Maggie stepped in and turned to Fred. “So, who’s DeLeyon?” she asked.
“He’s Brent’s Little Brother.”
Maggie swung her gaze. “You’re DeLeyon Jones, the high school kid?”
“Yeah,” he said.
She knew about him, that he was sixteen, smart as hell. He was slouching, but she guessed he was at least six-seven. She took in the long, bony face, intelligent eyes, lips that lifted at the corners with unexpected humor. “You get on the wrong train?” she demanded.
“Damn,” DeLeyon said. “That sound like a cop question.”
“Well, I’m a cop,” Maggie said, her voice taking on a measure of heat.
“Easy now,” Fred interjected. “DeLeyon came looking for me cause he wants to help Brent. I figured it was better to bring him here than leave him.”
“He needs to get a train back to New York,” Maggie said.
“You best put me in cuffs,” DeLeyon said. “Cause I ain’t going less you do.”
“I think he could help,” Fred said.
“Great!” Maggie slapped the counter. “Let’s add endangering a minor to everything else they can throw at us.” Even as she said it, she knew Fred was right.
“That mean I stay?” DeLeyon asked.
“No!” Brent interjected. “Sorry.”
Maggie glanced at him, noting the pallor of his cheeks. She grabbed handfuls of his tee shirt just under his chin. “Everybody here made choices,” she said, giving him a shake. “You can be grateful, but you’re not responsible.”
He looked into her eyes and finally gave a nod. Then he looked around slowly at each of them in turn. “Thank you.”
Maggie let go of his shirt, went over to the kitchen table, and started to pull the rubber bands off her paper tube. “Okay,” she announced, her voice crisp. “The official answer is that neither Project Seahawk nor the FBI are going to pursue Prescott Biddle. However, Steve and I did more homework, and we’re convinced that he’s the guy.” She stopped and looked at Brent. “More important, we’re convinced of the terrorism connection.”
“Well, let’s go kick his ass!” Fred interjected.
Maggie spun and gave him a hard look. “We’re not going to kick anyone’s ass. We’re going to do this very carefully. Biddle’s got his own security detail, and we’re pretty sure the terrorists are on his property as well.”
She watched Fred’s face as the information sunk in, and then she unrolled the satellite photographs she’d requested from the NSA.
FIFTY-THREE
NEWARK, NJ, JULY 1
ANN JENKINS WORKED THROUGH ANOTHER pack of M&M’s and sipped stale, lukewarm coffee as she reviewed the duty reports. Tonight’s batch was mercifully thin because with half her staff reassigned and the others stretched to the breaking point, they had no time to file paperwork. She knew she ought to be grateful for small blessings, but she scowled. From a port security point of view, the situation sucked.
The politicos in Washington were sticking with their plan to bring POTUS to New York, and she was holding to her insistence that Project Seahawk needed to be at Condition Red. A leper would have been more popular than she was right now. Her own people were pissed off and overworked, the politicians were afraid rumors of her Condition Red would leak out and ruin the fantasy that the national security situation was under control, and the bean counters in Washington were grumbling about all the overtime her people were clocking.
Earlier that day, the Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security had called to remind her that she was only an Acting Director while her boss recovered from his open-heart surgery. The implication was clear—if she wanted to be a real Director someday, she better damn well stand her people down. Well, screw that! She ate the last M&M, crumpled the pack, and tossed it in the waste can.
She drummed her fingers against the desk, the only sound a dull thump. She glanced at her ravaged nails, but there was nothing left to chew. What she really wanted was a damn cigarette. No, she reminded herself, she was quitting.
She shook her head, fruitlessly trying to shake off the desire, as she turned again to the duty reports. She finished her review, stuffed them back in their file, and then signed and time stamped the cover page. Next, she started in on the requisition summary that showed the information requests that went to the FBI, NSA, Armed Forces Intelligence, or CIA from any Project Seahawk personnel. She reviewed them to make sure everyone was playing ball and sharing information properly, also to make sure people weren’t accessing unneeded or inappropriate material.
She jiggled her foot in a staccato beat. God, she wanted a cigarette, a strong one, preferably unfiltered, a Camel or Lucky Strike. She was so busy contemplating getting up and going outside to stand in the smokers’ area where she could at least sniff the second-hand smoke that she almost missed Maggie DeVito’s name.
She had been feeling bad all day about her inability to bring any follow-up to DeVito’s memo, which had been a sharp piece of deductive reasoning. Moreover, it demonstrated initiative and a creative intellect sorely lacking in too many law-enforcement people. DeVito had been frustrated and disappointed at the turndown, but she hadn’t whined or carried on. Jenkins liked the way her prettiness hid a tough character.
But why the hell was DeVito requisitioning satellite photos? She had a staff position, not a line job, which meant she wasn’t supposed to be working her own investigations. Jenkins placed a call to the satellite imaging section of the NSA and asked a technician to look up the photographs DeVito had requested. “What’s it of?” Jenkins asked.
“Looks like a waterfront estate on Long Island,” the man replied.
Jenkins scratched her head, again conscious of the lack of fingernails. “I need to know more. Who owns it?”
“Call you back,” the man said.
Ten minutes later, the man got back to her. “Belongs to a guy named Prescott Biddle,” he said.
Jenkins’ pulse quickened. She quickly looked through the rest of the report and saw that DeVito had ordered a number of images. “What were the other images?”
“Same shot, but for different dates and times.”
“What did they show?”
The man promised to check and get back.
Jenkins stood and paced her office. What the hell was DeVito doing? She went back to her desk, typed in a search program and designated DeVito’s computer. She called up a list of the searches she had run starting today and going back a week. Nothing looked interesting.
She ran another check, this one general, designed to look at all the Project Seahawk computers, and she put in Prescott Biddle’s name. Immediately, she got a hit. A New York State Police lieutenant named Kosinsky had run a check on Biddle. Kosinsky was big and good-looking, the type who look like he was bred to be a state cop. She hadn’t paid him much attention until now, but suddenly she wondered at the connection between Maggie and Kosinsky. An over-search of Kosinsky’s computer showed that he’d done concurrent searches on Fred Wofford, Owen Smythe, Betty Dowager, and a Reverend Howard Turner. Later, he’d done search on Brent Lucas.
She felt a prickle at the back of her neck. Lucas’s name had appeared in DeVito’s memo and been all over the law enforcement net. She remembered that Lucas worked for Biddle and was a suspect in several murders. She brought up Kosinsky’s searches and saw that Smythe was one of the murder victims and that along with Wofford and Dowager he had worked at Biddle’s firm.
A symbol blinked beside Turner’s name, meaning that more recent information was available. She updated the search, and then her breath caught in her throat. In the past forty-eight hours Turner and his wife had been found dead in what was termed a murder/suicide. Moreover, Wofford’s wife had reported her husband missing. What the hell was going on? Was Brent Lucas on a murder rampage, or did this information somehow help prove DeVito’s hypothesis? She resumed pacing, lost in thought, absently winding her red hair around her fingers until her phone finally rang.