Twenty minutes later, Ellhad was back at his cabin. He walked next door and knocked.
Sahleea Mahad answered and smiled at him. "Rijah, come in. You know you don't have to knock."
"Yes, I do, for appearances."
"If you insist." She closed the door and kissed him. "I miss you."
Ellhad grinned. "I only left you a few hours ago. How can you miss me already?"
Sahleea smiled. "I miss the things you do to me."
"Then I should do them some more."
Styles made a sudden U-turn and headed back toward the Holiday Inn.
J. C. asked, "What's up?"
"I want to see if Phillips and Starr are being watched."
"Okay. Good idea. What's the plan?"
"You stay with the Jeep."
"Gotcha."
Nine minutes later, the Holiday Inn appeared up on the right. Styles pulled into a Red Lobster restaurant and parked.
"You stay put. Call Starr and Phillips and tell them to stay put. I'll call them if I want them to do anything." He jumped out of the Jeep and began walking. He was dressed casually: blue jeans, black Reeboks, gray short-sleeve sweatshirt. To a casual observer, he was just a guy walking. To someone paying strict attention, they would be surprised at the rock-hard muscles in his arms. Not overly bulging like a bodybuilder, different, just skin stretched tightly around each individual muscle that was extremely definitive in form.
He approached the Holiday Inn and acted like someone who was a guest there just out for a walk. He stopped as though he were catching his breath and surveyed the entire grounds and saw nothing. He kept walking, ending up at the registration lobby. He walked in and grabbed some of those brochures advertising tourist destinations in the area. He walked back out acting like he was studying them. He took the stairs up to the second floor and walked its entire length. Nothing. He took the stairs up to the third and final floor. Nothing. He walked around to the back side and stopped just short of the railed walkway that led past all the rooms. This was obviously an older Holiday Inn. He looked very carefully over the pool area and spotted an observer. A woman was in a lounge chair by the pool with a book. Styles noticed something wrong. Hard to read when you're not looking at the book. He watched her for six minutes. Not once did she turn a page. What Styles didn't understand is why she was watching the wrong side of the motel. Did I miss somebody? He withdrew, and from the corner, he watched the parking lot. He checked each vehicle in the area. No one sitting in a car, no cars with dark-tinted windows. The fucking registration clerk. He had video to watch with.
He called Starr. "You still with Phillips?"
"More or less. She's next door on her computers."
"At least one of you is being watched. A female out by the pool and the registration clerk. Call Phillips. In exactly twelve minutes, I want you guys to bug out. Take everything. Try to wipe your prints. Don't get in your vehicles. Cross the street, go left, Red Lobster, get in the Jeep."
"What about the security video? Do you want Phillips to hack in and erase it?"
"No. I'll take care of it. I'll see you at the Jeep."
"Roger that."
Styles made his way back down toward the registration lobby. He walked back in, directly up to the desk.
"Yes, sir?" a well-built blond man in his early thirties asked. "How can I help you?"
"I have a question."
"Do my best to answer it."
"Who are you watching?"
"Excuse me?" he asked, his tone turning.
"Who are you watching? You're no damned clerk."
The smile disappeared. "Well, now I guess I'm watching you."
"Not for long."
The blond-haired man hopped over the service desk and approached Styles. "You're going to have to come with me."
Styles didn't reply. He merely turned slightly as the man approached him. Styles saw him move up on the balls of his feet. He saw the man's left knee bend ever so slightly. Kick to the chest. Then he sprang, foot striking out with fury to where Styles's chest had been an instant before. It caught only air, and in the split second that he withdrew his foot, Styles struck, a savage kick to the outside of the man's right knee, the leg holding his weight. The knee snapped sideways, sending the attacker to the ground. Styles was surprised he made little noise. The man reached behind his back, and Styles was on him. As the attacker's hand came out from behind his back holding a nine-millimeter Glock, Styles grabbed the man's right wrist with his right hand, twisted it hard in a counterclockwise direction, straightened the man's arm, and brought his left fist down through the side of the man's elbow, shattering that joint. The gun fell to the floor. Styles had driven the fight out of the man. Styles knelt down beside him and saw the hate pouring from his eyes. He'd been badly beaten and hated it, hated that more than the pain.
Styles asked him once more. "Nothing personal, but I've gotta know who you're watching. I won't ask you again."
"Fuck you," he said between clenched teeth.
Styles was caught in a dilemma. He remembered President Williams's directive: "No innocents will be hurt." He quickly searched the man and found his CIA identification. "You don't belong here. Sorry."
Grabbing the back of the man's head with his left hand and his lower jaw with his right hand, he violently snapped the man's neck. Styles picked him up, slung him over his shoulder, and carried him back into the office sitting him in the desk chair. He turned the chair to make it look as though the man was merely looking out the window. He saw the security equipment on a shelf mounted on the wall to the right of the desk. Styles walked over and pushed the button that ejected the DVD. He slipped it into his pocket. He noticed two flash drives plugged into the computer. He grabbed both of those. He was tempted to try to see if there was a backup on the computer, but he was worried about time. Phillips can deal with that. Before he left the office, he unplugged the entire system. Seeing some low-voltage wires running from a cabinet, he took his knife and cut them. Sure enough, a nice spark arced. So much for the battery backup. He was already on his cell phone calling J. C.
"As soon as Phillips gets there, have her run a check on that hotel's security system. I think I've got it, but see if she can get in to see if there's some kind of backup. I unplugged everything and cut the battery backup power, so I don't know if she can do that now or not, but it's a priority. I don't want any pictures of any of us in their system."
"Got it.
"I'll be there in three minutes."
"Waiting on you."
24
President Herbert Lamar was meeting with his chief of staff, Irving Vickers, who was disagreeing with his boss about Bernard Backersley.
"Sir, we have two monumental issues at hand. I don't know if the two are directly related, but we can be sure that in one form or another it will track back to the jihadists. We are at war, sir, and I think we need to give the CIA some wiggle room on their mandate, as long as they can keep their operations behind a curtain."
An exasperated President Lamar responded, "Irving, I don't entirely disagree with you, but if we knowingly allow Backersley free rein, and it's discovered, they will crucify us up on the Hill."
"What is the worst of two evils, sir? Getting heat from some senators or saving this country? Because that is what it comes down to. We have a biological agent that by all accounts will be released shortly, with everyone agreeing the Labor Day weekend would be the prime time. Sir, that's in three days. We need to do everything in our power to stop this, and right now, the question of legality isn't at the top of our concerns."