Paula Graves - Secret Hideout

It was the differences between them—her logical, scholarly approach contrasting with his more freewheeling, improvisational style—that had made them a good team. Brand had never tried assigning them to work with other agents after the first few times they’d worked together on cases.

“Yeah, Brand thinks the Swains may be up to more than just cooking meth and harvesting weed.”

“Does he think the bombs in Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama are connected to the Swains, too?” she asked. “Did you finally make a connection between the victims?”

The bombing cases he and Isabel had been investigating centered on attacks on targets that, as far as they could tell, seemed completely random. The first had been the murder of a Georgia family court judge, which had seemed significant at the time in terms of motive—until the second bombing took out the office of a small movie theater a few miles west of Meridian, Mississippi.

A third blast had destroyed half a warehouse in Gadsden, Alabama, and a fourth blew up a junkyard in western Birmingham. Only the judge died in the bombings. The others had suffered property damage only.

“We still haven’t figured out any connection,” he admitted. “None of the people have any overt relationship to each other, and if there’s a covert one, we haven’t come across it yet.”

“I’ve thought about the cases from time to time,” Isabel admitted, flashing him a faint smile. “You know how I like a puzzle. But Jesse’s kept me pretty busy since I started working for him, and then there was the business last month with my brother Rick and his wife—”

“Rick got married?” The last Scanlon had heard, Isabel’s brother was having trouble settling in at his new job with Cooper Security. Something about personality conflicts with his brother, Jesse, who ran the company.

“He did,” she said, her smile widening. “He reconnected with someone he knew when he was working at MacLear.”

Isabel’s brother Rick had worked for years at a private security contractor, MacLear Enterprises, before the company had been busted for running a secret criminal enterprise under the table. The company owner, Jackson Melville, was under indictment for the actions of the company’s secret SSU—Special Services Unit—which had kidnapped a child and terrorized a woman from California.

Isabel’s brother Rick had nothing to do with the SSU—according to Isabel, Rick hadn’t even known the unit existed. But the entire company had collapsed under the weight of the allegations against Melville and the SSU, Rick’s field operative position included.

“Was she another MacLear agent?” Scanlon asked.

“No—she was a CIA agent.” She smiled at his arched eyebrow. “Apparently they got hot and heavy when they were both working out of Kaziristan about three years ago. They reconnected last month—she was targeted by assassins—”

“Boy, you die for a few months and you miss out on everything,” he muttered drily.

“Oh! Did Brand tell you what we learned about the old MacLear SSU?”

Scanlon and his boss had conversed about little besides the undercover case he was working, and isolated as he was up here in the north Alabama mountains, Scanlon didn’t have much access to news, either. He’d left his BlackBerry and laptop behind when he became Mark Shipley, the disabled vet with just enough disability pay to buy this ramshackle cabin in the middle of nowhere. “What about the SSU?”

“They’re still operating. At least, the ones who escaped indictment or capture. And they may be picking up new members.”

Alarm rippled through him. “How do you know?”

“They went after Amanda—Rick’s wife. Turns out Khalid Mazir, one of the candidates for president of Kaziristan, was an al Adar mole. Rick’s wife, Amanda, was the only person outside al Adar who knew about Mazir’s terrorist ties—the guy kidnapped and tortured her a few years ago. She got away, and I guess it wouldn’t have mattered much if she hadn’t seen Mazir’s face.”

“So she could identify him as an al Adar operative, which would mess with his plans to become president?”

“Exactly.”

“And this guy hired SSU people to, what? Assassinate her?”

“Damned near succeeded,” Isabel said with a grimace.

“I wonder if they were operating as far back as last summer,” Scanlon mused.

“When the first bombing happened?”

He shrugged. “Probably not connected, but I know some of the SSU were explosives and munitions experts. What if they studied Jasper Swain’s MO and decided to mimic it?”

Her brow creased in thought. “It’s a pretty old fashioned MO. His style is primitive compared to the electronically triggered explosives available these days. Honestly, I don’t know why anyone would use that kind of bomb if they had other options.”

“Unless it’s sentimental somehow.”

“Sentimental?”

“Maybe the serial bomber is a fan of old Jasper. Maybe he builds the bombs the Swain way as a tribute.”

Isabel looked skeptical. “Wouldn’t a more famous bomber be a better choice? Someone like the Unabomber or Rudolph—”

Scanlon shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m just spitballing at this point.” He held out his hand to her, bracing himself for the feel of her warm, strong hand in his.

She took his hand, and the tingling commenced, but he managed not to let her see how she affected him as he pulled her to her feet. She gave him a quizzical look but followed as he led her into the hall.

“I keep the files in here.” He opened the linen closet door and pulled up a loose floorboard. Besides the lockbox with the satellite phone, he also kept hidden a rectangular plastic box marked MISALGA, the Bureau shorthand for the bombing cases in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. He opened the box and handed her the thick portfolio where he kept copies of all the files on the case. “You up to a little light reading?”

She took the portfolio and grinned at him. “You bet.”

They both turned to head back into the living room when a sound from the front of the house brought them up short.

A second later, someone knocked on the door.

“Closet,” he said tersely, nodding toward the bedroom.

Holding onto the portfolio, Isabel disappeared behind the bedroom door, while Scanlon hurried to the living room and took a quick look at the porch through the window beside the door.

A curvy blond woman dressed in a linen suit stood in front of the door, glancing at her watch. Scanlon closed his eyes and released a sigh of frustration.

Dahlia was back.

“Mark, are you in there?”

He opened the door and pasted a smile on his face. “When did you get back in town?”

“Just a little while ago.” Dahlia McCoy lifted to her tiptoes and brushed her pink lips against his. “I ran into Davy in town and he said you were home, so I thought I’d drop by to say hello before I go back to the office.”

She entered without being asked, shrugging off her jacket to bare her toned, sun-kissed arms. She went straight to the refrigerator and pulled out a can of Diet Coke. Settling on the sofa as if she intended to stay awhile, she smiled at Scanlon.

He smiled back, hiding his dismay with the skill of a now-practiced liar.

He’d forgotten to tell Isabel about his girlfriend.

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