She cried as I held her close to me. “What about Waters and the missiles?” I asked.
“Waters is Alpha Charlie.”
“I had a feeling, but still—”
“It’s true. He’s a highly paid hit man. Omar and his group are going to send Silkworm missiles to destroy his control station when I find it, and I think it’s somewhere around the hospital. If I don’t find it soon, they’ll probably kill me and just bomb the whole town.”
“That makes a lot of sense. We use to play video games for days. I’ll bet Waters is good with drones. But do you really think the drone controls are in the hospital?”
“Yes … No … I don’t know. I’m not sure. Maybe we were wrong. If I tell them the controls are in the hospital and they’re not, they’ll be even harder on me.”
“How can you do this? By not going to U.S. authorities, a lot of people will be killed.”
“I don’t know! I don’t want to hurt innocent people, you have to believe me!” she cried. “But if I find the drone control center and report Waters’ whereabouts to them, I’ll be free! If I don’t, they’ll be after me for the rest of my life or until they catch me and torture me to death!”
I pulled her into my arms and held her. As we rocked together, I whispered into her ear, “We’ll find Alpha Charlie and make things right. And somehow, we’ll stop them from firing their missiles. I promise.”
“That’s why I couldn’t tell you this earlier. They’ll kill you, too, just the way they’ll kill me. It’s so horrible, you can’t imagine. It’s not like they’re directed by ISIS; Farok’s men are Congolese and do things like ancient tribesmen did centuries ago. They are known to slice off pieces of victims and eat them while the victim watches. Can you understand why I’m so afraid?”
I sat on the bed and held her tightly. I understood her fear of Farok and her need to save herself. “You kept me from killing myself. Now, it’s my turn to save you.”
Exhausted, we slept fitfully through the night.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Keyes’ Apartment
7:41 am
AS WE LAY IN her bed together, Keyes’ computer suddenly emitted a short musical alarm. She jumped out of bed and began reading a message on the screen. She turned to me and spoke fast. “To prove to you that I’m telling the truth, read this.”
DRONES ARE ACTIVE. PAST HISTORY SAYS HE WILL KILL IN THE NEXT EIGHTEEN HOURS. ACCELERATE YOUR SEARCH. THIS IS YOUR ONE LAST CHANCE OR YOU WILL BE ELIMINATED.
“Is this from Farok?”
“Yes.”
“Is he the one who gave you the watch?”
She nodded her head and wiped her eyes. “It was his money that paid your bail.
“You paid my bail? … Using that pig’s filthy money?” She dropped her head and just nodded. “The house in Chapel Hill was yours and Simpkins’, right?
“That was to be my safe house. But the Pakistanis came and set up operations there. Simpkins never actually stayed at the place. Then, Farok rented a farm in Ellsburg for me to set up my computer stuff. I went to the Emmaus Church house once—to instruct Simpkins on where to plant his mics and take photographs. Farok hired him to help me find drone control.”
“Did you ever meet Hormand?”
“Why do you ask?”
“When I was looking through your things, I saw a photograph of an old, balding man in Arabic dress.”
She laughed and looked away from me. “Yes. That was Hormand, but I saw him only once, at a party with Omar.”
“So how did Waters get involved in all this?”
“Omar learned that Waters was the main drone operator in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and he paid me to get to know more about him. I told you that Waters and I were acquaintances. That was a half-truth. In actuality, as part of my mission for Omar, I dated him a few times. I convinced Waters to get me the job in your office so I could be close to him. He thought it was to date him more, but in reality, it was really just so I could keep an eye on him and locate his drone operation. Since I’ve been here, I’ve tried to call him and see him, but he won’t even talk to me.”
Keyes got up and went to her computer. I sat at her side as she sent an email message to Quasart: “The entire complex explored. No clues found as to location of Charlie or his commend center. I need sonograms of the land around the hospital. Maybe site is underground.”
I looked her in the eyes. “We’ll locate Waters’ drone control to leverage your release from ISIS. Farok has given you a reprieve of a few hours. That may be just enough.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
The Penthouse
9:05 am
WATERS CALLED SHIRLEY MOSS into his office. As she walked in, he stood and frowned. “I can’t locate Detective Harris,” he said calmly. “Get him on the line for me.”
After ten minutes on the phone, she still didn’t have Harris.
Waters screamed, “When I tell you to do something, I expect promptness!” Waters’ personal security, the gigantic Michael Jefferson, towered nearby, stone-faced.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Waters, but he’s not answering either of his numbers, and no one seems to know where he is.”
“Then get his buddy Scott James on the line for me. They have something going on. Harris let him out of jail when I told him to keep him locked up. Call Elizabeth Keyes. She’ll know where he is.”
James answered after eight rings.
Waters yanked the receiver out of Shirley Moss’ hand and said, in a quiet tone, “Hello, Elizabeth. I need to locate Dr. James.”
“Well, so nice to hear from you, Herb.”
The veins in Waters’ neck and face swelled, and his face became fiery red. “So, you and Keyes are shacking up together. You have her out spying on me, don’t you?”
“Herb, you had a chance to have her, but like everything else, you blew it.”
“If you fuck with me again, Scott, you’ll be sorry. I need to speak to your pal, Pete Harris.”
“He’s tied up at the moment. Do you wish to leave him a message?”
“When you see Harris, tell him to call me! Right away!” He slammed down the receiver and stood at his secretary’s desk.
Shirley looked down at her computer before gritting her teeth and standing. “I always liked Dr. James. What do you have against him?”
Waters suddenly grabbed a half-full cup of lukewarm coffee and threw it at her, striking her chest and splattering lukewarm coffee all over her and her desk. She started to cry and looked away.
He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Look at me when I talk to you!”
Coffee dripped from her face as she looked into his dark eyes.
“If you ever betray me like Harris and James have, you’ll be out of a job and I’ll see to it you never work anywhere in this country again for the rest of your life. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Waters returned to his office and kicked the door closed.
Shirley went to the bathroom, washed coffee from her face and tried to remove the coffee stains from her white blouse. She came back to her desk. Her phone rang, but she ignored it. She picked up the coffee-soaked letters she’d typed that morning and threw them in the trash. She started to leave, but turned and went back and opened Waters’ door.
Waters looked up. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Home. And I won’t be coming back. Ever!”
She slammed the door as she left.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
The Penthouse
Noon
HERB WATERS WAS IN a rage. Controlling his vast empire put an unfair strain on him, he felt. He needed rest. And sex. He turned on the Skype program, and Elayna appeared nude on the screen.
Elayna performed and then gave Waters a few moments to collect himself, then turned to t
he screen. “When can I expect you?”
“I have three weeks of work to do. After that, you’ll be at the top of my list.”
“Make us lots of money, sweetheart. I need some things from Cartier.”
Jackson City Hospital
12:31 pm
Waters left the suite and entered the Penthouse’s private elevator. He pressed the Express Sub-Basement button, and felt the swift drop. After just a brief moment, the elevator’s doors rolled open to reveal the Sub-Basement, a long, dimly-lit tunnel that led away from the hospital. Waters walked swiftly down the narrow corridor, illuminated only briefly by piercing white bulbs. For a brief moment, no one on earth knew where Alpha Charlie was.
Keyes’ Apartment
12:33 pm
I had to relay all the new information to Harris. Keyes went to take a shower, and I used the opportunity to slip outside to the stairwell.
I dialed Harris’ number. The dispatcher said Harris was “on assignment” and not in his office. The detective’s mobile phone was off, too, the dispatcher said.
Oh, God. What should I do? What can I do?
“But this is extremely important!”
“Yes, we know you think your case is important, Dr. James. I’ll tell Detective Harris as soon as he reports in.”
A knot formed in my stomach as I sat there feeling helpless, wild thoughts swirling through my mind. I turned off the phone and stood for moment.
Elizabeth Keyes almost pulled the doorknob off the front door of her apartment, swinging it open suddenly and shouting, “Waters is on the move!” Her hair was wet and she was wearing wrinkled clothes that she’d just thrown on. She turned and yelled over her shoulder, “Get your shit together! And bring your Browning pistol and the ten clips!”
My head spinning, I ran to the guest room and threw my stuff and the gun into a small duffel bag.
I ran to Keyes’ bedroom. She zipped her suitcase and threw her laptop into a briefcase. I followed close behind as she ran out of the apartment, down the steps, and to her car. She reached into the trunk and grabbed a blue gym bag and put it in the back seat. We jumped in, and she gunned it.
We’d gone only a block when Keyes spotted a black Lincoln Continental. “Duck!” she shouted, as we passed the black car. The Continental pulled onto the street directly behind us. Keyes whipped the Honda onto a side street. She grabbed her cell phone and punched in a number. “Help me,” she said into the phone. “Someone’s following. Meet me at the parking garage.”
Keyes drove fast, dodging through back streets to get to the parking garage beside the Hancock Building. The Continental followed our every turn. “We’ve definitely got a tail,” I said. “I think that may be Waters’ man. I don’t think it’s Farok’s hit men.”
“Someone was following me yesterday. Probably with the government.”
“Jesus!” I said. “The government?”
“Just shut the fuck up and duck your head between your legs.” She drove to the ground floor of the parking garage and stopped, leaving the motor running. A tall, buxom, black-haired woman ran from the shadows and jumped into the driver’s side. Keyes said, “Good luck, Anna,” then reached behind and grabbed the gym bag and jumped out of the Honda. She ran behind a nearby car, crouched, then turned and yelled, “Get out, Scott!”
Before jumping out of the car, I looked at the new driver. It was the same woman who had delivered the large cardboard cylinder to Keyes the night before I’d made the calls to Texas. So this was the mysterious Anna Duke.
I ran over to the parked cars and hunched down beside Keyes.
Duke floored it, and just as she roared out the far side of the parking garage, the Continental appeared at the other end and accelerated after her.
Keyes and I quickly and cautiously walked to the second floor. I followed her to a black Toyota Corolla. She knelt down and removed a key from under the car. “Get in,” she said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Keyes’ Apartment
12:59 pm
ROY PERKINS HADN’T HEARD from Harris in forty-eight hours now. No one had. He decided to use the information that Scott James had given to Harris, and pull the plug. He had to end this thing before it was too late and more people got hurt.
Perkins’ people hit Keyes’ apartment, picking the lock silently and slipping in unobserved. Obviously Keyes and her new doctor friend had just fled. Perkins’ “cleaners” worked the place over. The electronics and the databases would take time to sort out. The documents, most of them having been cross-shredded, could also be sorted out, in time. The cleaners searched every nook and cranny of the apartment, top to bottom.
Rectangular shapes on the dust-covered bedroom floor and bedroom furniture indicated that larger pieces of equipment had been removed from the apartment in the past twenty-four hours. Fingerprints were taken throughout, and sent back to Peary. CIA forensics ran through the worldwide databases and found only James’ print matched.
A record of Keyes, on the other hand, could not be found.
The Swan Motel
Jackson City, North Carolina
1:02 pm
Piecing together the names and addresses that James had acquired, Perkins could see that he had to keep this thing quiet. He knew where part of the ISIS cell was, but not the location of Quasart, or the missiles that James claimed had to be out there somewhere.
Perkins dispatched two teams to The Swan Motel.
The Pakistani bugging team in the motel room had benefited from Harold Simpkins’ nefarious deeds. They’d heard enough to know that they could be discovered at any moment. As soon as they heard the helicopter overhead, they began grabbing their already-packed bags.
Their van was waiting, parked nose out. They flooded out of the motel room and immediately heard faint whooshes from the sky as snipers started picking them off.
A helicopter touched down briefly in the parking lot and two men jumped out. The aircraft took off, and the two from Perkins’ team found the key, started the van, and then pulled the bodies aboard and took off.
The aircraft and the van were gone within minutes of the assault.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Jackson City
2:59 pm
KEYES DROVE AWAY FROM the garage and through the back streets. Her face was red and she was breathing excitedly. “There’s no time to waste, Scott. You promised to help me, and now you have to fulfill that promise. I’ve looked everywhere in the hospital for the drone control center and have tried to follow Waters to it. Even though he stays somewhere in the hospital when he’s firing his missiles, I’ve never been able to find him.”
“I don’t understand why you need me.”
“I’ve been all over his Penthouse and there’s no control station there. I’ve even placed surveillance cameras all over the hospital and the Penthouse. His drones are flying over Iraq now as we speak. He’ll go to his station to fire his missiles sometime today, which means that I’m dead soon if we can’t figure this out.”
“I still don’t know what you want me to do.”
“You know the hospital better than anyone, and you know Waters. Maybe you can think of something I’ve missed.”
Looking into her eyes, I saw something I’d never seen before: Panic.
My head was screaming. “I’m not going to help you bomb the hospital.”
“There may be another way.”
She looked at me.
“Scott, they’re going to kill me.”
“They’re going to kill me, too,” I said, “But if there are missiles somewhere waiting to be fired, and if Waters is in the hospital, then a lot of people will be killed in a missile attack on him. I will not be a part of that!”
Suddenly, Keyes’ phone signaled a text message. She read it aloud. “Celena: Waters has disappeared.”
“
Scott, maybe I can kill Waters and deactivate his control center. Maybe that will be enough. Maybe we can find Waters and stop him. If we do that, then maybe they won’t launch the missiles.”
I pleaded with her. “Let’s alert the police. Maybe I can convince them that this is a real terrorist threat.”
She made a sharp turn, which threw me against the car door. “Look, Scott, Farok programmed my cell phone for me. If I press “6” and “Send,” the missiles are sent. But if I press “8” and “Send” a suicide bomber will come. I never had any intention of dialing six and calling for missiles.”
“This is bullshit! These guys want to reap massive destruction on America! They’re just like the 9-11 attackers! And they’re not going to let you get in their way!” I yelled. “Where are these missiles? We have to stop them! Now!”
I picked up her phone to call the police. “Where are the DAMNED MISSILES?!” I shouted.
Keyes looked at me, eyes wide and mouth open. “I … I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me! WHERE ARE THEY?!”
She shook her head. “They don’t tell all their operatives everything. I learned that in the Al Qaeda training. In case someone is captured and tortured, they don’t know certain information. But Anna Duke will know.”
She punched in a number. Anna answered immediately. “Anna, where are the missiles right now?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Keyes asked again, begging Anna to tell her the location of the missiles, but Anna held firm. “Don’t give me any shit! Just find the target! Now! Or I’ll find you and kill you myself!”
Keyes almost rear-ended the car in front of us, swerving around it in the nick of time.
“We have to call the cops,” I shouted, “or the CIA, or someone, and get help!”
The Missile Game (The Dr. Scott James Thriller Series Book 1) Page 13