Cold Secrets (Cold Justice Book 7) Read online

Sloan shook her head. “Techs can’t break the pin. We have a warrant in with the phone company for her records. They’re being unusually slow about delivering them.”

  The cell phone couldn’t be the same type used by the San Bernardino terrorists, or it was running an updated version of the iOS software. Rumor was the FBI paid over a million dollars on the gray market for the vulnerability that had allowed them to crack the password on that phone without wiping all the information stored on it.

  Zero-day vulnerabilities were big business. The “gray hat” hackers made a lot of money selling software flaws to government agencies, security firms and sometimes even the companies who made the software. But not everyone approved of how governments chose to use those software vulnerabilities. Not everyone agreed with governments spying on their own people. Some manufacturers would rather take the feds to court than appear to cooperate. Personally, Ashley sided with not creating back doors for anyone. Any potential weakness could and would be ferreted out and exploited by some innovative hacker.

  Law enforcement needed to be better than the bad guys when it came to navigating cyberspace and technology—that’s one of the reasons she’d joined the FBI. They needed agents and behavioral analysts who understood the deeper, murkier layers of the web.

  “I can try and get in,” she offered.

  Randall and Sloan exchanged a look.

  “We’ll get back to you,” Sloan said.

  “I graduated summa cum laude in computer science from Cornell.” In two years, at age nineteen, but she didn’t tell them that.

  “We’ll bear that in mind if the geek squad who came up specially from headquarters get stuck. They have done this before.” The sight of Randall’s suppressed amusement increased her desire to punch him.

  She was better than anyone at HQ and cheaper than the gray market, but drawing attention to herself wasn’t part of her plan. Fading into the background and milking the aloof, dedicated, American Asian stereotype was how she operated.

  Randall’s eyes drifted over her features, as if he’d moved on from assessing her capability as an agent—which he obviously found lacking—to assessing her as a woman. The flicker of attraction that licked over her skin irritated her. She flushed as she looked away and wished it was with annoyance.

  Right now, she just wanted to impress her bosses and help solve this case. That meant no men. No sex. Hardly a hardship as most men turned out to be big disappointments in bed anyway.

  “So what do you want us to do?” Mallory asked, bringing Ashley’s brain back on point.

  “See if you can find any similarities with known criminal gangs, give us offender motivation analysis and an insight into what kind of personalities we’re dealing with, and what they might do next,” said Sloan. “Take another look at the evidence, see if you can link Agata Maroulis to this brothel or find out if there’s another one in town we aren’t aware of. If so, I want them closed down.”

  “We’ll need access to all files.” Mallory drew her laptop from its case.

  Sloan nodded, and checked her watch. “I’ll arrange it. Now you’ll have to excuse me. I need to head to that meeting.”

  After she left to update the Special Agent in Charge of the Boston Field Office, Randall walked over to stand beside Mallory. Ashley found herself sneaking glances at them.

  “At least SSA Sloan seems easier to deal with than Danbridge,” Mallory observed with a wry smile.

  “Sloan’s a good agent and excellent leader,” Randall agreed.

  Mallory gave a bitter laugh. “Whereas Danbridge is a sadistic bully with a persecution complex.”

  Randall grunted as he folded his arms over his chest. To her chagrin Ashley found herself once again admiring the way his suit jacket clung to those broad shoulders. Obviously she had terrible taste in men.

  “She’s even more bitter since you got the job in Quantico. I think even the SAC is starting to have serious doubts about her professionalism.”

  “Lucas was my mentor in Charlotte,” Mallory explained, catching Ashley’s gaze on them.

  “Not to mention we grew up together in West Virginia.” Randall’s smile faded, and Ashley made the final connection. They’d been childhood friends when Mallory’s twin sister had been abducted. It probably explained why they were so close and why they’d both gone into the FBI.

  He cleared his throat and climbed to his full height. “I need to get back to work.” He paused. “Ask Alex if he can look into the cell tower data when he gets a chance, will you? If we can ID these guys we might be able to stop them leaving the country.”

  “He’s your friend, too, Lucas,” Mallory said with exasperation.

  “But he listens to you.”

  “Assuming they haven’t already fled,” Ashley muttered. If only she’d had the chance to check out the website before they’d pulled it down.

  Randall’s expression darkened.

  A grimace touched Mallory’s lips. “She’s right.”

  “I know she’s right.” Randall’s expression morphed from pissed to rueful, and his gaze flicked over her again with reluctant interest. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  Chapter Three

  Apparently they were letting teenagers into the Bureau nowadays. Ashley Chen looked barely legal to drink, never mind anything else. The fact Lucas was thinking about “anything else” one day after the worst day in his FBI career, pissed him off.

  She looked vaguely familiar, though he didn’t think they’d met before. He scrubbed his face and forced the prickly agent out of his mind. He had more important things to think about.

  Someone had put a bunch of fresh flowers on the desk of one of the agents who’d died yesterday morning. A young guy with a family from all accounts. The smell of those flowers caught him unexpectedly, the sweetness tying a knot in his stomach and making him want to retch.

  He turned away. God, he felt old. Decades older than when he’d started this op. All that death and destruction, and the knowledge he’d fucked up. If he hadn’t stopped to pick up Becca he might have gotten Mia away without the bad guys knowing the cops were onto them.

  And the bad guys would still have blown the place when the police stormed the doors.

  Intellectually he knew that not one agent on the job would have left Becca behind—but he also knew the locals blamed him for everything that had gone wrong. Hell, he blamed himself.

  He was in Boston thanks to the keen eyes of a uniform officer who’d suspected a sex trafficking organization was being run out of a Raleigh location. The feds had subpoenaed the phone records for the people inside the building and discovered one of them was calling a Boston number on a weekly basis. That cell had belonged to Mae Kwon.

  After the Chinatown explosion, FBI Charlotte had raided the Raleigh location. They’d blocked every cell phone tower in a five-mile radius and sent the bomb squad in first. No explosives had been found, which suggested the Boston brothel was the hub of the operation and contained a lot of potentially valuable evidence.

  Or it had, until it had been obliterated.

  As of this moment they didn’t know the identity of the players, and the madam in Raleigh wasn’t talking. Neither were the women they’d rescued—they were too damaged and traumatized.

  He headed to Sloan’s office, where she stood in the doorway, checking her watch and talking to another agent—Brianna Mayfield. Mayfield had brought the kidnapping case to the FBI thanks to a personal connection to the family. And she’d been bristling with attitude since the moment he’d been chosen over her to go in undercover, courtesy of the fact he had a penis and she didn’t. The agent flashed him a dirty look and strode away.

  God save him from pissy women.

  Sloan gave him a rueful half smile. They’d spent most of the last twenty-four hours joined at the hip, figuring out how to make Becca disappear as well as coordinating this massive investigation. The fact Becca had survived the ride to the hospital was a secret only a select few knew.

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nbsp; Sloan indicated he come inside and closed the door. “Our little friend is asking for you. She refuses to talk to anyone else.”

  Lucas’s mood dropped. “She needs a woman to question her. Someone from the Office for Victim Assistance with a degree in child psychology.”

  Sloan shook her head. “Right now our priority is her continued survival and that means complete secrecy. She’s the only advantage we have and we need to use it, fast.”

  Reluctance was like an anchor, pulling him down. He didn’t want to “use” Becca for anything.

  But Sloan considered it a done deal. “Go see her this morning.” She opened her door and said loudly, “Boston PD just brought in some of the local Chinese fire gang. They want you to run your eyes over them, see if they’re the men you saw yesterday.” She sounded resigned to jumping through a few hoops for a fellow law enforcement agency. Considering Boston PD had lost three officers it was the least they could do.

  “Fuentes,” she shouted at another agent who was working at his desk nearby. “Go with Randall. I’m already late for my meeting with Salinger.”

  Agent Diego Fuentes grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and the two of them strode to the elevator without speaking. Fuentes was shorter than Lucas, built like a Humvee. Before the bomb had gone off they’d laughed and joked around. Not now. Neither spoke. They got to the parking garage and climbed into Fuentes’s Bucar, and twenty minutes later they stood on the other side of a one way mirror, looking at three individuals in separate interview rooms.

  “Any of them our guys?” Fuentes asked, shifting his feet impatiently.

  Lucas looked at each man carefully then shook his head. “Too short for the one guy, not stocky enough for the other. I didn’t get a good look at the third guy, but I think he had a rounder face. Balding, thin straggly mustache.” Which might be long gone.

  “They all look the same to me,” the Boston PD cop at the door muttered angrily. His flat Boston vowels made Lucas’s slight southern drawl seem more pronounced.

  Arguing with the uniform about political correctness would get him nowhere in a precinct that had just lost three brothers. The cops were pissed and the men being interviewed were known criminals who probably knew or suspected the identity of the people involved in the organization, if only by reputation. But they weren’t talking. No one was talking.

  Asian gangs were notoriously secretive and uncooperative—they didn’t even call themselves “gangs,” they called themselves “secret societies”—and didn’t that say it all.

  “My nephew died in that explosion yesterday. Got out of the Army and followed me onto the force.” The cop’s expression warred between anger and grief. “Got a place with SWAT just a few months ago. He was thrilled to get in. Now he’s dead.”

  “That’s too bad, man,” Fuentes said, slapping the guy’s back. “Sorry for your loss.”

  Lucas gritted his teeth against the lump of failure that swelled inside his throat. Yesterday had been a disaster and guilt made him want to find the nearest bar and order a bottle of Jack. But that wouldn’t help anyone except the fugitives on the run. He could wallow when this was over.

  “Let me talk to them.” Fuentes indicated the men in the interview rooms.

  “You speak Chinese?” Lucas said archly.

  “Don’t tell me these guys don’t speak English. That’s bull,” Fuentes retorted.

  The door to their viewing room opened and Lucas looked up expectantly. Kurt Stromberg walked in, holding his daughter’s hand, followed by his PA who was also Agent Brianna Mayfield’s fiancé. Mia pulled away and ran to Lucas with her arms held high. He scooped her up, squeezed her tight.

  “How you doing, princess?” He ruffled her hair and she held on even tighter.

  Mia’s father strode up to him and shook his hand. “Agent Randall, thank you, again.”

  They’d met yesterday, but the guy had been crying so much Lucas was surprised Kurt Stromberg recognized him. He held the man’s gaze and nodded, reading the genuine relief and gratitude written there. The PA stood in the corner, clutching an iPad and trying to stay out of the way. Fuentes acknowledged the guy with a nod.

  Mia was reluctant to let Lucas go. He adjusted her so she was secure in his arms, but he could still reach his weapon. She eyed Fuentes and the uniform officer with suspicion. The kidnappers had given her that. Lucas didn’t think it was necessarily a bad thing. In today’s world it paid to hold on to a little wariness.

  He murmured in her ear so only she could hear. “Don’t forget our secret, little one—lives depend on it.” She leaned back in his arms, met his gaze, and nodded solemnly.

  Lucas gave her a hard squeeze and passed her back to her daddy because the man looked like he needed to have his daughter safe in his arms again.

  He and Fuentes were about to leave when the door opened again and a small group of men and one woman walked inside. Lucas recognized Mayor Jeremy Everett and the Boston Police Commissioner, Pete Goodman, from news conferences on TV.

  “Hey, Kurt. Good to see you. Glad we had a positive outcome, yesterday.” Mayor Everett clasped Stromberg on the top of the arm. “How’s little Mia doing?” He reached out to stroke the little girl on the back.

  Mia clung to her daddy and buried her face against his neck.

  “She’s a little shy right now, Jeremy,” Stromberg said, angling her away from the other man’s touch.

  “Understandable. Understandable.” The mayor nodded vigorously and backed off a step.

  Lucas refrained from commenting. He’d always found society’s need for children to be polite to strangers at odds with keeping them safe. He didn’t like ill-mannered brats any more than the next person, but he figured kids should be allowed to hone their instincts without being berated.

  Mayor Everett’s lively blue gaze swung to face him. “And you are?”

  “Special Agent Randall, sir.” He introduced Fuentes beside him.

  “You met my PR man?” the mayor asked with a grin.

  Fuentes chuckled. “Sure have.”

  “No, sir.” Lucas reached out and shook hands with a stocky man with a silver buzz cut.

  “Brian Templeton,” the man introduced himself. “I believe you know my wife, Carly Sloan?”

  Lucas nodded.

  “The mayor thinks I know everything that goes on in the FBI, but that I simply refuse to tell him.” His lips firmed. “Unfortunately my wife is way too circumspect to tell me anything she doesn’t want the mayor to hear. Not to mention I barely see her since she was promoted.”

  “You need to work on your techniques.” The mayor nudged Brian with his elbow and gave a sly grin, not exactly appropriate under the circumstances.

  “I bet he keeps you on your toes,” Lucas murmured when the mayor turned away.

  Templeton shot him a glance. “Like a goddamn ballerina.”

  Lucas changed the subject. “SSA Sloan is a great person to work for.”

  “Yeah.” But the guy didn’t look like he was feeling lucky. “She’s wonderful.”

  The mayor’s other aides stared at Lucas the way a zebra eyed at a lion. The third, a woman, watched him with feminine appreciation. Unfortunately a pair of tilted black eyes and warm, honey skin chose that moment to invade his mind.

  Masochist.

  His gaze went to the commissioner who’d remained silent since entering the room.

  Goodman was a big guy with winter white hair, snowy brows, and brown skin. His reputation was one of intelligence and toughness, which was a nice counterbalance to the fact the mayor was an idiot.

  Lucas wasn’t sure what he was reading on the commissioner’s face though—anger and grief and maybe something else.

  Mayor Everett’s mustache bristled as he turned to the viewing window. “So, are these the guys?”

  “No, sir,” said Lucas.

  “Mia?” The mayor prompted.

  Mia shook her head—but she hadn’t seen anyone. Lucas frowned. Why the hell had they brought
her down here when they knew she hadn’t seen the faces of the men who’d abducted her? To scare her half to death? To terrify her parents so they never let her out of their sight again?

  Back in the interview room a nervous-looking woman in her mid-forties and a detective wearing a cheap suit with a gold shield dangling from a lanyard around his neck were now asking questions. Another man sat in. A lawyer. The man being questioned refused to say a word. The detective showed him a photograph of Mae Kwon.

  Had she been awake when the bomb went off?

  Had she known she was about to die?

  Lucas tried to drum up some sympathy, but failed.

  The lawyer told the detective his client had nothing to say and provided an alibi for the time of the explosion. Then he accused the cops of racial profiling and they moved on to the second person detained.

  The temperature inside the viewing room was stifling. It was as packed as a subway carriage on the Tokyo subway at rush hour. Mayor Everett pulled out a handkerchief and wiped sweat off his brow.

  “I want to go home, Daddy,” Mia cried plaintively.

  Me, too.

  “Okay.” Stromberg nodded to Lucas, then pushed his way through the other observers. The commissioner touched Mia’s hair and shook her father’s hand when they got to the door. Thanked them for coming down.

  Once they’d left, Lucas said impatiently, “These aren’t the guys you are looking for and they’re not going to tell us anything unless you have some sort of leverage to use against them. You should let them go.”

  “Scared of a little bad publicity, Agent Randall?” Commissioner Goodman asked.

  Lucas straightened his shoulders. “I don’t see the point in wasting valuable time or losing the support of the Asian community when we have no leads.”

  “These people know exactly who killed my men yesterday.” The glint in the commissioner’s eyes was murderous. “If we can’t charge them with being part of that criminal organization maybe we can get them for obstruction of justice.”

  “Which still leaves the bad guys in the wind.” Lucas pointed to the slick lawyer who was moving to the third room with the detective and interpreter in tow. “There’s no way they’re going to give anything up with that piranha hovering over them.”