“You didn’t answer my question, Goose,” Danielle said.
The use of his nickname came across a little too familiarly to Goose. He felt uncomfortable because of the questions and because of the attention the woman gave him.
“Was it a SCUD or a psalm?” Danielle repeated.
“Ma’am,” Goose said, “I never heard an explosion up in that mountain that night. I heard the voices of those men trapped up there, all of them probably certain they were going to die. And in the next moment, that mountain fell.”
“Like the walls of Jericho.” Danielle smiled.
“I wasn’t at Jericho. I couldn’t say.”
“Why is the CIA so interested in you?”
Goose looked at her, knowing instinctively from the confident tone in her voice that she knew something. “I don’t know.”
“You’re not going to deny that they are interested in you?”
“Do you want me to, ma’am?”
A surprised grin fitted itself to Danielle’s face. “I wouldn’t believe you.”
Goose didn’t say anything.
“Did you know that even now as we speak one of CIA Section Chief Cody’s agents is watching you from across the street?” Danielle’s smile turned superior and mocking.
Looking at her, Goose said, “Are you referring to the agent on the second floor of the building directly across from us? Or are you talking about the agent on top of the building to the northeast? And unless I’m mistaken, a third agent comes by in a Toyota four-wheeldrive pickup every half hour or so. I’m sure he’s the transport part of the surveillance team.”
Danielle’s eyebrows rose. “Okay, I’m impressed. I spotted the one guy because I recognized him from earlier.”
“From where?”
“The burning building that came under terrorist attack.” Danielle gazed at him coolly, the hanging lights from the church reflecting in her eyes. “The one where you carried the man out and placed him in a jeep while all the other survivors were taken to the hospital or released.”
Goose didn’t say anything. He shifted uncomfortably, realizing his knee felt like it was about to explode. “As I recall, you didn’t know the man’s name when we talked earlier.”
“Which man?” Danielle asked. “The one you carried out of that building and disappeared with?”
Goose avoided that topic for the moment. “The CIA agent you were talking about that morning.”
Danielle gazed at him as if taking his measure. “Things have changed since I talked with you yesterday.”
Goose waited, curious now at how much she knew. If she had managed to somehow identify Icarus, she could be a danger to herself as well as to the double agent.
“I didn’t get any joy from you,” Danielle said, “so I sent Cody’s picture to a friend of mine at OneWorld NewsNet.”
“You had a camera?”
“Of course. I never go anywhere without one.”
“I’ll remember that in the future.”
Danielle nodded. “I hope that in the future we’re working on the same side.”
Goose didn’t say anything.
“My friend at OneWorld NewsNet was young,” Danielle said.
“You’re young,” Goose stated.
“Lizuca was younger than me,” Danielle said. “She was bright and intelligent and one of the friendliest people I’ve ever met.”
Was. For the first time Goose realized that Danielle was talking about her friend in the past tense. He attributed the miss on his part to fatigue and his aching knee. A knot of apprehension stirred in his guts.
“She helped support her mother and her sister financially,” Danielle said. “The economy in Romania is still problematic. I’d been giving her some overtime, which she loved because that gave her a little extra money to spend on herself, and she learned more about the news business. She was hoping to get the chance to move to America.”
The band played another lively rock song that seemed at odds with the story Danielle was telling. “Yesterday my coordinator at OneWorld NewsNet ordered Lizuca off the assignment I’d given her.”
“That person knew what she was doing?” Goose asked.
“Stolojan only knew that I had asked her to find out the name of the man in the picture I’d sent her.”
“Had Lizuca identified Cody then?”
“Lizuca—“ Danielle’s voice broke—“Lizuca never identified Cody as far as I know. A couple hours after I sent her Cody’s picture, she was dead. Someone tracked her to the cybercafé, where she worked when she was away from OneWorld, and brutally murdered her. Shot her down in front of several people.”
Goose drew in a deep breath and exhaled. Suddenly the idea of Cody’s three agents stalking him wasn’t as insignificant as he’d first thought. But he still didn’t think they meant him any harm. Otherwise they would have already tried. There had been opportunities before now. He believed they were watching him in hopes of catching Icarus, using him as bait. Taking three men out of Cody’s troops had improved Icarus’s chances of getting away or remaining hidden, whichever the man had intended.
“Was the gunman identified?” Goose asked.
“No.”
Goose rubbed his jaw, thinking the problem over and evaluating the parameters of it. “I don’t think Cody keeps an agent in Romania.”
“I don’t either. He could have hired someone, though.”
“And cut a deal that quick?” Goose shook his head.
“But who would let Cody know Lizuca was searching for him?”
“She was searching OneWorld NewsNet’s archives when she was killed,” Danielle said. “For the murderer to show up there, they had to be tracking her from the link to OneWorld NewsNet.”
Considering that, Goose knew that only one conclusion could be drawn. He was certain that Danielle had already made the same one.
“Someone at OneWorld NewsNet tipped off the killer,” Goose said. “How did you identify Cody?”
“I went through another source.”
“Who?”
Danielle shook her head. “I don’t even know. The person I contacted remains hidden.”
“But you can trust this person?”
Her eyes flashed. “I got Cody’s name, didn’t I? And you haven’t bothered to deny it, so I know I’ve got that name right. If that’s right, then the rest of what I learned must be right.”
“How did that person get the name?”
After a brief hesitation, she replied, “The initial information came from OneWorld NewsNet. The CIA files after that.”
“No one noticed?”
“There was an incident. Someone
