by Fiona Quinn
“She had visitors?” Thorn asked.
“I think she had a poltergeist,” Nutsbe said. “I’m going to fast-forward this section of tape. This happened over a three-hour span of time, but I’ve compressed it into two minutes.”
The light from the right-hand side of the house blinked on. The vantage point was from the eaves, where Brian had placed the light the day before. They had a momentary view of Sophia’s minivan and her mailbox. As soon as the light went off it lit up again. It turned off and the next view was of the sidewalk and front stairs. That light flashed on, then off, then on again.
“What’s the timer on these lights?” Thorn leaned over to ask.
“Fifteen minutes,” Brian replied as that light went off and the next one in line blinked on. “Nutsbe, does each light flash twice?”
Brian knew that he’d put six lights in place, lighting up each section twice would take an hour and a half.
“Twice on the first round, twice on the second round. It looks like a dog running up to an invisible fence, testing the boundaries before he’d get zapped.”
“That’s exactly what it looks like. Calculated.” Brian’s stomach muscles tightened. “I’ll get Titus to sign off on a camera upgrade. She has an alarm system in place, but she isn’t using it.” Brian explained to his team about the daily door rattles and the police bill.
“That’s damned odd,” Nutsbe said.
“Ya think?”
“Was Nadia okay last night? Any unwanted visitors?” Thorn asked.
“Nadia went to Lana’s house for dinner. Then she went home and read until ten when she went to sleep. Nadia likes to walk around her house in a slinky little teddy.” Nutsbe touched his cursor to pull up the image. “There’s my bonus for all the hours I had to sit and watch lights flashing on and off at Sophia’s place.”
“Shut that off, Nutsbe,” Brian growled.
Nutsbe sighed and flipped to an audio file. “Fine. Moving on then.”
The first thing they heard was a nine-digit alphanumeric code, in English this time. Brian leaned over and tapped the key to pause the recording. “First mystery solved. You’ll notice that code was different than the first time she got a call. On Monday, I found a PIN generating device on her desk.”
“On her desk where anyone could get to it? How is that secure?” Nutsbe asked.
“Exactly,” Brian said. “She seemed genuinely surprised to find it in my hand. She said there was a place that she and Nadia hid it and guessed that one of them, in getting ready to do their public speaking gig in front of Panther Force, must have forgotten to return it to its usual spot.”
“Was it out yesterday when you were there checking on security details?” Thorn asked.
“No, and I was looking for it. But returning to the phone call, it’s odd to me that both times she took one of those calls, she picked up her keys and left the room. At first, I thought maybe there was something on the keychain she didn’t want me to see. I had her keys Monday when the mechanics were fixing her car. We made duplicates of all of them. House key, car key, four storage keys. Her keychain is a flashlight.”
“Storage keys?”
“They belong to PODS that line the back of the property. I opened them and am guessing it’s her in-laws’ personal effects, furniture, clothes, photo albums, kitchenware. Someone could start a whole new life with the stuff packed up out back.”
“Why is she keeping it, do you think?” Nutsbe asked.
“Don’t know.” Brian shrugged. “It’s costing her money. I was hoping you could do some digging, Nutsbe. I’m kind of stuck on the dad and son dying in the same hospital, minutes apart. And then the mother, what—a year plus later? As for the PODS, maybe there’s other family involved. Maybe she needs to hang on to that stuff for some reason. I think the more we know about the stressors in Sophia’s and Nadia’s lives, the better we can find their pressure points. We know they both have the means and opportunity; the missing piece is the motivation.”
“So how do her keys tie into the phone calls?”
“Her flashlight runs on a button battery. The battery tube holds a randomized digital PIN creator, a tiny version of the one that Nadia and Sophia use for their AACP computer.”
Thorn twitched his lips to the side, staring past Brian, thinking. “That doesn’t have to be nefarious. She could be clarifying her identity to the people who are functioning in ISIS held areas, if they need assurance that they’re talking to the right person. We do the same with our fake pre-school website with the animal and color of the day.”
“See what you think after you hear the conversation.” Nutsbe reached out start the audio file again.
“We need those contacts we talked about.” It was the same female voice from the first call.
“I’m working on it,” Sophia whispered. “Things are delicate right now. I have to be extra careful about who I reach out to and how. I’ll figure it out. I need a little more time.” There was a warble in Sophia’s voice that made Brian think that the person Sophia was speaking to scared her—made her feel threatened somehow.
“The information you sent us was helpful. We took a major piece off the board.”
The unsub’s information was met with silence. The mystery voice continued, “Have you heard news out of Palmyra?”
A long pause, then Sophia whispered, “No.”
“You’ll want to watch Al Jazeera.”
The line went dead.
“Do you know what the caller was referring to?”
“Possibly. Andersson sent me a file last night with an email that said concerning news out of Palmyra,” Nutsbe read. “Our partners at Interpol sent us word that Sadiq Bikar was killed in Palmyra yesterday.”
Thorn tossed his pen in the air and watched it rotate twice before it landed neatly back in his hand. “Why is this Bikar guy interesting to us?”
“Here are the FBI bullet points—Bikar, aged eighty-two, was a world leader in the preservation of relics, architecture, and antiquities in Palmyra. He taught ancient studies at Stanford University. After retirement, Bikar became the Head of Palmyra Antiquities and Preservation for the UNESCO World Heritage Center.” Nutsbe moved the cursor down the page, his eyes shifting rapidly left and right. “Okay—here’s the gist. The city of Palmyra dates to two-thousand years BC, when it acted as a waypoint for caravans crossing the desert. Before ISIS took over the area, Palmyra was filled with ancient pieces that quickly disappeared from their museums. Some are assumed to be hidden by concerned citizens, but most are assumed to be in the hands of those running the black markets. Four pieces found in the Gilchrest collection were flagged by the FBI as having a high probability of being stolen from the museum collection. That’s why they sent this to our attention.”
Brian’s phone buzzed, and he looked down at the read out. “Sophia’s on the move again. At zero-eight-hundred she took the boys to daycare.” He swiped the screen. “Yeah, she’s leaving Willow Tree. She said she and Nadia are working in her home office today.”
Thorn’s phone vibrated. He pulled up the same app to track his target. “Nadia’s heading toward Sophia’s house,” Thorn said and slipped his phone back in the thigh pocket on his BDUs.
“Continuing on,” Nutsbe said. “Finley got word from the Syrian Human Rights Observation Alliance that Bikar was beheaded in the public square. His body was tied to a post. His head was placed between his feet. Their informant said that ISIS interrogated Bikar, trying to find the location of hidden museum artifacts and two chests of gold that are rumored to be buried in the city. They also wanted the names and locations of all the academics throughout the world who were helping to protect Syrian treasures and causing hiccups in their trade routes. The human rights asset didn’t know if any of that information was revealed or not. He’s worried that those directly involved with stopping the black market have been compromised, specifically those working with AACP.”
“Why does the asset think Bikar talked?”
&nb
sp; “Bikar’s three sons disappeared around the same time that Bikar was taken hostage. His wife was killed in their home. It could be that ISIS was torturing the sons to drag information from the father.”
Brian turned to Thorn. “Nadia and Sophia may have been compromised. This puts them in even greater danger.”
“Finley agrees,” Nutsbe said. “We need to up our efforts making sure the women are protected while we’re looking for any way they might have been connected to the event. Sadiq Bikar was supposedly in hiding with Interpol protection. Reading between the lines, they lost operatives in this event.”
Brian tapped his middle finger on the desk while he processed that information. “Until we have a better handle on things, I think it’s a good idea to move the women to status orange. That way we can be more aggressive in the actions we take. I’d rather be proactive here.”
The men sat in silence considering the situation.
“One other thing you both should know. ISIS sent a video to Al Jazeera that showed ISIS militants demanding that Bikar pledge his loyalty to their organization. He refused. They beat him to a bloody pulp before they tied him to the post. The revived him to give him one last opportunity to sign on as a member. He spat at the man and was promptly beheaded.”
“The caller told Sophia to watch Al Jazeera,” Thorn said.
The fine hairs on the back of Brian’s neck prickled. What the hell was going on here? In his gut, Brian thought Sophia was doing her job saving the world’s antiquities and trying to stop ISIS, but even he couldn’t deny that this looked bad. “Was that before or after Bikar was killed? What time did this happen?”
The beheading was at twelve-hundred hours Syrian time. That’s zero-five-hundred hours here in DC. Two hours beforehand, at zero-three-ten hours, Sophia Abadi made a phone call to Jordan on her landline. Sophia said nothing, but on the Jordan side there were five beeps. Sophia then received a call back from a different Jordanian number on her cell. She read an alphanumeric string and said in Arabic, ‘I’ve assessed your information, and I concur. I’d proceed as planned.’ There was no reply on the Jordan end. The line was cut directly after. I tried to trace it, but the exchange was so short, all I got was the city of Amman. With four million people in that city, it doesn’t narrow things by much.”
Thorn scanned down the communications printout. “This makes sense,” he said. “Dr. Bikar could be the ‘major piece off the board’ the caller refers to. He was working to protect the antiquities and might have been preventing the black marketers getting their hands on the better-quality artifacts”.
“Or these two things could have nothing to do with each other.” Brian scrubbed a hand over his face to give himself a moment to process. It looked like evidence was piling up against Sophia. What had she gotten herself mixed up in?
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He dragged it out to check the screen. Sophia Abadi. He tapped speakerphone and lay it on the table. “Brainiack here.”
“Brian, did I catch you in the middle of something? It’s Sophia.”
“You’re all right. What can I do for you?”
Nutsbe turned his computer screen toward them to show Sophia’s car moving down the highway in their direction.
“I’m up the street. If you have a minute—” There was a sudden bang. The squeal of tires. Horns blasting. Sophia screamed. Silence.
Brian was on his feet, adrenaline pumping through his system. “Sophia?” he called into the phone. “Sophia, tell me what’s happening.”
Nutsbe’s fingers flew over the keyboard. He yanked his phone out. “Lynx, Panther Force needs urgent assistance. You’re the closest operative to a client in immediate distress. I’m sending coordinates to your phone. It’s a Chrysler Town & Country, red. It might have been in an accident. It might have been attacked. Approach with caution.”
Brian was running out the door with his keys in his hands when he heard, “Brainiack is backup. ETA five minutes.”
Chapter Ten
Sophia
Wednesday
Sophia couldn’t feel her body. Her ability to process came down to blurred vision, dappled by the flicker of her eyelashes, and the whooshing sound of cars flying by close enough to suck the paint off her van. She reached for those words. Her van. They made strange hooks that pierced through the bubble that held her suspended. Sophia knew she was going to die. She waited for it. She wasn’t breathing. She wasn’t sure her heart beat. She swallowed though. The saliva gathered in her mouth and slipped down her throat in a thick glob, sticking in the center, holding there, then finishing the slow slide. That was all the saliva she had had in her mouth and now her gums were dry. Her tongue too big.
A rapping sounded to the side of her. A chuck-a-chuck sounded as someone tried to open her door. “Sophia? Dr. Abadi?” A female voice hollered down an echoing tunnel. Sophia’s eyelids slid over her eyes then flicked up, mechanically. She wished death would do its job and get it over with.
The pop-pop came at her back door, her hatch, then to her right. “Sophia. Sophia, are you all right? Open the door.”
Sophia’s brain demanded oxygen. She wanted to move, but she was paralyzed. Her head faced forward. Her hands clenched tightly around the steering wheel.
“Sophia!” The woman’s voice was replaced with a man’s. There was a metal scraping sound and a loud pop to her left. Wind blew her hair across her face, the strands weaving themselves into her lashes.
“What’s she doing? What’s wrong?” the man asked.
A horn honked. Debris blew into Sophia’s eyes. When she blinked, she could feel the grit under her lids.
“My name is Lynx. I’m going to help you.” It was an angel’s voice filled with golden light.
Warm skin touched Sophia’s lips and nostrils, then fingers pressed into her neck.
“Can you tell me your name?”
Sophia’s thoughts walked through the mist, looking for the answer.
“Do you know where you are?”
A hand brushed over her face, sweeping her hair to the side. A bright light flashed twice in one eye then twice in the other.
“What’s happening?” the man asked.
“It looks like she’s having a seizure. Was that listed on her medical intake paperwork?”
“We haven’t gotten to that point,” the man shouted over the ambient noise of Washington grid lock travelling at high speed. “Let me get in touch with her partner, Nadia.”
Sophia felt warmth radiating into her body, and she knew it came from the angel. Bubbles of hope effervesced across her chest.
“It’s safe. You’re safe.” The angel’s voice was pink and blue with streaks of tangerine like a sunset sky. “Brian and I are here with you. You’re having a seizure. You’ve had them before. You know that this will be over soon. You’ll be fine.”
There was a prickling sensation on the backs of Sophia’s thighs as they pressed into her seat. Her muscles slackened as the attack faded and exhaustion took its place.
“Lynx, this location is too dangerous.” The wind caught the man’s voice and blew it around like a balloon. “Do you think we need an ambulance?”
“What does Nadia say?” The angel had morphed into human form. Sophia could see the woman’s long blonde hair.
Too tired to hold her head up anymore, Sophia collapsed forward, until her forehead rested on the steering wheel. The woman moved her hands from Sophia’s chest to her back. Her touch was prayerful. Powerful.
Sophia could hear Nadia talking over the speakerphone. “NEAD. Non-epileptic attack disorder. She hasn’t had an episode in over a year.”
“Does she need to go to the hospital?” That was Brian’s voice.
“No to the hospital. They don’t have any way to help her. But if you could get her to her home, I’m already there.”
“We can do that,” Brian said. There was a pause before he asked, “Lynx, NEAD?”
“It’s a chronic seizure disorder caused by psychological distress.
It often stems from a severe trauma. The seizures look like epilepsy, sometimes manifesting as tonic-clonic seizures where people fall and lose control of their muscles. Others have absence seizures like Sophia just did.”
The van shuddered as a truck whizzed by, its horn held down.
Brian slid his hand across her stomach to release her safety belt. “Sophia, here, put your arm around my shoulder. I’m going to lift you up.”
***
“Stop hovering, Brian, you’re making me nervous.” Sophia lay on the couch. She curled deeper into the blanket Nadia had brought down for her. “I promise I’m not going to spontaneously combust.”
Brian moved to a chair and sat down. “One of the things I need to work on with you is a health history. We have medics go over the information when we’re headed out of the country, and they pack medical kits to match the requirements of known possibilities, in case there’s an emergency when we’re far from a health center. We also have satellite comms that put us in touch with an Iniquus doctor. I’ve been talked through everything from an emergency appendectomy to a breech birth. Twins, no less,” he said with a grin. “Both girls, one’s named Brianna. The other is Charlotte.” He put his hand on his chest. “My middle name’s Charles.”
Sophia gave him a weak smile.
“When you’re up to it, I’d like to work on your profile with you so we’ve got that covered.” He glanced over to where Nadia moved around the kitchen. “Thorn will be doing the same with you, Nadia. Titus said we’ll probably be heading to Peru in another few weeks.”
“Is that what that woman does? Lynx? Is she a medic? How did she know my name when she stopped?”
Brian’s eyes shifted from concerned to impassive, like a curtain closing. “I was on the phone with you when your tire blew. We weren’t sure what was going on, it very well could have been gunfire from the sound of things. Iniquus traced your call and found the nearest operative. That was Lynx. She happens to have an EMT background, so that was a piece of good luck.”
