Vlad nudged this thought from his mind. It was way beyond his pay grade. Besides, the gene pool that disliked chaos also gave him something else. Something with which there was no debating. A part of him that did not want to think about this: his keeshkee.
FORTY
Salt Lake City, Utah Wednesday, 10:17 a.m.
Mike Rodgers was changing planes when he checked the personal cell phone he had bought to join the twenty-first century. He never took the phone with him to work, so it had been unaffected by the electromagnetic pulse. There was a call from Maria McCaskey and plenty of time to return it. The connecting flight to San Diego did not leave for another sixty minutes.
The flight from Washington had been routine. Routine for Rodgers, anyway. That invariably meant planning for conflict. The difference was that for the first time in his life, he was sizing up Americans. He was talking to Kat Lock-ley, trying to find out what she knew and what she might be hiding. Either she was very good at deception, or she was very innocent. He could not decide which. He was hoping it was the latter. In fact, he hoped this entire thing turned out to be a misunderstanding of some sort. Being away from Washington made him inherently less distrustful. The murderer of William Wilson was probably a former lover or a business rival. The EM attack on Op- Center may have been long planned, the timing coincidental. He still believed it was executed by a group or nation the NCMC had crossed. At least, Rodgers wanted to believe that. One of the failures of Homeland Security was that it presumed when the moat was drawn, only good guys remained in the castle.
Kat planted her ear to her cell phone the instant she left the plane.
She said she had to talk to Eric Stone and to Kendra to see how everything was going. The senator had no plans for that morning. The convention opened in the evening, but the senator's big night was not until the next day. He would make a speech and then, on Friday, the convention would select a candidate. Kat said she wanted to make sure that everything was going as planned.
Rodgers walked away from where Kat was sitting. He went to a quiet corner at an empty gate and stood with his back against a wall. It felt good to stand after being in the crowded plane. People were rushing about, but the general felt disconnected from their urgency. He had always felt that way in combat, too. There was a tightrope strung between himself and the outcome, with potential enemies everywhere. He had to be very attentive to each step. This investigation was like that in a way because of what the outcome meant to him personally and professionally. Rodgers felt apprehensive as he punched in the number.
He did not think Darrell or Maria was calling to find out if Kat had told him anything. Rodgers would have called from a phone on the airplane if he had intel. The call probably meant the McCaskeys had information for him. Maybe they had found the killer, an angry former employee or maltreated valet.
The information Darrell had was not what Mike Rodgers wanted to hear.
'A woman from your circle was at the second crime scene,' McCaskey told him. 'The time is right, and she was wearing a dress that matches the color of fibers found in the room.'
Since this was an unsecured line, McCaskey would not tell Rodgers how he found that out, but the former FBI agent was a conservative man; he would not have made such a conclusive statement if he weren't sure.
'Who is it?' Rodgers asked.
'The reporter.'
Lucy O 'Connor. Rodgers felt relief, doubt, and renewed concern in quick succession. The relief was because the killer appeared to be outside the group. The doubt was because it seemed unlikely Lucy would have conceived the one murder alone, let alone a second murder and possibly the bombing of Op-Center. In the little time he had spent with Lucy, she did not seem to have the patience for murder. And concern because, if all that were true, Lucy had to be in league with someone. That still did not clear Link or his people.
'What about the hat with the big brim?' Rodgers asked. 'Is that a match?'
'Not worn in this image,' McCaskey said. 'But it could have been stuffed into a shoulder bag.'
That made sense. If she were caught on a security camera outside, there would be one less element to connect her to images from the hotel.
'What do you want me to do?' Rodgers asked.
'I think you should tell your traveling companion and see how she reacts,' McCaskey said.
'I agree. We leave for San Diego in less than an hour. I'll try to call back before then.'
Rodgers hung up. He flipped the phone shut and started walking toward Kat. She was still sitting there, her eyes fixed on nothing, her index finger in her open ear as she talked on the phone, conducting her business. But which business? And how was he going to find out? He was a soldier, not Morley Safer.
