Love and the White Wolf - Book 2

17. Closing In (Brief sexual content)

Zoe and I continued running facial recognition software on Theo. She also started looking for the name Theo James Estevez. There were several hits until his mother's death in 2018, when he was 14. At that point it appeared his brother had taken custody of him and imposed the same media blackout on him that he had on himself.

The search for the source of the $50K payout to Walter Norton was unsuccessful as it led to a numbered Swiss bank account that had since ceased to exist.

Kyle had finally been able to track where and when the drones were purchased. As we had guessed they were all government surplus, older models that had been modified. They were purchased from several sources, no more than ten at a time, more often five at a time. The name of each purchaser was different. One thing that Kyle did notice was the purchase locations and dates of purchase led in a straight line to Louisiana in the first attack and in a straight line to a town near Avengers HQ for the second. This seemed to indicate that they had bought the drones along a route towards their targets, to be assembled near the target. Only two of the depots had security cameras. The purchasers seemed to know how to stand to avoid having their faces recorded. The parts for the modifications had been bought from several different companies who all requested a court order before they would supply us the information on the purchasers. Kyle forwarded it to Brad. By the time we went to lunch there was nothing more to search.

James had spent the morning preparing a proposal for focus groups to help narrow down needs and wants for the new building then presented it to Nick Fury who scanned it and told him to go ahead. He did remind James that even though the Avengers organization was a non-governmental organization, it was run in a quasi-military fashion. The military was contracted to provide security, and backup on missions. If James thought an internally run security force would provide better flexibility and value then he had to prove it.

"There's nothing I would like better than to have an Avengers facility that felt like a small town, where we are self sufficient and don't have to rely on an outside force to protect us," Nick told him, "but we had that with Shield and HYDRA infiltrated us at every level. The money guys aren't likely to pay for that ever again."

Dixon's video conference with the CIA went better as he had us sit in, out of camera view, in the security office. They were all aware of the video of Sharon Carter shooting Oeznik and her threat against me. Officially she had been disavowed but they also said the dark side of the CIA had closed ranks to protect her. They provided pictures of her for us to run our own facial recognition search but admitted they had done the same search and had come up empty handed. Brad asked about the allegations that Carter was the Power Broker but they wouldn't answer citing national security. When the meeting ended and the two male agents had signed off Alice West had stayed on to talk off the record.

"Many of us were disgusted at the treatment inflicted on James Barnes," she admitted. "We're pretty sure Carter made a deal as the Power Broker to take custody of Barnes once he was broken. I can only speculate what her goal was. I think she underestimated his wife and Donald Lambert and that's what kept him out of her reach."

"Would the agency consider giving him the files on him by way of apology?" asked Brad point blank.

"Shit, you don't want much, do you?" she said. "If I was in charge, I would. Clear the record, take our lumps, issue the apology, pay the settlement. Realistically, it's not going to happen, not anytime soon. I didn't say this but you'd be better off stealing them. I have a lot of admiration for Barnes. He's done a lot to overcome his past and I understand he's a good leader. We could do with more of that here. You tell him there's quite a few of us here who are pulling for him."

I sat with James while we watched. His face remained impassive for most of it, although a grim smile flickered across his face at her last few sentences. After she signed off he ran his hands through his hair.