Page 37 of Always Been Mine (Always #2)

Gabe forced himself to let Beatrice go. He kissed the crown of her head and nodded to the uniform to proceed.

He hovered nearby though, spotting Travis talking to Ed.

He wanted to join that huddle, but leaving Beatrice’s side was not an option right now.

He didn’t know who to trust in this coffee shop and the crowd outside didn’t exactly give him the warm fuzzies as he scanned the spectators for suspicious elements.

His awareness was heightened; all his senses were engaged as he called upon all his training to protect the woman he loved. Right now, the only way someone was going to hurt a hair on her head was through his cold, lifeless body.

Zach Jamison got into a white-colored van a few blocks away from the coffee shop. He needed to go to ground and fast. That had been too fucking close. He turned to the driver of the van, Domingo Ventura, the leader of the Fuego gang.

“How the fuck did Sullivan find out about Volkov?” Zach demanded.

Ventura had no idea the Russian they had been dealing with was actually former U.S. Special Forces Steve Ryker .

“I have no idea. But one of my hermanos saw him drag Johnny from the dry cleaners. We should have whacked that pendejo when we had the chance.”

Now that BSI had outed him, it would only be a matter of time before they establish his connection to Philip Crowe.

Too bad he had not finished off Beatrice Porter.

He relished wreaking psychological agony more than physical damage.

Maybe he could still play with her. She was right when she called him a sadistic bastard.

Frank Wilkes would be one unhappy boss, but Zach still had information he needed. Unless someone figured out what information he’d been siphoning from their office, Zach was still indispensable.

It was Benjamin Porter he wanted dead. Zach had nothing against Sullivan. That had been all Ryker. However, Sullivan being in the way of his revenge against Porter made him Zach’s enemy as well.

So be it.

It was obvious now that “safe house” was a misnomer, and the place was intended to be a command center for Porter’s agenda.

Right now, the house was like a fucking party.

Okay, maybe Gabe was exaggerating. With Caitlin around, food was a necessity, especially since she was almost four months pregnant.

She had hacked into the Metropolitan Police Department database because they were officially the ones investigating the assault on Beatrice in Georgetown.

They had lifted a partial fingerprint of Zach Jamison from the coffee cup.

Caitlin was using those prints to do a search of her own against a larger, more classified database with a couple of modified input parameters to widen the search to individuals other than Zach Jamison in case the name was an alias.

Travis’s wife had been shoveling food in her mouth as they waited, much to Porter’s annoyance.

Clearly, the admiral was old school and didn’t want anyone eating in the command center.

Gabe stuck his head out of the command room to briefly check on Beatrice.

She just received a call from Senator Mendoza who received a visit from the MPD detectives.

Judging from Beatrice’s face, she was trying to make the senator feel better for unleashing Zach Jamison on her.

Neither the MPD nor the senator knew of her torture at the hands of the motherfucker.

The truth would open a whole line of questioning that could compromise what the admiral was working on.

Until Porter and his covert team could shut down Redrook, they had to keep their intel under wraps.

All the senator and the MPD knew was Zach Jamison had snapped and attacked Beatrice.

Tough sell to the senator since Zach had apparently worked for a former friend of his and came highly recommended.

Gabe stood beside Porter. “Hundred bucks says that the senator’s former Chief of Staff was murdered and didn’t die from a heart attack.”

“Short of exhuming the body, we couldn’t prove it,” the admiral said. “But I’m going with your hunch. You did say Hybernabis could mimic a heart attack in those with pre-existing conditions.”

“Correct.”

Caitlin gave a whoop that made the admiral and Gabe switch their attentions to her.

“Found anything?” Porter asked.

“I’ve kept an open-match algorithm against Philip Crowe’s records, including both living and deceased people,” Caitlin said.

“The fingerprints bear a 91% match against Zacharia Alvarez. Deceased. Car accident.” She shook her head and added derisively.

“Sounds like a common cause of faked deaths. Anyway, Alvarez and Crowe were in the same college together until the second year when Alvarez supposedly died. They were both computer science majors. Crowe dropped out to join the Army soon after his death.”

“Let me guess, Alvarez is Colombian?” Gabe asked.

“Irish-Colombian. That’s why it’s hard to tag his ethnicity.”

“So Zacharia Alvarez becomes Zach Jamison.”

“You think Crowe and Alvarez were acquainted with each other? Going to the same college and sharing the same major would assure they’d at least moved in the same circles.”

“Hacking into school records now,” Caitlin announced.

It took maybe fifteen minutes for her to find what she was looking for, oblivious that he and Porter were looking over her shoulders.

She zoned them out. By this time, Travis had quietly entered the room.

“Yep, they belong to the same fraternity and . . .” She covered her mouth with her hand.

“Um . . . Yeah, they know each other.” Caitlin’s eyes angled toward the three men in the room.

“Does someone get the vibe that they’re more than just friends? ”

All three men shifted uncomfortably. There were several pictures of Crowe and Alvarez in rather compromising positions. The images were faded, probably over fifteen years ago.

“Aren’t those pics too racy for fraternity websites?” Gabe asked. “You’d have thought with Zach’s new identity, they’d have erased every trace of him.”

“I’m not on a fraternity website,” Caitlin said. “That had been sanitized. I went to one of their former frat brother’s micro-blogging site. That’s where you’ll find interesting pictures. Get Doug in here, let’s get his opinion.”

Gabe was trying not to chuckle as Travis left the room to get Doug. Beatrice returned with her assistant.

“Oh, my,” Beatrice said. “That explains a lot, doesn’t it, Doug?”

“Oh, yeah,” her assistant replied, eyes wide on the screen. Doug looked at everyone in the room. “There’s something between those two all right.”

“If he and Crowe continued to be lovers, that would explain his hatred against you, Admiral,” Caitlin said.

There was silence in the room as everyone absorbed the motive.

It made perfect sense, Gabe realized. Although a lover’s revenge seemed to be simply the tip of the iceberg because everything had been set into motion long before Porter had shot and killed Philip Crowe.

This meant Zach Jamison had been recruited to be a sleeper agent, meant to infiltrate the political system and keep the CIA apprised of its schemes, totally clandestine and not sanctioned by the U.S. government.

“You think Zach is bi?” Beatrice asked suddenly.

“Now why the fuck would you think that?” Gabe asked.

“Well, he’s been trying to ask me on a date,” Beatrice explained. “But he reserved his goo-goo eyes for Doug and Nate.”

“Nate?” Travis asked in amusement.

“By the way, where is Nate?” Caitlin asked.

“The senator called him to his office, probably to apologize,” Doug replied.

“This late?” Beatrice asked.

Doug shrugged. With the loss of his Chief of Staff, burning the midnight oil at the senate office wouldn’t be surprising.

“Okay, let’s get back on point here,” Porter interrupted. “Caitlin, we can focus on Zach Jamison. See how he moved through the ranks to become Chief of Staff for a United States senator.”

“That’s easy,” Caitlin said. “Pretty much public record. He switched his major to Political Science and graduated with honors from Miami University. Everything before that time was definitely fabricated. He worked as an aide for a state senator before he worked as the Director of External Affairs and then the Chief of Staff of the Florida governor.”

“Wasn’t there some scandal surrounding the governor?”

“Yes, for federal corruption charges. Senator Mendoza was good friends with the governor and stood by his side despite the accusations. So the senator had known Jamison a while before hiring him.”

“Man, that blows,” Travis said.

“Are we sure the senator is innocent?” Gabe asked.

“Now that’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question,” Caitlin piped in.

“Criminy,” Beatrice muttered, “if he’s dirty, I quit. I really like the man.”

“I’ve known Mendoza for years, followed his career. He’s legit,” Porter said. “Of course, as we all know, nothing is as it seems.”

“Jeez, thanks, Dad,” Beatrice groused.

The admiral chuckled and planted a kiss on Beatrice’s forehead. “I gotta go, baby. I need to keep another team apprised.”

“So when are we going to meet this A-team of yours?” Gabe asked darkly.

“Jealous, Commander?” Porter asked; his eyes held some wiliness Gabe didn’t trust.

“No. But I sure want to get my hands on Zach and this Redrook guy,” Gabe shot back. “Don’t want to miss all the fun.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” the admiral answered enigmatically.

“Stay the fuck away from her!”

Beatrice’s eyes snapped open, her heart in her throat, pounding wildly. Gabe thrashed beside her .

“Beatrice, God, no!”

He was dreaming or having a nightmare.

“Gabe,” she whispered. Beatrice made the mistake of touching him and found her wrist gripped painfully as she was flipped over him and then under him. A hand squeezed her neck.

“Gabe!” she choked out, her concern morphing to fear as he straddled her, his dead weight pinning her legs to the mattress.