Best Laid Plans (21 page)

Mona Hill couldn’t possibly know about Lucy. Other than Operation Heatwave, she hadn’t been involved in any major cases or investigations in the five months she’d been in San Antonio. Lucy had irritated the woman, so Mona turned around to issue an idle threat. It couldn’t be because she recognized Lucy; it was simply a threat that she’d never forget or forgive the intrusion. At least, that’s what Lucy wanted to believe. It wouldn’t be the first time a suspect had tried to intimidate her.

Mona had been in the porn industry. Legal porn was big business, but illegal porn was bigger. The chances that Mona knew about or had seen the video of Lucy’s rape eight years ago were slim to none. And while nothing online was ever truly gone, the FBI—and Lucy’s family—had gone to extraordinary lengths to suppress copies of the video. In this day and age, porn was higher quality and far more prevalent, the quantity growing exponentially. On one popular porn site users uploaded more than one thousand new clips
daily.
The chances that Lucy’s rape video would be readily available—without digging deep for it—were slim to none.

But in the back of her mind, Lucy’s fear grew. That her past would always be with her, that she’d never be able to escape what she’d done … or what had been done to her.

*   *   *

By the time they got back to FBI headquarters, it was after five. Barry handed Zach the phone number he’d gotten from Mona, and Lucy sat down at her desk. She responded to a bunch of emails so she could leave with a clear plate.

Barry asked Zach, “Where are we on the tablet Jolene Hayden gave us?”

“It’s not only password protected, but has a fail-safe. I didn’t want to risk erasing the data, so passed it off to the tech unit. They know it’s a priority.”

Lucy almost offered Sean’s services to crack it, but decided she wasn’t going to further irritate Barry. They’d been making progress in this partnership until her near panic over Mona’s threat, and she didn’t want to give him any reason to pull her from the case. She thought she’d recovered well, but now he thought she had a thin skin.

If he only knew just how thick her skin really was.

Ryan rolled his chair over to Lucy. Their cubicles were kitty-corner from each other. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she said.

“Donnelly said to say hi.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Physically he seems fine. He said when he gets tired his knee gives out. He’s in physical therapy, but is hoping to be cleared this week.”

“Desk duty is probably driving him up the wall. What happened out there?”

“Nasty business. Nine dead. Three with known ties to Sanchez, so it reasons that they either were the remnants of the Trejo/Sanchez enterprise, or the remaining few were trying to rebuild the organization. Could have trampled over someone else’s territory. And remember, Sanchez had been involved in recruiting or killing off smaller gangs. Could easily be old-school retaliation. One shooter was injured, SAPD and the DEA are trying to track him down. It might help ID who targeted the group. But get this—they left the drugs.”

“That’s … odd.”

“Understatement. A million dollars in heroin. Who targets a gang and leaves the drugs? It was a hit, pure and simple.”

Juan’s door opened at the head of the squad room where the agent cubicles were crammed. “Crawford, Kincaid, I need you.”

Ryan rolled to his desk. “Watch your back, Luce.”

“You, too.”

Lucy got up and followed Barry into Juan’s small office. She was surprised to see Sean sitting in one of Juan’s chairs. He winked at her.

Juan closed the door and sat down. “Barry Crawford, Sean Rogan. Sean has some information that might be pertinent to your investigation.”

There were only two visitor chairs in Juan’s small office so Lucy leaned against the door. Whatever information Sean had, Barry was the lead detective. He sat in the chair next to Sean and said, “I’m all ears.”

“I’ve been hired by HWI to run full diagnostics on their network. They have a few small holes, but they’re clean, at least as far as anyone hacking into their system. But I learned that Worthington hadn’t been using his own desk for the last month. He took over another office from an employee who was on maternity leave. He used her computer and phone. He was working on a complex Bureau of Land Management audit that had been flagged by the employee as having problems. I don’t know yet if he found something suspicious in the files—HWI is taking point on the audit. But it was odd that he wouldn’t work from his own office. That’s when I uncovered a bug in his phone.”

“Corporate espionage? Insider trading? What kind of device?” Barry asked.

“I don’t know the why, but it’s an extremely sophisticated transmitter. I suspect the relay is outside of the building, a literal phone tap. Which means that whoever is bugging him not only is committing a federal crime, but they probably have people and resources to monitor the tap. It’s only active when there’s a phone conversation, and I checked all HWI phones—only Worthington’s is tapped and the security team found no other bugs in the office. They’re hiring another consultant to sweep their Dallas and Virginia offices as well. But the key point is that the bug is impossible to trace unless it’s actually running.”

“Did you think about calling us to check for prints?” Barry asked. “Or having us trace the serial number?”

Sean, to his credit, remained calm. He didn’t like working with the FBI on projects. Even though Lucy was an agent, and Sean had worked with other agents over the years, he still harbored a deep hostility toward law enforcement. But Lucy recognized, particularly since they’d moved to San Antonio, that Sean had learned to temper his distrust.

“There is no serial number on the outside of the device, which means we’d have to take it apart,” Sean said. “Which I’m more than capable of doing, but wanted to put forth another option that might yield quicker results.”

“There’s no indication that the bug has anything to do with Worthington’s murder,” Barry said.

Sean’s jaw tightened. In a calm voice he said, “No, but it’s an outlier in his life. According to his admin, he started acting preoccupied three to four weeks ago. That’s about the time he stopped using his phone. He must have known the bug was there.”

“Did he tell his staff? His security chief?”

“No, which is also suspicious. But I’ve been running deep backgrounds on everyone, and nothing has popped. Gregor Smith is more than competent in his field, but I’m digging around in his background as well.”

“With what authority?” Barry asked.

“The authority that HWI gave me when they hired me as an independent consultant,” Sean said through clenched teeth.

Lucy glanced at Juan; he was watching the two of them as if this was some kind of test. And maybe it was—not just for Sean, but for her. She had to stay out of this.

Juan said, “Sean has an idea to draw them out, but the decision is up to you, Barry.”

“What’s the idea?” Barry asked Juan.

Sean answered. “At this point, whoever planted the device knows that Harper knew he was being bugged—Harper’s office extension hasn’t been used in nearly four weeks. They also know that he’s dead, even if they had nothing to do with his murder. I’d like to stage a call to leak specific information, partly true, partly false. I would monitor activity from HWI to see if someone internal is involved; you would monitor the people in Worthington’s private life.”

Lucy was afraid that Barry would just shut Sean down right there. It was a good idea, but there was no guarantee that it’d yield results.

Barry asked, “How exactly would you do this without the party involved being suspicious that it was a set up?”

“Since HWI hired me, it’s reasonable that I would be working from Worthington’s office. It’ll be in the evening, I’ll be running late and call Lucy at home.”

“And not use your cell phone?”

“Dead battery. But I don’t think anyone would think about it. The purpose is twofold. One, to get controlled information out there to determine who might be listening, and two, to trace the receiver. The bug is only a transmitter. The tap has to be in one of three places—the phone system in the router building next to the office, the relay station, or the main phone company. If it’s the latter, that means it’s a federal wiretap.”

Juan said, “We don’t have any ops with wiretaps right now within our jurisdiction.”

“There’s a slim chance that it’s completely off system, that the transmitter is going to a nearby recorder—in a van or building. But that would be a short distance, and I doubt that a van could be monitoring twenty-four-seven over the last month. There is one other office building close enough that could pick up the transmission, but my bet is a wiretap.”

“That makes sense,” Barry said.

Lucy breathed slightly easier.

Sean leaned forward. “I have software that can trace the bug as soon as it starts transmitting. I just piggyback my call through the computer and it’s instant tracking. We’ll find out where it’s relaying the information almost immediately, and then your people can take it from there. The tap will have coding as to where it’s sending the data.”

“Why not do it now, without this elaborate plan?”

“Because if these people are good—and their tech tells me they’re good—it won’t be easy to find them. Giving them intel they may act on gives you two avenues to pursue.”

Barry glanced at Juan. “You’re okay with this?”

“I don’t have a problem with the plan. But it’s up to you. And you need to control the information.”

“When?”

“Tonight, if possible,” Sean said.

Barry looked at Lucy. “You’re onboard?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Juan, do we have a team that can retrieve the wiretap when Rogan traces it?”

“Not a problem.”

“So the big question is, what do we tell these unknown people?” Barry said.

Sean leaned back in his chair. “The BLM files are interesting only in that Worthington was obsessed with them. He was working primarily on that audit, so it reasons that if someone was concerned about what he might find, they’ll want to know if he found it. I’d like to leak something true but innocuous—that Worthington was obsessed with the case, that he had pages of notes but no one in the office really understood why. Then I would ask about the tablet his daughter gave the FBI.”

“How do you know about that?”

Sean finally snapped. “Why does everything that comes out of your mouth sound like you’re accusing me of something?”

“I need to know who knows what about my operation.” Barry glanced at Lucy. Lucy wished he hadn’t done that. Sean was very sensitive about how his job might impact her career, and she constantly reassured him that it wasn’t an issue. With one glance, Barry had confirmed that it was a problem.

Sean said, “Jolene told me this afternoon. And I’ll bet I have higher security clearance than you, so Lucy can tell me whatever she damn well pleases.”

Juan cleared his throat. “Has the tech team broken the code?”

“They’re working on it,” Barry said.

“Then that’s what we leak, whether or not they break it tonight.”

“I could break it,” Sean said.

“It’s evidence. Chain of custody,” Barry said.

“I could do it here.”

“My people will do it,” Juan said. “If they can’t, it goes to the FBI lab.”

That was the final word on the tablet.

“If this is personal,” Lucy said, trying to diffuse the tension, “I should tell Sean I think someone is lying. Specifically, Adeline Reyes-Worthington.”

Juan shook his head. “If someone is illegally gathering information, and something one of my agents said gets out and is used during a political campaign, all of our heads will roll. Is there something forensic that hasn’t been released but won’t damage a future prosecution if we do release it?”

“His death has been ruled suspicious,” Barry said, “but not officially a homicide. Lucy thinks he was poisoned with a neuromuscular blocker and the coroner is running additional tests. We don’t have confirmation yet.”

“I could simply say that,” Lucy said. “Remind Sean about the case I worked in San Diego where a nurse used a drug that caused similar symptoms. If it ends up being what happened to Worthington, it will be released with the ME’s report. If it’s not what happened, I’m just talking about a theory and then the report would simply prove me wrong.”

Barry nodded. “I like it. And I can get the ME to suppress the report for a couple of days either way, until we wrap this angle up.”

“Okay,” Juan said. “You three, work it out. I’ll call in our tech team to work with Sean on the trace. They’ll be ready to go in an hour.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sean used his key card to get into HWI. Gregor Smith had given him full access, which made it easier, particularly after hours. Sean asked him to make sure all employees were gone by six thirty. Smith was the only one who knew about the bug or that Sean was bringing in a federal agent, and Sean wanted to keep it that way.

Sean would have preferred to do this alone, but Barry insisted on coming. To make Lucy’s life easier, Sean agreed without argument, but he didn’t have to like it. He wasn’t certain he liked Barry Crawford, though Lucy didn’t seem to have any problems with Barry. The guy was a bit too by the book for Sean, but more, he looked, talked, and acted like a stick-up-the-ass federal agent.