The Protector (13 page)

Sheriff Olsen slid him a hard look but, again, said nothing.
Caine
gestured for
Ringo
to take over.
 

“Right, ah, according to the Rockingham Treasurer’s Office, Mr. Calhoun owns and operates a business here called ITC Survival and Security Training. He teaches tactical defense and survival strategies to private citizens, corporations, and law enforcement officials,”
Ringo
added, giving special emphasis to the latter. “Calhoun is paid up on his taxes and has no outstanding debts.”
 

“Sounds like a sterling citizen,”
Caine
mocked. “Have you ever taken his course, Sheriff?”
 

“No.”

“But some of your subordinates have.”

The Sheriff shrugged. “What do you want with him?”
 

“Sorry, but that’s a matter of national security. We’d like to talk to someone in your office who’s taken ITC Survival and Security Training,”
Caine
requested.
   

“My deputies are all on patrol. I’m understaffed out here.”

“Right,”
Caine
sneered. “I can see that it’s a busy place.”
 

The small room fell quiet. The Sheriff scratched his bristled chin. “You might try talking to my nephew,” he suggested, finally. “Works for security over at the ski resort.” He jerked his chin in the direction of
Massanutten
Mountain, a well-known vacation spot for yuppies living near the capital.
 

“What’s his name?”

“Dwayne Barnes.”

Caine
gestured for
Ringo
to take down the name. “You wouldn’t happen to have a record of the firearms in Mr. Calhoun’s possession, would you, Sheriff?” he asked off the cuff.

Olsen belted out a short, startled laugh. “This
ain’t
the city, gentlemen,” he countered. “Out here, it’s a man’s constitutional right to bear arms.” He abruptly pushed his chair back. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got a job to do.”

“Does Calhoun teach ordinance?”
Caine
persisted.

“Don’t rightly know,” said the lawman, heading for the exit. “You’ll have to ask Dwayne that question.”
 

“What’s the best way to get a hold of him?”
   

Olsen looked over his shoulder. “You’re the FBI,” he said. “Reckon you can figure that out.” Without another word, he marched from the meeting room, leaving the door ajar behind him.

“Well, I can see that the LE won’t be any help,”
Caine
murmured, referring to the local law enforcement. “What’s the saying?” he smirked. “There’s honor among thieves?”

“So what’s next?”
Ringo
asked him.

“We interview the nephew,”
Caine
decided, glancing at the name
Ringo
had jotted down. “But I want you to find some dirt on him first. We’ll get more out of him that way.”

Jackson rubbed his aching eyeballs.
Caine
wouldn’t recognize honor if it jumped up and socked him in the nose.
 

**

No tracking device could only mean one thing, Ike assured himself. The FBI was
not
tracking
Eryn
; that
hadn’t
been their RV at the shopping center. He was just overly precautious given that it was Stanley’s daughter he was protecting.

Still, his gut insisted that he needed to keep vigilant. He couldn’t afford to underestimate the FBI, who had gobs of information and spy satellites at their disposal. He couldn’t, for a moment, let his guard down. And the only way to stay sharp was to train.

Given the paucity of trainees, Ike had turned his attention to Winston. The dog looked to be half German
Shepherd
. Surely he could be trained to stave off attackers, the way the military trained their K-9 units. Ike had seen how it was done. Moreover, training the dog would help to keep his thoughts off
Eryn
, whose spunky personality was undermining his resolve to keep her at arm’s distance. He’d almost busted a gut when she’d talked with that mountain twang. Made him want to keep her up here all to himself, pregnant and barefooted.
 

Don’t go there,
he warned himself. But all he could think about was how strange and stimulating it felt to have her around. He couldn’t dwell on the past, not while every cell in his body was aware of her in the here and now. His mind, meanwhile, seemed incapable of tactical thought.
  

Fortunately, Winston remained focused throughout their first training session. Within an hour’s time, he could reliably sit, lie down, stay, fetch, and drop.
But as the aroma of sausage and garlic wafted from the cabin, even the dog lost focus.

How much longer? Ike wondered, his stomach rumbling.

As he tossed the stick a final time, Winston watched it sail through the air, falling just short of the blackberry bushes. “Stay,” Ike said.
 

The dog whimpered.

“Quiet.” Ike glanced at his watch. Forty five seconds seemed interminable, even to him. “Okay,” he said, releasing the dog to shoot across the yard and claim his prize.

Trotting back with the stick, Winston indulged in a game of keep-away, exacerbating Ike’s desire to go back inside the cabin. Giving up on the hopeless canine, he chased his shadow to the cabin, eager to see what
Eryn
had concocted.

The stillness inside prompted him to make a stealthy entrance. Spotting
Eryn
asleep on the couch, he edged around for an unguarded look.

She had obviously just meant to rest for a moment and succumbed to exhaustion. She lay in an ungainly sprawl, with one arm out-flung, a smudge of tomato sauce on her cheek, her legs splayed. Amber hair cascaded over the sofa’s arm, glinting with copper, bronze, and golden highlights where they caught the sunlight.

Looking at her made Ike’s chest feel tight and his groin feel heavy. The urge to bend over and trail a hand through her silky hair had him curling his fingers toward his palm. He stood entranced for several minutes, content to watch her breasts rise and fall under the tight yellow sweater.
 

But then his gaze trekked helplessly lower, over her trim waist to the gap between her parted thighs. He could just imagine how warm and soft she felt there. Inhaling deeply, he imagined he could smell her woman’s scent, a musky perfume that exacerbated his arousal. What color was her pubic hair?
he
wondered, growing harder, still.

You’ll never
know,
asshole.
Women like
Eryn
didn’t bother
with
 
guys
like him. It might have sounded like she was flirting with him last night, but she wasn’t. She had more sense than that, choosing lovers who were intelligent but tender, capable of offering her the stability she was used to.
  

Ike had never questioned his intelligence. But when it came to his mental state, he’d been as stable as a mine field this past year. And he’d always been about as tender as a drill sergeant.

Dampened by his self-assessment, he tore himself away from drooling over her and stalked to the bathroom, shutting the door intentionally loudly. He heard
Eryn
lurch from the couch and run for the stove.
 

“Shoot, shoot, shoot!” she cried, sounding distraught. The oven door groaned open. “Oh, yes!” she added, releasing a delicious aroma.
    

Ike met his gaze, dark with desire, in the speckled mirror. Get it under control, man.

Her appeal was eroding his resolve, and he couldn’t let it. If he wanted Stanley’s respect back, he needed to return his daughter to him, unscathed and untainted. That meant keeping his distance, no matter how badly she got to him.

Chapter Seven

Farshad
studied the leader of the Brotherhood of Islam with contempt that he kept hidden behind a pious smile.

“Why
does the media
say we take credit for the bombing?” Imam Abdullah Nasser railed. He stood in the robes of a cleric before the kneeled gathering of devoted followers. “Did I order the persecution of General McClellan’s daughter?” His indignant voice echoed under the mosque’s domed roof.

The congregants, the majority of them moderate Muslims, murmured that he had not.
Farshad
tried to guess which young man in attendance was the one he was cultivating to replace
Itzak
.

In the online chat room where the extremists gathered every other night, his name was Vengeance.
Farshad
had coaxed him into a more private arena to feel out his loyalties. Eventually, he had passed him the user name and password to a fictitious, email account where they shared emails with one another, saving them in the draft folder without ever having to hit SEND.
 

Over the course of a week,
Farshad
learned that his new recruit was Shahbaz Wahidi, a twenty-three-year-old auto mechanic and a lover of violent video games. Shahbaz had been born in America, but his parents, illiterate and uneducated immigrants, had found themselves no better off in D.C. than in Pakistan. Isolated from their relatives, disillusioned and embittered, they had taught their son to hate everything American.

From where he sat,
Farshad
couldn’t see anyone with grease under his fingernails. Nor could he have picked out any of the other extremists who met online. Not even the informant, who’d mentioned the address of the safe house after
Farshad
had found it himself, was known to him.

Imam Nasser’s voice cut into his thoughts as it rolled out over the congregants. “Mustafa Masoud, are you here?”
 

“Here, your eminence,” said one of the worshipers.

“Stand.”
  

A slender Afghani-American rose to tower over his kneeling companions.

“Why does this rumor exist?” Imam Nasser asked.
 

Why would Nasser ask the man such a question?
Farshad
wondered. Was it possible that he was the informant, the man whose sister was married to an FBI clerk?
  

“Imam,
The
Washington Post
received a phone call from someone in the Brotherhood claiming responsibility,” Mustafa explained. “They, in turn, called the FBI.”

Farshad’s hopes rose as his suspicions doubled. Knowing who the informant was meant he wouldn’t have to enter the online chat in order to question him about the whereabouts of his target.

Farshad
would send Shahbaz to ask the man in person. Yes, it was time to put his new recruit to work, at no risk to himself. Shahbaz could not identify him anymore than he could identify the Shahbaz.
     

“This is a lie!” Imam Nasser railed, thrusting a finger in the air. “We are a peaceful organization seeking the creation of a global Islamist state! Our
Ummah
is governed by Mohammed’s law.
Sharia
forbids the murder of innocent people.”

Farshad
hid a sneer.
Your interpretation of the law is weak.
 

“Let all thoughts of persecution cease,” the cleric demanded with a stern gaze all around. “
Sharia
means unity through love, never through hatred. Now let us pray all together.”