The Streets of Washington, D. C.
There are numerous obscure places in the nation’s capitol where people can find shelter and food for the night, away from prying eyes. The Greater Good Mission on Q Street gave Matt a hot meal, a warm place to sleep and nobody asked any questions. As he lay on the dirty thin mattress the only one asking questions was Matt. What did he really see in the hallway of Dr. Melikian’s office?
An elderly patient emerged first, then the woman. Tall, black hair, brown eyes, heavy frame glasses. Dr. Melikian said it was his assistant and partner. Dr. Margaret Khalid. She stood some distance away in the darkness of the hallway. Like a dream. Like one of his drunken hallucinations, shimmering just beyond what was real, but close enough to hurt. How long since he’d had a drink? Weeks? Months? Could this all be real? He knew of cases of long-term alcoholics who continued to have hallucinations months and even years after they’d stopped drinking. Maybe that was it. Plus the stress and fear.
Matt Richards looked around the basement and wondered if he would wind up like these forgotten men and women. Spread out across the floor, drunk, homeless and alone. When they were young and full of life did they ever think they would end up here? Shit. This could be me.
A raspy voice whispered from the mattress next to him, “Try and get some sleep, young fella. Nighttime is worst. The gremlins take control of your head. It’s the past they live in. The dark and evil past. It’s in all of us. You’ll either learn to go to sleep or they’ll drive you crazy. That’s why most of us drink at night.” Matthew Richards closed his eyes and nodded with understanding. He tried not to think about Maha-or Nicole.
Chapter Fourteen
Washington, D.C.
At 8:30 the next morning Matt Richards emerged from the homeless shelter thinking again about his meeting with Dr. Noubar Melikian. He was assaulted by the city noise and smell from the sidewalk garbage. “Ah! The fragrance of the most powerful city on earth. And one of the top five U.S. cities for dangerous crimes. No wonder the White House is barricaded like Fort Knox. Some role model for the rest of the world.” He looked about. People hurried by, eyes down at their feet.
As Matt walked he reviewed the evidence against Dr. Melikian. Item: he’s in a perfect position to assassinate the President. Item: he was plucked from obscurity in Cairo and given a first class education by a benefactor who just happens to be an international terrorist financier and arms dealer. Item: strings are pulled to get him into medical school in Switzerland. And the final item: the benefactor maneuvered Dr. Melikian into the highly sought after post of Personal Physician to the President of the United States.
Matt watched the morning traffic, surging and stopping, everyone going nowhere in a hurry. In reality he had nothing. No real evidence. Only paranoid hunches.
It must be him. But something still bothered Matt about this whole affair, something he couldn’t put his finger on. He decided to find an Internet cafe and do a little research on Dr. Melikian. He was also uncertain of how he could warn the President, especially without any real proof and wearing an international killer’s face.
Inside a telephone booth plastered with suggestive ads displaying the sexy attributes of a quick call to various 1-900 numbers he found a Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages book. The pages he needed were still intact. The nearest Internet cafe was on 17 ^th Street near Dupont Circle, about ten blocks away. After a brisk walk along Q Street he turned the corner and saw the entrance to the cyberSTOP Cafe, a block ahead. Still wary he looked over his shoulder. A police car cruised up the street. He turned and gazed into a storefront window. The cruiser continued its patrol up the street and turned the corner.
Then he saw her. Walking out of the cyberSTOP Cafe wearing a brown fur coat. Her athletic stride took her swiftly to the curb, arm raised to hail a cab. Almost immediately a metro cab pulled up and the black-haired woman climbed in.
It can’t be. The other physician in Dr. Melikian’s office. Why would a prominent physician go out of her way to use an Internet cafe when undoubtedly she had Internet access at the office and at home? He shook his head. The taxi moved off down the street. He walked into the cafe, buffeted by the warm air from the heating system. The heat triggered images of a white cafe overlooking the Mediterranean where Samir and the others had died. He bumped into someone standing at the counter. “Sorry.”
He ordered a cappuccino and a blueberry muffin then sat down in a cubicle with a large flat screen, mouse and keyboard.
Dr. Melikian didn’t have a personal or business website so Matt went to Google and typed in Noubar Melikian, MD. A surprising number of entries popped up onto the screen, most of them articles in newspapers, domestic and foreign. One article described his background and contained extensive information about his commitment to a peaceful solution to the Middle East crisis. Camouflage for a deep cover assassin? While he couldn’t rely on his own intuition, especially after years as an alcoholic, he had to admit he’d been impressed with the sincerity of the doctor yesterday. Dr. Melikian certainly didn’t seem like an assassin, but then that was the point.
After an hour of scanning articles Matt started visiting websites searching for photos. There were numerous pictures of Dr. Melikian with President Pierce. He found family photos and even a few old grainy pictures of Noubar Melikian as a young boy. There was even a photo on his graduation day from medical school in Switzerland.
Why Switzerland? His mind wrestled with the alternatives. Why not the U.S.? What was al Nagib up to?
Frustrated with more questions than answers Matt was about to log off when a picture of Dr. Melikian and his associate, Dr. Margaret Khalid, slowly took shape on the screen. “Oh my God!” The other users stared at him, not used to someone talking out loud to their computer terminal.
He studied her face. The glasses. The eyes. But something else about the picture bothered him. What is going on here? He leaned forward, studying the image. The more he stared at the image the more it began to resemble Maha, only with glasses, brown eyes instead of green and black hair instead of red.
More images swirled. The cafe in Beirut. Anne-Marie in the monastery. Maha’s red hair and green eyes drawing him in. He was about to log off when he saw it. He peered closely at the image on the screen. Dr. Melikian and Dr. Khalid were shaking hands and waving to photographers. What’s that on her left hand? The detail was too small to discern. He had to know more.
Matt got up and walked towards the front. He felt sick. It took all his effort to calm down. After a few minutes of deep breathing he reached the counter. “Yes?” said a pasty-looking young man with multiple body piercing, wearing a name tag of Aubrey. “Something wrong with your machine?”
“Can you show me how to enlarge an Internet photo?” They both walked back to his cubicle. A couple of clicks of the mouse later, the image filled the screen.
“If you want better resolution or you want to zoom in on a particular area I know a website that has a really cool program,” the young man said, glad to be doing something other than ringing up the cash register. “All we need to do is select this image, save it, then log into a certain website, transfer the picture, and bingo. There it is with nearly a dozen zooming and enhancement tools.”
“Can you enhance the woman’s left hand?”
“No problem,” Aubrey said. Matt got up and the young man slid into the seat like a veteran fighter pilot entering the cockpit. “How big do you want it?”
“What I want is a close up of her face, and then one of her left hand.” Matt watched as the screen evolved into a kaleidoscope of images.
“That’s great. Perfect. Can I get a print of each of those?” he said handing the young man a crisp $50 bill. “This should cover the prints and something extra.” Matt sat back down in the warm chair and stared at the two enhanced sections of the original photograph. In a few minutes the young man returned with the two prints. He looked back over his shoulder as he walked away.
Matt managed to compose himself. His eyes grew moist but he blinked back the emotion. The ache was unbearable. The scar on the left hand. Where her brother’s knife cut her that day up on the ski slope in the mountains high above Beirut. He vividly recalled putting a ball of frozen snow on her bleeding hand then wrapping it in a bandage.
This isn’t an hallucination. Matt ran his fingers along the edge of the print. Maha’s alive. He could barely form the thoughts. She must be the terrorist.
