Page 11 of Operation: Reckless Angel

The others all laughed as well.

“Oh, hell. Woods could be there all damn day,” Burke said.

“Unlikely, the coffee shop closes at noon. I saw the hours on the door,” Wilson said.

It was an hour later when Woods and his gaming buddy left the shop, each getting into their cars and driving away in different directions. Wilson followed Woods on a course back to his residence, pulling into the strip mall parking lot as Woods’ car continued into the subdivision of townhomes. Roth was the lookout in the loft. He broadcast to the others when he saw Woods’ little blue Ford Focus pull into his driveway and into the garage.

Mother had hit paydirt in the guest parking lot. A white Transit Van was parked in the lot with Georgia plates, not unusual, as it was not even a week past Thanksgiving. It was registered to a Lisa O’Connor of Atlanta. She was twenty-nine years old. Garcia sent the driver’s license picture to Roth. Though the beauty in the picture had black hair, it was clearly the auburn-haired goddess who’d opened the door to Woods’ townhouse.

Garcia got to work running her to ground.

Burke followed Woods’ gaming buddy to a mall, where he donned the familiar blue shirt of an employee of Best Buy before he left his car parked at the back of the lot. He carried his laptop in with him. Burk snapped several more pics of him and his plates and sent them to Garcia. He was identified as Joe Elliot of Waterloo. Garcia would look into him as well.

Shortly after Woods had returned, Roth saw him exit his front door. He had set his laptop onto his computer desk when he’d entered, but hadn’t hooked it back up to the docking station. He crossed the street. Odd, the mail hadn’t come yet. Neither had the trash or recycling pickup. He was surprised when Woods headed right for the front door of the unit they were in. “Woods is heading here,” he broadcast over comms.

Woods knocked. Roth descended the stairs as the others got out of sight. After they were safely upstairs, he opened the front door. “Hey, how’s it going?” he greeted Woods.

“Good. My sister told me you stopped by. At least, I assumed it was you from her description.”

His sister? Hum, that was interesting. “Yeah, I forgot the name of that country bar. And you said it was a few streets over, but if you mentioned which street it’s on, I forgot. I’m planning to go grab a beer and a burger tonight.”

Cam Woods smiled. “You do have a shit memory, don’t you? It’s the Kickstarter, over on West Street.”

“Yeah, if I woulda remembered Kickstarter I could have Googled it.”

“What time you thinking of heading over?” Woods asked.

“Not sure. What time does the beer special start?” He flashed Woods a smile.

“Four. That’s when I’m going.”

“Is your sister going too?” He saw Woods’ unreadable reaction to his question. “No disrespect of your sister, but she’s smoking, man.”

Woods laughed. “Don’t waste your time with her.”

“Why? Is she gay?”

Woods laughed again. “I won’t tell her you got a gay vibe off her. No, she doesn’t live around here and she’s heading home in a few days.”

“That’s too bad,” Roth said.

“Come over to my place at four. I’ll show you a shortcut to walk over there,” Woods said.

“Sounds good,” Roth said. He watched Woods walk back across the street and re-enter his own townhouse. “That was interesting,” he said to the others as they rejoined him in the loft. “His sister.” He tapped out a message to Garcia with this tidbit of info.

The team continued the rotation of watching Woods’ unit from the loft, as well as monitoring the cameras and bugs in the unit. For the first hour after he had visited Roth, nothing was picked up. Both Woods and his sister must have been upstairs.

Finally, Cam Woods connected his laptop to the docking station and signed into his computer. The camera in the entry light gave the perfect view of the multiple monitors. He had several windows open. The team alerted Garcia, who patched in to view the monitors and the activity of their target.

“He’s in two different email accounts,” Lambchop pointed out. “I can’t make out the account names.”

As they watched Cam Woods zip through different websites, Garcia reported on Lisa O’Connor and Cameron Woods’ sister, Briana Woods. Both women served in the Army as MPs, their last post being at Fort Stewart in Georgia. They physically resembled each other. In her Army ID photo, Lisa O’Connor had the same auburn colored hair as Briana. Briana had green eyes and Lisa had blue, nothing that couldn’t be changed with contact lenses.

Briana dropped off the face of the earth after her honorable discharge after serving eight years. Lisa was given a medical discharge after a bad beating from her husband, a civilian who only served a few months for the attack. She divorced him while he was in prison. That was when she disappeared with the couple’s four-year-old son. She had full custody. The ex-husband had filed for visitation after he’d been released from prison.

“Looks like he’s in the dark web in that middle monitor,” Garcia’s gravelly voice said.

“So, maybe the contract hasn’t been completed yet,” Roth said.

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