Here's the next chapter. Things are afoot...

Tank's POV

Hector just called. He and Bomber just found something. They're on their way up to the conference room. I heard somebody knock on my door and when I opened it on my way to meet Hector and Stephanie, Lula was standing there with a look on her face that meant she might have something newsworthy to share as well. I motioned for her to follow me and headed to the conference room.

Lula walked behind me and we ran into Steph and Hector at the door. Stephanie was practically bouncing. She had some news and she wanted to share it as soon as possible. I nodded at Hector and said, "Show me what you've got."

Hector connected his laptop to the projector so we call could all see their discovery. Seconds later, the project came to life and we were looking at General Matthews. Stephanie pointed out a few details by saying, "Look at this, he's clearly distressed about something. I think the man beside him is holding a gun or has threatened him in some way."

Lula jumped up and moved closer to the screen. "Whoa, back up. Can you rewind that a little bit please?"

Hector rewound the tape and started from the beginning. Lula concentrated on the screen and moments later, she said, "That's the same guy. He went into a bank and accompanied somebody claiming to be Mrs. Matthews and opened a bank account that contains a lot of money. Something odd is going on here."

I agreed and I looked at Hector and asked in Spanish, "Can you start a facial recognition search for that man? I don't recognise him." Hector agreed and disappeared from the room, leaving the laptop. Next, I looked at Lula and asked, "Why did you say that the person at the bank was claiming to be Mrs. Matthews?"

Lula looked at her hands and said, "She didn't look like the photos we have of Mrs. Matthews. I'm not positive, but I don't think it was her."

I pulled the laptop towards me and accessed the email that contained the bank footage. I brought it up on the screen and then pulled up a photo of Mrs. Matthews. We compared them and we all agreed that they two images just didn't match.

"OK, this is what we have. The General may not be responsible for this whole thing. His wife is being impersonated by another woman and a bank account in her name is out there, incriminating both of them. What we don't know is the identity of the man seen with both General and Mrs. Matthews. We don't know why there is a bank account in Mrs. Matthews name and what it means. In fact, we have more questions now than we have answers."

My only idea was to turn this information over to Ranger and George and hope that they could do something. I was just about to call Ranger when Lula spoke up.

"Tank, maybe we should ask Zip if he knows the identity of this man. His family is close with the General's and they may have crossed paths in the past."

I agreed and stuck my head out of the conference room and caught Junior who was walking past. He agreed to send Zip in and I walked back into the room to join the women and wait. As soon as Zip walked in, he looked up at the screen and said, "Hey, that's Tim West."

I looked at Zip and asked, "Who is Tim West?"

"He's a retired Army Colonel who went into the private sector. He's head of recruitment and special projects for Black Scorpion, the largest private military contractor in the country."

I once again reached out to dial the phone but looked around to see if anyone had any thoughts before I connected the call. Nobody stopped me so I pressed the button and listened to the phone ring.

"Yo."

"Ranger, we have some information."

"Go ahead Tank."

"We think the General is either being coerced or set up. We're not sure which right now. We have footage of the General at the hotel with Tim West. He is clearly in distress but we do not know why. Also, the General's wife has a bank account in her name that has over 3 million dollars in it. We got our hands on the security footage from the bank and the woman on the tape was not Mrs. Matthews. Also, the unknown woman was accompanied by Tim West as well."

"I have never actually met West but I do know who he is. I can't imagine why he'd be targeting me specifically. Get Steph to run a search on West. We need a timeline of his activities and it might be a good idea to try and get some information on West's company."

"Will do. Maybe George can get some information from his friends on the hill as well."

"Good idea. Keep up the good work."

I sat there listening to the dial tone and looked around the room.

"Steph, please run a search on Tim West. Lula, I need you to run a search on his company. We'll meet back here in 2 hours unless something else comes up."

They both nodded and stood to leave. Zip looked at me and asked, "Can you use my help? I can call a few friends who know Tim and might be able to help with the time line."

"Yes, what is your assignment this afternoon?"

"I'm supposed to go on patrol with Binkie in 20 minutes."

"OK, we'll get that switched up with one of the guys on monitor duty. I can take up the slack there and still be available in house if needed. If you find out anything that you think might be important, let me know."

Zip nodded and headed to his desk to make some phone calls.

I walked into the control room and saw Junior standing in the kitchen. "Hey Junior, are you about to start a shift on the monitors?"

When he nodded I said, "Not any more. Please go down to the garage and tell Binkie that you will be joining him for patrol duty today. I need Zip here working on something else. I will cover the monitors for your shift."

Junior nodded and headed to the stairs. After he was gone, I waited for shift change and then joined Zero at the monitors. I could hear snippets of phone conversations from Zip, Stephanie and even Lula, but I wasn't able to focus on any of them. There was simply too much other noise in the room.

Hector came up 20 minutes later with confirmation that the man in question was definitely Tim West. He also handed me another piece of paper that made me do a literal double-take. I couldn't believe what I was looking at. I scanned the room and found Bobby just emerging from the stairs.

"Brown, I need you to relieve me on monitors. I will find a more suitable replacement for you as soon as I can. I need to follow up on something for the Boss Man."

Bobby grimaced but did what he was told. I looked at my watch and knew it was too soon for the searches to be finished but I needed answers for some specific questions. I interrupted Steph and Lula and asked them to follow me to the meeting room. Hector and Zip also joined us. Once we were seated I said, "We have 100% confirmation that Tim West was at both the hotel and the bank. We also have a tentative id for the woman, but I need to know a bit more information before I present this to Ranger.

"Has West made any trips recently? Does he travel a lot? Where does he go and where does he stay when he is there. Steph, I need you to look at his financials to find out if there are any charges on his credit cards or cash withdrawals that will indicate his travels. There is no way that we're moving forward with this until we know for sure that the identification is correct. The recognition scan only gave us a 60% chance that the identification is correct, so we're not sure. As of now, only Hector and I know who this person is, and it will stay that way until we have at least two more pieces of corroborating evidence.

"Lula, since the bank was in D.C., this woman would have had to stay somewhere. Look to see if there are any hotel records for Mrs. Matthews. I doubt they would have used that name, but check for West as well. He lives in D.C. as does Mrs. Matthews, so it makes little sense for either of them to need a hotel room, but maybe they slipped up.

"I will be back on monitor duty so if you find something, please bring it to me there. Please be discreet because this will be a difficult situation if it is true. Dismissed."

Everyone stood and started to make their way out of the room when Lula said, "Tank, if this is as delicate as you say, wouldn't it be better for us to work in here? That way our phone conversations or our screens aren't open to anyone walking by."

This was a good idea so I replied, "Good point Lula. Hector, can you help the ladies get set up in here?"

I left Hector, Zip and the ladies to get back to work and went to let Brown off monitor duty. The look on Bobby's face when I told him I would take over was a combination of relief and joy. I sat down to watch the monitors and thought about what would happen if the woman really was who facial recognition suggested it might be.

There is more to come. Let me know how you're liking it so far. Is there enough suspense for you?