Chapter 31

CHAPTER 31

Z oe hated that she'd drawn all her family and Connor into this mess. She'd simply wanted Abby to look at the pictures on her phone she'd taken at the clandestine meeting in the woods outside Raleigh. Now they were knee deep in the muck with her. She looked at Connor. His solid stoic presence gave her a sense of safety, something she'd always relied on in herself, not others. But since she woke up completely lost? He'd become her anchor.

"Why don't we start with what we've figured out, then you can fill in the missing parts?" Jake said on the screen.

"That's a good way to start," she said, then laid her hand on Duke's head in her lap to stroke his silky fur.

"Luke, you want to go first?" Jake asked.

"Yep. We got a call from Zoe on Sunday telling me she wanted to meet with Abby about something. She wanted Abby to look at something, but didn't tell us anything more," he said with a pointed look Zoe's direction. His censure didn't phase her, but Connor stiffened beside her. For once she had a champion. The idea warmed a spot inside her chest. "When she didn't show up, Abby and I tried to locate her phone, but got nothing, so we tracked her trail from the where she bought it in Washington. The phone pinged a trail through Virginia and was last used somewhere south of Norton, Virginia. We contacted you and then you sent the team down to find her."

"Based on your previous history with EIS and the cases you had us work," Jake said, taking up the tale. "I decided that Castello, Ben and I would come to DC, your last known address and see if we could find anything that would help us find you. Or figure out what case you were working."

"Did you find the flash drive?" Zoe asked.

"Picked it up from the overnight mailbox unit last night," Ben said. "Jake forwarded the files to Abby this morning."

"Thanks. I needed to keep it safe."

"The password was a piece of cake," Luke said. "You need better passwords than Shanghaied, coz."

Zoe shot him a smug look. "Wanted to be sure you'd be able to open it."

"Taping the key to the picture of the Folly was a pretty easy clue. You really need to challenge me more," her cousin said and the easy banter, so familiar from their growing up years, relaxed her.

"So, what did you find on that drive?"

"You don't know what's on it?" Jake asked.

She shrugged. "I have my suspicions, but the files are highly encrypted. I wanted to gather more information as to what Markus was up to before I brought it to Luke to unencrypt. That's why I left the key for Luke to find if something happened to me."

"Who is Markus Louden?" Castello asked.

"My mentor. The man who recruited me out of college to join the NSA."

That announcement got her some pointed looks.

She simply shrugged. They'd known she'd worked for the government on highly secretive missions. "I worked for them and with Markus for several years until I was approached by a senior officer to join an even more secret group that infiltrates very, very high-risk groups threatening the country."

"Areneum," Jake said.

Zoe was impressed. "How did you find that out?"

"I have sources at State. They filled me in on your work for Areneum. I managed to contact them through my source, but apparently, they have no idea what you've been working on involving Louden."

"It was personal." She inhaled and exhaled slowly. "Right before I started the undercover job with Bricker, Markus was lost in a mission in South America. He was supposedly killed in a plane crash and but no remains were returned for burial here. I was determined to find and take down the people responsible for his death. I assumed it was one of Bricker's illegal arms suppliers, since Markus had been working that case before I took on the bodyguard role, but when we unraveled that spider's web of dealers and sellers, nothing was connected to that mission where Markus died. Then something happened that caught my attention and made me believe that maybe he hadn't died in that crash. Remember when you helped bring in that drug and human trafficker Crandal?"

"The one that managed to stay alive just long enough to give up the people he supplied to, but not the person or people that supplied him with drugs and girls?" Dave asked.

She nodded at her oldest cousin. "That's the one. I stumbled across some information about the main supplier. The Tullius cartel. They were supplying straight Fentanyl to Crandal, who then mixed it with marijuana to increase the addiction, but also became poison for unsuspecting customers, especially teens."

"How does this cartel, Tullius, connect with Louden?" he asked.

"It's the name of the cartel. Markus loved to talk about Roman generals and his favorite was Quintus Tullius Cicero. All through my training, he talked about Quintus."

"So, you figured he was still alive and went after him?" Connor asked.

She fixed her gaze on him and nodded.

"Why?" he asked quietly. She knew he was asking her if it was because she'd been romantically involved with Markus. She read it in his eyes. He couldn't be more wrong.

"Because when he recruited me, he told me I would be saving the country and saving people's lives by going after the bad guys. If he was alive, that meant he'd faked his death to become the very thing he'd told me we were fighting. He betrayed his promise to the country."

"And as an Edgars nothing could be worse." Luke said.

Zoe slowly looked at her cousins and they each gave her a slight nod. They understood her need to bring Markus to justice. Beneath the table, Connor's hand covered hers in her lap. She glanced at him. He understood betrayal.

"You started picking up his trail in South America from obscure newspaper stories." It wasn't a question from Jake.

She shrugged. "Seemed like the most logical place to start. Having worked for NSA, I'd developed some contacts in various embassies throughout the continent."

"Wouldn't the ambassadors wonder what you were looking into?" Katie asked.

Zoe shook her head. "My contacts weren't the political appointees, or even their diplomatic staff, which changed out depending on who was president. I got to know the cooks, the housekeeping people, the security staff. Useful contacts."

The other woman nodded knowingly. "People who were mostly invisible to the people in charge, but often hear things or listen to the gossip when people thought they couldn't be heard."

"Exactly. I also found computer techs at those embassies, too."

Abby and Luke exchanged looks.

"No offense," Zoe said. "You guys are always useful, especially in getting around political types who have power but no common sense."

"We know, and yes, sometimes the higher ups at HHS treated us as no more than walking computers," Abby said with a pause. "At least I was treated that way for the first few years. Luke was a field agent, too, not just a tech, so, he was treated a little more…personal."

Zoe knew what she meant. Before falling in love and marrying Abby, Luke was known in the HHS world as a bit of a lady's man. His fieldwork only added a sense of danger to that reputation. "Well, I don't. I knew if anyone could get into the files, you two could."

"Where did you get this flash drive?" Jake asked, redirecting them back to the issue.

"Once I traced Markus' movements up from South America, Central America, Mexico and back into the US, I was able to find his new residence under the name of Quintus Zacharius."

"We've looked into his background once we realized you'd been surveilling him," Abby said, pulling in a smaller screen for them to see what they'd learned about his finances. "Brianna has been following the money. His layers of shell companies would make a beehive envious. She's pulling at the threads to get to the core of his finances, but it will take a while."

"Who's Brianna?" Zoe asked.

"Abby's best friend. Lives up in Cleveland and she's a money, numbers and statistics savant."

Zoe smiled at Abby. "Of course you have a friend with a brain as good as yours."

"Zoe?" Jake asked. "Where did you get the flash drive?"

She shrugged. "I broke into his house and downloaded his hard drive."

"How?" Ben asked. "That's some very high-tech security he has on his place."

"It was a little challenging," she said with an arched brow. "But I've disarmed some highly sophisticated systems in more dangerous situations. Once I was inside, his computer password was almost a piece of cake since I knew him for years. He believed his house security would keep anyone out, so the computer password was the year he started with the NSA."

"No wonder the man tried to kill you. Twice," Connor said beside her.

She turned to look at him, trying to read if he was censuring her actions or impressed. "I didn't leave any evidence his place had been broken into. That's not why he tried to kill me."

"Why did he?" the big man beside her asked very quietly.

"He wants what's on this." She pulled out her phone and handed it to him. "Can you give that to Abby?"

He handed it over then focused back on her, but didn't ask anything. Just waited.

"I followed him to a cabin in the forest outside of Roanoke. It was a gathering of people, men and women. Limousines and bodyguards for every person who arrived. Sort of like that mafia boss meeting in upstate New York back in the fifties."

"Who were they?" Matt asked, leaning in over his folded arms on the table across from her.

"I don't know," she said. "That's why I was coming to see Abby."

"I thought you wanted to see both of us," Luke said.

Zoe shot him a non-sympathetic look. "Not to hurt your feelings, but I wanted to tap into Abby's brain."

"Tap into her brain?" Connor asked sounding confused.

"Abby has a photographic memory. I took pictures of all the people at the meeting and wanted her to see if she knew who they were."

"Did Markus see you getting the pictures?"

The memory flashed back into her mind. "Yes."

"That's why he tried to kill you. Then he decided he wanted the phone recovered or destroyed. That's why he sent not one, but two teams to be sure you were dead and get the phone." The grip of Connor's hand on hers tightened a little. "That's why he's going to try again."