Cal had questioned the same thing. “I’m guessing he thinks I’m dumb enough to believe this is the entire device, but he left out a switch or two.”
“But why?”
“He thinks I’ll try to disarm June’s bomb, and he’ll end my life, too.”
“That’s right on target with his profile,” Shane said.
“Explain,” Rick said.
Shane rested a hand on the stack of photocopies. “I’ve been studying his journals where he documents his infatuation with Tara. He may not know it yet—shoot, he may never know it—but he wants her more than anything. So far, she’s been elusive, and he needs to alleviate the pain somehow, which is a logical explanation for why he’s detonating the bombs and killing women.”
Rick frowned. “I still don’t see why he’d tip his hand like this.”
“Simple.” Shane smiled. “He failed to get to Tara because Cal is protecting her. So he hates Cal, too. But, as our bomb expert, Cal’s a worthy adversary in Keeler’s mind. So he wants to show Cal how smart and skilled he is. To point out that he’s better than Cal, and he can take Tara out at any time despite Cal’s protection.” Shane faced Cal. “And maybe, as you said, let you try to disarm a device with limited knowledge and take you out along the way as well.”
Cal pondered Shane’s statement, and many things that Keeler had done now made more sense. “Then if Keeler has Tara, we’d better pray she can remind him of how he once cared for her. If not, he’ll release all of his pent-up anger on her.”
* * *
Dulles Airport area
Tara headed down a narrow walkway between large metal buildings until she found suite C, as directed by Oren. The closer she came, the faster her heart beat, pounding as if wanting to escape her chest. She rounded the corner. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she paused to listen.
The wind whispered down the path, but she heard only traffic whizzing past on the nearby freeway. She started walking again, moving ever closer to suite C. Deep in her soul, she knew she would soon feel the cool PVC of one of Oren’s bombs circling her neck.
Would she trust God then? Remain calm like June, or would fear cause her to panic?
If her perspiring palms and rapidly beating pulse were indicators, the latter was more likely. She prayed again as she continued on.
A door down the narrow alleyway opened and light flooded into the darkness.
“Hello, Tara.” Oren’s voice stabbed through the air like a bolt of fear grating on Tara’s nerves.
Her footsteps faltered for a moment, but then thoughts of the bomb circling June’s neck, of Cal perhaps in equal danger, urged Tara forward until she saw Oren. He wore the same shirt as in the Skype call, but now she could see that it hung to his knees over pants narrowing at the ankle.
He ran his hands over his clothing with a flourish. “I look a bit different than when we last met. An improvement on my Western ways, don’t you think?”
Her negative response would only serve to anger him, so she didn’t say anything.
He frowned and waved his handgun. “Come inside. Now!”
She brushed past him, making sure she focused ahead to avoid looking into the evil lurking in his eyes. She surveyed the cavernous space filled with large cardboard cartons and wooden crates in neat stacks. The musky scent of incense lingered in the air, and the lights were low. She looked for an incense burner but soon realized the smell came from within the crates. She saw no indication of bomb-making materials, but she suspected Oren was more careful with his supplies since the pump house incident.
She turned to look at him. His gaze flicked over her like a serpent’s tongue, leaving her feeling dirty and unsettled. His dirt-brown eyes were rimmed in red, his chin jutted out, and a challenge was building in his body language.
Needing to stall and at the same time figure out how to get away from him once he’d deactivated June’s bomb, she forced a calm into her voice that she didn’t feel. “What is this place?”
He arched a brow, his narrow face appearing longer. “A warehouse.”
Duh! She bent down to read an address label. “What does Unique India Arts do?”
“It’s an online business specializing in quality Indian imports.”
She remembered Cal saying that Nabijah Meer might have been Indian. “This is your connection to Nabijah.”
“Wait.” He shot across the room so fast he blurred in her eyes. “Say that again.”
“Nabijah Meer. Your accomplice. This is where you met her.”
“You are not fit to say Nabijah’s name.” He hauled back a hand and swung it toward Tara’s face, but she stepped back before he could connect.
His rage sent panic rushing through her veins, but she took a breath and let it out. “She’s special to you.”
“Special?” He seemed confused. “Oh, I get it. You think she’s my girlfriend, and you’re jealous.”
“Right,” Tara said to keep him talking.
He scratched his head, shifting the cap and messing up pageboy bangs that he must have hoped would cover his receding hairline. “Nabijah and I are only friends with the same goal.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “Which is?”
“To kill women who have turned their backs on the Islamic faith and let American infidels have their way with them. The way you did when you turned your back on me.” His words flew out like a curse, letting her see the depth of his anger, not only at her, but at these women, too.
“So that’s what your bombs are all about?” she asked, pretending calm when fear inched along her nerves. “Women who renounced their faith to have a relationship with American men?”
“Not a relationship. Letting these so-called Christians defile their purity.” He shuddered. “Nonmarital sex is punishable by execution, so they have to die, don’t you see?”
“I can see where in your very deluded mind that this makes sense, but how do you justify killing my friends? They weren’t Muslim. They’d done nothing wrong.”
He waved his gun in the air, and his eyes lost focus. “No, but they still fornicated.”
“Please. Bombing them was all about getting back at me.”
He gasped and advanced on her, his eyes narrowing into cold shards of ice.
She’d pushed him too far. She backed away, putting a large crate between them.
He raised his gun, pointed it at her forehead. “We’ll see who gets back at who.”
His focus fixed on her, he eased around the box like a large cat hunting its prey.
Panic cut deep into her being, sending her head spinning, but she took a breath. Then another. She refused to give in to the terror that he obviously wanted. He placed the gun against her forehead and smiled. His minty fresh breath wafted over her. Odd. She’d thought the odor would be as foul as his attitude.
“Turn around,” he commanded.
She complied, and the gun came up against the back of her head.
“Now walk straight ahead until you reach the office.”
She moved slowly, hoping, begging God to send Cal to her aid before Oren trapped her in a confined space. But all too soon, they reached the office holding a desk and three chairs. She stopped in the doorway to run her gaze over the walls displaying rainbow-colored tapestries, wooden flutes, drums, and exotic apparel like she’d seen in Bollywood movies.
He shoved her forward. “Sit.”
She settled into a wheeled chair, and the gun never left her head.
With his free hand, he opened a cardboard box on the table and withdrew a zip tie. “I only have one hand, so you’ll have to help me fasten your wrist to the chair.”
“And if I don’t?” She tried to put bravado into her tone.
“I detonate June’s bomb.” He chuckled.
His laughter held a hint of the boy she’d once played with. “What happened, Oren? To us, I mean. We were such good friends. I once thought nothing could ever come between us.”
“Until you discovered
the one thing most boys wanted from you.”
She swiveled to look up at him, and the gun briefly left her head until he jabbed it back into place. “You think I was sleeping around in high school?”
“Tommy Simmons said you were.”
“Tommy Simmons? I would never have gone out with him. Besides, no one believed a word Tommy said.”
“But he shared the intimate details with me. Told me about the birthmark on your lower back.”
“That wasn’t a secret. Anyone who’d seen me in a swimming suit could have described that.”
“He was very convincing, all right.”
“And so you shunned me.”
“What else was I to do?”
“Gee.” She filled her tone with sarcasm. “I don’t know. Ask me about it.”
“I couldn’t talk to you about that. It’s forbidden in my religion.”
“Please don’t tell me that a lie Tommy Simmons told our freshman year is the reason all these poor women had to die.”
“They had to die because of their promiscuity. You, on the other hand—”
“I what? Have to die because Tommy lied to you?”
He glared at her, his anger burning through the air. “Help me with the zip tie, or I will detonate June’s bomb.”
She believed he meant it, so she took the hard plastic strip from his hand and laid it over her wrist. Together they slipped the tab into the hole, and he jerked it tight. He placed the gun on a shelf out of her reach and fastened her other wrist.
He stepped around her, smoothed his beard, and pressed his hand down the front of his tunic as if she’d ruffled him. He opened another box, and from it, he withdrew a terrifying white PVC contraption she’d come to know as a necklace bomb.
Chapter 30
Washington, D.C.
Cal paced through the room as his teammates worked their assignments. He’d been leaning over the device for an hour now, and the muscles in his neck had stiffened, so he’d taken a break. He paused by the pictures he’d snapped of June’s device and mounted on the wall next to the dummy x-rays.
He was missing something, but what?
He noticed again the small hole on the right side of her bomb. After seeing Keeler’s perfectionism in aligning the seam of the dummy device, Cal doubted the hole was made in error. Which meant it had a purpose.
He flipped through Tara’s drawings and noted a bright red circle drawn around a small hole located in the same place as the one he observed on June. Okay, so Tara must have seen it in Keeler’s drawing this way, and the hole wasn’t an error. Cal needed to see the x-rays of June’s device to determine a reason for the hole. Problem was, he didn’t have them.
He’d left June’s farm before the tech had finished taking x-rays, and when Cal called to follow up on his lack of an e-mail copy, the tech had said they were having internal server issues, and he couldn’t forward them on until the issues were resolved. If that didn’t happen in the next fifteen minutes, Cal would pick them up himself.
His cell rang, and hoping it was the tech now, Cal eagerly grabbed his phone. Brynn’s name popped up instead.
“Tell me you have something for me,” he said.
“It’s a long shot, but maybe.”
“Go ahead.” He wished she was in D.C. rather than at the lab so they could talk face-to-face, but a call would have to do.
“I was waiting for a DNA sample to process and started looking at Keeler’s journals. I—”
“I’ve read those things cover to cover and back again too many times to count,” he interrupted, and continued pacing. “So has Shane. You couldn’t have found anything we missed.”
“It’s not Keeler’s words that are intriguing me. It’s the paper.”
Cal came to a stop. “Say what?”
“I noticed that the pages of the two most recent books were more textured than the paper found in mass-produced journals. So I analyzed a sample of the fibers. I discovered it’s treeless paper made from grasses and bamboo. This type of paper is frequently produced in India.”
India. Cal’s heart started pounding. “We think one of the switches Keeler used could have come from India,” he said. “If the paper is from there as well and we find a place where the import of both items intersect, we might find Keeler.”
“Okay, good.”
“You’re brilliant! If you were here, I’d kiss you.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not there.” She laughed, but he could tell she was proud of her discovery, and well she should be.
“I’ll get Kaci on searching for a connection right away.” He almost ended the conversation, but stopped. “Thanks, Brynn. I mean it. Thanks a lot.”
“Yeah, well, name that lovely child after me that you and Tara are going to have someday.” Laughing, she hung up.
“Kaci,” Cal shouted as he rushed across the room. “I have a lead, and you’re just the person who can save the day.”
* * *
The cold PVC pipe rested against Tara’s neck. Ironic, she thought, when it contained items that if Oren so chose would combust and create a swirl of fiery warmth.
He bent over her wrists and snipped the zip ties. “There. Now that you know I can end your life at any moment, you won’t do anything foolish, and I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
Really? Did that thought actually make sense in his twisted brain?
“So you plan to kill me,” she said, no longer avoiding the elephant in the room.
“I have no choice.”
“Because of your belief that I’m promiscuous.”
“No, no, you cleared that up for me.”
“Then why go through with it?”
He sat in a chair facing her. “Because of the hold you have on me. You distract me from my cause. I can’t let that happen.”
Unbelievable. “I have to die because you can’t control your thoughts.”
He jutted out his chin, the scraggly whiskers catching the overhead light, making him appear even more evil. “Everyone who doesn’t embrace our beliefs will die eventually. So why not now?”
He was crazier than she thought. “You really think ISIS is going to kill off every person who doesn’t embrace their ideology?”
“Eventually.”
“You’re delusional.” She needed to get up. To move. “Can I stand or did you put the same motion control in this one?”
“You can stand.”
“Why change up my device?”
“I’m not going far before…” His voice fell off, and he shrugged. He didn’t have to say any more.
She got it. “Then what about June?”
“I don’t plan to harm her. Never did. She’s always been kind to me.”
Tara sagged in relief. “But I’m different, right? I haven’t been kind in your eyes?”
He ran his hand over the beard, and she thought he was trying to look scholarly or wise. “Exactly.”
“As much as you say your bombing tirade is about your religion, I think it’s about rejection. These bombs started at the time I told you I wouldn’t go out with you.”
“Fat lot you know.” He jumped to his feet and shot a look around the room.
“So it’s a coincidence that your first bomb went off right after we ran into each other again?”
“Yes.” The word hissed out.
She’d hit a sore spot. “You say yes, but your body language tells me something else.”
He glared at her. “I saw you at the farm. You kissed Secret Agent Man.”
“And your point?” she asked, though technically she hadn’t kissed Cal in the car.
“You’re in love with him.”
His comment turned her thoughts to Cal, the honorable, honest man who was willing to do everything it took to stop criminals like Oren. Who gave of himself in sacrifice for her since the day she’d first spoken to him. Sure he was pushy, but he was also kind and caring and compassionate. She was thrilled that she’d found a man like him, and yes, i
t was time to admit aloud that she was in love with him.
“I do love him,” she said, and it felt so good not to question or doubt her feelings. “He’s an amazing, principled man who works for the good of others. Most women would fall for him.”
Oren’s frown deepened, but at the same time, resolve claimed his expression. He spun away from her and stepped across the room to turn on a small television sitting on a long credenza. He flipped the channels until settling on a local news special report on the bomb that Cal had gone to disarm.
A blond reporter with perfect teeth stood outside a police perimeter. A county bomb truck sat in the background and lights from police cars strobed behind her as she indicated she was reporting live from the scene.
Tara searched the screen, hoping to catch a glimpse of Cal, but didn’t see him.
“The FBI in a joint operation with County deputies disarmed a number of bombs here tonight,” the reporter said. “Several hours ago, police arrested a woman believed to be behind the bombing attempt.”
The video cut away to a Middle Eastern woman dressed in a man’s Western attire. Cal had her by the arm, urging her into the back of a police car.
Yes! Cal was fine.
Oren cursed and slammed a fist into the screen. “Your boyfriend has gone too far. He cannot arrest Nabijah. Allah has big plans for her.”
Nabijah. So Cal had found her. “Looks like those plans are going to have to be achieved with her in prison.”
Oren spun on Tara. “He’ll free her. Just you wait and see. She’ll be back by my side or taking her prisoner will be the last thing your boyfriend does.”
* * *
Washington, D.C.
Cal paced behind Kaci, his heart racing as fast as his mind.
Max stepped over to join them. “My Customs contact e-mailed a list of import companies. We can compare it with Kaci’s research.”
“No need.” Kaci shot to her feet and handed Cal a slip of paper.
“‘Unique India Arts,’” he read, and recognized the address as being near Dulles Airport. “Is this the company?”
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