Beyond Limits (Tracers #8)(21)

“Any progress?”

Silence as she debated what to tell him. “With regard to the target, no. But there have been other developments.”

He didn’t respond. Sometimes the most convincing argument was none at all.

“I can’t share the details,” she added, “but it looks as though someone on the terrorist watch list may have managed to slip through the border and—”

“Who?”

“I can’t—”

“Who?”

Another pause. “Omar Rasheed.”

“There’s an international manhunt on for the guy. How the hell’d he get in?”

“I can’t discuss details,” she said, “but it basically looks like he came through a back door.”

“Meaning Mexico.”

“He was spotted at a truck stop in Del Rio—that is, if it is him. The footage is a little blurry, so we’re relying on facial-identification software.”

“You check the surveillance cams? Get a look at his contact?”

Another pause. “I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer. And I can’t go into all this with you.”

“If he got out at a truck stop, he probably had a contact there waiting,” Derek told her. “Or he used the stop to get a message out. ‘I’m here, pick me up at the bus depot,’ or whatever.”

“We do this for a living, you know. We don’t need you to—”

“Fine, all right. I don’t want to fight with you. But Rasheed’s in Texas? Jesus. That’s not good.”

Someone started talking in the background, and he heard her muffled response.

“I have to go,” she told him. “Enjoy your leave. I hope you get a chance to relax. Take care, okay?”

And that was it.

He hung up, pissed. And not just because she’d managed to blow him off again.

Relax? Was she serious? One of the most-wanted terrorists in the world was in his own backyard, and the supposedly best law-enforcement agency on the planet didn’t have a goddamn clue what he was doing there. Dread tightened Derek’s gut as he continued up the drive.

He caught a glimpse of his destination through the trees. It sat high on a hill. The gleaming white building looked like a Greek monument that had been airlifted into the heart of the Texas Hill Country.

The Delphi Center.

Besides being home to some of the country’s brightest forensic scientists, the place was a decomposition research facility. Derek watched a buzzard swoop down into some trees and guessed he hadn’t lucked into a squirrel. No, they studied people here. The very dead kind.

Derek pulled around to the back of the building as he’d been instructed. He turned into a service lot and spotted the woman he’d come to see, who happened to be his best friend’s wife.

Derek parked his truck and got out. He barely had the door shut when Kelsey threw her arms around him in a tight hug.

“Hey, Kels.”

“I’m glad you’re home.” She choked on the last word, and Derek got a lump in his throat as he stepped back to look at her.

“I’m so sorry about Sean,” she said as her eyes filled with tears.

“Me, too.” He glanced over her shoulder at the woman standing beside the service door. She had reddish-blond hair and wore a white lab coat. “You’re Dr. Voss, I take it?”

“Mia.” She stepped forward and smiled. “Kelsey and Gage have told me so much about you.”

Derek shot Kelsey a look. “Uh-oh.”

“So what’d you bring us?” Kelsey asked, recovering her composure.

Derek reached into the truck bed and unlocked the toolbox mounted behind the cab. He pulled out a smaller, portable black toolbox.

“A pair of beat-up, dirty-as-hell A.T.A.C. boots.”

“All Terrain, All Conditions,” Kelsey said. “Gage has some just like that. You want us to analyze them?”

“If you would.” Derek had filled her in a little over the phone but hadn’t gone into detail.

“What exactly are you searching for?”

“I don’t know.” He gave her a level look. “I been in some sketchy places recently. Think maybe I tracked something out.”

“?‘Sketchy’ such as . . . a bomb factory?” She studied his face for clues. Being married to a former SEAL, she knew the score. He couldn’t tell her the details of his mission, not even the location.

“What do you think we might find?” Mia asked. The woman was a microbiologist and probably needed to know which tests to run on the boots.

“Explosive residue, biological material, could be anything—which is why I’ve got them packed in an airtight metal container.”

“Wow.” Kelsey frowned. “Don’t they have people on the base for this?”

“They do,” Derek said. “But some new intel came through in the last few hours, and I started thinking about it while I was on the road. I know you guys work with weapons-grade materials here, so I figured you’d be set up to take a look, maybe run a few tests.”

“We’re happy to.” Kelsey glanced at him. Her eyes welled up again, and she was looking at him the same way his mom did when he’d been away a long time, that look of I thought I might never see you again.