“No? Enlighten me, then.”
She laughed. “We’ve only been here three days.”
“It’s the perfect pretend place to live, though, isn’t it?”
She smiled. “It is. Maybe someday it could be the perfect real place to live.”
“I’d really like that, Malin.”
“I want to talk business, Dutch.”
“Go ahead.” He held his breath, not sure he wanted to know what she was about to say.
“I’d like you to read the brief, and if there’s anything in it you think I should know, I want you to tell me.”
“I can do that.”
“Now, Dutch.”
He smiled and ran up two flights of stairs to the bedroom where he’d put his laptop. It had been so long since he’d looked at it, he didn’t know if it still had a charge. Just in case, he pulled the cord out of his bag too. As he turned to go back down to the kitchen, he saw Malin’s angel ornament sitting on the nightstand. He picked it up and took it with him.
“Are you sure you don’t want to read it?” he asked, setting the ornament on the counter in front of her.
“Maybe I will. It depends on what you think when you’re finished.” Malin picked up the angel and dangled it from her finger.
—:—
She would know, just by the look on his face when he read it, whether the brief contained anything significant. She doubted it did, but with the CIA, one could never be sure how much they knew and didn’t know.
The chime of the computer starting up signaled, and Dutch waited. She watched as he typed in his credentials, and then waited while he pulled up his email, downloaded the brief, and read it.
When he was finished, he looked over at her. “You were investigating Middle Eastern terrorist cells.”
Malin nodded. “Initially.”
Dutch waited, but there was no doubt he was holding back questions. “For what purpose initially?”
“I received an alert that a significant amount of m
oney had come into the US and went directly into a Super PAC. This happened right before the election.”
“When you say ‘right before,’ how close to the election are we talking?”
“Less than two weeks.”
“By the time it had to be reported, the election was over.”
“Exactly.”
“Then, what happened?”
“I received another alert that, close to the same amount moved out, transferred to a known terrorist organization, leading us to believe that there was a significant strike planned on US soil.”
“Ghafor?”
“He was the primary suspect.” The Islamic State was definitely in the top three of terrorist organizations that posed the biggest threats to the United States.
Dutch nodded, clearly trying to think this through; however, it would take him miles of thought before he got to the place where Malin was, if he ever got there at all.