Page 21

CHAPTER 21

Bretton

I 'm exhausted as I stroll into the FBI field office on Wilshire BLVD. I've spent the entire day working at the museum trying to get some answers to the whereabouts of The Butcher, Viktor Fedorov. All the intel we'd received had indicated that he was going to make his move at the museum itself, but now I'm starting to second-guess everything. How can we base anything off the logic used by a madman?

I open the door to the shared office many of the agents use when they aren’t in the field. The place is pretty empty compared to the daytime hours, but there are a few stragglers like me burning the midnight oil. I slide into the chair behind the desk I usually use when in the office and switch on the computer. Opening up the interoffice email, I see a message come through from the tech team. It was timestamped less than five minutes ago, so there's still a good chance they are in the office.

I place the call.

“Agent Wolf, we’re glad you called us back so quick,” Denny, the security tech, says .

“Did you find something?”

“Not exactly.” Denny clears his throat. “We have some bad news for you.”

I sigh. What else could go wrong? “Lay it on me.”

“The black ops file we set up to look like the intel file for Viktor Fedorov was accessed tonight.”

I sit straight up in my chair. “Why is that bad? Was it Fedorov accessing it? Were you able to pinpoint his location?”

“That’s the thing, sir. It wasn’t Fedorov. We believe it was Maximo Salgado. Or his acquaintance, London James.”

“Shit,” I say. “Were you able to get their location? What did they access? Were you able to find out what exactly they were looking for?”

“Whoever it was, they were using sophisticated software. They knew what they were doing to hide their tracks. We managed to narrow down the location to Salgado’s general neighborhood, but whether it was him or Ms. James… we aren’t sure.”

“What do we know about her?”

Denny doesn’t answer for a few seconds, but I hear typing, so he is probably pulling up her information.

“The usual stuff,” Denny says. “Multiple stints in juvie for breaking into government servers exposing embezzlement by treasury employees, leaking bank security camera footage showing illegal practices hurting minorities, and the list goes on.”

“A regular Robin Hood.”

“She seems to have gone straight in the last few years; not so much as a parking ticket.” Denny laughs. “Unless she’s erasing her own record to make herself look better.”

“Such a cynic.”

“Hey, it’s hard not to be in our profession,” Denny says. “What do you want me to do about this? Should I send it up the chain? ”

“No.” My reply comes out immediately without a second thought. “No need to escalate this… not yet. We might be able to use this to find Fedorov.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Keep a tail on Ms. James. I’ll watch Salgado. Make sure all involved are cautious. We aren’t just hiding from Max and London… Viktor will be watching as well.”

“Got it,” Denny says. “I’ll send over her information to team B and let them keep an eye on her.”

“Great. Oh, and Denny?”

“Yeah?”

“If anyone tries to access that information again, don’t assume it’s them. It very well could be Viktor. He’s a narcissist and there’s no telling what he’ll be up to.”

“Will do, Bretton.”

I hang up the phone and rub my temples. There are a bunch of moving parts, and the last thing I need is to lose track of one of the pieces and then hear about it later from my boss.

I check the calendar on my phone. I'm scheduled to work at the museum again tomorrow, and I contemplate calling in sick, but then I notice that Max will be working as well. It's the perfect opportunity to have a chat with him. There's still a possibility I could bring Max in on this and work together to capture Viktor. My boss forbade me from going that route, but ultimately, I don’t give a shit what my boss thinks. If I can capture this fucker and protect Max by breaking cover, dammit, that’s exactly what I'm going to do.