“A few days later the son of a bitch’s name comes up in another transmission from that crew in the Middle East we don’t like. It’s going to somebody in Los Angeles, who isn’t at the apartment when our guys crash the place. It’s pretty obvious the United States is about to take a terrorist hit, if you believe the transmission. But we intercept a lot of those messages, I’m told, so it’s not that unusual. What’s unusual is that the kid’s name comes up again.
“So Harry and I grab him, and we take him in and rough him up at one of our interrogation sites outside Baltimore. He whines like a little baby the whole time, like he really is in high school and he doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about. But I’m convinced he’s playing me. I’ve been doing the interrogation thing long enough to recognize the act. I’m convinced he’s not seventeen, either, and I figure high school’s his cover. Pretty good cover, too, right?”
Troy and Bill nodded, fascinated by Travers’s story.
“So,” Travers continued, “I zip him the TQ Haze and then plan on monitoring him real closely for a few days after I turn him back out. I figure that’s the best strategy.” The major grimaced sadly. “But Harry and I get nailed in Delaware on our way back from dropping Kaashif off in Philly. Harry’s dead, and somebody’s obviously going to be real pissed at me, because I take out the two guys who got Harry. It turns out one of them is Ryan O’Hara, who I know is with Maddux. I’d heard through the grapevine he was the one who shot President Dorn in L.A. for Maddux. And believe me, I know well enough not to be on Maddux’s hit list. So I go underground. I figure I’ll lay low for a week or so.
“But then Kohler shows up out of nowhere at my shack out in the mountains, tases me, takes me to that place in North Carolina, and locks me up in the basement. I think I’m about to go free when Troy shows up, but then Maddux appears out of thin air. So that fast I go from thinking I’m saved to thinking I’m done. Instead, Maddux wants to take me with him.” Travers hesitated. “Then somebody shoots Kohler, Maddux throws the smoke down, Troy and I run like hell. And now you’re up to date, Mr. Jensen.”
Bill nodded. “Thank you, Major Travers.”
“When you said you zipped him the TQ—”
“Who did he meet with?” Bill interrupted Troy again. “Down in Manassas, I mean.”
“A woman named Imelda Smith. I checked her out through normal channels while I was following Kaashif back up to Philadelphia. I got her street address off her mailbox and worked backward. I got a picture of her on my phone, too, when she was saying good-bye to Kaashif. She’s a divorced mother of a young boy who claims she’s a marketing executive on her tax returns. I didn’t have a chance to diligence it myself.”
“By ‘normal channels’ you mean you called the people at Fort Meade?” Bill asked.
Travers nodded. “Yes, sir, like we’re supposed to. Specifically, I contacted that group we’ve always been told to use.”
Troy glanced from Travers to his father. That was a new wrinkle. But as a Falcon, Troy wasn’t charged with interrogating, so it made sense he wouldn’t have heard about this way of checking on people.
“What about Kaashif?” Bill asked. “Did you run him through normal channels too?”
“No, I kept him out of Fort Meade. I did my own stuff on him. I was worried that group in Maryland might cross the lines and figure out who’d told me about the kid. I couldn’t have that.” Travers glanced across the table at Little Jack and grinned when the baby shrieked. “I’m not sure they would have found out anything about Kaashif, anyway. He’s a damn black hole. But I’m pretty sure I’m on to something with him just because of that. And because he was mentioned in those two transmissions.”
“What does ‘zip him the TQ Haze’ mean?” Troy asked loudly. He wasn’t going to be ignored this time.
Travers glanced at Bill. “Can we…I mean, am I allowed to—”
“It’s a new track-and-trace system we’re using,” Bill explained. “It uses a brand-new technology that relies on a cutting-edge metallic composite that adheres to the stomach and intestine walls when ingested with water. Microscopic shards of the composite are mixed in a turquoise-colored powder that enables the shards to embed, hence the name TQ Haze. Once in place, the shards send out a unique signal based on the DNA of the subject combining with the composite, as long as enough of the shards embed in the target’s internal tissue. So, as long as you have a good DNA sample from the subject, you can track his movements. The app’s a lot like a GPS tracking device. In fact, it uses GPS technology once the shards have adhered to the subject’s body. It matches the sample DNA you’ve inputted in your tracking device to the signal being emitted from the subject. It’s like phone-to-phone except this is device-to-body. The difference with TQ is that even if the subject figured out what was going on, he couldn’t turn off the transmission. The shards signal for about a week before the body breaks them down and flushes most of them out.”
“Who came up with that?” Troy asked.
“I can’t tell you, son. The existence and membership of that group is as sensitive as the existence of Red Cell Seven. What I can tell you is that the president of the United States doesn’t even know about those guys. Only a few of us do.”
The room went still for a few moments. Even the baby was quiet.
“Well,” Travers finally spoke up, “I gave Kaashif TQ during the interrogation. It’s the first time I’ve used it. I checked my phone while he was still tied up, and the trace was already working.”
“How’d you get him to take the stuff?” Troy asked.
“I didn’t give him anything to drink for almost a day. He sucked down every drop when I finally gave him a glass of water. He was begging for it. I doubt he would have noticed or cared what was in it at that point.”
“And he never knew the difference?” Troy asked. “He was that thirsty?”
“It gives most people stomach problems for a while after they’ve ingested it,” Bill spoke up. “It feels like a mild case of food poisoning, I’ve been told. But it’s tasteless going down. He wouldn’t have noticed, especially if he was craving something to drink that badly.”
“It feels like food poisoning?” Travers spoke up hesitantly.
Bill nodded. “That’s the only thing people have noticed so far. Of course, we’ve only been using it for a few weeks.”
Troy had spotted Travers touching his stomach just then. “What’s up, Major?”
Travers grinned wryly. “I thought I had a little of that the past day or two.”
Bill leaned over the table. His expression had turned from grim to intense. “Really?”
“Yeah, I—”
“How did you get the stuff you gave Kaashif?”
“Nathan Kohler delivered it to our interrogation site outside Baltimore.”
“Did you drink anything after Kohler got there?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I did have a drink of water, now that you mention it. And,” he continued as his tone grew stronger, “Kohler got it for me. But how would he have known what was in the package he was delivering?”
“Maddux knew about it,” Bill replied. “And Kohler was obviously already working with Maddux at that point. The division leaders all knew about it two weeks ago.”
“Damn. If Kohler put the TQ in my water, that means Maddux can—”
“Exactly,” Bill cut in, anticipating where Travers was going.
Maddux could be tracking Travers even as they were speaking, Troy realized. “Does Maddux have your DNA?” he asked Travers. So it meant Maddux might have followed them up here to Connecticut from North Carolina. “Spit, blood, anything?”
“Probably. I don’t know. Maybe Kohler got it for him.”