"I know. But aside from a few scratches and bruises, I'm in good shape, physically and mentally. You don't have to worry about me."
"Good. But I want to reiterate that needing time to process an attack like this is not a sign of weakness. This team will only succeed if we trust each other to tell the truth."
"I agree. And I'm energized to get to work. I have skin in the game—literally."
"Thankfully not too much," he said with a small smile.
"Thankfully," she echoed. "And I appreciate your confidence in me to lead this case."
"Damon told me you're a superstar in the making."
"That's a lot to live up to."
"I believe you're up to the challenge."
"Thanks. I won't let you down."
His words pumped up her confidence, making her believe this unit would be the right place for her to develop her career. But she would have to do good work to make that happen. And that work would be with people she'd only met in the past week. Trust might be key, but they barely knew each other. Still, she was used to hitting the ground running, so that's what she was going to do.
After leaving the conference room, she made her way into the operations center where Wes and Tyler were already reviewing footage from security and traffic cameras near the café and around the courthouse on several large wall monitors.
Wes had come from the San Francisco office, an expert in technology and cybercrime. He was in his late thirties and seemed to have an intense, private personality. She knew next to nothing about him, except that he was supposed to be very good at his job.
Tyler was a mystery as well, which probably wasn't surprising since he'd spent years working covert operations in the military and during his first two years in the FBI.
When Jason had hired her for the unit, he'd told her that he'd assembled a team of agents who would be the best of the best. She was still a little shocked she fell into that category, but apparently her history with the NYPD and Damon Wolfe's support had made her a good candidate for the team, and she intended to prove Jason had made the right decision in hiring her.
Taking a seat at an open computer in front of a blank monitor, she spent the next thirty minutes looking for the two men who had stood out to her. Finally, she caught a break, squinting her eyes at a grainy image of a man in jeans and a sweatshirt three blocks away from the café. "Got something," she said. "This could be the man who spilled the coffee. The clothes look the same, but unfortunately, his back is to the camera."
"And his clothes are fairly standard," Tyler commented, as his gaze moved to her monitor.
"True. I can't see if the sweatshirt has a Knicks logo, but I think this is the guy." She saved the frame as a screenshot and sent it to her phone. If anything, she could use it when she sat down with Elliott to draft a sketch.
"We'll see if we can get another look at him," Wes said as he and Tyler went back to work.
Fifteen minutes later, she spotted the mysterious, good-looking stranger who had acted both suspiciously and heroically. He was standing about two blocks away from the café, on the other side of the street. The timestamp appeared to be a minute before the explosion. He was talking on the phone, but he froze when the flash of fire could be seen in the screen's corner. He said something else, and then put his phone away and rushed out of sight.
She froze the video. "This is the man who went in and out of the café without ordering anything."
Both men looked at the image, then Wes's fingers flew across the keyboard as he picked up the same image and ran it through their system. "Got him," he said.
She looked at his monitor as a man's image appeared with the name: Max Malone. He was the owner of a company called MG Security, based in Manhattan. It looked like the company had only been in business for about nine months.
"This is unusual," Wes commented. "Max Malone has a big gap in his life. Before the creation of his current company, there's no employment history for the previous twelve years. At that time, he worked as a journalist for the Associated Press after graduating from Northwestern the year prior to that."
"And then he's a ghost," she murmured, staring at his image.
"He has no social media," Tyler interjected. "I'm thinking he works in intelligence, maybe undercover work."
"For what agency?" she asked.
"Could be CIA, NSA, DEA. Hell, it could be the Bureau."
"We need to find out," she said, getting up from her chair. "I'm going to see what else I can dig up on him."
"I doubt you'll find much," Tyler said. "His slate has been deliberately wiped clean."
"Until nine months ago," she reminded them. "Maybe his reappearance in the world will provide some clue as to why he was in the café this morning." She returned to her desk, getting onto her own computer, as her mind raced with questions about the mysteriously good-looking man.
