“You are the police,” said the little girl. “My mommy needs you.” She tugged more persistently on the security guard’s pants.
“Freddie, something ain’t right here. She maybe thinks we’re the cops ’cause we’re in uniform and packin’. I’m going to call this in.” It took ten minutes for the police to arrive.
“Okay, little lady,” said a large, overstuffed beat cop. “What seems to be the problem?”
“My mommy needs you.”
“Will you take us to her?” The little girl nodded. “Is it okay if I pick you up and carry you along, and you direct me?” The little girl nodded again. “You know, little lady, my name is Clarence. What’s yours?”
“Tyra.”
“Okay, Tyra, you direct the way. Show me and my partner here where your mommy is.”
They traveled a surprising distance through alleyways in a rougher part of town. The two officers were having a hard time envisioning a five-year-old navigating these lanes on her own.
“This way,” she said at length, pointing to a cracked stone porch and an ancient metal door beyond it. “In there.” On the other side of the door, at the base of a long, narrow stairway, was a wheelchair with bent wheels and a crumpled back . Beside it lay a young woman, in her late twenties, obviously dead.
As more police and forensics were called, Clarence sat Tyra down on the stone landing outside the door. “Tyra, I know this isn’t easy, but tell me what happened here?”
“Oh, easy. Daddy got mad at her and kicked her down the stairs.”
“While she was in the wheelchair?”
“Yes. Mommy could only move around in a wheelchair. She was in an accident and couldn’t move her legs.”
“So your daddy kicked her down the stairs?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She was being bad. The house was messed up. You can go upstairs and see.”
“Where is your daddy?”
“I don’t know.”
The conversation went on for a while, with Constable Clarence recording it. There were no tears.
“Hey, Tyra, wake up,” teased one of her aides, seeing a distant look in her eyes, a look that drifted across her face with regularity. Her mother had been a vicious disciplinarian and had deserved.
Tyra waited for her head to clear. There had never been a father. “What, Penny?”
“The deputy director of TTIC is available for questioning if you like, and Admiral Jackson can be made available again if you wish.”
“Great.”
“And we were given those GPS coordinates from the Islamabad embassy a while ago. We relayed them to the Karachi office of the Pakistan InterServices Intelligence agency, as you directed. We advised them that Kumar Hanaman was in the vehicle sending out that particular GPS signal.”
“Oh, yes, the ISI. That’s great, Penny, you’re a dear. Don’t know what we’d do without you.” Tyra flashed a brilliant smile at her dedicated assistant.
18
Dana wheeled the ancient lawyer to the Law Courts restaurant, where they enjoyed a cup of coffee and a sandwich.
“Dana, you’re in some rough water here. You’re kind of stumbling around and your client might actually be innocent.”
Dana was feeling overwhelmed. First Lord Deathrot had made an appearance, and now, on the same day, a living legend was actually having a cup of coffee with her. She did not know what to say.
“Feeling a bit outgunned, are you?”
“Yes, maybe a little bit.”
Penn-Garrett chuckled. “A little bit, huh? Sheff and Archambault are the best. Those other two guys don’t seem to be too bad either, although they should be backhanded for being such rude twits.”
Dana had to admit to the obvious. “Okay. A lot outgunned.”
“Those guys at Blankstein deFijter have all been cited by the Law Society. Disgraceful behavior. Just disgraceful. They’ve done that for years. Bill the hell out of a file and down tools when the money’s gone. DeFijter especially needs to have his arrogant ass kicked.”
Dana mumbled and nodded some more.
“The prosecutors have left themselves wide open, you know,” continued the octogenarian.
Dana studied the man across from her. Short, wide, wrinkled, with white hair that desperately needed a trim. And those famous grey eyes. “Judgeeyes,” lawyers called them.
“How so, sir?”
“Okay, kid. Here’s how we’re going to get those guys.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. They spoke for half an hour. Dana was amazed. PennGarrett was rattling off the names of cases, along with citations. Nobody remembers cites, but Penn-Garrett did. He referred to sections and subsections of the Rules of Court, and the latest legal interpretations.
When they were done, Dana’s head was swimming. She had started writing case names, cites, principles, and rules on a coffee napkin, which quickly turned into two napkins. She had half a dozen napkins covered with hieroglyphics, both sides. She was concerned that she would not be able to read her own handwriting, but she managed. By the time they were done, Dana was smiling more than the Sage of Smithe Street.
19
Twenty-four hours had passed since the Inzar Ghar breakout. When they had heard the sirens, they ditched the truck for another vehicle, and then another. Police cars had whizzed by in both directions as Kumar and Zak crouched below window level, so only Richard was visible. They ended up driving a two-year-old Volvo.
Richard, Zak, and Kumar headed into the fertile southern farmlands, sticking to the back roads. Both of them had grown up in the embassy compound in Islamabad and were not strangers to the back roads and trails and languages of the region. Zak and Richard had spent years exploring the country with their parents, from the magnificent Himalayas in the north to the vast river delta around Hyderabad and Karachi. They monitored as much of the media as they could, but there did not appear to be a manhunt for them. There were no advisories or notices, no apparent search parties or helicopters flying lazy eights. Not yet, anyway.
“Do you think maybe we’re in the clear?” Richard asked. “It’s been quiet for a day.”
“Rich, you are truly dumber than a bag of hammers. Think about the question for a minute. Yousseff orchestrates the mother of all terrorist attacks. He uses incredible technology to
