In the span of a heartbeat, Adam’s facial expression went glacial. “There’s no evidence of a murder. How the fuck is Johnson planning to pull that off?”
“Jay got a hit on a video while you were on your way back from Detroit. Facial recognition is confirming Tak with eighty-five percent probability.”
“Show me.” Hands cranked into fists, Adam made his way across the room, through the open door, and down the hallway, his rapid progress both silent and deadly. At the bottom of the grand staircase, he pivoted toward the boardroom, and Grant followed.
Jay’s head popped up as they entered. “Found this buried on a CIA secure server,” he said, jutting his chin at one of his four oversized monitors. “Best I can tell, their intelligence unit stumbled across this at some point yesterday. I can’t confirm origin or IP address, so there’s no way to tell where the fuck this comes from.”
With a quick click of his mouse, Jay played the seventeen-second video Grant had watched too many times to count. The naked man resembling Tak lay curled on his side. Blood, excrement, urine, and God only knew what else soiled the white tiles around him.
More of the same matted his hair, blurred his features, and hid the extent of his injuries.
He’d been beaten.
Tortured.
And he didn’t appear to be breathing.
A set of legs walked into the frame, followed by a torso, similar in shape and size to a middleweight boxer. Nothing more. From the angle of the camera, the man’s head and face remained cut off, but the Glock in his hand couldn’t be missed.
With the toe of his boot, the killer shoved against the unresponsive man’s shoulder, forcing him to roll onto his back and exposing the tattoo above his left pec.
An American eagle, wings spread wide, the scales of justice superimposed.
Two tattoos in one.
An identical match to the much larger version covering Cody’s back.
The shooter took aim, lined up the muzzle with the eagle’s head, and a single gunshot sounded. The force of the bullet’s impact rocked the body, but no blood sprayed.
Not unexpected.
Dead men don’t bleed.
The man retreated the same way he came, the video wobbled as the phone moved, and then it ended, the last image of Tak’s face frozen on the screen.
“Jesus Christ,” Adam said. “Tell me it’s a fucking fake.”
“I can’t,” Jay replied. “The clip’s not long enough to analyze.”
“You sure it’s Tak?”
A frown dominating his face, Jay leaned back and scrubbed a hand over his unruly hair. “Eighty-five percent probability through facial recognition leaves room for doubt, but add in the tatt, and…”
“Fuck.” Adam exhaled like he’d stored up about a year’s worth of oxygen, then grabbing a chair, he sat facing Jay’s workstation. “Who knows about this?”
“Just the three of us,” Grant replied, leaning his ass against the boardroom table and crossing his arms over his chest.
Adam looked from Grant to Jay. “You said you found this on a CIA server?”
“Yeah. Got the hit early this morning.”
“How long have they had it?”
“Not long.” Jay tapped on a couple of keys. “Date stamp on the video says it was recorded on Tuesday night, so maybe a day.”
“And nobody flagged it?”
“It was tagged for review, but they get more hits in an hour than they can verify in a week. My program picked it up first because my search parameters are targeting for signs of Tak specifically.”
