by Carla Cassidy, Evelyn Vaughn, Harper Allen, Ruth Wind, Cindy Dees
“I’ve been thinking about the way your shoulders look when you’re tense and worried.”
“Oh.” Not what she’d expected.
“And when you were all worn out the night before last, one eyelid drooped more than the other.”
“That’s what you’ve been thinking about?”
“And you snore. You snored before you hardly hit that bed.”
“How is this feeding my ego, exactly?”
“It’s not,” he said slowly. “But it’s all true. I was thinking about those things.”
“Don’t get mushy on me, Tanner.”
He laughed. The sound was low and wicked. “What do you want to hear, darlin’?”
“No, it’s your turn. I was thinking about you, too. I was thinking about how—” Suddenly there were too many things in her head. The clarity of his eyes. The softness of his mouth. “You have a mouth just like Denzel Washington, you know that?”
“Is that right. Nobody every told me that before. He’s such a big-time movie star, I guess that’s good, right?”
“It’s good.”
“You like my mouth, then?”
“I do.”
His voice dropped an octave. “You know what I’ve really been thinking about, sugar?”
“I bet I can guess.”
“Your bare breasts when you had that gun in your hand. Hottest damned thing I ever saw in my life.”
“Mmm. Thought you weren’t looking?”
“You knew I was lying, even then.”
“Yeah.”
“When can I see you?”
“I thought you were going to be here next week for something.”
“I don’t want to wait that long. How about this weekend?”
Kim thought of his body, his vivid blue eyes—and she also felt a slight sense of panic. Too fast. Too much. “No.”
His laughter was the last thing she expected. “I’m hanging up now, Kim. Don’t worry.”
And he was gone.
Chapter 15
Friday, October 8
Before she went to work the next morning, Kim checked e-mail from Oracle and found a message waiting.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Lead on-site planning
Several sources are pointing to the possibility of a plot to destroy a bridge with a truck bomb. Major speculation that the target is either Golden Gate or Brooklyn Bridge, but some leads point to George Washington. Thanks to usual jealousy, some information has been withheld from certain agencies, which makes the connection to GW less obvious.
Security to all major bridges nationwide has been increased, but thanks to current policies designed to keep the public in a state of fear and off the current administration’s involvement in Puerto Isla and Berzhaan, no one is taking the bridge threat seriously. Very important to discover which bridge is the target and take steps now to prevent it. Strong evidence suggests bombing slated for the upcoming Columbus Day weekend. Be advised—level four warning.
Possible helps: Valerie Kane at CIA, 202-555-9016; Karl Gibson at New York City Police, 212-555-3173. Both have files on Mansour and truck thievery.
Good luck.
Delphi
Kim had often wondered if Delphi had lost someone in the Puerto Isla debacle, when President Whitlow had sent in a SEAL force to rescue hostages who had turned out to be American drug runners. The SEALs had nearly all been killed, a massacre that should never have happened. The subject seemed to make Delphi particularly touchy.
One thing was clear: the Oracle group wanted Whitlow out of office. Now.
Kim made notes on the information, and stopped on the way in to work to buy a latte for herself and Scott. He was in the parking lot when she arrived, looking fresh and athletic in spite of the cold, gray day. She handed him his paper cup of nonfat, triple venti latte. “Jeez, Shepherd, you look like ‘Rocky Mountain High’ all by yourself.”
He grinned, looking like his normal self. “Thanks. I found some things.” He waved a sheaf of papers. “I think we’re looking at an event within just a few days.”
Kim nodded. “Me, too.” She let him hold the door for her as she pulled out her ID. They passed through security and took an elevator to their floor and carried their briefcases into a small conference room. “I’m going to grab a couple of things from my desk,” Kim said.
“Yeah, I’m gonna drop this coat, then check e-mail.”
“Ten minutes, back here?”
“Right.”
Kim flipped her monitor on, then hit the icon to collect e-mail. While she waited for it to download, she hung up her coat, shook down her sleeves, flipped through the in-box that had collected a surprising amount of material overnight. Most of it was fact-checking documentation, hard-copy printouts of various electronic communications. A co-worker had stuck in a newspaper cartoon showing President Whitlow as a Fidel-type politician smoking a cigar called Berzhaan.
There were several e-mails, all related to the intelligence gathered through the Q-group e-mails. Kim printed out the new e-mails collected from the cell overnight—seven of them, which was quite a lot for a twelve-hour period—and took them to the small conference room. Since they’d broken the code, the e-mails were intercepted, translated, then deciphered before Kim received them. She insisted upon receiving the originals, as well, not content to trust others with translation.
As she waited for Scott, she highlighted phrases that seemed important.
“Hey, gorgeous,” said a voice from behind her.
The voice. Kim spun around, sure she wasn’t hearing correctly.
But there he was. Lex, cleanly shaved, dressed in black slacks, black long-sleeved shirt, tie.
He looked very, very good.
Kim stood up. Her hands felt awkward, so she tried to put them in the back pockets of her jeans, but she was wearing a skirt. “Lex! What are you doing here?”
“Been assigned to help.”
“Us?”
“This case. They’re thinking it’s a whole lot of explosives. Fourteen moving vans have been stolen in the past three weeks.”
“Moving vans.” Kim blinked, trying to imagine what a moving van full of explosives could do to a bridge.
From behind him, Scott hustled in, carrying a box of files. “Hey,” he said, lifting his chin toward Lex. “You the new guy? Oh—hey. You’re the FBI guy.”
Next to Scott’s hale outdoorsy look, Lex looked ethnic and lean, a coyote next to a big fluffy St. Bernard. “Lex Tanner,” he said, extending a hand. “You must be Scott.”
“Good to meet you.”
Kim let go of a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “Let’s see what we’ve got.” She sat down and pulled out her notes. “We’ve got moving vans. Bridges. Mansour is still on the loose, with pretty serious financial backing.”
“Have we figured out who is bankrolling this guy anyway?”
“Not yet. He’s anti-CIA and -U.S.A. and anti-Kemini, so I’d put my money on the usual suspects. Islamic extremists, disgruntled rich Berzhaanians who want the Keminis squashed.”
Lex scowled. “But the Chicago cell seems to be richer than usual. The kind of money which usually only comes from two kinds of vice, either drugs or arms deals.”
Kim thought of the nonnative Arabic speaker at the television station. “There was definitely a non-Arab at the station. He’s one of the guys that got away with Mansour. The station manager was also involved somehow, so there’s an American connection.”
Scott swore.
“Where there’s money to be made,” Kim said with a shrug, “there’s bound to be people wanting to make it. It’s something we can research a little more.” She shifted gears. “Scott, did you decide which of the e-mail-loop guys might be Mansour? Maybe we can figure out some clues to his whereabouts from that.”
“You might want to take a look. You’re better at some of the subtle stuff.” He pulled out a yellow tablet with scribbles on it. “
I do have some ideas on the bridge that might be targeted, however. The three that seem to generate the most interest from terrorist types are the famous ones—” he ticked them off on his fingers “—Golden Gate, Brooklyn and George Washington.”
Kim nodded, pleased that she wasn’t the one to bring up the George Washington Bridge.
“I also looked up whatever major bridges might be targeted in the heartland—over the Missouri and Mississippi, any bridges along Interstate Highways, any arteries into military bases, that kind of thing. A couple important ones came up—the 1-40 Mississippi River Bridge in Memphis; the Houston Ship Channel Bridge, the Seattle I-90 to Mercer Island.”
He pulled out pictures of the bridges, spread them in a row across the top of the table. “This is where you come in, Tanner, and why I requested you. How do you blow up a bridge? Which of these bridges is a good target and which ones aren’t worth the trouble?”
Lex stood up, poked one of the pictures. “The Memphis bridge is a beauty,” he drawled. “But she’s built to withstand a level 7 earthquake, so she’d be hard to bring down completely.”
“Earthquakes in Memphis?” Kim said.
“One of the most dangerous fault lines in the country is right through that Mississippi farmland.” He lifted a shoulder. “It’s not as unstable as the San Andreas, but it’s serious.”
“Does that kick out the Golden Gate, too, then?” Scott asked.
“I wouldn’t rule it out, just because it’s so symbolic, so visible, but she’d probably hold up—she’s been retrofitted to withstand an 8.3,” Lex said.
“How do you know this stuff?” Kim asked.
“This isn’t the first time terrorists have made noises about American bridges. I’ve made it my business to find out what I can,” Lex said. “There are ways to bring almost anything down if you have enough explosives—but some bridges are more interesting than others.”
“Right.” Kim frowned. “Terrorists want the most bang for the buck, right? So, the busiest bridges? The ones that would disrupt commerce most severely?”
Scott said, “But think about 9/11. It was a hit designed to take out a lot of people, but also to strike at the country’s ideology.”
“True.”
“So—it’s Columbus Day weekend, right? Maybe they’ll hit parades or parades going over bridges, something like that.”
“By that reasoning, then I like the George Washington bridge,” Kim said.
“Hmm.” Lex nodded agreement. “That’s a possibility. It also has a double tier structure, which would make it easier to do real damage—the vehicles on the lower level blow, which blows upward, then the weight comes down and knocks things loose in a downward motion.”
“And it’s New York again,” Kim added. “The double whammy.”
“Right.” Scott frowned. “That’s just a guess—we don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket, just in case it isn’t right.”
“No, I think it might be the George Washington bridge. Just a gut feeling,” Kim said.
Scott said, “Oh, yeah? Your secret source backs me up, huh?”
Kim shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Keep telling you…”
“Secret source?” Lex asked, perking up.
“He’s full of it,” Kim said.
“Nah, Lex. She has like a secret identity, and there’s some big secret society.”
“Is that right?” Lex watched her a little too closely.
Kim grabbed a stack of papers. “I guess my secret is out—I’m really the Green Flashlight, cousin to the Green Lantern. In my off-hours, I wear a skintight—”
“Ooh, I like that idea.”
“—gown with green shoes, and it gives me special powers so I can go out and bring back Truth, Justice and the American Way.” She rolled her eyes. “Please.” Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was nearly noon. Tory would be arriving soon and Kim wanted to look her best. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I’ve got a media interview to take.”
Scott chuckled. “I’ll make the phone calls to the CIA this time, huh?”
“With my blessing,” Kim said. “Can you imagine what he’ll be like now that I was right again?”
“Maybe he’ll lighten up.”
“Right. Lex, of course you can take the FBI. I’ll call the guy on the NYPD.”
“What guy?” Scott asked.
“The old policeman, the one in New York City.” Too late, Kim realized she’d taken that information from Oracle. Heat threatened to spill into her face, and she could not give herself away like that. Covering as fast as she could, she shook her head. “It must not have been you I discussed this with. Maybe it was Diana. Last night on the phone.”
Lex and Scott both sat at the table and just looked at her, the Snow White and Rose Red of big tough guys, one so blond and sturdy and outdoorsy Colorado, the other dark and lean and severe. “No secret society, huh?” Lex said.
“No secret code?” Scott added.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She grabbed her papers and took off. “See you guys later.”
Chapter 16
Kim first dialed the policeman in New York City, Karl Gibson. She asked for him, gave her name and was put through immediately. He picked up. “Gibson.”
She introduced herself and explained the situation. “I’m looking for any clues, any ideas, any information that might help us piece together where these guys are gonna strike next.”
“All right. What can I tell you?”
Kim was not entirely certain why Oracle had told her to call the policeman, so she winged it. “Have you arrested or had contact with any Berzhaan rebels or Keminis or anything related to them in the past few weeks?”
“We did,” he said. “We had a tip that there was a group centered around a tire shop near the George Washington bridge. We paid ’em a visit and found a whole lot of explosives.”
“Really. A tire center?”
“Yeah. Let’s see if I can get you the name.”
Kim waited, pencil poised above her paper. He said, “Here it is—Hafiz abu Malik Abd-Humam.”
“Very good. So did you arrest a group there?”
“We got a couple of guys,” he said, “but they’re peons and they’re not about to talk.”
“You didn’t get the owner?”
“No. He was out of town. We recovered a shitload of explosives though, I’ll tell you that. Most of them were packed into a single moving van. Could have taken out a sizable building.”
“Or a bridge?”
“Oh, yeah. No problem.”
“All right, thank you. I’ll keep you posted on anything that seems to feed into it.”
She hung up and frowned. Who else had talked about tires? She flipped through her notes, through the paragraphs sent via Oracle. Nothing.
She knew it was somewhere. She just had to remember.
A small electronic noise alerted her to incoming e-mail. Kim switched screens and found a note from Scott.
Check this out.
He included links to articles on earthquake preparedness, bridge stability and a lengthy article on the Coronado bridge.
I’m thinking we need to look more into this one.
Kim wrote back:
Maybe. Let me do some more translations.
She picked up the file of original, decoded documents, which were all in Arabic, and began to sort through them, dividing them into stacks according to who wrote them.
Her phone rang. “Agent Valenti,” said the receptionist, “there’s a camera crew here to see you.”
“Sure.” Kim brushed hair from her face, wondering just how bad she’d look on camera. She glanced around at the room, and realized this part could be embarrassing. “Put the woman on the phone, will you?”
The phone changed hands. “Tory,” Kim said. “Let’s try to keep this as low-key as possible, all right? I don’t want a lot of resentment between me and the rest of the staff.”
“You want to meet us down here inste
ad of up there? I’d be happy to do that.”
For a minute, she was very tempted, then she thought of Scott and Lex, and the need to include them in the interview. “No, that’s all right. We’ll meet you in the conference room.”
She popped her head in Scott’s office. Both Lex and Scott were bent over something spread out on the desk. “C’mon, gang,” she said. “It’s showtime. The UBC crew is here.”
“What are you talking about?” Scott said with annoyance.
“Television. They want to do a story, and this woman is a graduate of the Athena Academy, too, so I know she’ll do a good job. C’mon. Let’s just get it done and get back to work.”
Scott took a comb out of his pocket. “Is she cute?”
“Very.”
“Excellent.” He smoothed his hair.
Lex was grinning at Kim. “What?” she asked.
“You’re gonna look real cute.”
“Don’t be sarcastic. There’s nothing I can do.”
He sidled up to her. “You look hot to me, honey.”
“Sigh,” Kim said. “Let’s go.”
Just as they came into the hallway, Tory and her cameraman came from the elevator. Kim had seen Tory at Athena as a teen and on television many times, but it was still startling to see her tiny, neat beauty in person as an adult. Dressed in a white suit with a red blouse, Tory looked as crisp as a new dollar bill. “Kim!” she said warmly, coming forward to hold out her hand. “I’d say you look wonderful, but you’d know it was a lie.”
Kim chuckled. “I’m not a big makeup kind of girl. Do you want to do something about the face?”
Tory firmly shook her head. “Not at all. You’re fine.” She turned and introduced her cameraman. “This is Jay.”
“Nice to meet you,” Kim said, shaking her hand.
“That was really something, you at the television station,” he said with a flirtatious smile.