Moms in Black

by Lois Winston

  “The files are done downloading.” Cassandra groaned. “There are thousands of them!” They’d need days to wade through all that data.

  Gavin carried over two large steaming mugs, handing one to her as he joined her on the couch. “Good thing I have plenty of Kona beans.”

  Cassandra settled back against one of the sofa’s many patterned throw pillows, the only nod to color in the otherwise black and white apartment. She placed one pillow across her thighs to serve as a makeshift desk.

  While Gavin worked his way through Jane’s files, she tackled Michael’s. “Begin searching with our program of standard keywords,” said Gavin. “If nothing pops, work your way through oddly labeled files next.”

  By two in the morning nothing had popped for either of them. Cassandra began searching through files with names that gave no clue as to their contents. The words on the screen began playing leapfrog over one another, and her brain refused to focus. She kept reading the same sentences over and over. The caffeine-packed Kona no longer worked its magic. She leaned back and closed her eyes to rest them for a few minutes.

  ~*~

  Gavin wondered if someone was playing them. Jane’s computer contained nothing but work-related files, mostly psychological questionnaires and reports on patients in various drug studies being conducted by Glenmeade Pharmaceuticals. Were both Schuster and his wife patsies meant to lure him and his teams into a wild goose chase, diverting their attention while the real terrorists carried out their mission? Given the lack of evidence they’d uncovered, the possibility grew more and more likely.

  However, that didn’t explain Schuster’s large purchases of bomb-making chemicals, the phony UPS truck in his garage, or the wife with a possible fake identity—not to mention a possible fake marriage and pregnancy. Nothing added up. What the hell were they missing? And where else could they search to find it?

  He decided to go downstairs to check on the facial recognition software program. Noreen had started it running hours ago. Maybe by now they’d have a hit. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  When Cassandra didn’t acknowledge him, Gavin realized she’d fallen asleep. Unlike him, Cassandra wasn’t a warrior trained to go for days without sleep. Adrenalin and caffeine only went so far. Still, she’d surpassed his expectation.

  He smiled in admiration as he removed the computer from her lap and placed it on the coffee table. Then he tossed aside the pillow and lifted her into his arms. She snuggled into his chest as he carried her to the bedroom, and his body responded in much the same way as it had that first day at target practice.

  Years had passed since any woman had aroused him so instantly and with so much intensity. That woman was long dead, and Gavin hadn’t thought any other woman would ever move him the way she had. Certainly, none of his brief affairs since had stirred anything close to passion in him. Were the universe and his body trying to tell him something about Cassandra Davenport?

  He pushed the thought from his mind and deposited her on his bed. Then he removed her shoes and drew a blanket over her. Before heading downstairs, he stopped in the bathroom and splashed cold water over his face, which proved an unsuccessful substitute for the cold shower he really needed.

  Gavin discovered the facial recognition software still running, sifting through hundreds of thousands of images in the database. Not a single hit had popped up so far.

  Instead of returning upstairs, he headed down to the basement and took his frustrations out on a couple of dozen paper targets. Half an hour later he checked the software once more before returning to the apartment.

  They had a hit.

  TWELVE

  Cassandra woke to find herself in Gavin’s bed with no idea how she wound up there. She rolled onto her side. The other half of the bed hadn’t been disturbed. The alarm clock on the nightstand read 3:05. Hearing no sounds coming from anywhere else in the apartment, she slipped off the bed and padded into the living room. Gavin was nowhere in sight.

  The hour-long catnap had revived her enough that her eyes no longer refused to stay open, and her brain no longer felt like mashed potatoes. She poured herself another cup of coffee from the pot on the counter and nuked it in the microwave to warm it up. Then she settled back on the sofa and continued her search through Michael’s files.

  She’d progressed to the M’s in the queue of odd-labeled file names. Clicking on MDSKED brought up a spreadsheet with hundreds of surnames in one column and corresponding abbreviations in a second column. Twenty-five random surnames were highlighted. Cassandra studied the spreadsheet. All the highlighted surnames contained the same abbreviation next to them, THPM.

  One by one, she read down the list of all the surnames. None stood out as familiar, but she hardly expected them to, given none included first names. All fell into a variety of ethnicities—everything from O’Hara to Goldberg to Patel to Brown to Markovic. The highlighted names also contained an ethnic mix. As far as she could tell, nothing tied the twenty-five names together other than having the same abbreviation next to them, but that particular abbreviation was also attached to many of the non-highlighted names.

  However, when she gave up on the surnames and concentrated her attention on the abbreviations, she immediately zeroed in on something she hadn’t first noticed. All of the abbreviations ended with either an AM or a PM.

  Morning and afternoon? She scanned down the list of names. There were only ten different abbreviations connected to the hundreds of names. The initials preceding AM and PM confirmed her theory—MO, TU, WE, TH, and FR. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Obviously, a schedule of some sort. Was this a list of targeted individuals?

  Cassandra tried to get into Michael’s head. Given the UPS truck, it seemed likely that he and Jane planned an attack using multiple bombs rather than one large bomb. The spreadsheet seemed to confirm this.

  And then it hit her. She knew their plan.

  Before she had time to verify her hunch, the apartment door opened. “Good, you’re awake,” said Gavin. “I know who Jane is.”

  “And I think I know their target,” said Cassandra.

  “You first,” they both said at once.

  “No, you,” said Cassandra. “I first need to verify.”

  Gavin handed her a printout of a twelve-year-old Pakistani passport. The picture showed a much younger Jane Smith listed as Rafeeqa Changwani. “She’s the daughter of a known Al Qaeda leader killed in a U.S. drone strike five years ago,” he said.

  Cassandra stared at the photo. “She’s out to avenge her father’s death.”

  “Looks that way. What did you discover?”

  “First, tell me a bit more about this TATP bomb. Could it take out an entire building?”

  Gavin lowered himself onto the coffee table in front of her. “It would depend on the size of the building and the layout, but with enough explosives and positioned properly, the results could be catastrophic.”

  “So they’d have to place the bombs in strategic locations within a building?”

  “For maximum impact, yes.”

  “That would rule out any building that houses only one company. All packages would be delivered directly to a mailroom for mail clerks to distribute to individual recipients. In most companies if the addressee is someone not working that day, the mailroom would hold onto the package, right?”

  “Most likely.”

  “I think for that reason we can rule out schools, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, utility companies, and manufacturing facilities. I’d also rule out high-rise apartment complexes because they’d probably have doormen and package lockers, at least the ones they’d target. I doubt they’d bother with moderate or low-income housing.”

  “So we’re looking at a mall, an office park, or a multi-story building that houses many different companies,” said Gavin. “I suppose that narrows the targets down somewhat, but we’re still left with hundreds of possibilities within a ten-mile radius. Go beyond that, and the numbers increase ex
ponentially.”

  “I don’t think so.” Cassandra showed him the spreadsheet. “See the file name?”

  “MDSKED?”

  “I think MD stands for doctors and SKED for schedule. Michael never could spell. We’re looking for a large medical arts building, and if I’m correct, none of these doctors have office hours on Thursday afternoons.”

  Gavin simultaneously reached for his laptop and the television remote. He turned on the TV, then with a few keystrokes he accessed the MAC server and the data from Michael’s phone. “We need to cross-reference those names against the appointments in his calendar. That should give us the location.”

  “I was about to do that.”

  Gavin split the TV screen and added the spreadsheet from Cassandra’s laptop alongside the phone data. A few more keystrokes and a program began running to compare the information from both files.

  “If the packages are addressed directly to individual doctors,” said Gavin, “the office managers and receptionists will place the packages on the doctors’ desks. No one will discover the bombs ahead of time and alert authorities.”

  Cassandra nodded. “Once Michael and phony Jane are safely out of the area, they’ll remotely detonate the bombs all at once.”

  The program finished running. “Nice work,” said Gavin. A list of names that appeared on both files now filled a third screen.

  Cassandra stared at the list. “Those are the twenty-five highlighted names.”

  “We’ve got them,” said Gavin. “All of those doctors have offices in the same facility. They’re targeting the Medical Arts Building at University Hospital.”

  Cassandra gasped. “That’s a densely populated area, and the building is directly connected to the hospital. If those bombs go off, the collateral damage will be extensive.”

  “Which is why they chose that location. But now that we know their target, we’ll be able to stop them in plenty of time.”

  “Plenty?” Cassandra worried her bottom lip. “Today is Thursday. We know the truck is ready. They’re going to execute their plan today. We might have as little as eight hours to stop them, and we still don’t know where they’ve stashed the bombs.”

  “You’re forgetting, we have tracking devices on both the truck and Changwani’s car. They won’t be able to deliver the packages until the offices open later this morning. Once they load the bombs in the truck, the good guys will swoop in and arrest them.”

  So much could still go wrong, but Cassandra tried to banish those thoughts from her brain. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Call Noreen and Hanna. Tell them to get in here ASAP. I’m betting that truck is going to leave their garage before daybreak to avoid the possibility of any neighbors seeing them. I’ll alert Carla and Tony. It’s time to call in the cavalry.”

  ~*~

  Within half an hour Homeland Security, the FBI, ATF, and various county bomb squads were mobilized and standing ready. Even though the operation had been handed over to the government, including the monitoring of both the cloned phone and the vehicle tracking devices, Noreen and Hanna continued their own monitoring from a bank of consoles at MAC headquarters.

  “Isn’t this redundant?” asked Cassandra.

  “I’m not willing to risk a government SNAFU that allows Schuster and Changwani to either succeed in their mission or avoid capture,” said Gavin. Then he added, “You’re with me. We’re going to shadow that truck in case things go awry and we need someone other than an agency operative to talk down Schuster.”

  She snorted. “He never listened to me while we were married. What makes you think he’d listen to me now?”

  “He probably won’t, but we have to keep all options open.”

  “They’re awake,” said Noreen. “Sounds like they’re getting ready to head out.”

  “Let’s go,” said Gavin.

  He and Cassandra headed for the elevator, but instead of pushing the button for the garage, Gavin pushed the button for the basement. When the doors opened, he headed for the firing range. Cassandra followed a step behind him.

  Gavin retrieved a Glock and two clips from the weapons locker. He inserted one clip into the gun, then turned to face her. Their eyes locked. “I need to know I can count on you,” he said.

  Cassandra nodded and held out her hand. Her personal feelings about guns no longer mattered. Chances were slim she’d become the last line of defense in stopping her madman ex-husband and his Al Qaeda wife, but she was prepared to do whatever it took to prevent them from succeeding. “You can.”

  Gavin placed the gun and extra clip in her hand, and they continued to the garage.

  Noreen and Hanna kept them apprised of the two vehicles as they tracked their whereabouts. Both the car and the truck drove from the house in Millburn to a strip mall in Springfield where they left the car. The UPS truck continued on down Morris Avenue. From conversation Noreen picked up, they knew both Michael and his Pakistani bride were on board.

  “They plan to ditch the truck in the strip mall parking lot afterwards and take off in the car,” said Cassandra.

  “Don’t worry,” said Gavin. “They’ll never get that far with their plan.”

  She wished she could be as positive. The government had thwarted many terrorist attacks since 9/11 but not all of them. Were the odds in their favor or stacked against them?

  ~*~

  Twenty minutes later, the UPS truck pulled into a warehouse complex off the Turnpike in Port Elizabeth. Gavin and Cassandra followed two minutes later.

  Once inside the complex, Gavin killed the lights and slowly drove down the street, turning into a trucking company parking lot. Across the road a UPS truck sat at a loading dock. He handed Cassandra a pair of night vision binoculars. The two of them watched as three men carefully loaded cartons one at a time from the warehouse into the truck.

  “Did Delta Team ever follow Michael to any of those doctor appointments he listed in his calendar?” she asked.

  “They were supposed to follow him everywhere once they discovered the chemical purchases. Why?”

  “I don’t think they did.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “Those weren’t doctor appointments in his calendar. Look at the name above the warehouse. DR Wholesale and Distribution.”

  “Shit!”

  Delta Team had a lot to answer for, and Cassandra couldn’t help but take a small amount of pleasure in that fact after the way they’d tried to blame her for their own screw-ups.

  “They’re toast,” Noreen whispered. Cassandra hazarded a quick glance at Gavin. He, too, had heard Noreen. In the dim light she could see the tight set of his mouth.

  “We’ll discuss this later,” he said.

  Michael, dressed in a UPS uniform, stepped out of the truck to stand alongside it while the men continued to load boxes. “I don’t see Jane—Chang-whatever,” she said.

  “She’s probably inside directing the loading.”

  Cassandra swept the binoculars to the left and right of the warehouse. “Where are all the good guys who are supposed to stop this?”

  “Hiding in plain sight,” said Gavin. “Like us. Once the truck is completely loaded, they’ll swoop in and make the arrests. They want all the bombs in one small, contained location first.”

  “There’s no chance of any detonating?”

  “Not by them. We’ve jammed their phones, but TATP is very unstable. Something could still go wrong.”

  An image of Cooper and Hayley flashed before Cassandra’s mind. No matter how large a salary Gavin paid her, all the money in the world wouldn’t be worth leaving her kids orphaned. “Are we far enough away if something does go wrong?”

  “Probably.”

  She scowled at him. “You need to learn to sugarcoat the truth better.”

  “I’ll work on it.”

  A few minutes passed as the men continued the loading process. When the last box had been placed inside the truck, one of the men pulled down the overhead
door at the back of the truck and secured the latch.

  Jane stepped from inside the warehouse and joined Michael at the side of the truck. She, too, wore a UPS uniform. A moment later a shot rang out, and Michael fell to the ground.

  Cassandra gasped. “She shot him!”

  Jane stepped into the truck and started the engine while one of the men from the loading dock dragged Michael’s body into the shadows.

  As Jane navigated down the driveway toward the street, dozens of government vehicles, their lights flashing and their sirens blaring, approached from multiple directions, blocking her escape. Overhead three helicopters suddenly appeared and hovered above, their rotors stirring up the dirt and gravel, spotlights aimed at the truck.

  Jane gunned the engine, then rammed the truck into the vehicle directly in front of her. A moment later a shot rang out from the roof of one of the adjacent buildings, and she collapsed over the steering wheel.

  THIRTEEN

  Before returning to MAC headquarters Gavin stopped at an all-night diner in Elizabeth. The smell of frying bacon filled the air. Cassandra’s stomach immediately growled. “Hungry?” he asked.

  She glanced at the clock on the wall above the counter. “Aside from your Kona, I haven’t had anything in my stomach in more than twelve hours.”

  “That makes two of us.” He glanced around the room “The food must be good here. The place is packed with truckers.”

  They settled into one of the few unoccupied booths, took one look at the menu, and decided on the breakfast special—three eggs, bacon, home fries, and a short stack of pancakes.

  After the waitress brought coffee, Gavin raised his mug to her. “Here’s to Cassandra Davenport, the best decision I’ve made since agreeing to head up one of the satellite facilities.”

  She clinked her mug against his. Gavin grinned at her, his eyes twinkling. A flutter skipped around in her stomach, and she felt a flush course up her neck and into her cheeks. She lowered her head, bit her bottom lip, and stared into her coffee.