As though his thoughts summoned her, the door opened and she walked in along with Bristow. Her gaze immediately sought his, and the sorrow in her eyes only reflected the grief in his heart, except his was already kindling the flame of retribution. He was frustrated that the enemy wasn’t yet defined. If it were Nico on this, and he had access to the CIA databases, they would be further along. He rose from his chair as his woman walked along the length of the conference table and straight into his open arms.
Antonio clutched her desperately as her own arms tightened around his torso. “Antonio,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry about Luis.”
Words choked up inside him and when she pulled back to stare into his eyes, all he could do was nod his head in acknowledgement. He could hardly tell Charly how he intended to tear the people apart who were responsible for this. Instead, he asked, “Renata?”
“She’s positive for Ebola.” Charly turned to address the room. “All of them are infected.”
“They don’t belong to a single gang,” Bristow said. “The nurses are doing initial contact tracing, but I’ve run their names through. Most of them are Eastern European.”
“Russian?” Gabby asked.
“Or Ukrainian,” the ginger-haired SEAL replied. “The commonality was this club on Santa Monica Blvd. They were all there at the same night and drugged at the same time. They don’t remember taking any XZite but that’s not saying no one spiked their drinks.”
“Club name?” Kelso asked, scribbling in his notebook.
“Diamant.”
“Where are we on the perps?” Bristow looked at Nadia.
“We’re trying to link Marco Cordova aka Jacaré to Lev Skoryk.”
“Any luck?”
Nadia shook her head.
“Are you certain this person on the phone is Jacaré,” Garrison asked.
“It’s him,” Antonio gritted. “Somehow the bastard survived.”
“So … how did Jacaré survive?”
“The Amazon is a good place to dispose of the body,” he said and ignored the way Charly froze against him. He guided her to a chair and he took a seat beside her. Fuck. It was time to show her who he once was—the Enforcer for Andrade Organization.
“The river you mean?” Garrison asked.
“Yes. Many predators there … caimans, jaguars, anacondas.”
“Are you sure that’s where Luis dumped his body?” Bristow asked.
Antonio shook his head. “No. Does it matter? He survived. Only Jacaré can tell us now. I shot him between his chest and armpit. He was a paranoid son of a bitch and wore Kevlar all the time. But I got him. He was bleeding. I think Luis had this macabre idea to feed him to his namesake. To have the caimans he hunted in his youth deal him justice.”
“Let me get this straight … Luis dumped a known crocodile wrestler into the river—”
“I should have shot him in the head,” Antonio spat through grinding teeth.
“Yes, but how did he survive?”
“We have our link.” Bristow snapped his fingers. “Remember Lev’s mother?”
“The research scientist in the Amazon?” Charly asked but it was more like a statement.
“They were there in ninety-six,” Bristow said. “That son of a bitch found them.”
“Or they found him,” Garrison murmured. “Fished him out of the river. And, since Olga Skoryk is a physician.”
“Fuck me.” Antonio squeezed his eyes shut and blinked open. “Luis made a terrible mistake.”
“Yup,” Garrison said.
“It’ll be almost impossible to dig up the records from here,” Martinez’s voice came through the speakers. “I doubt any of them were computerized at that time. Ninety-six, you say?”
“Yes,” Bristow replied.
“Exact dates and location?”
The SEAL told him.
Martinez sighed. “Got it. It’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but I’ll check government files for scientific expeditions.”
Bristow frowned at Nadia. “I thought I sent my report to you.”
“All right, y’all need to cut me a break,” Nadia fumed. “I just came into this …” she glanced at her watch. “Yesterday morning.”
It was already past midnight.
“But you’re supposed to be the best,” Antonio pointed out. Charly kicked him under the table, and he glowered at her. This was no time for niceties.
“Truth,” Gabby stated coldly. “But, back off my people, Andrade. It was your mentor who dropped the ball on Jacaré.”
“And he’s dead. So what’s your point?” Antonio snapped.
“I’d watch how you talk to her, my friend.” Declan straightened from the wall and glared at him.
Gabby twisted her neck around and speared her husband a warning not to interfere.
“All right. Everyone. Calm down,” Garrison interceded. “Same team, remember?” He turned to the analyst. “Nadia, work that angle about Olga’s expedition team.”
Bristow had already booted up his laptop and his fingers were flying across the keyboard. “There’s something else I was going to look at before Garrison told me to hand it over to you. The Skoryks are old money. Well-respected in Ukraine even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They’re a family of scientists. Besides her daughter Katerina, Olga Skoryk had other siblings—all of them having medical degrees, but the oldest brother was a part of Soviet-era bioweapons labs.”
“What happened to the brother?” Antonio asked.
“I spent several hours trying to find out more, but other than a very old article saying he and his entire family perished in a fire, I’m not finding anything else. It’s like he went poof after 1994,” Bristow said and glanced at Nadia. “I thought you’d have better luck with it.”
“I’ll give it a shot,” she clipped.
“I’m not trying to step on your toes,” the SEAL said. “There are a few articles about his work for a university prior to joining the Soviet lab but not after.”
“Russians have that locked down,” Garrison said.
“That sounds highly suspicious, don’t you think?” Antonio pointed out. Why was the spook so blasé about this? With how personal this vendetta against Antonio had gotten, this should raise even more red flags.
“While Nadia digs into that, anything else?” Gabby asked. “I guess we’ll have to look into Club Diamant.” She glanced at her partner. “What do you say, Kelso? You’ve been quiet.”
“Diamant,” Kelso murmured. “Isn’t that one of your hang
