by Cat Connor
He and Kurt did some fancy handshake thing I’d seen Sam and Mac do in happier days. Guess the whole team adopted it. Except me.
Lee smiled at me and gave me an affectionate pat on the back. “Not going as well as you thought?” he commented, pouring a coffee.
“Let’s just say there is so much going on that it’s way more interesting than it ought to be,” I replied. “Glad you’re here.”
“Ellie, it’s good to be here.”
“We have some trouble,” I said with a slight confessional tone, and headed back over to the couch and my laptop. “And apparently you do as well?”
“You want me to enlighten you on the extent of the trouble?” he replied, following with a coffee.
“Please do.”
“I did some snooping into the plumber who visited your place the day of the explosions. He works for a company called Empire Plumbing. After some digging I discovered Empire Plumbing, which is owned by Central Holdings LLC in Fairfax.”
The sick feeling was back with a vengeance.
“Central Holdings?”
“Yes.” He pulled out his notebook. “Chief Executive Officer is Abbudin Nader.”
That I knew. We’d already come across a car owned by Central Holdings. Arbab had been in it.
“Interesting,” I said.
“The plumber’s name is Christopher Fitzgerald or so says his driver’s license – thing is I thought it was a funny name for him to have, it didn’t fit his middle-eastern look. Bit too Irish.”
“And his real identity?”
“Facial recognition software is the new god. He is a young man by the name of Abdul-Bari Bin Qasim Sabbagh.”
“Interesting name.”
“There is more. Your unwanted admirer. His full name is Habib Bin Faisal Bin Abdul-Malik Arbab.”
I knew that already. He is the son of Sheik Faisal Bin Abdul-Malik Arbab.
“And your point?”
“When I started looking into Arbab’s whereabouts, it red-flagged a bunch of agencies. Everyone wants him.”
“Where is his daddy these days?”
“Saudi, refusing to have anything to do with his son. It was reported that Arbab attempted to kill his father a few years ago. Habib Bin Faisal Bin Abdul-Malik Arbab is on the run.”
“He’s not so much running as enjoying a killing spree. We know where he is, just haven’t caught up with him yet.”
Lee smiled. “Takes more than a terrorist to throw you off your game, don’t it, Ellie?”
“I think it might.”
That’s my answer and I’m sticking to it. No need for Lee to worry. I can handle this. He’s just a man with an ax to grind. I’ve met plenty of them. My fingers sought the scar around my throat. I still had a head.
“Shall I tell you about the little plumber boy?”
“Please do,” I replied, leaning back on the couch and getting comfy. I felt safer with Lee and Kurt in the room.
“He’s been working for Abbudin Nader’s plumbing business as a legitimate plumber for about three years. So far, just two houses have blown up after a plumbing visit from him.”
Just two.
“Nice.”
“The first was a house in Herndon that belonged to a former CIA operative.”
“How the hell would someone get an address like that?”
“See, this is where it gets really good.” Lee sipped his coffee for a moment. “Plumber boy was mainly employed to search records. A painstaking and laborious job that involved searching for things like property tax records for names requested by Mr. Nader.”
Kurt groaned. “Oh, fucking hell. That’s how he’s getting addresses.”
I felt my eyes grow wider. Kurt rarely swore.
Lee faltered a little after Kurt’s outburst, and then recovered. “Yep. Hours, days, weeks, spent searching individual property tax records looking for names and addresses. I’ve been over some myself just to see how mind-numbing it is. You can’t search by name in most counties, so it has to be done by address, and if you have no clue, it’s a case of picking a street and going house by house, then moving on to the next one.”
“Fuck-a-doodle-do, no wonder this guy blew up my house. I’d wanna blow something up too, after spending hours upon hours searching boring databases.”
Lee flashed his teeth. “Wonder if he was smart enough to use the old Control-F command, or if he scrolled through every single page.”
“Even so, it would be boring, doing Control-F, and having to type in names in the search box on every single page of street names. Hell, it’d drive me to murder.”
“But how’d he get the names?” Kurt asked.
“Television, newspapers, gossip magazines,” Lee replied.
Sure that’d work for my name – but an ex-CIA operative? I don’t think so.
“Or from an unsuspecting innocent source, like an FNG, especially one that graduated in the last six months,” Kurt added. “But again, that would only work for someone who was FBI, not so much an ex-CIA operative.”
Lee’s smile froze. “Say what, about a fuc’n … what?”
“New guy, you know newly-minted agent …” Kurt said, rolling his eyes.
“There’s an FNG at the office, lending a hand.”
The term FNG bought a smile to my lips; Fucking New Guy was not something we heard much in Delta. But Lee’s comment about how there was one in the Delta office was the magic that removed my smile.
“Sam’s there, right?” I said.
“In and out, mostly out, chasing boxes of ass.”
“So – who is in?”
“Sandra,” Lee replied. He was already calling her on his cell phone. “Hey, Sandra, where are you?”
I motioned to him to put it on speaker. A spilt second later her voice rose from the phone on the table. “Bullpen. Problem?”
“Go to my office and shut the door,” I told her.
“All right, Ellie.” We heard her walking, opening the door, the phone being placed on my desk and the door closing. “I’m here.”
“Good. Where’s the FNG?”
“Going through files sitting at the spare desk in the pen. What’s going on?”
Kurt spoke, “Conway’s getting jumpy. We want you to keep a close eye in the FNG.”
“What in particular am I looking for?”
“An unnatural interest in anything to do with me,” I said. “Accessing any of my old cases, or asking questions about my whereabouts.”
“Are you serious? You three think someone on the inside is spreading the joy?”
I liked Sandra. She fitted this team like a well-worn glove.
“Yep, spreading the joy.”
Spreading the joy all over the state. Little bloodied bodies of joy. Nope. Wrong bad guy: that’d be the one sending parcels of people all over the state. Arbab is more thrashing about trying to flush me out.
“I’ll watch him.”
“Thanks, Sandra. Dinner at my place once we’re all back in DC.”
“Of course, the grand housewarming,” she replied. “I’ll do dessert. The men can handle the garlic bread and booze.”
Kurt and Lee protested with loud grumbles of indignation but we all knew that was about all they could handle.
“Take care.”
Lee hung up.
I stretched out my legs and hit Kurt’s by accident.
“Sorry,” I said as he moved to avoid me.
“No, you’re not, but it’s okay.” Thoughtfulness came over him. “FNG in the bullpen. A pivotal case involving all of us used as a training case. An exploded house. A terrorist killing Conways to flush out our Conway. Boxes of ass. A killer in a hospital.” He smiled. “But I’m forgetting the best bit, my pretend-wife talks to dead men.”
I kicked him. He winced.
When it was all laid out like that, it sounded quite ridiculous.
I grabbed my phone and called Comms. Within seconds I was patched through to Roanoke Police Department.
&nbs
p; “It’s SSA Conway. Who’s in charge of the Conway strangling?”
“That would be Jeff Dingle, ma’am.”
“Can you put me through, please?”
“Putting you through now, ma’am.”
The phone rang. A deep male voice answered. “Jeff Dingle.”
“Jeff, SSA Ellie Conway from DC.”
“Any relation to the Conway I have on my case book?”
“Nope, but I have some questions.”
“Go ahead. I heard there were three others up north.”
“There are. Did Ms. Conway live in Roanoke long?”
“No.” Pages moved. “She moved here six months ago from Lexington.”
“Thank you, that’s very helpful.”
“Is this something to do with the case up north?”
“I’m not sure.”
I hung up. I am sure.
Lee and Kurt were sitting in silence waiting.
“She was from Lexington and moved six months ago.”
“There goes that number again,” Kurt whispered.
“He thought it was you,” Lee said. “This brings me to the wannabe sniper who took out the tweaker on your front lawn.”
I’d forgotten about him.
“What about him?”
“The connection isn’t to the boxes of ass. It was you he was after.”
I felt so much better knowing that. Really I did.
“He’s connected to Arbab?”
Lee nodded. “When he didn’t get you, the plumber was sent in.”
“Hang on, the shooter at the 7-Eleven – do we know if he was sent after me or if that was a fluke?”
“We know it wasn’t the same shooter. Unless the guy we got at your place was a reincarnation of the other dude.”
I smiled. Yeah, an instant reincarnation.
“For argument’s sake let’s say the Blake Lane shooter was hired to take me out. Is he connected to Arbab? Or connected to the boxes of ass? Or do we have an unknown situation?”
Lee’s eye brows rose. “You worried?”
“No, we’ll figure it out.” I lied a hundred times a week to all manner of people. My thoughts turned to what he’d said earlier. “But Arbab has killed since trying to take me out at home, so he can’t have been sure the address was mine?”
“That’s what I thought too. He seems intent on ridding the world of as many Conway women as possible.”
“Yep, that’s a real possibility, but as much as I want my charming wannabe killer caught, we have to stop the hospital killer before someone dies tonight.” Part of me was wondering if it was ‘killers’ and not ‘killer.’
“Priorities, Chicky. You are ours.”
I could see how my being alive could be a priority for my team and to the FBI; a lot of money went into training us all. “I saw Arbab at Stonewall Jackson Hospital today. He could still be around. The receptionist told me he came looking for a patient. He’s following a trail we left a few years ago now. Sooner or later that trail is going to intersect with my actual life. It fuc’n almost did today.” I took a breath. “That would not be good. I’ve requested help. There should be an extradition team here now.”
Lee didn’t even blink at the mention of extradition. “We’re not going after Arbab?”
“Nope. Not right now anyway.”
“Meanwhile, someone is killing patients,” Kurt reminded us.
“Refocus this party and let’s get something in place to protect patients,” I said. Time was marching on and we had to figure this out before two in the morning. “Kurt, we can access all the hospital records, yes?”
“Yes.” He fired up his laptop and used the link and password provided by Grant.
“Can we search key words? If so, look for ‘uncooperative’ and similar descriptions.”
“On it, Ellie,” he said, tapping on the keys. “I’m cross-referencing to show anyone about to be discharged. They’re the most at risk.”
My head was beginning to ache. Maybe my brain would implode and save Arbab the trouble of killing me. I just loved being the focus of a lunatic bent on revenge; knowing it may be several lunatics really upped the joy factor. Despite knowing I needed to let go of the Arbab situation I found the practice very difficult.
Knowing someone wants you dead is one thing. Knowing it’s only a matter of time before he stumbles upon you is another.
It was painfully obvious that I needed a way to put this to rest and concentrate. I knew what I had to do. I had to call Jonathon Tierney for an update.
“I’ll be right back,” I said and took my phone and the room key. Both men looked up. Both wore grim expressions. “I’ll just be in the corridor. While I’m gone, find out where Robin Conway is from. I doubt it’s Deanwood, where she was killed.”
It was easy to see their protests. They were written all over their very expressive faces. I ignored them and left.
The minute I stepped into the hallway I felt vulnerable. Absurd. I’d let Arbab rattle me. Jonathon answered the phone on the first ring; there were no security measures to go through this time. That told me he had my cell phone number added to the safe list. This was serious shit.
“You got him yet?”
“No.”
“He was in Lexington today, at Stonewall Jackson Hospital. You might want to pass that on.”
“You can do it. I’m going to give you liaison ability.”
“Is that wise?”
“Yes. You’re on the ground and have the most at stake. I’ve texted you the phone number and name for the team leader.”
My phone buzzed alerting me to the text message.
“All right. I’ll talk to him.”
I hung up and read the text. I was to call Tim Cosgrove. How fitting that the man who returned Arbab to his father in the first place be the one who brings him in again. This was going to be an interesting phone call.
Being in the hallway started to feel more insecure than it had before. I opted to go back into the room and use the bedroom. It was weird not talking in front of Kurt and Lee, but they weren’t involved in this part of my life. It was my former life, but I wasn’t a pop star formerly known as Squiggle. I was an FBI agent, seconded to a CIA task force, who was once known as Demelza.
Steadying my nerves, I pressed the numbers in with care and hit talk. Sixteen rings later, the phone was answered. I didn’t recognize the voice but it had been a very long time.
“Is this Tim Cosgrove?”
“Yes.”
“Jonathon Tierney gave me your number.”
“For?”
“An extension of Operation Kiwi.”
He exhaled audibly. “Where are you?”
“In Lexington. You?”
“Also in Lexington.”
“Arbab was here today, at the hospital.”
“You know this?”
“Yes, I saw him.”
“Who are you?”
“A deceased friend.”
There was noise in the background. The sound of weapons being stripped and cleaned; I could almost smell the gun oil.
“Demelza,” he said without a trace of doubt. “I’ll come to you, where?”
I gave him the hotel address and told him our room number. I also mentioned we’d be heading for the hospital later on, as there was something there we needed to deal with.
I’d made a decision while talking to Tim and it changed everything.
“I think I know where he’ll be, or where he’ll go. You might want to stick close. Time to flush out this prick,” I said.
“Remember we can’t take him in public. The way this works … hell, you know how this works.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“We have a small hitch – there is a current BOLO because he is a person of interest in an NCIS case. We don’t want NCIS getting wind of his whereabouts – it’ll be harder to extract him from custody.”
“Then you do need me to flush him out. LEOs will report sightings to NCIS.”
&nbs
p; “The thing working in our favor is his last sighting. According to NCIS, this was in northern Virginia. No one’s looking in Lexington.”
Except us. We’re looking.
Tim assured me he’d be at my door in minutes. Guess that meant the rendition team was staying in our hotel. Made me feel a tad safer.
Things were not looking good for what was supposed to be a restful day spent trying to find the hospital killer. It felt better once I was back in the same room as my team. Kurt and Lee looked over at me and watched as I sat down on the sofa.
“Anything on Robin Conway?” I said.
“She’s from Richmond, moved to the Deanwood area last year,” Lee said.
“Just like the Roanoke woman moved from Lexington … now they make more sense.” It wasn’t immensely helpful sense, but it was keeping to the places within that old case file. “We need to flush out Arbab,” I said, bracing myself for the onslaught I felt sure would follow.
“You’re sure?” Kurt replied. His calmness blanketed the room.
“I can’t think of another way to stop any more deaths.”
“There has to be.” His voice was quiet. “This is unacceptable.”
“The cavalry is coming. It’s the best way. We think the fucktard is still in Lexington. I think he’s frequenting my old haunts. Let me find him. We’ll finish this then get back to stopping the hospital killer.” I sounded a helluva lot cockier than I felt. “There is an extradition team meeting us here. It’s not like we’re taking on a terrorist alone.” I slipped in the rendition thing and waited for the explosion.
“The risk is unacceptable, Ellie,” Kurt said.
I couldn’t believe neither of them was going to comment on the rendition team.
“No, what is unacceptable is the needless death of innocent women and he won’t stop until we stop him.” Or he gets me.
“There has to be another way to flush him out.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t see Christopher Chance walking in anytime soon with another plan,” I said aloud without thinking, and with a heavier sigh than I intended. It was too late to check myself. The words were out there being assimilated by Lee and Kurt.
“You read Human Target comics?” The incredulousness in Lee’s voice tumbled across the carpet and writhed at my feet.
I smiled, squishing the words under my right foot. “No, I watch the Fox version of Human Target. You know the one with Mark Valley as Christopher Chance?”
