Grave Secrets (Manhunters 1)

“I guess she’s under a little pressure,” Sam spoke first.

Gianna had closed herself in Roman’s office and paced the length of the glass wall with her phone to her ear.

Roman exhaled slowly, his jaw muscle jumping. “Liam, why don’t you fill in some of the gaps regarding Mason’s mission?”

Liam sat forward and met everyone’s gaze in turn. He was a clean-cut, lean blond. A pretty boy who looked like he fit better in an office analyzing data than in the field getting dirty. If Ian hadn’t seen the man rappel into that mine with his own eyes, he never would have believed Liam capable.

He pulled another folder from a briefcase and passed stapled packets of information to each Manhunter.

“What’s the background on this ledger?” Everly asked.

“A guy in the mines told Mason that Bishop kept a detailed list of some kind that contained the name of every person he’d issued a fake passport to. His name was Tully, and he was due a passport, but Bishop was dragging his feet, so he went to Bishop’s office for a chat. Only Bishop was in the toilet, so the guy got nosy and found an open ledger on his desk with names and dates. Bishop walked in before he could memorize anything, but from working in the mine, he’d recognized names of coworkers, and dates corresponded to the days they started. In light of the new link between terrorists and the passports, that ledger doesn’t just contain the names of people who are guilty of passport fraud—”

“They’re potential terrorists,” Everly finished. “What happened to the guy, Tully? Can we talk to him?”

“He’s disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Ian asked. “As in he was fired, quit, left town?”

“We suspect he’s dead. The day after his conversation with Mason, Tully was called back to Bishop’s office to pick up his passport and never returned to work. Never cleaned out his apartment. Never picked up his final paycheck. Never contacted his family again.”

“They thought he saw something that could have taken them down and killed him,” Everly said.

“Looks that way,” Liam confirmed.

“But why go to the trouble to hide Tully’s body and not Mason’s?” Everly asked.

“Two people getting close to the scheme at the same time?” Roman said. “Mason may have been a warning to the others.”

“Why would Bishop keep that kind of information in a paper ledger?” Ian mused. “Kind of nineteenth century.”

“Pen and paper keeps the information out of a hacker’s reach,” Sam said.

“But it’s so…concrete, so…permanent,” Everly said. “Even Third World warlords are more tech savvy.”

“Bishop’s no warlord,” Roman said. “He’s a fuckin’ miner. But if he caught Mason trying to grab the ledger after Tully had seen it, he’d have moved it or just gotten rid of it altogether by now.”

Ian leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “If you can tie the false passports you already have back to Hazard, why not just arrest Bishop and pressure him to give us the ledger and the name of the counterfeiter?”

“Because everything we have is circumstantial. We have no evidence of Lyle counterfeiting or even being the person who gave out the passports to employees. According to other miners, Baulder does that.”

“So Bishop keeps his hands clean,” Ian said.

“We need that list,” Liam said. “Those names are our top priority. We need to track down every person who was given a passport to nail the terrorists among them. Those who weren’t involved in terrorism are still guilty of passport fraud. They’ll be willing to talk for a reduced sentence, and they’ll be able to pin Bishop as the mastermind.”

“What about Mason’s killer?” Ian asked. “And the counterfeiter?”

“We want them too, but the list is the key to finding these terrorists and stopping them before they kill more Americans.”

“This is a pretty big deal,” Ian said. “Why was the operation so small? Why was Mason the only one undercover?”

“At any one time,” Liam said, “there are over a thousand terrorist threats throughout the United States. Before we connected the known terrorists’ passports to Bishop Mining, this was considered a small operation. My resources were tied up in bigger, deeper, more dangerous operations. Discovering the link between the terrorists on flight one-twenty-one and men who worked for Bishop pushed this operation into the red zone. Gianna shuffled resources around. I’ve been freed up to join you here. I’ll be working with Sam, developing background and intel.”

“What kind of leverage can we get on Bishop from his ex-wife?” Roman asked, his gaze alternating between Ian and Everly.

“There’s a lot of animosity between them,” Ian said. “And they’ve been living apart for, what?” He glanced at Sam. “Two years?”

“Three,” Sam said.