He rubbed his temples and tried to focus on the blurred text in front of him. After a few minutes, he realized that he hadn’t read a single word. Shaking his head in frustration, he looked over to see if Kharmai was faring any better.
She was hovering over one of the many fax machines, a phone pressed between her cheek and shoulder as she fumbled with the buttons. Ryan watched with vague amusement as she swore and smacked the machine with the palm of her hand.
When he stood up and walked over, she held out a sheet of paper without pausing in her conversation: “Yes, as soon as possible . . .
That’s right, I need everything for the last three months, including photocopies of the driver’s licenses if you have them . . . What do you mean, ‘It’s too late’? I don’t care what time it is, call him at home if you have to . . .”
As she was talking, Ryan quickly scanned over the proffered document. When he got down to ‘missing person’s occupation,’ his eyes opened a little bit wider.
Naomi hung up the phone a moment later. Ryan looked into her face and saw that her bright green eyes were sparkling.
“A realtor, huh?” he said. “That’s interesting.”
“It gets better,” she said. “Nicole Milbery specializes in farm properties. Her office is in Ashland. That’s Hanover County, right in between Richmond and Washington. It’s the perfect place for him . . .
Ryan, do you know how to fix this bloody stupid machine?”
He couldn’t help but smile at the way she said it. He examined the unit and punched some buttons to clear out the backlog. “Who were you talking to?”
“The night duty officer at the VSP’s Hanover office. He’s going to call the investigating officer at home right now. As soon as he finds him, we’ll get some more details.”
“Don’t get too excited,” he warned. “It could be nothing.”
Naomi wasn’t going to be deterred that easily. “It could be everything.”
The sergeant on desk duty in Hanover returned the call ten minutes later. Naomi snatched up the phone and listened intently while Ryan looked on, rooted in place by a strange mixture of anticipation and apprehension. For some reason, he knew they were finally on to something.
She pulled the receiver away from her mouth. “Milbery leased a property less than three weeks ago. Just under a hundred acres, three miles east of I-95.” She turned her attention back to the telephone.
“Did he leave a—okay, he did. That’s great, I need you to fax that over to me. What was the name again?”
Ryan started to say something but she waved him away. “Okay, that’s fine. Thanks for your help, Sergeant. Can you make your captain available? We’re going to need to talk to him if this adds up to anything . . . Okay, thanks.”
She hung up and turned to face him. “Timothy Nichols. Does that name mean anything to you?”
He thought for a minute, pushed the names out and together again, mixed up the letters, turned them around. When it came to him, the rest of the room seemed to fall away. “It’s him.”
“What?” She looked up, startled. “How do you know?”
“Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, Naomi. He always was an arrogant bastard.”
She went pale as she realized what he was saying. “Oh my God.”
As if on cue, the fax machine started up and produced a single piece of paper. Although the driver’s license was not blown up to magnify the features, and the face itself was blurred by copying dis-tortion, Ryan knew exactly who he was staring at when he lifted the sheet to the light.
“That’s Will Vanderveen,” he said.
Chapter 31
TYSON’S CORNER, VIRGINIA
Patrick Landrieu stood at the head of the table and surveyed the people sitting on either side of the polished wooden surface.
Despite the fact that he was the ranking person in the room, he knew better than to try to assert his authority over the group that he currently faced. The combination of their egos and ambition easily overruled his titular superiority, and he was well aware that they would crush him in an instant if they felt it to be in their best interest.
Landrieu was a round little man with a prominent nose, sparse gray hair, and cheeks flushed pink from the heart medication that he took twice a day, or at least whenever his secretary reminded him.
The fact that he made a habit of working sixteen-hour days was reflected in his shabby appearance. His career, however, had never suffered from his slight physical stature. He had begun his government service as a terrorism analyst nearly twenty-three years earlier, and his rise through the ranks had been remarkable. He had served as chief of staff to the director of Central Intelligence, and then most recently as deputy executive director before being appointed by the DCI to his current position.
As he looked out over the sea of faces, he saw that they were appraising him in turn. Perhaps more than a few were wondering how much longer Landrieu’s reign could possibly last. He was already coming under heavy fire for the intelligence failures that had led to the most recent disastrous events in Washington, as well as for the lack of success in capturing the man believed responsible for both terrorist attacks.
Aside from Landrieu, there were seven other people in the room.
Seated immediately to his right was Deputy Director Emily Susskind of the FBI. Next to Susskind was Assistant Director Joshua McCabe of the Secret Service and its advance team leader, Jodie Rivers.
Also present was Colonel Stephen Plesse, the superintendent of the Virginia State Police. Plesse had arrived by helicopter from the VSP Administrative Headquarters in Richmond less than ten minutes earlier. He was in full uniform despite the early hour, and his face was still red from the harsh winter wind that had cropped up in the past few hours and was now singing around the building.
The three remaining people in the room were seated to the left of Plesse. They were Jonathan Harper, Ryan Kealey, and Naomi Kharmai.
“Well,” Landrieu said, “you’ve all been made aware of the purpose of this meeting. I suggest we get right down to it. We have very little time to waste.”
“Do we have any guess as to how much time, exactly, sir?” Rivers asked. She had no desire to be at this meeting, figuring that her rightful place was back on the waterfront finalizing the security arrangements. Even if she had wanted to, there was no way she could spare the resources for anything they might have had in mind.
The director looked around the room, his eyes settling on Jonathan Harper. “Does anyone have an answer for that?”
“The timetable depends on what kind of weapon he’s planning to use, and that comes down to what kind of vehicle he’s driving,”
Harper said. “Obviously, he’ll need a bigger window if he’s trying to bring a bomb into the city. I don’t believe we’ve come up with anything solid on that yet. Emily?”
Susskind looked up from her coffee and debated for a second, her slender fingers dancing on the rim of her cup. “The only vehicle registered by Timothy Nichols in the state of Virginia is a four-year-old Honda motorcycle. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really mean anything; he could have acquired another vehicle under a different name, or maybe he’s stolen one—there’s just no way of knowing.
“There’s something else we need to consider, though. Once we had his alias, the link between Vanderveen and Theresa Barzan was quickly established. We still don’t know her real identity, but we do know that, using that name on her Saudi passport, she wired him almost 35,000 dollars over the past several weeks. The funds were routed through the Caymans and the Cook Islands, which made it very difficult to trace. That’s not enough money for a payoff, but it is enough to purchase a lot of expensive equipment.” She paused and cleared her throat gently. “The kind of equipment he would need to construct and conceal a large explosive device.”