Page 67 of Always Been Mine

“Wait,” Nate said. “Back up a little. See that?”

Gabe walked over to the two men. “You guys have something?”

“Fuck,” Travis muttered. “You’re right.”

“We first zeroed in on the white van,” Nate said. “Unmarked. Fake plates—we already ran them. Unless a 75-year-old man kidnapped Bee, the plate is a dead end. However, before the van appeared, there was a blue Honda Civic that was shadowing her. Our girl noticed and started to turn back.”

“Caught the plates on the Civic when it turned into that intersection,” Travis said. “Running tags on it right now.”

“A guy stepped out, but he was facing away from the cams,” Gabe muttered. Beatrice didn’t stand a chance. She was cut off from all corners. “Damn it.”

“She did everything right,” Nate said sadly. “They were just prepared for everything. Rhino could have surprised them though.”

“I doubt it,” Gabe said. “They’ve been watching her.” Just the thought of it made him sick. “What did I miss? Who could be after her?”

Porter’s enemies, and there were many of them. To the public and to the world, the admiral was a respected officer in the U.S. Navy. His connection to the CIA was simply a rumor. However, if what the admiral said was true and there was a bad seed inside the agency orchestrating the events of the past three to four years, no one was safe.

“We’re trying to figure out if it’s any of our client’s enemies,” Travis said. “This has not happened before, at least not to Beatrice since she’s simply a top-level contact.” Travis’s eyes narrowed at Gabe. “If there’s anything we need to know, Gabe, now is the time to tell us. You say the admiral is off the grid? We’re all you’ve got.”

“I don’t know everything myself,” Gabe said carefully. “Before the admiral disappeared this last time, he said he had uncovered some troubling intel and may be gone for a while.Eric Stone was murdered; he was killed with an assassin’s concoction.” The look on the other two men’s faces hardened, so Gabe pressed on. “Five people were killed in the Cloverleaf District; three of them masqueraded as fans of Titanium Rose and attacked Beatrice. Finally, the reporter—”

“Kelly Winters? That was blamed on a Russian diplomat.”

“All were Steve Ryker’s hits.”

“The man who was after Senator Mendoza?” Travis frowned. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“The target was Senator Mendoza’s uncle,” Gabe said. “I still don’t know why he killed the uncle but left the senator unharmed. I was the secondary target, Travis.”

“This explains a lot,” Nate said. “We’ve always wondered why they didn’t go after the senator after they had disabled your vehicle.”

“So what does Ryker have to do with all the other deaths?”

“He killed them the way Dmitry Yerzov made his assassinations,” Gabe replied and told them how he was supposed to be dead.

“Wait, how did he find out your methods enough to do a copycat killing?” Nate asked.

“We suspected he was in cahoots with Crowe.”

Just the mention of the double-crossing Crowe brought a storm cloud over Travis’s face. “Is Caitlin in danger?”

Gabe wasn’t about to sugar coat the situation, because after what had happened, he knew exactly where Travis was coming from. “I don’t know, Travis. I have a feeling Ryker’s actions were personally motivated, but Porter always believed he had a sponsor for his actions. His exact relationship with Crowe remains a mystery unless we can dig into his background.”

“We tried,” Nate said. “Short of raising alarms in the CIA databases, we couldn’t delve deeper.”

“There is a whole other layer on the internet where we can find information,” Gabe said. Crowe had functioned ashis intel guy. “However, I’m not set up nor savvy enough to navigate those layers without getting caught by the feds.”

“You’re talking about the Black Plane?” Nate asked. “I’m set up for it and can manage enough, but I think Caitlin is better.”

The Black Plane was websites that were not easily categorized by URL-filtering databases because of their ad-hoc infrastructure. Simply put, they were hard to trace and frequently used for clandestine and covert communication and illegal activities. They were also a source of leaked classified information—that was if one knew where to look.

“I hate to get her involved,” Travis said. “She freelances for the NSA, and after what went down with the whistleblower, things are too hot right now.” He sighed. “However, I know she would do anything to get Beatrice back. And where the hell is Porter?”

Fuck if I know, Gabe thought.

She was sitting on a chair;her hands and feet were tied against it. Her senses were groggy from the chloroform, but Beatrice suspected they had injected her with something else as well. She dazedly took stock of her surroundings—three walls and a mirror, which she suspected was a two-way one. The lighting was from a single fluorescent lamp above.

She was thirsty.

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