Shoving those thoughts aside, she started reading the first page of Forest Kane’s file and found herself half smiling at his first name.
An hour later, she’d made her way through all their files, and hated to admit it, but there was a ring of truth to a lot of what she read. So it was possible they were actual DEA agents. They’d shown her their badges too, and again, they all looked real, but that didn’t mean anything. They could be fakes or they could be real and the men corrupt agents.
Something in one of the files intrigued her, though. “That op you mentioned, where you helped an agent of Wesley’s, where was it?” she asked, looking up from Tucker’s file.
He was at one of the counters making her a sandwich. He’d shed his jacket, and the long-sleeved black shirt fit him as if it had been custom-made for his big frame. She hated that she noticed how built he was.
“Miami,” he said without turning around.
Well, hell. “Tell me more about it.” There had been a brief mention of an op in Miami in the allegedly official, classified file she’d just read on him and Cole. Most of the info had been redacted, but it had been around the same time Wesley ran an op there and it had ended at the same time the NSA brought down a vicious criminal named Tasev.
Now he paused but finally turned and brought the ham and swiss cheese sandwich over to her before sitting across from her once again. “Cole and I were undercover working for a man named Tasev.” Tucker watched her carefully for a moment, as if waiting for a response. When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “My alias was Grisha, something I think you already know, considering your reaction when you first saw me. We’d infiltrated his organization when it came to light he was planning a large-scale attack on the United States. You already know those details, so I won’t bother with them. Tasev captured one of your agents—though we didn’t know she was NSA until Max told us later—and we worked together. Cole and I split before your guys infiltrated so we could maintain our aliases for possible future use.”
From the file she had on “Grisha,” she knew the man had worked with Tasev. Wesley had given her Grisha’s file and asked her to run the info they had on him and compile a list of his past jobs. It had been almost impossible to pull info on him, which was interesting all by itself. Just as interesting as what he’d just told her.
“I gave him a tip about the water plant. Well, not him directly, but Max did.”
Karen straightened at that. That information wasn’t even in the NSA’s file on the operation. She didn’t respond, though, wanting to see what else he had to say.
“I called Max from a pay phone on Bayside Drive. And I know you guys tried to track me. Burkhart would have been stupid not to try.”
“You were very good at avoiding CCTVs,” she muttered. She’d been the one who’d tried to track whoever had given Max that tip, and the guy had been skilled at evading. Way too good not to have been trained. She’d never gotten a clear shot of his face. Had it been Tucker?
He had started to respond when Cole strode into the room, his expression dark. “You need to see this now,” he said to both of them.
Before she could get up, Tucker was there helping her stand. Belatedly she realized she should have protested, but he held her elbow as they followed Cole into the living room, his fingers callused and once again incredibly gentle. Her ankle was just sore now, confirming that she hadn’t done any real damage to it.
Brooks and Kane didn’t even look up as they entered. She sat on one of the buttercream-colored couches with Tucker sitting on the armrest directly next to her.
“The conservatory and the Capitol building have all been evacuated. . . .” A female reporter was animatedly talking, though her expression was serious as she motioned behind her to an image of the Botanic Garden in D.C. The woman was stating that a small terrorist group had bombed it, but luckily no lives were lost. And right now the FBI’s bomb squad was in the process of clearing the place.
“Turn it up,” Tucker said.
As Kane increased the volume, pictures of the four of them filled the screen. “The suspects in the botched bombing are all disgraced DEA agents with suspected ties to a Shia terrorist group operating . . .”
Karen’s eyes widened as she watched and listened as the reporter continued, showing a video of Kane and Brooks at the conservatory. It looked as if they were planting bombs. Karen knew that videos could be faked, but from the way the men were moving in and out of the conservatory, she doubted someone had faked them actually being there.
“Motherfucker,” Kane growled.
Brooks was silent, but his expression was murderous.
“We were there two weeks ago,” Kane said, drawing everyone’s attention. All his focus was on Tucker, though. “That footage of us is real. We were there, but that shit with us planting the bombs is fucking fake.” The man was practically vibrating with each word, the rage in him vivid.
“I know it’s fake.” Tucker’s voice was quiet but seemed to have an effect on the other man, who calmed a fraction. “Why were you there?”
“Anonymous tip that some shit was going down and they wanted us to get eyes on the place. We used our credentials to bypass security. All standard. I’ll give you the rundown later.”
“They’re saying we planted those bombs a couple hours ago,” Brooks finally said, his eyes glued to the screen.
“Security sweeps the Garden every night. They’re very thorough,” Karen said. She knew because of a couple of security issues they’d had in the past. She went to reach for her cell phone but remembered they’d taken it from her. She glanced up at Tucker. “What time is it?”
“Little after ten,” he said without looking at his watch.
They’d kidnapped her in the early-morning hours, so unless they’d planted bombs at the conservatory directly before that and . . . “Did they say what kind of detonator was used?”
“No.”
“No, of course they wouldn’t,” she murmured, itching to call her people and get more details. More than anything, she wanted her computer. Then she could start running the information they’d given her and fact-check. She felt naked without her laptop. But she figured that was impossible for now.
Without knowing what kind of detonator was used and the range for the remote, she couldn’t be sure the four men with her were innocent of this crime, but as she analyzed the morning’s events she started thinking that it was very possible they were being set up.
Especially after that conversation she’d just had with Tucker about Tasev. He knew way too many details about that op; details that hadn’t been in the official file. Which he wouldn’t have had access to, so it stood to reason he’d been there. On top of that, they’d kidnapped her with a very specific purpose: to talk to Wesley. Tucker had made it clear that he wanted to see him in person but would settle for a phone call. And Tucker had to know Burkhart would send in a team as soon as he found out Tucker had kidnapped Karen. So the men were taking a big risk by kidnapping her simply to talk to her boss. They’d given her files that, in her experience, looked real. She wouldn’t know more without being able to cross-reference some of the information, and she couldn’t do that without her computer.
“That bombing just happened?” she asked, and realized they were all staring at her. Gah, she sometimes forgot her surroundings when she was thinking.
They all nodded.
It stood to reason they could have an accomplice or accomplices helping them. Someone else who’d set off the bomb even if they hadn’t. But that didn’t sit right either. Not with the time frame when the bombs had been planted. Tucker seemed way too hands-on to let someone else take over something like that. “It’s odd that the news stations have that footage so soon.”