by Mike Brogan
“It’s hit and miss. But I’ll try. We can also ask Jennifer if she remembers anything else.”
Ted and Randall led them inside. Donovan breathed in the warm intoxicating scent of new leather. He saw a rainbow of stunning colors: beautiful purses, jackets, shoes, satchels, briefcases, luggage. Randall ushered them behind the counter to two security monitors.
Donovan suddenly stopped breathing as the scent of leather was overwhelmed by an odor he knew well.
The thick, coppery smell of blood!
“Oh my God!” Randall yelled from a back of the store.
Everyone turned toward him.
Ted hurried back.
Donovan and Lindee followed.
“Sweet Jesus, no . . .!” Ted whispered. “Jennifer . . .!”
Donovan looked down and saw a young woman in her early twenties, lying face down on floor, blood pooling around her right shoulder. He felt her neck, no pulse, but as he started to lift his fingers away, he detected something . . . a faint beat.
“She’s alive! Call 911!”
Randall called as Ted grabbed some towels and placed them against the bleeding wound near her shoulder. “More towels,” he said. Randall handed him a thick roll of paper towels.
Minutes later, an ambulance from nearby St. Luke’s Hospital stopped in front. An EMS woman and man ran inside.
Donovan led them to the back room. The EMS woman checked Jennifer’s vital signs.
“She’s bled a lot!” she said. They lifted her onto the gurney, hurried her out into the ambulance and raced off.
Donovan called Agent Manning, explained what happened. Manning said he’d send his FBI CSI team over and coordinate with the NYPD.
Ted blinked moist eyes. “Jennifer is a wonderful person. An NYU senior. Handles the store when we travel.”
“Has anything been stolen?” Donovan asked.
The two men scanned the back area, then the front.
“At first glance, no.”
“This wasn’t a robbery,” Donovan said. “She was targeted. The men who grabbed Dr. Northam are responsible for this. I think they saw Jennifer on the phone. They feared she was calling the police and could identify them and their van.”
He turned to Randall “Could we see the video facing the sidewalk?”
“Sure.” Randall pushed a button on the video console. Snowy screen, followed by more snow. He fast-forwarded again. Snow . . . snow . . . snow . . .
“Someone deleted this video.”
“What about the in-store video?”
He checked the other monitor and shook his head.
“Deleted.”
“Do you have backups?”
“No, sorry.” He shook his head. “Oh wait – maybe Jennifer saved it in the Cloud.” He tapped in a security password, and seconds later, the video popped on showing the front window and part of the sidewalk.
Donovan eased the air from his lungs. “What time was your sister taken?”
“Around 1:20 in the afternoon.”
Randall fast-forwarded to 1:18 and hit Play.
The video flickered, then showed the sidewalk, the curb and some street.
Donovan watched Nell Northam walk up and look in the window. Behind her, a red Malibu drove by, then a vegetable truck, two Yellow Cabs. No white vans. Seconds later, a Staples truck and a cab went by.
Nell then turned and said something to Lindee two stores down.
“That’s when Nell told me she saw a Michael Kors purse she loved in here.”
Donovan saw a flash of white fender. A van. It crawled to a stop behind her. He saw the gold Chevy logo on the wheels.
The van door slid open. Two men, one big, one small, stepped onto the sidewalk. The camera angle only showed them from the chest down. They walked calmly toward the store. Nell did not see them coming.
“Look,” Ted said, “Jennifer’s turning around to answer our store phone.”
The two men walked up and grabbed Nell from behind. The big man put one hand over her mouth, the other arm around her waist. The short man stared in the store window at Jennifer on the phone. He looked alarmed that she was calling 911. Then he and the big man hurried Nell into the van and drove away. It was all over in ten seconds. The license plate was blocked by a bus.
Donovan said, “Can you make a copy of this?”
“I’ll email you a copy now.”
Donovan handed him his email address.
Lindee walked over to the window and looked at the store window.
Donovan walked over and saw something was bothering her. Her eyes filled with tears.
“You okay?”
She nodded. “Nell was standing outside and grabbed right there. Now Jennifer has been shot. It’s just too much . . .”
“Look!” Randall said, pointing at the video. “I recognized something on the van’s rear bumper.”
He pushed Play. They watched the van pull away from the curb. He hit SLOW-MO and the van crept forward, frame by frame.
“See - that blurry yellow, red, blue, and white bumper sticker.”
Donovan nodded. “I’ve seen that logo somewhere.”
“I’ve seen it right here!” Randall said, reaching under the counter and pulling out a baseball hat with a NASCAR logo.
FOURTEEN
BEL AIR NORTH, MARYLAND
“What? You haven’t grabbed the child yet?” Hasham shouted at Kareem over the phone.
Kareem froze, knowing Hasham hated excuses. “We tried. But the lady next door kept talking to the grandmother. Then the lady left, and these two Jehovah Witness guys walk up. They’re still showing stuff to the grandmother.
“When they leave, take the girl! Fast!” Hasham said, hanging up.
Kareem exhaled, relieved Hasham didn’t go ballistic as usual.
“What did Hasham say?” Fadoul, his partner, asked.
“He said when the Jehovah guys leave, we take the girl.”
“Take her picture. I got the camera.”
“No. Hasham wants her picture and the girl.”
”Why?”
“More leverage with her mom, Doctor Northam.”
Fadoul shook his head. “I don’t like grabbing and scaring little kids.”
“I don’t like disobeying Hasham. People who do, disappear!”
Fadoul cursed and began fingering his Arab misbahah worry beads.
Kareem looked at Fadoul’s uniform. “Button your shirt! We gotta look like real Maryland Gas and Electric guys.”
Fadoul buttoned his shirt.
“Remember,” Kareem said, “we tell the grandmother we’re here to check the gas leak near her house.”
“She’ll say she don’t smell no gas . . .”
“We say that’s the problem! This gas doesn’t have enough rotten-egg smell. It’s real dangerous. We’re here to fix it . . . prevent an explosion, save her life.”
Fadoul frowned. “I hate waiting around. Why don’t we just go tell the Jehovah guys to take off! Say we got a serious gas problem here!”
“Are you crazy? Let them see our faces. Testify against us later?”
Fadoul cursed, opened the window and spit out a gob of green khat, dribbling some down onto his shirt.
“Look!” Kareem said.
“What?”
“The Jehovah guys are leaving.”
“Let’s go.”
Kareem and Fadoul flicked their Beretta safeties off, stepped from their Maryland Gas and Electric van, and walked toward the house.
* * *
Donovan marveled at Ginny Beauregard, an attractive young video wizard, as she magically enhanced the security tape from the LEATHER TRENDS store. They sat in an FBI’s visual-tech center with Agent Manning, Lindee, and Jacob.
“Got ‘em!” Ginny said. “The computer just nailed the words on the side of the Chevy van!”
“What are they?” Manning asked.
“American Transit,” she said. “The computer also confirmed the NASCAR bumper sticker and that the las
t three license plate numbers are six-eight-nine.”
“This helps a ton, Ginny. Thanks,” Donovan said.
Manning grabbed his ringing phone, listened, and hung up. “We just eliminated twenty-two more white Chevy vans. Mostly plumbers, electricians, florists, painters, AC guys.”
Donovan‘s phone rang and he saw it was a fellow CIA Agent, Lonnie Laker.
“What’s up, Lonnie?” Donovan punched the speaker button.
“We’re driving to Jacob Northam’s mother’s house to guard Nell’s daughter. But Google shows her house is surrounded by thick forest in back.”
Jacob Northam nodded. “The forest comes right to mom’s back door.”
“Perfect for breaking in unseen,” Laker said.
“I’ll send an FBI team over now!“ Manning said.
“How far away are you from her house?”
“Maybe fifteen minutes. But we got a problem.”
“What?
“Tractor trailer-car accident ahead on 95. Traffic is already backing up.”
“Can you exit?”
“Yeah. In two miles.”
“Drive down the shoulder!”
“I am.”
“Drive faster!” Manning said, hanging up.
Donovan’s phone rang instantly. A fellow CIA agent. He hit the speaker button.
“What’s up Dirk?”
“Good lead maybe. A police officer in upstate New York saw a white Chevy van pull out of a rest area. Ten minutes later, he saw our bulletin. This sounds good, Donovan. He’s on my line. I‘m connecting you. Go ahead . . .”
“You there Officer?” Donovan asked.
“Yes.”
“Were there three dark-skinned men in the van?”
“Yes.”
“Woman in back?”
“Yep, slouched down.”
“What was she wearing?”
Pause. “I saw a white blouse and something red around her neck. Maybe a scarf.”
Lindee jumped to her feet. “That’s her!”
“Did you see writing on the side of the van?”
“No. I only saw back of the van.”
“Did you notice a sticker on the left rear bumper?”
“Yeah. A racing sticker. Maybe Holley or AC Delco. No wait – it was red, blue, white . . . like NASCAR I think.”
Donovan’s heart jackhammered. “Where’d you see the van?”
“Upstate New York. Between the towns of Gloversville and Mayfield. Near the Adirondack Park.”
“Heading which direction?”
“Toward the Park.”
“Alert all police in the area. We’ll move additional agents there now,” Manning said.
They hung up.
“This feels solid,” Donovan said. “But there’s a problem.”
“What?” Jacob said.
“The Adirondack forest.”
“Why?”
“It’s six million square miles of trees.”
“You could hide Rhode Island in there,” Manning said.
FIFTEEN
Fifty feet beneath the Adirondack forest, Nell adjusted her HazMat suit as she hunched over the Meiji MT 6000 fluorescent microscope. The Meiji was state-of-the-art, like every piece of lab equipment surrounding her. Clearly, Hasham had vast financial backing.
Enough to acquire his massive amount of weaponized nerve agent . . . capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people in minutes.
The question was how would he deliver the deadly VX to his intended victims? How was the key. She had to find out.
“I assume you’re dispersing VX by air?”
Hasham said nothing.
“Or VX in water?”
He shrugged.
“VX in food?”
Another shrug.
“How can I assist you if I don’t know your delivery system?”
“Not your concern, Doctor. But perhaps later I’ll share my ingeniously unique system with you.”
“What’s so unique about it?”
“Everything. It’s unlike any delivery system ever considered for this weapon. No one at Aberdeen, or Fort Detrick, or any other government, would ever envision it. Not in their wildest dreams!” He puffed up with pride.
She sensed he wanted to brag more, but probably feared she might somehow find a way to tell authorities.
“Unlike any delivery system?” she said. “That’s very hard to believe.”
“Why?”
“Because many VX delivery systems have already been tested.”
“Trust me. Never, ever, anything like this!”
Which terrified her, because he seemed to be telling the truth. So even if she found a way to tell authorities he was using VX gas – she couldn’t tell them how he would attack with it . . .
. . . or who the victims would be . . .
. . . or when he would strike . . .
. . . or where . . .
But why, she wondered, would he use a new untested delivery system? It made no sense . . . unless he positively knew it would work . . . and knew the authorities would not expect it . . . and knew they couldn’t stop it once he launched it.
All terrifying possibilities.
Or . . . was Hasham flat out lying to her? Would he use a proven, regular VX delivery system?
Two hours earlier, Hasham had forced her to start blending his mystery substance into the VX nerve gas, following his exacting mix ratios and tolerances. The blending required intense concentration and her specific experience.
Knowing the identity of the mystery substance might reveal how he’d attack.
But how could she warn authorities? The cabin’s two doors were key-locked from the inside and the men carried all keys and phones in their pockets.
She watched him check her work every few seconds. How did he learn about her highly classified work at Aberdeen? That information only existed on Aberdeen’s closed InTRAnet, an Air-Gap system physically separated from the Internet. Information about her work could not be obtained through the Internet.
But if a seventeen-year-old Ukrainian kid compromised fifty million Target credit cards, and someone cracked into Home Depot’s and J.P. Morgan’s customer bases, and North Korea cracked into Sony’s internal systems, and Russian hackers broke into the Democratic party files, maybe someone circumvented Aberdeen’s Air-Gap system and pulled her personal information from Human Resources files.
Or did someone at work betray her? She’d worked well with her co-workers. Minor disagreements on occasion. On the other hand, people told her she was far too trusting. Maybe she was. Three months ago, she told a colleague her idea for a more efficient process for producing an antidote. A week later, he presented some of her work as his. Fortunately, their supervisor knew it was her work and demoted the guy. Was he so angry he betrayed her to these terrorists?
She glanced at some file folders, as Hasham placed them on his lab bench. The file labels indicated biological agents and chemical weapons. Clearly, the man had solid scientific credentials. He was confident and relaxed in the lab, and obviously familiar with the weaponization of a wide range of lethal agents.
And his knowledge of weapon delivery systems and corresponding kill rates proved he’d worked extensively in biochemical and nerve agent weapon systems. His accent suggested schooling in England.
“How’s the blending?” he said.
She had to stall him. “The blend consistency is not quite right. It’s taking longer.”
“You will finish by this evening.”
“But it’s - ”
“ - this evening, Doctor! By 8 p.m.”
She had to slow the process, find some way to sabotage the blending process.
“I can’t promise - ”
“I can promise that your daughter Mia will fetch a handsome price from my rich sheik friend. He’s seen her photo and is already quite smitten with her lovely blue eyes.”
Nell’s stomach churned.
“But I have no proof you have her.”
/>
He stared back.
“I want proof of life. I must see her. How else can I know?”
“You doubt me?”
“Yes! Until I see her!”
“You doubt she’s in good hands?”
“I must see her!”
Grinning, he took out his iPhone and seconds later, she was looking at a video of Mia sitting on the couch in her mother-in-law’s house. Mia looked terrified. Beside her, a masked man beside held a large curved knife.
Nell’s eyes flooded with tears.
“As you can see, Doctor, she’s in excellent hands. Not to worry.”
Nell couldn’t speak. She bent over the microscope. A tear spilled onto the lens, blurring her vision. She had to blend the weapon, but also stall a bit, claiming she didn’t know why the blending process was proving so complicated.
Would Hasham believe her? Probably not. The problem was he was always close by, watching her, checking the blending process, learning how she did it. And he was smart enough to know when she was doing something incorrectly.
“This doesn’t seem to be working right,” she said. “Our blend equations are not - ”
His dark eyes flashed anger.
“Make it right! Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention something.”
She waited.
“The sheik is a very religious man. But also a very strict traditionalist. You know what that means . . .?”
She didn’t want to know.
“It means Mia must be circumcised.”
Nell’s heart stopped.
“No big deal. Just your basic female genital surgery. After all, we can’t have Mia seeking carnal pleasures with anyone but the sheik when she matures. You understand, of course.”
Nell felt like she might pass out.
Mia would be gone forever . . . she would be circumcised, maybe with an old rusty knife and without anesthesia like millions of young girls worldwide are butchered each year, some only weeks old.
Perspiration ran down her face despite the air-conditioned bio suit.
Will I ever see my daughter again?
* * *
BEL AIR NORTH, MARYLAND
Special CIA Agent Lonnie Laker grew worried when he saw a Maryland Gas & Electric van in front of Nell Northam’s mother-inlaw’s home. He pointed out the van to his partner, Agent Young.