Burke, Virginia
Cal swung around the corner where patrol cars and uniformed officers blocked the road at the outer perimeter of the bomb scene. He leaned out the car window and flashed his credentials at an officer standing in the road. The guy nodded and stepped out of the way, allowing Cal to move down the road to the inner perimeter. As much as the delay of having to show his ID frustrated Cal, he was glad that Yancey had listened and set up two perimeters.
Four fire trucks were parked just outside the barrier, and worried firefighters stood at the ready. Nearer the scene sat a heavy response truck with the county logo painted on the side. A tech had already moved a robot down the vehicle ramp. The device containment truck used to transport bombs to a disposal area hadn’t arrived. Perhaps Keeler chose this location outside of D.C. because he knew the county squad didn’t have the funds for such a truck.
Cal slammed the gearshift into park and was out of the vehicle with his ID in hand before the car quit rocking from his sudden stop. He charged up to the bomb tech. A disposal suit lay discarded on a storage case, and Cal hoped the suit had been worn to put a protective cover over the woman.
“Where’s Sergeant Udall?” Cal asked.
The officer gestured at a strongly built man in uniform leaning over the hood of a patrol car, a map spread out in front of him.
“Is the robot ready to go?” Cal asked the tech.
“Ready when you are.”
Cal nodded and marched up to Udall. As the squad leader, he’d phoned Cal and was expecting him, so Cal didn’t introduce himself but simply held out his ID. “Is the shield in place over the woman?”
Udall gave a quick nod.
“Good. I’d like your man to control the bot, but I’ll be the one suiting up to work on the device if it comes to that.”
Another nod.
“Show me the lay of the land.”
Udall bent over the hood and tapped a home five houses in from the intersection where they stood. “Subject’s house. We don’t have a blueprint yet, but it’s a two-story, and she’s on the first floor in the dining room. It faces east and the front door faces south. Back door, north, but the backyard falls off into a gully, and you’d have to climb two flights of stairs to get to the door.”
Cal looked down the road. “So the bot goes in through the front.”
He nodded. “Unless you want the dogs to take a look-see first.”
“You have dogs?”
“Best bomb sniffers in the country. We can strap a camera on ’em and send ’em in.”
“Let’s use the robot for now.” Cal didn’t want to risk a dog’s life when a robot could perform the task they needed to complete.
“We’re ready, Sarge,” the tech called out from the back of his truck.
Cal spun, and tuning out the commotion outside of the perimeter, he joined the tech inside the truck. The young man who looked barely out of college sat behind his control module.
“Let’s get the bot moving,” Cal directed.
The tech nodded and started the robot whirring forward. Bots didn’t move fast, so the drive from the perimeter to the front of the house seemed to take forever.
Cal’s phone chimed, and he glanced at it to see a text from Kaci saying she located Nabijah Meer’s address in D.C. Kaci had dispatched a team to Meer’s house to bring her in for questioning. Kaci had also attached Meer’s photo. Cal studied the woman’s face and wondered why she would team up with Keeler.
“Nearing the house,” the bomb tech said.
Cal’s attention needed to be on the bomb, and he could think about Meer after he’d neutralized the bomb. He stowed his phone and turned his attention to the tech. “What’s your name?”
“Frankie.”
“And the robot. Does he have a name, too?” Cal asked, knowing many teams named their bots.
“She, actually.” Frankie looked up and grinned. “Anne Droid.”
“From Dr. Who,” Cal said, recognizing the name.
Frankie nodded.
“How long have you been doing this, Frankie?”
“This job, three years. The marines another eight.”
So he wasn’t as young as he looked. And if he was a bomb disposal tech on a county squad, he’d be certified and have graduated from the FBI Hazardous Devices School in Huntsville, Alabama, as Cal had done when he’d come out of the navy. That meant he and Frankie spoke the same language when it came to rendering a bomb safe. The knot in Cal’s gut loosened a fraction.
Anne Droid approached the house, and Cal quit talking to focus on the monitor. It didn’t take a great deal of skill to move a robot down a street, even if Frankie faced a flat screen in a three-dimensional world. But to enter a house and approach the woman took far greater concentration.
Frankie took the bot right up the stairs, and with great dexterity, used Anne Droid’s pinching arm to turn the knob and open the door. Inside the house, she veered to the right.
“Turn on the speakers so I can communicate with the victim,” Cal directed, and Frankie complied.
“Ms. Tabet,” Cal said into the microphone. “I’m Special Agent Cal Riggins with the FBI. We’ve just sent a robot into the room. If you speak up we can communicate through the bot.”
“Hello.” Her tone was tentative and, even in a single word, her fear evident.
“We’re here to safely get you out of this device, but I’m going to need your help.”
“What…what do you need?”
“Our robot is going to get up close and friendly with you now. The tech will direct it to lift the tent flap and zoom in the camera so I can get a good look at the device, and then we’ll take a few x-ray pictures of it.”
“Okay.”
“In all of this, I need you to remain still.”
“Okay.”
“We’re signing off for a few minutes so we can concentrate on the robot. Do you have any questions before we do?”
“N-n-no.”
“Okay, back in a few,” Cal said lightly, though the tightness in his gut had moved to his chest, too.
Frankie muted the mic.
Cal took a step closer. “From what I’ve been able to ascertain on the previous bombs—”
“Previous.” Frankie’s head shot up and he stared at Cal, who could almost see the thoughts racing through the guy’s head like sports scores on the bottom of a TV screen. “This is the work of the Lone Wolf, isn’t it?”
Cal nodded.
Frankie clutched a hand to his chest, then let it fall with a thud to his knee. “Man, oh, man.”
“Relax.” Cal rested his hand on Frankie’s shoulder. “This is the same job you were doing a second ago. Nothing has changed.”
“R-right. Same job.”
“Do you need me to take over?” Cal wasn’t familiar with this robot and, even nervous, the kid would likely do a better job.
“I got it.”
“Then as I was saying, the explosives will be packed in the rear of the bomb. I’d like a clear picture of that section along with x-rays for the entire device.”
He nodded and started Anne Droid moving to the tent where her pinchers lifted the fabric. Cal forced himself to breathe as the first pictures came over the monitor. The woman sat in a dining chair, her back rigid and shoulders level. She had a square face with a broad nose and her dark brown eyes were wide with terror. Her gaze darted around, but she remained seated and motionless. The white pipe circled her neck, and the front coupling held a crude drawing of a skull and crossbones as Cal had expected.
“We saw the design when we placed the tent,” Frankie said. “Is that the Lone Wolf’s signature?”
“Yeah, and I need you to keep that bit of info to yourself.”
“No problem,” he replied.
Cal doubted, despite good intentions by Frankie, that he would be able keep this quiet. Best case, he’d share it with his wife. Worst case, he’d pass it on to his sergeant, who would run it up the chain of command and word would spread, but Cal couldn’t worry about damage control right now.
At the moment, the most important thing was to get his mind into the game, as it was clear that he would be donning the eighty-pound suit waiting for him outside the truck. Even if a cell signal couldn’t pierce the tent to set off an explosion, Keeler packed his bombs with many hidden switches, and Cal had to be careful if he didn’t want to go boom right along with the device.
* * *
Spotsylvania County, Virginia
Tara’s palms were slick with sweat, so she scrubbed them over her jeans. She’d sat with June for thirty minutes now but time dragged. Each second, each moment an hour. Tara’s mouth had gone dry long ago. She wanted to get a glass of water, but June couldn’t risk tipping her head back, and she didn’t have any straws in the house, so Tara wouldn’t seek creature comforts for herself while June suffered.
“How did we find ourselves in such a situation?” June asked.
Tara shook her head. “I should have seen how unstable Oren is.”
“Now, don’t go blaming yourself. I spent more time with the guy than you did.” June swallowed hard. “Besides, Cal once told me that guys like Oren were good at hiding their psychopathic tendencies, and it wasn’t uncommon for people around them not to see it.”
“It’s one thing to hear that. Another to believe it.”
“So,” June said. “What’s the first thing you’re going to do when your Agent Riggins comes riding in with his White Knights and saves the day?”
Tara smiled at the vision of Cal and their team on horses galloping across the field to save them, likely June’s intent.
“Maybe you should start by asking him out on a date,” June suggested.
Tara swiveled to stare at her aunt, who was grinning.
She smiled. “Come on, sweetheart. I’m old but not blind. There’s chemistry between the two of you.”
“If you got to know him better, you might not be encouraging me.”
“Whyever not?”
“He has many of the same controlling tendencies as Nolan.”
“Hogwash.” June’s chin jutted out, and Tara could see she worked hard not to move her body to express her vehemence. “He might take charge and know what he wants, but he’s nothing like Nolan.”
“You hardly know Cal. How can you be so sure of that?”
“Easy. I can read people, and I pegged Nolan for the louse he is the first time I met him.”
Tara gaped at June for a moment. “You never told me that.”
“When a woman thinks she’s in love, she doesn’t always listen, so I kept my mouth shut.”
“But I could have married him.”
June smiled. “I would have stepped in long before that happened.”
Tara shook her head and wished she could clear her mind from the immediate danger to think about Cal, but all she could envision was him walking up to the woman with a bomb like the one around June’s neck and the device exploding, taking Cal out with it.
She shuddered. “I sent him over there. To the woman with the bomb. What if it’s gone off? If he’s—”
“Now don’t even think such a thing,” June warned. “He’ll be okay. We have to believe God will watch over him.”
“You’re right,” Tara said, but despite her earlier prayer, she didn’t feel confident.
The phone chimed in her hand, and she jumped a foot from her chair.
“You ready for this?” she asked June.
“Yes,” June replied, but fear darkened her eyes for the first time.
Tara accepted the Skype call.
“Hello,” Tara answered.
“Let me see June,” Oren demanded.
Tara turned the camera to June.
“Good work, Tara,” Oren said. “I know you came alone, and my people tell me your Secret Agent Man has arrived on site and is busy trying to save Hadil.”
Hadil. That was her name. The woman. The one with the bomb that Cal was trying to save. Tara forced the image of another woman wearing one of these hideous bombs from her brain and with it went the sight of Cal in danger.
She turned the phone back to her face so she could see Oren’s expressions and judge his sincerity. “You’ll let June go now.”
“Um,” he replied, and tapped his chin. “Not quite yet.”
Tara glanced at June to see her response, but she sat stoically, her emotions tucked away where only she could know them.
“When?” Tara held her breath in wait for an answer she doubted she would like.
“Soon.” Irritation deepened his voice. “First, you must follow my directions. Get back in the car and head up Highway 17 going north. Take this phone with you and stay on the road until you hear from me again.”
“But where am I going?” Tara hated how desperate she sounded.
“It’s a surprise, but it’s worth it. Trust me. I’ve wanted to see you ever since the night of the unfortunate incident between us. And now…” He paused, the time ticking by in excruciatingly painful seconds. “Now we’ll have the chance that we’ve always dreamed of. Oh, and Tara? I know all about you and Secret Agent Man. Unfortunately, he’ll have to die or you’ll never be free.”