Making our way toward the area most affected by the bomb, I stumbled on a piece of rubble that moved unexpectedly under my foot. Jason caught my arm, and I found myself holding onto him.
“Careful now,” he said, with a smile, as he righted me and removed his hand from my arm. I absent-mindedly touched the spot where he had caught me. Brains, beauty, and he was a gentleman, too.
I noticed that Jason was making his way quickly toward the buildings which had been most damaged by the bomb and hurried to catch up, keen to prove my worth as an agent, and to resist the distractions he seemed to be putting in my way.
We arrived at the scene almost at the same time, and I waved at a forensics officer I recognized who pulled down his face mask and came over to speak to us.
“Jeremy, this is Jason Kern. From the CIA.” The forensics officer raised a curious eyebrow at me and I shrugged in response, trying to remain casual.
“Good to meet you, Jeremy,” Jason pumped his had so hard, poor Jeremy was wincing when he finally let go. “Mind if we take a look around?”
“Sure,” Jeremy replied. “Just, you know, don’t touch anything. We’re moving the evidence out piece by piece but it’s taking a while. You probably want to start over there,”—he indicated an alley between the two buildings which had been almost flattened by the blast—“that’s where we think the devices were planted.”
“I’m sorry, did you say devices? Plural?” I asked.
“Yes, it looks like we had a conventional explosive bomb, which damaged the building infrastructure, followed by a firebomb,” Jeremy paused, looking at his feet. “From the preliminary examination of the four bodies, it looks like it was the firebomb that killed them.”
We all stood silent as we realized the significance of Jeremy’s words. They had survived the explosion, only to then die in a fire? I couldn’t imagine anything more horrific. Or anything more terrifying.
“Thanks, Jeremy,” Jason said finally, patting the forensic officer firmly on the bicep. “Come on, Christine. Let’s see what we can find.”
We picked our way across the street, which was strewn with rubble and odd items which had clearly been blown clear of the shops in the initial blast. I spotted one of those soft velvet cushions that are used to display jewelry and part of a till, alongside what looked at first glance like the heel of a shoe. I turned away quickly, keeping my eyes on the ground where I was walking, and we soon arrived at the entrance to the alley.
The two buildings on either side had had their walls blown clean away; most of the detritus had crumbled inward, but a lot had ended up in the street we had just crossed. Inside what had once been elegant and high-end stores, everything was blown apart and burnt almost to a crisp. I had noticed the burning before, obviously, but without being an explosives expert, had put it down to a fire caused by the bomb. Now that I looked closer, I could see that this was more than just the superficial burning that you got from fires; things had been fused together in what must have been terrific heats. I prayed that the victims had at least been unconscious when the firebomb exploded.
Jason, despite the warning from the forensic officer, was handling something he had found on the floor.
“Look,” he said, holding out the item for my attention. It was a tray of some kind, but whatever had been in it had been long destroyed. It looked like a piece of glass or a melted ice sculpture, with the odd piece of metal glittering in its surface.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked. I panicked. I had no clue, but the last thing I wanted to do was look foolish in front of him. Not only because I found him so attractive, but because I wanted this serious and committed agent to think of me as an equal. I played for time.
“I’m not sure I’ve seen anything like that before,” I responded vaguely.
“It’s diamonds. Burnt diamonds,” Jason told me, and I was suddenly aware of how close we were, as we both leaned over the tray in his hand. I could smell the faint cologne he had obviously put on hours ago, mixed with the not unpleasant smell of his sweat. It was driving me crazy.
I swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on his words. “Diamonds burn?” I asked, with surprise. “Are they not supposed to be the hardest substance in the world?”
Jason smiled, as he replaced the tray where he had found it. “One of the hardest, but they are also combustible. They are just carbon, after all.”
I moved backward, trying desperately to get away from the pull of his scent. “And how do you know so much about diamonds?” I asked teasingly.
“I’ve been working with someone in the business, ever since Al-Farook started hitting jewelry stores and diamond districts. He’s a Brit, as well, but he lives in the States now.” Jason stopped talking for a moment as he looked around for any other useful evidence.
“I contacted him after the first jewelry hit and he’s proven to be a valuable source of information.” He turned to Christine. “I called him before I got on the plane and asked him to come over. I think I—we—could really use his insight.”
“He’s not CIA?” I asked.
“No, just a civvy. Adam Warick. One of the most knowledgeable diamond experts in the world—and he knows everyone in the business. He might be able to help us identify the site of future attacks.”
It was clear that Jason trusted this Warick implicitly—especially if he was calling him about active investigations. I was wary of using outside sources. I didn’t even trust my informants, only other agents. But, by the sounds of it, they had been working together for years; I had to trust that Jason knew what he was doing when he put his trust in this guy Warick. Although my nose was a bit out of joint that he had already invited an outside consultant without the courtesy of asking me first.
“You’re probably tired,” I said finally. “Do you want to check in to your hotel and meet up again this evening at the office?”
Jason absent-mindedly ran his hands through his hair and my heart almost leapt into my mouth.
“Sounds good.” He smiled at me. “I bet I could use a shower, yeah?”
Chapter 4
Jason
Christine was kind enough to drop me off at my hotel, even though it meant contorting myself once again into that ridiculous car of hers. She was very apologetic about it, though, and at least the laughter it caused broke the tension between us a little. It had been rough seeing the scene for the first time; it brought back so many memories of my time in North Africa, and, of course, of the devastation Al-Farook had caused back home. Christine had seemed rattled, too. I guessed she was normally an office analyst, not used to getting her hands dirty. Well, she was going to have to get used to a bit of dirt if she was going to help me track down one of the most wanted men in the world.
I did feel a little bad for showing her up at the crime scene with the burned diamonds. Truth be told, I think I was trying to impress her a little. I’d always had a soft spot for English girls, and Christine was about as English as they came, with her peaches and cream complexion, haughty attitude, and her crazy tiny car.
We agreed to meet up again in a couple of hours at the office, to go over the evidence that had been found and so that I could show her the previous videos from Al-Farook. She offered to pick me up, which was very sweet of her, but I told her not to waste her time driving me about, and that I would get a cab.
It crossed my mind that all this helpfulness was just so she could keep an eye on me; track my movements, weasel her way into my good books and then report everything straight back to her boss. It did also cross my mind that it could be because she was as attracted to me as I was to her. Even amongst all the devastation at the bomb site, it had been difficult to keep my eyes off her, and when she stumbled and fell onto my arm, there was a part of me that wanted to take her in an embrace and kiss her.
My hotel room was adequate, and I was pleased to note they had acquiesced to my request for a ground floor room. It was standard tradecraft to always have an exit strategy in the event of diff
iculties, and a window to the gardens made an excellent Plan B.
Before I showered, I decided to check in with my handler, Thompson. He wasn’t exactly my superior; his role at the CIA was to monitor agents in the field, keep them in the loop of developments back at base, and act as a conduit to the various departments, depending on what information came in from his teams around the world.
I dialed the familiar number. Thompson answered after two rings, as always. I’ve often wondered if Thompson takes his phone to the bathroom with him or if he ever sleeps. No matter what time of day, he always answers after those same two rings.
“Kern, how’s things?” he asked, in his sonorous, almost soothing voice.
“Good, thanks,” I replied. “Arrived safely. Made contact with the local authorities and checked out the bomb site. It’s definitely Al-Farook.”
“We know,” Thompson answered grimly. “We received the video just half an hour ago.”
I closed my eyes and tried to control my breathing. “Why did no one call me?” I asked, barely keeping my frustration in check. This wouldn’t have been Thompson’s call; there was no point in getting angry with him. Don’t shoot the messenger, as he often told me.
“Cyber had to verify. You know what those guys are like.”
“Can you send it over? I need to see it and I promised to share all my Al-Farook material with our local contact.”
“No problem. Your local a typical stick-in-the-mud Brit?” I could hear Thompson tapping on a keyboard on the other end and knew he was emailing me the video.
A typical stick-in-the-mud Brit? In some ways that was exactly how you would describe Christine Simmons, but there was something more to this girl. Not just in terms of the intelligent way she approached the case, but in other much more superficial ways, too. I had never known anybody with such searching eyes before. If she ever had cause to interrogate me, I’d confess to whatever she wanted me to in seconds. I felt like every time she looked at me she could sense everything I was thinking—and, given some of the things I had been thinking about her, well, I couldn’t help but blush a little.
“She’s younger than I thought. She has potential, actually.”
“She?” I heard the gently mocking tone in Thompson’s voice. “Pretty, is she?”
I felt the heat in my cheeks and, for some reason I couldn’t quite fathom, I flat out lied to my handler. The guy who had kept me safe on countless operations and saved my skin on more than one occasion.
“God, no,” I responded with what I hoped was the right amount of disgust. “Typical English girl. You know; tubby, bad teeth.”
Who was I trying to kid?
“Ah well, they can’t all be supermodels,” Thompson said. “There—video sent. Should be with you shortly, allowing time for encryption.”
“Thanks, Thompson. We’ll speak soon.”
I hung up and retrieved my laptop from my suitcase. I plugged in the dongle which gave me secure internet access and fired up my internal email system. After a few hits of the ‘refresh’ button, a new email from Thompson arrived. I opened the attached file and leaned forward to get a closer look. I didn’t want to miss a single detail.
As the screen flickered into life, I saw the now all-too-familiar face of Ahmed Al-Farook. There were a few subtle differences from his other tapes. This time, he was sitting in a chair, rather than the usual cross-legged position on the floor. Was he slumped a little? He certainly looked a lot thinner than last time. Perhaps he was unwell? Maybe he had been injured in the New York attack, as my colleagues had surmised. Maybe he was tired of being on the run. Tired men make mistakes, I thought to myself. Was his personal jihad running out of steam?
His words were the usual unpleasant and incoherent jumble of Islamic quotes and warnings of hellfire and damnation for the infidels. At one point, he seemed to almost lose his train of thought, but after a brief pause he continued his disturbed monologue.
I watched the video again, this time checking the background for any clues as to his location, but, as usual, he was sitting in front of a bare wall with no identifying features. The Cyber team would be pulling the video apart at this very moment, checking for any trace of IP addresses, filtering out background noises. Anything to help them find Al-Farook before he launched his next attack.
I finally went into the bathroom and took the shower I knew I desperately needed. It was great to feel the hot water soaking my skin, washing away not just the filth of a seven-hour flight across the Atlantic, but all the worries I had accumulated since I first saw the reports of the London bombing on TV. Unsurprisingly, my mind found itself wandering back to Christine Simmons; I imagined her there in the shower with me, her pale, soft skin exposed to my touch.
My eyes flew open. Focus! I couldn’t waste my time daydreaming about Christine when there was work to do.
I thought back to what we had seen at the crime scene and remembered what the tech guy had told us about the firebomb, and Christine’s astonishment at the burned diamonds I had shown her. Maybe it was time to give Warick a call. If anyone could shed any light on what we had found, it would be him. He might know something about the businesses which had been targeted; my boss had always suspected that the persistent targeting of diamond merchants and jewelry shops was more significant than just hitting the west where it hurts—in our wallets. Perhaps there were links between the owners that noone had identified; financial troubles that were a secret except to those in the know. Warick was certainly a man in the know.
I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around my waist, wandering through to the bedroom to make the call to Warick. I checked my watch; it would be late-morning in New York—perfect time to catch Warick at his own prestigious office just off Central Park West.
“Jason Kern to speak to Adam Warick, please,” I said to the secretary who answered my call, and, after a few seconds, Warick himself was greeting me effusively.
Warick was a proper upper-class Brit—cut-glass accent and everything. But he had lived in the States for so long that he had developed some of our American habits—including enthusiasm for everything and everyone.
“Jason, my good man, marvelous to speak to you,” Warick said.
“Hi, Adam. How’s business?”
“Couldn’t be better. How about you? Get to London safely?”
“I’m here in my hotel room now,” I replied.
“And what have you found over there? Apart from warm beer and cold weather, of course.” Warick laughed uproariously at his own joke.
I tried to steer the conversation back to more serious matters. “It’s a bad one, Adam. And we have evidence to suggest it was Al-Farook.” Warick was a trusted confidant, but there were lines I had to be careful not to cross when it came to operational intelligence. I wasn’t sure what details MI5 or others had given to the press yet, and the last thing I wanted to do was become an inadvertent leak.
“So I understand. Everything burning like that is going to make your job harder, eh old boy?”
“Burning?” I asked, confused. How did he know about the firebomb? I may not have been sure what information had been released, but I was pretty sure that was the kind of thing that wouldn’t be made public until long after the relatives of the victims had been informed.
“Yes, I’m sure the fire will have destroyed a lot of your evidence. I know it’ll have destroyed all the diamonds! Terrible business. I just keep thinking about those four people who died. Could have been my own staff, you know.”
Now my silence on the other end of the phone was complete. I was stunned, and a little uncomfortable. How on earth did Warick know that four people had died? As far as I knew, the number of fatalities and injuries had only been confirmed by forensics that morning—there was no way that could have been in the news already.
“How did you know there were four fatalities, Adam?” I asked cautiously.
“Hmm?” he answered, though I could tell he was distracted by something else at the ot
her end of the call. “Think I heard it on the news, Jason. Is it not true?”
I paused. Warick was a blusterer. There was a chance he had heard rumors or speculation on the news or even among his own contacts in London, and then constructed them as fact in his own mind. I was over-reacting; too tired, I was seeing conspiracies in places where there were none. Warick had been one of my most reliable informants for years, and he had helped immensely with intelligence on the diamond industry. I was putting two and two together and coming up with five—and all at a time when there were real villains out there to catch.
“I’m not sure, Adam,” I countered. “Only been here a couple of hours. Not totally up to speed.”
“Ah, of course. Well, you will let me know if I can be of any help, won’t you?” I knew that was my cue to hang up and leave Adam Alan Warick to his enormously successful and enormously profitable work. My curious questions about the burned diamonds would have to be handled by someone else.
“Will do, Adam. And thanks.” He hung up, and I was left alone in a silent hotel room.
Chapter 5
Christine
I dropped Jason off at his hotel and headed back to the office. My mind was buzzing with what we had learned at the bombsite; the horror of those poor people burning to death just moments after believing they had survived an explosion was almost too much to take.
Back at MI5, I headed straight up to Billman’s office. I knew she would want to be briefed right away. She listened carefully to what I told her, but I could see that my news only brought her more questions than answers. I began to understand how Jason could have spent the last three years chasing Al-Farook. The man was infuriating and terrifying in equal measure.
After I finished speaking, Billman beckoned me around to her side of the table.
Toxic Seduction (Romantic Secret Agents Series Book 3) Page 3
