Flight Risk (An Ingrid Skyberg Mystery Book 7)

by Eva Hudson

“Yes, ma’am.”

  Estevez led Ingrid down a corridor into a small, darkened office. Another Marine sat at a bank of flickering monitors with live surveillance streams from various locations around Winfield House.

  “Hi,” Ingrid said.

  The Marine looked at Ingrid’s attire, nodded, then returned to his work. The glow from the screens reflected in his Buddy Holly glasses.

  “What was that name again?” Estevez asked.

  “Hatoum. Arwa Hatoum.”

  He rolled a chair over to a desk and logged into a computer. “Is she on a list? Do I need to escalate?”

  Ingrid leaned over him. “It’s a possibility,” she said softly. “Let’s just check her out first.”

  “Who is she?” he asked.

  “I’m Googling her now.” Ingrid said, pulling out Marshall’s iPhone.

  “Do you know what time she arrived?”

  “Nope.” Ingrid keyed in Hatoum’s name and the word ‘scientist’ but her connection was poor and the results were taking ages to load.

  “Why are you interested in her?”

  Ingrid rested a hand on her hip. “I’ve received some intel. I’m worried she’s not here for the appetizers.”

  “Everyone here wants something. Okay,” Estevez said without taking his eyes off the screen. “Here she is.”

  Ingrid looked at the monitor. Arwa Hatoum was about fifty years old, five seven, slim and wearing a black pants suit with a black hijab. She wore wire-rimmed glasses and a warm smile. “Can you circulate her description?”

  “Sure.”

  “Anyone sees her, have her quietly detained. Discretion, you understand?”

  “Absolutely.” He picked up a two-way radio and nodded at the screen. “Click the sidebar. That’s her profile.”

  Ingrid read quickly. Arwa Hatoum was a physicist who had worked for a Californian engineering firm in the nineties. No current employer was shown. She had entered the UK in July on a six-month visa. She was married and had three children.

  Ingrid turned to the Marine monitoring the surveillance cameras. “Have you seen her?”

  He peered over and looked at Hatoum’s photo. “Not especially.”

  “Can you look out for her?”

  “No problem.” His speech was slow, like he was stupid or stoned. He was probably just trying to act cool.

  Estevez put down the radio.

  “Anyone seen her?” Ingrid asked.

  “No, not yet.”

  Ingrid gestured to the screen. “Can you search guests by employer as well as name?”

  “I can try. Which employer?”

  “The UN. I also want to find a man who works in their Riyadh office.”

  “Hold on.”

  Ingrid killed her dawdling Google search and called Jen. It rang and rang. Ingrid was used to her picking up instantly.

  “Come on!”

  Ingrid was about to hang up—leaving a message was a waste of time—when Jen answered.

  “Ingrid?” The self-satisfied sounds of the party filled the background. “Are you here?”

  “Can I borrow you for half an hour?”

  “Totes. Whaddya need?”

  Ingrid gave her instructions to find the security room and ended the call.

  Estevez looked up at her. “These are the people here from the UN.” He jabbed a finger at the screen. “None work in Riyadh.”

  Ingrid’s vision swum momentarily, making her dizzy. Either Marcus Williams had lied about what the Jiharis wanted, or they had lied to him.

  “What should we do, Agent?” Estevez asked. “The First Lady is on the premises. If there is a security breach, I have to escalate. Who is she?”

  He was right. “I am concerned she obtained her invitation by deception.”

  Estevez picked up his radio, ready to call. “What kind of deception, Agent?”

  Ingrid scrunched up her mouth. Had she over reacted? Plenty of guests would have employed a little blackmail to secure an invitation to the ball. She reminded herself that other people’s use of blackmail probably hadn’t included murder. “I think someone was blackmailed to put her on the list.”

  Estevez pressed the call button on his radio. “Red One, this is Red Six. We have a situation, over.”

  Somebody yanked the door open, filling the room with light. Jen stood in the doorway, breathless, her shoes in her hand. Estevez leaped to his feet, the radio still clamped to his ear.

  “It’s okay,” Ingrid said. “She’s with me. Jen, Corporal Estevez; Estevez, Jennifer Rocharde.”

  They nodded their greetings.

  “Red One, this is Red Six.” He wasn’t getting an answer.

  “What do you need?” Jen asked, balancing on one leg to slip her shoes back on. “Nice outfit, by the way.”

  “Not my first choice.” Ingrid turned to the other Marine. “Sorry, I don’t know your name.”

  “Sergeant McWhorter, ma’am.”

  “Can Jen take this computer, sergeant?” She gestured to one on the other side of the booth.

  “Don’t see why not.”

  With four bodies and an excessive amount of electronic equipment, the temperature in the tiny room was shooting up. A bead of sweat ran between Ingrid’s shoulder blades, making her shiver.

  “Jen, I need you to find out everything you can about a woman called Arwa Hatoum. McWhorter?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you track someone from the moment they came in? Can we see where she went? You got facial recognition on that?”

  He sat a little straighter. “No ma’am, we don’t. Not yet, but Estevez should be able to take you through her movements. I gotta stay on the live feed.”

  “Understood.” She turned to Estevez, who nodded his compliance even though he was still trying to get through to his superior.

  “Red One, are you there? Red Two, this is Red Six, please respond.” He wasn’t getting anywhere. He lay down the radio and switched his attention to his monitor.

  “Is it possible to open a window in here?” Ingrid asked. She took off her jacket and hung it over Jen’s seat. “You able to get online?” she asked.

  “Yup. Reckon I can remotely access the embassy’s servers, see if she’s on one of our lists.” Jen turned and looked up at Ingrid. “Who is this woman?”

  “I’d never heard of her until five minutes ago. Get me everything you can.”

  “Aye, aye captain.”

  “Agent?” Estevez turned his head. “You want to take a look with me?”

  Ingrid leaned on the back of his seat.

  “This is Hatoum entering the lobby—”

  “Can we rewind? Can we see her arrive? At the gate, I mean.”

  “Um, sure.”

  After a bit of trial and error, Estevez pulled up the gate camera and scrolled back in time.

  “Is that her?” Ingrid asked. Her throat was dry.

  Estevez pressed play, and they watched Hatoum getting out of a black taxi—alone—and approach the gate. She was clutching a small leather purse under her arm.

  “Can you zoom in? Get the plate?”

  He clicked a few times, but the image was too fuzzy.

  “Jen?”

  “Yep?”

  “You’re not busy, are you?”

  “Nope, not at all. Twiddling my thumbs here.”

  “That’s what I thought. Can you find out which black cab dropped off a passenger outside here at…” She peered at the time stamp on the recording. “Seven thirty-two.”

  “No problemo.”

  “I want to speak to the driver.” Ingrid placed a hand on Estevez’s shoulder. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Estevez followed Hatoum from one camera to another. They saw her passing through the security equipment in the marquee, which at least meant she had not brought a weapon with her, then walking past the fountain to the front door. The next camera picked her up chatting to the woman and a man as they entered the lobby. The cameras tracked through the hallway and into the oval room wh
ere she stopped to look at the photos of previous ambassadors, before disappearing behind the private staircase.

  Estevez switched to footage from the main hall and scrolled to where she stepped into the reception. The hall was already busy with guests standing in small clusters. On fast forward, it was easy to spot a pattern among guests who universally moved counter clockwise around the large Christmas tree when they entered, before lingering at the display of gifts on the table, before moving on toward the bar and from there to the French windows overlooking the garden. Hatoum declined a flute of champagne on arrival, then moved more slowly, making her easy to follow.

  “Ingrid?” Jen said.

  “Yes?”

  “Um, I don’t know why you’re, like, interested in Arwa Hatoum but I thought you might like to know there is an Arwa Hatoum whose husband was killed in Yemen last year.”

  Ingrid’s stomach lurched so violently she had to grip the back of the chair for support. “Dear God.” If Hatoum’s husband had been killed by an American-made weapon, the threat level just skyrocketed.

  “How did someone with her background get on the guest list?” Jen asked rhetorically.

  Ingrid wasn’t really listening. She was too focused on the action on screen. “Go back, will you?”

  Estevez clicked rewind.

  “There. Play.”

  They watched Hatoum approach the table of gifts. She stopped, examined them, then lifted one up.

  “What is she doing?” Estevez said.

  Hatoum took a small white box off the table, turned away for twenty seconds, then put the box back down.

  “Did she take something?” Estevez asked.

  “Let’s assume she did.” Ingrid ran her fingers through her hair. If someone had left something in the box for Hatoum, it meant she wasn’t working alone. The air pressed in around her. “Corporal, you need to get back on the radio. This woman needs to be detained. Immediately.”

  “Yes ma’am.” He picked up the radio. “Red One, this is Red Six, do you copy?”

  “Jen?”

  “Yep?” She swiveled around.

  “I need Corporal Estevez here to tell you how to work this thing. We need to see who brought this white box into the party and left it on the table.”

  “ Okeydokey.”

  Estevez put the radio down. “Lieutenant Preston is not responding.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “He’s the one who can raise the threat level.”

  Estevez and Ingrid looked at each other. “Is he the type of guy who would ignore your call?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Something hardened inside her. She pointed to his radio. “You got another one of those?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ingrid grabbed the handset and turned for the door. “Corporal Estevez, Sergeant McWhorter, you need to alert all security teams on site to the threat, and then you need to get the First Lady to safety.”

  “What are you going to do?” Estevez asked.

  Ingrid swallowed hard. “I am going to find Arwa Hatoum.”

  38

  In the main hall, the pianist was jazzing up ‘Little Donkey’ and the waitstaff circulated with cloth-wrapped bottles of champagne. A civilian security agent stood to one side of the entrance. He wore a black suit, black shirt and an earpiece.

  “Have you seen her?” Ingrid asked.

  “Seen who?” He didn’t make eye contact and kept his gaze on the partygoers. He had an English accent and was built like a quarterback. With any luck, he was ex-military.

  “Arwa Hatoum. There was radio a request to locate her.”

  He shrugged.

  “Corporal Estevez told you all to look out for her.”

  “I didn’t hear anything. The radio’s not been working for the past ten minutes.”

  Not a good sign. “She’s five seven, about a hundred and thirty pounds, glasses, hijab.”

  “What’s that?” He kept scanning the hall and evading her gaze.

  “Headscarf.”

  “Oh, that.” He rolled his shoulders and stuck out his neck like a chicken. “Definitely not seen her.”

  He was not grasping the severity of the situation. “What’s your name?”

  He finally looked at Ingrid, granting her a sideways glance. “Rob.”

  “Rob, I am Special Agent Skyberg with the FBI. We have a security incident and we need to locate Arwa Hatoum and detain her. Repeat the description I just gave you back to me.”

  He turned. His lip curled. “You serious?”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “Headscarf. Glasses.”

  That’d do. “You trained in detention techniques?”

  “Nah, but if I see her, I’ll sit on her.” He thought he was being funny. Not ex-military, then.

  Ingrid figured the civilian security was on a different radio network to the Marines. She pushed through the crowd toward to the table of gifts. It groaned with neatly wrapped boxes topped with expertly tied ribbons and bows. One even had twinkling lights.

  A woman saw Ingrid scouring the display.

  “It’s beautiful, ain’t it?” A southern belle in a red dress trimmed with white fur. “Real cutesy.”

  Ingrid smiled at her, reached right into the center of the table and picked up the small white box.

  “I don’t think you can do that,” the woman said.

  It was an origami box that came apart with a squeeze. It was empty. Ingrid threw it back on the table and raced up one of the spiral staircases to the balcony. Endorphins flooded her system, quickening her pulse and sharpening her vision.

  “Excuse me.” She pushed a flirting couple out of the way to get a better view of the room.

  “And a Merry Christmas to you too,” the man said.

  Out of three hundred people, only a handful would have their heads covered. Surely it would be easy to spot a woman in a hijab? Ingrid’s breaths deepened as she surveyed the room. Ingrid pressed the transmit button on the radio. “This is Skyberg. Is the First Lady safe?”

  The receiver hissed with interference. “Still trying to locate her,” Estevez said.

  Ingrid scanned the dance floor. She zeroed in on a woman near the French windows. Black jacket, black… hair, not a hijab. Ingrid drummed her fingers on the balcony rail. She pressed transmit again. “Jen, can you hear me?”

  “Hold on.” McWhorter’s voice. “Handing you over.”

  “Ingrid?”

  “Any luck with who delivered the gift?”

  “Not yet,” Jen said

  “Stay on it.”

  Ingrid stood upright and turned her attention to the guests on the balcony. Maybe Hatoum would also want to make use of the vantage point? Ingrid checked the people leaning over the balustrade, then looked behind them where three coffee tables were surrounded by couches and upholstered stools. None of the people having intense conversations was Hatoum.

  Ingrid didn’t have time to waste. If Hatoum wasn’t in the main room, that meant she needed to go find her. Within seconds she was back down on the dance floor and running straight for Rob the security guard.

  “Where’s the restroom?” She asked.

  “The what?”

  “The goddamn ladies.”

  “Oh, right. Down the corridor. You’ll see the signs.”

  Ingrid powered down a white marble hallway lined with dark paintings in round frames like presidential seals. The radio bleeped.

  “Skyberg.”

  “Thought you’d like to know,” Jen said. “The First Lady has been located. The Secret Service are escorting her to safety.”

  “Excellent work.”

  “Still working on the gift giver.”

  Two women, arms linked, heads inclined, tottered toward her. Ingrid powered past them. “She must be bursting,” one of them said.

  There was a line of women outside the restroom.

  “Hey!” one shouted as Ingrid ran in front them and barreled into the bathroom. Several women washed t
heir hands and reapplied lipstick. Others waited for a cubicle. None of them were Hatoum. There were five cubicles. Ingrid knocked on the far door.

  “Hey, just a minute.”

  “Ma’am. I’m FBI. I need you to identify yourself.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Ma’am, I’m serious.”

  The middle cubicle door opened. An older woman with skin as white as her hair gave Ingrid a look of chastisement.

  “Ma’am,” Ingrid said again to the closed door. “I need your name.”

  “For heaven’s sakes.”

  It didn’t matter, it clearly wasn’t Hatoum. Ingrid rapped on the next door. “Ma’am.”

  “Oh, that one’s out of order, honey.”

  Ingrid turned to a woman in the line. “Really?”

  “I’ve been here ten minutes and no one’s come out of there.”

  “You sure?”

  Ingrid’s heart boomed. She examined the doors. They were set into the wall so each cubicle formed its own little room. There was no climbing under or over them. Ingrid shouldered the locked door, and it rattled against its bolt.

  “Anyone got a dime?” she asked. “Ten pence?”

  Seven women looked at her like she was an idiot. Her radio babbled with static and muffled instructions.

  “I need to open this lock.” There was a groove in the mechanism she could twist if she could just get a coin or a knife.

  Some of the women pulled apologetic smiles. “My husband carries the money.”

  “I got a fifty,” one of the lipstick appliers said, “if you can make change.”

  “Never mind.” Ingrid took a step back then aimed a Dr Marten sole at the lock, sending the door flying open to an intake of breath from everyone in the room.

  Inside the cubicle, something was on top of the closed toilet seat. Ingrid felt her pulse in her fingers as she picked up a piece of black material. Below it was a folded black jacket. Ingrid was holding Hatoum’s hijab. The edges of her vision narrowed. The sounds of the restroom pulsed in and out like a badly tuned radio. This was not good. This was really not good. She dropped the hijab and turned to the women. “You.” She picked one at random. “You are in charge of making sure no one touches this, you understand?”

  Ingrid didn’t wait for an answer before dashing out into the corridor. She talked into the radio. “This is Skyberg.”