Targeted (Hostage Rescue Team Series Book 2) (17 page)

“Yeah, we’ve already got it divided up into sections. You take this one, it’s from the middle.” He shoved a handful of papers into her hands. She immediately started leafing through it, saw that it was twenty-one pages long.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah,” he said in a flat tone.

When he paused she stopped and looked up at him, the knot in her stomach expanding when she saw the look on his face. “You know something new about him?”

Travers nodded. “That tip from the cop back in Colorado matches exactly what we’ve already found in the manifesto. Name’s Ken Spivey. He’s former Army, and an ex-cop.”

Oh, shit. That upped the threat level for everyone involved, and explained both why he’d managed to evade detection so far, and why he’d been able to successfully pose as a cop before.

“Know what unit he served in?”

Celida lowered the pages, aware of her heartbeat pounding in her ears. Whatever else there was, it was bad. Very bad. “Combat engineer?” she guessed.

Travers’s jaw clenched before he answered. “EOD. After he got out of the Army he served on the Denver bomb squad for six years.”

Celida digested that with a sinking sensation and rushed to the nearest chair to begin reading in earnest. She could feel the seconds ticking past as she read the surprisingly well-crafted and articulate prose. What was his next target? Whatever it was, they were dealing with a man whose training and expertise would help him avoid detection and use devices that were likely more sophisticated than anything they’d seen in a long time. He’d also know the majority of their protocols.

Dread clawed at her insides like sharp fingernails. He had the advantage right now. They had to find this sonofabitch and take him down before he capitalized on it.

Ken pulled out of the museum parking lot and turned west, heading for his final destination. Even though he was still free and clear, his heart rate was elevated, his muscles tense as he drove through traffic across town. They had to have found his manifesto by now. He’d posted it on one of his social media accounts about fifteen minutes before leaving the first clue this morning at around oh-eight-hundred.

A few minutes ago he’d left his second clue. It would take the Feds a while to figure it all out and connect the dots, so to speak, but he needed the time. Even though he’d spent the past few days prepping everything for today, he still needed the head start to make sure everything was ready.

At the next traffic light he turned left and got into the right hand lane to enter onto the highway. Everything he needed was in the trunk, or in the backpack on the seat beside him. In it was another visual reminder of why he was doing this.

His son’s favorite toy, his giraffe stuffy, stuck partway out, the nose and soft little horns on top of the head worn from use. Like his wedding band, this was the one piece of his son’s life he hadn’t been able to leave behind.

Every night he’d tucked Eli into bed with his giraffe, and his son’s little arms would hug it to his chest, holding it close even while asleep. He’d dragged it with him everywhere, including into the bank that fateful October morning three years ago. The cops had found it lying next to Eli’s body, just out of reach of his outstretched fingertips, as though he’d been trying to touch Raffi for comfort.

He’d never found it.

Sucking in a deep breath as the pain welled up, Ken pushed the razor sharp images away and shoved the giraffe back into the pack where he couldn’t see it. Reminding himself about the reasons why he’d undertaken this mission were one thing; sinking into the ocean of grief and rage that existed in the depths of his withered soul was quite another. In order to do this he needed to keep a clear head.

The pain had to drive him, not control him. In a few hours it would all be over. He’d have his revenge, make his statement, and with any luck, he’d get to see Carla and Eli again. One way or another, he’d be dead and his earthly suffering would be over.

The lingering tension in the pit of his stomach had nothing to do with having second thoughts or doubts about this mission. He’d set his course, now there was no going back. He’d done everything he could think of to prepare for this, carefully outlining the most probable contingencies, and a few improbable ones.

He was acting on his own because it had to be that way. It meant full control, full responsibility, and fewer chances that someone else would screw everything up. And no sane person was likely to work with him on this. He wasn’t a terrorist—though some would no doubt accuse him of being just that—and the last thing he wanted was to get mixed up with some jihadi or fundamentalist asshole.

This was personal.

His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he merged onto the freeway. This next test was going to be the hardest of all though. Not because he knew it was the final one, or because he already knew he likely wouldn’t live to see another sunrise. But because it went against everything he’d once stood for, everything he’d been trained to do.

The price for righting an unforgiveable wrong and meting out justice on his terms.

No parent should have to bury a child. No parent should ever have to stand by and watch helplessly as the coroner wheeled a little sheet-draped body out to one of the waiting ambulances, the sheet soaked through with blood because they hadn’t had time to even wrap him properly before removing him from the rubble.

They hadn’t let him see Eli. Wouldn’t let him touch or hold his baby or let him ride with him to the hospital where he’d been placed into a refrigerated drawer in the county morgue.

Ken had withstood all that, then been forced to suffer the sight of his wife’s body wheeled out a few minutes after that. Agonizing hours later he’d had to stand there in the morgue and stare down at his little boy’s body and the two dark, blue-tinged bullet holes marring the perfect skin of his little chest, including the fatal shot through his left lung.

Carla’s death had been more merciful, a shot through the neck that had clipped her spinal cord and her carotid artery. She’d been dead within minutes, whereas Eli had suffered for close to eight minutes, bleeding profusely the entire time before finally suffocating.

First responders had found Carla wrapped around Eli, her last act to transform herself into a human shield in a futile effort to protect their son. The fatal bullet—a ricochet, they’d told him—had struck her first, then changed direction and buried itself in Eli’s chest. But he’d learned the hardest truth of all weeks later after the forensics reports had been released.

Both had been killed by the very men sent in to save them.

It had taken years to do his own investigative work, off grid and making sure to stay under the radar so as not to arouse suspicion, merely existing one day to the next until he’d found the intel he needed. Today Ken was going to ensure the man responsible for everything would never go home to his family again.

****

The worst part about this entire investigation so far was that no matter what they did, they always seemed to remain a few steps behind this guy at every turn.

Celida raked a hand through her hair and blew out a breath as she leaned back in her chair, the open manifesto on the desk before her. “We’re still missing something. What the hell are we missing?”

From all the reports they’d read so far, Ken Spivey had been a model soldier and a good cop. Nobody they’d talked to had a bad thing to say about him, and all of them were shocked that he might be at the center of an FBI investigation, let alone one involving terrorist activity.

Loss could twist people into someone beyond recognition.

Still sorting through various passages that other agents had highlighted for further analysis, Travers grunted and shifted from his stance bent over his desk. “Tell me about it.”

The team going through the hotel room Ken had stayed at under an alias hadn’t reported anything of use yet, since he’d cleaned the place out before leaving. All they had were fingerprints and some of his hairs for DNA analysis later. They needed to know what the first
clue
he talked about at the end of the manifesto was, and what it meant.

Celida stood and rounded the desk to look at what Travers was reading. He’d sorted all the segments into color coded rows. Green for agenda, yellow for motive, orange for intel they might find useful.

Travers tapped one section marked in yellow. “Got someone digging into this bit about the op in Denver. Should know more shortly.”

That was one of the biggest things to come out of the manifesto. They’d learned that Ken was motivated by devastating loss. He’d been at work on the morning his wife and son had been taken hostage at a bank in Denver. The suspects had barricaded themselves in the bank with all the hostages and no negotiator had been able to talk them down. Things had deteriorated and so much media attention gained that the FBI HRT had been called in two days after the standoff had begun.

Ken had been standing outside the perimeter, helpless, when the assault team went in. Apparently his wife and young son had been killed in the crossfire. The report he’d found stated that ballistics had proved the bullets had come from an HRT member’s weapon. Whose, they weren’t sure yet because the agency had buried it, but Travers had a call into the HRT commanding officer to get some answers. Until they talked to him the only thing left was to go through the paperwork in the reports, and that was going to take the team of analysts at least a few hours, if not longer.

Celida pulled up another database, cross referencing the names of guys on the team back then and the nearly one hundred current members. She flagged the duplicates for further analysis, but was secretly glad that Tuck had joined the team after the Denver incident that had killed Ken’s wife and son.

“You get hold of DeLuca yet?” she asked Travers. DeLuca would no doubt know who had fired the fatal shots.

“They’re out training someplace. I’ve tried his work and personal cell a couple times. He’ll call me when he gets a chance.”

Before she could say anything else, Travers’s phone rang. He checked the number, answered, and his whole body went taut, his gaze pinned on the far wall as he listened. Was he talking to DeLuca?

“I’m on my way,” Travers said in a clipped tone, then looked at her as he lowered the phone. “Seems we got our clue. Team at the hotel found a note in a garbage bag claiming there’s a bomb inside a local mall trashcan. Security’s being dispatched to the area and the cops are on scene. Our bomb techs are on the way,” he finished, already striding for the door and motioning for two other agents to follow.

Celida was right beside him. They jumped into Travers’s vehicle and took off for the mall. Hundreds of people were already standing outside the perimeter as the cops attempted to keep the area secure. Once they got inside, another agent met them at the entrance.

“Found what looks like an inert bomb planted inside one of the trashcans in the food court,” the man told them. “Bomb squad’s working on retrieving it, but in the meantime, here’s a shot of the note attached to it.”

Celida leaned over to see the photo on the man’s phone. Hand written in neat block letter print.

Newseum. Second floor. Northwest corner. One hour. Don’t be late.

“What’s he got up his sleeve now?” she muttered, pulling out her phone to call the Newseum while Travers spoke to the other agent. In a few minutes she had her answer. “It’s a new exhibit,” she told Travers, “featuring the FBI.”

His lips thinned. “Fucker’s playing with us.”

He ordered the other agent to keep him apprised of the ongoing situation, then got on the phone and motioned for her to follow him out of the mall. On the way to his vehicle he got everything in motion for teams to descend on the Newseum. They were nearing the end of the school year and with the nice weather it was prime field trip season for schools all over the city.

By the time they reached the Newseum the cops had the building locked down. A few school buses full of kids were parked beyond the secured perimeter, curious and frightened faces staring out of the windows. The entire area was swarming with cops and agents. The D.C. police’s own bomb squad was on scene.

Celida and Travers worked with the other law enforcement officials there while they waited for an update from the bomb squad. News vans and their crews dotted the scene just beyond the perimeter. Celida could just imagine the kind of stories the reporters were broadcasting.

She gritted her teeth. Had someone leaked the perp’s name already? The initial psych eval they’d been briefed on this morning said that Ken was on a crusade and wanted public support in addition to revenge. Broadcasting his name and picture would no doubt give him the notoriety he was hungry for.

Celida sympathized about his wife and kid, but in her books, carrying out a string of bombings just made him another terrorist asshole.

After helping coordinate various teams at both scenes, Celida put her phone back on her belt and walked up to Travers, who was talking with a SWAT officer. Travers raised his eyebrows. “Anything?”

“Bomb at the mall was a dud. Spivey planted a dummy to act as a diversion.” And it had worked. What was it a diversion for, though? The first two targets had clearly been aimed at the FBI. Was the next target going to do the same, or would it be different?

So far they hadn’t found any other clear connections to what happened in Denver. That made Celida edgy as hell. There
had
to be something more to this. Something significant.

Travers grunted. “Bomb squad reports finding explosives in a trashcan by the FBI exhibit.”

“Probably a dud too.” Because why the hell would someone with as much experience as Spivey go to all this trouble just to blow up a museum exhibit after the building was evacuated?

“Fucker’s having a grand old time watching us chase our tails.”

Yup, and they were letting him do it too.

She continued to run interference for Travers until the bomb squad finally reported back that it looked like the explosives they’d found were also duds. “I wanna see it,” Celida said and Travers walked with her into the building. The bomb squad was at the exhibit with their robot, a little camera attached to it to peek inside the trash can.