A Shot Worth Taking (Bad Karma Special Ops Book 3)

by Tracy Brody

  He tabled those thoughts as the elevator doors slid open. They joined the group in the lobby, where they were now talking with Carswell.

  “We’re going to have drinks at the bar across the street from our hotel. You want to join us, Angel-a?” Dominguez belatedly added the last syllable.

  “I wish. I could use a drink right now. But I have to get back to ‘Sabine’s apartment.’”

  “Sorry. Maybe next time.” Dominguez turned his attention back to Becca.

  “Somebody should probably tag along with Agent Hoffman to make sure no one is watching her place.” Tony looked to the chief.

  “Not a bad idea after last night and what we learned,” Carswell agreed.

  “If Hakim does have someone watching, Vincenti and I might be recognized from the restaurant.” Lundgren shot down Tony’s plans.

  “I’ll take point,” Mack offered.

  Lundgren eyed Dominguez, who avoided his gaze like the plague. “Liu. Check in with me later.”

  Liu nodded and drifted to the side with Mack as Angela gave them directions to the City Hall subway station and the route she’d take.

  “You coming, Vincenti?” Carswell asked as the remaining group headed in the opposite direction.

  Apparently, Carswell wanted to relive his team days rather than go home to his family.

  “Yeah.” Lundgren made the best pick. Liu would blend and fade into the background and not draw notice from any of Hakim’s men nosing around Angela’s. Since Plan A tanked, Tony could use a beer or two before turning in for the night.

  Once the group made it to the bar, the agents and his team crowded around an available table. Tony had spent enough time on his butt today, so he joined Carswell at the bar and signaled to the bartender.

  “I hear you guys worked with Hoffman before, and that’s how you recognized her last night.”

  “Actually, she recognized us first.” Tony didn’t give him details of their prior mission.

  “She is good at what she does,” Carswell admitted. “But we have serious business at hand. I know she’s easy on the eyes, and in the sack, I’m telling you, she’s got no inhibitions. But now—”

  “Wait. You and Angela?”

  Carswell’s wicked grin made Tony’s skin crawl. “Like I said, overseas, there’s no rules. But watch your back, ’cuz it may not be worth it. Besides, your priority is finding if there’s a bomb out there.” He took a sip of his drink, while his eyes bored into Tony’s in warning.

  Carswell joined the others at the table, but Tony stayed at the bar drinking his beer and mulling over what Carswell had said.

  Angela fooled around with a married man? That didn’t add up to how things went when they’d worked together in Texas. Or this morning, when she probed to find out if he was married after he asked her to dinner.

  Maybe Jarrod was bullshitting him. Maybe he thought telling him this would steer Tony away so he wouldn’t distract Angela at a critical time. If it were true, though, would it change his feelings? With Tony’s history, he couldn’t judge her for her past.

  He downed the rest of his beer and paid the bartender. Time to catch up on sleep and try to get the image of Angela with his former teammate out of his head.

  Twelve

  The growl of Angela’s stomach echoed in Cal’s office.

  He grinned at her. “Need to run down to the café?”

  “Maybe.” She needed food and a decent cup of coffee. Her stomach rejected the idea of food at five in the morning when she’d given up the notion of going back to sleep. After two cups of rotgut office coffee, lethargy still muddied her brain after a restless night.

  Another glimpse of Tony Vincenti would get her energized again. His team had come in around seven, but she hadn’t gotten two seconds alone with him. She could take five minutes to grab the cup of yogurt she’d brought, and while she was on their floor, poke her head in the conference room.

  “I got the information you asked me to look into.” Singh stepped into Cal’s office before she got to her feet. He handed a thin file to Angela. “Fatima bin Muhammad is a second cousin to Hakim.”

  She opened the file to the top page. “Pretty girl. Are you sure she’s the right one? She’s really young.” She studied what she could see of the girl’s face, her forehead and hair covered by the traditional hijab, then handed the picture to Cal.

  “She was only fourteen in that picture. It’s from her original passport. Her family fled Saudi Arabia and settled in Saint-Etienne, France,” Singh continued.

  France. “Was Hakim already there?” she asked.

  “Yes, he moved there right after the first Gulf War.”

  That made sense, along with bringing his family to France.

  “There’s not much information on her or her family before she went missing.”

  That got her attention. “Missing?”

  “A week before the family planned to return to Saudi Arabia. Records the French authorities sent us said the family indicated the trip back home was for Fatima to marry a Sheik. I checked. The guy was sixty-two then. My guess is she got cold feet because when police investigated, they found she had bought an airline ticket—with cash—to JFK.”

  “Gee, doesn’t sound like a love match,” she said.

  “You don’t think? The guy was probably rich and had a harem. It could be worse,” Cal cracked.

  She tsked at Cal’s rejoinder. “Did you check to see when Hakim came to the States?” She tried to put the pieces together.

  “I figured you would ask that.” With a smug smile, Singh pointed to the file. “He came to New York a couple weeks later.”

  “Where is Fatima now?”

  “That’s a good question. She came in on a student visa but never enrolled. No tax records. No death records under her name that match her age. No record of her leaving the country. Nothing.”

  “So, she’s a dead end.” Crap. Another lead that went nowhere.

  “Looks that way.” Singh shrugged.

  “Maybe she got a taste of freedom in France. Decided she didn’t want to be the wife of a guy two or three times her age. She comes up with a plan to get out of the marriage. Either Hakim wants to help or thinks she wants to be with him, so he funds her escape,” she speculated.

  “Only she gets to the States with some money and runs to avoid ending up as Hakim’s child bride instead.” Cal picked up the thread. “He gets here. Fatima isn’t waiting with open arms. He thinks someone hurt the woman he loves, so he blames evil Americans?”

  “Either way, it could add to the litany of reasons he doesn’t like Americans, Jews, Christians, women who look men right in the eye, and women who carry little dogs around in their purses.” She reflected on comments Hakim made during their time together.

  “I’m with him on the dog-in-the-purse thing,” Singh agreed. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  Singh took off. Angela scanned the copy of the French police report. Even with nothing substantial to base it on, her sense that the girl was a part of this somehow made her nerves tingle. Was she part of the “business” that had kept Hakim in the States this long?

  Her cell phone rang. Only there was an unknown number on the screen. Could it be Hakim? She held up a finger to Cal for quiet.

  “Hello,” she answered with Sabine’s soft voice and accent.

  “Hoffman?” Grochowski barked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I need you in my office. Now.”

  “Be right there.” He disconnected before she got the words out. “Grochowski needs me,” she relayed.

  “He say what for?” Cal leaned forward as she got to her feet.

  “No.” But her spidey-sense tingled as she hustled down the hall. In her years as an operative, it rarely failed her.

  “Go on in,” the receptionist outside Grochowski’s office said.

  Inside, the special agent in charge had loosened his tie, and his mouth was set in a grim line. “There was a call made to Hakim’s ce
ll phone a few minutes ago. I need you to ID his voice and translate.” He motioned her to the chairs across from his desk and pushed a legal pad and pen toward her, then tapped on his keyboard.

  The first voice she heard she didn’t recognize. “That’s Hakim,” she identified the second. A third voice joined in. Educated, but submissive. This unknown sounded younger than both Hakim and the first unsub.

  She didn’t make notes as she listened, trying to keep up with the cryptic conversation between the three men. Her stomach tightened when the youngest-sounding mentioned “the item”—the bomb?—was nearly complete. Her eyes closed when he mentioned the final materials being delivered.

  The conversation didn’t last long, but she had to fight nausea roiling in her gut. “They never used names or used the word bomb,” she filled in Grochowski, “but the last man to speak was suggesting the tenth for a delivery date to tie in with a reminder celebration on the eleventh. Hakim was insistent that he’s funding this adventure and wants to stick to the fourth of July date.”

  Grochowski grumbled, and his scowl deepened.

  “It gets worse.”

  “How?”

  “The second unsub assured the other that the 9/11 celebration would be on time.”

  “Two? Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “Did they mention any names or places?”

  “Not that I picked up. I need to listen to it again.” Once the initial shock passed, she might pick up something she missed.

  “I want you to translate every word they said. I’ll get Weiss up here for secondary verification.

  Angela fidgeted in the chair, looking to Weiss while Grochowski and Jarrod compared the two transcripts of the conversation. Voiceprint identification confirmed one of the unsubs was Samir al-Shehri. Going from planting roadside IEDs and training suicide bombers to building a dirty bomb was a big leap, but his involvement confirmed this threat’s credibility.

  The idea of them planning a second attack changed the game, too. They weren’t going for coordinated attacks like 9/11 from the sound of it. There would be enough time for people to calm down and lower their defenses after the first attack. With the heads up, they had time to stop both attacks—if they could determine the target locations.

  She’d painstakingly translated every word and listened for clues. There were none.

  Voices outside the office pulled her from replaying the conversation over in her head. Grochowski pushed to his feet as William Harkins, the Assistant Director of the Bureau’s D.C. office, was escorted in, along with her friend, Special Agent in Charge Kathryn Barnsley.

  Angela rose to greet them. “What are you …?”

  “I called the D.C. office after you translated.” Grochowski spoke over her. “Felt they should be involved, because if they follow the pattern of 9/11, D.C. is the most likely target.”

  “Could be the initial target since the D.C. attacks weren’t nearly as catastrophic as planned,” Harkins agreed. “If they take out a significant portion of the country’s leaders and create mass panic on our Independence Day, it’d be a huge win for them.”

  Security in D.C. was always tight, but they could use the Potomac River to transport a bomb. Avoid cameras and authorities. It could be anywhere around D.C.—Capitol Hill, Georgetown, Arlington.

  As much as Angela hated the idea of another attack on New York, especially because Stephan died here, D.C. was her home. Where her friends lived. She’d do whatever it took to prevent an attack there.

  “We flew up as soon as we heard,” Kathryn said. “Outstanding work. Not that I’m surprised.”

  “It was a team effort,” Angela said.

  Jarrod got to his feet to join the senior agents. “We’ve got a lot of people working on this. It’s top priority.”

  “We couldn’t have done it without her,” Grochowski jumped in to praise her. “I’ll call Director Hollis. We need to strategize.”

  Tony shifted his weight. He locked his jaw to keep from griping. The briefing should have started ten minutes ago. Instead, everyone stood around—or sat on their asses—waiting. His team had joined the FBI agents in the larger conference room. Well, most of the agents. Grochowski, Carswell, the technical analyst, and Angela were all MIA. The churning in his gut grew each minute that ticked by. Why weren’t they here?

  He’d seen Angela earlier—the highlight of his morning—so he knew she was here. Somewhere.

  Dominguez sat at the table between two of the youngest FBI agents, carrying on a conversation laced with touches that made Tony wonder what happened after he left the bar last night. Once he’d sprawled out in the hotel bed, lack of sleep took its toll, even pushing Carswell’s comments out of his head.

  The tension in the room ramped up the instant a group led by Grochowski filed in. In addition to Angela, Weiss, Director Hollis, Carswell, the tech guy, were a man and woman, both in navy suits. All of them together, a picture of total seriousness.

  Angela met his eyes for a mere second before diverting them without a trace of her usual flirty smile. Mack motioned to her, offering her his seat. She gave a quick shake of her head and held her position near the head of the table.

  Grochowski introduced the director of the Bureau’s D.C. office and the female special agent in charge, piquing Tony’s curiosity on why they were here.

  “Thanks to Agent Hoffman cloning Hakim’s SIM card, we intercepted a call this morning. The call,” Grochowski stated. “Singh.”

  The tech typed on his laptop, then nodded.

  “Voiceprint identification confirms the first voice is Samir al-Shehri. The second voice you’ll hear is Anmar Hakim. Confirmed by Special Agent Hoffman.”

  Yes! Murmurs rippled through the room at tying the two together.

  Based on the way Angela’s cheek muscle twitched and her visible swallow, Tony bet he wasn’t going to like the conversation they were about to hear.

  “We’re running the third voice against known voice clips. It was a three-way call al-Shehri originated from a pre-paid cell,” Singh continued. “They’re speaking Arabic. Subtitles are on the screen.”

  Tony read the words but concentrated on the voices. July 11. Shit, Dad’s birthday.

  Chill, Vincenti. We’re going to stop this.

  Hakim spoke next, demanding July fourth. The eleventh would give them an extra week to find it. Now they were talking days.

  The unidentified man asking for more time gave Tony some hope that the bomb builder would fuck up the assembly in his rush to complete it. Of course, if he screwed up, there would still be a nuclear incident. Deaths, sickness, panic. That wasn’t happening on his watch.

  Wait. What? Were they referring to a second bomb?

  Somebody let out a low whistle. A few people swore, and everyone glanced around the room at the other faces, looking for a ray of hope—and not finding it.

  Tony’s hands balled into tight fists under his crossed arms. Safer than punching a hole in the wall. Two bombs. Two targets. That explained the presence from the D.C. office.

  Another reminder of 9/11. He tried to quiet the voice in his head that was screaming profanities unsuitable to say aloud.

  Grochowski gave everyone an opportunity for the initial shock to pass and their brains to process the details of the call. “We were only able to track the call as far as a cell tower in East Brunswick, Jersey.”

  “What about locating the nuclear materials?” one of the agents asked.

  “We have a credible threat, so we’ll try. But first, we have to pinpoint the target city, or cities, and call in NEST teams to blanket those areas,” Homeland Security Director Hollis explained. “It sounds like they’re not planning simultaneous attacks; however, we can’t rule that out based on the available information. At this point, we assume they are targeting something in the New York vicinity, especially with Hakim planning to leave here.”

  “There’s a Yankees game on the fourth that could be a prime target,” Jarrod said. “Over 50,000 capacity in the stadium, and with
it being a holiday and followed by fireworks, it’s a sellout. You’ve got a lot of people in close proximity. There are also home games in Boston, Philly, and D.C.”

  “Hakim has never mentioned baseball,” Angela said.

  Jarrod’s jaw clenched, and he cut his gaze her way as she continued to speak.

  “Other than soccer, he’s never mentioned sports. Something tells me this is personal. That he’s not picking a random target even for maximum impact.”

  “We cannot afford another 9/11.” Grochowski punctuated each word. “The Bureau got a black eye for not following up on leads then. Unlike 9/11, there’s been no chatter or leaks on a pending attack or targets. They’ve kept this close to the vest. We’re going to monitor local mosques Hakim has attended for any change in attendance levels and run down any potential leads. Alerts are going out to every FBI and Homeland security office and to local authorities.”

  “Will a terror warning be issued for New York?” Becca asked.

  A palpable silence settled over the room with all eyes on Grochowski and Hollis.

  “Not without a solid lead. It was a joint decision from Washington,” Hollis answered. “It would create mass panic. We can’t evacuate every major city. We don’t have much time, so we need to work the contacts we have.”

  Being part of the team getting the job done, Tony was used to carrying the weight on his shoulders. Fixated on Angela, the weight settled into his chest instead. The “contact” they planned to work was her.

  Thirteen

  “Wow. You, uh, look like a tourist.” Angela did little to suppress a smirk. “You’ve got mustard on your shirt.”

  Tony stepped into her office and pulled off the Yankees baseball cap, then frowned and rubbed at the mustard on the new Yankees T-shirt. Bummer that mustard stains didn’t always come out; the Yankees were his team. Not that he followed baseball like he did football. “Would you believe me if I said it was intentional? Part of my cover?”