Second Chances (Athena Group Novel Book 1) (14 page)

Shelby pulled up the city grid on the computer and got the name of the parking lot. Gaining access to their main frame she pulled up the camera angles from the lot and found the one facing the back of the club. She zoomed in on the car and the license plate. She moved to another keyboard and quickly typed in the plate number and came back with a match immediately. She looked at Max as the name and photo appeared on the screen.

Patricia Ann Young

“Tabby, Jo – that’s Patricia Young’s car. I’m going to call Liz and let her know.” As she dialed Liz’s number she looked at Max when he hung up with Ross and he looked concerned.

“Liz, Patricia Young’s car is parked outside of club right now.” Shelby told her. Max’s body was tense as he sat in the chair next to her. She looked at him and his face was tightened in anger. He looked at her and she saw in his face that he knew. He knew that Patricia Young wasn't innocent in this.

“Why do I have a feeling this isn't going to end well? Shelby you know what procedures to take. Take them and I’ll be up shortly.” Liz said and hung up.

Max spoke with urgency in his voice. “Shelby, I need to explain some things.”

She cut him off with a wave of her hand speaking into the headset. “Go ahead and proceed as normal and I’ll keep an eye on the sedan. If it moves or anything else happens I'll contact you.”

Tabby and Jo both said, “Got it” She sat there for a moment once they were disconnected. “Max what do you know about your Agent Young? Is there a possibility that she's bad?”

Liz walked in at that moment. “Yes Shelby, she is. Apparently that’s why they wanted our help, because they sent Kim Le in to extract her. What they failed to tell us was that they suspected Young of being a perpetrator rather than a victim.” Liz was furious.

“Max?” Shelby looked at him questioningly.

“Yes she's bad. We believe that she orchestrated Kim Le’s death and I was under strict order not to say anything until we knew for sure.” He pleaded.

“See! That’s the difference between what we do and what the bureau does. We trust everyone we work with because if you don’t people get hurt and deception within an operation gets people killed. You wanted me to trust you enough to let you into my network when you didn’t trust me enough to tell me what was really at stake.” She was furious.

“Shelby, please you have to understand. Exactly what we were just talking about, no questions asked.”

“Max don’t you dare throw that back at me. I didn’t want to let you in, but I did and apparently I had good reason not to. Is there anything else that we need to know, because you better start talking? If you don’t, I believe that Liz will agree with me when I say we'll pull out of this and not look back. I want full disclosure Max, now!” She demanded as Liz walked into the office.

Shit! Shelby was pissed and he was the reason, and he didn’t like it. “Sit down Shelby, Liz.” He ran his hands through his hair as he began. “Agent Young was originally sent in to investigate Douglas Oleg and his connection with the Russian Mafia. She'd been undercover in his organization for the past year before we lost contact with her. We sent Agent Le in to retrieve her when she found out about Oleg dealing in the human trafficking business. She wasn't sure if Young had gone bad or not. She was supposed to contact me the night she disappeared. We believe that Young turned her over to Oleg. We found her a week later as you know.” He looked at Shelby, and the door slammed shut across her face. He'd been shut out.

“I have already told John that we'll complete this assignment, but remember it’s because of things like this that we don’t trust the bureau and the way they do things.” Liz turned and left him alone with Shelby.

Shelby was furious and hurt all at the same time. She'd begun to trust Max, and she almost told him about Roger. There's no way that she could now. He didn’t trust her to be up front when she let him into her world and taking a chance by asking him to stay the night with her. She would help him, but it would be strictly business between them.

“Have a seat Max. We have some work to do.” She motioned for him to sit down.

“Shelby we need to talk.” He implored.

“No Max, we don’t.” She turned to her console shutting him out.

Chapter Nineteen

Shelby watched as Tabby, Jo and Ross made their way through the line at The Entropic Club and they were almost to the entrance. Max was sitting next to her watching and waiting. She hadn’t talked to him the rest of the afternoon, because she was afraid to and despite being angry at him she couldn’t turn her feelings off that easily.

They watched as the trio entered the club. She watched as Jo carefully placed additional cameras inside the club as they moved around. Shelby switched the main monitor to bring the, cameras online and test each one. The inside of the club was bright with colors and the dance floor was already filled with bodies bumping and grinding. Two bar areas flanked the dance floor and in the back was a lounge area that people gathered to hang out. She was able to follow their movements as they made their way towards the back of the club. Oleg was lounging in an overstuffed chair in the back area. She knew it wouldn't be long before he noticed Tabby. She was flamboyant and for the most part the life of the party. Watching as he got up from his chair to make his way toward Tabby she activated the microphone that was in Tabby’s corset.

“Tabby, signal if you can hear me.” Shelby said.

Tabby nodded her head as Oleg introduced himself and offered to buy her a drink.

Ross found a place at the bar to keep watch throughout the club. Jo made her way to the back of the club and was walking down a hall. She found the door in the back that had been closed off to Shelby. Jo listened closely then placed a flexible borescope under the door to make sure that it was empty. The room was clear. She took out her lock pick tools to open the door. Within a few seconds she was inside the room, Max looked at Shelby in surprise.

Shelby could only smirk, “Only the best.”

She looked back at the screen and saw that Jo was entering the room. It appeared it was an office. Obviously it belonged to Douglas Oleg. Jo placed the camera so that it was aligned to give Shelby the view of the entire room. The room was decorated in dark woods with a huge mahogany desk as center stage in the room. There were book cases on one side of the wall which was a contrast considering the office was in a night club and not an executive suite or a home. Jo hid the camera in one of the book cases when the bookcase moved.

“Shelby? Did you see that?” she whispered.

“Yeah, is it a secret room?”

“It appears so, there’s a keyless lock on the door. Can you scan it remotely?” she asked Shelby.

“Take your phone and pull up the scanner and hold the camera over the pad.” She pulled up a program as Jo held her phone up to the keypad for her to scan. Shelby ran the scanner program activating the pad and the door popped open. She could only grin as Max gaped at her. Lights came on has Jo went down into the cellar room.

“Shelby, record this.” As she walked into the room, there were several beds and file cabinets. The beds were stacked on either side of the walls. Each had handcuffs attached to its posts and under the beds was boxes with different types of sex toys and bondage material. Opening the file cabinets she found files detailing the business transactions of girls and women traded between Oleg and a corporation in Asia. The name of the corporation sounded familiar. In the back of the cabinet was a file with Kim Le’s name on it. She opened it, and it was her bureau file.

“Shit!” Max slammed his fist on the table. She had been so engrossed in what Jo was doing that he startled her. “Patricia! What have you done?” He was enraged, but she had to stay focused.

“Shelby there're several thumb drives in here as well. It looks like for each file there is a thumb drive that corresponds with it.” She grabbed several putting them in pockets under her skirt.

Shelby saw Oleg leading Tabby back to the office. “Jo, get out of there. Oleg is on his way to the office with Tabby. I’ll let her know to stall him.” She saw Jo close up the cabinets and walk back to the door.

“Tabby, you need to stall him. Jo is coming out of the office. Wave your hand to signal you understand.” Tabby wound her arm through Oleg’s and gave her the signal.

“Jo you’re clear.” Jo stood at the entrance of the secret room. “Shelby take a quick picture of the room.”

“Got it, now get out.” Jo closed up the secret room leaving the office; she passed Oleg and Tabby in the hall, but didn't acknowledge them. Jo walked to the bar where she found Ross waiting for her.

“Anything interesting?” she asked him.

“Look behind you and tell me who you see?” He nodded towards the back.

Shelby watched as Jo turned around and just on the other side of the lounge area was a man standing off to the side watching the room.

“Jo stand in that position for a minute and let me get a scan of his face.” Shelby told her.

She scanned his profile into the computer and got a hit pretty quick. “Ivan Petrovsky” Ross stiffened at the name. She pulled up Petrovsky’s information on the screen, and he was a well-known assassin for the Russian Mafia. He was an eraser, and he was the best.

“Tabby don’t stay in there too long. Get out as soon as you can. Oleg isn't someone you want to trifle with.” Tabby acknowledged her. Tabby was sitting down on the couch in the office when Patricia walked in. Max moved closer to the screen.

“Patty what do you want?” Oleg demanded.

“I came back here hoping to find you, but I see you have found other company this evening.” She eyed Tabby. She was doing a mental search of Tabby as she stood there, but she didn’t move a muscle. She knew she was being scrutinized, and it certainly wasn’t the first time.

“How is she under pressure?” Max asked her.

“She may be young, but she’s street smart. I’d put her up against “Patty” any day. Let’s just hope that it’s not today. It would appear your agent and Oleg have something going on.” She looked at Max. How easily it would be to forgive him, but she wouldn’t be able to forget that he didn’t trust her. Oh yeah, that was funny - since she didn't trust him enough to talk to him about Amanda.

“It would appear so, but to what extent we will see.” he said, bringing her back to the task at hand.

Patricia spoke, “Douglas we need to talk, and it can't wait for you to indulge in whatever fantasy you are working at the moment.” She looked down her nose at Tabby.

Tabby just laughed and hopped up, “No worries honey; he’s all yours. I don’t need the hassle from an overly jealous girlfriend.” And she walked out. Tabby made her way through the crown to find Jo and Ross at the bar. They all walked out of the club and got into their car.

Shelby dialed into the car, “Hey Shelby.” Jo answered.

“Hey guys, how're you doing?” she asked. That was always the first question they asked each other, because if they weren’t alright nothing else mattered.

“Good” they both responded. “Shelby we’ll be back at the loft in twenty. I’ll ping your computer when we get there and you can start uploading the information on these thumb drives.” Jo told her.

“Great job, I really didn’t expect it to be this quick. I’ll get everything ready for the data upload.” They disconnected. She began to rub her temples when Max reached over pulling her close. It felt really nice as his hands moved around her shoulders making smooth circular motions working the tension out of her body. He worked his way up her neck massaging his fingers into her scalp. Shelby’s computer started pinging. She sat up, moving to her computer and started the upload of data from the thumb drives that Jo was sending.

Shelby watched the monitors as the data appeared on the screen. There were spreadsheets and bank records of transactions between Oleg and others which the transactions appeared to go back several years. The last thumb drive had videos on it. Before Shelby decided to go through the videos she looked at Max, “It appears you have the evidence you need against Oleg.” He was rubbing his chin with his hand deep in thought. “Max?”

“Yeah, but what we don’t have is anything connecting him to Le’s death.” he said wearily.

“Look Max, this last drive has videos on it. Why don’t you go upstairs, and I’m going to stay and process these videos.” She laid her hand on his arm, and he just looked at it.

“Shelby I’m not going to rest until all of this is processed, and I can arrest Patricia. I'm going to the kitchen for some coffee. I’ll be right back.” He stood up.

“Ok, sure.” She waited for him to close the door. She called Liz, “Roger’s name showed up on these drives. I was able to skim past it before Max saw it, but I’ve isolated the information so that it won’t show up, but you know that Roger won't be able to stay clear of this for long. I’ll go back later when this is all over and figure out the connection between the two. I think we both know what that connection is going to be.”

“You’re right; you said the virus was ready?” Liz asked.

“Yes”

“Go ahead with the implementation and if you can keep the bureau from getting their hands on him without getting into trouble, then do so. I’ll follow up in the morning. Thanks Shelby.” Liz hung up.

Pulling up the screen with the Alcon Virus she packaged it into a file to deliver into his network from a spoof account. Once she executed the virus she quickly closed the console and went to the kitchen to find Max.