“I swear!” She fiddled nervously with the purple ribbon around her wrist. Most of the students and staff had started wearing them since the kidnapping.
“Am I in trouble?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “But I am going to have to hold onto this phone for a little while.”
A minute later, I was double-timing it back down to the visitors’ lot and my car. Finally, we had some kind of pattern to work with — or at least, the suggestion of one. Could that earlier text from Ryan Townsend’s phone have been a test run of some kind? Were there others?
And most of all, if Emma Allison’s phone was in her locker that morning, and she didn’t send this latest message — who did?
The caller had to be the kidnapper. Who else could it be?
SUDDENLY A LOT was happening, even more than I realized. I was shuttling back over to headquarters, when I got a call from Ned Mahoney.
“It’s your better half,” he said, and snorted out a laugh.
“Well, you’ve got Bree, Nana Mama, and John Sampson ahead of you on that one,” I said. “But what’s up?”
“Those two arrests from last night. The dude in the wheelchair and the sixty-something accomplice? I don’t know what kind of black op hole they fell into, but one of them must have coughed up some serious intel. Joint Terrorism Task Force is standing up another whole operation for tomorrow night. They’ve already got full surveillance going on some parking garage in Chinatown. That’s all I have so far, but it’s going to be big, Alex, and I’m not talking about just standing around watching this time.”
I could barely process what Ned was telling me. My mind was overflowing with the details of everything I’d just learned at the Branaff School.
“Thanks, Ned, but my plate’s a little full here,” I said. “Isn’t that what I have you for?”
“Actually, buddy — old friend, old pal — I was calling to get in on
“Ned, I don’t even know what we’re talking about,” I said.
“You will. I wouldn’t be surprised if your captain’s leaving you a voice mail about it right now. There’s a briefing, two o’clock today. It’s at the police academy in Southwest.”
“Why all the way down there?” I asked.
“They need the room. They’re going to be staging this thing all into the night. Like I said —
“You don’t need my permission for that,” I told him.
“Actually, I do this time.”
This was unbelievable. I thought about everything I still had to get done — the things I wanted to do myself and the few things I could hand off. There were dozens of calls and texts on Zoe’s phone to track back. I also had to try and reach the First Lady, if I could.
“Let me make this easy for you,” Ned said, cutting into my thoughts. “You’re coming to the briefing. You know it, and I know it. Can we move on now?”
I swear he’s got caffeine instead of blood. The guy’s one of the Bureau’s locomotives.
And he was right. If this had anything to do with the kidnapping, I wanted to be in on it — whether I had the time and energy or not.
“Yeah,” I said. “All right. Police academy, two o’clock. And where’s this parking garage you’re talking about, anyway?”
THAT THURSDAY EVENING at six o’clock exactly, Hala and Tariq’s attack team convened on the upper level of the Chinatown municipal parking garage on H Street.
There were eight of them in all, four couples who arrived separately and would also travel in their own vehicles to the target site. Everyone wore Western business dress, as they had been instructed to do. The men’s jackets and women’s tops were specially cut to conceal the identical Sig Sauer pistols they’d all been issued.
Only Tariq was unarmed. He’d resisted his part in the assignment, but Hala had insisted he be there. He handed around earbuds, transmitters, and laminated conference badges while she began the briefing.
“I’ll make this as fast as possible,” Hala said. “The U.S. secretary of the interior, Justin Pileggi, is scheduled to address the World Alternative Energy Expo at seven thirty tonight. Pileggi will have a full security detail, of course, and they’ll keep him moving around the convention center. His remarks may or may not start on time. We need to keep ourselves just as unpredictable,” she said. “Anyone watching out for an assassin will have seven of us to contend with. No one can stop us.”
There were a few approving smiles around the circle. A few nervous expressions as well. But they all got the plan.
“If at any time you have a clear shot, you’re to take it,” Hala went on. “At that point, the rest of you should know what to do. Escape, if you’re able. And if not —”
She held up the cyanide capsule from her pocket in one hand and her Sig in the other.
