“She told you that?”
CJ sighed. “Not in so many words, but yeah.”
“She never said anything about it to us. She just said she needed to get away from the family for a while.”
Matt nodded. “I think there’s some truth to that too.”
“Whatever she does, I certainly hope we can keep her close to home for a while.”
“Amen to that.”
CHAPTER 13
Brent approached Amy’s front door the same way he might have approached a firing squad—with a combination of daring and trepidation. He wished he could say that he regretted kissing Amy the night before, but how could he regret something that felt so right? He knew nothing could develop between them, not with the kind of life he led, but he didn’t want to think about that right now. For the first time in his life, his heart no longer belonged to him and he had absolutely no idea how to get it back.
As he said his prayers the night before, he had realized that when she left it would likely tear him in two. He had also recognized it was going to happen no matter how much time they spent together. Brent decided he might as well spend as much time with her as he could until the moment came when her father took her home.
Brent had no delusions of how Senator Whitmore felt about him. The senator felt threatened and wasn’t about to befriend the man he had just caught kissing his daughter, even it if was the man who had saved her life.
Despite the fact that Amy was twenty-two and he was twenty-six, when the senator had opened that door Brent had felt like a sixteen-year-old stealing a kiss on a first date. As he knocked on the door now, he once again felt like a teenager, especially when Jim pulled the door open.
“Good morning, sir.” Brent met the older man’s stare. “Is Amy ready?”
Jim nodded. “We all are.”
“Excuse me?” Brent’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, sir, but we are dealing with highly sensitive information. We can’t grant just anyone access.”
“I realize that.” Jim’s voice took on an air of authority. “Which is why I already spoke with your commanding officer to make sure my son and I were cleared.”
Jim stepped outside, making way for Charlie and Amy to follow. Brent caught sight of Amy and barely kept his jaw from dropping to the ground. A light dusting of makeup accented her eyes, and her lips were tinted a shade darker than normal. Her hair cascaded past her shoulders, contrasting against a tailored white blouse. Her blue floral skirt flowed nearly to her ankles.
Amy looked up and saw him staring. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’ve just never seen you in normal clothes before.”
She smiled. “Dad brought me some of my clothes from home.”
Brent turned to open the door of the Jeep for her, wishing for more time alone with her. The senator gave him a stern don’t-mess-with-my-daughter look, which he noted and then promptly ignored. After everyone climbed in, Brent moved to the driver’s seat.
Rather than speak to Amy, Brent directed a comment to the senator. “You said you spoke with Commander Bennett. Did he bring you up to speed on our situation?”
“Enough for me to understand why Amy didn’t want her mother anywhere near Virginia today,” Jim responded.
Brent nodded in understanding. He parked in front of their destination and led the way inside. Kel was waiting for them at the briefing room door.
Brent made the introductions and then closed the door behind him.
Kel called out to everyone, “Okay, we’re all here, so let’s get started.”
Jim’s eyes widened when everyone left their work stations and moved to the center of the room. Noticing the senator’s confusion, Brent turned to him and explained, “We start out every day with a prayer. Today especially, we need all the help we can get.”
“Who wants to offer it?” Kel asked.
“I will,” Brent said, folding his arms and bowing his head. His prayer was simple and straight from the heart. He asked that each of them would be blessed with the insight needed to protect their country and those who lived in it. When he closed his prayer, he looked up to see tears in Amy’s eyes. Before he could say anything to her, Kel took over.
“Whitmore, you already know what to do.”
Amy motioned to her dad and brother. “With these two around, you’d better call me Amy.”
Kel nodded as she moved past him, and then he turned to Jim. “I’ll be honest with you, Senator. Things are going to get tense today. My unit often works intel assignments, but all of us are much more accustomed to being in the field. If any of my men tell you to do something, you do it. We can’t afford to have civilians get in the way, not at a time like this.”
“We’re here to help, not hinder,” Jim responded. He nodded at the security monitors. “Charlie and I have spent a lot of time riding the subway over the years. Perhaps we would be most useful observing.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Kel agreed as he watched Brent pick up a stack of papers from his desk. Kel had made copies of Amy’s sketches the night before, and now there was a set beside each computer and the originals were displayed on the wall above them. Beside the sketches on the wall, someone had hung up a photograph of Namir Dagan, the leader of the faction that was currently in control of most of Abolstan.
Brent handed Jim and Charlie each a copy of Amy’s sketches. “We aren’t sure exactly what we’re looking for, but we know that these men may be involved.”
“Do we have any idea of how big these guys are?” Charlie asked. “Height, weight, that sort of thing?”
“Amy, can you come here for a minute?” Brent called out.
With a nod, she crossed to where they were standing.
“Give me a guesstimate on the size of these guys.”
Amy closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, she pointed at the man she most feared. “He’s about my height—six feet tall—and weighs around one-ninety.” She then pointed to the next sketch. “That one was taller and skinnier. Maybe six two, one-eighty. Same with the third one.”
“How do you know what they look like?” Jim asked, sincerely shocked to see his daughter providing information in such an off-handed way.
“She’s our source,” Kel told him bluntly. “As I mentioned to you on the phone, your daughter is currently a valuable member of our team. Most of the intelligence we have came from her and Lieutenant Miller.”
“I’ll get back to work,” Amy said simply and returned to her work station.
“These are the men that kidnapped her?” Jim asked, clearly shaken.
“They’re the ones we believe are still alive,” Brent answered now. “She thinks there’s a fourth out there. That’s what she’s working on now. She’s sketching all of her captors that she can remember. Hopefully with her drawings, we can figure out which ones might still be alive.”
Quinn hung up a phone and interrupted the conversation. “Intel confirmed that Dagan is still in Abolstan. He was spotted yesterday in the capital city.”
Kel gave him a nod before speaking again to Jim and Charlie. “The subway stations have already closed for the night, and they don’t reopen for another five hours. For now, we’re just looking for any activity.” Kel motioned for them to sit down and then turned to Brent. “Seth still hasn’t found anything on that Palm that’s going to help us.”
“What about customs? Have we gotten the list we needed of all of the entries into the U.S.?”
“Customs isn’t cooperating.” Kel’s voice was clipped. “It’s the middle of the night in DC, and it seems the people who can authorize what we need are at home sleeping. We’re still looking for someone willing to wake one of them up.”
Jim stood once more. “If you’re having trouble getting cooperation, I may be able to help you with that. What do you need?”
“We need a list of everyone who passed through customs for the past week, particularly East Coast entries,” Kel replied. “Amy says she didn’t see
those three after the hostages were secured. That makes me believe that they started traveling before we got there.”
“Point me to a phone and I’ll take care of this,” Jim said, clearly grateful to be of use.
“One more thing, Senator,” Kel said, holding a cordless phone out to him. “Please don’t utilize anyone on your staff for information. We’ll get you whatever you need.”
“Why?”
“We can’t risk another breach of security.”
“Another breach? When was the first one?”
“The press knew your daughter wasn’t with the other hostages, and the news broke right after you left for Cairo,” Kel explained. “We won’t start investigating that problem until we get through this crisis, but we aren’t taking any chances.”
“In that case, I need the number for customs.”
“Quinn!”
“I got it.” Quinn held out a paper with a list of phone numbers.
“Good luck, Senator. It’ll really help if you can get us that list.”
“I’ll get it.”
* * *
Amy stared down at the sketches she had completed and blinked, realizing that most of these men were dead. Her drawings were spread out on the table, staring back at her. She had managed to recall the faces of seven more of the men who had held her hostage, but she had no way of knowing if any of them was the one that was still alive. She sensed someone behind her but didn’t look up.
Brent’s hand came down on her shoulder, his voice soft. “How are you doing?”
“These are the only ones I can remember.”
Brent leaned over, noticing that she hadn’t drawn the two that had been in the penthouse when he had come through the window. He tried to recall the faces of the two men who had been standing guard before members of his team had killed them. Retrieving a pen from his pocket, he drew an X in the corner of the page. “He didn’t make it out.”
“The three on the top guarded us during the first couple of hours.” She tapped on the center one. “I remember that one because he’s the one that shot Frank.”
“Let me show these to the others. Maybe they can help us narrow it down,” Brent suggested.
Amy nodded and leaned back in her chair. Though she had only been at it for two hours, she was already exhausted. She watched as Quinn examined the sketches and pointed at two. Seth wasn’t able to eliminate any of them, but Tristan identified one that wasn’t a problem any longer. Finally, Brent handed the remaining three drawings to Kel. He took his time, ultimately narrowing the possibilities down to two.
Brent moved back to Amy’s desk, showing her the two that remained. A moment later the door opened behind him.
“We’ve got art,” Jim announced as he walked into the room with a thick stack of paper in his hand. It had taken a full twenty minutes for customs to agree to give him the information he wanted, and then another hour and a half for them to compile it and send it. “I have it separated by point of entry. I assume you want Amy to look at the DC airports first.”
“Yeah,” Kel said, turning to Brent. “Brent, make copies of those two sketches. Then you and Tristan can help look through the other points of entry.”
Brent nodded and then left the room. A few minutes later he returned and tacked the original drawings on the wall before handing everyone in the room copies.
“Okay, everyone. Let’s get to work.” Kel divided up the information from customs, handing a stack to everyone except for Seth, who was still working on the Palm Pilot, and Quinn and Charlie, who were keeping watch on the security monitors.
Amy flipped through the papers. Each page contained eight passport photos along with the corresponding names. She sorted the papers into two stacks: those that were clearly not a threat and those that had photos that even slightly resembled any of the men she had identified. She was two-thirds of the way through the stack when she saw the man that she hoped never to see again—Ahmed Alleid.
Amy finished scanning the page and then circled the man in question. “I’ve got one.”
“Are you sure?” Kel took the page from her and compared the circled passport photo to the sketch Amy had done.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Seth, notify all of the metro stations that this is one of the terrorists to watch for,” Kel instructed. He moved to where the sketches were pinned up and wrote “Ahmed Alleid” at the bottom of the corresponding sketch. “Senator, could you please call customs? See if they know where this guy is staying.”
Jim nodded and picked up a phone.
Two pages later, Amy found another one, and then one more. She had located all three of the men she had first identified. Roland Hanover had arrived from London an hour before Orlando Cousette had come in from Paris. “Commander, here are two more.”
Jim Whitmore was still on the phone with customs and reached out for the new information to pass along. A few minutes later, he hung up and turned to Kel. “Here are the addresses listed.”
“Brent, get the FBI on the phone and send them to pick these guys up,” Kel ordered. “Amy, see if you can find our missing man.”
Amy nodded as Brent grabbed a phone.
CHAPTER 14
Brent tapped away at his keyboard, hoping his hunch was right. All three of the men Amy had identified had given fake addresses, but Brent was guessing that they were in a hotel nearby. Quinn was sitting next to him, infiltrating the reservation systems of the hotels near subway stations in Virginia while Brent worked on the ones in DC. Tristan had been tasked with Maryland. Charlie continued with the boring task of watching the deserted subway stations on the computer monitors to make sure no one dropped off any packages during the early morning hours in Washington.
“Do you really think they’ll be dumb enough to use the same name at the hotel?” Tristan asked as he searched through the hotel guest registers.
“It depends on if they have another set of fake IDs,” Brent commented. “They can’t possibly know that we’re on to them. What are the chances that a hostage could not only identify them, but would also know where to look?”
“True,” Tristan said, nodding.
“I think I’ve got something.” Quinn punched up a screen and grinned. “Behold, Mr. Hanover and Mr. Cousette checked in the same day they arrived. According to this, they are checking out today.”
“Give me the address. I’ll get the FBI over there.” Brent dialed the number and held out his hand. He relayed the information to the FBI agent he had been working with and glanced at his watch. It was almost 4 A.M. in Washington, only an hour before the subway would open.
“Ahmed Alleid isn’t listed at any of the Maryland hotels,” Tristan announced.
“He isn’t in Virginia, either,” Quinn said.
After getting off of the phone with the FBI, Brent turned back to his computer. He spent another fifteen minutes completing his search only to find that Alleid wasn’t at any of the local hotels.
When Brent’s phone rang, everyone quieted and listened, trying to piece together the one- and two-word fragments from Brent’s side of the conversation. When he finally hung up, he grinned. “They got both of them as well as two vials they think are the biological agent. Our boys are taking it into the lab to be analyzed now.”
“If they had two vials, we can assume that each of our missing men is also armed with the stuff,” Kel noted. “Do they know how they were going to release it?”
Brent shook his head. “They’re still looking into it.”
Kel glanced at his watch. “Seth, call out for some lunch for us.” He then motioned to the bank of security monitors. “I want everyone to take a computer to monitor. If you’re familiar with one of the stations, take one you know.”
Amy started to move to the monitors displaying National Airport when Kel stopped her. “Amy, I want you to just stand back and scan all of them. You are more likely to pick these guys out than we are, so I don’t want to lock you in to one site.”
Am
y nodded, glancing at the early arrivals outside the Vienna station. “You know, if these guys are smart, they aren’t going to get on the train at one of the busy stations,” Amy commented. “I would think they would get on at one of the outlying stations like Vienna or Huntington. No one would really notice them there.”
“It’s a possibility,” Kel agreed. “We’ve set up some fake construction at a few of the stations that have more than one entrance so that our extra security can try to identify them.”
Amy turned her attention back to the monitors. The small crowds outside of the subway grew larger as five o’clock eastern time grew near. When the gates opened, she felt completely overwhelmed. There were so many people, so many places to look.
“Amy, check out this guy,” Charlie called from his computer on the end.
She moved to look over his shoulder. “I don’t recognize him.” As an afterthought she asked, “Why?”
“He obviously didn’t know where he was going.”
Kel spoke now. “These guys have been in town for a few days. You have to assume that they have traveled the metro several times to determine how to best execute their plan.”
Everyone quieted down, studying the screens in front of them. The first hour passed by painfully slowly, but gradually Amy fell into a routine of scanning the monitors in what she hoped was a logical order. Lunch was delivered in the form of sandwiches. Kel relieved everyone for a few minutes at a time so that they could eat without missing anything on the monitors.
Amy managed to eat a few bites, and then she held a water bottle in her hand and sipped from it occasionally.
“I’ve got an abandoned backpack here,” Quinn said.
“Call it in,” Kel instructed, moving to monitor Quinn’s station while he pulled out his phone.
“Does this guy look familiar?” Brent asked Amy, pointing at a dark-haired man who was carrying a soft-sided briefcase. The man looked from side to side nervously.
Amy put her hand on Brent’s shoulder, studying the man he indicated. He did look vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him. “I don’t know.”
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