Shields knelt over the dead man and took a picture of his face. “It’s not like the movies where everybody confesses everything before they shoot you. But we’ll run this guy’s picture through facial recognition and see if we can come up with a match.”
“So, did you find anything?” Black asked.
“Did I ever,” Mia said. “I’ll tell you all about it when we get back to your car.”
The trio walked a short distance through the woods until they reached Black’s vehicle. Once they were all inside, he pushed the ignition button, firing up the engine.
“Start talking,” Shields said.
Mia took a deep breath, leaning back in her seat as she collected her thoughts. “Once I broke into the CIA database, I was able to glean quite a bit of information on the history of the photos of Tahir Nazari. For starters, we don’t have much on him. He’s a relative newcomer by all standards and has remained out of the public eye. He’s only produced one video and was captured once in public. That’s it. That amounts to the entirety of the world’s collective intelligence community on photographs of Nazari.”
“So, what’s in Nazari’s file now?” Shields asked.
“The correct photos,” Mia said. “But I was able to find a log that kept records of previous image uploads.”
“And?” Black asked.
“I discovered that a week before the assignment was given to us, someone swapped out Nazari’s picture for Omar Ebadi and then changed it back minutes after the strike.”
“Do we know who?” Shields asked.
“I can almost guarantee you it’s not the person whose signature I found on the logs,” Mia said.
“How do you figure that?” Black asked.
“I can’t imagine that Noah Young’s own Secretary of Defense, Doug Quinn, is capable of such back-end wizardry,” Mia said. “For starters, the changes were made remotely, which means this didn’t happen within the confines of his office. Not to mention, the information wasn’t completely erased. It was just hidden, buried deep inside the system.”
Black made eye contact with her through the rearview mirror. “Why wouldn’t you remove it all together?”
“Good question. In short, the field requiring an access code to make any changes to the system’s structure couldn’t be eliminated without alerting the cyber security team that the CIA’s system was breached.”
“And whoever was behind this obviously didn’t want that,” Shields said.
“So, Quinn is responsible?” Black asked.
Mia shrugged. “In a roundabout way. Like I said, I don’t think Quinn did this, but at the bare minimum he gave someone his code or was careless enough with it to allow it to be stolen. I can’t be certain which one it is, but that’s the most likely explanation.”
As Black sped along, Shields pulled out her laptop and started typing.
“What are you doing?” Mia asked.
“A quick little financial search on our good friend Mr. Quinn.”
Mia leaned forward in her seat, craning her neck to see Shields’s screen. “How did you—”
“It’d take you a while to hack into these, wouldn’t it?” Shields said with a grin.
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s a little government perk,” Shields said before drawing back.
“What is it?” Mia asked.
“Hmm. Now I bet Quinn thought he’d be able to get away with this before he had to disclose this in his taxes, but apparently he was involved in a small real estate transaction recently.”
Mia squinted as she stared at the screen. “Wow. That is small. I thought you were being sarcastic.”
“I am,” Shields said. “Let’s take a gander at this property’s true value.”
A few clicks on the keyboard and a new page popped up with the address listed on the deal with Quinn.
“Would you look at that,” Mia said. “He bought that place for ten grand with a loan, but it’s worth over four-point-two million.”
“A little fixer-upper in the Caymans,” Shields said. “Quinn would’ve refinanced after taking out a sizable chunk for a home equity loan, re-sold the house for a pretty penny, and washed that money away without it showing up as a red flag on any documents he had to file at the end of the year with the oversight committee.”
“So, that’s how the filthy rich do it,” Mia said, shaking her head.
“But the real question is who runs Caldera Holdings?” Shields asked. “Because that’s who sold Quinn the house. Once we find that out, we’ll know who we’re dealing with.”
“Give me the laptop,” Mia said. “I have an idea.”
In a matter of minutes, Mia discovered that Caldera Holdings was nothing more than a shell company, tied to two other shell companies. Eventually, she found both of those companies were tied to one other obscure name.
“Drisi Enterprises,” Mia said, furrowing her brow as she stared at the screen.
“Does that name mean anything to you?” Black asked.
She slowly shook her head and repeated the name. “Drisi Enterprises. I’m drawing a blank. Is that a man’s name.”
“Yes,” Black said. “It’s owned by a man named Lance Drisi.”
“Hmmm. I’ve got an idea. Give me a second.” Mia’s fingers tapped on the keyboard. After she stopped, she took in a long breath before exhaling slowly.
“What is it, Mia?” Shields asked.
“I know who Lance Drisi is,” Mia said. “It’s an anagram.”
“For who?” Black asked.
“None other than Falcon Sinclair.”
“Falcon?”
“That’s not his given name,” she said. “The name on his birth certificate isn’t nearly that sophisticated. His name is Ed Sinclair.”
Black looked at Shields. “Call Hawk. We need to meet up at once.”
CHAPTER 22
Undisclosed location
BLUNT GROANED AS LIGHT flooded the top of his new cell. Instead of being held in an open facility, his new room was still dark but even more secure. Aside from a few ventilation portals near the top of the twelve-foot ceiling, the space contained no accessible exit or entry points. And he was far too familiar with the type of facility he was in, as he’d put his share of suspected terrorists into these high-security prisons.
An engine hummed as the floor began to ascend toward the portal in the ceiling. A guard with a headlamp dropped down on a
