First Team operative working with the FBI on the Seven Angels case. She’d come up from New Mexico primarily because she was the one member of the task force easily spared. The others, all FBI agents, were trailing church members and preparing search warrants to shut down the group. While the Chicago-area FBI agent with her knew she wasn’t with the Bureau, he’d been briefed on the sensitivity of the operation and let the misconception stand as well.
Judy Coldwell opened the door as they reached the stoop. “I know why you’re here,” she announced. “Come in.”
Coldwell led them inside to a dining room off the living room. Even if Thera hadn’t known from the backgrounder that Coldwell and her husband didn’t have any children, she could have read it in the house’s pristine order and the ceramic vases that sat on low tables near the side of the room. Coldwell, thirty-six, looked maybe ten years younger. Unlike her older brother, who’d been overweight, she was extremely thin; her five-eight frame might have been suited for modeling had her face been prettier. It had a harshness to it, a bleached asceticism maybe. Thera thought it might come from dieting fanatically, though it could just as easily have been a symptom of suppressed grief.
“My brother and I really weren’t that close,” said the woman, looking at Thera. “I didn’t even know he was overseas. Not until you called.”
“That would have been Mary Burns,” said the State Department rep. He took charge, telling Coldwell what she already knew: her brother had been killed by a suicide bomber; the Israelis would release the body in a few days, and he would be flown home at their expense.
Coldwell nodded once or twice. Her face remained almost entirely blank, cheeks pinched ever so slightly, as if she smelled a faint odor of vinegar. Only when the sheriff’s deputy told her that police protection would be provided if she wanted did she speak.
“I don’t believe that would be necessary. Do you?”
“Probably not,” agreed the deputy.
Thera watched Coldwell. She was an accountant with a small local practice. Thera thought it a cliche that accountants were more comfortable with numbers than people, but Coldwell seemed to be living proof of it.
Distant rather than uncomfortable, Thera thought. People reacted in different ways to grief; it was difficult to judge them from the exterior.
“I wonder, Mrs. Coldwell,” said Thera when the last of the mundane but necessary details of the death and its aftermath had been squared away, “if you’d be willing to help us with an aspect of the situation that may seem a little unusual.”
Coldwell blinked at her. “I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Thera Majed. I’m with a task force. The FBI, as you could imagine, is interested in examining the circumstances as they occurred in Jerusalem.” Thera made her answer seem improvised and almost haphazard, though it was anything but.
“The FBI is investigating?” asked Coldwell.
“Our interest is routine. It wouldn’t be an official investigation, unless the Israelis made a request.”
“Did they?”
“They’ve asked for some help on our part.” Even if they were necessary, Thera disliked having to use weasel words. She wasn’t lying exactly, but she was leaving a lot out. “Primarily, in a case like this, the agencies have to make sure that what seems to have happened, did happen.”
“Can there be any doubt?”
“It’s not really my job to say that.” She smiled, as if agreeing with Coldwell that, of course, there could be no doubt at all. “In cooperating with the Israeli government, we would like a few more days before this became public.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“The government of Israel is withholding public confirmation of your brother’s identity for forty-eight hours,” said Thera. “Just so that everything can be checked out. Our government is prepared to acquiesce.”
“Why?”
“As I said, a few days to look into this quietly would be most useful.”
“Are you saying my brother wasn’t a random victim?”
“I’m not saying that, no. It looks as if he was, but there are questions. The Israelis would like to be sure, and so would we.” The Israelis
“Was my brother doing something illegal?”
“Do you think he was?” asked Thera.
“I don’t. But it sounds to me as if you do.”
Thera had reached the point in her script where she had to make a judgment call: what exactly to tell the sister. She could just shrug and pass this off as routine. Or she could gamble that Coldwell might know something that might be useful to the FBI.
Which way to go?
“Have you ever heard of the Church of Seven Angels?” asked Thera.
“What is it? A church? A born-again church?”
“It is a church, but it’s not Christian,” said Thera, studying the emotionless face across from her. “They’re not Christian at all. They consider themselves… apart.”
Thera struggled for the right word. The church members believed that they were part of a “post-Christian vanguard” in the same position to Christians as Christians were to Jews.
“Your brother flew several times a year to New Mexico to attend services,” said Thera. “It seems that he may have gone to Jerusalem on their behalf.”
“On some sort of tour?”
“No. Business.”
“For a church? Were they his clients?”
Thera sidestepped the question. “You wouldn’t happen to know why he decided to go to Jerusalem, would you?”
“No.”
“Did he talk about going?”
“We really haven’t been that close.”
“Did Benjamin know anyone in Jerusalem? Or Cairo?”
“I couldn’t tell you. Maybe from the Rotary Club. He’s an accountant.”
“Like yourself?” said Thera.
Coldwell smiled ever so slightly. “Maybe it’s in the genes.”
Outside, Thera walked past the local FBI agent’s Crown Victoria and pulled out her satellite phone to talk to Corrigan.
“I think we’re good,” she told him. “She’s not going to talk to the media.”
“You sure?”
“I didn’t ask her to sign a contract, Jack. It’s a gut call. The FBI tapped her phone; they’ll let us know if something is up.”
“Tapped the phone? Is that necessary?”
“Not my call, Jack. This is the FBI’s case. They want to make the arrests as soon as they can.”
“What are you doing now?” Corrigan asked.
“I’ll go back to New Mexico. I might as well be there for the arrests.”
“I thought they didn’t have much of a case.”
“They don’t. But that’s never stopped the FBI before.”
When the intruders were gone, Judy Coldwell went back to the dining room and cleaned off the table. She took the cups and saucers inside to the kitchen, placing them carefully in the dishwasher. She did the same with the silverware. She measured the detergent carefully as she always did, using a spoon. As the prewash cycle began, she went to the dining room and removed the cloth from the table, taking them down the hall to the laundry room.
