Page 13 of Magnum, Volume 1

Barely three minutes in, he pointed to a trail I’d already followed and I nodded. “Yes, used to send money to a charity fund that worked hard to get the governor elected.”

I showed him where that thread went, and Skippy stepped forward. “Wait. Go back. What’s the eight-hundred-dollar transfer for? We haven’t seen anything less than a few hundred K, so far.”

“No idea,” I told him. “I spent three days running it down, but it bought a gaming gift card not associated with an account.”

“Scoot,” Skippy said, and I moved so he could sit at the desk. His fingers flew, and seven minutes later, we had a name, and the person’s gaming activity, along with a lot of flying into and out of airports, and I made Skippy copy them into a text file and save it on my cloud. He saved the long list of first-person shooter games as well, but I wasn’t sure that gave us much of anything.

Forty minutes and three databases later, we knew the gaming signup name was an alias for a man who’d crapped out of SEAL school and then been recruited into a CIA SAC team.

“So, what, he was too much of a psychopath to make it in DEVGRU, which made him perfect for SAC?” I mused.

“Bingo,” Skippy said, and he started an image search, looking for the guy’s face.

Alarms blared, the browser closed, and Magnum grabbed his phone, keyed in his code, and hit a button already on the screen. “Cuts the power to the router,” he explained. “Faster than running downstairs and unplugging it.”

“Interesting that searching for his face triggered an algorithm, isn’t it?” I noted.

“My guess is that this dude is dead, and they put that purchase in to try to trap anyone following the thread,” Magnum said.

“Fuck, I hate it when the bad guys are smart,” I noted.

Skippy had the USB out and the laptop was shut down, and he handed the USB to Magnum. “They didn’t get close. Put this in your safe. Need to wait at least six hours before we search less serious threads, and fourteen hours before we dig into anything specific.”

I put my hands on my hips, realized I did, and relaxed them at my sides. “If they didn’t get close, we should be able to go back to my cloud and look through what I did. Thirty minutes away from it, maybe, but six hours seems excessive.”

“We’re tunneling and hiding,” Skippy said. “If they’re as smart as I think they may be, they’ll look for someone popping right back online who’s acting squirrely. Under normal circumstances, we don’t look like we are, and I’ll swap out the final two hops the next time we go online, but still… six hours to be safe.”

“We can head out in the boat,” Magnum said. “Supposed to storm this evening, so we should take advantage of the good weather while we can.”

Thirty minutes should be fine, but I could see I wasn’t going to win this one. Skippy was the supposed expert, but I had a feeling Magnum was, too — and I was clearly in the minority for wanting to get right back to work.

“Fine,” I said, “but if we’re going out into the blazing, hotter-than-hell Alabama heat, I’m putting a bathing suit on.”

Magnum went completely still for a half second and then shook his head. “On second thought, I know you said you have more on your cloud than the USB, but can we stay offline and look through logs there?”

I smiled. “Yes, but…” I frowned. “Can’t follow them. We’d just be able to note places to go back and follow later.”

“No,” Skippy said. “Ya’ll go out and play. Take a break. I can build another way to get on. I’ll make it look like we’re coming from a realty firm in Virginia, and we can search land records.” He met Magnum’s gaze. “I brought encrypted radios. Take one with you, and I’ll let you know when I have it set up. Probably take at least an hour, maybe double, depending on how many routes I decide we need between us and the info. My duffel’s in the kitchen.”

“I’m going to need a favor — a coded message for my dad, so my parents know I’m somewhere safe. The idea is to call and offer an extended warranty on his Ranger boat. He has a Lund, so it’s the wrong boat. It’s a Ranger if I’m safe, another brand if I’m not.” I shrugged. “We talk weekly, but I’m not going to be online. No posts, no videos. They’ll worry.”

It’s a Boston Whaler if I’m not safe, but for some reason, I didn’t want to share that.

“Not a problem,” Skippy said. “I’ll use VOIP to do it once the two of you are back.”

I thanked him, and Magnum and I left him alone in the office.

The bathing suit I’d packed for this trip was chosen for its ability to make men stupid. If I’d known I’d be living with a sexier-than-fuck biker, I’d have chosen one that didn’t show as much of my ass, didn’t go so low in front, and covered more than my nipples. This one showed actual underboob, so I slid a white crop top on over it. The suit was turquoise and white, so it worked.

Wasn’t there some kind of creed about bodyguards not fucking their protectees, or something? That seemed right. He needed to stay focused on keeping me alive, right?

But damn, it almost felt like maybe we could focus better if we just got the fucking out of the way. I’m usually able to focus on the job and ignore sexual tension, but him hovering right over me at the desk had taken every ounce of my willpower to stay focused on the data.

Having Skippy there had helped. I couldn’t imagine how we’d manage without Skippy in the room.

I put my Chacos on and made my way to the kitchen, where Magnum was adding ice and water to stainless-steel drink bottles.

“Sunscreen is on the table,” he noted. “Use it.”