“No problem. Thank you.”
The line disconnected. Frank knew the unidentified truck and now he was checked out. There was no doubt Frank Kincaid was involved, but was probably a pawn being used to get to me through Maren. He wasn’t operative material.
Why? Was the man Frank owed money to involved? Did they get to Frank after I’d booked Maren? To have him on the front side seemed unlikely. The lobby meeting was by chance and Maren wasn’t the type I normally went for. None of the facts were fitting together.
All the feeds from my house were gone, except one—a camera I’d installed within the last two months in my office. It ran independently off another battery source. Those assholes were well-informed.
Barely above a whisper, Maren said, “Do you know who these people are?”
“No.”
I studied the masked man as he entered my office. He sat at my desk and pulled up the computer. Only blank screens greeted him. He pounded the desk and slipped off his mask, but his back was to the camera.
Turn around, motherfucker.
The chair spun around and my heart stopped at the face pensively taking in my place.
Holy fucking shit.
Eric Thornhill, the Black Division assassin responsible for giving intel to the cartel, was alive.
BANE STIFFENED AGAINST me at the sight of the man looking into the camera. His breathing barely audible. Something was wrong. Well, worse than it already was. I felt nauseous and anxious all at the same time. Somehow Frankie was involved. The taste of betrayal left a bitter taste in my mouth. Trying to stay positive, I hoped that was the reason why Frankie acted so terrible to me at the hotel room.
Had he been trying to get Bane to get me out of there? I wasn’t sure.
The guy that had Bane nearly becoming mute stood and walked around looking in various cabinets and folders.
“What’s going on, Bane?”
He was frozen as he stared at the screen. As if on autopilot, he responded robotically, “Frank checked out of the hotel he lived in this afternoon. And that man is Eric Thornhill.”
“You know him?”
Bane’s mouth set as his eyes narrowed in hatred. “Yes, he’s a traitor to the country. He’s supposed to be dead.”
“It looks like he escaped somehow.” People covered up death all the time, or at least in the movies they did, which was the closest thing I had to relate to this mess.
“I saw him get a bullet to the head.”
I had nothing to respond with. Seeing someone shot … in the head … did put a finality to it. The hairs on my arms stood as I stared at the man who was supposed to be dead. This brought things to a new level of scary. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. What the fuck is going on?” Bane typed furiously on the keyboard as a million different screens flitted across the screen. He sat back. “None of this makes sense. None of it.” Bane stood and gently sat me back in the chair as he paced with his hand rubbing his neck. Ten steps to the left, turn, ten steps to the right, turn, repeat.
Stopping on a dime in the middle of his paces to the right, Bane jogged to the beat-up Land Cruiser. The sides were crunched in with the paint missing. It brought home the fact how we narrowly escaped. Taking my backpack and purse out of the car, Bane walked over to another counter across the room. He held a black wand thing over my bag. Nothing happened. Then he held it over my purse and a squealing noise occurred. I sat back in my chair, further fearing what that meant. Dumping out the contents, nothing else squealed except the purse.
Quickly Bane went back to the car, retrieving the bag he’d brought out of Security Branch. His bag was silent. Grabbing another stick, he pressed a button while holding it over my purse and I wasn’t sure what happened. Only silence followed. My heart hammered in my chest as I waited to see what this meant. Putting all of his belongings and mine in the two backpacks, Bane came over to me where he unplugged a computer and smashed his cell phone. I jumped as the pieces splintered in every direction.
From a drawer he grabbed a filled duffel bag.
“We need to go. Now! I’ll explain.”
I stood, without question, on high alert. Bane may be dangerous, but I trusted him. If he wanted to do something to me, he would’ve left me to those crazy people or hurt me himself. All I wanted to do was escape somewhere to have a few minutes to process everything.
Carrying both backpacks and the duffel bag, Bane grabbed my hand and pulled me along. I had to run to keep up with him as we made our way past the metal bed and metal shelves. Bane stopped, released my hand and grabbed a larger duffel bag.
“Keep up with me, Maren. We need to get out of here now.”
The fear from earlier returned, but I pushed myself to stay next to him. Whispering in case someone could hear us, I said, “I thought this place was safe.”