Alex spun around to run at the back door. She yanked it open, dove over a concrete stoop, somersaulted across the grass, and popped up, spewing hot breath. She sprinted full tilt around the right side of the house and leapt over a bush, as her boots hit the front yard.
Sure enough, that damn Econoline was parked in the front, doors flung open, and another phony cop was pounding up the sidewalk toward the splintered front door. He spun and saw her heading for her bike. Each took a wild shot at the other as she ran and he dove to the grass.
Alex leapt on the seat while flinging the bike away from the curb. The kickstand snapped up as a gunshot shattered the mailbox. Alex revved it on, gunned it, and fishtailed to the left as she heard the van door behind her slam. She ducked low as the bike speared forward and another bullet zipped past her left ear.
In three short seconds she was doing seventy, her .357 still gripped in her sweat-soaked right hand. She thought she had one round left, but she wasn’t sure. She’d lost her gloves, but her helmet was still there between her thighs. Her hair whipped back from her face, and her eyes burned with the wind and her unwanted tears.
I could have saved her, she told herself.
No, you couldn’t, she heard her mind reply. Commander Alicia Schmitt is dead.
Chapter Nineteen
Dan Morgan sat on a pile of gold and maroon embroidered pillows, his back against a cream plaster wall.
To his left, on another array of cushions sat Lieutenant Colonel Kadir Fastia, late of Libyan Army Intelligence. They were ensconced on the top floor of Fastia’s brownstone in Columbia Heights, the northern environs of Washington, D.C. Many such quaint architectural structures flanked the tree-lined lane of Georgia Avenue Northwest, which were usually split up into apartments, but Fastia had bought the whole building.
His continuing work as a “security consultant” was lucrative and was enhanced by the many friends he’d made along the way. In a business rife with distrust at best and betrayals at worst, even Dan Morgan, who could make enemies the way other people make coffee, could repeatedly attest to Fastia’s remarkable ability to satisfy even the most devious client. Thankfully Morgan wasn’t one of them. He was honored to call Kadir a friend and a valued rajul hakim—wise man.
“Are you sure you do not wish to partake, Cobra?” Fastia asked as he offered Morgan a saliva-slick mouthpiece at the end of a long curling tube. Between them on the Persian carpet sat a round silver tray holding a large Middle Eastern waterpipe, commonly called a nargila. There was also a brass finjan and two ceramic cups steaming with black Turkish coffee. Morgan waved his hand.
“Shukran,” he said. “Between your cigars and that thing, I’m going to need a new lung.”
Fastia chuckled. “As you wish.” He drew on the tube. The water in the nargila bubbled, the coals at the top glowed red, and twin columns of blue smoke streamed from his wide nostrils. He was wearing a long-sleeved white chemise, no collar, over a pair of gray trousers and house sandals. With his trim white beard against his olive skin, he always looked like he’d just walked out of the desert.
Morgan reached for one of the ceramic cups, sipped the muddy brew, and sat back again, rubbing his knee. “One of these days you’re going to live in an elevator building, Kadir,” he said.
“Never,” Fastia said. “All these stairs discourage unwanted guests.”
In the past they’d always conferred in Fastia’s office a floor below, but whenever the soft-spoken Libyan wanted absolute privacy, this traditionally decorated space was his bastion. It was Levantine Bedouin, with not a stick of furniture; only pillows arranged along the walls. Fastia adored his wife and daughter, but this was off-limits even to them.
The rajul hakim leaned back with a knowing smile as his eyes grew serious and piercing. “So,” he said. “You are at a dead-end, yes?”
“Yes,” Morgan admitted.
“As am I, Cobra,” Fastia said. He always called Morgan by his CIA code name, as he had since meeting him in the Libyan desert many years before. Together with Peter Conley they had come within a hair’s breadth of assassinating Muammar Gaddafi, but the hit had been called off by Morgan’s handlers at the last second.
Gaddafi’s beasts had murdered Fastia’s first wife and family, causing him to turn against the dictator, and the mission’s failure had sat like a stone on his heart for many years. Now, with Gaddafi dead and gone, he slept very well at night.
“Virginia is simply too broad a clue and much too large an area,” he added. Then he raised a finger. “Perhaps it is a woman rather than a place?”
“I thought of that, Kadir,” said Morgan. “But I think Collins would have somehow hinted at that, and this Commander Schmitt didn’t give any indication of that either.”
“Why must people always be so obtuse?” Fastia wondered.
“Folks love secrets,” said Morgan. “They feel like it gives them power.”
“At this point in my life, they only give me a headache.” Fastia returned to his pipe. It seemed to help him think. “And this thing about the missiles, Cobra. As I recall, the Tomahawk is nothing like the American Stinger or the Russian Strela, correct? It is not a shoulder-fired weapon.”
“Not unless you’re a fairytale giant. It’s about eighteen feet long and weighs about three thousand pounds. Usually ship-or submarine-launched, but there are a few vehicle-mounted versions.”
“Ya-Allah,” Fastia intoned. “So then, perhaps that is a help to us. One couldn’t hope to hide something like that in an urban center. Therefore, we should think open areas, perhaps farm country.”
“Unless that’s what they want us to think.”
Fastia waved a finger. “You are always playing checkers in your mind.”
“I know.” Morgan grinned. “Keeps me suspicious— and alive. So, think you could put the word out to your network?”
“I already did, from my office while you were relieving yourself. I asked for any information connecting ‘Virginia’ and heavy ordnance, though I did not mention Tomahawks per se.” He looked down at the smartphone sitting beside him, where text messages were popping up in Arabic. “Everyone seems to think that I am referring to Langley and shoulder-fired missiles. I keep having to reply ‘la.’”
The word meant “no.” Morgan nodded, understanding Fastia’s contacts’ confusion. “I guess it’s a valid assumption since Benghazi.”
Fastia looked at Morgan as he rubbed his white beard and smoothed his neat mustache. “You are out on a limb again, aren’t you, Cobra?”
“Way out.”
“You were like that with the CIA, and it appears you are still like that with your new organization.” Fastia tapped his nose. “What was that old James Dean movie? Rebel Without a Cause?”
“Oh, I’ve got a cause all right.” Morgan grinned. “I’m just a stubborn pain in the ass.”
“It is what I always liked about you. You are relentless—but sometimes foolish as well, I think.”
Morgan shrugged. “Well, it’s tough to teach an old dog new tricks.”
As if on cue, a low canine whine came from the landing below. Fastia had broken with Muslim tradition and allowed Neika into the house but not all the way up here to his most sacred spot. His wife and daughter served meals to him and guests here; no dog would cross the threshold. Morgan sat forward on his pillows and listened.
“She’s trained to only do that when she means it,” he said.
Fastia lifted up his billowy tunic, pulled out a Browning Hi-Power and rested it on his lap. “I shall assume she is simply hungry,” he said before pinioning Morgan with a sharp gaze, “while you check.”
Morgan got up, reached into his shoulder holster for his PPK, walked to the arched doorway, and pushed the door open. He looked down the long narrow staircase to where he’d left Neika leashed to a radiator on the next landing. She was sitting up facing a tall bay
window, emitting urgent moans from her throat as her thick tail flicked on the floor. But the window was curtained, and she couldn’t see anything outside.
Morgan reached the landing and ruffled her head. “What’s out there, girl?”
He leaned to the side of the window, pushed the curtain open just a slit, then peered out and down. He could see the Shelby parked across the street where he’d left it, and just behind that, a black Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle....
“Jesus,” he growled and called up to Fastia. “Kadir, it’s my daughter. I’ll be right back.”
“Your what?” Fastia asked, but Morgan was already pounding down the stairs.
He tucked the Walther away as he reached the front entrance, yanked the door open, and quick-marched across the small front yard, instinctively glancing around for any signs of an ambush—his beloved family had been used as bait before. Then he hurried across the street, where Alex was leaning against the trunk of his car, her helmet off, her arms folded, her head hanging down, and her pageboy haircut obscuring her face.
“Alex, what the hell?” he snapped as he stamped up to her. But then she lifted her face and looked at him, and his breath hitched in his chest. Her eyes were glassy, her flushed cheeks shiny with tear tracks, and she was shaking. He reached out and gripped her shoulders and turned her as a spear of panic rushed up to his throat. “Are you all right? Whatever it is, tell me now. Is it Mom?”
She looked at her boots, seeming unable to speak.
“Look at me, Alex,” Morgan said. She looked up. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“I...I was pissed,” she stammered, and then more disjointed phrases tumbled out. “You treat me like some stupid teenager, cuffing me like a perp...I’m on your team, supposed to be your partner, but you won’t let me so I put a tracker on your car.” Her voice warbled.
Morgan glanced at the Shelby and then back at her tear-filled eyes. “I’m sorry.” He bent his knees a bit so their faces were even and he smiled. “And, I’m impressed. Now tell me what happened.”
“Oh God.” She hugged him with such strength that it took Morgan’s breath away, her face buried in his neck. “I went to Alicia Schmitt in Arlington. She let me inside, and we talked. She was really jumpy and packed up to go somewhere. . . But she was cool, and it was all good, and she told me some stuff, and I was going when they showed up.”
“Who showed up, Alex?” Morgan glanced over the top of her head at a passing young couple staring at him and his daughter. He smiled reassuringly, so they kept walking.
“A hit team.” She shuddered. “They were in tactical getup and looked like cops, but they weren’t...I was in the bathroom when they hit the front door. I got a couple of them but I couldn’t stop them. She fought back too, but...” She took a long breath, and then she settled. She stopped quaking, and she whispered, “They killed her, Dad.”
He pushed her away gently and gripped her shoulders again. He looked her over, head to boots. “Are you hit? Are you okay?”
She shook her head. “I’m okay.”
Morgan’s gaze went steely again. Whoever was running this operation, setting General Collins up for a fall, killing American troops and hijacking Tomahawks, they’d just taken it up a notch. They’d just murdered an American naval officer.
“What did she tell you, Alex?”
Alex saw that her father was back to business. His sympathy was fleeting, and now he was treating her like an operative again. Somehow, that made her feel good.
“Virginia isn’t a place, Dad. It’s a company, a business entity.”
He took her face in his calloused hands. “You did good. You got more out of her than I did, God rest her soul.” Then he took her elbow and walked her back over to Fastia’s front door.
She took off her gloves and wiped her face with her hands. “Where are we?”
“Friend of mine.”
“I’m surprised you still have any left.”
He smiled at that. She was all right.
They went inside, Morgan bolted the door behind them, and they headed up the stairs. As they reached the third landing Alex could hear Neika’s urgent whines and her nails clicking on the floor. Then the shepherd saw Alex, and Alex ran to her and hugged her and ruffled her all over. Neika gave her face a tongue bath, and Alex saw she was leashed to the radiator.
“At least I’m not the only one around here who gets locked up,” she muttered.
Morgan ignored that as Fastia came down the stairs from above. Alex stood up and scanned his face and his garb.
“Welcome, young lady.” He smiled. “I am Kadir Fastia.”
“Alex,” she said, but she didn’t extend her hand. Instead, she touched her fingers to her chest and dipped her head. Fastia did the same, looking impressed.
“You are culturally sensitive, Alex.”
She smirked. “That’s about all they teach us in college these days.”
Fastia laughed. “Yes, so I have heard.” He waved a hand toward a hallway. “Please, let’s go into my office.”
Morgan and Alex followed him into his study. He skirted his large desk, pulled his HiPower from his waistband, laid it carefully on the polished wood, and sat in his large leather chair. He gestured at two plush chairs on the other side. “Please.”
Morgan remained standing. Alex looked at him and followed his cue.
“Kadir, I don’t think we have much time,” Morgan said. “Alex has some fresh intel.” He looked at her. “You can say anything in front of Mr. Fastia. He already knows the issues.”
Alex looked over the friendly face framed in a trim white beard. She had no idea who this man was, but if her father trusted him then she could too. “Virginia is some sort of company,” she said.
“Ahh, so we have one more piece of the puzzle!” His brown eyes gleamed, and he opened up a silver laptop and started to peck. “I think we shall need the darker net.”
“You know how to do that?” Alex marveled.
“I have studied the ways of the young.”
“You should teach my dad. He still can’t figure out how to work Netflix.”
Morgan punched her shoulder, but he was smiling. She looked up at him and grinned back. Something different passed between them, an acceptance that was new, and it sent a flood of warmth through Alex’s heart.
“I am entering parameters,” Fastia said as he squinted at his monitor. “Assuming a radius of one hundred miles, with Richmond at the epicenter...just in the event that this clue is meant twice, should we be so lucky. And now...” He pecked some more. “We shall see if certain other qualities bear fruit, such as the ordnance details, pertinent warehouse facilities.” He tapped the Enter key with a flourish and sat back.
The door to Fastia’s office opened. And his wife peeked in. She was considerably younger than Fastia, wore a blue silk scarf over her head of glossy black hair, and had large merry eyes. Fastia smiled as if always pleased to see her.
“Yes, my dear Nadia?”
“Would you be wanting anything, husband?” she asked.
“Tea, if you please, for our guests.”
She smiled again and closed the door.
Alex looked at her watch. “Dad, they’ve been trying to call me back up to...” She stopped herself from saying Zeta. “Headquarters. I had the day off, and they canceled it and called me back in, but I ignored the messages. They’re probably freaking by now.”
“You’re gonna have to go and take care of that,” said Morgan. “Tell them you were down here visiting a friend and you shut down your cell. She’ll be pissed,” he added, meaning Diana Bloch. “But youth trumps good sense, no offense.”
“None taken.” She put her hands on her hips.
“Just don’t tell them you saw me.”
“Why don’t I just tell them you handcuffed me to the house? That they’
ll believe.”
Morgan’s cheeks flushed, but Fastia interrupted before the exchange could turn sour.
“Ah yes, some results.” His finger moved down his monitor. “No, not this one...nor this. Here!” He tapped the screen with his nail. “The Virginia Cigar Company, with a substantial warehouse, approximately forty-five miles west of Richmond. Nothing else fits. I shall message the address to your cell, Morgan.”
“No, Kadir.” Morgan stopped him. “Write it down.”
“You are trusting no one, are you?”
“Only her.” Morgan touched. “And you.”
Fastia penned the location on a pad, tore the page off, and handed it to Morgan, who turned to Alex. “Stay here for a while. Keep an eye on Fastia.”
Alex glanced at the pistol on the desk. “He doesn’t look like he needs any protection.”
“I don’t.” Fastia grinned. “But you shall have something to eat, young lady. Then you can go.”
Morgan looked at her and held her eyes. “I’m taking Neika. Hold here for about an hour, then head back North. And be careful on that damn bike.”
“You be careful,” she said.
“Where’d you put that tracker?”
“Under your passenger seat.”
“I’ll leave it there for now.”
Wow, Alex thought. He’s really trusting me. It’s a brand-new day.
Morgan kissed her forehead and squeezed her shoulder. He headed for the door, opened it, and turned back. “Virginia Cigar, huh?” He smirked at Fastia. “Just what I needed. More smoke.”
And then he was gone.
Chapter Twenty
Morgan lay in a thicket of tall wet grass, not moving, just breathing and watching.
Beside him, Neika snuggled close, her soft, steady panting warming his ear. The dawn was just starting to break, the early sun shimmering off the sides of the warehouse half a mile away. It sat in an unmowed clearing, surrounded by dense, lush, forests, with a brick-colored, slanted roof, and a big stencil on its flank that had once said “Virginia Tobacco.” But with the years and the weather the sign now said only “Virgin Toba.”
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