Dagandidturn to her then. She hoped he would volunteer. If only she could get him alone, then maybe she could—
Her hope died on the spot when she saw his unblinking, incisive stare.
Becky glanced back and forth between them, brow furrowed. Finally, when it became obvious Dagan wasn’t going to offer Chelsea a ride, Becky said, “I’ll take you, Chels.”
The backs of Chelsea’s eyeballs were on fire when she managed a wheezy, “Thank you.”
Ten minutes later, with Becky at the wheel, they drove through the big wrought-iron gates in front of Black Knights Inc. HQ. Chelsea felt like in place of her heart, there was a stone. It sat hard and cold in the center of her chest as she glanced in the side mirror at the big brick facade of the factory building.
Will this be the last time I see it?she wondered.Will it be the last time I see him?
The hard stone in her chest crumbled to dust at the thought.
Chapter 50
Three days later, Dagan sat on the leather sofa in BKI’s third-floor den, sipped his Goose Island IPA, and gave the CNN anchor on television half an ear as he waited for the most recent news to break. He hadn’t seen Chelsea since she left Black Knights’ headquarters to head back to Langley. But even though they were half a dozen states apart, he’d been unable to avoid her pretty face. It had been splashed all over the news.
Morrison’s murder and Chelsea’s “wanted” status had topped the headlines the world over. Speculation was wild. The newshounds were slavering over what few juicy details were available. But tonight, the whole truth—or at least the version the CIA director and the Black Knights had agreed upon—would be revealed.
“Breaking news!” the anchorwoman said right on cue. Her blond hair, styled in a sleek bob, barely moved when she pressed her earpiece and nodded. “We have an update on the Chelsea Duvall and Roper Morrison story.”
Chelsea’s photo appeared beside Morrison’s on the screen. But Dagan’s eyes were glued to only one of them.
Three guesses which one, and the first two don’t count.
He wasn’t sure where or when the picture of Chelsea had been taken. But she was in a small aluminum johnboat. The sun glinted in her golden eyes, and the smile on her face was pure and genuine and so…Chelseathat it made his chest ache.
“The CIA has just released a stunning statement,” the anchorwoman continued. Her eyes barely moved as she read the words streaming across her teleprompter. “They claim Chelsea Duvall, a former employee of the Bureau of Land Management and more recently media mogul Roper Morrison’s personal assistant, is in fact one of their agents. According to a CIA spokesperson, Agent Duvall was sent by the agency to infiltrate Morrison’s household and search for evidence tying the British billionaire to Pattani separatists in Thailand.
“The Pattani separatists are a terrorist group responsible for the 2016 bombings in the resort town of Hua Hin. They are also known to keep sex slaves and deal in the human trafficking of underage girls to the United States and the UK. The connection between Roper Morrison and the Thai terrorists was first discovered in the Panama Papers.”
That was a lie. The Panama Papers had pointed from the diamond mine in Angola to Spider, which hadthenpointed to Morrison because, as it turned out, Morrison was laundering money for Spider’s diamond mine venture—and many more of Spider’s ventures—through his legitimate businesses. But it had been decidedthatwould be kept on the down low. The evidence Ozzie found on Morrison’s computer of Morrison traveling to Thailand to have sex with the underage girls the Pattani separatists kept in the middle of the jungle—when Dagan thought about that he wishedhe’dbeen the one to put the bullet in Morrison’s sick, twisted brain—was the information the CIA had determined would be given to the press to validate their involvement in Morrison’s takedown.
The anchorwoman continued. “The CIA spokesperson went on to say that when Morrison discovered Agent Duvall’s true intent, she was forced to flee the country, taking along evidence she had collected of Morrison’s perversions. During her escape, Morrison and his employees caught up with her first in Folkestone, England, and then again across the English Channel in Calais, France. She had no other choice but to use lethal force to save herself from being captured and killed.”
Lethal force. It was such a nice way of saying someone’s guts or heart or brain had been introduced to a ball of lead traveling 2,500 feet per second.
“Two of the dead men, including former British SAS officer turned security specialist Steven J. Surry and an as-yet-unidentified man, were both gunned down by the same weapon. But the bullet fragment pulled from Roper Morrison did not match. When reporters questioned the CIA spokesperson about the conflicting sets of ballistics and whether that meant Agent Duvall had help from a third party during her escape, the spokesperson said, quote, ‘That’s classified information, which I’m not at liberty to discuss at this time.’”
The anchorwoman smiled, revealing a set of capped teeth so white they were nearly blinding. “So there you have it. Agent Chelsea Duvall, not a murderer and thief, but a true American hero. Stay tuned to CNN for more updates on this explosive story as they become available.”
Dagan blew out a relieved breath when Chelsea’s picture disappeared from the screen.
“So”—Ozzie spoke from behind him—“Chelsea’s name has been cleared, huh?” Ozzie walked around the sofa, plunked beside Dagan, and twisted the top off a fresh beer. Through his jeans, Ozzie massaged the wound on his thigh that had come courtesy of an incendiary device and clinked the long neck of his bottle against Dagan’s. “I’d say it’s a job well done, but we still don’t know who Spider is, so I’ll just say it’s a jobpartiallydone.”
By the time Ozzie had managed to hack into Morrison’s files and locate the accounts and transactions that seemed linked to Spider, all the money had been moved. To where? And by whom? And how? Those were the million-dollar questions.
“I take it that means you’ve had no luck locating any of the missing money or finding clues that might point us to Spider’s identity,” Dagan said.
“I haven’t given up.” Ozzie shook his head emphatically. “There are still a few more rabbit holes I can look down. I hope to have a lead soon. But I have to tell you, this Spider asshole is proving to be unbelievably crafty.”
Spider’s craftiness certainly wasn’t lost on Dagan. After all, he’d spent months trying to bring the bastard down only to come up empty-handed. Well, not empty-handed, necessarily. Roper fuckin’ Morrison was no longer in the picture—or on this earth. And that was something.
“Is anyone shaking the government trees over in the UK to see what monkeys fall out?” Dagan asked. “Neither Morrison nor Spider found us on their own that day. They had help.”
“The director of the CIA knocked some heads together. According to Scotland Yard, they began reviewing CCTV footage the moment Morrison called with his claim that Chelsea had stolen something from him. Morrison being such an important and powerful man and all, they had jumped to help. But that’s the most they’ll cop to. I suspect Morrison had or Spiderhassome folks on his payroll over there. They’re busy covering their asses.” Ozzie dragged a hand through his messy blond hair. “But I care less about that and more about the fact that all these questions, all this attention, will make Spider go to ground.”
“Just like the eight-legged abomination he is.” Dagan squinted at the TV screen even though he wasn’t paying attention to the fiber commercial that was playing. “But he won’t stay there. He’s too confident. He’s been on top for too long. He won’t like life at the bottom. He’ll poke his head out eventually, and we’ll be there to chop it off.”
