When I went to pay, the cashier, who had multiple piercings, chinned down at the badge on my belt. “So what’s going on out there, man? How screwed are we?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t close the store just yet,” I said with what I hoped was a disarming smile. “Problem’s been contained.”
The whole idea was to keep the peace — maximum public confidence, minimum panic. But I think that clerk’s real question was the same one we all had. What next?
About ninety seconds later, I found out.
I WAS JUST pulling away from the curb when I picked up a call from Sampson. “Psych ward, hold please?” I answered with a bad joke.
“Alex, you heard the latest?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was just talking to Jerry Winthrop.”
“He say anything about when they’re going to start the autopsies?” John asked next.
The word autopsies stopped me cold. “What are you talking about? What autopsies?”
“Two more bodies found. At the Harmony Suites on Twenty-second. I’m on my way there now. Appear to be Saudis. What are you talking about?”
“Not that. Keep going. Who was found, exactly?”
“It’s another couple. Middle Eastern. Two empty glasses on the floor. Nobody’s saying suicide yet, but I’ll bet money there’s going to be cyanide in the coroner’s report.”
I pulled back up against the curb. I needed to try and absorb everything for a half second. Coincidences like these are usually a leg up in an investigation, but the more this thing folded in on itself, the scarier it got, the more bizarre and unpredictable. And definitely unprecedented.
“It’s getting too weird around here, Alex,” Sampson said. “I keep thinking what they always say about the next big attack, you know? Not if but when?”
“I know,” I said. “I know.” It was starting to feel a whole lot like when. “I’ll meet you at the bodies.”
IT WAS HOT and humid for one thirty in the morning, too hot for a jacket, but Hala needed something to cover the Sig holstered under her arm. She pulled at the front of the coat, to let in some air, for what it was worth. What she really wanted was to shoot somebody — anybody. She hadn’t known she had this much anger against the Americans, but clearly she did. It wasn’t just the wars they had waged in the Middle East, or the puppet leaders they had supported. It was the insults she had received as a student here.
“Who builds a city on a swamp?” she said. “At least the desert cools down at night.”
“Do you think something’s wrong?” Tariq hadn’t really been listening to her. He was pacing the sidewalk while Hala tried to keep as still as possible.
“They’ll be here,” she said. “Don’t worry the details. You’re the one who always says The Family knows what they’re doing.”
“The instructions clearly said one o’clock.”
“They’ll be here. You’re like an old woman.”
It wasn’t the hour that was bothering him, she knew. It was the sarin gas. They’d never worked with it before, but pointing that out now wasn’t going to do anything to calm his nerves.
Fortunately, the light blue Toyota minivan pulled up to the curb just a few minutes later. The side door flashed open, and a tall, gangly woman motioned for them to get in. They climbed into the backseat beside her as the door closed again, and the van took off. The whole thing took about fifteen seconds.
The feeling inside the vehicle was immediately tense. Besides the woman, Hala, and Tariq, there were three other men on the team. Actually, one man and two boys, Hala realized, each one as tall and thin as the other, with the same sharp, angular features as the adults. Two parents and their children.
Interesting group. To do what, exactly?
They all sat face front, not speaking, until Tariq broke the silence.
“We were waiting quite a while back there,” he said.
“Good for you,” the mother answered. “Here. Put these on.”
She handed back two tactical headsets with transmitters small enough to fit invisibly in their pockets. “Channel twelve. Stay on that station throughout the action.”
“Where’s my case?” Tariq asked. He turned around on the seat to look for it.