by Loye, Trish
“Well, that’s very kind of you,” Zach drawled.
She frowned at him and opened her mouth to speak when a tall, lean man with brown hair burst into the room. “Al?”
Alyssa turned to him. “What’s up, Drew?”
“There’s a report of a bomb in Central Park.”
4
Alyssa clenched the steering wheel too tight. Zach and his friend Marc tagged along in her car as she and Drew drove to Central Park. They didn’t say a word, just listened while she and Drew made plans and spoke with dispatch. But it was her awareness of them, especially of Zach sitting right behind her, that really rankled.
It had been her captain’s command to bring them along. What irked most was Zach’s confident assumption that he and Marc would be included, and according to her captain they would be.
“It’s at Bethesda Terrace,” she told Drew before turning off East 72nd onto Terrace Drive. She had to slow to get around the horse-drawn carriages. A fire truck, two police cars, and the bomb squad’s truck were all parked ahead. She pulled in and jumped out of her car, the rest of the team following.
She showed her badge to the officer setting up a perimeter with crime scene tape, then strode to the thick of things. There, a guy in a full-armor bomb suit stood speaking with two officers and a detective in a black suit, her dark hair cut close to her head. They stood on the upper terrace looking down over the square below. The lake beyond appeared peaceful in the morning light.
“Detective Harrison with the CTB,” Alyssa said, showing her badge again. “What do you have, detective?”
“A homeless guy left a box out by the fountain,” the detective said, nodding at them. She indicated the large ornate fountain in the middle of the square, with water lilies growing in it. A cardboard box stood on the red bricks of the terrace surrounding the fountain.
“And then he walked away,” she continued. “People became concerned and grabbed a beat cop. The officer on scene approached and saw wires sticking out of the box. He called it in.”
“Do we have the homeless guy?” she asked.
The detective shook her head. “Not even a good description besides he was wearing a blanket and his clothes were dirty.” She rolled her eyes.
“Fine,” Alyssa said. “Has your bomb expert looked at it?”
“He just got suited up.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s see what he finds.”
Alyssa’s muscles tensed as she watched the bomb technician walk up to the box. The cool breeze on her neck was so different from the hot desert wind. She clenched her hands tight and tried to calm her racing heart.
Stay in the present. Focus.
“Something isn’t right,” Zach said by her shoulder, jolting her from her thoughts. She looked at him, and his friend Marc nodded. “It doesn’t make sense. If it’s a bomb, then why give us time to evacuate everyone?”
Zach looked at her and his eyes narrowed. “You look pale. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “But I agree. If it was Al Shabah, then he’d want maximum damage.”
“Yes. Or he’s playing with us,” Zach said.
They watched the bomb technician kneel in front of the box. He set up a portable x-ray unit. He placed a panel behind the box and then the imager in front. Alyssa knew that in moments they’d have their answer. The tech stood and turned toward them.
The crack of an explosion echoed. The tech fell forward. Her heart seized.
Around her, everyone ducked. She stayed standing, frozen in place.
Memories swamped her, and she couldn’t move as she fought for control. Blood thundered in her ears. A part of her watched everything play out in front of her, but she had no access to her body. It was like her brain had disassociated. She saw Marc run toward the technician, getting to him before all others. Everyone else stood slowly, looking around wondering what had happened.
Zach stepped into her view. A frown was on his face, though concern filled his eyes. He said something, but it didn’t register over the rushing in her ears.
A small part of her acknowledged that she needed to get it together, but she couldn’t find her way back. Zach had a hold on her hands, rubbing and squeezing them. The pressure felt nice. She concentrated on that, on his hands, warm and calloused, holding hers tight. She swallowed.
Sound rushed back in.
“Feel my hands, Alyssa. Can you hear me?” Zach said. “You’re safe.”
Safe. She blinked.
Oh god. She’d had what Dr. Martinez called a freeze response. She took a deep breath and tried to pull her hands from his. “I’m okay.”
“Easy, Firecracker,” he said. “Take another breath.”
She let him continue to hold her hands for a moment. It felt…nice to be taken care of. Then she saw Drew watching with his eyebrows raised.
She pulled her hands from Zach’s. “Thanks. I’m good.”
“Are you?”
She frowned. “Yes. Now excuse me, I need to find out what happened.” The bomb tech was standing and looking in the smoldering box on the rock, Marc by his side.
“Hey, relax,” Zach said, holding onto her arm. “Marc’s on it. He’ll let us know.”
She pulled her arm from Zach’s hold. “Thank you for your help,” she said calmly but firmly. “But I’m a detective for the CTB. This is, or was, my task force. I need to—”
“It was a flash bang,” Marc said. He’d come up to them quietly.
“Military or law enforcement?” Alyssa asked. She’d used stun grenades before, both in military training and for her counterterrorism training with the NYPD. They weren’t lethal, but gave off a concussive sound and light show mimicking a real grenade.
“Unknown,” Marc said. “I suspect Russian make. But here’s the thing: It was remotely detonated.”
“What?” Alyssa said. “Why would someone detonate a flash bang remotely?”
Zach crossed his arms and scanned the buildings overlooking the park. Any one of them was a potential hiding spot for their terrorist. “Because he wants to taunt us.”
* * *
Alyssa sat at a monitor in the Global Intelligence room going over footage from security cameras in the area before she wrote a quick report for the captain about today’s incident in Central Park. Incident. Did that describe a remotely detonated stun grenade? What was the purpose, except to taunt them as Zach had suggested. Or was it something different? Could Al Shabah be trying to figure out their standard operating procedures for a suspected bomb? She shook her head. It didn’t fit any of Al Shabah’s patterns.
Hell, they didn’t even know if this was Al Shabah, or whether it was some stupid prank. They were working blind.
They’d already determined a cell phone had set off the flash bang. She and Zach agreed that whoever had left the flash bang had to have been watching them. Which is why the box was in an open area. Anyone in any of the buildings on West 57th would have had a decent view to watch them and make the call.
Dammit. If only they knew what Al Shabah looked like, they could have an APB out and have all of the NYPD looking for him. As it was, he was a single unknown face among millions.
She’d left Drew on the scene and Marc had stayed too, but she didn’t think they’d find anything else out. She tapped her fingers on the desk, thinking. Zach looked up from where he sat near her, typing into his smartphone. He was reporting to someone. She just didn’t know who.
He had to be in special operations like her brother, except Jake wasn’t a SEAL anymore. He’d turned civilian and was working for some security company in Montreal. That decision had surprised her family, but she’d accepted it after a bullet had shattered his femur.
“You work with my brother?” she asked.
“Now you’re curious?”
This man evaded questions just like Jake did. She narrowed her eyes, but then sat back as she contemplated him. It didn’t actually matter if he worked with her brother or not. It had no bearing on their
case. She didn’t need to get friendly with him. She had enough to deal with right now.
A whisper inside her head reminded her she’d only seen her brother once since returning from Iraq two years ago. That had been when he’d been in the hospital for his leg. They hadn’t spoken about the way her tour had ended; instead, she’d concentrated on smiling and supporting him in his recovery. After the strain of pretending to be normal for the three-day visit, she’d come home feeling like she could sleep for a week. Of course she hadn’t.
As Jake recovered, he started to ask her more questions. Now she avoided his calls, which were coming more frequently. She had no desire to discuss how she was feeling—she did that enough with her shrink.
“No,” she finally said to him. “I’m not curious at all.”
She turned from Zach’s frown and left the room to go back to her own desk. He didn’t follow her, and a small twinge of disappointment shot through her. She easily suppressed it. She had no time to make a new friend.
She wanted to groan when she saw who leaned against her desk. Dr. Tom Martinez pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up on his patrician nose. His dark hair, black eyes, and olive skin, as well as his lean build, made him look like he should be called Raphael, but the glasses killed his Latin-lover vibe. That and his penchant for dressing like a preppy frat boy.
“Dr. Martinez,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
He smiled like a parent who’d succeeded in cornering an errant child. “You can show up for your scheduled appointment, Alyssa.”
“I’m very busy, Doc,” she said. “I can’t explain with what. I’ll come next week.”
He shook his head. “That’s what you said last time.” He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to protest. “And what you said the time before that. At least come up with a better excuse.”
Irritation swelled in her before being overwhelmed by an apathetic numbness. She sat down. “I’ll try to make the next one.”
“Your captain has given me permission to use one of the conference rooms.”
The irritation swelled again. “You told the captain about this?”
Dr. Martinez’s face went stony. “You need to talk to someone, Alyssa.”
She gritted her teeth. “Whatever. Let’s go get this over with.”
He gave her a gentle smile. “I’m glad you see it my way.”
He led the way to a small conference room that held a table and eight chairs, a large-screen monitor on one wall and a white board on another. He locked the door behind them. “So no one barges in.”
He sat at the table and gestured to a seat beside him. She pressed her lips together and chose a chair two places down. He smiled indulgently, like she’d done something funny. It made the skin on the back of her neck itch.
“So what do you want to talk about, Doc?”
“Doctor Martinez, please,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me how your yoga classes are going?”
Her lips twisted.
The doctor steepled his hands together. “I thought we’d agreed that you needed more calming influences in your life.”
“Actually, you said that—I didn’t agree to anything,” she said.
“Alyssa.”
Her fists clenched under the table. Why did it feel like she sat in the principal’s office?
“Look, I went, okay? I said I’d go, so I went.”
“And?”
She rolled her shoulders. “It was hot. Too damn hot. And it smelled of all those sweating bodies. And…crowded. Way too crowded.”
“You tried Bikram yoga then.” He nodded. “I’m not sure that’s a good jumping-off point for you.”
“It’s what the guy with the dreadlocks at the front desk recommended for me.”
Dr. Martinez leaned forward. “Alyssa, I’d like for you to try some kind of relaxing form of exercise. Yoga, Pilates, meditation. I don’t care what. Pick what feels right for you—”
“None of it feels right,” she muttered.
He stared at her.
“Sorry.”
“Alyssa, I’m here to help you. And I haven’t told your superiors of your diagnosis because on that first day, you said you wanted help. You wanted to feel alive again. I can’t help you if you don’t try.” He sat back. “And if you’ve stopped trying, then it’s my duty to let your superiors know.”
“No. Doctor Martinez, please,” she said. “They’ll stick me on desk duty and watch me. I’ll be taken from the case I’m working on. It’s very important that I be allowed to continue.”
“Then let’s see you making an effort.”
She counted three breaths, pulling her scattered thoughts close before she nodded. “Fine. What would you like to talk about, Doctor?”
He smiled. “Tell me about your nightmares.”
5
Alyssa shoved her hands into the pockets of her pants to hide the slight tremble. She left Dr. Martinez writing notes in her file and made her way back to her desk. She wanted a nap, or better yet a scotch.
She’d never been much of a drinker before her tour, never understanding why someone would want a drink or two every night. Now she had to fight the impulse to have more.
She cursed under her breath when she saw Zach sitting at her desk. Straightening her shoulders, she strode over to him. He perused her file on Al Shabah. It had been in her locked desk drawer.
She stopped, her mouth open. “Why are you reading my file?”
Zach ignored her question and looked her over. “You look like you’ve gone a couple of rounds with a tango.”
Her hand started to move to her hair and then dropped. She wasn’t going to let him get to her. Yes, she had pieces of her hair floating around her face, but who cared? She’d been gripping her head at one point during her session with the doctor. So what.
She lifted her chin. “Why are you looking at my work without my permission?”
“You disappeared and I was interested,” he said. “You’re the resident expert and we know he’s here. I wanted to see if you had any new information.” He stood up and moved around her desk to stand in front of her. His large frame took up too much room. “I’m sorry if that bothers you.”
She backed away and sat in her seat, her jaw clenched. She was irritated. Again. How did this man stir so many emotions in her? “You don’t seem very sorry.”
“Maybe because I’m not,” he said with an unrepentant grin.
Her stomach flip-flopped at the sight. Whatever showed on her face caught Zach’s attention and his smile changed even as a flash of heat entered his gaze. Her heart thumped hard in her chest.
What the hell?
She broke eye contact and tapped her file, not looking at him again. She was too fragile after her session with the doctor. “Ask me first next time. I want this guy caught and will do whatever is necessary.”
Zach sat down across from her. “I want this guy caught too. Badly.”
It was personal for him, she realized. Just like it was for her. Maybe she could use that.
He nodded at the file. “You’ve done a good job tracking his movements over the last two years. You have good instincts.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s why I work here. And those same instincts are telling me you aren’t just a counterterrorism specialist. Who are you really?”
He smiled. “Are you always this prickly?”
She cocked her head. “I like to work as an equal with a partner. Which means no secrets. What are you hiding from me?”
“Are we partners then?”
She just watched him and waited.
He smiled like he knew something she didn’t. “Who says I’m hiding anything?”
“Me,” she said. “Good instincts, remember?”
He laughed. “Jake said you were a firecracker.”
Another evasion. Well, she’d let him get away with this and circle back to the topic later. She’d done her fair share of interrogations. She put her folder in her desk drawer.
> Drew signaled her from across the room. She strode over to him, knowing Zach followed.
“There’s a new message from Al Shabah on the net.”
“Show me.”
A paused image waited on the main monitor in the Global Intelligence room. It showed a man swathed completely in black standing in front of a stone wall. Nothing new there. And no help to the case at all.
“Run the video,” she said.
He spoke Arabic as he threatened America. But something caught her attention. His dark eyes flicked back and forth from the camera to something off screen.
“He’s reading a script,” she said.
“You’re right.” Zach stood beside her, their shoulders almost touching. It made her want to lean that inch toward him. She focused on the screen again.
“Do you think it means something?” Drew asked.
She sighed. “Not sure.”
The man continued his posturing. “I merely tested you today. You have shown me how easy my job will be. I will destroy America and I will destroy you, Qatil Atfaal.”
Beside her, Zach stiffened.
“Who the hell is Kotily Akfell?” The booming male voice that spoke belonged to a tall man with thinning blond hair and a ruddy complexion. He looked like a retired football player: muscled but with a layer of fat, and carrying a laptop rather than a ball.
Alyssa stepped forward. “The better question is, who are you?”
The man huffed. Behind him, eight men and one woman, all dressed in dark suits, filed into the room. They took up positions along the walls, surrounding her and her team. Alyssa’s shoulders twitched.
“I am Special Agent Masters from the FBI. I’m in charge of this task force now.”
She extended her hand. “I’m Alys—”
“I know who you are,” he said, giving her hand one quick pump. “I expect your full cooperation.”
She put her hand down and tried to smooth out her frown, to be professional. “Of course, Agent Masters. What would—”
Masters sidestepped her and spoke to the room. “I want to know who this Akfell guy is and I want him in interrogation now. He’s obviously connected to our terrorist.”
