Once Stalked (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 9)

by Blake Pierce

  “Yeah,” Lucy said.

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Aw, shucks, it’s just our job,” Lucy said in the same playful tone.

  Riley had never known either of the two to be silly. She was surprised by this obvious flirtation.

  Lucy told Sam, “We need to do a comprehensive search of all the personnel who have come and gone on Fort Mowat lately, both civilian and military.”

  “What kind of parameters do you want?” Sam asked.

  Lucy looked at Riley expectantly.

  Riley thought for a few seconds. Then she said, “Let’s start by looking for civilians who work on the base and were once in the Army.”

  “Anything else?”

  Riley paused to think again.

  She said, “See if you can narrow it down to people who learned sharpshooting skills in the military.”

  “Right-o,” Sam said, starting to type away.

  “How long do you think it will take, Sammy?” Lucy asked.

  Sam chuckled.

  “Just time me, Lucita.”

  While Flores’s fingers clattered away at his computer, Riley led Bill away from the table.

  She asked him in a whisper, “Are Lucy and Sam an item?”

  Bill chuckled quietly and whispered back, “You didn’t know? I thought everybody did. I’m not sure it’s serious yet, but it definitely seems to be a thing.”

  Bill walked back over to the table.

  Riley was dumbstruck. How could she have missed something like this when it had been going on right under her nose?

  Some detective I am, she thought.

  In the moments that Riley waited for Flores’s results, a different concern flashed through her mind. She hadn’t heard from Hatcher.

  He’d said …

  “You’d damn well better make sure nobody else comes around here.”

  She had also sent another text to Shirley but the woman was erratic and unpredictable.

  Riley pulled out her cell phone and sent a text message to the number Hatcher had called from.

  I swear to U, I fired that woman.

  She sighed. What else could she do or say right now?

  She heard Flores’s voice from the computer.

  “I’ve got the info. How long did it take, Lucita?”

  Lucy grinned.

  “Thirty-five seconds on the dot, Sammy,” she said.

  “Liar. I’ll bet you weren’t even timing me.”

  Lucy giggled.

  “Sorry. I just couldn’t take my eyes off your adorable face.”

  Riley rejoined Bill at the table. They stood looking at the screen over Lucy’s shoulders.

  “What have you got, Flores?” Riley asked.

  Flores’s eyes darted over the information he’d found.

  He said, “About an eighth of the civilians who now work on the base once served in the Army. Of those, only twelve seem to have achieved exceptional sharpshooting skills.”

  Riley’s nerves quickened. Flores was definitely narrowing things down.

  She asked, “Do any of those twelve stand out in any way?”

  Flores peered closely at the records.

  He said, “You’ve got to be considering Islamic extremism, right?”

  Riley was startled. In spite of the two colonels insisting that’s what they were dealing with, her gut had told her otherwise. But of course, she couldn’t say they’d ruled it out.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Well, I’ve got one hit if I also sort by ethnicity, and he really stands out. His name is Omar Shaheed, and his parents emigrated from Yemen. He’s been working on a construction team for a couple of on-base building projects.”

  Riley scratched her chin.

  She asked, “What can you tell me about his record?”

  Flores said, “He served a three-year term of duty but never saw combat. He had some psych issues during his term. But he was exceptional in most respects, including marksmanship. He got an honorable discharge, and he didn’t have any trouble getting civilian clearance.”

  Riley thought for a few seconds.

  “All three murders were at night. Do you know the actual times?” she asked Flores.

  “Yes,” Flores said.

  Riley then said, “Shaheed had to sign in and out on the base whenever he came or went. There must be records of that. See if he was there during those times.”

  They all waited while Flores’s fingers danced on his keyboard again.

  “Holy smoke,” he said. “He’s been working lots of night shifts—including the hours when the three sergeants were killed.”

  “Have you got an address for him?” Riley asked.

  “Yes,” Flores said. “He lives in a little town called Cordele. It’s near Fort Mowat.”

  Riley could sense her partners’ rising excitement.

  “Is he on the base right now?” Bill asked.

  Flores typed a bit, then said, “No, this is down time. He’s scheduled to be back at work tonight.”

  “Give us that address,” Riley said. “We’ll get over there right away.”

  As Riley and her colleagues got ready to leave, she felt a rush of alarm.

  Had Adams and Larson been right that this was a case of Islamic terrorism?

  Had Riley’s hunch been wrong?

  Was she losing her edge?

  She felt sure of one thing—that Col. Larson and her team would soon narrow their search to the same man, if they hadn’t already.

  She was determined to talk to this Omar Shaheed before he got swept up by the CID.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  During the drive to the town where Omar Shaheed lived, Lucy couldn’t stop thinking about Sam Flores. She’d always found it fun to talk with Quantico’s head techno geek, and took every chance she got to do so.

  She told herself sternly to get her head into the game at hand.

  We’ve got a bad guy to catch.

  And it seemed likely that they were going to pick him up very soon. They could go back to Quantico and she could turn her attention to Sam. She’d found it obvious for a while now that he was just as interested in her as she was in him.

  But they still hadn’t gone out on a date yet.

  Sam seemed too shy to ask her, so it was going to be up to her to ask him.

  When Lucy had first noticed the spark between them, she checked the FBI rules about fraternization. She found no rules at all against FBI personnel dating each other.

  She’d been surprised—and relieved.

  Lucy studied Agent Paige’s face as Agent Jeffreys drove. Lucy couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Agent Paige had obviously been surprised back at the cabin at the way she and Sam talked with each other. Apparently, she hadn’t already figured out that something might be going on between them. She wondered how she felt about the idea.

  Did she disapprove?

  Lucy’s heart sank at the very thought. Agent Paige was her hero, and the last thing she wanted to do was disappoint her.

  But maybe Agent Paige wouldn’t judge her too hard. After all, Lucy had noticed a certain sexual tension between Agent Paige and Agent Jeffreys from time to time. She wondered, had they ever acted on it? Did they even consciously know about it?

  Well, it was none of Lucy’s business, and she sure wasn’t going to ask them about it.

  She just hoped that Agent Paige wasn’t going to see her own possible budding romance as a problem.

  Well, I just can’t let it be a problem, Lucy thought. Starting right now I’m going to be OK with it.

  She decided to put Sam out of her mind as long as they were working on the case.

  When she got back to Quantico, she’d make her move.

  Right now, Lucy was a little worried about Agent Paige. She’d seemed taken aback by the news that their suspect was a Muslim. That was hardly surprising, since Agent Paige had been so adamant with Col. Larson about her hunch that the killings had nothing to do with Islamic extremism.

  Lu
cy knew that it was an honest mistake—if it was a mistake. It wasn’t like Agent Paige’s skills were starting to slip.

  Lucy wanted to tell Agent Paige not to take it too hard, but of course, that would probably make her feel worse.

  When Agent Jeffreys drove them into Cordele, Lucy saw that it was an ordinary little Southern California town. There was no grass in the yards, but there was a variety of decorative plants around the homes, and palm trees towered here and there.

  They drove through a neighborhood of upscale housing and finally arrived on a street of smaller homes set closely together. Agent Jeffreys parked in front of the address that Sam had given them.

  It was a little manufactured house with a carport on one side. A pickup truck was parked there, with its hood raised. A man was bent over the engine, working on it.

  As Lucy and her partners walked toward him, he looked up from the engine. He was dark-skinned and curly-haired.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  Lucy noticed no accent in his voice.

  Lucy and her partners produced their badges and introduced themselves.

  “Are you Omar Shaheed?” Agent Jeffreys asked.

  “Yeah,” the man said. “Is something the matter?”

  Lucy thought she heard a note of nervousness in his voice. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Just about anybody would become nervous when approached by three FBI agents.

  “We would like to talk with you for a few minutes,” Agent Paige said. “May we come inside?”

  Shaheed’s dark eyes darted about nervously.

  “What’s this all about?” he asked.

  Agent Jeffreys asked, “Are you aware of the three recent murders at Fort Mowat?”

  Shaheed nodded.

  “Yeah. Terrible thing.”

  Agent Paige asked, “Can you account for your whereabouts when Sergeant Clifford Worthing was killed?”

  Shaheed was shifting his weight from foot to foot uneasily. Lucy felt her suspicion rising. She was sure that her colleagues felt the same.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “When was it exactly?”

  Agent Jeffreys told him the time and date of the murder.

  The man smiled a little. Lucy didn’t know how to read that smile.

  “I was on the base,” Shaheed said. “I’ve been working construction on two new building sites there. We’ve been working crazy round-the-clock hours.”

  “What’s the nature of your work there?” Agent Paige asked.

  “I drive a truck,” Shaheed said. “I move materials from site to site.”

  Lucy noticed his eyes shifting toward an open tool cabinet along the wall of the carport.

  Agent Paige said, “We’d like to come inside and talk.”

  In a blindingly fast movement, Shaheed reached into the cabinet. Before any of the agents could draw their weapons, he had a semiautomatic pistol in his hand. Lucy recognized it as a Beretta 92.

  Lucy saw that Agent Paige had her gun half drawn, but she slid it back in place.

  Shaheed swung his weapon back and forth, pointing at one agent and then another.

  “Get your hands in the air,” he said. His voice had a tone of desperation.

  “You don’t want to do this,” Agent Paige said.

  “I said get your hands in the air.”

  Lucy knew that neither she nor her colleagues could take out a weapon without one of them getting shot. As they all raised their hands, she saw that Agents Paige and Jeffreys each took a step sideways, moving a bit farther away from each other.

  “Now get on the ground, face down,” he said.

  Agent Paige and Agent Jeffreys just stood there, staring at the man. They obviously had no intention of complying. They weren’t going to put themselves at that much of a disadvantage. Facing Shaheed, sooner or later one of them could make a move.

  Lucy also stood her ground. She knew it was a risk. Of course Agents Paige and Jeffreys knew that too. She watched them carefully. When one of them moved she would follow their lead.

  “Get down, I said,” Shaheed barked.

  The agents still did nothing. Lucy felt that the air was crackling with tension. She could see hesitation in the man’s face now. He had realized that if he shot any one of the agents, he would immediately be killed by one of the others.

  Without a word, Shaheed wheeled around and darted out through the open back of the carport. As Lucy and her partners drew their weapons and followed, he disappeared through a gate in a tall fence.

  When the three agents dashed through the gate, they found themselves looking up and down an empty alley.

  “Which way do you think he went?” Lucy asked.

  “We’ll have to split up,” Agent Paige said.

  He can’t have gotten very far,” Agent Jeffreys said.

  Lucy took off in a run down the alley to the left, and Agent Paige went in the other direction. Agent Jeffreys started checking each potential hiding place nearby.

  Lucy ran as fast as she could, looking in all directions as she ran. Most of the fences along the alley were tall, but some were short enough to see over. Over one of those, she glimpsed motion between two houses.

  It was Shaheed.

  He must have cut through a yard, because he was now running along the sidewalk in front of the houses.

  Without pausing to think, Lucy leaped over the fence and tore between the two houses. When she reached the sidewalk, Shaheed was just a short distance away. He was still holding the gun in his right hand.

  She drew her weapon.

  “Freeze!” she shouted.

  Shaheed skidded to a stop.

  “Put down your weapon!” she yelled.

  Shaheed just stood there facing away from her.

  “Put down your weapon, I said.”

  Instead, Shaheed slowly turned toward her, still holding the Beretta at his side.

  Lucy gulped hard. She understood the choice she had to make. She had learned from her training that now was the time to use deadly force.

  But she couldn’t bring herself pull the trigger. She’d never killed anyone. She’d always known that this day would come. But she had no idea that she’d freeze like this.

  Time seemed stop, and Lucy felt frozen.

  Am I really going to let him kill me? she wondered.

  Suddenly she heard a voice shouting.

  “Put down the weapon!”

  It was Agent Jeffreys’ voice. Then he emerged from between two houses, his weapon drawn.

  Agent Paige appeared from behind Lucy. She also had her gun in hand.

  Lucy realized that they both had heard her shout. They had come to help.

  “Put down the weapon!” Agent Paige yelled. “Now.”

  This time Shaheed stooped down and put his gun on the sidewalk.

  Agent Jeffreys yelled, “Hands behind your back! Now!”

  Shaheed complied.

  Agent Jeffreys handcuffed him and read him his rights.

  “Good work,” Agent Paige told Lucy. “If you hadn’t been alert and made it here so fast, he’d have gotten away.”

  Lucy’s hand shook as she holstered her weapon.

  “I should have shot him,” she said.

  “Yeah, you should have,” Agent Paige said, giving her a sharp look. “You should have defended yourself. It would have been correct procedure.”

  “If you hadn’t gotten here—”

  “You got lucky. But we’re all lucky to take him alive. And you caught him. Agent Jeffreys and I will get him into the car. You go take a look inside the house.”

  As Agents Paige and Jeffreys hustled Shaheed toward the car, Lucy hurried toward Shaheed’s little house. The front door was unlocked, so she walked on inside.

  The small living room was neat and simple, with abstract Islamic decor here and there on the walls. She continued on into the house’s single small bedroom. It was even plainer than the living room, with no decorations whatsoever—just a single bed, a chest of drawers,
and a prayer rug on the floor.

  But when Lucy stooped down to look under the bed, she saw that seemingly countless weapons were stuffed in there. They looked like military weapons, including sniper rifles, and boxes of ammunition. She went to the chest and opened one drawer. It, too, was full of weapons. Then she went over to the closet and opened it.

  It was packed too, with dynamite and what looked like ingredients needed to make other explosives.

  Lucy shuddered as she tried to take it all in.

  This looked like preparations for something big. What kind of attack had Shaheed been planning?

  And who else was involved?

  Because he certainly hadn’t put together this arsenal by himself, just for his own use.

  Lucy wanted to feel relieved that they’d prevented whatever had been about to happen. But somehow, no relief kicked in.

  She had a hunch that their work wasn’t anywhere near over.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Riley stood with Bill looking through the two-way mirror into the CID’s interrogation room. Inside the small, brightly lit room, Lucy was questioning Omar Shaheed. The prisoner was manacled to a table and Lucy sat facing him from the other side. Riley could see the young agent scanning the prisoner’s face, watching for any response to her words.

  “She’s doing good work in there,” Bill said.

  “She sure is,” Riley said. “She’s always been good at this kind of thing.”

  Riley was glad that she’d arranged for Lucy to take the first crack at interrogating Shaheed. She hadn’t drawn any information out of him yet, but she was just getting started.

  In fact, Lucy’s interrogation techniques were quite exceptional. All alone, she was managing to alternate between “bad cop” and “good cop” modes of questioning—by turns insulting and empathetic.

  Riley observed that even Lucy’s “bad cop” had a disarming sweetness about it.

  Lucy said to Shaheed, “I could have killed you, you know.”

  Shaheed smirked at her bitterly.

  “You should have done it,” Shaheed said to Lucy.

  Lucy smiled across the table at him.

  “That wouldn’t have been much of a martyrdom, would it—getting nobody killed but yourself? You want to take out as many infidels as you can. And to be killed by a woman … well, Allah surely wouldn’t be very pleased by that, would he? I’ll bet there wouldn’t be all those virgins waiting for you in paradise.”