“Maggie, look at this.” Robert held the small black flash drive directly in front of her.
Maggie’s face showed a brief flash of recognition upon seeing the small object. But she covered her eyes with her pillow, acting — as she had been more and more prone to do — like a small child.
“Do you remember this?”
“God, what time is it?”
“Maggie, do you remember this flash drive?”
“Where is Billie?” She sounded like a child. “Tell Billie I need her.”
“What? The pain?” Tranthan spoke the words more like a technician than a lover or a person who held some semblance of passion for the woman laying here in the bed. “Give her something.”
Another nurse stood in the shadows. It was the figure of a man, tall and dark, but dressed in white operation-room scrubs.
“Maggie, this is important.”
Tranthan hovered over her, tired and angry and drunk. Some men would become happy or relaxed or joyful after several drinks. Tranthan became impetuous and gruff.
“What is that?” Maggie asked.
“It’s the flash drive that came from your office in Doha. Do you recognize it?”
“Where was it?”
“In this.” Tranthan held out the small gold photo frame. “Do you remember it?”
“I know that.”
“Yes.”
“I know that.” She repeated the words.
“Give her something to help.” Robert spoke to the man at the edge of the darkness in the far corner of the room.
“Where’s Billie?” Maggie said, suddenly agitated. “I really need to talk to Billie.”
She winced as the chemicals flowed into her IV. Almost immediately her eyelids became visibly heavy.
“What was the password, Maggie?”
Suddenly, Maggie O’Donald’s face showed fear. “Where’s my buzzer?” She ran her hand down, as far as she could reach, along the bed rail, looking for the feel of the buzzer.
“Maggie, I need you to concentrate.”
“Okay.”
“Was the password a word?”
“No.”
“Maggie, lives depend upon what is on this flash drive. The Gulf could blow up without this. We need it!”
“The park,” she said without warning.
“What park?”
“The park is important.” Her face was full of confusion.
Tranthan signaled with his hand. The figure in the dark handed him a small laptop, which he opened and turned on. Tranthan didn’t say anything. After what seemed an eternity, he connected the flash drive to the computer.
“Maggie, help me on this.”
The password box came up.
“Try Battery Kemble,” she said.
The park where they used to meet… Hidden deep in Washington’s northwestern corner, on a side street, the park’s small entrance was known only to the few homeowners whose houses backed up to it. Well over a hundred and fifty years ago, the steep hill that formed the far northern end of the park was a battery emplacement to protect Lincoln and the city from the advancing Confederates.
The beep of the computer signaled a failed password.
“Maggie, it says we only have two tries left.” Tranthan felt his anger building into recklessness. “Try harder.” He looked to the man with him. He injected her again; again, it wasn’t the morphine that Maggie would be used to.
“I don’t know. I need to sleep.”
“Maggie, help me on this and we’ll let you sleep.”
“Oh, God,” she said. “I don’t look good.” She began to sob. “I will never look good again.”
“Maggie, you won’t. I can’t lie. But you are a professional. Lives depend upon your being a professional. Can you do it?”
She tried to stop the tears, but they continued to pour down her face.
“Try BKP06,” said Maggie, her voice nearly a whisper.
“Battery Kemble Park.” He hesitated. “Oh-six?” He paused as he thought of the number. “June?”
“Yes.”
“Our first meeting.”
He punched the numbers into the password. Again, the computer refused the attempt.
“Damn it, Maggie…”
Tranthan didn’t say anything for a moment. Finally, he shook his head sadly.
“Maggie, with what’s going on now, I may not get a chance to see you again.”
“What?” She began to sob again.
“We need that password.”
Tranthan continued to look at the computer screen, seeming to ignore her.
“Concentrate, Maggie,” he chanted softly. “Concentrate.”
Her expression changed, becoming more distant as her voice faded. “Please get me Billie.”
“Come on, Maggie.”
She closed her eyes, concentrating, then mumbled something.
Tranthan couldn’t hear what she was saying. He leaned over.
“What?”
She seemed to be struggling to repeat what she’d said. No sound came out. She was fading faster.
He watched her lips, reading the words as she tried once more. There! He had it. Without trying the password, he knew with certainty that he had the correct one. He closed the computer and walked out of the room.
Robert Tranthan made several decisions at that moment. The renegade operation to find and stop the man that caused all of this would be shut down.
Shut down. With prejudice.
Tranthan considered the odds. If Scott’s plan succeeded it risked exposing his link with Maggie. It risked exposing her source.
“I think I know who it is.” He spoke the words to himself as he walked down the hall.
And Maggie was simply too much of a risk.
CHAPTER 36
Parker stopped at the bottom of the stairs before stepping out into the cold, wet wind. The inner pocket of the coat held the airplane tickets and visa pressed against his chest. A lower side pocket bulged with the scarf that Atwan had just given him. Parker pulled the zipper up; only a sweater cap protected his head.
Parker glanced at his bearded, somewhat wild-looking reflection in the storefront’s glass window. God, what a sight. She would laugh at me.
As he moved out of the doorway a double-decker bus stopped directly in front of the building. Parker stopped again, waiting for it to move on. It pulled away to reveal a man standing across the street under the cover of the overhang of the extended roofline of a government building. It was someone that he did not recognize.
The stranger, dressed in a dark ski coat, looked not at the traffic or the pedestrians or the storefronts, but above Parker, to the second floor and the Al-Quds office.
Parker sensed trouble. His stare met the stranger’s for a moment, but a passing lorry broke their eye contact. Once the truck cleared, the man was gone.
Oh, shit.
Parker wheeled around, back to the newspaper building, pulled the door open, breaking the lock as he did, and headed up the stairs two steps at a time. After the first two steps, a flash picked him up and threw him back down the stairs and through the closing glass door. The heat, plaster, and wood hit him like a shotgun blast.
Parker reached to his face. In the stunned moment, he felt his own, unfamiliar beard, along with a new, sticky substance. As he tried to sit, his head began to swirl. Little stars flashed across his vision as a woman bent down beside him. Another man came out of nowhere and grabbed Parker under the arms and was pulling him down the sidewalk, away from the blaze. The woman’s mouth was moving, but Parker could only hear a ringing in his ears. He sensed the wet sidewalk, though, and his pants being drenched in the rain puddles.
Slowly, the ringing started to quiet.