to where the bodies had lain. He’d looked down the barrel of that 1911 Colt .45.
The investigation had been blown when Nichols had come back and found Caruso in his home searching through computer files. He’d seen death in Nichols’ eyes, and lived. The two out on the highway hadn’t been so fortunate.
“What do you think of this Russian immigrant—the guy our briefing ID’d as the bomber?”
The woman didn’t answer for a moment, her face strangely unreadable as she stared out across the snowy countryside. A wisp of silver-gold hair escaped her ball cap and she tucked it back over her ear.
“I think we’re being played for mushrooms,” she said finally, her voice cold as the wind that whipped around the SUV. “Kept in the dark and fed horse crap.”
Chapter 4
12:48 P.M.
Graves Mill, Virginia
He was never more frightening than when he was silent. Carol regarded her companion for another long moment, then turned her attention back out the window of the SUV, to the dirt-brown piles of snow shoved brusquely against the side of the roadway.
He hadn’t spoken five sentences since they had left the safehouse. She could still see the expression on his face when he had executed the Russian—a look devoid of emotion. Calculating. Ruthless.
The same look he wore now. The man who had held her close and comforted her as they sat on the bed of the safehouse was gone, replaced by… this . “What makes you so sure this woman will help us?” she asked finally, glancing over at him. His leather jacket was unzipped, gaping open to expose the bulge of the Colt holstered to his side. A weapon, just like the man himself.
“Because she doesn’t have any other choice,” came the cryptic response. “Spend enough time out in the field and you learn that people will do things out of fear that they’d never do for love.”
Blackmail . Carol had worked long enough at the Agency that it didn’t surprise her. Still, she found the reality unsettling, out from behind the protective walls of Langley.
“How did you end up at the Agency?” she asked, watching the countryside speed past.
He looked over at her, surprise glinting in those steel-blue eyes. “Why?”
“No reason, really,” Carol replied, taken off-guard herself by the intensity of his response.
Silence fell once again between the two of them as Harry turned the SUV onto a side road. When he spoke again, his voice was heavy with irony. “Sometimes you have to lay down your dreams and pick up a gun…just because it’s the right thing to do and there’s no one else to do it. Not much point in looking back.” He pointed up the road at an off-white double-wide trailer nestled in a grove of leafless trees. “We’re here. Do me a favor.”
She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “What?”
“Let me do the talking.”
11:57 A.M.
The mosque
Dearborn, Michigan
Words of purity. Words of truth. The words of God, subhanahu wa ta’ala . The most glorified, the most high. Tarik Abdul Muhammad’s fingers traced over the flowing Arabic calligraphy, reading the sacred words of the Qur’an. Who doth more wrong than he who inventeth a lie against God …
“ Salaam alaikum , my brother,” a familiar voice greeted, interrupting his thoughts. Blessing and peace be upon you.
A smile crossed Tarik’s face as he turned, looking into the eyes of the mosque’s imam, a grey-bearded man in his late fifties. He was dressed in Western clothing, as were they all. There was no point in drawing attention to themselves.
“ Alaikum salaam ,” he replied, placing both of his hands on the shoulders of the older man and drawing him close as they kissed on both cheeks in the traditional Arab greeting. “Is everything prepared for my brothers?”
“Arrangements have been made,” Imam Abu Kareem al-Fileestini replied, turning and giving a warm smile to Tarik’s four companions. “They will be provided for, inshallah .”
“And the
The investigation had been blown when Nichols had come back and found Caruso in his home searching through computer files. He’d seen death in Nichols’ eyes, and lived. The two out on the highway hadn’t been so fortunate.
“What do you think of this Russian immigrant—the guy our briefing ID’d as the bomber?”
The woman didn’t answer for a moment, her face strangely unreadable as she stared out across the snowy countryside. A wisp of silver-gold hair escaped her ball cap and she tucked it back over her ear.
“I think we’re being played for mushrooms,” she said finally, her voice cold as the wind that whipped around the SUV. “Kept in the dark and fed horse crap.”
Chapter 4
12:48 P.M.
Graves Mill, Virginia
He was never more frightening than when he was silent. Carol regarded her companion for another long moment, then turned her attention back out the window of the SUV, to the dirt-brown piles of snow shoved brusquely against the side of the roadway.
He hadn’t spoken five sentences since they had left the safehouse. She could still see the expression on his face when he had executed the Russian—a look devoid of emotion. Calculating. Ruthless.
The same look he wore now. The man who had held her close and comforted her as they sat on the bed of the safehouse was gone, replaced by… this . “What makes you so sure this woman will help us?” she asked finally, glancing over at him. His leather jacket was unzipped, gaping open to expose the bulge of the Colt holstered to his side. A weapon, just like the man himself.
“Because she doesn’t have any other choice,” came the cryptic response. “Spend enough time out in the field and you learn that people will do things out of fear that they’d never do for love.”
Blackmail . Carol had worked long enough at the Agency that it didn’t surprise her. Still, she found the reality unsettling, out from behind the protective walls of Langley.
“How did you end up at the Agency?” she asked, watching the countryside speed past.
He looked over at her, surprise glinting in those steel-blue eyes. “Why?”
“No reason, really,” Carol replied, taken off-guard herself by the intensity of his response.
Silence fell once again between the two of them as Harry turned the SUV onto a side road. When he spoke again, his voice was heavy with irony. “Sometimes you have to lay down your dreams and pick up a gun…just because it’s the right thing to do and there’s no one else to do it. Not much point in looking back.” He pointed up the road at an off-white double-wide trailer nestled in a grove of leafless trees. “We’re here. Do me a favor.”
She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “What?”
“Let me do the talking.”
11:57 A.M.
The mosque
Dearborn, Michigan
Words of purity. Words of truth. The words of God, subhanahu wa ta’ala . The most glorified, the most high. Tarik Abdul Muhammad’s fingers traced over the flowing Arabic calligraphy, reading the sacred words of the Qur’an. Who doth more wrong than he who inventeth a lie against God …
“ Salaam alaikum , my brother,” a familiar voice greeted, interrupting his thoughts. Blessing and peace be upon you.
A smile crossed Tarik’s face as he turned, looking into the eyes of the mosque’s imam, a grey-bearded man in his late fifties. He was dressed in Western clothing, as were they all. There was no point in drawing attention to themselves.
“ Alaikum salaam ,” he replied, placing both of his hands on the shoulders of the older man and drawing him close as they kissed on both cheeks in the traditional Arab greeting. “Is everything prepared for my brothers?”
“Arrangements have been made,” Imam Abu Kareem al-Fileestini replied, turning and giving a warm smile to Tarik’s four companions. “They will be provided for, inshallah .”
“And the
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