Cold Spite (Cold Justice: Most Wanted #5)

Chapter 59

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

W ith the overcast sky it was almost fully dark by the time Cas got to the HRT compound with Cowboy and Sebastian Black. The streetlamps glowed sullenly in the damp dusk. Everyone was unusually quiet.

Grady Steel arrived at the same time. “What’s going on?”

“Beats me.”

They all headed into the briefing room and found Seth Hopper and JJ Hersh with Meghan Donnelly, Hunt Kincaid, and Will Griffin.

None of the higher ups were here. Cas frowned. “What’s up?”

Hopper stood. “I heard something extremely disturbing from Zoe. She had lunch with a friend of hers who’s a Forensic Anthropologist at the FBI National Laboratory. Apparently, this friend was surprised I was heading back home so soon. She thought we’d be heading off on an op.”

Cas crossed his arms. “Why?”

“Zoe’s friend was talking with a DNA analyst yesterday morning. Apparently, the DNA on the hair follicles from one of the murder scenes in San Diego matched one of the Scanlon brothers, although she said without better reference samples from both of them, they couldn’t tell us which brother. Apparently, they were trying to brainstorm any other ways to figure out how to tell monozygotic twins apart more easily. She wasn’t supposed to know where the case was from, but as this had been bumped to the front of the line because it was associated with the death of two FBI agents, it wasn’t hard for her to guess.”

“Wait,” Cas interrupted. “They had this information yesterday morning? Why the hell didn’t they send it to the task force? Scanlon could have been in custody by now.”

Hopper shifted. “That’s the problem. They did. They sent it to Trainer.”

There was a beat of silence.

“You’re saying Greg Trainer had this information yesterday?” Cas couldn’t believe it. “That sonofabitch pulled that stunt with Delilah today to deflect attention away from the fact he failed to act on this evidence? If he had, Nicole Zimmerman and her unborn child might still be alive.”

“It’s possible the prosecutor quashed it. It remains impossible to prove which brother was at that scene without definitive samples, and they can’t arrest them both.” Hopper sat on one of the tables.

At this stage it might be difficult to prove beyond doubt which brother was which, period.

“Unless we can implicate them both in the murders,” Ryan Sullivan added sagely.

Bone-deep fury seared Cas. The sort of anger that didn’t die with time. He wanted to beat Greg Trainer until he lay bleeding on the floor, but that wasn’t enough. He wanted his badge. “What Trainer did to Delilah earlier today was unforgivable.”

“The question is, what are we going to do about it?” Hopper insisted. “We can’t tell anyone we know about the DNA results without getting both the evidence techs into serious trouble, but we need this guy to be held accountable for what he did to your girl.”

Emotion choked Cas at their unquestioning support and acceptance of Delilah because he’d vouched for her. These guys were his perfectly imperfect family. And he didn’t need to be perfect either, he realized. He didn’t need to prove his worth every damned day. Being part of a real family didn’t require excellent grades or a flawless performance evaluation every single time. It just was.

He had weaknesses and foibles, but it didn’t matter. These people didn’t care.

He shook off the emotions that were trying to crowd him. Instead, he concentrated on the issue at hand. “Get the DNA tech to send the same info to Lincoln Frazer with apologies for the delay and earlier omission,” he suggested. “He’s on the task force, and it’s legit to share that information with him as he’s a ranking agent and the BAU’s point person on the task force. More to the point, he stood up for Delilah at the meeting today. Otherwise she would have lost her badge then and there. If Frazer sees the evidence, he will hopefully ask why Trainer didn’t pursue it sooner, and he can organize an arrest warrant for Scanlon.”

Cas’s cell rang. Yael. He answered, hoping she’d found something that would definitively nail Scanlon or identify his accomplice. “Hey?—”

“We have a situation.”

Thirty minutes later Cas sat in the back of Shane Livingstone’s truck following Delilah’s borrowed F-150 down I-95 toward Fredericksburg at a safe distance. Cowboy and Meghan were in another truck behind them. The rest of the team were getting the equipment together. The wedding festivities had been put on hold for the HRT gang and for FBI negotiator Charlotte Blood, who’d volunteered to join them on this hastily assembled plan to find Delilah’s parents and keep them alive.

He’d informed Killion but hadn’t heard back and had to assume his wife was still in labor.

It was a relief to have Delilah in sight though his fingers itched to hold her in his arms. Yael’s news had been like a blow to the heart. That anyone would threaten a defenseless older woman and a man suffering from dementia made his stomach churn. That these were Delilah’s parents made it a thousand times worse.

Delilah had already suffered enough. The thought of her losing her parents hit him the same way it had five years ago. It would devastate her. But he wasn’t leaving this time. She wouldn’t be alone.

Agents from the task force were en route to the house to discreetly search for evidence from the abduction.

Right now, he and his HRT colleagues had to be cautious in case Scanlon had an accomplice driving nearby who had eyes on Delilah. Thankfully, Kevin Holtz was still being questioned by the FBI—the question of the white van and missing explosives remained unanswered.

Cas had the horrible feeling that whoever had taken Delilah’s parents was the same person who’d murdered the Admiral and his wife, the same person who’d shot and killed Nicole and her unborn baby.

Not someone who’d be swayed by guilt or empathy.

But maybe the FBI would get lucky, and the accomplice would get sloppy, and they’d spot them on the highway and pull them over and arrest them, and find Mr. and Mrs. Quinn in the trunk of their car, uncomfortable but otherwise whole.

Best case scenario.

The highway was relatively quiet on this dank Saturday evening, and they’d scoped out most of the nearby vehicles. The threat of surveillance was more likely a bluff to keep the target—in this case Delilah—under the control of the all-seeing, all-knowing bad guys.

“Okay. He’s not in her phone,” Yael confirmed. “I’ve spoofed the second tracker on the truck—which I had to be physically close enough to scan to distinguish it from the other one the CIA have on the vehicle. I can now make that signal appear wherever we want it to be.”

“Can the tracker pick up audio do you know?” Cas asked .

“Great question. Unfortunately, I suspect this one can transmit audio, but unless it’s in the cab it won’t be able to hear what Delilah is saying to us.”

“We can’t assume it’s not in the cab.” So he couldn’t call her yet as much as he wanted to.

“That truck has to keep driving regardless,” Shane said. “Even if Yael fucks with the signal so we control it. We have to assume Scanlon’s drawing your girl either to himself or to the partner in crime who presumably has the Quinns. Right now, we have no idea where that end point is, but we need to figure it out.”

Analysts, including Alex Parker, were working to track vehicles that may have been used in the abduction. They’d be tearing apart that photograph of the Quinns sent to Delilah’s phone pixel by pixel for clues.

“I’m not letting Delilah drive into anyone’s clutches.” He didn’t care if it wasn’t his call.

“I didn’t say she had to.” Shane looked over his shoulder. “We switch Donnelly into the driver’s seat. She’ll pass for Delilah in a pinch. Put someone in the backseat to watch Donnelly’s six.”

The truck had tinted back and side windows.

“We search for the tracker and make sure it’s located outside the cab so we can communicate freely without the kidnapper hearing every word.”

Cas stuck his fingers in his hair, pulling at the ends. He desperately wanted Delilah out of danger but wasn’t keen on putting Donnelly in harm’s way either. But Meghan Donnelly was a trained operator. She might be new, but she’d completed all the training and been a case agent before that, not to mention she’d been a soldier in the 82 nd Airborne Division. “How do we deal with photos he says he wants? Can we just take a bunch with Delilah in the cab now?”

“Yael?” asked Shane.

“Firstly, I would be shocked if he actually follows through on the photo thing because he must know law enforcement can embed a tracking code into images and, even if he’s cloaking his location, we can find him.”

“But if he does ask?”

“Unfortunately, we can’t simply feed him images of Delilah we take in advance because he might ask her to show him her watch with the time on it or see some kind of tourist attraction or sign or something on the side of the road she’s supposed to be passing. Plus, there’s the whole pesky sun coming up at daybreak thing.” She rubbed her forehead. “And if he thinks she’s talking to law enforcement, he’ll know he’s already lost control of the situation, and there’s nothing to stop him or his associate killing the parents.”

Cas felt sick. He needed to get Delilah out of danger and figure out where her parents were.

“Can we arrest the guy for probable cause?”

“We only have Delilah’s word it was Joseph Scanlon on the call,” Shane pointed out.

“And with voice spoofing technology available nowadays, we’d need more than that,” Yael added.

“If we pick Scanlon up, it’ll be all over the news. Plus, the Quinns would still likely be killed and dumped. We might never find out what happens to them.” Shane glanced at his girlfriend and his expression softened in apology at his blunt appraisal of the situation.

Yael pressed her lips together clearly holding back emotions connected to her own trauma. “There is one thing I could try...”

“What?” Cas asked eagerly.

“I might be able to use a special filter superimposing Delilah’s features on Donnelly’s. It’s not tested in the field yet. I’ll need to take a bunch of photos of Delilah from different angles to model her head and neck.” Yael bit her lip. “Donnelly would have to take a photo and send it to me. I’d add the filter, and Delilah would have to reply with the doctored image. We’re screwed if he wants video.” She dragged a hand through her hair. “But again, I think he’s bluffing on the photo thing. ”

“How confident are you the technology will work?” asked Cas.

“I developed it for a virtual reality game I worked on last year to allow players to see themselves in the game in real time. They don’t own the code I developed,” she assured them.

Cas didn’t care.

“I own it as long as I don’t use it within the gaming industry. Alex and I’ve been playing with the idea of using it for government entities.”

“Spies.”

Yael shrugged. “Or FBI agents being forced to follow instructions against their will with lives at stake.”

“Do you think it will work?” Cas asked again.

“If we can swap Donnelly for Delilah before the first image is sent? Ninety percent chance of success. We have the advantage of being able to double check the image to adjust the filter before we hit send. Unless there’s a glitch in the software or signal or who the hell knows what.”

“A glitch?” Fuck. He felt sick. The lives of Delilah’s parents might depend on untested software and the skills of this brilliant but fallible hacker. It was a race against time and a test of nerves, and they didn’t have any other choice if he wanted to protect the woman he loved. “Let’s do this.”