Miri opened the door cautiously, carrying two mugs in her hands. She smiled at Alex, and motioned for her to sit back in the rocker. Pulling over a footstool, the shorter woman sat beside her, and offered her a cup. Alex smiled as the scent of cinnamon and chocolate drifted up to her nose.
“Alex, I wanted to talk to you about the night David got shot.”
Alex closed her eyes against the threatening tears. “I’m sorry, Miri.”
“For what?”
“I promised to keep him safe.”
Miri’s small tan hand patted hers, and then gently squeezed. “It wasn’t your fault, Alex. David said he went over everything from that night, time and time again — so did Ken, so did Cliff. With the information you had, there was nothing you could have done to stop the ambush.”
“But —”
“No.” Miri’s voice was firm. “No, Alex. What I said on the phone that night, what I told you — Alex, I’m the one who should apologize. When I got your call, I just reacted to the fact that David had been shot. I didn’t think about anything else. Not you, not Ken, not anyone. Just David.” She pulled away, and stared at her cup. “I spoke from my own pain, and I hurt you even more. I’m so sorry, Alex.”
“It was my fault,” Alex whispered. “Teren keeps saying that it wasn’t, but I was in charge, I should have had better security —”
“You had six agents, and two policemen in a backup car. You had no idea that someone was going to take out your backup, or that two of the agents would disobey orders and leave their vehicle. You took the required precautions, and the fact that it wasn’t enough had nothing to do with you.” She lowered her voice. “David says there’s a traitor on the task force. Is that true?”
“Yes.” She didn’t want to tell anyone yet about Tom Jorgen and Rudy Wilkins. “And someone higher up as well.”
Miri’s let her shoulders sag. “You think it’s Cliff, don’t you?”
Raising an eyebrow, Alex looked at her and sighed. “Yes. Or, Teren does, rather.”
“What do you think?”
Alex shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t want to believe it, but there are some clues that point to him. It’s enough to make me wonder.”
The two of them were quiet for a moment, just watching Arlea as she slept. Alex could feel parts of her psyche slipping back into place, little pieces that she’d been missing. It was like coming home, and she leaned back to savor that moment of peace.
Teren had watched quietly as Miri guided her partner into the other room, then dropped her gaze to the floor. She let out a deep breath, and closed her eyes.
“How has she been, Teren?” David asked quietly. “Are you taking care of my partner?”
She felt an inward flinch as she heard the term. Teren sighed.
“As best I can, David. And I think she’s been doing pretty good.” She shrugged. “She cries — a little. But she’s tough when she needs to be.” Teren nodded. “Yeah, I think she’s okay. She needs a break, and a nice vacation — we both do.” She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “I’ll be glad when we end this.”
“How close are you? To ending it, I mean.”
“Not as close as I’d like, but a hell of a lot closer than we were when we got off the plane.” She noticed Ken was nodding.
“Yep. Told you, Dave. There’s no way Alex is going to let go of this. Badge or no badge, she’ll keep going.” He turned to Teren. “You saying you got something overnight?”
“Yeah.” Teren took a deep breath. “We got Derek White.”
Both jaws dropped, and Teren was tempted to reach over and close them. Instead, she leaned back and stretched out, crossing her legs at her ankles.
David recovered first, and cleared his throat. “So, did you turn him over to the Bureau or the local police?”
“Neither. He’s being held at a CIA facility. And that’s all I’m going to say.” She grinned. “The Bureau may have pulled Alex’s badge, but the Agency put me back on active status — and since Alex and I proved that there are international connections, to possible terrorist organizations, it is the CIA’s right to be involved. And they are — through me.”
Ken nodded. “I figured the Agency was going to get more involved, especially when Graves told Cliff you’d been involved in some kind of mess with — what is it? The Bundskrim?”
“Bundeskriminalamt, or BKA. Yeah, we helped expose a Nazi cell in Munich.”
David looked confused. “What did that have to do with this case?”
“Well, these Nazi’s were part of the money system that was paying for the killings here in the States. We traced the money angle back to Switzerland, and then to Munich, where we got lucky.”
Ken snorted. “Right — your head looks like it got real lucky.” He and David chuckled, and Teren smiled at them.
“Okay, so not all the luck was good. But we took out the bad guys, and found the papers that could connect our conspirators to the Nazi money.” She ran a hand across her bandage. “Okay, Alex found the papers. I slept.”
The guys chuckled again.
“So, you found White. Did he tell you who their contact in the Bureau is?”
“No, he didn’t know the guys real name. But he can, and will identify the man if we can put together some sort of line up. The only problem with that is, without more evidence, it’ll be impossible to get the FBI to agree to any kind of line up, even pictures — and without cooperation, it would be hard to get the photos for anyone at Cliff’s level or higher.”
“Any physical description?”
Teren shrugged. “Pretty general. Middle age, salt and pepper hair, just a touch overweight. Alex said it describes just about everyone from Cliff on up.”
“It does.” David nodded. “So, what else did White tell you?”
“He confirmed a lot of stuff. Who did the actual shooting in each hit, who drove the shooter, and he admitted that a guy that works for him in Alabama built the bombs. He used to be an army demolition specialist, but was released with a dishonarable discharge after a stay at Leavenworth, first.— he blew up his CO’s office.”
“Did he mention Arturo? Bill and Vic said they could put Mather in LA, and talking to the guy who killed Arturo.”
“Yeah, he said it was part of their plan. They chose to use gang bangers to take out him and at least a few other people. But, the one guy, who pulled the trigger on Arturo, started demanding more money, so Treville sent a couple old friends, supposedly to give him cash — they killed him instead.”
Ken shook his head, but didn’t say anything.
“He said that after Mather was killed, most of the leaders wanted to wait, make the Feds think that it was over. Then they could strike without a lot of pressure, and also take their time choosing their new killer. But Treville, and the guy in the FBI decided they wanted another killing to throw off the investigation. So, Treville told Brogan to contact what’s his name, in Colorado. He was supposed to kill Ann Seffren. But he missed. Derek said Treville had decided then that Brogan couldn’t be trusted, and he had White make the bomb for his house. He didn’t know who made the bomb that blew up Kittredge.”
“We do,” Ken said smugly.
“Wanna share?”
He shrugged. “We traced the parts to New York. Steve and Lou went up there, and they found a credit card receipt that led them to this guy that does odd jobs.”
“Why would he be making bombs and sending them to Alabama?”
“Hey, I don’t know,” he said as he raised his hands. “All I know is that they got together with Ben and Mark, and the four of them were real happy. I asked what was going on, and they said they didn’t want to tell anyone until they had it locked down.” He sighed. “Gotta tell ya, this thing with the ambush, and the possiblity of someone in the room being a turncoat —” he shook his head, “people are afraid to work with each other. They trust their partners, and nobody else.”
Teren nodded. “Yeah, I can understand where they’re coming from.”
All of them grew silent at the sound of a door opening down the hall. A moment later, Alex and Miri came into the living room.