“Best place to eat,” Mac confirmed. “Djibouti might not be the fanciest, but they have some damn good food here if you know where to go,” he added, directing the comment to Joe. Joe didn’t need to be told—he and his teammates hadonlyeaten in town the few times they’d availed themselves of Camp Lemonnier’s hospitality.
“You’re on. Pick us up at seven?” she said.
Mac nodded, then saluted their escort. They walked in silence on the return trip. Joe mulled over what they’d learned, and he suspected Cyn was doing the same. Why would a potential white supremacist incel be interested in Al-Shabaab? And had it been Al-Shabaab who’d killed him? Even though Joe didn’t have any other ideas, it seemed unlikely. McElroy would have had to get close enough to the group to piss them off enough to warrant that reaction. He doubted McElroy had that in him. But if it wasn’t Al-Shabaab, who was it?
When they reached the hotel, they thanked their escort who promptly spun and started jogging back in the direction they’d come. Both he and Cyn watched him disappear around a corner.
“I need to make a few calls,” Cyn said when the man’s form disappeared from sight.
“Anything I can help with?” Joe asked, holding the door open for her.
Cyn shook her head, then paused. “Actually, can you take my laptop and dig into Al-Shabaab some more. Not the records of their activity, but who they are as an organization?”
“Of course,” he said as they stepped into the elevator. “Anything else?”
She disappeared into her mind for a moment, then she sighed. “Let’s start with that and see what we find. We only have two hours before we meet Mac for dinner, though, so might not get much accomplished.”
He grinned at her when they exited the elevator onto their floor. “Not to brag or anything, but you’d be amazed at what I can do in two hours.”
She snorted and muttered something that sounded like “looking forward to it,” although it was too quiet for him to be certain.
Opening the door to her room, Cyn stood back and let him pass. The equipment bag they’d taken out that morning sat on her floor with her clothing bag right beside it. Other than the fact that it was her bags in the room and not his, it looked identical to his. Except for the view.
He walked to the window and looked out. Not much of a view, but still better than his which looked out onto a grouping of ugly buildings. “Not that I want to drink and investigate, but I could sure use—”
His suggestion to grab a couple of beers and bring them up to the room died on his lips when he caught a glimpse of her bed. Or more specifically, her pillow. “Cyn, babe, you leave a USB on your pillow or was that the tooth fairy?”
Cyn stepped out of the bathroom where she’d been washing her hands. Her gaze landed on him, then dropped to her bed. And to the silver and red USB stick lying right in the middle. Like those little chocolates that some hotels provide.
“We need to see the CCTV of the hallway. We’ve only been gone ninety minutes,” she said.
“You going to call Mac?”
She was already reaching for her phone before he finished the question and three minutes later, she was booting up her laptop and waiting for the CCTV access information. Five minutes after that, he was seated beside her at the small, round table in the room, watching the feed of the hotel hallway while the USB remained on her pillow.
Twenty minutes into the feed, a housekeeper came along with a trolley. She entered several of the rooms carrying things like toilet paper, towels, and, in one case, a pillow. She never looked up so they never got a look at her face, but when she reached the room closest to the camera, Joe caught a glimpse of something familiar.
Reaching forward, he paused the video, backed it up, then ran it again, stopping at the point where the housekeeper placed the key on the reader. “There,” he said, pointing to the slim showing of skin between the hem of her—or his—shirt and the gloves the person wore.
Cyn leaned forward to get a better look, then leaned back and sighed. “Well, at least we know it was Meleak, so whatever that is,” she said, pointing to the USB, “it’s not meant to harm me or you.”
Joe wasn’t so sure about that. He hadn’t yet asked why Meleak was so protective of her—or smitten as her friends seemed to think—but he opted not to question her logic. “You going to tell Mac?”
Cyn made a face.
“Cyn.”
Her face got more dramatic. “Look, I know I need to, but Meleak’s not a bad guy. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone on base and whatever he left, it’s probably intended to help me. But,” she said, holding up a hand to stave off his objection, “I get it. I get that he managed to get on base and into that disguise. If only for security reasons, Mac needs to know.”
Not that he’d doubted her, but a wave of relief traveled through him when she agreed that Mac needed to know about the breach. He didn’t so much care that it was Meleak, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she actually left that part out, but that kind of security breach needed to be plugged—and investigated—quickly.
“Here,” she said, grabbing the USB and tossing it to him. “Plug that in and see what he left me while I call Mac.”
He let out a disgruntled sigh but did as she asked. When the file manager opened, there were only four files. All photos. He’d just opened the third one when she rejoined him.
“What’s the fourth?” she asked, hovering over his shoulder, her breath brushing his cheek and the smell of her shampoo filling his senses.
He opened the fourth and they both stared for a moment.