Rogue Commander, page 13
part #3 of Titus Black Series
“I’m glad I could play a part in bringing her comedic relief,” Black said. “Now, I think I see their vehicle up there.”
Rodgers jammed his foot on the gas, the SUV lurching forward again as they closed in on the white van. He eased right up behind it before flipping on his lights.
The driver of the van complied with Rodgers’s directions, pulling over quickly instead of setting off a wild chase, though Black was skeptical whether the situation would stay this way.
“Have your weapon ready,” Rodgers said. “This could get ugly.”
Black approached from the passenger side, while Rodgers strode up to the driver’s door and gestured for the man to roll his window down. As Black peered inside, he was stunned to see a handful of teenagers crammed inside with crushed cans of energy drinks littering the floorboard and the smell of marijuana permeating the air.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the driver said. “What were we doing wrong?”
“You mind stepping out of the vehicle?” Rodgers asked.
“Sure thing, man,” the driver said. He got out and jumped back when he noticed Rodgers’s weapon.
“Calm down,” Rodgers said.
“Hey, man, no need for all that. You can put that thing away. It’s a free country. We were just having some fun.”
“I’m not sure what you did tonight constitutes as fun,” Rodgers said.
“Playing video games and going on a run for pizza, only to be handed two hundred bucks to drive this van around the Beltway for an hour isn’t fun?”
Rodgers sighed. “What did you say?”
“Look, some guy gave us two hundred bucks each if we’d just ride around the Beltway for an hour and then park this van back where we met him. If we would’ve thought it was illegal or something, we wouldn’t have done it.”
Rodgers slammed his fist on the hood and let out a string of expletives.
Black just glared at the teens, one of whom grinned widely and held up a pair of hundred dollar bills. The rest of them just stared off in the distance, their eyes glazed over.
“I got two hundred bucks,” the teen said. “But that hard ass was an idiot. I would’ve done this for free.”
Black cocked his head to one side. “Hard ass?”
“Yeah, big dude,” the braggart said. “He was ripped, totally in shape. Crazy tattoo on his forearm. Bald head. Had to be ex-military. I would’ve done anything he commanded me too and wouldn’t have thought twice about it.”
Black nodded. “Ex-military, you say?”
“Yeah, like Special Forces. The guy was built like a tank.”
“And his tattoo,” Black said, “what was it of?”
“Like this snake-looking monster. Scary stuff.”
Black wasn’t certain of the kidnappers’ background, but based on the description, he knew they were American. And that made the abduction of Al-Sabah all the more interesting.
I need to talk with Shields.
CHAPTER 23
SHIELDS TORE OUT of Blunt’s property and headed downtown. With the intruder’s DNA in tow, she needed an analysis as soon as possible to be able to finger the man. After searching the contacts on her phone, she gave Mallory Kauffman a call. The two of them had worked together on a few previous cases, and Shields always found the NSA analyst helpful for making connections in the intelligence community.
“Christina, it’s been a minute,” Kauffman said after answering the phone.
“I’d love to catch up, but unfortunately a minute is about all I have.”
“What do you need?”
“I have a DNA sample and need results immediately.”
“There’s one lab downtown that might still be open,” Kauffman said. “If you try the service entry, you might get someone. If that someone is Ben, you’re golden. Just tell him you’re friends with me and that I sent you over. And if it’s not, be resourceful. Show off your legs or—oh, I’m sorry, I forgot about—”
“No need to apologize,” Shields said. “You’re not going to offend me because you just remembered that I have a bionic leg.”
“Okay, thanks. Good luck. I’ll text you the address.”
A few minutes after they hung up, her phone buzzed with a message from Kauffman containing the address of the lab.
As Shields headed in that direction, she wondered how the two cases were connected.
Why would a team of assassins operating in the Middle East who pick off high-profile targets suddenly start killing their own?
Nothing made sense given everything that she knew, which meant she needed more information. Whatever was happening, she couldn’t imagine it being good.
She flipped the radio on, which was already tuned to WTOP, where she caught the latest news when she was on the go. The meteorologist made a few corny jokes before throwing it back to one of the anchors.
“Today was a wild one in Washington as well as in New York. Stocks went on a rollercoaster ride, peaking just before lunch and then taking a nose dive an hour before the bell when word leaked out that Abdul Al-Sabah had been kidnapped during a surprise trip to the U.S. However, we’ve just received reports that the Kuwaiti emir has been rescued by the FBI and is safe. No other details are available at this time.”
Shields was relieved at the news, though the unavailable details were the ones she considered the most important. Several minutes later, her phone rang with a call from Black.
“I was just about to call you,” she said as she answered. “I heard on the news that Al-Sabah has been rescued.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t much of a mission,” Black said. “The abductors were gone by the time we got there and had just left Al-Sabah all tied up. However, the building was rigged to blow and everybody got out just in time.”
“That’s definitely a win.”
“But there’s more. We were able to track down the vehicle the kidnappers used, and when we found it, there were just some kids driving. They said they got paid two hundred bucks to tool around on the Beltway for an hour.”
“Were they able to give you a description of the men?”
“Yeah,” Black said, “and that was the interesting thing. Now, I’m pretty sure the kids were high, but they said the man who approached them was ripped and looked like he was in special forces.”
“Whatever that means,” she quipped.
“I know, but there’s more. One of the kids said he had a crazy tattoo on his forearm of, and I quote, ‘a snake-looking monster’. Now, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Already ahead of you,” she said before recounting her discovery about the tattoo and subsequent encounter with the hostile at Blunt’s house. “I’m on my way to a lab right now to hopefully convince someone to fast-track the results for me.”
“Good luck,” Black said. “Update me when you get a chance.”
Shields pulled up to Redstone Labs and found the place deserted. The only light inside the front office came from the exit sign over one of the doors. She hustled around to the back entrance in an alleyway. She pressed the buzzer a couple times and waited. A half-minute later, she heard a man’s voice crackling over the speaker.
“We’re closed,” the man said.
“I was trying to reach Ben,” Shields said. “Is he in tonight by chance?”
“Ben’s been out with a cold the past few days. Try back in a couple of days. He should be back then.”
“In that case, I’m hoping you could help me,” she said. “I need a big favor.”
Shields flipped her hair and then bit her lip as she looked up at the camera.
“Look, lady, if you think you’re going to mesmerize me with your beauty, think again. I already have a girlfriend who’s a solid four, which is about the ceiling for what a washed up mechanical engineer who flunked out of MIT and is now working the graveyard shift at a medical lab can do. So, your flirtatious ways aren’t going to sway me when helping you out might cost me my job and my girlfriend, neither of which I can afford to lose at this point in my life.”
“Mechanical engineer?” she asked, deciding to switch tactics. “Have you ever seen a prosthetic like this?”
She hiked up her pants, revealing the mechanism strapped to her leg.
He didn’t say anything. A few seconds later, the door buzzed, allowing her access. She pushed it open and marched inside.
“This better not be a heist of some sort,” the man said.
“I wouldn’t do that to you—”
“Nelson,” he said, offering his hand. “Nelson Stovall.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said, introducing herself. “Now, before I let you inspect my leg, let me tell you why I'm here. I’m working on a special project with the government and need immediate results for a DNA test. Can I count on you to help me?”
He nodded. “Let me see that.” He knelt down next Shields’s feet and waited for her to reveal her prosthetic.
Stovall’s mouth fell agape as he ran his hand down the metal contours. “Exquisitely made. An utter masterpiece.”
“So, you gonna help me?” she asked.
“What do you need?”
Shields reached into her pocket and produced the rudimentary blood sample she collected. “I need this processed right away.”
“It’ll take a few hours.”
“I understand, but don’t wait around on this. National security is at stake here. My card is taped to the outside of the bag. Please email me the results as soon as you get them.”
* * *
UPON RETURNING to the Firestorm office, Shields spent the next few hours poring over more of the footage to see if there was anything else she might have missed. She analyzed the shots and determined there were six hostiles, two of which Black and the other FBI agents took out. But four others escaped.
What she was keenly interested in was whether or not the intruder at Blunt’s estate was connected to the kidnapping. He had the strange tattoo, but beyond that, there wasn’t anything else that definitively linked the two.
Just before midnight, her email dinged with a message from Nelson Stovall at Redstone Labs. She collected all the data and entered it into the FBI database and waited. After twenty minutes of searching, she got a match—former Ranger, Eddie Riley.
She immediately began digging up the file she’d created for him earlier when she was researching potential suspects. In order to bring him in for questioning, she needed to find anything that would help her locate him. Her initial cursory glance into his life produced little more than standard fare, a military guy to the core who had been outspoken about his patriotism. He had a wife and a little girl. However, he abruptly retired from the Army about six months before his wife filed for divorce, a court record that was sealed.
Shields learned that Riley’s wife, Alicia Banks Riley, was related to Miles Banks, the wealthiest man in Winchester and owner of Banks Whisky with the slogan: Liquor you can bank on. The saying never made much sense, which Shields figured was simply an overreach on some marketing guru’s part to develop a clever play on words with the company name. Nevertheless, the head-scratching saying stirred plenty of bar room debates over the meaning behind it, further cementing the brand along the eastern seaboard. Shields found their liquor tasty.
As she dug through his personnel file, she didn’t see the makings of a former Ranger destined to such a drastic career path shift. Sniping enemy combatants in the military wasn’t the same as killing civilian targets. And the impetus for becoming such a mercenary would have to be triggered by an event in his life that required a large income boost.
Before she started a deep dive into his financials, she entered his image into a facial recognition database. She combed through his records, looking for anything that would indicate perhaps a gambling debt to pay off or a large medical bill. Riley was an independent consultant, advising corporations on how to best manage their onsite security. According to his bank statements, he was paid well, though sporadically.
Ten minutes later, she received notification of several matches with Riley’s image. Shields snatched up Lebedev’s journal off her desk and started cross-referencing the dates with the cities where Riley traveled. Her eyes widened as her original hunch was confirmed: Eddie Riley was The Ghost—or at least, one of them.
Energized by the discovery, Shields continued to research Riley’s background.
There has to be something else in here we can use against him.
Then she found it.
CHAPTER 24
Winchester, Virginia
SPORTING SUNGLASSES and a blue baseball cap, Eddie Riley peered over the top of his newspaper while sitting on a park bench. His daughter squealed as she flew down a slide, hands extended skyward. Her infectious smile and laughter arrested her nanny’s attention. The young twenty-something woman glanced up from her phone and grinned at Lilly before helping her to the ground after she stalled out at the end of the slide. As soon as she was climbing up the ladder, the nanny returned to staring at the device in her hand.
Probably reading about the Kardashians.
Riley didn’t want to be bitter. He’d seen how a disposition could poison a person, watching the anger eat away at his father after a contested divorce. Yet Riley felt himself heading down the same path, even though he swore he’d never turn out like his old man. Drunk, alone, and hardened wasn’t how Riley hoped to be as he entered his forties. But that’s where he was headed if something didn’t change. He was doing everything he could to fight it. It’s why he agreed to work for Leviathan in the first place. Riley didn’t like killing, but he grew to appreciate it for the paycheck it provided, money he would use to engage the Banks family in court and win back partial custody of Lilly like he deserved.
That should be me on that playground with Lilly.
The court battle over Lilly was fierce. But at the time, Riley could only afford his college friend who had a small law firm that mostly handled copyright issues. Meanwhile, the Banks family’s army of attorneys from Timmons & Youngblood buried Riley’s lawyer under requests that threatened to consume every billable hour he had available for the next three months. He eventually quit, leaving Riley to defend himself. Alicia fed the Timmons & Youngblood lawyers everything they needed to push Riley’s buttons and make him explode in court. By the time the judge reached her decision, Riley had experienced nearly a half-dozen outbursts, all underscoring the narrative Alicia pushed: Eddie Riley was a dangerous man, both to her and their daughter.
The judge retired to her chamber for a total of five minutes before returning with her ruling. Alicia won full custody as well as a restraining order. The only permissible contact between Alicia and Eddie was to discuss alimony checks. Eddie loathed paying Alicia even a dime given the fact that the Banks family owned such a vast fortune, but he convinced himself that the money was for Lilly, the only way he could stomach forking over each month’s check. But that was going to change very soon. With the infusion of cash he was about to get for his latest job, he’d be up over five hundred thousand that he’d squirreled away to pay for the most ruthless family law firm in Virginia, Middleton & Sons.
As he was lost in thought, imagining the look on Alicia’s face when she lost, Riley’s phone buzzed. His eyes widened as he read the message. He took off his sunglasses and went over it once more to make sure he wasn’t imagining it.
It’s really happening.
He swallowed hard and pocketed his phone. Then he felt a poke in his back. The feeling was familiar, though one he immediately wished would go away.
“Major Riley, I need to talk with you,” said a woman.
Riley took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Look, I don’t want any trouble. I’m just trying to watch my daughter over there.”
“The one you’re not allowed to get within five hundred yards of?”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to come with me,” she said. “I’ve got a few questions that I need answers to.”
“And you’re willing to shoot me right here in the park if I don’t?”
“Would you like to regain custody of your daughter, perhaps full-time?”
Riley nodded, keeping his eyes focused on his daughter. “I’m listening.”
“I can help make that happen for you, but I’m going to need you to cooperate with me.”
Riley folded his newspaper and tucked it beneath his arm before standing up.
“Nice and easy,” she said. “I don’t want to draw any attention to us.”
“I’ll do whatever you want if you can get my daughter back for me. Just tell me what to do.”
Riley followed the woman’s instructions, casually walking over to her SUV and getting in. He waited for the door to unlock as the woman walked around to the driver’s side.
Before getting in, he took one last glance at Lilly. He smiled as a feeling came over, one that he hadn’t experienced in a long time: hope.
CHAPTER 25
SHIELDS EYED RILEY as he slid into the passenger seat next to her. He pulled his hat taut, shading his eyes from the morning sun before rubbing some of the dust off the glove compartment.
“It’s dirty, I know,” she said, casting a furtive glance at him.
“What’s this all about?” he asked.
“You’ll see soon enough,” Shields said. “But after we get out of the city limits, I’m going to need you to blindfold yourself with that handkerchief in the glove box.”
Riley opened the compartment, removed the piece of silk cloth, and then held it up. “Fancy. Do you always treat your hostages with such luxury?”
“Nothing but the finest for my captives.”
“So, that’s what this is?” he asked. “You’re taking me captive?”
She shrugged. “You can consider it whatever you like. Maybe two new acquaintances going for coffee together to discuss global politics and the like.”
“I hate politics.”
“That makes two of us,” Shields said. “Maybe we could say we’re going to talk about the latest diet fad or who won the game last night, anything really.”
