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“It went through the guardrail.” The shaken driver pointed a trembling hand over the edge of the road.

Jordan ran over and looked down. The truck was thirty feet down the steep slope wrapped around a tree. “Call 911. Tell them there’s an FBI agent on scene, and they’re going to need the fire department. Tell ’em to close this road.”

Traffic was already starting to back up, but it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The semi was now part of a criminal investigation.

He went back to his car for a flashlight, which he grabbed out of the trunk along with an emergency blanket. He wanted the driver alive. He wanted answers.

He set up a safety triangle blocking the middle of the road, then made his way carefully down the slick snowy bank using trees to brace against and stop his fall.

The driver could be out here somewhere, waiting to take a shot while Jordan tried to help.

He finally reached the truck, which was concertinaed around a large sugar maple.

He checked his surroundings, looking for a figure in the darkness.

The truck’s back window was blown out, and both front doors were mangled.

No way would they open without machinery.

He could see a figure hunched over the remnants of an airbag.

He tried the back door, but it was locked. Instead, he vaulted into the bed of the truck, crunching through what remained of the safety glass before snaking his way inside via the broken back window. He shone his flashlight at the masked driver.

His head hung at an angle that made Jordan’s stomach lurch.

There was a cell phone in the front in one of those dashboard holders, but he wanted this guy’s face. He crawled into the front seat, his heart lurching as the truck shifted an inch to the right. Fuck .

Carefully he rolled the black knit balaclava up to reveal porcelain skin and a neat blonde bun and broken nose.

He swallowed hard.

Trooper Ellen Mires.

He wasn’t even surprised. He wanted to shout with frustration but held it inside. He took a photo of her face and then opened her cell using facial recognition. He went into the settings, changed the passcode so he could get in. and stuffed her cell into his pocket.

Jordan cleared his throat. “Armstrong. You there?”

“Yes. Report.”

“Driver of the truck is dead. Went off road and hit a tree. Broken neck.” Pretty much what she wanted to do to him.

“I know her. She’s been my police escort several times and”—He felt like such a damned fool—“we’ve been intimate sexually.

” The words felt inaccurate, but it was the best he could come up with right now.

“TacOps ran her, said she was clean.” He climbed out of the truck the way he’d gotten in and eyed the slope.

It was going to be a hard climb back to the road without a rope. “I guess they missed something.”

“That’s not like them. We’ll be there in an hour.”

“I’m going to call Regan. He can get to her place and secure the scene.”

“Okay. Call Ackers too.”

Shit. He was silent.

“Do it, or I will.”

Fuck.

They met in the briefing room at the HRT compound the following morning. Jordan was exhausted. Daniel Ackers, Jon Regan, Crisco—whose real name turned out to be Special Agent Florence Cisco, hence Regan’s truly terrible nicknames—Reid Armstrong and one of the analysts from the task force .

“What do we know?” Ackers asked.

Regan leaned back in his chair. “From what we’ve found following a deep examination of her communications, she’d been hiring herself out on the dark web for some extracurricular activities in her off-duty time over the past two years.”

“As an assassin?” Reid Armstrong demanded.

“Looks like this was her first attempt at the big leagues. Lucky for you, kid, or else she’d have probably slit your throat while you were banging her.

” But Regan’s comment lacked its usual bite.

The guy had missed this, but Jordan couldn’t blame Regan.

He’d known something was off. Women didn’t throw themselves at him. He wasn’t Ryan fucking Sullivan.

“Why didn’t she kill me when she was in my cabin?”

Regan scratched his head. “She was on record as being your escort home that first night. I figure she decided to try to infiltrate your life to either find out information—evidenced by breaking in and bugging your kit bags—or so she could get to you more easily in the future and dispose of you.” He stood up and paced.

“When we installed those big ol’ security cameras everywhere and told VSP they were being monitored, she might have thought twice about killing you during the act. ”

But she’d still fucked him. She’d been working up to pumping him for more information. No wonder she’d been pissed when he ended it so abruptly.

“The truck?” Jordan hadn’t been allowed to be involved in the evidence gathering part of the investigation. He’d been the intended victim. The question was why?

“Provided by the anonymous client.” Reid Armstrong scratched beneath his eye.

“We tracked it to a dealer in Georgia where it was purchased for cash by someone with a fake ID. We’ll try to track it since purchase to the garage where she kept it, but it might take time considering she switched plates. ”

“You talked to her boss?”

“I did.” Ackers stroked his mustache. “He was prickly as a cactus at first—dead officer and all that—but when he realized we caught her in the act of actively trying to kill an FBI agent and had evidence to show she’d taken bribes and used intimidation tactics, he relented.

Said she had a good record as a cop but wasn’t really a team player. The other troopers found her cold.”

Regan opened his mouth and Jordan pointed his finger. “Enough with the snide remarks. The more important question is who hired her and why.”

Reid Armstrong yawned. “I have a team following the money. We’re also hiring Cramer, Parker and Gray, Security Consultants, because they have a specialty with tracing money through the dark web.”

Jordan nodded. They were an excellent firm with solid connections to the FBI.

“Why did someone want me dead?”

Ackers glanced at Crisco. “Can we talk freely, or do you want Agent Cisco to leave the room?”

Reid Armstrong smiled thinly. “If she stays, she’s on the task force for the duration, so it’s up to her boss.”

Regan drew one side of his mouth back. “She can work on the task force but not exclusively. I may need her in other places too.”

“Fair enough.” Armstrong outlined the overall details of the task force’s search for Hurek and the fact a bomb had brought down the airliner probably in order to kill Kurt Montana.

“Somebody thinks the two of you know something,” Crisco said.

“Someone with money and means,” Regan agreed.

“Which would be great if I actually did know something.” Jordan filled them in about Rowena Smith’s disappearance and what he’d discovered so far. “The weird thing?—”

“It’s all fucking weird,” Regan interrupted.

“Let him speak,” Ackers snapped.

Regan bristled, but Jordan jumped in before the two got distracted by their mutual ire. “The Israelis detected ghost signals from Kurt’s cell phone along the Mutare Road and the car Rowena was driving was found farther along that same road.” He showed them on a map.

“You think she stole his phone? Crossed the border illegally? On foot?”

Jordan shrugged. “Can we see if anything happened in that general area around the day of the crash?”

Armstrong frowned. “I’ll get a team on it.”

“What is a ‘ghost’ signal?” Crisco’s brow was crinkled.

Jordan shook his head. “I don’t even know.”

“We’ve dug into this.” Armstrong looked tired. “Everything was screwed up because of a nationwide electricity stoppage. My techs think the cell towers were fritzed.”

“What if…” Jordan speculated, “knowing what we now know about the crash not being an accident, the power outage wasn’t because of some system failure, but instead deliberate?”

Silence descended on the team as that idea sank in.

“None of it makes sense.” Armstrong talked it through. “Kurt met up with Anders, told the task force he had a lead to follow that he’d discuss when he got back. Asked them to run a background on Smith. Next day Anders is dead, Smith disappears, and Kurt’s flight is blown out of the sky.”

“I spoke to him later that night from the airport, but the connection was terrible.”

Regan stared at him thoughtfully then sat forward. “Maybe they didn’t know that. Maybe they just knew he contacted you but couldn’t listen to the content?”

“Perhaps they did bug the uncle rather than your cell, like you suspected,” Armstrong added.

“Seems we’re dealing with an individual or entity that can tap cell phones and create sophisticated covert monitoring devices and bombs.” Jordan couldn’t help thinking about the Mossad and how they used these kinds of techniques. But as far as he could tell they had zero motive.

“This sort of sophistication is usually state sponsored, but no way are the Zimbabweans responsible.” Armstrong squinted as if he had a headache. Jordan could sympathize.

“Unless they had help.” Jordan thought about the Chinese and Russian influence in the region.

“We’re spinning our wheels guessing. Let’s go find the evidence we need to figure it out.” Regan paced impatiently.

He was right. Jordan stood. “I’m planning to dig back into the footage from the airport.”

“Crisco can help you with that,” Regan offered. “I plan to see what more I might find out about State Trooper Ellen Mires and make sure there aren’t any other LEOs hanging out on the dark web. If there are, they are about to have a come-to-Jesus moment.”

“Everyone planning on attending the memorial next week?” asked Armstrong.

Everyone nodded miserably.

“Not a word about any of this gets out. Especially not to the family,” Armstrong stated firmly.

Jordan stared at the ceiling. Shit .