“Yes, indeed.” Jake knew, as Hoda did, that she had a lot riding on this assignment. While a kind of softball toss, it placed her as lead in inter-agency play, and the CIA didn’t expect its agents to let them down.
“We should pack,” Hoda said.
“Later,” said Jake softly.
***
They met the FBI team at Andrews: three agents, two analysts, and a psychiatrist. They struck Jake as standard Bureau issue, but Hoda seemed to get along with them fine. Of course, anytime Hoda was with men—especially in western garb—they fell all over her. He smiled inwardly. She handled them all with great aplomb, never losing that demure inner Muslim core.
Of course, the fact her husband was on the same aircraft had its effect. Jake found himself wondering if Robinson planned it that way: take the pressure off her while she accustomed herself to working in the field. He needn’t have worried; Jake has seen Hoda work in the field.
Her expertise with her service weapon had saved both their lives on their first assignment, and she’d pinned down five terrorist thugs who were trying to kill them only hours later. She’d gotten herself shot for that exploit. Dr. Abdelal was the real deal.
She sounded it, too, talking scenarios over with the Bureau men. Or boys, as it were. They were acting like boys around her, they really were. It was subtle, but it was there. She led the discussion about the interviews, and suggested strategies which might lead Campagnano into disclosing what they wanted to know. Jake passed the air time conversing with the three agents, and they had a pleasant time exchanging views on their respective services. One of the FBI men worked on the original Capagnano case, and evidently the killer was pretty cagey about leaving clues: smarter than your average sociopath.
The local chamber of commerce billed the airdrome as Terre Haute International Airport, but to Jake the old sobriquet Hulman Field was much more fitting. True to Hoda’s description, there was only a car rental agency there, but that served; they picked up three vehicles, one for Hoda and Jake, and went to a hotel. Predictably, it was efficient, clean, antiseptic, and business-oriented. At least it had WiFi, but they all did these days.
Jake napped while the ever-studious Hoda went over her notes again, then they both showered and prayed. At six o’clock local time it was rendezvous for dinner with an assistant warden of the Federal Correction Complex, Terre Haute.
Gordon Keyes was nothing like his self-interested and venal counterpart in Silence of the Lambs. To the contrary, he was humorous while at the same time highly professional. Physically imposing, the onetime correction officer explained the procedural do’s and don’ts of FPC Terre Haute, and then explained special instructions having to do with Dr. Abdelal, on whom he—like all the others—showered as much attention as he gracefully could, under the eye of her husband.
Jake had a rare chance to watch his wife in action. He knew the real Hoda Abdelal, and was reminded of the song lyric, “…all you fellows can look all you like, this girl is leaving here with me tonight.” The real Hoda was demure and shy, but like a good many actresses she could play the role; in this case, it was the gracious recipient of carefully salacious social overtures from the wolf pack. Jake had to laugh. The docs treated her like a doc, but the agents—who all considered themselves James Bond, whatever their looks—tried to be suave.
It was ironic, Jake thought, that the closest thing to James Bond on that aircraft was him, and he was grateful once again for Allah’s gift of marriage to such a creature.
The party, for party of sorts it was, broke up early and everyone adjourned to their respective hotels. Jake wondered if the agents would continue their cocktail hour there; he hoped not. Back at their palatial domicile, Hoda sat under the pool of light at the reading desk, going over the file and the notes again, making a working copy of her script for tomorrow.
“Give it up, Hoda,” Jake advised. “You can’t think of everything. Sleep’s important, too.”
“You’re only saying that to lure me over there,” she said over her shoulder.
Jake was nonplussed. “This is a business trip.”
“Yes. Monkey business. I’m with child, remember.”
“Hoda, my skills are perishable. I have to keep in practice.”
Hoda laughed in spite of herself.
“Promise you’ll be good?”
“Scout’s honor.”
“Yes,” she said, rising and heading for the bathroom. At the door she turned. “Girl Scouts, you mean. You’ve been scouting the girls all your life.” And with that she disappeared behind the bathroom door.
Brutal, Jake thought. The woman was positively cruel. And he laughed quietly.
***
“Keep reminding yourself,” Hoda whispered in Jake’s ear, “it’s only an act.” And she kissed him tenderly on the neck. Turning, she walked briskly through the knot of men in the observation room with its one-way glass, out of the door and around the corner into the interview room where the glass showed only as a huge mirror. Alone at the lone table, and chained to it, Anthony Campagnano 12135670 wasn’t fooled.
“Hi, guys,” he said brightly at the mirror. And then the room door opened. “Minge,” he added. “They pulled out all the stops!”
“Good morning, Anthony.” Hoda wore a blue dress, and while it covered her throat to calf it was gathered at the waist and fell away in pleasing fashion. She had studiously parsed choices for hours, as soon as she learned of the assignment details. A barrette held her lustrous hair in check, but not too severely. The blue of her ballet slippers matched the dress.
“You, baby, can call me Tony. All day long.”
“Well, Anthony, since we’re going to be together awhile, I thought I’d save informality for later. I’d Hoda.”
“Hudda?” Campagnano tried.
“Hoda.”
“Hoda.” He did better this time. “What kind of a name is that?”
“Egyptian.”
“What’s your last name?”
“A girl has to have some secrets, Anthony. You can’t have all the fun.” She opened her manilla file. It was specially prepped for the interview, not the master one she brought with her. She extracted eight five-by-seven glossy photos and displayed them for Anthony. “And you were having a lot of fun, Anthony. A little too much, I’d say.”
Campagnano was on the photos like the maniac he was: they were of his victims—three of them. But Campagnano was suspected of many more murders, and that was why Hoda and the others were there. The bodies had never been found.
“I haven’t seen these since my trial,” Anthony said, picking up first one then another of the photos, and perusing them closely, lovingly. Hoda waited quietly for him to finish. When he’d had his fill, Anthony sat back, drinking Hoda in. His eyes, Jake saw through the window, recorded every line and crease of her clothing—and, doubtless, imagined her without it. His soul stirred, and only his long professional experience kept him in check.
And then Anthony Campagnano upped Jake’s ante.
“So,” said the mass murderer. “Little cake in the oven, eh?”
“Why, yes! How kind of you to notice!”
Hoda was brilliant, positively brilliant! Not even knocked off her stride. Jake couldn’t know she absolutely was—but could not risk insulting the man’s perspicacity.
“Does it show?” Hoda said with a little pout. Jake’s pout!
Campagnano chuckled. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me. And, of course, every guy in the back room there.” He gestured with his index finger, then used a different one to salute the mirror. “No, it wasn’t your body gave it up. Your complexion. You have the glow.”
“Do I really?” Hoda sounded little girlish.
Campagnano looked pleased. You go, girl, Jake thought. You reel him right in.
“What was that word you used when you saw me?”
“Minge?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Italian. You don’t want to know.”
&nbs
p; “Yes, I do.”
Was that—yes, it was! Campagnano was blushing! “I—I won’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Ask your husband.”
So Campagnano did have limits; there was a prude in him somewhere, some limit. That was very useful information about his boundaries, and Hoda went for the opening immediately.
“Would your mother like it if you used that word?”
“You leave my mother out of this!”
“Why? What was she like, Anthony?”
“My mother was a saint.”
Actually, Anthony Campagnano’s mother had a string of relationships with an endless barrage of men who abused her, and worse. Which one was Anthony’s father was never firmly established, and the boy was beaten and emotionally scarred, when he wasn’t neglected entirely. He’d been running the streets of his native Bronx since he was ten.
“Did she look like me?”
“Yes. She was gorgeous.”
Actually, she wasn’t. She had black hair and big brown eyes, but the hope in those eyes was soon dashed by a life of wrong, hard choices. That didn’t mean though, that her little Anthony didn’t remember her as a beauty, much like Hoda—and the girls whose lives he’d snuffed out. Warring within himself, he chose his victims to look like his vision of that mother, then killed them for the wrong she’d done.
Hoda knew all this, of course. If Jake knew, one could bet the ranch the other shrinks, and even the agents, knew it. The psychiatrists for both the state and defense at Campagnano’s trial had known it. But until somebody wanted closure, and somebody else remembered Hoda Abdelal’s looks and specialty, the pieces hadn’t come together.
“Anthony. Anthony, what about other mothers?”
“What about them?”
“Aren’t they as special as yours?”
“No. Mine was beautiful. Mine was perfect. She was an angel.”
“Other people think their mothers are angels, too, Anthony. And mothers—all mothers—think their children are angels, just like your mother thinks you are.”
“My mother is dead!” Campagnano snarled.
Ouch. That hurt. Hoda had forgotten Rita Campagnano died of a heroin overdose when her boy was seventeen. Or, just a year before authorities think he began his killing run. Hoda!
“Oh, my,” Hoda said. She was upset, visibly, and Capagnano saw the hurt in her face, in her eyes. A tear rolled down her cheek. Jake had seen that before, and it did the same thing to him it did to the killer next door. His wife could move mountains.
“Anthony,” Hoda said softly. “Were you there when they buried your mother?”
“Yeah.” He was still angry. Anthony Campagnano had anger to spare, and for good reason, though that didn’t absolve him.
“Don’t you think other mothers deserve to bury their angels?”
The Muslim in Hoda was finessing Islam’s definition of “angel” but at the moment it would stand aside; Allah would forgive her.
“I buried them. I was in charge. I did it to them before they could do it to their little bastards. And I’ll do it to you before you can do it to your little bastard.”
“My what? I’m married”—but Hoda never finished. Before anyone could blink, Campagnano lifted the heavy steel table and cast it aside like balsa wood—and his chains were uncuffed! With nothing but time and gym privileges, like most inmates Campagnano had turned himself into a physical specimen for prison survival, and catlike he had a chair wedged under the knob of the only door.
Then he turned on Hoda, engulfing her in a stranglehold. He backed into a corner, taking Her with him. Eventually the chair gave way, and the agents swarmed, but none was armed; prison regulations forbade any firearms.
“I’ll kill her!” blurted the human beast, his hairy forearms flexing around Hoda’s smooth neck.
First through the door, Jake assessed: Campagnano was flushed, but Hoda was calm. She caught his eyes: I’m all right, she told him silently, keep him calm, and I’ll be okay. Jake visibly relaxed, and it seemed to bleed tension from the tiny room, suddenly hot from the influx of too many bodies. The AC hummed on, and Jake felt the cool stream on his back through sweat-blackened shirt.
Things began to happen simultaneously: Anthony’s eyes narrowed and darted from face to face around the room, then back to the beginning. Jake saw Hoda move, centering her hips on her captor, then pressing backward. She was deliberately using her smooth bottom to excite him, stimulate and distract him. It was doubtful if Campagnano even realized at first. Her hand lifted to the barrette, pulling it out. She shook her head, and the luxuriant blue-black silken tresses cascaded onto her shoulders, brushing his naked arm under her chin, and pressing his cheek. Hoda was trying to silently intoxicate him; would it work?
“Tony,” Jake said. “Let’s take our time. Can we get you anything?”
“Who are you?” Campagnano asked. He asked aggressively, with two more words in the question.
Jake took a risk. “I’m in charge here.” That cast the die; he wasn’t, but now the others couldn’t refuse him without weakening their negotiating stance. It had to do with face.
“Gimme a smoke,” Campagnano said. “A square.”
Jake turned to a Terra Hute uniform. “Where can we get them?”
“They’re banned on site.”
“Are you insane? Don’t tell me there are no cigarettes in my facility. Do you think I’m an idiot? Find one for this man, and find it now.” The uniform left the room. When he came back in, Jake knew, at least one handgun would come back in with him.
Jake also knew his baby would just have to deal with some secondhand smoke. Well, it wouldn’t be the first baby to ingest some prenatal haram. Forbidden.
It would take awhile to produce the goods, and Jake turned back to Campagnano. Hoda had once played a trick on a teen boy holding them at bay with a shotgun. Jake would try the same gambit, signaling Hoda at the same time.
“So, you like our little gift, Tony? Our babe? We brought the best one we could find.”
“What are you talking about?” Again, he added the same two words. Anthony had obviously learned his basic vocabulary at some ignorant knees.
“I’m talking about the babe, cowboy. She’s a charmful little armful, eh? Bet she’s a dreadful little bedful.” He’d read the joke in Playboy magazine when he was about fourteen. He hoped Campagnano would even get it. The criminal actually smirked.
“That’s pretty good. Funny man. But don’t quit your day job.” He clinched his arm around Hoda’s throat. They watched her wince in pain, and Jake saw her heels leave the floor as she tried to maintain breathing on her toes. Fortunately, Campagnano wasn’t too tall and Hoda was relatively statuesque.
So it was a standoff. And time was on their side. No one could stay keyed up forever. Not possible. So the longer they kept at this, the better for everyone. Except, perhaps, Hoda.
“You know,” Campagnano said, “you’re right, mouthpiece. What’s your name?”
“Jake.”
“Well, Jake, she is a fine piece.” And the murderer simply reached around Hoda and groped. Hoda saw Jake’s face and knew. She just knew—
“Oh, hooo!” crowed Anthony. “So you’re the one! The husband! They were stupid enough to send you both here at once! Now, don’t hide it, Jake.” Anthony pressed Hoda again, flagrantly, lasciviously. “She’s your woman.”
Holman was now compromised, and everyone knew it. He turned to leave the room. “Not so fast,” barked Campagnano. “No-no-no, Mister Jake, you are not leaving our little party. Just when it’s getting interesting? No.”
Maybe Jake’s usefulness could be salvaged. But with no time to talk it over and plan a strategy, they were stuck with him anyway, thanks to his initial gambit.
“It’s okay,” Hoda managed to say, reassuring Jake. But she paid for it.
“Shut up, puta,” snapped Anthony, clinching her neck anew. Puta. Whore. “You know, you smell pretty good for a puta. You get th
at stuff from your pimp here? Eh, Jake? You buy this eau de bimbo for your minge?”
Unknown to the others, Hoda’s mind asked, “Where was the Anthony who blushed at explaining that word?” They had to reach him, get him back. This was getting ugly, and she worried about Jake.
Jake Holman almost rushed Anthony Campagnano on the spot. In the past five minutes, in a scenario gone so wrong so fast, he had watched indignities heaped on his beautiful and beloved—and pregnant—Muslim wife, the mother of his unborn. Even without the prospect of impending motherhood, it left Jake internally conflicted, wanting on the one hand to still this beast’s mouth and tear the beating heart from his chest; and on the other to maintain an even keel and so preserve the thing that kept Hoda and her baby safe: time.
As though on cue, the door clicked open. A uniform made his way around the table, and slapped a fresh deck of Marlboro Lights into Jake’s hand.
“Wow! My brand,” Anthony said. “I’m impressed. Why can’t you guys give this kind of service all the time?” His face darkened. “Light one,” he said to Jake, “and give it to me.”
“Tony,” breathed Hoda over her shoulder and into his ear, “you don’t want to smoke. Your mother doesn’t want her little boy to smoke. It’s bad for you.”
“Shut up, ma!”
Everyone heard it. You could almost hear the room suck in its collective breath.
“No, Tony. Don’t. Please don’t. You know I love you.”
Campagnano seemed confused for a moment. “Mama?” he said.
Hoda took his free hand, the one he’d groped her with, and placed it deliberately back on her body. “There,” she said. “That always makes us both feel better. Doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Anthony said. Or rather, Tony said it. Under the most extreme duress imaginable, Hoda Abdelal was walking a tightrope, and Jake alone knew where she was going.
“Don’t worry, Tony,” she said soothingly. “I won’t let any of these mean men hurt you. They won’t hurt you. I promise.” Her eyes, which her ‘little boy’ could not see, scanned the room with significance. Her interview with Anthony Campagnano wasn’t finished, not by a long shot, and she intended to finish it. The question was: would something break the spell?
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