'His name is Patrick Murphy. I'm still working on him.'
Asante gave her instructions for what came next, including what to do with Murphy. Before he hung up he gave her a new contact number to use. Then Asante removed the SIM card from the cell phone, destroyed it, and flushed it down the toilet. The portable memory chip held all the traceable data including personal identity information and a record of incoming as well as outgoing calls. From the duffel bag pocket he pulled out a new SIM card and slid it into the cell phone. In seconds he keyed in the password for his wireless headset, punched in a couple of codes and the phone was as good as new and ready to use. He put it and the headset on the sink, safely out of his way.
The shaver indicated that it was fully charged. Within seconds he shaved off his goatee. He reset the shaver's rotating heads so they wouldn't go all the way to the skin but would leave a half inch. Then he started path after path over his head, watching the dark hair, some of it three to four inches long, fall to the sink.
Next came the hair color. The formula was his own special mixture. He squirted it into the palms of his hands and rubbed it over the new stubble, watching his hair turn honey-colored before his eyes. He massaged it into his eyebrows, too.
Cleanup took only a few minutes. Everything he no longer needed, including the syringe, was flushed away or washed down the drain. The hiking boots went into the trash can along with the rest of his clothes. From the garment bag he unzipped an expensive suit, navy blue and tailored to fit him perfectly, as did the white shirt. He left the collar open and stuffed the tie in the duffel bag. He replaced his over-the-ear wireless headset and tucked the cell phone into his breast pocket.
Finished with discarding the Project Manager, he flipped open his wallet to his driver's license and held it up. Once again, he looked like Robert Asante, an ordinary businessman traveling to his next appointment. More importantly, the man in the mirror matched the man in the driver's license photo.
It was time to move on to the next site. Time for the next stage of the project.
CHAPTER 26
'We already have our company investigator reviewing the tapes,' the small man named Jerry Yarden told Maggie as he led her through a back hallway.
Maggie couldn't believe it. The security company was reviewing its own tapes? She stopped herself from asking whose authority and what protocol gave them that go-ahead? She'd learned years ago that questioning the locals risked offending them. The result only made her job tougher. It was better if they believed she was on their side. Most people already believed that federal law enforcement would sooner point fingers and place blame than present solutions and share credit.
'I understand someone in security noticed the young men before the bombs went off?'
'Oh yeah, we noticed. Three identical red backpacks.' He glanced back at her over his shoulder, not slowing his rapid, almost erratic pace. 'You betcha we noticed.'
Yarden was Maggie's height, small-framed but long-limbed, arms pumping and swinging loosely as he walked. He reminded Maggie of a propeller with a thatch of red unruly hair.
'How did you know they were red?'
'Excuse me?'
'Your surveillance cameras are black-and-white, right?'
'Oh sure. We started following them up on the floor,' Yarden explained. 'We're trained to watch what people bring into the mall with them. We see something suspicious, we follow on the floor. You know, large purses, shopping bags with return items, backpacks, even baby strollers. We had a woman last month sneaking cashmere sweaters under her baby. You'd be surprised what people do.'
Maggie smiled to herself. Actually she wouldn't be surprised.
His Midwest manners kept track of her, politely leading the way and holding doors open. Now he pointed to a door at the end of the hall.
'We thought they were shoplifters,' he said. 'None of us expected those backpacks to have bombs in them.'
He beat her by four lengths to the end of the hallway, yanked the door and again held it open for her, his feet spread apart and both arms engaged like the door was a ton of lead. She pushed aside the fact that she could probably bench-press Yarden's weight let alone hold open the door for herself. Instead she thanked him and stepped inside.
He led her through a maze of offices and back to another door. When he opened this one she immediately noticed the room was dim and lit from only the wall of monitors, four rows of ten across with a long control panel of keypads, switches and color-coded buttons.
Sitting at the panel with his back to them was the lone investigator, square-shouldered, dark hair. There was something familiar about the man. Before he swiveled around Maggie recognized Nick Morrelli.
He, however, was not prepared. He did a double take, looking from Yarden to Maggie and back to Maggie.
'Fancy seeing you here,' he said with his trademark smile, the one that employed dimples and white teeth in the glow of the computer monitors.
'Hi Nick.'
'You two know each other?' Yarden seemed disappointed.
'We've worked together before,' Maggie answered, leaving it at that and watching to see if Nick would be compelled to add more. 'So you've left the D.A.'s office? You're an investigator now?'
'For United Allied Security.'
'Yes, the mall's security company. Do the local authorities know you've been reviewing the videotapes?' Maggie asked Nick but looked back at Yarden who avoided her eyes. Finally Yarden nodded, his head the only part of him in motion now, arms glued to his sides. He reminded her of a bobble-head.
'Yeah, no problem there,' Yarden said, still nodding. 'They've got their hands full, you know?'
She noticed his cadence grew faster with a slightly higher pitch in relation to his amount of guilt. Even the tips of his ears grew red.
'We're only here to help,' Nick told her but Maggie knew from experience that Morrelli's loyalties were sometimes divided, and often resulted in something close to personal quicksand.
Four years ago Nick Morrelli had been county sheriff of a small Nebraska community that was held hostage by a killer?a killer who was targeting young boys. To solve the case Morrelli had struggled to abandon a lifetime of loyalty to his father, the previous sheriff, in order to save his nephew. Maggie and Nick's paths had crossed several times over the years but most recently last summer when, once again, Maggie had been sent to Nebraska to profile another killer. This time Nick's loyalty to a childhood friend had almost jeopardized the case.
'Well then, so you two know each other,' Yarden said, anxious to break the silence and ease the tension. 'That should make this easier, right?' The little man spun a chair around and held it for Maggie. 'Ms. O'Dell?'
'Agent O'Dell,' Nick corrected.
'Oh yeah, right. Agent O'Dell.'
She sat in the proffered seat, next to Nick, giving him only a glance and focusing her attention instead on the wall of monitors. They had been cueing the tapes, stopping them at important intervals. Over a half dozen of the screens were already freeze-framed.
'As you can see, all we've been doing is tagging segments that might be relevant.' Nick waved a hand at the screens. 'Isn't that right, Jerry?'
'Right. There's an awful lot of tape to look at. We're just trying to narrow it down. We're not discarding anything. We're just looking and tagging.'
Maggie almost felt sorry for the nervous little man. She could hardly tell him to relax, that it was Nick Morrelli she didn't fully trust and not Mr. Yarden whom she had only met moments ago.
'Agent O'Dell will need to see the carriers,' Yarden said quickly, grabbing the opportunity to move on. He took the seat on the other side of Maggie. 'The tapes are grainy at best.' Even before he scooted his chair forward his fingers were flying over the control panel. 'We work on a three-second system. That is the camera takes a shot
