Frank “Mustang” Ford stood with his girl, Emily Chastain, the college professor. He turned as Cole entered the room. The brown-haired, brown-eyed former point man was as used to action as Cole. He paced the room like a caged cat. “Nice of you to join us.”
Cole shook his head. “I’d have been here sooner, if I’d known you wanted me here.” They were all tense. After the attack on the National Security Council meeting, they knew they had to bear down and come up with some real leads. Trinity had far too much power and had infiltrated too many places. Picking the agents off, one by one, would take too long and never be effective as the organization continued to “recruit” new agents. They had to find the lead man and take him down.
“Based on your woman’s intel,” Declan said, “Jonah’s made some headway that might be useful.” He turned to Charlie’s computer guru.
Cole wanted to correct Declan. CJ wasn’t his woman. He barely knew her and had seen her only once in the very room where he stood now. An image of a black-haired woman walking a little white dog rose in his mind.
Jonah pointed to one of the monitors. “Chris Carpenter is in debt up to his eyeballs. He’s maxed out every credit card he owns—and he has quite a few—and he’s struggling to make the minimum payments on all those. He’s in a house that far exceeds his pay scale and he’s gone through everything his father left him in a trust fund.”
“The man is barely able to keep his head above water,” Declan concluded. “It’s a wonder he got a security clearance.”
Cole shrugged. “CJ thought he might have a connection to Trinity since his was one of the last texts Tully received on his cell phone prior to the attack on the NSC conference room. How does his financial woes make him a likely suspect?”
“A man that deep in debt can usually be bought,” a female voice said from behind Cole.
He turned to face Charlie descending the stairs, carrying a tray loaded with glasses and a pitcher of lemonade.
The butler followed with another tray of sandwiches Cole suspected were prepared by Charlie’s chef, Carl.
Cole took the tray from her and set it on the conference table.
Charlie took over hostess duties, pouring lemonade into clear, crystal glasses. “It’s not whiskey, but then I thought you might want to have clear heads for this discussion.”
She handed out glasses to everyone who wanted one and then nodded toward the picture of Carpenter that had been taped to the whiteboard. “If Carpenter is in debt that deep, an offer to bail him out might convince him to do favors for anyone who is willing to pay for them.”
“I’ve worked with Chris Carpenter for the past two years.” Anne Bellamy shook her head. “It’s hard to believe he would work for Trinity.”
“Desperation changes a man,” Charlie said. “If he’s in over his head and drowning, he’ll take any life raft thrown his way to get out.”
“Just because he’s in debt, doesn’t make him a traitor,” Cole said. “We need solid proof. Got anything else?”
Jonah’s lips twisted and his gaze narrowed. “He’s made several payments to a marriage counseling center.”
Cole sighed. “Again, a marriage on the rocks isn’t much to go on.”
“We need more,” Declan agreed. “Do you have access to CJ?”
“We’re communicating by burner phones,” Cole said, and held up the phone he’d purchased for just that purpose.
“Get her on the line,” Declan commanded.
“I can’t guarantee she’ll answer,” Cole said. “She’s very skittish.”
“That’s the only way she can stay alive if Trinity is actively pursuing her,” Jasmine said. “It’s a miracle she’s still alive after escaping over a year ago. And to be in an area known to be prime Trinity territory...” The former assassin shook her head.
Cole hit the redial button on his phone.
After the fourth ring, CJ answered. “What did you find?” she asked without preamble.
“I’m with the team. Can I put you on speaker?”
“Yes.”
Cole hit the speaker button. “We learned more about Carpenter, but not enough to accuse him of conspiring with Trinity.” He filled her in on the Homeland Security Advisor’s financial troubles and the fact that he was seeing a marriage counselor.
“I doubt he’s meeting with any Trinity contacts inside the West Wing. I’ll follow him,” CJ said.
“That puts you at too much risk of being discovered,” Cole insisted. “I’ll follow him and let you know what I find.”
“I’ve seen him go into a bar close to the metro station after work,” Anne Bellamy interjected. She gave them the name of the bar and the street where it was located.
“Anne and I will keep an eye on him in the West Wing during the day,” Jack offered. He was still posing as Anne’s office assistant.
Anne nodded. “We can follow him at lunch and see if he talks with anyone.”
“Good,” Cole said. “But he knows you two and wouldn’t want you to know who he’s meeting with. I’ll go to the bar tomorrow night ahead of him. He doesn’t know me and won’t think anything of me sitting there sipping on a beer.”
“I can let you know what time he leaves,” Jack added. “And follow him in case he doesn’t head for the bar.”
“Deal,” Cole said. “CJ, we’ll keep you informed.”
“Understood,” she concurred and ended the call.
“Not a woman of many words,” Gus noted.
Cole snorted. “No, she’s not.”
“You’ve heard the phrase ‘loose lips sink ships’?” Jasmine asked.
“Yeah, but she’s like a ghost. If she hadn’t shown up after the NSC attack, here in this room, in front of all of us, I’d still wonder if she exists.”
“She wants to bring down Trinity,” Anne Bellamy said.
Cole silently agreed. They all wanted to bring down Trinity. He understood CJ’s reluctance to trust anyone but herself with her life, but she didn’t know the benefits of working with a good team, one that had her back and was pushing toward the same goal.
“And she can’t do it if she’s dead,” Charlie reminded them, her mouth set in a grim line. “As we all know. John wanted to bring down Trinity, but look where that got him.”
John Halverson had been murdered. The person who’d done it had never been caught.
Cole had no intention of being Trinity’s next target. And something in him stilled at the thought of CJ meeting John Halverson’s fate.
Not on his watch.
CJ spent the next day logged on to her laptop at a coffee shop with free Wi-Fi. It was an unsecured network, but sometimes she found being one needle in a haystack of browser users helped mask her more than logging on to unique systems with huge firewalls. Trinity had a way around firewalls. She’d searched for the first half of the day, tapping into computers, trying to find the IP address for Chris Carpenter’s home computer and digging into the man’s bank and phone records.
She didn’t find any large sums