“Pretty please?” Sivitz’s adrenaline was still high, and he didn’t give a shit whose pay grade was up the scale from whose right now.
Stroud nodded at the interpreter, who posed the question to Mrs. Angawi.
“‘I don’t know,’” she translated.
“What about the Coyle kids?” Sivitz asked.
“‘My husband says that The Family is responsible. He said as much to two of our people just the other day. The ones who are in charge now, I think.’”
“And who are they? What are their names? What do they look like? Where are they?”
Sivitz tried not to rush, but he was finding it difficult. Time was short.
“‘I believe she is a doctor. The man is somewhat plain — in his looks, but also maybe in his head. I think it’s the wife who controls things. She’s very strong.’”
“And you don’t know their names?” Sivitz tried again.
No.
“Or where they are?”
No.
“Jesus.”
He turned and walked to the window. The Capitol dome loomed just a few blocks away. The needle of the Washington Monument stood tall in the distance. It was a great nighttime city, really. Not that he ever got to enjoy it.
Again, the woman spoke up, followed by the interpreter. What the woman had said seemed important. Her voice had risen.
“‘What I can tell you is where the next attack will be. Also maybe when it is scheduled.’”
Everything in the room seemed to go still. When Sivitz turned around, Mrs. Angawi’s expression had changed. Was she smiling? The corners of her mouth looked curled.
“Tell me,” Sivitz asked. Lindley was already dialing his phone. “Give me a location. A time. Whatever you’ve got. Then you’ll get what you want.”
She sat back then. Yes, she was definitely smiling. She was just as smug as her husband when she wanted to be, wasn’t she?
Taking her time now, the woman picked up the uneaten half of her sandwich and carefully wrapped it in a paper napkin. She tucked it into the purse on the table next to her and then put the purse on her lap, speaking quietly through the translator as she did.
“‘As soon as you get me out of this godforsaken city, I’ll tell you what you want to know.’”
FIRST THING THE next morning, I was back on the trail of Zoe Coyle’s cell phone. The number I got from her friends traced to a prepaid Firefly flip model. It was the kind of thing you could pick up at any convenience store — no calling plan, no subscriber information required. Zoe had obviously gone to some trouble to keep this thing a secret.
Fireflies were especially popular with schoolkids, since they were so small and easy to hide. Even their advertising campaign played it up — Where’s Your Firefly?
I hated to think about where Zoe’s might be right now. Buried underground somewhere? In pieces at the side of the highway? Sitting in some maniac’s glove compartment? None of the images that flooded my mind were good ones.
As soon as I had the signatures I needed, I faxed off an administrative subpoena for records to the phone company down in Jacksonville, Florida. I gave them exactly one hour to respond.
When I didn’t hear back, I called and left a message for their director of security: another subpoena was on the way. He could bring those records up and present them to the grand jury himself, if that’s how they wanted to play it.
Five minutes later, my phone rang.
“Detective Cross, it’s Bill Shattuck with Essential Electronics. How can I help you?”
“What don’t you already know?” I asked, cutting through the bullshit.
“Well, I’ve got the records for the number you requested right here in front of me. Should I e-mail you a copy?”
“Please and thank you,” I said.
Shattuck cleared his throat. “There’s one other thing. I can send you the transaction logs for text messages and voice calls, no problem, but we just don’t have the kind of data storage you get with an AT&T or a Verizon. The actual content of any texts drops off our system after seven or eight days, and the last transaction on this phone was … let’s see. Twelve days ago. An incoming text on September ninth.”
No surprise there. Just a little punch to the stomach. That was the day of the kidnapping.
“Just send me what you’ve got. Thanks again,” I told him, and hung up.
The report came through a minute later. As soon as I got it, I scrolled down to the bottom and looked at September 9. The text in question was the only entry for that day.
It had come into Zoe’s phone at 8:05 a.m., right in the middle of Branaff’s homeroom period. That was also about fifteen minutes before Ethan and Zoe disappeared.
It took me only a few keystrokes to run a reverse lookup on the incoming phone number. It was registered to a Cathy Allison, with an address in Foggy Bottom. And in fact, I knew the exact house. I’d been there on Saturday to interview Ms. Allison’s daughter Emma, one of Zoe’s inner circle of girlfriends.
I looked up at the clock. It was 10:15 a.m. Emma would be in class right now — third period.
If I left right away, I could be there by fourth.
EMMA ALLISON’S EYES went wide as she stepped out of the science lab and into the hall, where I was waiting for her. So was the headmaster.
“Emma, Detective Cross is here to ask you a few questions,” Mr. Skillings told her.
She seemed like a scared little girl to me, but in a fourteen-going-on-thirty kind of way. She had too much dark liner around her eyes and a pair of half-shredded leggings under her school uniform. The thick-soled boots looked just like the red ones Zoe had been wearing the morning she disappeared.
“Did they find Zoe?” she blurted out. “Oh please. Please, please, please.”
“No, I’m sorry, Emma,” I said. “Actually, what I need is to get a look at your phone.”
“My phone? But why? What’s going on?”
“Do you have the phone with you?”
“I hope not,” Skillings said pointedly. “The students aren’t allowed to have any electronics in class. Isn’t that right, Emma?”
“It’s in my locker,” she said.
The headmaster motioned her up the hall, not even trying to hide his impatience. I’d already spent a good fifteen minutes in his office, tracking down Mrs. Allison and getting permission to speak with Emma in the first place.
We followed her outside and across a breezeway, into one of the campus’s several redbrick annex buildings.
Halfway up another hallway, Emma stopped at locker 733 and twirled the combination on the lock.
She reached inside, took out an iPhone in a zebra-striped rubber case, and held it out for me.
Her eyes flared again when I pulled on a pair of latex gloves to take it from her.
“Emma, when we spoke on Saturday, you said that the last time you had any contact with Zoe was the afternoon before the kidnapping. Is that right?” I asked.
“Yeah. We have eighth period social studies.”
She craned her neck, trying to see what I was doing. I’d powered up the phone and navigated over to her Sent messages.
Sure enough, there it was, September 9, 8:05 a.m.
“Z — Quik ciggie b4 assembly? Ditch if you can — pleeeez?? I’ve got major dirt to share … … xoE”
“And there were no calls between you two on the morning she and Ethan disappeared? No texts?” I asked.
“That’s right,” Emma told me. “I got to school, put my phone in my locker, and went to homeroom, like always. Why?”
“You’re positive about that? This is important, Emma. This is extremely important.”
“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 your team. This takedown’s going to be all SWAT, but they’re pulling people from the kidnapping side for the investigative unit. I’m thinking this time you bring me in.”
“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 — mucho grande. Tell me you’ll let me tag along.”
“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.
“Those are the options. Any questions?”
No one was smiling now.
“I have a question,” one of the men said. He was the tallest in the group, with a heavy brow and an aggressive stare. “What about the arrests at Masjid Al-Qasim the other night?”
Hala kept her face expressionless, but the question surprised her. She hadn’t realized anyone even knew about the mosque, much less Uncle’s disappearance.
“What about them?” she said.
“Well, it’s troubling, isn’t it?”
The rest of the group remained perfectly still, their eyes darting between Hala and the man. This one wasn’t just obnoxious, she realized. He was dangerous. He’d have to be dealt with accordingly, but now was not the time.
“There were arrests, it’s true,” she said. “There have been murders and suicides as well. Bombings, too. We’re at war, if you haven’t noticed.”
“But who’s in charge now?” he asked. “Who is the leader here in Washington?”
“I am,” Hala said without hesitation. “This is how The Family works. One falls, and another is there to take his place. Washington will be brought to its knees, make no mistake about it. Where’s your loyalty, brother?”
“Don’t preach at me, sister,” he shot back. “My loyalty is to Allah, and to The Family. Not to you. Do you even know if this assignment is meant to proceed?”
The truth was, Hala didn’t know. There had been no word either way.
But she never got to answer the insolent man’s question. Before anyone realized it was happening, three stun grenades skittered across the cement floor and went off in a shattering volley of noise.
Suddenly men in gas masks and dark uniforms were streaming out of the stairwells, carrying M16s and AR15 assault weapons.
Two more flash bangs went off almost right away. One of them detonated at Hala’s feet, and she was completely deaf before she’d even started to run away.
IT WAS A huge, coordinated operation. swat units from three different agencies made up the first line of attack. Mahoney and I were pressed into the parking garage stairwell, waiting for our go-ahead from the unit commander. Once the suspects were contained, we’d go in as part of a second wave and take it from there — arrest, transport, and questioning.
I heard three flash bangs go off like giant firecrackers!
Then a rush of pounding footsteps and shouting as the SWAT teams moved in. The whole idea was to catch these people off guard and contain them before anyone could reach for the cyanide. If there was one thing we knew about Al Ayla by now, it was that they had no regard for human life — including their own people. These operatives were just disposable garbage to them.
A second round of stun grenades echoed off the concrete walls, ceiling, and floor. Even in the stairwell, the sound hurt my ears. My heart was thudding.
Mahoney was champing at the bit, waiting to go like a horse at the starting gate. It wasn’t in his nature to hold off at times like these.
Then suddenly I heard the distinct, percussive pop of gunfire. A single shot came first.
Then a fast double tap.
“Suspect down!” someone shouted.
Two people flew by the stairwell door, sprinting away from the action.
It was a man and woman in American business dress.
Mah
oney didn’t hesitate. He was out after them. And I was right behind.
The couple raced down a long row of parked cars toward the circular ramp at the far end of the garage. The woman had a pistol in her hand and fired blindly back over her shoulder as they went. Even firing like that, she was accurate, skilled.
We took cover behind the nearest parked car, an Audi A6. A bullet ricocheted off the hood and took a divot of shiny silver paint and metal with it. Too close.
Gunfights are never fair game for the police. The bad guys have no rules whatsoever. We have to know exactly what we’re shooting at and what’s beyond it. The best strategy is to stay as unpredictable as possible.
I kept to a low crouch and ducked around the back of the car. Once I reached the far end, I popped up, squared my feet, and got off one fast shot before they even knew I was there.
My vision tunneled around them like a spotlight. There was a flash of red.
I’d caught the man in the right hand. He yelped, but they didn’t slow down. The woman returned fire, pushing him ahead of her now. She was very good with a gun.
They cut between two cars and scrambled over a concrete barrier. A second later, they’d dropped down to the level below and disappeared.
Already, Ned Mahoney and I were up and running again.
“Careful, Ned, she can shoot lights-out.”
I THREW MYSELF over the parking barrier after our two runners and jumped maybe ten feet. The cement landing was a vicious jolt to the bones. I had to drop and roll before I got up again, just to save my legs.
There were several dime-size red blotches on the ground where I landed, but nothing to indicate which way they’d gone. The guy might have wrapped his hand.
All I could see from here were lots of parked cars, concrete, and a dozen ways out.
“What the hell?” Mahoney came running up behind me. Several more SWAT officers were sprinting down from the level above as well. “Where’d they go?”
“Any sign of them?” Command radioed down.
“Negative,” I said. “Get all the exits covered. And shut down the block if it’s not too late.”