Killer Instinct

by Patterson, James

  Al-Kazaz took his cue. “I’ve already claimed too much of your time as it is,” he said, standing.

  I scooped up Annabelle and shook his hand. “It’s horrible we had to meet under these circumstances, but I appreciate your honoring Ahmed’s wishes,” I said. “Thank you for bringing the envelope.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I walked him out, watching as he made his way down the hallway to the elevator. Annabelle was watching him, too. I gave her a squeeze and whispered in her ear, “Thanks for taking one for the team, Anna-banana.”

  I’d smelled something, all right. But it wasn’t her diaper. It was Al-Kazaz, who was full of crap. If that was even his real name.

  Whoever he was, he had delivered a near perfect performance. In fact, he probably would’ve had me were it not for one little mistake.

  CHAPTER 15

  “NICELY DONE, Needham,” said a fellow agent walking by as Elizabeth stepped off the elevator. Elizabeth didn’t even know his name.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  She delivered about a dozen more thank-yous en route to Evan Pritchard’s office in the back corner of the JTTF field unit. It was the proverbial morning after and everyone was up to their necks in chasing leads and poring over past intelligence reports, but at some point they had all managed to see the video of Elizabeth saving their boss’s life. They’d also heard she was the first to spot the drones in the second-wave attack.

  “Oh, great. There she is, the bane of my existence,” said Pritchard’s assistant, Gwen, sitting behind her desk outside Pritchard’s office. Gwen, pushing sixty, was five foot nothing and ninety-eight pounds of chutzpah and sarcasm. “You had to do it, huh, rookie? You had to save his life so he could continue to make mine miserable?”

  There was absolutely nothing to laugh about in the wake of the attacks, but Gwen didn’t give a damn. Her brother had worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and was on the 105th floor of One World Trade Center the morning of 9/11. If poking a little fun helped her fend off having to relive the memory of that day all over again, so be it.

  “Any chance I can get in there for a few minutes this morning?” asked Elizabeth, nodding at Pritchard’s door. It was cracked open about an inch.

  “Send her in!” came Pritchard’s booming voice. He sounded like James Earl Jones talking through a megaphone. “And if you want me dead, Gwen, you’re going to have to do it yourself.”

  Gwen winked at Elizabeth. “Finally, something to live for,” she said. “He’s all yours.”

  Elizabeth stepped inside Pritchard’s office. It was only the second time she’d been in there, the other being on her first day when he told her she needed to go to Boston. She hadn’t even been assigned her own desk yet.

  “Is it good?” Pritchard asked immediately.

  “Is what good?”

  “Whatever it is you have for me, Needham, because you’re sure as hell not here just so I can thank you again for saving my life,” he said.

  “No, once was enough,” said Elizabeth.

  “All the same, thanks again,” he said. “You were heads-up out there, good under pressure. That’s the kind of people I need, that this unit needs. Now, what do you have for me?”

  Elizabeth blinked a few times, trying to digest Pritchard’s flash of humanity. She wondered how much of his act was just that, an act. The guy was far from loved in law enforcement circles, but he was universally respected. Revered, even. Gwen’s kidding around about wanting him dead was exhibit A. She clearly thought the world of her boss.

  “Earth to Needham,” said Pritchard.

  “Yeah, sorry,” said Elizabeth, snapping out of it. She quickly got down to business, directing him to the file of Professor Darvish and the mystery woman returning with him to his hotel.

  Pritchard paused the footage on his computer to stare at the white glow around the woman’s face. “Hmmm.”

  “My first thought is that it’s either a glitch or someone tampered with it,” said Elizabeth.

  “Yeah, we’ll have the geeks in the lab look at it,” he said.

  “Who do I call for that?” she asked.

  “No one.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m taking you off the case, Needham,” he said.

  CHAPTER 16

  “WHY?”

  “Think about it,” said Pritchard.

  “I am,” said Elizabeth. “I’m thinking about what you told me yesterday about trying to stop the next attack, that your agents are needed on all fronts.”

  “They still are,” he said. “But you specifically are needed now on the attacks that happened yesterday.”

  It was the way he said specifically.

  “This wasn’t your decision, was it?” she asked.

  “As I said, think about it.”

  Elizabeth winced, realizing. “The mayor?”

  “I suppose I couldn’t really blame him,” said Pritchard. “As much as I hate politics, the optics for him are too good to ignore. He’ll let it leak that he got you assigned here. In other words, he’s the one who saved my life yesterday.”

  “When did Deacon call you? If you want, I could—”

  “Needham, I didn’t get where I am by waiting for the mayor to call me. As far as he knows, you were always on the case.”

  Elizabeth nodded. She knew what he meant. Mainly, because she knew Mayor Deacon. All too well. His pretty protégée was now the poster girl of bravery for what the press was calling the Times Square Massacre. If Deacon found out that she wasn’t actually working to catch the masterminds behind it, he sure as hell was going to pick up the phone and call Pritchard.

  As much as Pritchard hated politics, he was keenly aware of one of its first rules: always get out in front of any potential problem. In other words, anticipate. Just the sort of thing you want to be good at when your job is preventing terrorism.

  It all made sense to Elizabeth.

  Still, there was this little something kicking around inside her head. An image. It took all of a split second, quicker than quick. It was the look that flashed across Pritchard’s face while he was staring at the footage of Darvish and the woman. That glow obstructing her face wasn’t necessarily a mystery to him.

  Or maybe Elizabeth was just imagining the whole thing.

  Sure, that had to be it, she told herself. There was a 99 percent chance it was nothing, a figment of her imagination. Besides, it wasn’t as if she were in a position to ask him about it. If there was something Pritchard wanted to share with her about that glow, he would’ve shared it. Right?

  “Okay, I’m off the Darvish case,” said Elizabeth, playing the good soldier. “Times Square. What would you like me to focus on?”

  She’d barely finished the question when the answer came barging into Pritchard’s office. He was clearly an agent, but she hadn’t seen him before.

  “We have an address,” the guy said.

  “Where?” asked Pritchard.

  “Jersey City.”

  Pritchard nodded, rubbed his chin, and turned to Elizabeth. “Want to go for a ride, Needham?”

  CHAPTER 17

  MEN AND their toys …

  Elizabeth stared wide-eyed at all the equipment, the endless gadgets being prepped and primed, during the half hour drive from lower Manhattan out to Jersey City in what was the back of a moving truck, or so it appeared to anyone seeing it from the outside. A1 SHLEPPERS, read the signage.

  Inside the truck was a command central that looked to Elizabeth like some Hollywood take on what the future of law enforcement might one day be. Some of the things she could take a stab at based on her training—like what appeared to be an electromagnetic-pulse gun for tripping IEDs from a safe distance. With some of the other items, she had no clue. What the hell is that neon-green goo that guy is mixing?

  Screw Hollywood. The future is now.

  Elizabeth was one of only two women among the two dozen or so agents, a mixture of the JTTF’s federal, state, and local law enforcemen
t officers, the FBI SWAT team, and the additional FBI agents who had just arrived from the Operational Technology Division at Quantico. A few times she was tempted to lean forward and ask Pritchard what the plan was, and each time she held back. He was sitting in the row of seats on the opposite side of the truck, heavily engaged in conversation with a square-jawed agent in full tactical armor named Munez, presumably the SWAT team leader.

  Pritchard’s body language could be summed up in three words: do not disturb.

  All Elizabeth knew so far was what the agent in Pritchard’s office had explained. Whoever placed those bombs in the first-wave attack on Times Square didn’t do so randomly. They did their homework to ensure that none of the street-level surveillance cameras would spot anything suspicious beforehand. There were no knapsacks left unattended. No sudden appearance of workmen who couldn’t be accounted for by either the city or any business. Ironically, the one thing the terrorists didn’t account for, especially in light of their second-wave attack, was the mother of all drones: a satellite.

  Then again, you can’t really plan for something you don’t even know exists.

  “One of the keyholes from NROL-71 picked up a guy wearing a coat into the Lyric Theatre and leaving minutes later without it,” the agent had told Pritchard. “We tagged him returning to a house in Jersey City. Unless he left without his phone, he’s still there.”

  “NROL?” Elizabeth had asked, not waiting for an introduction.

  “National Reconnaissance Office Launch,” said the agent. Otherwise known as a secret satellite.

  Elizabeth could tell the agent had been up working all night. Beneath the stubble and wrinkled mess of a suit, though, was a good-looking guy. If Ryan Gosling had a brother, perhaps.

  “Needham, meet Sullivan. Sullivan, meet Needham,” said Pritchard, doing the honors. “Needham just joined the unit.”

  “And not a minute too soon,” said Sullivan. “Nice tackle yesterday.”

  He had clearly seen the video, too.

  What he wasn’t getting to see, however, were the fruits of his labor. Sullivan wasn’t in the truck, probably because he was running on fumes. Dead tired is no way to be when raiding the home of a terrorist. Especially since terrorists tend to have a very strong aversion to being taken alive.

  Hence, all the toys in the truck.

  “Two minutes!” barked the agent sitting by a GPS display mounted on the wall behind the driver. He smiled wide. He lived for this shit; they all did. And thanks to her new boss, Elizabeth was along for the ride.

  For the first time, Pritchard looked over at her and caught her eye.

  How’s your first week on the Task Force going, Needham? Having fun yet?

  CHAPTER 18

  WHEN THE truck stopped, things really got moving. One after another, all the toys were put into play.

  Elizabeth tried her best to watch and learn. If there had been a ticket for her seat, it would’ve read obstructed view, but she could see just enough of one of the myriad surveillance screens toward the front of the truck to get a sense of what was happening, and what she couldn’t see was filled in by what she could hear.

  “Jesus, we might as well be back in Baghdad,” muttered one of the agents at the console while shaking his head. He was looking at an external camera feed of the neighborhood.

  Jersey City was never going to land on anyone’s top ten list of places to live, and the house that matched the address was a sorry reminder of that. It was a run-down 1950s split-ranch with aluminum siding that had turned a shade of puke green. Four windows in the front, two on either side of the front door. All curtains drawn closed.

  “Give me thermal …”

  The screen changed to an overhead shot of the house using an infrared camera, which was too detailed to be from a satellite. No one commented on the irony, but it certainly wasn’t lost on Elizabeth. Drones.

  That explained the launch van remark she’d overheard Pritchard make to someone before they boarded the truck. Apparently there was a sister vehicle in the vicinity that had released the drone. Make that drones, plural, after the thermal imaging revealed no movement inside the house.

  “Send in Santa Claus …”

  Down the chimney went another drone as the monitor switched to a split screen. The infrared feed showed this second drone to be no bigger than a bumblebee.

  What had to be one of the world’s tiniest lenses was providing crystal-clear images, room by room. At least the rooms the drone could get into. Some of the doors were closed.

  “Switch to Doppler, twenty kilohertz …”

  What the drone couldn’t see, the drone could feel. Sound waves. And when there was still no motion detected, the drone could smell. A built-in filter could test the air for trace explosives, the readings streaming straight back to the truck.

  This was truly the Swiss Army knife of drones.

  “Well?” asked Pritchard, arms crossed, standing behind the men at the console.

  One of them turned to him, a baby face with a perfect left part in his hair. He reminded Elizabeth of a guy in her high school chemistry class who always had raised his hand when the teacher asked a question.

  “Double-checking p and z,” he said, tapping away feverishly on a keyboard. He was accessing the planning and zoning files for the city. “Yeah, no basement and no attic. There’s a boiler room with heating and cooling off the kitchen.” He looked up at Pritchard, nodding confidently. “Looks like no one’s home, sir.”

  Pritchard turned to Munez, standing next to him, who immediately took his cue. “Okay, we pulse the house first for IEDs. Four men on the perimeter, one to a side. Williamson, Foltz, Hernandez, and Meyer, that’s you.”

  The four guys stood in unison. They sounded like a law firm but looked like linebackers. Each got handed an electromagnetic-pulse gun—not exactly standard-issue equipment—and out the side door they went.

  Within minutes they were back. All clear, they reported.

  It was Pritchard’s call now. Munez turned to him, followed by everyone else. Elizabeth included.

  Pritchard shrugged. “Let’s go stretch our legs,” he said.

  CHAPTER 19

  SAY NO more. Everyone on the truck knew exactly what that meant. Roll out!

  Endless training, tactical drills, event scenarios, simulation exercises, and actual combat experience all kicked in at once as the truck emptied with perfect choreographed precision. It didn’t matter how many drones or how much technology was telling them that no one was inside that house. Being human would forever have one major advantage over any machine.

  The ability to doubt.

  “What the hell are you doing, Needham?”

  “What do you mean?” Elizabeth asked.

  Pritchard was eyeing her like he would a dog chasing its tail. The look was worse than that, really. At least the dog would’ve been moving. Elizabeth was just sitting there, unsure of her role.

  “Are you waiting for a personal invitation? Grab a vest, and let’s go,” he said.

  Elizabeth quickly strapped on some body armor and followed Pritchard out of the truck and past the outer circle of SWAT officers with their backs to the house, guarding the perimeter. She practically had to jog to keep up as Pritchard then marched through the inner circle, who were covering every angle of the house itself, front and back, while providing cover for the two-by-two configuration led by the team leader. Munez’s group was gathered by the front door.

  Surely it would be somebody—anybody—else besides Pritchard who would be first in, thought Elizabeth as she drew her gun. Her fingers tingled a bit as they always did when holding her Glock.

  She stared at Pritchard. She was wrong. He continued straight past the team leader and started knocking, no hesitation. It was badass. He didn’t even position himself along the side of the door to shield his body.

  “Who’s got the Push Pop?” he asked, after knocking a second time with no answer.

  From behind Elizabeth stepped another off
icer holding what, sure enough, looked like a Push Pop straight from a candy store. The flavor? Green goo.

  The officer lined up the device directly over the lock on the door, pushing the goo from a tube into the keyhole. Within seconds, the goo had hardened enough to mimic the key without sticking to the cylinder. Voilà. The door was unlocked. No muss, no fuss.

  No trace.

  The world’s fastest issued FISA warrant was now in play.

  The outer and inner circles around the house held their marks as Pritchard drew his old-school SIG Sauer P228 and pushed open the door.

  Waiting a few Mississippis before entering was Pritchard’s last nod to the outside chance that anyone was inside. On the count of three, he strolled in as if he owned the place.

  “Your turn, Munez,” he said.

  Right behind him, the SWAT team leader instructed his four officers to go room by room—one pair starting upstairs, the other on the first floor. They were all back in the living room within a minute. Small house.

  Dirty as hell, too. Leftover takeout food was littered everywhere. Elizabeth didn’t know which putrid odor to gag on first when she’d walked in. A half-eaten falafel by the fireplace was swarming with ants.

  What was nowhere to be seen, though—in addition to the suspect—was any suggestion that the house had been used to make bombs. In that sense, it was as clean as a whistle.

  “Well?” asked Munez, flanked by four team members.

  “Get me a twenty-yard radius on the guy’s phone,” said Pritchard.

  Munez reached for his radio, making the request. Within seconds came a ping from the one and only place to sit down in the living room, a faded brown couch with large tears in two of its cushions. Lodged between them and barely visible was the cell phone that had led them to the house.

  “That explains his not being here,” said Pritchard, pulling a sleeve over his hand to pick up the phone without adding his fingerprints. He sat down on the couch.