by Dawson, Mark
“Yes, one man, very badly burnt. He’s been taken to Norfolk General in Ghent. More than that, I can’t say right now. I’d just be speculating.”
The waitress looked back at the girl. She had turned from the screen and was eating, staring at her plate, deliberately slicing the pancakes into neat squares. She dabbed each portion in maple syrup and then put it in her mouth.
She wore a determined and serious frown.
Isabella paid for her breakfast and went to the pay phone in the lobby of the restaurant. There was a stack of business cards for taxi firms on the little shelf below the telephone, and she flipped through them until she found one that she liked. She called the number and ordered a car. There was a Yellow Pages on the shelf, and she turned the pages to H and then “Hotels.” She tore the page out, folding it into a neat square and sliding it into her pocket.
She waited outside in the cold sunlight until the car arrived.
“Where to, honey?”
“The Greenbrier Mall, please.”
“Sure thing.”
She sat in the back. The driver made no attempt to start a conversation; that was a relief. She unzipped the bag and, careful not to give herself away, reached inside and riffled through the thick wad of bank notes. There were fifties and hundreds there, a big stack of them. That was good. She was going to need money. She peeled off a fifty for the cab, keeping that in her hand, and then five hundreds for the hotel. She took out an additional three hundred, put the notes in her pocket and zipped the bag shut again.
She stared with glazed eyes at the warehouses and strip malls on the edge of the city, thinking of the pictures that she had seen on the television in the restaurant. The car was just a blackened shell, but enough of it remained for her to recognise it as the car that her mother had driven to bring them to Chesapeake.
The policeman had said that there had been one victim.
A woman.
Isabella’s bottom lip began to quiver. She bit it, determined not to cry in the taxi. That would lead to more questions. It would make her stand out in the driver’s memory. She couldn’t afford that. She needed to be anonymous. There would be time for tears later.
She composed herself, and the moment passed.
The reporter had said that a man had been injured and was being treated in hospital.
He had said that the hospital was in Ghent.
She would have to find out where that was.
She had the taxi drop her off in the centre of the mall so that she could buy the things that she would need before she went to the hotel. The place was as big as a football stadium, a sprawling two-storey monster that stood in the middle of a vast parking lot, orbited by its own access road. The taxi rumbled across the empty space and parked next to the entrance to Macy’s. Isabella paid, thanked the driver and stepped outside. There was a wide door, lots of chrome and glass, and she walked over to it and pushed her way inside.
The door led straight into the perfume section. The air was heavy with dizzying scent. She walked between the tables and counters laden with expensive products, the attendants made up as flawlessly as air hostesses, until she was in the main thoroughfare that ran through the centre of the mall. There were dozens of shops and outlets. The noise of the shoppers echoed off the shiny floors, all scrubbed clean, and produced a hubbub that Isabella found a little disorientating. The past year in Marrakech had inured her to noise and clamour, but this was different. The souk was chaotic and vital, but this was bloodless and corporate, a thousand people circulating with vacant eyes. Insipid music played over the PA system. Isabella had been to malls during her childhood in England, but they were smaller and more tawdry than this. She’d never experienced anything quite like it, and she found it unsettling.
She walked on until she found a branch of T-Mobile. There were dozens of cellphones on display, all fixed to the wall, with cards extolling their various virtues. She went inside and made her way to the nearest display.
An assistant detached himself from his station and glided over to her.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m looking for a phone.”
“I can help you with that.” He brightened with interest as he smelt the possibility of an easy upsell and a bigger commission. “What would you mostly be using it for?”
“Making calls and browsing the internet.”
“And do you have a budget?”
She thought of the bundle of notes in her bag. “Two hundred dollars?”
The assistant reached up to the display and took down a Samsung handset. “This is the Galaxy Light,” he said before launching into an explanation of its features that he recited as if he had learned it by rote. Isabella tuned out and thought about the other things that she was going to have to do before she was ready.
“I’ll take it,” she said when he was done.
She followed him to the back of the shop and filled out the paperwork. It was a prepaid phone, and since she paid cash, there wasn’t even a need to give her name. It came with a limited amount of airtime and data, and she bought an upgrade to boost those up to a level she was more comfortable with.
She thanked the assistant and went outside again.
There was a pharmacy next door, and she stopped there to buy a packet of hair dye and a jar of Vaseline.
It was two miles north to the hotel that she had selected. The town seemed like it was a pleasant place, with lots of broad and well-trimmed lawns on either side of the road and a host of shopping outlets. The taxi followed Greenbrier Parkway over the Hampton Roads Beltway until it reached Woodlake Drive.
The Staybridge Suites were found within two matching five-storey apartment blocks surrounded by well-tended gardens. According to the section of the Yellow Pages she had ripped from the book, the apartments could be taken for short- or long-term stays. The area was away from the middle of town and looked private and discreet. It looked anonymous, the kind of place where people would drift in and out without leaving a ripple. That was important.
She took a deep breath, pushed open the door and approached the desk.
The clerk was a middle-aged woman with a friendly face. “Hello, sweetheart” she said. “How are you doing today?”
“I’m very well, thank you.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I’d like a room, please.”
“Would you, now. How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“Really? You look younger than that.”
“No, I am,” she said, taking out her fake passport. “Look.”
She placed it on the desk, open to the page with her picture and details. The clerk put on a pair of glasses and studied it, comparing the picture with her face. “Sixteen,” she said. “Goodness me. You look so much younger than that.”
“Do you have any rooms?”
“Are you travelling on your own, sweetie?”
“I’m with my father. He’s meeting someone in town. He’s on business.”
“Is he in the military?”
“That’s right,” she said.
The woman nodded. “Most of our guests are. What is it? Lockheed Martin? Raytheon?”
“Northrop Grumman,” she said, reciting the information she had read in the hotel’s ad.
“Northrop? We got some others working over there in at the moment. Some conference or other.”
“That’s right. That’s why he’s here.”
“Well then, let’s get you registered.” The woman tapped a key on her keyboard and consulted her screen. “A room,” she said. “Yes, we do have a room. You want one for both of you? A twin?”
“Yes, please. For a week.”
“Alright, then. I’ll need a credit card.”
“I can pay now,” she said. “My father prefers cash. Is that alright?”
“Sure.”
The room cost five hundred dollars for the week. Isabella took out the money and handed it over. The clerk put the notes in the till, printed out the details of the booking and slipped two keycards into a small paper wallet. She gave it to Isabella and told her that the room was on the third floor of the building they were in.
“Thank you,” she said.
The room was simple and clean. She only planned to stay in it for a few days, and it would serve her very well for what she needed. She used the clear plastic wand to close the blinds and locked the door. She ordered a takeout delivery, and after she had eaten, she spent a couple of hours with the smartphone, logging onto the hotel’s WiFi so that she could monitor the news. The police had little to add to the initial reports of the explosion. They confirmed that the victim was connected to Manage Risk, the security company headquartered in the area, and, as such, they said that terrorism was now considered to be the most likely motive. The bomber had been so thoroughly immolated in the blast that identification was proving difficult. All they knew was that it was a woman.
She switched on the television and left it on in the background. There were regular bulletins, and she focussed her attention on the screen for those quick five minutes. The explosion led the news at seven and ten and was the second piece at eleven. Each bulletin added little snippets of new information that helped her to colour in between the lines.
The Impala was rumoured to have been stolen in New Jersey thirteen months earlier.
It had been seen at a drive-thru restaurant just outside of Philadelphia.
Local businesses had reported suspicious sales of fertiliser.
And, then, at one in the morning, more detail. The bulletin included a still of the suspect that had been taken by a security camera at the drive-thru.
Isabella stared at grainy footage of herself, standing before the counter, collecting a bag of food and three drinks.
She switched off the television, undressed and slipped between the crisp sheets.
It was settled then.
It would have to be tomorrow.
She couldn’t stay any longer than that.
They would be looking now, and it wouldn’t be long until they found her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Isabella awoke at six the following morning. She had plenty to do, and it paid to start early.
She went into the bathroom and stood under the shower for ten minutes, clearing away the last remnants of sleep. She closed her eyes and tried to place everything into context. She stepped out of the shower and dried herself off. She took a pair of nail scissors from her mother’s bag and used them to cut her hair. The scissors were not suited to the task, but she worked as carefully as she could, following a line that sheared off most of her blonde locks and left her with a page-boy cut that ended just above the nape of her neck. She swept the hair up and deposited it into the waste bin.
She took out the packet of hair dye and the jar of Vaseline. She wrapped a towel around her shoulders and put on the thin latex gloves that came in the packet. She coated her hairline, ears and neck with the Vaseline. She combed her hair into four different sections, fixed them with clips, and then applied the dye to her hair, working it in with her fingers. She had never done anything like this before, but she had read the instructions carefully and watched several YouTube fashion how-to videos on her cellphone and was confident that she knew what she was doing. She left the dye to penetrate, and then, when it had, she held her head under the shower head, running hot water through her hair. When she was done, and the water was running clear, she dried herself and looked in the mirror.
Her hair was the same cut and colour as Cassidy’s.
Good.
She packed her mother’s things back into the bag. She worked quickly and thoroughly, ensuring that nothing was left behind. She zipped the bag up and took it, together with the bag of hair clippings and the packaging for the hair dye, outside to the fenced-off area where the hotel’s bins were kept. She pushed back the lid on the nearest unit and, standing on tiptoes, tossed both bags inside. She closed the lid again and went back to the room.
She took her own case and collected her things. She didn’t have very much, and it didn’t take long.
She wheeled the case to the door and stopped to look back one final time. She was satisfied that the room was clean enough. There would be fingerprints, true, and there was nothing that could easily be done about that, but she had never been fingerprinted before, and so she was not concerned about detection. The staff and other guests would be able to identify her picture, but that, too, did not worry her. She didn’t plan on sticking around for very long.
She took Cassidy’s jacket and put it on, and then stepped outside.
There was just one final thing that she needed to do.
Isabella took a taxi back to the mall. She paid the driver with a twenty, tipping him the change.
“Will you wait for me?” she asked him.
“Sure, but I’ll need to keep the meter running.”
“That’s alright. I won’t be long.”
She walked across the sidewalk into the air-conditioned climate inside the store.
She had memorised the things she needed. She took a trolley and set off, heading for the large Target.
Inside, her first stop was the clothing section. She walked the aisles quickly, depositing a beige cable-knit jumper, a plaid skirt, a pair of thick knitted tights, a pair of trainers and a knitted beanie like the one that Cassidy had been wearing. She added a second outfit: checked shirt, black Levis, a pair of Converse All Stars, and a mesh cap. She added a pair of clear glasses with a thick black plastic frame and a colourful canvas satchel.
Satisfied with her purchases, she paid at the counter and stopped in the customer restroom to change. She put on the tights, skirt and sweater. She put on Cassidy’s leather jacket again. She folded her old clothes neatly and pressed them into the trash.
She went into one of the stalls and shut the door. She opened the case and took out the Beretta Nano. She examined the gun carefully, pulled out the six-shot magazine and checked that it was fully loaded. It was, with another round in the pipe. Seven shots, total.
She pushed the magazine back into the gun.
She stopped at the mirror and put on the beanie, arranging it so that her newly trimmed and dyed hair was obscured beneath it. She would never pass for Cassidy—she was too young and the older girl was too pretty—but there were similarities now. Hair, eyes, clothing. It might be enough. Maybe. She reached into the jacket pocket and took out a ten-dollar bill, a packet of tissues, a New York City driver’s license and a library card. She put the note in her pocket, discarded the tissues and put the two cards back again.
It might.
She took the bag with the second outfit and went back outside to the cab.
“I’m waiting for someone,” the driver said when she opened the door.
“Yes,” she said. “Me.”
He looked at her and smiled. “That was a fast change. Didn’t recognise you.”
She smiled sweetly at him.
“Where to?”
“Do you know Sentara Norfolk General Hospital?”
“Sure I do, sugar. Up in Ghent.”
“There, please.”
The hospital was eight miles north of Chesapeake. Isabella had the taxi stop a block away from it and walked the rest of the way there. It was nine in the morning and already looking like it was going to be a fine day, bright and with the first stirrings of spring. Isabella didn’t pay it much attention. She was focussed and deliberate, quite clear about what she had to do.
The hospital was a big, modern building, affiliated with the Eastern Virginia Medical School that was alongside it. Ambulances were queued up at the side of the road, and taxis buzzed in and out of the tra
ffic. A steady stream of pedestrians headed through the big open doors that led into the lobby.
She walked up to the wide plate glass doors and waited for them to part. She continued inside, quickly acclimating herself: a broad reception desk, ranks of comfortable chairs for those who were waiting, wide windows that looked out onto a pretty ornamental garden. Several corridors led away from the central area and she saw signs for the cafeteria and for departments that offered treatments for various ailments.
A woman in a nurse’s uniform stopped and smiled at her.
“Are you lost, honey?”
“A bit,” she said, shyly. “I’m looking for the burns unit.”
The woman pointed to the elevators. “You want to take the elevator to the third floor and follow the signs. You won’t be able to miss it.”
“Thank you.”
“Who are you here to see?”
“My father,” she said.
“What’s your name?”
“Cassidy.”
The woman was just being pleasant. Her deceit was wasted on her. “Alright, Cassidy. I hope he’s alright.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Michael Pope pulled into the parking lot next to the hospital and killed the hire car’s engine. It was still early, and the lot was reasonably quiet, mostly staff arriving for the daytime shift.
He sat quietly for a moment, assessing his surroundings with an experienced and cautious eye. There was an outside broadcast truck from WCTV parked up in the row nearest to the exit. That was the only sign that the hospital counted the victim of the explosion among its patients. There had been reporters from the major networks on-site in the immediate aftermath of the blast, but they had all been recalled now that the story had started to go cold. That was the reality of the news cycle: there was always something more interesting just down the track.
Pope picked up his cellphone and dialled.
It connected and rang for ten seconds before it was picked up.
“Global Logistics,” the female operator responded.