Kate entered the room behind the Navy SEAL to find it crowded with guys as big and brawny as Montana, crowded around a couple of battery-operated lanterns. Interspersed with the big men were a few women and a white-haired man who appeared to be as physically fit as the younger men.
“Anyone sustain injuries?” Montana asked.
“We’re all good here. Thankfully, we were in the war room when the explosion occurred,” the white-haired man said. “I’m glad we put the extra money in the construction. It’s built like a bunker.” He stepped forward. “I’m betting this is our chameleon, Kate McKenzie. Hi, I’m Royce Fontaine, the head of Stealth Operations Specialists—or SOS, as we like to refer to it.”
“SOS?” Kate raised her brows. “Just what does SOS do?”
Royce nodded, a smile tipping the corners of his mouth. “Stealth Operations Specialists is a team of agents called in when the FBI, CIA and Secret Service can’t quite get the job done. Or the situation is highly sensitive and needs the utmost secrecy. Unfortunately, most of my agents are assigned at this time, thus the need to call in reinforcements.” He swept his arm out, his gaze circling the room. “Glad to have you all on board for this operation. We can use all the help we can get.”
Kate nodded, her gaze seeking and finding her old roommate from college, Becca Smith. “I didn’t realize there’d be an entire team of people on this gig.”
Becca pushed through the others and hugged Kate. “I couldn’t say much over the phone. We needed you here, where others can’t listen in on the conversation. As we’ve learned the hard way, we can’t trust anyone but the people in this room.”
“And based on the explosion outside the building,” Royce said, “there are those who will stop at nothing to keep us from doing our jobs. Don’t worry. I have people checking the structure. They will alert us if we need to evacuate immediately. When we had the structure built, we hardened it for just such an occasion. We could potentially continue to work out of this office, but coming and going from a targeted location will be dangerous.”
Kate leaned toward Becca and whispered, “What are you getting me into?” Her body quivered with excitement. She’d trained for covert ops. This was what made her blood sing.
Becca took her hand. “Come into the conference room. Geek is working on getting the computers and lighting back online so we can brief you. Then I’m sure we’ll move to our backup location. This building has been compromised.”
As Becca led her through another door, Kate glanced over her shoulder, searching for and finding Montana. Though she’d met him only a few minutes before, he seemed to be the anchor in this sea of people, with their plans that threatened to sweep her away from a desk job she loathed.
Becca had promised her a way to redeem and reclaim her status in the CIA, if they could pull off this mission. By the looks of it, and the people squeezing into the war room, they could well be a small army gathering to overthrow the government, for all Kate knew.
What had she gotten herself into?
Whatever it was, it sure beat the hell out of pushing paper.
Montana followed everyone into the conference room, amazed they weren’t evacuating, despite Fontaine’s assurance that the building could withstand a bomb blast.
Several flashlights and a couple of lanterns provided enough illumination that he could get around without tripping on the many people crowded into the large room.
“Take a seat,” Fontaine commanded. “The lights should come on momentar—”
The fluorescent bulbs blinked overhead and then glowed brightly.
A collective sigh and smiles were shared all around. Montana pulled out a chair for Kate and waited while she sank into it. Then he sat beside her. Now that everyone was in and seated around the large table, he had a chance to study the people Fontaine had gathered.
“I want to start by introducing everyone,” Fontaine said. “You’re all to be part of the team in one fashion or another.” He pointed to the man who entered carrying a laptop. “The heart of this group is Geek, our computer guru and all-around technical genius.” The white-haired man waved his hand toward the man helping Geek with wires and switches. “Lance will be working with him in the office or in a communication van, wherever we need him to support the operation.”
Fontaine waved next at a woman Montana knew from their failed attempt to vacation in Cancun, Becca Smith, who worked directly for Fontaine as one of his SOS agents. “Becca Smith has a stake in this operation. Whoever is behind all the assassinations and attempts killed her father and tried to kill her father’s close friend, Oscar Melton. Both of them were top-notch CIA agents working with the congressional Subcommittee on Terrorism, Drug Trafficking and International Operations.”
Turning to his left, Fontaine held his hand out to a nice-looking woman with blond hair and blue eyes. She, too, had been involved in the chaos of Cancun. “Natalie Layne is another SOS agent who has been a part of the ongoing issues we’ve encountered thus far. Her sister was one of the women abducted, with the intent to sell her in a human trafficking ring located out of Cancun, Mexico.”
Fontaine continued around the table. “Besides the SOS operatives, please welcome Kate McKenzie, an agent with the CIA. We’ve also been augmented by six Navy SEALs, on loan to us from Stennis, Mississippi.”
Starting around the room, Fontaine introduced them. “Dutton Callaway, who goes by Duff. Sawyer Houston, Quentin Lovett, Jace Hunter, Cord Schafer, who goes by Rip, and Benjamin Raines, nicknamed after his home state of Montana.”
Montana nodded acknowledgment.
“A six pack of SEALs,” Geek muttered, as he connected the laptop to an Ethernet cable and clicked a remote that lit a projection screen at one end of the long room.
“Are we planning to start a war with all of these people in the room?” Duff, one of Montana’s SEAL teammates, asked.
Fontaine shook his head, his jaw tightening. “No, but by the looks of it, we might be stopping one that’s been going on longer than we knew.” He turned to Geek. “Ready?”
Geek nodded. “Someone get the door.”
Navy SEAL Quentin Lovett, standing near the back of the room, shut the door.
At the same time, Geek clicked a handheld remote control device and the image on his laptop projected onto the screen. He touched the keyboard and the screen filled with a lot of what appeared to be random numbers.
“This is what we have so far,” Fontaine said. “Thanks to Becca’s father, God rest his soul, who knew he was in trouble and might not live to tell about it.”
“All I see are numbers,” Montana pointed out. “Do they represent something?”
“Geek has spent the past week crunching these numbers, trying to decode them, thinking they were a special message.” Fontaine nodded toward him. “Tell them what you discovered.”
“Well, I couldn’t make secret messages out of them, and I was getting really frustrated, until I took a step back and just stared at the groupings. Then it hit me.” He stood and pointed to the wall. “This half of each sixteen-digit number is a date.” He pointed to the other half. “The other eight digits could have been bank accounts, safe-deposit box numbers or anything else in the world. Given that they were all eight digits in length, I made a calculated guess and ran a program, entering them as coordinates.”
He walked back to the computer and clicked another key. A world map replaced the numbers. Bright red dots overlaid the map.
Montana leaned forward, his eyes narrowed, and studied the information depicted on the image.
Geek