Big Easy Temptation (34 page)

Dax nodded. “Yes. Which is why we need to deal with the situation here ASAP so we
can end the rest of this mess. If Peter can’t tell us the whos and whys, we’ll need
to go to England and start working it from that angle. It’s the only other lead we’ve
got.”

“We might think about going to the source,” Holland urged. “The Krylov syndicate.
Yesterday my uncle found evidence that our would-be assassin was a known Krylov associate.
He said the bullet casings matched the murder of a woman Connor was visiting at a
nursing home.”

“Shit. So we’ve got a pro after us,” Dax said under his breath. “After me.”

She knew that expression. It was his “protective man” look, and she wasn’t letting
it go any further. “Don’t you dare even think about leaving me behind. My uncle already
tried to talk me into protective custody. I’m not doing it. I might have a uterus
but it doesn’t mean I’m not damn good at my job. If you don’t want me with you, I’ll
investigate on my own, but I have a stake in this and I’m the only one here with anything
close to real jurisdiction.”

“I have presidential authority,” Dax pointed out.

“You captain a boat for your commander in chief. You don’t investigate murder and
mafia. I’m the law enforcement officer. Let me do my job, Dax.”

He held up a hand, obviously giving in. “I will, since you have a stake in this.”

He was deliberately misunderstanding her. “Like I said, I’m NCIS and this crime involved
a Naval officer.”

Dax sighed. “Of course. I didn’t expect you to give a shit about anything else.”

She was being stubborn. “These bastards fucked me over and fucked over my friends,
and I’m not going to stand by and allow it to happen.”

“Then come with me and we’ll show you what we have,” Dax promised.

Connor stepped aside. “I’m actually going to go look into something else. You didn’t
happen to get the police report on the shooting yesterday, did you?”

She nearly growled her frustration. “No, my uncle told me the only way he would give
it to me is if I came in. We all know where that would lead.”

“I have some friends. I’ll see what I can do.” Connor left the room, striding down
the hall.

“By friends he means hackers,” Lara offered with a smile. “Come on. Freddy is using
the same techniques he used to bust that new Sasquatch video that came out. He’s up
on all the latest ways to forge a video.”

Freddy looked up from his laptop. “There are lots of software programs that can change
the appearance of frames or sequences. Hollywood has some great special effects, and
now any kid with a tablet can use most of them, but I don’t think they used software
to fix the problems with this. They went low tech, which is actually surprisingly
effective.”

“What do you mean?”

“Watch the video of the admiral supposedly entering the hotel room with Amber Taylor.
He never turns his head,” Freddy pointed out.

“Yes, so there’s no positive identification except the desk clerk who checked him
in.” It had always nagged at her. This video had been shown all over the news. It
was much less damning than the photographs, yet this was the evidence they’d released.
Had they known the still photos of the two of them supposedly in bed wouldn’t stand
up to real scrutiny? If they’d sent those pictures to the press, they would have been
analyzed to death and someone probably would have found out the issue with time and
place.

“Eyewitness testimony can be faulty,” Freddy said as he typed, and a new screen came
up. “Sometimes the mind simply can’t remember all the details. And . . . then other
times people are just assholes who can be bought. I would bet that’s the case with
this guy, Anson King.”

“Where is he now?” Dax asked.

“Conveniently died of cancer about six months after your father.” Freddy sent him
an acidic scowl. “I’m sure his family got a windfall for his assistance. He was a
perfect choice. Because of the media circus and high-profile attention, the statutory
rape trial against your father would likely have taken longer than King’s six months.
The guy could have signed an affidavit, or been questioned by the police or attorneys,
but he didn’t. Either would have been admissible in court. But even if the judge had
elected to throw out King’s eyewitness account because he couldn’t be cross-examined,
everyone on the jury would still have heard his version of events. Unless the judge
was dirty. Who knows? I’ll give it to these Russians. They are very thorough.”

“They are,” Dax agreed with a sigh.

“But I’m smarter.” Freddy never took his eyes off the keyboard. “And I understand
little concepts like math.”

“He also wrapped his sleeping bag in tinfoil,” Lara said, patting his head like she
would a Labrador retriever.

“It keeps the aliens from getting into my dreams. They do that, you know. Especially
to creative people.”

If Holland didn’t get them back on task, Freddy might give them a
lecture on ancient aliens and the dream world. “How does math help us here?”

“Look, I want this tape to be wrong, too. But my mother told me she was certain this
was my father. She said she recognized the uniform jacket.” Dax pointed to the screen.
“See. It’s hard to tell, but if you look closely there’s a patch on the left shoulder.
Dad tore it walking through a construction zone while getting a tour of a new facility.
Is there any way he’s drugged in this video? They did it once. They could do it again.”

“Absolutely not.” Freddy touched the keyboard and suddenly a bunch of lines and numbers
appeared. “How tall was your father?”

“Six foot two. A couple of inches shorter than me.”

“Yes, that’s what I put him at, too,” Freddy replied. “I pulled up photographs of
him from the Internet. This particular software can mathematically examine a photograph.”

“It looks at spatial relations and assigns height and sometimes weight to an object,”
Lara explained. “Even humans. See the lines? It takes measurements of objects, compares
them to relative objects, and uses that to determine the size of the people and items
around it.”

“I’ve seen this before.” Holland leaned over, examining the screen. It was really
simple geometry, but it could explain so much that the human eye couldn’t understand.
“Don’t you need a fixed, known point?”

“Yes.” Freddy’s finger touched the soda machine to the right of the couple. “That
is a standard machine. They all have the same dimensions. Lara called the company
and got the specs for the machine. They haven’t changed in five years.”

“This particular machine was installed about three months before this picture was
taken.” Lara looked down at her notes. “That fall the owner signed the contract. So
we know for certain what the height and width of that piece of equipment is.”

“According to the math, this man is exactly six foot two,” Freddy said with a smile.

Holland felt her gut roll. “Just like the admiral.”

“I don’t understand. If this was a setup . . .” Dax’s whole body had gone stiff.

She touched a hand to his back and felt him sigh into her touch. “You’re going to
explain how this is a good thing. Right, Freddy?”

“Tell them about the torso-to-leg ratio,” Lara encouraged.

He swiped at the keyboard again and a picture of his father appeared, dressed head-to-toe
in slacks and a button-down shirt, with a belt around his waist. He’d been snapshotted
smiling and waving. “I got this off social media. Okay, so when I measure from your
father’s waist to shoulders I calculate about thirty-five-and-a-half inches from waist
to the top of his head. Your father had slightly longer legs than torso. His legs
were roughly thirty-nine. He’s wearing loafers, so I think I’m close.”

“All right,” Dax allowed.

She could hear the tension in his voice and rubbed her hand down his spine in a soothing
gesture. He leaned into her, obviously needing the affection, then slid his arm around
her waist.

“Let’s do the same thing with a screenshot from the video.” Freddy pulled up a still
photo. The admiral was almost out of range, his full body in the shot. “So we know
your father’s measurements. When I put them in here though, the torso-to-leg ratio
is off. Do you see where the natural waist falls? This man’s legs are nearly six inches
longer than his torso.”

“That’s not my father,” Dax said with a huff.

“No.” Lara’s voice got higher as she seemed to get excited. “And we have even more
proof. Once we realized we could prove it with math, we went a little further. Freddy
isolated the hand on Amber Taylor’s shoulder.” She held up a printed shot of the enlarged
digits. “Do you see it?”

Holland stared at the image of a man’s hand on the girl’s lower back. They’d enlarged
it and focused on the fingers. Left hand. She realized what was missing. “There’s
no ring.”

“Sweetheart, I don’t think my father would wear his ring if he was cheating,” Dax
pointed out.

Lara held up her hand, slipping the wedding ring off her finger. “I’ve only had it
for a few weeks. It leaves an indentation. Your father wore that ring for decades.
This hand has never worn one.”

They were right.

Admiral Harold Spencer was innocent. She’d known it, but seeing the visible proof
made her eyes water, her emotions swell. Dax could finally find some closure and peace.
So could his mother and Gus.

“Thank you, Freddy.” Dax held out a hand.

Freddy nodded. “You’re welcome. This is a really fascinating conspiracy. I haven’t
figured it out yet, but I have some theories. I think the next few weeks will be interesting.”

“What do you know about the Krylov syndicate?” Holland asked. If Freddy was this good
with research, maybe they should set him to work.

“I can start on it. It’s not really any different than the way the Reticulan Grays
organize.” Freddy pulled up a notebook. “I’ve got a friend in Interpol who can help.”

“I need to know if there’s a man named Sergei involved in that crime organization,”
Dax said. “If you come across anyone by that name, flag it.”

Lara had gone still. “I have a theory.”

“Who is Sergei?” Holland asked.

“That’s what we all want to know.” Dax took a step back and Holland was surprised
at the loss she felt. “We first heard his name when Mad asked Gabe about it just before
he died. Then a Russian who worked for the syndicate not only confirmed that Sergei
existed but this mystery guy was closer than we thought.”

“And Natalia talked about him, too. Well, she did before she was murdered horribly.”
Lara shuddered. “She loved him. We don’t know if he was a husband, brother, lover,
son . . . My bet is that she had a love
child with Zack’s dad while he was living in Moscow and she was hired at the embassy
while she was Frank Hayes’s mistress. I think Sergei is Zack’s half brother.”

Holland groaned. Having a half brother in the
Bratva
could be a political killer for Zack. “You think they’re going to disrupt the upcoming
elections? Why wouldn’t they have done it the first time he was trying to get elected?”

“Because they want Zack to be president. My guess is that they want him to expend
his political capital doing something for them while he has power,” Dax explained.
“And the second time around, he’ll be a lame-duck president. Because he can’t run
again, he can do whatever the hell he pleases. It makes sense. The Russians want some
political favor. Maybe this is how they intend to blackmail Zack into giving it to
them.”

“Like you said, he doesn’t have to run. He can make an announcement tomorrow that
he won’t seek reelection and then no one has anything on him,” Holland pointed out.

“But a Russian-mob bastard brother could ruin his legacy. And he does care about that.
These people probably know it. They will make a move in the next few months, as the
election cycle is in full swing—if we don’t find a way to hit them first.”

She finally got the complexity of this insidious scheme. “We have to unweave whatever
web they’ve got Zack caught in.”

“Yes, and it’s about forty years’ worth of conspiracy. If I’m right, Sergei didn’t
start this. His parents did.” Lara sat. “We have to figure out a way to stop them.
To do that, we have to reach them.”

“We start with Peter Morgan. He knows someone involved with the Russians.” Holland
would bet on that. “How long was he your father’s aide?” Something about the whole
uniform thing bugged her. If the admiral hadn’t been the man in the video, then who
and how had he gotten hold of the admiral’s jacket?

“Four years, but they were friends before that. My father trusted
him implicitly,” Dax explained. “I’m not convinced he’s worthy of that trust, but
I also haven’t been able to look through his records. They were classified when he
took that new assignment after my father’s death.”

“Could Zack find them? No one has better clearance than the president,” Holland reasoned.

Even Lara laughed at that. “Zack has to be careful. If he starts putting his fingers
in Navy affairs, he could stir up serious trouble. It would be even worse since everyone
knows he’s close to Dax.”

“It could look like he was trying to find a way to cover up my father’s crimes,” Dax
finished. “We have to protect Zack.”

They also had to find justice. “Zack isn’t the only one involved in this.”

Dax reached for her hand. “Zack is like my brother. I loved my dad. I love my mother
and my sister and Zack means as much to me as they do. He’s my family, Holland. He’s
gotten my ass out of hot water more times than I can count and he’ll be beside me
to my dying day, so don’t ask me to hurt him in any way.”

“Not even if it meant justice for your father?”

Dax grew grim. “No.”

She’d always known he was loyal to his friends. Still, his willingness to sacrifice
amazed her. “All right. Then we figure this out without Zack’s power.”

“I didn’t say that,” Dax replied. “I merely said we leave him out as much as possible.
Connor said you figured out where Peter Morgan is living these days.”