The men sat in silence considering the situation.
“One other thing you both should know. ISIS sent a video to Al Jazeera that showed ISIS militants demanding that Bikar pledge his loyalty to their organization. He refused. They beat him to a bloody pulp before they tied him to the post. The revived him to give him one last opportunity to sign on as a member. He spat at the man and was promptly beheaded.”
“The caller told Sophia to watch Al Jazeera,” Thorn said.
The fine hairs on the back of Brian’s neck prickled. What the hell was going on here? In his gut, Brian thought Sophia was doing her job saving the world’s antiquities and trying to stop ISIS, but even he couldn’t deny that this looked bad. “Was that before or after Bikar was killed? What time did this happen?”
The beheading was at twelve-hundred hours Syrian time. That’s zero-five-hundred hours here in DC. Two hours beforehand, at zero-three-ten hours, Sophia Abadi made a phone call to Jordan on her landline. Sophia said nothing, but on the Jordan side there were five beeps. Sophia then received a call back from a different Jordanian number on her cell. She read an alphanumeric string and said in Arabic, ‘I’ve assessed your information, and I concur. I’d proceed as planned.’ There was no reply on the Jordan end. The line was cut directly after. I tried to trace it, but the exchange was so short, all I got was the city of Amman. With four million people in that city, it doesn’t narrow things by much.”
Thorn scanned down the communications printout. “This makes sense,” he said. “Dr. Bikar could be the ‘major piece off the board’ the caller refers to. He was working to protect the antiquities and might have been preventing the black marketers getting their hands on the better-quality artifacts”.
“Or these two things could have nothing to do with each other.” Brian scrubbed a hand over his face to give himself a moment to process. It looked like evidence was piling up against Sophia. What had she gotten herself mixed up in?
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He dragged it out to check the screen. Sophia Abadi. He tapped speakerphone and lay it on the table. “Brainiack here.”
“Brian, did I catch you in the middle of something? It’s Sophia.”
“You’re all right. What can I do for you?”
Nutsbe turned his computer screen toward them to show Sophia’s car moving down the highway in their direction.
“I’m up the street. If you have a minute—” There was a sudden bang. The squeal of tires. Horns blasting. Sophia screamed. Silence.
Brian was on his feet, adrenaline pumping through his system. “Sophia?” he called into the phone. “Sophia, tell me what’s happening.”
Nutsbe’s fingers flew over the keyboard. He yanked his phone out. “Lynx, Panther Force needs urgent assistance. You’re the closest operative to a client in immediate distress. I’m sending coordinates to your phone. It’s a Chrysler Town & Country, red. It might have been in an accident. It might have been attacked. Approach with caution.”
Brian was running out the door with his keys in his hands when he heard, “Brainiack is backup. ETA five minutes.”
10
Sophia
Wednesday
Sophia couldn’t feel her body. Her ability to process came down to blurred vision, dappled by the flicker of her eyelashes, and the whooshing sound of cars flying by close enough to suck the paint off her van. She reached for those words. Her van. They made strange hooks that pierced through the bubble that held her suspended. Sophia knew she was going to die. She waited for it. She wasn’t breathing. She wasn’t sure her heart beat. She swallowed though. The saliva gathered in her mouth and slipped down her throat in a thick glob, sticking in the center, holding there, then finishing the slow slide. That was all the saliva she had had in her mouth and now her gums were dry. Her tongue too big.
A rapping sounded to the side of her. A chuck-a-chuck sounded as someone tried to open her door. “Sophia? Dr. Abadi?” A female voice hollered down an echoing tunnel. Sophia’s eyelids slid over her eyes then flicked up, mechanically. She wished death would do its job and get it over with.
The pop-pop came at her back door, her hatch, then to her right. “Sophia. Sophia, are you all right? Open the door.”
Sophia’s brain demanded oxygen. She wanted to move, but she was paralyzed. Her head faced forward. Her hands clenched tightly around the steering wheel.
“Sophia!” The woman’s voice was replaced with a man’s. There was a metal scraping sound and a loud pop to her left. Wind blew her hair across her face, the strands weaving themselves into her lashes.
“What’s she doing? What’s wrong?” the man asked.
A horn honked. Debris blew into Sophia’s eyes. When she blinked, she could feel the grit under her lids.
“My name is Lynx. I’m going to help you.” It was an angel’s voice filled with golden light.
Warm skin touched Sophia’s lips and nostrils, then fingers pressed into her neck.
“Can you tell me your name?”
Sophia’s thoughts walked through the mist, looking for the answer.
“Do you know where you are?”
A hand brushed over her face, sweeping her hair to the side. A bright light flashed twice in one eye then twice in the other.
“What’s happening?” the man asked.
“It looks like she’s having a seizure. Was that listed on her medical intake paperwork?”
“We haven’t gotten to that point,” the man shouted over the ambient noise of Washington grid lock travelling at high speed. “Let me get in touch with her partner, Nadia.”
Sophia felt warmth radiating into her body, and she knew it came from the angel. Bubbles of hope effervesced across her chest.
“It’s safe. You’re safe.” The angel’s voice was pink and blue with streaks of tangerine like a sunset sky. “Brian and I are here with you. You’re having a seizure. You’ve had them before. You know that this will be over soon. You’ll be fine.”
There was a prickling sensation on the backs of Sophia’s thighs as they pressed into her seat. Her muscles slackened as the attack faded and exhaustion took its place.
“Lynx, this location is too dangerous.” The wind caught the man’s voice and blew it around like a balloon. “Do you think we need an ambulance?”
“What does Nadia say?” The angel had morphed into human form. Sophia could see the woman’s long blonde hair.
Too tired to hold her head up anymore, Sophia collapsed forward, until her forehead rested on the steering wheel. The woman moved her hands from Sophia’s chest to her back. Her touch was prayerful. Powerful.
Sophia could hear Nadia talking over the speakerphone. “NEAD. Non-epileptic attack disorder. She hasn’t had an episode in over a year.”
“Does she need to go to the hospital?” That was Brian’s voice.
“No to the hospital. They don’t have any way to help her. But if you could get her to her home, I’m already there.”
“We can do that,” Brian said. There was a pause before he asked, “Lynx, NEAD?”
“It’s a chronic seizure disorder caused by psychological distress. It often stems from a severe trauma. The seizures look like epilepsy, sometimes manifesting as tonic-clonic seizures where people fall and lose control of their muscles. Others have absence seizures like Sophia just did.”
The van shuddered as a truck whizzed by, its horn held down.
Brian slid his hand across her stomach to release her safety belt. “Sophia, here, put your arm around my shoulder. I’m going to lift you up.”
“Stop hovering, Brian, you’re making me nervous.” Sophia lay on the couch. She curled deeper into the blanket Nadia had brought down for her. “I promise I’m not going to spontaneously combust.”
Brian moved to a chair and sat down. “One of the things I need to work on with you is a health history. We have medics go over the information when we’re headed out of the country, and they pack medical kits to match the requirements of known possibilities,
in case there’s an emergency when we’re far from a health center. We also have satellite comms that put us in touch with an Iniquus doctor. I’ve been talked through everything from an emergency appendectomy to a breech birth. Twins, no less,” he said with a grin. “Both girls, one’s named Brianna. The other is Charlotte.” He put his hand on his chest. “My middle name’s Charles.”
Sophia gave him a weak smile.
“When you’re up to it, I’d like to work on your profile with you so we’ve got that covered.” He glanced over to where Nadia moved around the kitchen. “Thorn will be doing the same with you, Nadia. Titus said we’ll probably be heading to Peru in another few weeks.”
“Is that what that woman does? Lynx? Is she a medic? How did she know my name when she stopped?”
Brian’s eyes shifted from concerned to impassive, like a curtain closing. “I was on the phone with you when your tire blew. We weren’t sure what was going on, it very well could have been gunfire from the sound of things. Iniquus traced your call and found the nearest operative. That was Lynx. She happens to have an EMT background, so that was a piece of good luck.”
Nadia bustled in with a fragrant cup of chai. Sophia accepted it gratefully.
Outside, an engine powered down the drive. Brian went to get the door. He came back with her keys. “Who’s your neighbor across the way? The one who looks out the upstairs window every time I come over.”
Sophia reached for her keys, glad to have them back in her possession and away from the curious eyes of Iniquus operatives. “Will Sheppard or his wife, Janice. Ignore them. They’re paranoid, but for good reason.”
“Why is that?”
“Because,” Nadia said, “this neighborhood is filled to the brim with looney tunes.” She squinted at Sophia. “You need to move.”
Sophia pulled the pillow from behind her head and buried her face it in, muffling her reply. “If it weren’t for nine-tenths rules, I’d be out of here in a heartbeat.” Sophia moved to hug the pillow, looking up to find a line creased between Brian’s brows.
His eyes had brightened with what she had come to call his ‘duty focus.’ “That didn’t answer my question.”
“In the case of the Sheppards, the women in the neighborhood think it’s a hoot to get liquored up and run up to their house and ring the bell or throw rocks at their windows to wake them up.”
“Why do they do that?”
“That’s not all they do,” Nadia said. “They have neighborhood parties once a month—they grill at the end of the cul-de-sac, everyone brings a dish. Nice, right? Not really. They get drunk, send their kids home, and then do things like take off their shirts and bras and streak half-naked to the stop sign and back. Why? Because they’re crazy.”
“How often do they get drunk?”
“Whenever the kids don’t have school,” Nadia answered.
“Every time?”
“So…someone brought my van back?” Sophia could feel anxiety catching hold of her breath. She needed to change the subject fast.
Brian tipped his head to study her for a long moment. “Yes, they did, and we had all your tires replaced with run-flats,” he finally said.
Sophia pulled her shoulders up to her ears. “What is that?”
“The other day when you got the flats, I thought we had the problem solved. The tires Iniquus put on the right-hand side of your car were self-sealing. If you drove over a nail and then pulled it out, the tire would fill the hole. Unfortunately, they work best when the puncture is small and in the middle of the tread. Your puncture was another piece of construction debris.”
Sophia turned her scowl toward the window.
“There are some things you should know. A run-flat is basically a tire with sidewalls reinforced to support the weight of your vehicle even if they go flat. That means you can drive on a flat tire, and I want you to. You are not to stop and change it. Just keep driving home or to Iniquus or some other place where you feel safe. Then call me or the Iniquus hotline.”
Sophia swung her head toward him.
“I programmed the number into your phone as number one on quick dial. When you call, they’ll know who you are and where you are. You need to tell them the circumstances so they know whom to dispatch. Today, Lynx was only a short distance from you and was able to get to you in less than three minutes, while I made my way to you. There is always a Panther Force operative on duty. You always have support. Okay?”
When had he programmed her phone? Sophia wondered. She didn’t like what Brian was telling her. Sure, it should put her at ease that a group of hot-shot retired Special Forces guys were at her beck and call. There was a time back in high school when that genre of book was her preferred reading. But living vicariously through the words written on a page and living them in real life… They created completely different body responses. Knowing that it might be necessary to push that button on her phone to save herself or her kids… Sophia’s eye caught on the photo of her boys and held.
Brian waited until she turned her attention back to him. “You can still have a blowout with these tires, though. It’s not a foolproof solution. How about you make it a habit to check your tires for anything foreign before you get in the car to drive?”
“I can do that,” Sophia said.
“Sophia, this is important. You’ve been parking your car at the bottom of your drive under the crepe myrtle. You need to park at the top of the hill next to your mailbox. I know it’s a hassle, with the kids and all. But the person who’s sabotaging your tires is using that tree to hide behind.”
“Someone is doing this on purpose?”
“Sophia, come on, be serious. This is life-threatening.”
Sophia thought she caught a hint of exasperation in Brian’s tone.
“I told her the same thing, but she thinks she’s just jinxed. And the ‘bad luck’,” Nadia made air quotes with her fingers, “is her paying for her sins.”
Nadia’s comment felt like the betrayal of a sacred trust. Sophia couldn’t believe she had said that aloud.
Brian leaned forward and waited until Sophia was looking him directly in the eye. She couldn’t hold the intensity of his gaze, so she lowered her lashes to shield herself.
“What sins, Sophia?” he asked gently. “What have you done?”
Sophia rubbed her palms up and down her thighs and focused back on the picture of her boys.
Brian must have realized she had zero intentions of answering him, because he moved the conversation along. “You drive with your kids in the car. Today, when the tire blew, you almost had an accident. Yes, you got to the side of the road and out of harm’s way, but it scared you so badly you had a seizure. What if your boys had been with you then? What if you were on the side of the highway, and you were unable to protect them?”
Sophia’s whole body began trembling. Nadia moved over to her side, reaching her arms protectively around Sophia. Sophia buried her head against her friend’s shoulder. Her mind flashed back to the accident last June that would later take her mother-in-law’s life. The boys had been cut and bruised but hadn’t needed hospitalization, thank God. She now wore the long silver scars where her arm was pieced back together. The thought of another accident was terrifying—the shrieking brakes, the splintering glass, being thrown around the cab despite her seat belt. Sophia pulled herself away from Nadia and caught Brian’s gaze. She nodded. “I can do that, park at the end of the drive. Make it a habit to check my tires.”
“Here’s the thing that I want you to keep your eyes out for. If someone is doing something to you and you take that something away, they don’t just stop. They’re going to look for another way to get to you. If you experience anything new, anything that seems off, you call me. Immediately.”
Sophia reached for her bracelet, sliding her finger into the gold ring that was part of the clasp. Shit.
“Now, you were calling me when your tire blew, what did you need?”
Sophia cleared her throat. “The nei
ghbors were all pissed at me this morning. I bought high-powered lights thinking they would make me safer, but I was up all night with them flashing on and off. Will Sheppard across the street was livid—even Marla around the corner, where you’d think the trees would have protected her from the light show.”
Nadia squirmed forward on the seat cushion. “You didn’t sleep again. You’re going on three nights now.” It was a stern, sisterly rebuke. “No wonder you’re having seizures on the side of the road. You know better. Your doctor told you, point blank.”
“When’s the last time you had a good night’s sleep?” Brian asked softly.
Sophia clasped her hands in her lap like a penitent. “June, 2011.” She tried to laugh it off.
“Nadia told me that you’ve been diagnosed with PTSD and NEAD, and I know that sleep issues can go hand-in-hand with those diagnoses—but right now, I’m talking about you being kept up by external forces. The lights going off. The alarm…”
“She has sleep medication, but she refuses to take it because she’s afraid the boys will need her.”
“Sophia? How long?”
“I can’t think of a time I got to sleep all the way through the night since I moved here a year ago. Something seems to happen most every night. Some of it I can explain away, some things make no sense at all.”
“Give me a for instance.”
“I don’t know—I can’t think of anything beyond lights and alarms at the moment. If I remember, I’ll tell you. In the meantime, if you’d help me shift the sensors on the lights to make a pet corridor, it will stop the light show. I must have had some raccoons in my yard or something. I need my neighbors to calm down.”
“You think that was an animal doing that?”
“Do you have another explanation?”
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