Her name hadn’t seemed right. Mal kept his face impassive. “How do you know about the rest of the women if you haven’t found them yet?”
“My third step was to get to somebody inside. That’s how we got the pictures,” Force said, shaking his head. “But she’s a woman, and with the hierarchy of the cult, she can’t get into the inner circle. She’s good, but nobody is that good.”
Mal leaned back. “So you want me to get to know Pippa and pump her for information.” Other ways he could pump her filled his mind, and he shoved them away.
“For a start,” Force agreed.
“What kind of a threat are we looking at?” Wolfe asked, his gaze not leaving the dog.
Roscoe kept his focus on Clarence Wolfe, not wavering.
Were they having some weird staring contest?
Force cleared his throat. “The dog won’t blink.”
“Neither will I,” Wolfe murmured, not moving.
Yep. Crazy. Malcolm studied Angus Force. “You didn’t answer his question.”
Force looked back. “Our intel from our source indicates a mass attack with suicide explosives. Don’t know where, but our source thinks it’ll happen very soon. The cult has relocated to West Virginia . . . rather close to here, actually. So we think the attack will take place in DC, but as you know . . .”
“New York is close. As are several other cities,” Mal said. None of this was making a lot of sense, and he didn’t like the way the hair was rising on his arms. “Why are we in the basement of a shithole office building if there’s an imminent terrorist attack? What is this unit? Who are you?”
Force grinned, the sight oddly and suddenly familiar. “At the moment, I’m the only one who thinks the cult is going to make an attack, so I’ve created case room two to find out.”
Angus squinted and imagined Force with a clean-shaven face and FBI-issue hair. Realization kicked him in the balls. “I know you. The FBI special agent who took down the Surgeon. The media only caught a couple of pictures of you, and they never got your name. I thought you looked familiar.”
Force frowned. “Those damn pictures. Journalists. Hate ’em.”
Mal slowly shook his head. “What’s an FBI profiler,theFBI profiler, doing creating an HDD unit in a basement? What the hell, man?” And why was the guy still shaking from alcohol withdrawal?
Force rubbed the scruff across his jaw. “What do you know about the Lassiter case?”
Mal sat back. He’d been deep under cover in the mob at the time, but he remembered some details from the news. “Henry Wayne Lassiter was a serial killer who did some sick shit with women. Kidnapped and killed at least, what, ten?”
“Twelve that we know of,” Force said, his eyes darkening.
Right. “You tracked him down and put him away.” Mal cocked his head to the side. “They called him the Surgeon because of his ritual and what he did to the bodies. And here’s the interesting part: He was a lowly analyst for the HDD.” When the world found out that an employee, even just an office drone, at the Homeland Defense Department had been a serial killer, the agency had taken a huge hit. “You killed him when you arrested him. There was a shoot-out.”
Force crossed his arms. “So they tell me.”
Mal let his chin drop. “You . . . disagree?”
“Yeah. I shot him, but he wasn’t dead on-site,” Force said, his voice low. “Everyone thinks I’m nuts, but I don’t think he’s dead. The HDD owes me one big-time, so we have this crappy little office to investigate. It also keeps me from going to the press.”
Mal’s back teeth began to ache. “Do you or do you not have proof Lassiter is alive?”
“I have no proof.” Force’s voice went dead flat. “I left the FBI after the case and was just fine never going back to that world, but an informant I used to have at HDD left me a couple of messages on my phone—cryptic ones—about the case not being over. Then the messages disappeared, as did my informant.”
“Well, that’s not creepy at all,” Mal murmured. Sometimes cops just couldn’t let go of a case. Was that Angus’s problem? “And this?” He swept his hand toward the board.
“The deal I made with the HDD,” Force said, his gaze turning to the picture of the man on the board. “If I keep my mouth shut about Lassiter, they’ll throw us a case or two. I’ve weeded out the ones that have merit, and this one does. That’s based on my gut instinct. Evidence is sorely lacking.”
Yet he already had somebody undercover in the cult. “So, your informant. You turned her.” Somehow.
Force nodded. “Yeah. There’s something going on with the group.”
Now that didn’t sound ominous at all. Mal frowned, his leg aching. He gingerly rubbed the side of his thigh. “I get why you’re here.” Either Force’s instincts were right, or he was letting ghosts rule his life. “I even think I understand why you’re here,” Mal said to the soldier still staring at the dog. He’d mentioned getting back to the Teams, and no doubt Force had promised him help if they succeeded in their job. “Why am I here?”
