Black Friday (9 page)

B
efore he went through the security checkpoint Asante found the airport restroom labeled FAMILY. The single room was larger than he remembered: one toilet, a sink and counter with a changing table and most importantly, a bolted lock on the door. It was perfect. No one would bother him here.

He checked his watch as he hung the garment bag on the door hook. He still had plenty of time to catch his flight. While he unpacked the essentials from his duffel bag he turned on and adjusted his over-the-ear wireless headset. He tapped a number and put aside the phone.

One ring and an answer. “Yes?”

“Give me an update,” he said as he dug out of the duffel bag a compact, but expensive and powerful electric shaver, zipping it out of its case and setting both aside for now.

“Text messages indicate Dixon is at the hospital.”

“He’s okay?” Asante chose his words carefully. But then he already knew the boy was alive. His grandfather had as much as confirmed that in his angry phone call.

“His grandmother is having emergency heart surgery. Rebecca is on her way.”

“So they’re together?” He punched up the map of the mall’s third floor on his computer screen.

“She asked what he got her into.”

Asante slid his finger over the small computer screen, zooming in on the map where Carrier #3’s bomb had exploded. GPS devices were packed in the backpacks, but every carrier was also given a brand-new iPhone so they could track both carrier and bomb in case one of them decided to leave the backpack behind. He had chosen to keep them all on one floor, the combined blasts close to each other, causing the greatest structural damage as well as creating a larger blast area. That had been his priority. Now he checked to see exactly where Carrier #3’s backpack was when it exploded. Zooming in he could see it quite plainly: the women’s restroom. The young woman not only had Dixon Lee’s iPhone, she had been carrying his backpack.

“Sir?”

“Continue.”

“Her name is Rebecca Cory. She’s a student at the University of New Haven, a resident of Hartford, Connecticut. Her father is William Cory of—”

“Credit cards? ATM card? Driver’s license?” he interrupted as he peeled off his clothes. He didn’t need to know the entire portfolio they had amassed. Just those details that mattered.

“ATM card through First Bank of Hartford,” the female voice continued, pleasant and soothing as though she were reciting menu items for a special dinner. “She took out a cash withdrawal of fifty dollars two days ago in Toledo. However, a MasterCard looks to be her choice of payment. She uses it for everyday incidentals. Up until two days ago, a daily Starbucks charge in West Haven. Connecticut driver’s license.”

“Revoke all three. Immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want her feeling disabled.” He stood before the mirror now in only socks and boxers, thinking this is exactly how he wanted Rebecca Cory—stripped and vulnerable. Figuratively speaking. At least until it was safe to kill her. “Tell Danko that he can find the girl and Dixon Lee at the hospital.”

“And if he does?”

“Extract both.”

“Yes, sir.”

Asante would find another way to use the boy. An extra cutaway when the time was right. A bargaining chip, perhaps.

“What about the other young man?” he asked.

“His name is Patrick Murphy. I’m still working on him.”

Asante gave her instructions for what came next, including what to do with Murphy. Before he hung up he gave her a new contact number to use. Then Asante removed the SIM card from the cell phone, destroyed it, and flushed it down the toilet. The portable memory chip held all the traceable data including personal identity information and a record of incoming as well as outgoing calls. From the duffel bag pocket he pulled out a new SIM card and slid it into the cell phone. In seconds he keyed in the password for his wireless headset, punched in a couple of codes and the phone was as good as new and ready to use. He put it and the headset on the sink, safely out of his way.

The shaver indicated that it was fully charged. Within seconds he shaved off his goatee. He reset the shaver’s rotating heads so they wouldn’t go all the way to the skin but would leave a half inch. Then he started path after path over his head, watching the dark hair, some of it three to four inches long, fall to the sink.

Next came the hair color. The formula was his own special mixture. He squirted it into the palms of his hands and rubbed it over the new stubble, watching his hair turn honey-colored before his eyes. He massaged it into his eyebrows, too.

Cleanup took only a few minutes. Everything he no longer needed, including the syringe, was flushed away or washed down the drain. The hiking boots went into the trash can along with the rest of his clothes. From the garment bag he unzipped an expensive suit, navy blue and tailored to fit him perfectly, as did the white shirt. He left the collar open and stuffed the tie in the duffel bag. He replaced his over-the-ear wireless headset and tucked the cell phone into his breast pocket.

Finished with discarding the Project Manager, he flipped open his wallet to his driver’s license and held it up. Once again, he looked like Robert Asante, an ordinary businessman traveling to his next appointment. More importantly, the man in the mirror matched the man in the driver’s license photo.

It was time to move on to the next site. Time for the next stage of the project.

“W
e already have our company investigator reviewing the tapes,” the small man named Jerry Yarden told Maggie as he led her through a back hallway.

Maggie couldn’t believe it. The security company was reviewing its own tapes? She stopped herself from asking whose authority and what protocol gave them that go-ahead? She’d learned years ago that questioning the locals risked offending them. The result only made her job tougher. It was better if they believed she was on their side. Most people already believed that federal law enforcement would sooner point fingers and place blame than present solutions and share credit.

“I understand someone in security noticed the young men before the bombs went off?”

“Oh yeah, we noticed. Three identical red backpacks.” He glanced back at her over his shoulder, not slowing his rapid, almost erratic pace. “You betcha we noticed.”

Yarden was Maggie’s height, small-framed but long-limbed, arms pumping and swinging loosely as he walked. He reminded Maggie of a propeller with a thatch of red unruly hair.

“How did you know they were red?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your surveillance cameras are black-and-white, right?”

“Oh sure. We started following them up on the floor,” Yarden explained. “We’re trained to watch what people bring into the mall with them. We see something suspicious, we follow on the floor. You know, large purses, shopping bags with return items, backpacks, even baby strollers. We had a woman last month sneaking cashmere sweaters under her baby. You’d be surprised what people do.”

Maggie smiled to herself. Actually she wouldn’t be surprised.

His Midwest manners kept track of her, politely leading the way and holding doors open. Now he pointed to a door at the end of the hall.

“We thought they were shoplifters,” he said. “None of us expected those backpacks to have bombs in them.”

He beat her by four lengths to the end of the hallway, yanked the door and again held it open for her, his feet spread apart and both arms engaged like the door was a ton of lead. She pushed aside the fact that she could probably bench-press Yarden’s weight let alone hold open the door for herself. Instead she thanked him and stepped inside.

He led her through a maze of offices and back to another door. When he opened this one she immediately noticed the room was dim and lit from only the wall of monitors, four rows of ten across with a long control panel of keypads, switches and color-coded buttons.

Sitting at the panel with his back to them was the lone investigator, square-shouldered, dark hair. There was something familiar about the man. Before he swiveled around Maggie recognized Nick Morrelli.

He, however, was not prepared. He did a double take, looking from Yarden to Maggie and back to Maggie.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he said with his trademark smile, the one that employed dimples and white teeth in the glow of the computer monitors.

“Hi Nick.”

“You two know each other?” Yarden seemed disappointed.

“We’ve worked together before,” Maggie answered, leaving it at that and watching to see if Nick would be compelled to add more. “So you’ve left the D.A.’s office? You’re an investigator now?”

“For United Allied Security.”

“Yes, the mall’s security company. Do the local authorities know you’ve been reviewing the videotapes?” Maggie asked Nick but looked back at Yarden who avoided her eyes. Finally Yarden nodded, his head the only part of him in motion now, arms glued to his sides. He reminded her of a bobble-head.

“Yeah, no problem there,” Yarden said, still nodding.

“They’ve got their hands full, you know?”

She noticed his cadence grew faster with a slightly higher pitch in relation to his amount of guilt. Even the tips of his ears grew red.

“We’re only here to help,” Nick told her but Maggie knew from experience that Morrelli’s loyalties were sometimes divided, and often resulted in something close to personal quicksand.

Four years ago Nick Morrelli had been county sheriff of a small Nebraska community that was held hostage by a killer—a killer who was targeting young boys. To solve the case Morrelli had struggled to abandon a lifetime of loyalty to his father, the previous sheriff, in order to save his nephew. Maggie and Nick’s paths had crossed several times over the years but most recently last summer when, once again, Maggie had been sent to Nebraska to profile another killer. This time Nick’s loyalty to a childhood friend had almost jeopardized the case.

“Well then, so you two know each other,” Yarden said, anxious to break the silence and ease the tension. “That should make this easier, right?” The little man spun a chair around and held it for Maggie. “Ms. O’Dell—”

“Agent O’Dell,” Nick corrected.

“Oh yeah, right. Agent O’Dell.”

She sat in the proffered seat, next to Nick, giving him only a glance and focusing her attention instead on the wall of monitors. They had been cueing the tapes, stopping them at important intervals. Over a half dozen of the screens were already freeze-framed.

“As you can see, all we’ve been doing is tagging segments that might be relevant.” Nick waved a hand at the screens. “Isn’t that right, Jerry?”

“Right. There’s an awful lot of tape to look at. We’re just trying to narrow it down. We’re not discarding anything. We’re just looking and tagging.”

Maggie almost felt sorry for the nervous little man. She could hardly tell him to relax, that it was Nick Morrelli she didn’t fully trust and not Mr. Yarden whom she had only met moments ago.

“Agent O’Dell will need to see the carriers,” Yarden said quickly, grabbing the opportunity to move on. He took the seat on the other side of Maggie. “The tapes are grainy at best.” Even before he scooted his chair forward his fingers were flying over the control panel. “We work on a three-second system. That is the camera takes a shot every three seconds. It’s not continuous, so it might seem a bit jerky if you’re not used to it.”

“Do you have a Z97 filter or HDzoom pack?” Yarden’s fingers stopped in midflight and he looked at her with obvious admiration. Not only did she understand the three-second system but also the new state-of-the-art technology.

“We don’t have anything quite as sophisticated,” Yarden said, glancing over to Nick as if he was to blame, being the company’s highest authority on the premises.

“The company is considering updates,” Nick said almost too quickly.

Maggie heard a bit of defensiveness in Nick’s tone. She ignored it and focused instead on Yarden who was cueing up segments for her to view on monitor after monitor.

“This is one of them.” He pointed at the first screen.

Maggie leaned forward. Nick didn’t. Had he already seen these? Of course, he had. She wondered how long Morrelli and Yarden had been at it.

From the grainy quality of the video all Maggie could decipher was that the man was average height, clean-cut. He was wearing jeans, a jacket with maybe a logo on the shoulder, and tennis shoes. There was nothing extraordinary about him.

She felt the two men watching her, gauging her reaction, waiting.

Yarden added more views, cueing monitor after monitor until there was a line of grainy freeze-framed images of two different young men with the same backpack walking separately through the crowded mall. Only one instance showed the two of them together.

“I thought there were three?”

“Oh yeah, there were three all right.” Yarden’s fingers started poking the keys again. “The third one came in with a young woman and another man.” He brought up the segment. “We followed him to the food court. Then we…we sort of lost him. We don’t have many camera angles on that area and no cameras actually in the food court.”

“What about the woman and the other man? Were they involved?”

When Yarden didn’t answer Maggie sat back and glanced over at him. He and Nick were exchanging another look. Yarden’s ruddy complexion had gone pale. Nick started searching the monitors.

“What is it?” Maggie asked.

“We think one of the bombs went off in the women’s restroom,” Nick told her as his eyes darted from screen to screen. “You may have just answered our question as to how that could have happened.”

F
or a few minutes Rebecca was back in the bedroom she grew up in, light filtering through yellow gauze curtains, the sound of windchimes outside her second floor window. She could smell fried bacon and imagined her parents down in the kitchen, her mom setting the Sunday breakfast table with bright-colored placemats and long-stem glasses for their orange juice. Her dad would be playing short-order cook, waiting for Rebecca before he started his performance of flipping the pancakes. Those Sunday mornings weren’t for show. Her parents really had been happy, the banter out of love not jealousy. She wanted to sink down and soothe herself in that moment, that feeling of calm and security. If only she could ignore the prick at her skin, the ache in her arm, that deep burning sensation.

Her eyes fluttered open. She willed them to stay closed. They wouldn’t listen. The blur around her swirled images and noise together. Before her eyes could focus she started to remember: holiday music, Dixon laughing, Patrick smiling. And then…backpacks exploding.

Rebecca didn’t realize that she had tried to sit up until she felt hands on her shoulders pushing her back down.

“It’s okay.”

She recognized the voice and searched for it. Patrick’s face bobbed in front of her, slowly coming into focus. There was no smile, only concern. And she tried to remember—how badly had she been hurt? The image of a severed arm lying next to her made her twist around to check both her own. One was wrapped. The other had a needle and tubes in it. But both were there, attached.

“You’re all right, sugar,” a woman’s voice said from someplace over Rebecca’s head. “Just relax and lie still a bit.”

“Do you remember what happened?” Patrick asked. She nodded. Her throat felt like sandpaper. She tried to wet her lips. Patrick noticed, fumbled around then brought a bottle of water to her mouth. He was gentle, giving her sips when she wanted to gulp. She knew he saw her frustration but still he insisted on sips.

“Where are we?”

“The hotel across the street,” he said. “Where?”

“Across the street from the mall. They set up a triage area here.”

“But the hospital…I thought we were going to the hospital.”

“It’s okay.” He took her hand. “They were able to take care of you here. You don’t need to go to the hospital.”

She sat up again. This time Patrick helped her instead of holding her back down. Her eyes scanned the room, searching through the chaos for the man with the syringe. “He’s not here,” Patrick told her. “I’ve been watching.” She avoided his eyes and continued her own search. The man with the syringe knew she was still alive. She wiped at her forehead despite the poke of the needle. Her skin was clammy with sweat and she still felt light-headed. Dixon’s message rattled in her mind. He said she wasn’t safe. That she couldn’t trust anyone. Not even Patrick.

Did the man with the syringe give up because he knew she was with Patrick and he couldn’t get to her? Or did he no longer
need
to get to her because she was with Patrick?

Rebecca glanced at her friend. His hair was tousled, his jaw bristled with dark stubble. His eyes watched her with an intensity she wasn’t used to seeing. What was it? Concern, panic, fatigue? Or something else?

How well did she really know Patrick Murphy?

“You okay?” he asked as he reached for her hand again.

She pulled back, grabbing her bandaged arm as if in pain.

“Did they give me anything? Like for the pain?”

“I think she just localized it.” Patrick was already looking around for a nurse or paramedic. “Does it hurt pretty bad?”

Now there was no doubt—concern filled his eyes when he looked back at her.

“Could you see if they have some Advil or something?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll be right back.”

Rebecca watched him zigzag through the triage groups and head for a nearby exit. She patted down her pockets carefully and stopped when she saw him glance back. He disappeared from sight and she twisted around to find her coat. Quickly she found Dixon’s iPhone. It was turned off. She decided to keep it off.

She scooted to the edge of the covered table, almost forgetting the needle and IV tube in her arm. Another glance over her shoulder. No Patrick. She bit down on her lower lip and pulled the needle out, bending her elbow to stop any bleeding. Then she eased off the table, awkwardly, without use of her hands and trying not to notice the ache in her bandaged arm.

Still no sign of Patrick. She saw an EXIT sign in the other direction and that’s where she headed. Within minutes she made her way through the crowded lobby and found an ATM. No one noticed her. There was too much commotion. She kept her head down but her eyes darted around everywhere. She slipped her debit card into the machine, keyed in her PIN and waited. She’d get enough cash for a cab ride, something to eat. Maybe she’d better get enough for a hotel room, but someplace near the hospital.

The card spit out of the machine and the display screen blinked: CARD REFUSED.

There had to be a mistake.

She’d used this debit card a couple of times on their trip and in various locations. She knew she still had about $425 in the account. She slid the card back in and before she could key in the PIN the machine spit it out again, repeating the message.

Rebecca glanced around. Still, no one paid attention to her. There was too much chaos in and out to notice her sudden panic.

She pulled out her one and only credit card. She’d taken a cash advance from the card last month. She had a substantial cash allowance available but had disciplined herself to use it only as a last resort. This definitely qualified. She slid the credit card into the machine, waited and typed in the PIN. Maybe she’d better take out extra, especially if her debit card wasn’t working. Just to be safe. All she had in her pockets was the change left from a twenty.

The machine spit this card out, too. CARD REFUSED.

Don’t panic, she told herself. There’s just something wrong with this machine. She’d find another ATM. No big deal.

She found the exit with confident strides through the midst of rescue personnel and bloodied shoppers. She was in good shape compared to them. That’s what she kept telling herself. Then she pushed through the side door and she was outside. When had it gotten dark?

The cold hit her in the face. She had to catch her breath. It had started snowing again. The wind whipped around her. On this side of the hotel there were only lights in the corners of the parking lot. And suddenly the confidence seemed to slide right out of her. She was all alone. Nothing new there. She was used to being on her own. So why did this time feel like she was sliding off a cliff?