“You knew about Ellory the same way you knew Sinner was in Project Lazarus. Opal too.”
Up until a couple months ago, Ash and the others had never heard about Project Lazarus. They soon learned it was a government program full of ghosts. The kind of people who’d been erased so thoroughly from databases and records that they ceased to exist in any official sense.
Not men who’d chosen to disappear the way Blackout special operatives did, walking away from their old lives with their eyes open. Lazarus ran deeper than that. These were people swallowed by a system that chewed through human beings and called the wreckage classified.
“So you knew about Ellory’s brother and still allowed her to be part of this op. You aren’t worried that her judgment might be clouded and she could go solo to get her brother back?”
Con met his gaze. “She’s The Accountant.”
Ash’s chest inflated with emotion. To him, she was so much more. She was…becoming his everything.
He kept his voice level. “I trust your call when it comes to Ellory. But I need in the loop. Whatever intelligence you’re sitting on about Lazarus, about what Ellory’s brother is doing—I need access.”
Con’s eyes sharpened.
“I’m not making a play for rank. This isn’t about me. You’ve been going out into the field more lately. The closer we get, the higher the risk. Shit happens, Con. You know better than anyone. Hell, look what happened to Denver. No one expected him to be released for medical reasons. If something takes you out of the equation—temporarily or permanently—and the only person who knows the full picture is gone, then the team is blind. There has to be a chain.”
The silence stretched as Con studied him the way he studied everything, like he was looking for the place where a man would fracture if enough pressure was applied.
Ash didn’t flinch from it.
At last, Con gave a single nod. “You’re right. I’ll start training you.” Con reached for his phone laying on the desk and glanced at it. “Soon.”
Ash exhaled through his nose. A renewed sense of purpose filled him. He didn’t ever want to make the calls the way he had on that task force, and he never wanted to lead like Con. But he could do more for this team.
He wanted to do more.
“Call the guys. Sophie has new intel.”
“Just the team? Anyone else?”
“Just the team.” Their gazes met for a beat, then Ash strode out.
When they filtered into the war room, they all felt the sword about to drop. After everyone was seated, Sophie moved to the head of the room.
Without preamble, she said, “I’ve cracked a code that Ellory pulled from the financials of one of Cipher’s shell corporations. I’ve been running the decrypted output through every filter we have and I finally got a clean readout.”
The room was silent as a jumble of letters and other characters appeared on the big screen. Judging by the team’s reaction, the strings didn’t make sense to any of them.
Sophie scrolled. Numbers replaced the code.
Ash pushed out a breath. “Some of them look like addresses.”
Sophie nodded. “I’ve run them through the databases as addresses. Some you can pull a physical location from. Problem is, each number could be tied to over a million possiblelocations. For instance, there’s a 301 in almost every city and town in the country. While a possibility that these are addresses, not all are in standard format of street numbers.” She used a pointer under one longer string. “Some are portions of a bigger number—I believe they’re coordinates.”
The room seemed to hold its breath.
She talked faster as her excitement took hold. “After more research, I was able to create coordinates from these.” She pointed again.
The room absorbed that for a single beat.
Ash went still as his instincts prickled. “They’re definitely coordinates.”
“If I’m right, the pins drop on two single-family houses. One of them is near Washington, DC.” Her voice didn’t change register, but the words sent a disturbance through the room, a ripple they all felt.
“Alpha team.” Con’s tone came out flat.
Sophie looked at him. “There’s another one.” A map appeared on the big screen. “Utah.”
