Chapter Thirty-Four
After sleeping a few more hours, Cassidy felt a little better. It was midafternoon, the sun out but clouds beginning to build. Beau was already up, at work in his study.
She made a fresh pot of coffee, carried the thermal pot in with a couple of mugs, and poured them each a cup. She set Beau’s down in front of him and turned to leave, but he caught her arm and tugged her down on his lap. A soft kiss turned slow and hot, and Cassidy’s whole body lit up. The man really knew how to push her buttons.
“Thanks for the coffee,” he said with another soft kiss. “Maybe it’ll clear my head so we can figure this out.”
Cassidy felt a little tug at her heart. She was in so deep with Beau. Way too deep. She wished there was something she could do.
Heading for her side of the desk, she opened her laptop and went to work. As soon as the screen lit up, she checked the GPS on Vaughn’s car, then muffled a curse when she saw that the battery was dead. So was the battery-operated audio device that worked off her cell phone.
She’d been expecting it. Still, they were tools that could no longer be used.
“Anything?” Beau asked.
“Batteries are gone. We’ll have to use the information we already have, go back over everything again.”
His mouth flattened an instant before he went back to work. They started nosing around, going through files, hoping to spot something they had missed. After an hour of unsuccessful digging, Cassidy sat back in her chair.
“Let’s take a break from the computer. What do you say we talk it out, run through our notes out loud, toss some ideas back and forth?”
Beau ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know how much good it’ll do, but maybe it’ll help.”
She picked up the yellow pad next to her laptop, and they headed for the table in the corner. She held up the notepad. “Old school,” she said as she sat down across from him. “Let’s start at the beginning.”
Beau grumbled but nodded.
Determination and another cup of coffee fueled them as they delved through the information they had collected in the past few weeks. Cassidy printed the most recent information they had and they went over it verbally, sharing their thoughts aloud.
Beau got up to stretch, work the kinks out of his neck, then sat back down. Cassidy drummed her pencil on the table, drawing his attention.
“What is it?” he asked.
“We’ve gone over this again and again, but we always come to the same conclusion.”
“Yeah,” Beau said, frowning. “Zero, zip, nada.”
“That’s right. So let’s try something new.”
“Something new,” Beau repeated. “I thought that’s what we were doing. But all right, I’m game.”
“Maybe the reason we keep coming up with zip is because we’ve been looking at this the wrong way.” Cassidy studied the notes she’d made on the pad, old ideas revived, new ones doodled on the thin blue lines, some scratched out, others rewritten.
“All this time we’ve been working the money angle,” she said. “The loan your dad made with Vaughn, blackmailing George Larson into selling Green Gables, the building deal on the side, the arson fire for the insurance money, Jess Milford demanding money from Vaughn to keep quiet about what he knew.”
“Money was what my father was all about.”
“Right. Which is why we keep thinking the favor Vaughn’s big client was after had to be something worth very large bucks. But what if money wasn’t what the client wanted?”
Beau pondered the notion. “Taggart says Jamal Nawabi is Luca Reichlin’s client. If Reichlin wanted a favor from Vaughn for his boss, it sure as hell wouldn’t be money. He’s already worth thirteen billion.”
“Exactly. So let’s make a leap and assume the Internet chatter is real. If Nawabi is part of a terrorist cell—”
“Terrorists don’t need money, either. With all the oil they control, groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS are swimming in dollars.”
“So what do terrorists want?” Cassidy asked, working through the problem aloud.
“They want to destroy infidels. Anyone who doesn’t believe the same way they do, Americans in particular.”
Cassidy sat up straighter. “That’s right, and to destroy infidels, they need access. Access, Beau. Access to planes to blow up the Twin Towers. Access to streets in the area where the Boston Marathon was being run.”
“Nawabi would want access to . . . Jesus—what was the favor my father provided? Either knowingly or unknowingly, he gave Vaughn’s client access to the capitol building! What better terrorist target than blowing up the Texas State Capitol?”
Hurriedly digging through the printed material they had collected, he tugged out the sheet with the list of contractors hired to do deferred maintenance.
“What was the name of the company Scott Watson recommended?” He ran over the names on the list. “There it is—you circled it. Hardrock Trenching.”
Her pulse started thrumming. “I remember it wasn’t a very big company. It had to qualify under the Small Construction Participation Assistance Program.”
“That’s right.” Beau shot up from his chair and pulled her to her feet. He tugged her over to her laptop. “Let’s see if we can get the names of the people who own the company and a list of employees.”
Excited now, thinking maybe they were finally on the right track, Cassidy sat down and started typing. “And we need to know exactly what job they are doing.”
By a little after four P.M., they had the answers they had been looking for.
“Sonofabitch!” Beau studied the laptop screen over Cassidy’s shoulder. “It’s hard to wrap your head around, but there it is.”
“We need to call Quinn Taggart,” Cassidy said urgently.
“Better yet, let’s pay him a visit. I don’t think this is something we want to talk to him about on the phone.”
Collecting their notes, making sure they had everything they needed, they set off in the Ferrari, Beau driving the car at breakneck speed toward FBI headquarters at One Justice Way, which on a Friday with heavy traffic took what seemed hours.
Cassidy refrained from mentioning that honking his horn and cutting in and out between cars wasn’t going to get them there any faster. Beginning to know her, Beau flicked her a sideways glance and tapped the breaks.
Cassidy flashed him a smile and for the first time in days, Beau smiled back.
“We’re almost there,” he said a few minutes later, turning off Storey Lane onto Justice Way.
Beau had called ahead, but Taggart wasn’t there. He had an appointment somewhere else, but Beau had demanded a meeting, told the man’s assistant it could be a matter of life or death. It was getting dark by the time the Ferrari parked in the lot of the federal complex and they walked through the main entrance into the big gray building.
“Agent Taggart’s expecting you.” An attractive middle-aged woman wearing tortoiseshell glasses sat behind a computer at the front desk. “Someone will be with you shortly.”
So Taggart had returned, as Cassidy had figured he would.
A few minutes later a young woman with glossy black hair slicked into a knot at the back of her neck walked toward them. Dressed in a navy-blue skirt suit, white cotton blouse, and low-heeled shoes, typical FBI attire, she smiled as she approached.
“I’m Special Agent Margaret Dominguez. Agent Taggart is waiting for you upstairs. If you will please follow me.” She was pretty, at least part Latina, with creamy skin and big brown eyes.
They rode in silence as the elevator swept them up to the fourth floor and the doors slid open. In a glass-fronted conference room, Quinn Taggart waited next to a long mahogany table.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” he said, shaking hands with each of them.
“If things hadn’t been happening so fast,” Beau said, “we might have figured it out sooner.”
Taggart indicated they should sit down, so they each took a seat in one of the rolling black vinyl chairs that lined the table. Beau set the manila folder they had compiled in front of him.
“Before we start,” he said, “we’d like to know where you are with Malcolm Vaughn.”
Taggart frowned. “Sorry, that’s FBI business. I’ve given you more than I should have already.”
Their lives were on the line. They needed to know what was going on with Vaughn, and as they had feared, the FBI wasn’t going to tell them.
Beau rose from his chair and braced his hands on the table. “You don’t have time to stonewall, Taggart. What’s in this file is urgent. It could be a matter of life and death. Tell us what we need to know.”
Cassidy noticed the faint tightening of Taggart’s square jaw. He wasn’t happy, but he was intrigued.
“We found a disposable phone in Franco Giannetti’s car,” the agent said. “There were calls between him and Clifford Jennings. We’ll be able to get a warrant for Jennings, but we aren’t quite ready to pick him up. If Jennings gives us what we need, we can bring Vaughn in. With luck, we can use him to go after Luca Reichlin. If Jamal Nawabi is connected to terrorism, our hope is Reichlin can help us prove it.”
Beau sat back down in his chair and opened the file. “It might not matter. What we have in here will answer most of your questions.” The information was also on the flash drive he handed to Taggart.
“This file contains a list of the companies currently working on deferred maintenance at the Texas State Capitol,” Beau said. “I think you’ll find one company of particular interest.”
He pointed to the name circled on the list. “Hardrock Trenching. Senator Scott Watson—now deceased—recommended them at the request of my father—now also deceased. It was a favor done for Malcolm Vaughn as repayment for a portion of a loan.”
“Go on,” Taggart said, clearly interested now.
“Hardrock Trenching qualified through a special program for small contractors. We can’t confirm since we don’t have the same information you have, but we believe at least some of the employees’ names will correspond with members of the terrorist cell you’re investigating.”
Taggart’s gaze sharpened on Beau. A pulse beat excitedly at the side of his neck. “How do you know this?”
They knew because Cassidy had dug through Hardrock Trenching’s bank accounts, employee tax withholdings, anything that would give them the names of the people working on the project, many of whom were Middle Eastern. She had also gone into the corporate records, which eventually led them to the name they were looking for—Jamal Nawabi.
Beau leaned back in his chair. “Let’s just say we received the information through an anonymous source.”
Taggart wasn’t pleased. “That’s your story?”
The glance Beau flicked Cassidy held a hint of amusement. “That’s right, and we’re sticking to it.”
Taggart’s mouth edged up, but only for a moment. “All right—for now. So you believe the men who work for this company are part of a terrorist cell.”
“That’s right. Turns out Hardrock Trenching is owned by a company named Mardax, which is owned by a corporation called Sandon. One of the owners of the Sandon Corporation is Jamal Nawabi.”
“What?” Taggart’s whole body went tense.
Cassidy spoke up. “If Nawabi is a terrorist, as you suspect, we think it’s possible the men working for Hardrock Trenching are planning to destroy the Texas State Capitol.”
Beau leaned toward Taggart. “For the most impact, it’s likely to happen when the entire legislature is in session. Which, though repairs are currently in progress—is going on now.”
Taggart was out of his chair before Beau had finished his last sentence. “Stay right here.” Striding through the door of the conference room, he disappeared outside.
Cassidy could hear him shouting orders as he headed down the hall. True, it sounded like something out of a TV movie, but the information they had compiled proved the threat was real.
“No matter what happens now,” she said, “it’s all out in the open. No point in Vaughn having us killed when the FBI knows everything we know.”
Beau rose from his chair, pulled her up, and into his arms. “Once the FBI follows the chain of evidence that starts with my father’s murder and ends with Jamal Nawabi, I should be completely in the clear and neither of us will be targets.”
Beau bent his head and very gently kissed her. “It’s almost over, baby, and I owe it all to you. If you hadn’t shown up that day in my father’s study, I’d probably be rotting in jail.”
Cassidy rested her cheek against his shoulder. Just a few more days and Beau’s name would be cleared. Her job would be finished. She could pack her bags and go home.
Her eyes stung. Even if Beau asked her to stay, she would refuse. She valued herself too highly to live in a dead woman’s shadow.
She ignored the ache in her throat and the pain that settled deep inside her. She was in love with Beau, but she would have to give him up. There was nothing else she could do.