The Cool was self-explanatory. As for the double D, well he’d had his own proclivities back in the day.
Before…he took a deep breath of ice-cold air, shamed that even now his body stirred at the memory. Before he had found the peace of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.
In the afterglow of peace, in the dark enclosure of that prison, he had been given a new name. Abdul Aziz, the servant of the Magnificent, one of the hundred names of God.
His steps quickened as he neared the mosque. That’s all he was now, a humble servant. A servant on a mission from God…
Nerves. Rhoda’s perception had been accurate, as usual — she’d been in the business a long time, longer than him, and not much got past her.
The nerves. When had they started? Harry didn’t even need to ask the question, he knew.
Hamid Zakiri. All roads led there, to that devastating moment of betrayal there in Jerusalem. Because, in the end, it didn’t matter that Zakiri had eluded detection from everyone else at Langley.
All that mattered was that he had failed to see it, and people were dead because of it. One man in particular: Davood Sarami.
His man. One of the team.
With an instinct born of training, Harry pulled himself from his thoughts to cast another cautious glance out the front window of the trailer. A car sped by, its wheels spinning up icy slush.
Too fast for a surveillance team. He felt eyes on his back and turned his head to see Carol staring at him.
At his glance, she looked away, the silence hanging awkwardly between them. “I’m sorry…” she began slowly, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her jacket.
Carol still wasn’t looking at him, but he could see her chewing hesitantly at her lower lip as she considered her next words. He had to build her confidence, prepare her for what lay ahead. Whatever it took, whatever he had to say. Whatever she needed to hear.
“For what?”
“For breaking down — earlier. You don’t need that, not now.” There was anger flashing in those blue eyes now, anger shining through fresh tears. “I just feel so helpless…so weak. I’m ashamed of myself.”
Harry crossed the room to stand before her, looking down into her eyes. She started to speak, but he put a finger to her lips. “There’s nothin’ for you to be ashamed of, nothing in this world. No one does well their first time out in the field — and there’s no way to do well at losing someone you’ve loved.”
No way. And as he held her gently against him, even as tears rolled down her face, a part of him was shocked to realize that he actually meant it.
“Any progress on Harry’s known associates in the greater D.C.area?” Carter asked, arriving back in the op-center.
Lasker looked over the top of his cubicle and shook his head in the negative. “Most of the people Nichols has worked with over the years are overseas contacts — and they’re not the type of people who get handed a green card.”
Carter rubbed his forehead. “Is there anyone that looks like a possible? Someone he might turn to at this time?”
“There was one.”
“Does he live within the current projected search quadrants?”
Lasker cleared his throat. “It’s a she, and she’s dead.” He hit a couple buttons and an image came across the screen of his workstation. “Rhoda Stevens, a private ‘contractor’ for the Agency in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. Skilled forger, twice arrested for identity theft and falsifying passports, involved with some of the drug traffic in and out of Jamaica. We used her for much the same work, just more…legitimately.”
“So, what happened?”
The young CLANDOPS comm chief tapped his screen. “In addition to her more illicit ‘talents’, Ms. Stevens was a marathoner of no mean stature. She was in the final two miles of the 2012 Boston Marathon when she collapsed. Paramedics responding to the 911 call pronounced her dead of a massive heart attack.”
Carter eyed the picture thoughtfully. “Anything else?”
“Matter of fact, yes,” Lasker replied, grabbing a print-out off the stack in front of him and handing it back to the analyst. “This from the boys at Ft. Meade. They’ve spent the last few hours running a fine-toothed comb through the hundreds of cell calls made from the area of the bombing this morning, back-tracing a couple hours before the blast.”
“And?”
“A call was placed just five minutes after the bomb went off — the conversation was short, and scrambled, but they finally managed to reconstruct part of it. The caller, a Caucasian male, used the word Eaglefire.”
Carter’s eyebrows went up. “Any idea what that’s supposed to mean?”
“It’s why the NSA flagged the call — it’s one of our codes, or used to be, at least. I remember them phasing it out shortly after I took over Comms last year. It’s a call for back-up.”
“There seems to be a rash of those lately,” Carter mused, his eyes scanning over the sheet. “I’ll need to kick this up the chain — any idea where the boss is?”
“Last word had him on the seventh floor with Shapiro — got pulled in for a meeting of the minds.”
The analyst snorted. “No wonder they needed Kranemeyer…”
The driver’s license and passport were authentic — at least they looked that way. The same with the vacation photos that now filled Carol’s new wallet.
Harry snapped the wallet shut and handed it over to Carol. “I think that should do it,” he announced, looking over to where Rhoda Stevens still sat behind her laptop. “You’ve been a friend.”
Another raspy chuckle. The black woman stubbed out her cigarette in the engraved pewter ashtray on her desk and rose. “Well, you’ve still got the feds and half the law enforcement in the state breathing down your neck. Where you headed from here?”
There was something unnatural in her voice, a forced casualness. Alarm bells sounded in Harry’s mind as he turned toward her. “Can’t say, Rhoda — any idea what the weather forecast is for North Carolina?”
She laughed, looking over to where Carol stood by the door. “No, I don’t, but I hear it’s beautiful this time of year.”
Eyes were on them as they walked out to the SUV. Harry could feel them on his back and the Colt seemed to stir beneath his jacket at the sense of peril. Carol paused as they got to the vehicle. “I wouldn’t have told her where we were going,” she said, more than a hint of reproof in her voice.
He looked down into her eyes. “You felt it, too.”
She nodded as he pulled open the door of the SUV for her. “There’s something she wasn’t telling us.”
Harry walked around the front of the Excursion and levered himself up into the driver’s seat. It was only then that he looked over at her. “Then you’ll be delighted to know that I lied.”
Rhoda watched them go, watched as the SUV pulled out of her driveway and sped off down the road, heading south. It was only when they were safely out of sight that she stepped back from the window and made her way down the hallway, stopping by the bedroom door.
Silence. She knocked lightly, then pushed open the door without waiting for a response.
“I still think you should have told them,” she announced, shooting a look of frustration at the big man who lay on her bed, his body wrapped in bandages.
David Lay shook his head wearily, wincing in pain at the effort. “There’s no point to it, Rhoda — the knowledge of my presence would only endanger them further. She’ll be safe with him.”