Jay grabbed the larger man by the shoulder and pulled him back. “If he’s not willing to share, then maybe he doesn’t know.” He pulled Bobby further back and lowered his voice. “He may have no idea about any of this. Look at him. He’s scared to death and doesn’t know what to believe.”
“He knows something,” Bobby growled. “He has to!”
Jay shook his head. “Not if they were using him like they were using you.” Bobby turned and gave him a surprised look. “If you hadn’t got mixed up in that deal with Roger, you’d have no idea they were planning to pin this on you. He may well be a patsy too.”
Bobby visibly slumped. “Then what do we have?” He turned slowly, his eyes staring past the four walls of the abandoned warehouse. “Nothing. That’s what we have.”
Gregg shouted from his computer station, “We have activity on his cell phone.”
Jay spun. “Who?”
Gregg shook his head as he typed. “Almost got it…the widow!”
All eyes turned to al-Abadi; Jay walked over and cut the man’s ties. “You ain’t going nowhere. Not now that you know you were the target.” He half pushed, half dragged the man to Gregg’s station. “Pipe it through.”
“Rerouting. Wait one.” Gregg tapped the commands then pointed to the speaker on the table. “Go.” He punched the command key and the phone came alive.
“Muhammed!” a woman’s voice echoed in the darkness. “Are you there? What is going on?”
Abadi swallowed hard and leaned toward the speaker. “I am here.” He turned wistful eyes to the men surrounding him. “I-I do not know what is happening, Asma. Things have…things have gotten out of hand.”
“Out of hand! How can you say this? People are dropping like flies in the streets at a protest that you were supposed to be at. Remember that you couldn’t be at the sale because you had to deal with this?” The anger and unstated accusations in her voice made his knees tremble. He knew the power she held.
“Yes, but…something came up. I couldn’t make it and…I am just now seeing this, Asma. I had no idea. Believe me! If I had, I would have canceled the demonstration and—”
“You are a marked man already. Have you not heard the news? They know that you organized this event and never showed. Fingers are being pointed at you!” The phone muffled and they could hear undistinguished voices speaking rapidly in Arabic.
Muhammed swallowed hard and looked to the men around him. “I do not know what to…” he trailed off, his eyes filling with unshed tears. “She is right. I am ruined.”
“There are more important things going on here,” Jay whispered.
When the telephone cleared, Asma didn’t sound nearly as confident. “Things have occurred. Things that…”
“What? Asma, tell me.”
Her voice cracked as she spoke. “A research facility of mine was destroyed. As our people were dying in the streets, somebody destroyed a very important…” She inhaled sharply and when she spoke again, her tone changed. “I must go. I need to make preparations.”
“Preparations? For what, Asma? Tell me what is happening, please!”
The phone line went dead with a click and al-Abadi’s legs went out from under him. He sobbed on the floor as Gregg continued working on his computer. “Oh shit.”
“That doesn’t sound good.” Bridger stepped around the prone form on the floor and pulled Gregg’s screen around where he could see it. “Oh…”
“Somebody speak to me!” Jay barked.
Gregg stood from his station and the look in his eyes told Jay he didn’t really want to know. “There’s a huge wall of smoke headed to the city center. Reports now are saying that it’s some form of weapons lab. They’re shifting the blame from him to this.”
“Bioweapons lab? Chemical weapons? Which? You’re sure it’s here? In Karachi?” Jay walked slowly toward his station. “How?”
Gregg shook his head. “I have no idea and the translation program I’m running concurrent with the reports isn’t the best.”
Jim slid into Gregg’s seat and picked up a set of headphones. “Give me a minute to catch the gist of what’s going on here.”
“Where’s this smoke coming from?” Jay asked, turning to glance at the dirt encrusted windows.
Gregg swallowed hard. “From somewhere here in the Sindh Industrial District.”
Bridger’s head snapped up. “You mean to tell me that we’re at ground zero? There’s a bioweapons lab here?”
“Well, somewhere near here. Look, the winds are blowing this crap toward the city. If we were in the path, we’d already know it.” Gregg turned to Jay. “I’d still feel better if we put some distance between us and the shit storm out there.”
“Agreed.” Jay turned and yelled to Jim. “Load up. We’re on the move.”
Langley, VA
“BUT CAN YOU find him?” Chesterfield chewed at the inside of his cheek as the operator on the other end of the phone spoke. “Yes, of course, whatever the bill is, you know we’ll take care of it. Just find al-Abadi. He has to be found by his own people, dead from the same shit you sprayed on the flags.”
Chesterfield shook his head at the phone. “No, it has to be the same cocktail you sprayed on the flags. If they do an autopsy, it has to look like he was the mastermind. Otherwise, we’ll never be able to spin it that him and his terrorist pals were behind this.” He pinched at the bridge of his nose. “Just…please, time is of the essence here. His time of death has to correlate to the others.”
He nodded as the man on the other end hung up.
Chesterfield fell into his chair and sighed heavily. It wasn’t over yet, but at least the pieces were in play to salvage this monkey shit fight.
“Running damage control sucks, doesn’t it?”
Darren spun in his chair to see the Assistant Director of the NSA standing in his doorway.
“Mr. Ingram. I didn’t hear you come—”
“That’s because I was never here.” Ingram slowly shut the door and shook his head at
