you’re comfortable with this?”
“I didn’t say that,” I told her. “I think you satisfy certain criteria as a person of interest, and I think that’s as far as anybody’s gone in an analysis of you. The Bureau has an amazing machine over there, but emphasis is definitely on the ‘machine.’ Sometimes, anyway. Meanwhile,
She was squinting at me now, almost like I’d gone out of focus. I don’t think she expected any of that to come out of a cop’s mouth.
“Haven’t I seen you on the news before?” she said then. “I think I have.”
“Probably,” Sampson told her. “He’s about half famous.”
Isabelle Morris smiled, sort of. “Just like me,” she said, then went back to chopping vegetables.
“So where should I start? You want to hear about what I had for dinner Thursday night? What book I’m reading?
THERE WASN’T A single note about Isabelle Morris’s earlier interviews in the thin unclassified file I had gotten from the Bureau, so I couldn’t compare her stories with what I was hearing now. She told us she’d been home the evening before the kidnapping, left the house around seven thirty the next morning for the Branaff campus, and then went right back home again after she’d been released. None of it ruled out a connection to the case, but I thought we were probably wasting our time with her as much as she did.
On the way back in, Sampson and I stopped at an empanada place he likes on Sixteenth. We ate our turnovers in the car with a couple of Yoo-hoos. God save our digestive systems. Mine anyway. Sampson eats like he’s part goat. It’s been that way since we were ten years old.
“So what are you thinking?” Sampson said. “Those kids still alive? Any chance at all?”
I stared over at him. “If no one’s made any demands yet, that’s a terrible sign. On the other hand, the FBI or Secret Service could be sitting on something. Let’s face it, Ethan and Zoe Coyle are two of the highest-value targets in the world.”
John demolished half an empanada in a single bite. “You thinking this could be international?” Sampson said. “Terrorism?”
I shrugged. “For the moment, I’m throwing darts, John. But I’ll tell you one thing. I keep coming back to the Gary Soneji case.” Prior to this, the Soneji mess had been the biggest kidnap investigation — and in some ways, the biggest debacle — I’d ever been attached to.
“Soneji worked at the school he took those kids from,” Sampson said. “I remember they had to drag you kicking and screaming onto that case. And now here you are, kicking and screaming to get onto this one.”
“Yeah.” I looked down at the pile of busywork files on the seat between us. “I just hope those kids are alive. John, I still remember the day we found Michael Goldberg in that grave. I don’t want to relive it. I don’t want to find another dead child.”
“
At eight o’clock Monday night, the Al Dossaris arrived at the Harmony Suites Business Hotel on Twenty-second Street. Neither of them carried anything with them — no weapons, no ID.
They took the rear stairs to the third floor where they knocked twice at the door of Room 345. It was all exactly as specified on the disk they’d received at the Natural History Museum.
A smiling, round-bellied Saudi promptly answered the door. He was clean shaven, with a Washington Nationals ball cap perched on his head.
“Come in, come in,” he said, smiling as he closed the door. “Everything is ready for you. Welcome, brother. Sister.”
He nodded deferentially as he shook Hala’s hand, even as his small eyes lingered over her breasts.
“Please take off that silly hat,” she said to him. He immediately did as he was told.
The man’s much younger wife was inside, spreading clear plastic sheets over both of the queen-size beds. She smiled, too, but didn’t speak, not even to offer any sort of refreshment. Hala noticed that she had very large breasts. Augmented? she wondered. Disgraceful if that was the case. A ridiculous Western custom, dangerous as well.
In the corner, several unmarked cardboard boxes were stacked against the wall. This was the poison, wasn’t it? A great deal of it. Two large empty canvas duffels and a plain black briefcase sat on the dresser. Once the perfunctory greetings had been made, they got to work on the death hit. Tariq and the other man began unpacking cartons while the young woman went to the briefcase and flipped it open for Hala to inspect.
“Weapons,” the young wife said shyly, nervously.
“Yes, weapons. We’re at war with America. Oh, hadn’t you heard?”
Nested in the case’s foam liner were a bowie knife in a leather sheath, a tightly coiled garrote with small wooden handles, a Taser, a Sig Sauer combat model pistol. The kit also included six fifteen-round magazines and a suppressor.
Hala picked up the Sig, keeping her eyes raised, as she’d been trained to do. Her hand found one of the magazines, slapped it into place, then twisted the suppressor onto the threaded muzzle.
