Page 9 of Long Past Deadly

Harrison eased into a chair, his back obviously bothering him. SEAL days always left injuries behind. “I’ve probed IQS files, called a source I have in Central Command. No peep from those remnants that trace back to anything. It’s radio silent.”

“Did you run a check on Williams’s FBI background?”

“Working on it. Cooperation hard to come by. We don’t have the FBI resources we need, and they’re a bit testy about releasing agent info right now. I don’t want to spill what happened.” Harrison leaned forward to stretch. “I have confirmed everything we do have on her, and I made a call to Nick Ryker, her boss. I’m waiting for a call back. Frank Walker is on his way up, though.” Frank Walker was a sergeant in the San Diego Police Department and lived next door to Hunt and Cait. It’s how they’d all met.

Mackey ran a hand through his hair. Too long. It needed cut. “Fuck. Respect the man and all, but I need another cop in my hair like I need a double tap to the head.”

“He could be in our corner.” Harrison’s suggestions always came with a side of bland.

“Could be, but I still have nothing to tell him. I got the barebones from Quaid’s first call, but Frank’s going to have questions, and I don’t have answers. What does the video of the parking lot look like?”

“Kerry currently has all angles of our outdoor surveillance on the operations systems. She is tearing apart the seven minute section, frame by frame. We have a pretty good likeness, but the picture is not coming up on any of the databases. CIA isn’t claiming any knowledge. Given what he attempted, they should or else he’s been scrubbed by another agency and they aren’t telling us.”

Mackey silently snorted. Which left them with a case that pointed where exactly? “Did you send a team to Hunt and Cait’s to go over the car? The bullets could tell us something.”

Harrison hedged, his black suit pants and blue shirt as wrinkled as Mackey’s. “Not yet. Did you call them?”

“Hell, no. Cait would kill me. She deserves a quiet honeymoon.”

“Well, I’m not real fond of invading their space without their permission. That won’t go well with Hunt. They’re due back in a couple days. Let’s explore other things first. I’d rather let Quaid explain why his car is in the garage and from the sounds of it, they helped themselves to other supplies.”

Mackey groaned. “We need to talk through our weapons and supply contingencies. We need to adapt those. Let’s get a security care package arranged for backup. Let Frank in. I’ll tell him what I can.”

“Which won’t be much.” Harrison eased out of the chair. “Elizabeth’s arranging funds for him to draw from off the books. We’ll need to pass that along so he doesn’t touch personal assets until we determine where this is coming from. And Niles called. He’s prepared to be the go-between. Did you talk to Zephren?”

“No. We don’t have an explanation, and his grandfather adds complications we don’t need. There is no current intel supporting an assassin’s need to kill a billionaire’s grandson. Kidnap yes. Kill, no. That leaves us with shadows to trace, and it’ll be complicated and difficult. Tapping Niles will help. He knows things about Quaid’s life that even I don’t know.” Mackey shook his head. “Plus, he’s off the books so no one would have seen him except here at the wedding. I guarantee the sniper wasn’t checking the wedding guests. He had his eye on one target. And that’s it.”

“Agreed.”

Harrison went to the double doors, signaling Frank as he left.

Mackey fingered the bottle of water on his desk and found as much calm and nonchalance as he could manage. He eyed Frank Walker over the water bottle.

Frank paced to the desk. His face grim, the cleft in his chin offset a crooked nose – broken at one point or three – and blended with blue eyes that were cop blank. His jeans and blue shirt were covered by his protective vest with his badge and gun at his hip. They stared at each other like two gunfighters waiting for the dust to settle in the street so they could draw.

“Tell me what you have so far,” Frank growled, irritation ripe. “I’m getting too many phone calls about your stonewalling. Damn the day they figured out I’d met you two.”

Leaving out the part about Cait and Hunt’s house because neighbor Frank was an attack Doberman about the safety of his neighborhood, Mackey went through it. “We’ll get you the pictures we have from the parking lot surveillance. You can run your systems and see what you have. We’re waiting for Quaid to make contact.”

“You’re not worried?”

A part of Mackey wanted to explode, but he found a civil tone. “Of course, I am, Frank. We all are. But Quaid is a trained operative. He’s not dead. You don’t have a body anywhere. Your guys told me that. He went under.” He didn’t mention Williams. It might not be necessary to hold so much back, but he followed his gut. “What’s happening is anyone’s guess. I don’t know if Quaid recognized him. My gut says no. But we’re tracing with our sources to see what whispers we get. Nothing so far.”

“Somebody tried to kill Quaid, point blank, and the gunman didn’t care whether he was seen.” Frank sat in Mackey’s one visitor chair and leaned back, for all purposes looking like a friend at a barbecue. Illusion.

Mackey debated a split second. “True. Or was banking on us not having access to his identity.”

“Which gives us a direction.”

“Possibly.”

“CIA?”

“They say no. Don’t recognize him, but we all know they wouldn’t admit it even if they did.”

“He left the wedding after I did. Was he armed?”

“No, but he had his fob. Jumped to his sports car. Switched at the Coronado Patton. Undetermined what he’s currently driving. I’m guessing he switched again, but not sure to what. We’re checking.”