Page 29 of Defender (Omega Sector: Under Siege #1)

Freihof watched all afternoon and evening from his true apartment—across the street from the one they were searching—as the Omega team carried out section after section of his wall of clues.

He was glad to see Brandon Han and Jon Hatton on site. He knew the other two men would appreciate the gift he’d left them.

It almost made up for the frustration he felt at the ruination of his original plan. Neither Summer nor Ashton had been killed in the explosion he’d set. Curtis Harper had one simple job to do: get Fitzgerald over to the sofa with Summer. The idiot hadn’t even been able to do that correctly.

Fawkes had warned Damien not to underestimate Omega Sector, and Damien could admit that maybe he had. Damien had known the SWAT team wouldn’t be far behind Ashton, but he hadn’t thought they’d figure out the plan so quickly and adjust accordingly.

The plan hadn’t been a total wash. From his visit to the hospital yesterday—and he’d been there right under a dozen agents’ noses—he’d discovered that one agent had died and one of the SWAT members was in a coma.

So not the win he wanted, but a win nonetheless.

SWAT weren’t the only ones who could adjust accordingly as situations changed.

And Damien planned to be in this for the long haul.

His next play was already in motion. He’d had plans in motion long before he’d ever even spoken to Fawkes or Curtis Harper.

It involved a different state, different pawns, different victims. But it was still part of the bigger plan. What remained to be seen was if the Omega Sector agents could figure it out in time.

Damien was glad to see Omega was at least taking his clues seriously, moving sections of the wall piece by piece out to the truck with care.

Interestingly, Fawkes was on scene, too, helping load items from inside onto the truck to be taken back to Omega Sector. Damien wondered if that was the man’s job or if he’d volunteered when he’d found out what location was being searched. If he worried his own prints might show up.

Damien received a call on one of his burner phones. His business associate from Texas.

“Hello, Mr. Trumpold,” Damien answered.

“We’re ready to put the plan into action. They need to pay for what they’ve done.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Convincing the Trumpolds that their brother had been wrongly accused of being a serial rapist, framed by two people in Corpus Christi, had required quite a bit more work than convincing Curtis Harper that he needed to go after Ashton Fitzgerald.

Damien had to doctor some evidence this time, make it look like it was all a setup.

But ultimately the Trumpolds had been eager to believe their older brother—who they’d idolized—was innocent of all crimes.

And since the man had died very early in prison, he wasn’t around to say one way or the other.

A little twisting of the truth, a sympathetic ear and he’d been able to convince them to take their revenge on the people who’d so wrongfully cost their beloved brother his life.

The Trumpolds had no idea that the people they’d be targeting happened to be closest friends with two members of Omega Sector.

Damien spent the next few minutes encouraging Trumpold, reminding the man that he was doing the right thing. The just thing. That the mission he was undertaking was a righteous one.

That the mission would also serve Damien’s purposes—picking apart yet another piece of Omega—was beside the point.

This time the plan wouldn’t fail. This time Damien would ensure Omega Sector knew his pain. Knew the agony of grief.

They’d won once, but they wouldn’t again. Damien would make sure they understood pain.

* * *

T HE NEXT MORNING when Ashton arrived at Omega HQ, Jon and Brandon, along with some of the likable nerds from the forensics lab, had rebuilt the entire “wall of crazy” in one of the conference rooms.

They’d been at it all night and were obviously way pleased with themselves for the exact replica they’d created.

Ashton and Lillian arrived at the conference room at the same time. Ashton shook his head as he entered. “Jon, you’re getting married in two weeks. Does the lovely Sherry know you’re spending your nights doing such kinky stuff?”

“And with Brandon,” Lillian continued, “who if I’m not mistaken has his own lovely fiancée at home waiting for him.”

“Our women,” Jon responded, “I’ll have you know, were very understanding and supportive of our need to get this project situated absolutely perfectly.”

Lillian turned to Ashton. “We’re going to need to talk to them about enabling.”

“Yes, sadly.”

Ashton and Lillian sat down at the table to study the wall as Brandon and Jon gave their thanks to the three lab techs who were leaving.

“Can you guys really make sense of any of this?” Ashton asked.

Jon shook his head. “Not yet, but we will. We’ve already gotten rid of some of the string. It had obviously only been added for confusion.”

Ashton and Lillian tried to help, while at the same time stay out of the way, as Brandon and Jon bounced theories off each other for the next few hours.

They isolated and narrowed down concepts and patterns—connecting parts on the wall with their own string.

The two men identified patterns Ashton couldn’t recognize even when they were pointed out to him.

“Both Summer and Curtis Harper stated how this Damien character told them that Omega Sector needed to suffer. To know the agony he’d known. That Omega needed to be forced to know what it was like to lose a loved one,” Jon said.

“So it’s someone who we’ve ‘hurt’ in some way,” Brandon said. He sat down in one of the conference room chairs. “You know, we’ve been working on the assumption that this secondary guy—since he was willing to kill both Harper and Summer—gave them a false name. What if he didn’t?”

“Damien Freihof,” Jon muttered, shaking his head. He sat down, also. Quiet.

This wasn’t good. Ashton looked over at Lillian. She just shrugged. “Who the hell is Damien Freihof?”

“We put him in jail five years ago when he tried to blow up a bank full of people,” Jon said.

Lillian scoffed. “There’s no way he’s doing this from jail.”

“He escaped last year.” Brandon rubbed his neck, studying the board again. “He’s definitely smart enough for this.” He threw his hand out toward the board. “And to manipulate Harper into wanting to kill Ashton.”

“Has there been any contact with him since he escaped from prison?” Ashton asked.

“Freihof was the guy who took Andrea last year and nearly killed both her and Brandon,” Jon explained.

Brandon’s voice was icy, his eyes closed, remembering. “He hung explosives around her neck right in front of me.”

Ashton flinched. The thought of finding explosives around the neck of the woman you love, as Brandon had, was enough to bring out the hardness in anyone.

“Freihof almost killed Andrea and me both,” Brandon continued. “He was injured by his own explosives, but he got away.”

“Looks like he might be back,” Lillian muttered. “With a definite vendetta to fill.”

“Damien wanted to kill Summer, not me,” Ashton said. “Harper wanted me, but the second man was always after Summer. The explosives would’ve taken both of us out. A bonus, I guess.”

“Damien Freihof is a psychopath. Completely evil. But he’s also a genius and loves games. Puzzles.” Brandon stared at the wall again. “I have absolutely no doubt this wall is his way of giving us clues to keep the game interesting.”

“If we can figure them out,” Jon muttered.

Ashton shook his head. “That’s part of the game, right? If we can’t figure it out in time, then we can’t stop whatever he has planned.”

“Exactly.” Jon nodded.

“I’m looking at this mug shot of Freihof.” Lillian spun her laptop around. “Granted he was arrested five years ago, but that picture doesn’t look like the man we caught on security footage talking to Harper.”

All three men studied the picture. “Different facial structure,” Ashton pointed out. “Fuller cheeks, hair and eyebrows different. But he meets the same basic height and build so it could be him, if he’s got some expertise in disguise.”

“It would certainly explain how he’s eluded us for so long,” Jon agreed. “If he knows how to change his appearance enough to fool facial recognition software.”

After notifying Steve Drackett of their fears and taking a short break for lunch, everyone headed back to study the wall again.

By midafternoon, Ashton hated that thing more than he’d ever hated any inanimate object.

“I don’t know how they do stuff like this every day,” he said to Lillian. “A profiler’s life is definitely not for me. Give me a building to rappel down or a window to break through any day over this.”

Jon and Brandon, with the occasional help of Molly Humphries-Waterman, Derek’s wife and genius in her own right, had narrowed down whatever it was they were looking for until they were studying one small area near the left bottom corner.

Jon walked over and pointed to a newspaper cutting on the opposite edge of the wall. “This clipping is about a playing card company that decided to start using a new type of ace card.”

Brandon pointed out another section of the wall. “And the string was attached to these sets of dates: June 3, 2010, June 23, 2011, June 7, 2012, May 30, 2013, and June 19, 2014.”

Ashton walked closer to the wall. “Do you think those are crimes? Something happened on those days connected to Omega?”

“We don’t think so.” Brandon turned to Lillian. “Can you look up Catholic holidays?”

Ashton stared at the wall he couldn’t make any sense out of whatsoever. The dates weren’t familiar to him at all. “Catholic? Is this guy some sort of religious fanatic? Takes religious beliefs and slants them for his own selfish purposes?”

“No,” Jon said. “We don’t think so.”

“Those are all dates that the Catholic Church has celebrated the Feast of Corpus Christi over the last few years,” Lillian said.

“Corpus Christi,” Brandon whispered.

“I don’t get it,” Ashton said. “What does a Catholic holiday have to do with the deck of cards company or our guy?”

“It’s not the card company,” Jon said. “It’s the fact that they have new aces.”

“Nueces County, pronounced new-aces, is where Corpus Christi is located.”

Ashton might have studied this wall for the rest of his life and never put those two clues together. “Okay, I’ll buy it. And Corpus Christi has something to do with whatever you’re talking about down in that corner.” He pointed to the opposite edge of the wall.

“It’s a newspaper clipping about a restaurant in Chicago that burnt down a few years ago named Wales and Gill,” Jon said.

“Did Omega have anything to do with that? Did we investigate or make arrests?” Ashton didn’t remember anything of the sort. He wanted to beat his head against the wall.

“No.” Jon shook his head, then turned and brought up something on one of the laptops sitting on the table.

He spun it around so Ashton and Lillian could see it.

“I worked a case eighteen months ago in Corpus Christi. A serial rapist. The local detective who worked the case with me is Zane Wales. The rapist’s last victim before he was killed was one of my fiancée’s best friends. Her name is Caroline Gill.”

Wales and Gill.

“We need to warn them that a madman might have them in his sights. At the very least make them aware that it looks like Freihof is back in the picture and possibly targeting people with ties to Omega,” Brandon agreed.

“They’re both coming to the wedding in two weeks but that might be too late,” Jon said. He had his phone in his hands and was walking out into the hallway.

“Zane, it’s Jon Hatton,” Ashton heard the man say as he walked down the hall. “Got a minute? I’ve got some bad news.”

It sounded like Jon’s friends had been through enough. Ashton hoped this could stop more potential pain for them.

He turned back to the board. “Okay, that’s one. We know there has to be more. Let’s find a way of beating this bastard at his own game.”

* * *

M ANY OF A SHTON ’ S days as a SWAT member were physically exhausting. Today had been mentally exhausting.

And honestly, he hadn’t even been the one figuring out Freihof’s pattern.

Just watching Jon and Brandon weave their brains through that psycho’s “planning wall” had been exhausting enough for Ashton.

Besides Jon’s friends, Zane Wales and Caroline Gill, they’d found another possible clue connected to Brandon.

His fiancée Andrea’s good friend Keira Spencer had been mentioned.

Unlike Zane Wales, Keira wasn’t law enforcement. She was an exotic dancer in New Mexico like Andrea once had been. Local law enforcement would be keeping an eye on her.

One thing was for sure. Like Jon had said, Freihof was a master composer and his symphony was just beginning. Exactly how long, how loud or what the next measure would be was anybody’s guess.

But Omega would battle Freihof the way they battled every terrorist who threatened the safety of the people and country they loved: together.

Right now, though, the only people Ashton was interested in being together with waited inside the door of Summer’s newly renovated condo where he was pulling up.

Over the last few days, more and more of his stuff kept getting moved in there.

She’d even given him a key. He’d been there with his girls every moment he wasn’t at Omega.

Because there was nowhere else in the world he’d rather be.

Eventually they’d have to talk about the fact that they were basically starting to live together. Because that wasn’t going to work for Ashton.

Summer would have to marry him first.

She opened the door as he walked up, Chloe in her arms. “The munchkin saw you from the window.”

“Ah-ta!”

He grabbed Chloe with one arm and slipped the other around Summer’s waist. “I feel like I’m home.”

She reached up and touched him on the cheek. Chloe immediately imitated her mother on his other one. “You are home.”

“If that’s the case, we’re going to need a few rules.”

The slightest bit of worry fell over Summer’s features. “We are?”

“Well, one in particular.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re going to have to make an honest man out of me.”

All the worry vanished and a smile that stole his breath away covered her face. “Well, you know if we get married you’re stuck with both me and this rug rat for life.”

He pulled her closer. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Good, because I just hung a new honey-do list on the fridge. In case you haven’t heard, my condo lost its handyman.”

“Nope.” He stepped inside, bringing the girls in with him. “You didn’t lose one. You gained one permanently.”

* * * * *