with here?
The answer shifted his heart into a higher gear.

“Dillon? Dillon, are you listening to me?” Kat said.

“Huh?”
Get your head out of your ass, O’Malley.

“I said I’m sorry I got you involved in this. Now they’ve seen you and your truck. They could’ve gotten your license number.”

“Won’t matter. This set is off a clunker I found dumped and rusting away in the woods near Eureka.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. They come in handy sometimes…like today.”

She sighed. “Still, this is a mess.”

“Yeah. All the more reason for me to be involved. Don’t sweat it.” He wished he would take his own advice. He was sweating like crazy, and his heart was pounding.
What the hell?
He never reacted this way in an op, always intense, but also cool and calculating.

He snuck a peek at Kat. She was the difference. This was personal, not his job.

Her face was ashen, her hands trembling in her lap, but she was holding it together. She didn’t need this kind of activity while recovering from a concussion. Hell, she didn’t need this shit ever.

“Why don’t you lie down?” he said before thinking it through.

“What?” She looked at him, her fathomless green eyes wide and anxious.

“Put the seat down. I don’t want anyone to see you.”

She lowered the seatback, but it wouldn’t go down far enough because of the gear he had stored on the floor behind it.

“Here. Lie across the console. It won’t be very comfortable, but it’s not much farther.”

She squirmed out from under the shoulder strap of the seatbelt and stretched out toward the driver’s seat. Her head rested on his thigh and came dangerously close to his groin. Memories of one of his favorite “if you’ll” requests created a swelling problem. He clenched his teeth and blew out a long breath.

Neither spoke during the last five minutes of the drive to the self-storage facility.

“Stay down,” he ordered when he rolled down the window to enter the pass code. Then he left the engine running while he let himself in the door of the unit and raised the roll-up garage door from the inside. Only after he pulled the truck completely in and lowered the garage door did he start to relax.

“You can get up now,” he said, opening her door.

Keeping her eyes closed, she pushed herself upright slowly. She paused and drew a deep breath before opening her eyes.
God, she looks fragile.

After climbing out of the truck, she rubbed her forehead. “Where are we?”

“My man cave.”

She rolled her eyes. “I mean where is it located?”

“Carlsbad. Let’s leave it at that.”

She crossed her arms over her middle and strolled out of the garage space and into the other part of the unit. Turning slowly, she surveyed the contents. Her gaze came to rest on his electronic equipment. “What’s all this stuff for? Are you a gamer now?”

“In a way.”

“What way?”

“I don’t play video games, but I do…solve puzzles.”

“Sudoku? Crossword? Jigsaw? Brain teasers?”

He scratched his head. What he did was a little like all of those, but not really. He sauntered to the table covered with the laptops, monitors, printers, and miscellaneous other gadgets. While he turned on the computers, he wrestled with how much to tell her about his hacking activities.

She followed him and planted her hands on her hips. “Why are you being so evasive?”

He had a ready answer for
that
question. “The less you know, the more plausible your deniability.”

She cocked her head. “That sounds like legalese. Or smart-ass-ness.”

“Definitely smart-ass-ness.” He shrugged. “Drinks are in the mini-fridge, and there’s a microwave if you want something hot.” He pointed to the appliances in the corner. “I’ll take a water, please. Then why don’t you lie down on the futon and rest while I get stuff set up?”

“Is that futon from…?”

“Yeah, back in the day.”

“Same lumpy mattress?”

“You didn’t complain back then.” He grinned to himself as a blush climbed her cheeks before she turned away in a huff.

He hurried around to the far side of the truck and dialed the burner phone. “Any luck, Chaos?”

“Nada. They got pretty damn good computer security.”

“You should be glad. I wouldn’t want to think our nuclear power plants are easy to hack. The terrorists have some great hackers these days.”

Chaos hesitated. “Is that who we’re looking for?”

“Might be. Look, I’m calling to warn you that I’ve got…company.”

After several seconds of silence, Chaos responded, “Is that wise, Boss?”

“This person is the reason we’re doing this.”

“Okay, whatever you say. What’s the plan?”

He watched Kat set a bottle of water on the computer table and then lie down on the futon. She looked ready to fall asleep on her feet. He’d let her grab some
Z
s as soon as he could. In fact, having her sleep while he and Chaos worked would keep her out of trouble.

“You and I are gonna put our heads together for the next few hours and bust this thing open. Then I’ll embed our software that’ll leave the door open for us,” Dillon explained.

“You told me not to touch nothin’ if I got in.”

“That was you; this is me. If we get caught, I’d rather take the heat than have you get jacked up. Meet me on the TSK site ASAP.”

“You got it. Anything else?”

“Yeah. If we ‘talk,’ remember my…company.”

“Right, Boss.”

After disconnecting, he came back around to the computer table and sat down.

“Is she okay with my being here?” Kat asked from the futon.

He frowned over his shoulder. “What?”

She gestured toward the garage space where he’d gone to make the call. “I figured you needed some privacy to check in with your girlfriend. I don’t want to cause you any more trouble than I already have, Dillon. I’m fine with her coming over.” Kat paused. “In fact, I’d like to meet her.”

He pressed his lips together and studied her.
Well, I’ll be damned.
He nodded. “Thanks. Good to know.” He drank a long swig of water and returned to the keyboard, smiling to himself.

By the time he got on the TSK site in the dark web, Chaos was waiting for him.

All set, Boss.

Before we start, block the site so no one else can get on.

You got it.

To keep Kat unaware of what he was doing, he changed the settings to disconnect the large monitors. Now his work would only be displayed on the laptop screens.

He twisted around on the chair. “Take a nap, Kat. We’ll talk later. I have some work to catch up on anyway.”

She didn’t even respond before sighing and closing her eyes.

Dillon turned back to the computer, laced his fingers together, and flexed them. Time for the Shadow to kick some computer ass.

“What do you mean she left her house with a man? Her father?” he asked.

“No, definitely not her father. The man appeared to be in his late twenties. I don’t remember anything about her having a brother,” the caller said.

“She doesn’t.”

“He was carrying a small bag that he hadn’t arrived with. Perhaps she’s spending the night with her boyfriend.”

“She doesn’t have one of those either. Where did they go?”

The caller hesitated. “They managed to…get away.”

“How could you lose them?” he practically shouted. Rage bubbled up, and he struggled to contain it. How could these people be so incompetent? They had every resource imaginable at their disposal, and yet, they couldn’t kill a young single woman?

“Control yourself or you’ll receive no further updates.”

He rubbed his forehead and took several long, slow breaths. He needed to be careful or he’d ruin his plans. And he was so, so close now.

“Sorry. Anything else?” he asked calmly.

“We have the make, model, and license plate of his truck. We’ll find them.”

God, he wanted to say
You better
. He had to clench his teeth together to hold back the words.

“Don’t worry. We’re sure she’ll show up at her parents’ house again eventually. We can always grab her then. As the Americans say, Ms. MacKenzie is a speed bump, not a brick wall. More importantly, our work is progressing splendidly. We should be finished by next week.”

Dillon groaned as he arched his back to stretch the kinks out of his muscles. He rolled his head to the left and then to the right to loosen the tightness in his neck. Blinking rapidly, he tried to generate some moisture to ease the burn from hours of staring at the computer screens. He grimaced when he shifted in his seat. Damn, his ass had gone numb on the metal folding chair.

“Shit, Shadow, this sonofabitch is locked up tight,” Chaos complained on the burner phone.

“Don’t get discouraged. We’ve only been at this a few hours. I didn’t expect it to be easy. A nuclear power plant better have damn good security.” If his hunch was right though, someone else had already gotten into the Diablo Beach system, so it wasn’t impenetrable. A scarier thought was that an inside accomplice had left the virtual door open for the intruder.

“We’ve tried all the usual stuff. Got anything else up your cyber sleeve?”

“Nope. Have you developed anything new while I…was away?” Dillon asked.

“Not that would defeat this shit.”

“Okay.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. Time for a new approach. “What do you remember as our toughest hack job?”

Chaos went silent for a minute. “The Russian mafia money-laundering gig in LA.”

“Really?” He slouched in the chair and frowned in concentration. “Not the Iranian cash hidden in the Alaskan bank?”

“Nah. Even the Swiss bank account of that human trafficker was harder than the Iranian deal.”

“Okay, you’re right.” He closed his eyes and concentrated harder. Suddenly, he straightened, and his eyes popped open. “Hey, do you remember how we got into the computer of the illegal arms dealer in Minnesota who was selling to the Palestinians? We only did it twice.”

A long silence followed. Chaos’s brain was probably doing the same sprint down memory lane as Dillon’s.

“Hell, yeah! That’s it, Shadow. Where the fuck did you put that?”

“I hid it in a real safe place because I knew how dangerous it could be in the wrong hands. Now if I can just remember where…”

Careful not to wake Kat, he hurried across the storage unit to a stack of unpacked moving boxes and searched through their contents for his small lockbox. Where the hell had he buried the damn thing? The longer he dug, the more convinced he became that this would be the key to open the door into Diablo Beach.

He cursed when he remembered where he’d hidden it. Quickly, he moved to a banged-up file cabinet wedged into the far corner behind more boxes. In the bottom drawer, under a pile of old manila folders, he uncovered the lockbox. It took him twice to get the combination right, but finally it opened. And there it was: the double-password-protected, encrypted, external hard drive containing his best-kept secrets.

He connected the drive to a laptop and clicked through the files. He almost felt like he was going back in time. When he opened the right file, he sucked in a sharp breath. Staring at what he’d done years ago, he realized once more why his work had to remain a secret.

“I got it, Chaos,” he said.

“Hot damn! Do it.”

“Okay, hang on.” He focused intently as he clicked and typed, not with speed, but with precision. If he screwed up, the Diablo system might detect the intrusion and lock them out again. Permanently.

He hit Enter…one last time.

He watched the code whizzing across the screen.

His jaw dropped when the process finished.
Holy shit. I just hacked into a nuclear power plant.

Kat started awake to the unexpected sound of tapping. The brown cushion beside her face wasn’t expected either.
Where am I? Where’s Skye?
She jerked upright and immediately paid the price. Pain shot through her neck and black spots danced in her vision. She groaned, closed her eyes, and cradled her head. When a strong warm arm wrapped around her shoulders, her eyes popped open.

“Hey, you okay?” Dillon asked, his voice deep, soft, and soothing. He pushed the hair off her forehead and rubbed it between his fingers before tucking it behind her ear.

“Yeah, I just…” She exhaled slowly. “I had an awful nightmare about a huge black car chasing me.”

“That wasn’t a nightmare.”

She elbowed his ribs. “I know we were followed earlier, but this was different. I was on foot, and it was trying to run over me.”

His grip on her shoulder tightened. “That’s not good.”

“Yeah. And when I woke up, I didn’t know where I was.”

“Understandable.”

After the initial jolt of physical contact with Dillon, the warmth from his body seeped into hers, calming her, relaxing her, just like it always had. But she couldn’t get comfortable with this…situation. She was going to move, to disappear again, after all.

Abruptly, she disengaged his arm and stood up. “Is there a bathroom here?”

“A public one over by the office. But I’m ready to pack it in, if you can wait until we get to my apartment.”

His apartment. Oh no, no, no!
“Dillon, about that…”

He stood up next to her, towering over her at six foot two. Without his leather jacket, his T-shirt revealed bulging biceps. He seemed even more muscular than he had been two years ago. Maybe he was working out extra hard to forget her. She could see him doing something like that.

Dillon crossed his arms over his chest. “From what you told Conrad, you don’t have any other options.”

“I’d rather not, but I can charge a night at a hotel.”

“Or you can stay at my place for free. This could take a while, and it’ll get expensive at a hotel.”