Chapter Twenty-three
She blinked at him across the truck. “A sniper rifle.”
“That’s right.”
“But I thought he sold them bomb-making components?”
“He did.”
Elizabeth clutched Vincent’s phone in her hand. She dumped it into the cup holder and took out her own.
“Who are you calling?” he asked.
“Gordon.”
It went straight to voice mail. She left him an urgent message and hung up.
“We have to figure out the target,” she said.
“That would be useful right about now. My contact at the Delphi Center’s been analyzing the comments on that home-improvement blog. He called me an hour ago and told me he thinks someone posted a launch code.”
“Where are you going?”
“The hospital,” he said. “Maybe the motel clerk knows something. Maybe she saw Fatima leaving for work, wearing some kind of uniform. Or maybe she chatted her up and she mentioned her job.”
“She didn’t.” Elizabeth dialed Torres.
“Shit, where’d you go?” Torres demanded.
“I’ll fill you in later. Listen, did you ever interview that maid from Happy Trails? The one who only spoke Spanish?”
“Just came from there. Talked to her for about twenty minutes. Dead end.”
Elizabeth’s heart sank. “She didn’t have anything?”
“Nope.”
“Did she see something in the room? Maybe a pay stub? Or maybe an apron like a waitress would wear or a bag of tips?” She was grasping at straws now. “What about a fast-food receipt that might be near wherever she works?”
“I asked all that. No leads. This maid never communicated with any of them face-to-face, just noticed them coming and going.”
“So she saw three of them?”
“Two men and a woman,” he confirmed. “And yes, the woman looks like our sketch. So that’s something. But other than that, she couldn’t tell me anything except she thought they were slobs, and they left food lying around and cigarette butts all over the place. I’m heading back now to write all this up. And where the hell are you? We could use a hand with this.”
Elizabeth was staring out the window as billboards and shopping centers flew by. She thought about everything they knew and everything they didn’t know about Fatima Rasheed. Elizabeth was now one-hundred-percent certain that Fatima was the face of the operation. She’d probably been here for weeks or even months making the contacts, doing the legwork, running the errands. An idea hit her.
“Elizabeth?”
“I have to call you back,” she said, and hung up. Her heart pounded as she scrolled through her phone, looking for the photograph she’d taken at the ME’s office of Rasheed’s personal effects.
“What is it?”
She glanced at Derek, then looked around at the freeway sign. “Exit here, and pull a U-turn.”
“Where are we going?”
“The Happy Trails Motel.”
“Up here on the left,” she said. “Just before the intersection.”
“The gas station?”
“That’s right.”
Derek pulled into the parking lot and took a space near the door. Elizabeth rushed inside the store, with Derek close behind her.
It was the same cashier from the day before, the tall middle-aged woman who’d carded the teenager trying to buy beer. Elizabeth walked over and flashed her badge.
“I need to ask you a question,” Elizabeth said.
The woman sighed and glanced at her line of customers.
“This will only take a moment.”
“Right.” But she came out from behind the counter and led them to the corner beside the beverage station.
“Have you ever seen this person?” Elizabeth held up her phone, showing the composite drawing of Fatima.
The woman glanced at it. “I don’t know. We get a lot of people in here.”
“Look closely. She’s got a distinctive hairline. She was probably in and out a few times buying Marlboro Reds. She was staying at the Happy Trails Motel down the street.”
Recognition flashed across her face. “Marlboro Reds. She had dyed hair.”
“That’s right.” Elizabeth cast an excited glance at Derek.
“Yeah, she was in here. What about her?”
“You recall what she was wearing?” Derek asked, and the woman’s attention settled on him for the first time. She looked struck by both his size and his intensity.
“I—I don’t remember.”
“She worked evenings,” Elizabeth added. “Was she wearing a uniform that you recall? Maybe a hat or an apron or—”
“A hat, yeah. She had one of those blue ball caps.”
“What did it say?” Derek asked.
“It didn’t say anything, I don’t think. It was just blue. Like her T-shirt.”
“Did her T-shirt say anything?” Elizabeth asked.
The woman glanced down and paused, as if trying to pull the memory from the depths of her brain.
Elizabeth held her breath. Such a tiny detail, but it might make all the difference.
The woman looked up. “Minute Maid.”
Elizabeth blinked at her. “You mean like the drink?”
“The park.” She glanced at Derek. “She was wearing one of those uniforms, you know? Like she works at the baseball park.”
Derek pulled out of the lot with a squeal of tires. Elizabeth dialed Gordon again and once again got his voice mail.
“Is there a game tonight?” Elizabeth asked.
“Not just a game. The All-Star Game.”
“That’s tonight?”
“Yes.” Derek blew through a stop sign, earning a honk.
Elizabeth’s phone rang, and she recognized Torres’s number on the screen. “Where’s Gordon?” she demanded. “I’ve left him two messages.”
“That’s why I’m calling,” Torres said. “We need you at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, ASAP.”
Dread filled her stomach. “What’s going on?”
“A bomb just exploded outside Terminal D. The task force, the bomb squad, everyone’s on their way over there.”
She looked at Derek. “A bomb went off outside the airport.”
“When? What kind?”
“Tell me about the explosive,” Elizabeth said.
“I don’t have a lot of details yet,” Torres told her. “They’re saying it was in a trash can outside the international terminal.”
“Casualties?”
“A cabbie was injured. That’s all I know.”
She looked at Derek. “Looks like a trash-can bomb. A cabdriver was injured.”
“A trash can? Sounds like a mindfuck. Put me on speakerphone.”
She did. “Torres, you’re on speaker now. I’m with Derek Vaughn.”
“Any chemical burns?” Derek asked.
“Not that I’m hearing. The cabbie caught some shrapnel. He was pulling up to the curb when the bomb went off.”
“Listen, Torres, a trash-can bomb is amateur hour. They’re creating a distraction.”
Pause. “A distraction from what?”
“We just got new intel,” Elizabeth said. “A convenience-store clerk near the motel remembers Fatima wearing a blue uniform for employees at the baseball stadium. We think that might be the target of the main attack.”
“The baseball park? The Midsummer Classic is tonight.”
“We know,” Derek said. “We’re heading over there now.”
“Shit, LeBlanc. You need to talk to Gordon. You’ve got orders to get your ass to the airport.”
“I keep calling him, but he won’t pick up.”
“That’s because he’s already there. They’re evacuating the airport and jamming all cell and radio communications in case there’s another device on remote control.”
“You need to get hold of him for me,” Elizabeth said. “Tell him to call me on a landline.” They hung up, and Elizabeth looked at Derek. “You think it’s a diversion?”
“I know it is.” Derek cut across traffic and gunned it onto the on-ramp of the freeway. It was rush hour, but he stayed on the shoulder, speeding past slow-moving cars and trucks. Her heart skittered as they raced past a motorcycle on the edge of the lane.
“Where’d you learn to drive like this?”
“Fallujah.”
“Please be careful.”
“Liz, listen to me. I believe the target’s the stadium, but this attack at the airport is a definite. You ignore those orders, you could get fired.”
She stared at him. “I can’t believe you just said that to me.”
“I have to put it out there. There’s a chance I’m wrong.”
“There’s a chance we’re wrong. I’m aware of that, but I don’t think we are.” She looked out the window and shuddered at how close they were to the concrete wall as he raced along the shoulder. She looked at him. “What does your gut tell you?”
“It’s the baseball game.” He didn’t hesitate. “The crowd, the symbolism, everything fits.”
“I know.” She took out her phone and pulled up a search engine. That SR-25 was nagging at her.
Derek pulled out his phone, too, and she plucked it from his hand.
“You drive, I’ll dial. Who do you need to reach?”
“Cole. He’s there in my call history.”
She put the phone on speaker in her lap as she juggled her cell. Cole answered after a few rings.
“Hey, it’s Derek. You left town yet?”
“My brother’s taking me to the airport.”
“It’s shut down,” Derek said. “They’re evacuating. The FBI’s responding to a bomb there with one confirmed casualty.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Is there any chance you’ve got your new three hundred with you? The one with the Nightforce scope?”
Elizabeth glanced over at him.
“Yeah, I’m checking it through. Why?”
“I could really use a hand over at the baseball park.”
Silence.
“Cole?”
“This have to do with the thing at the airport?”
“Yes. But this is strictly off the books,” Derek said. “If you’re not up for it, I understand.”
“Hey, I’m there, man. Tell me what you need.”
Derek gave him instructions as Elizabeth scrolled through her phone, looking for anything in the news about VIPs attending the game.
She read a headline, and her blood ran cold. “Oh, God.”
Derek glanced at her. “What is it?”
“I just found out who’s throwing out the first pitch.”
The name hit him like a punch.
“The former president? You’re sure?”
“That’s what it says here.” She held up her phone. “I have to reach Gordon.”
“You have to reach the Secret Service. Who do you know over there?”
“What? Nobody.”
“Think, Liz.” He spotted a hole in traffic and cut into it. “Law enforcement’s a tight community. There’s got to be someone.”
“Lauren has a friend on the White House detail, but—”
“Call her up. Everyone on your task force is at the airport with a jammed cell phone.”
She was already dialing, but no one picked up. “She’s in a hospital room.” She gave him an anxious look. “Her phone is probably dead or turned off. I’ll try my team again.”
Derek gritted his teeth as he maneuvered through traffic. There was no longer a shred of doubt that the stadium was the true target. Whatever was happening at the airport was a carefully planned diversion, and it seemed to be working perfectly.
“This is textbook AQ,” he said. “Multiple, coordinated strikes. Maximum civilian body count. With all the cameras over there, it’ll be a media splash, too.” Derek pictured an American icon getting gunned down before a live television audience of millions. “They’re going to assassinate the man right before our eyes, and then all hell will break loose. You watch. It’ll be mass chaos, and that’s when the bombs will go off.”
Elizabeth was frantically calling people on her phone, without success. She left messages but couldn’t get a live person.
“Call D.C.,” Derek said. “Call someone. Hell, call HPD if you have to, but we’ve got to get word over there.”
“I know!” She shot him a desperate look. “What time does the game start?”
He glanced at the clock. “Soon.”
Orange traffic cones blocked the parking lot, marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Derek plowed right over them. He looped around a row of cars and sped up to a back entrance as Elizabeth sent a text message to Gordon.
“Gimme your badge,” Derek ordered. “Just the shield, not the ID card.”
A burly police officer rushed up to them, and Elizabeth hurried to pull out the leather folio. She removed her photo ID and handed the rest to Derek. He rolled down the window and flashed the badge.
“Special Agents Vaughn and LeBlanc.”
Elizabeth held her breath.
The cop glanced at the shield and nodded. “You can’t block this ramp, sir.”
“Got it.” Derek put the truck into reverse and backed out of the space. He drove over to an empty space beside a row of horse trailers with the HPD logo on the side. He handed back Elizabeth’s badge and shoved open the door.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“See if I can’t find these tangos.”
“Need my help getting in?”
“No, I’m good.” He pulled the Sig out from under his jacket and checked the clip.
“Secret Service sees you running around with that, they’ll think you’re an assassin.”
“They won’t see me.”
She checked her Glock and noticed that her hands were shaking. She was about to go up against a determined enemy with no moral boundaries and nothing to lose, the same enemy that had gunned down Lauren and Jamie only hours ago.
“You locked and loaded?” Derek asked.
“Yes.”
His gaze settled on her, and she recognized the look in his eyes. She knew what he was going to say. You should stay in the car, work your phone. You’ll be more effective from here.
“Be careful,” he said instead.
She felt a warm rush of relief. He had no idea how much his vote of confidence meant to her, especially now, when she didn’t know what fresh disaster the next few minutes would bring. She reached over and squeezed his hand. “You be careful, too.”
She slid from the truck and set her sights on her objective: a security guard stationed beside a gate marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL. She strode over and held up her badge.
“I’m looking for the head of the Secret Service detail.”
“Uh . . . I don’t know exactly.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Couple of their agents are stationed by the elevator.”
“Show me.”
Nicknamed the Juice Box, Houston’s new baseball stadium was a blend of modern technology and classic architecture. Fans entered through a turn-of-the-century train station, but everything else about the park was modern, including the 292-foot-high retractable roof. Like most Houston ball fans, Derek loved the new park. He loved the open-air design, the Bermuda grass playing field, the view of the city skyline right behind left field. Having been to the stadium a bunch of times, he knew the layout well, although much of his knowledge centered around where to find the shortest beer line. He’d never really thought about the place from a tactical perspective.
Until now.
He sliced through the crowd, collecting details and making eye contact. Over the years, he’d honed his instincts for terrorists. He’d learned to spot their deadly intentions purely through body language, before they ever dropped an IED or tugged a trip wire or activated a remote-control detonator. He’d learned to read how they moved and how they stood and how they observed their surroundings just before they carried out an attack.
His phone buzzed, and he continued his visual reconnaissance as he answered.
“I’ve got problems,” Elizabeth said quickly. “They’re blowing me off until they verify my ID through headquarters.”
“We’re losing time. Raise a stink if you have to. You’ve got to talk to someone in charge.”
“I’m trying, but I have to keep my cool here until my ID checks. If they think I’m some nutcase off the street, I’ll be hauled off for questioning before I’ve had a chance to talk to anyone important. Now, the good news is I’ve got an agent on my side, and he tells me their bomb dogs just completed a thorough sweep of the executive level where Gray Wolf is sitting. Everything’s clear.”
“Gray Wolf?”
“That’s the handle for the former POTUS. It’s how the agents refer to him.”
Derek eyed a woman carrying a bulky diaper bag with no kids in sight. Other than her auburn hair, she didn’t look like Fatima.
“Executive level is low-probability,” Derek said, “especially given the security. More likely they’d plant something on the concourse level, where they can maximize casualties. Fact, they’ll probably put it on a ramp or near an exit, so when mayhem breaks out, people will be funneled right past it.”
“Wait, there’s more,” she said. “I talked to a food-services manager, and he recognized the picture of Fatima. Said she works a snack bar on the concourse level. So that might give us something to look for. She could have smuggled in a gun or an explosive through the employee entrance. If she’s planting a bomb, it could be in a beer cart or a food kiosk or maybe a cooler.”
“Or a backpack or a trash can,” Derek added. “She could put it anywhere. Liz, listen to me. The fact that we’re having this conversation tells me they still aren’t taking you seriously. If they were, they’d be evacuating by now, and they’d be jamming all cell-phone and radio communication in this place. That’s SOP—standard operating procedure—for an ordnance-disposal team.”
“Here comes my agent,” she said. “I need to go.”
She clicked off as another call came in. Cole.
“Where are you?” Derek asked, still scanning the crowd for suspects.
“About half a click northwest of the ballpark. I’m on the sixteenth floor of an office building staring right at home plate.”
“You on the gun?”
“Yeah.”
“Secret Service has shooters posted on some of the rooftops,” Derek said. “Make sure they don’t see you.”
“I got it covered. What’s your twenty?”
“Concourse level, right behind third base. Hey, we need to do this fast, in case they start jamming the comms. I want you to look at the layout and tell me how you’d play it if you were inside.”
Cole was the team’s best marksman and had a well-known talent for finding the perfect sniper hide. “If it was me, I’d go high,” he said. “I’m talking up in the rafters, behind a bunch of metal, where I’d be hard to see and harder to hit. See that area behind the Budweiser sign? That’d be my first pick.”
“Roger that. Call you back.”
Derek looked up at the tangle of ductwork and lighting and support structures. He glanced around for an access route. The doors of a nearby service elevator slid open. A cart loaded with pizzas rolled out, pushed by a stadium staffer wearing a hair net.
Derek walked casually past the elevator, then turned and ducked inside as the doors slid shut.
“I need to see him now,” Elizabeth insisted. “I don’t care who he’s on the phone with.”
Her own phone vibrated. The screen said BUSH IAH, and she prayed Gordon had found a landline.
“What the hell’s going on?” Gordon demanded.
“I’ve got intel about an imminent attack here at the baseball game.” She rushed through a description of the evidence, hoping he could hear her over the sirens blaring in the background wherever he was.
“Secret Service is stonewalling me,” she said. “I need you to—” Sirens screeched in her ear, and she jerked the phone away.
“What seems to be the problem?”
She turned to see a tall man in a dark suit striding up to her. The clear radio receiver affixed to his ear told her he was Secret Service.
“Elizabeth LeBlanc, FBI. Are you the lead here?”
“Rick Walker, special agent in charge.”
“My task force just received credible information about an imminent bomb attack on these premises.”
He frowned. “What information? I wasn’t informed of any—”
“I’m informing you. That’s what this is. Call up security so we can evacuate this stadium. And you need to get your guy out of here now.”
“I can’t reach the upper level,” Derek told Cole over the phone. “Elevator doesn’t go that high. What do you see?”
Although Derek was closer, Cole’s high-powered scope would give him a superior view. Provided he could get the right angle. “Some movement to your north, but I think it’s the lighting guys. Wait.” He paused. “There’s a shadow just east of you. Looks like—damn, I can’t tell.”
Derek squinted up at the suspended walkways.
“Shit, there’s definitely someone back there,” Cole said.
“Lighting techs?”
“I don’t think so.” His voice was tight. “I think I see . . .”
“What? What is it?”
“It’s definitely a rifle barrel.”
“Are you sure?”
“Affirmative.”
“You have a shot?” Derek glanced at the field below, where performers were unfurling a huge American flag. “Cole, report.”
“I don’t have the shot, man. He shifted. I don’t even have the gun barrel in my crosshairs now.”
Derek sprinted past the maintenance elevator, which didn’t access the upper level. He pushed through the next available door and felt a slap of relief. Stairwell. He raced upstairs and jerked open the door.
“Okay, I’m up,” he told Cole. “What’s the sitrep?”
“Behind first base, over toward the beer sign. I can’t see the barrel anymore, but that’s where it was.”
Derek glanced around to get the layout. Steel catwalks criss-crossed the area, giving access to lights, speakers, and other equipment.
“Behind the spotlight?” Derek moved toward it.
“Affirmative.”
“Okay, I’m going silent.” He switched off his ringer and tucked away his phone.
He glanced down, pulse pounding. Stars and stripes blanketed the field. Derek took out his Sig, wishing like hell he had a suppressor. Any hint of gunfire up here would attract a swarm of Secret Service, and he was as good as dead.
There was only one way to do this. He had to take this guy down without a bullet.
The announcer’s voice boomed from a nearby speaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the National Anthem.”
A hush fell over the crowd.
Derek spotted the catwalk leading to the sniper’s hide. He ducked into a crouch and moved silently, scanning every shadow behind every light, speaker, and bulky piece of equipment.
Derek’s pulse spiked as he spotted him.
Ahmed Rasheed knelt behind a spotlight, his rifle pointed down at the field. He wore the cobalt-blue uniform of the stadium staffers, including a blue ball cap, which reinforced Derek’s suspicion that his plan today wasn’t suicide. He had an exit strategy, and it probably involved blending into the crowd.
Derek crept closer, slowly, soundlessly. The familiar melody drifted up from the field as he neared the target.
A soft rasp as his boot scraped metal. Instantly, he knew that tiny sound was a monumental mistake.
The target glanced up.
Derek launched himself at him as the rifle swung around. They hit the deck in a tangle of limbs. Derek smashed his pistol against the man’s face just as the rifle stock jerked up and caught him in the jaw. Derek clamped his free hand over the barrel and shoved it up against the man’s windpipe, all the while landing blow after blow with the grip of his pistol. A fist connected with Derek’s cheek. He ignored it, focusing every ounce of energy on the gun barrel clamped in his hand, pressing down on the tango’s neck with all his might. Rasheed’s face reddened. His eyes squeezed shut. With a low groan, he heaved himself up and managed to throw Derek off-balance and onto his side.
Derek’s advantage vanished. Panic flooded him. He rolled onto his back, and a sharp pain in his spine told him he was on top of the rifle.
Derek smashed his gun against the man’s nose, and blood sprayed down on him. Teeth sank into his wrist. Derek fought to keep his grip on his pistol as Rasheed struggled to pry it free with fingers and teeth.
The rifle dug into his spine. Derek tried to shift the weight off him, tried to throw his leg around, but he was pinned. Pain shot up his arm as he felt his wrist being crushed and the muzzle of his Sig digging into his side.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to die by my own hand.
Blood streamed down Rasheed’s forehead, into his eyes. More flowed down from his ruined nose and dripped onto Derek’s face, blinding him. He clenched his teeth and forced his wrist around, straining against the weight and the searing pain and the desperate fingers now clawing for the trigger.
Elizabeth struggled for composure as the agent frowned down at her skeptically.
“You expect me to—”
A gunshot echoed above them. All heads jerked up. There was an instant of stunned silence, and then an army of suits sprang into action, rushing for the exits, shouting into radios.
“Bravo, report!” Walker barked into his radio.
Elizabeth’s heart lodged in her throat as she looked up at the rafters. A shriek from the field below, followed by another. Performers starting screaming and pointing up. Then panic set in. Like a herd of antelope scattering, everyone rushed off the field. People in the stands looked skyward and started moving en masse, pushing and shoving for the aisles.
“Bravo, report!” Walker said again. “Where’s Gray Wolf?”
Whatever response he got was drowned out by the noise. Elizabeth elbowed her way through the crush of agents near the door and stumbled into a corridor. Someone grabbed her arm and spun her around. The agent who’d helped her before.
“Where’s Walker?” he yelled above the din.
“He’s—”
He shoved past her and grabbed his boss, who was standing in the doorway now. “Sir, the bomb dog just got a hit!”
“Where?”
“Concourse level, left-field exit! They’ve got a hot-dog cart down there packed with explosives.”