More mumbling among the ranks, which sounded more positive than negative to Sharpe. This was a dedicated crew, that essentially had the rug pulled out from under them this morning. They had built a legacy over the past three years, and he was confident they were in this for the long haul.
"Lastly, I want to thank all of you for your hard work in the face of this morning's disaster. It's been a long, frustrating day, and I wish I could tell you it's going to end sometime soon, but I can't. If you need a break, coordinate with your team, and grab some rest. Just stay out of my office," he said, and several agents broke into tired laughter.
"I'll pass word to your section chiefs, and we'll redirect those that need redirecting," he said, and turned to O'Reilly.
"What's up?"
"Nothing substantial, but it might be something that can help Edwards put some pressure on Petrovich's wife," she said, and he immediately moved her away from a group of agents standing nearby.
"Let's keep talk like that between the two of us. What did you find?" he whispered.
"Sorry, sir. I've been running the pictures from Petrovich's house through our facial recognition software, trying to get a three-dimensional composite prepared for widespread distribution. INTERPOL provided us more images of Marko Resja."
"You didn't request that, did you?"
"Not really. Sort of. I made up some bullshit about some international war criminal database maintenance on our end, and they sent me electronic files for over a hundred suspected war criminals. I can't imagine this will raise any alarms anywhere," she said.
"Alright…nice work. Is that it?"
"I found a few pictures of Petrovich, as Marko…with Zekulic," she whispered.
"Really? I see where you're going with this, and I'd love to send those off to Edwards, but-"
"It gets better. I ran some images of Jessica Petrovich through the system, to compare with Zekulic, and I'm getting a 62 % match average over several photographs," she said, and he continued to stare at her with a quizzical look.
"That sick son-of-a-bitch cut his girlfriend's head off in Serbia, then replaces her when he gets back to the states. I bet if you showed her one of these photos, and told her the story…she'd cough him up pretty quick. Throw in the need for our Witness Protection Program, and it'll be a slam dunk," she said softly enough to avoid being overheard.
"Can you send these pictures to my computer? I don't think we should talk about this again. It's a nice idea, but it would completely violate our CIS agreements. This is the fruit of a very poisonous tree. Good work," he said, and turned toward the door leading out of the center.
Sharpe felt a pit rising in his stomach as he walked down the hallway to his office. He had very few options at this point, and wasn't hopeful that his task force would turn anything up at this point. His pep talk was a mandatory push, and he knew they'd have to dig through this haystack for at least forty-eight hours before dialing down the intensity. Tomorrow he'd have every high profile FBI and Justice Department VIP rolling through his operations center, and they'd be watching his task force closely. Unless he could break this open tonight.
He reached his desk, and gave the situation one more spin through his head. He felt his heart race, the result of adrenaline coursing through his veins each time he flipped open his cellphone and searched through the list of names. He heard an email message hit his computer inbox, which provided a brief distraction. He saw that the message came from O'Reilly, and his heart rate spiked. He opened one of the attachments, and saw a black and white picture of Marko Resja and Zorana Zekulic walking arm in arm down a crowded street somewhere in Serbia. The next one was a color photo of the couple in a barren park. Zorana was laughing in the photo, and that sealed it for Sharpe. What kind of psycho butchered his girlfriend like that? He pressed send on his cellphone.
Chapter Forty
Special Agent Edwards glanced around the office, about to shut the door and lock it behind him, when his cell phone rang. He kept the door open, and fished the phone out of his front pocket. The caller ID read "Sharpe," and he immediately answered the call.
"Special Agent Edwards."
"Edwards, this is Sharpe. Where are you right now?"
"I'm at the satellite office with Jessica Petrovich. We just finished an initial battery of questions, and we're taking a break to get her some food," he said, and whispered to her, "Just a minute."
"Who's in charge at her house?" said Sharpe.
"My team's processing the house, and D'Angelo is coordinating with the Portland Police. I needed to get her out of there," he replied.
"Can you go somewhere private? I have some information to relay that is sensitive," said Sharpe.
"Sure, hold on one second, sir," he said.
"I need you to wait in the reception area here while I take this call," he said to Jessica, and she frowned.
"I'm starting to lose my patience with this. I'm starving," she said, not budging from the hallway.
"Please. He might have information about your husband. It won't be long," he said, and motioned for her to come back inside, which she reluctantly did.
Edwards walked over to the nearest office, and closed the door.
"Alright, I'm alone."
"Justin, we've had a few major setbacks within the past hour…"
"I heard about the shootout outside of D.C., and so did every cop in Mrs. Petrovich's house. That's why I had to get her out of there. Mendoza stressed the importance of getting some useful information out of her, and nothing was coming out while they tore her house apart in front of her."
"We've had bigger problems than that. Munoz escaped. Olson's prisoner transport convoy was hit outside of Stamford, and the Pentagon was hit from the inside. We've been mining information from a classified source, and that source was stolen less than an hour ago."
"Jesus, sir. Is everyone OK?" he said, not really caring if Special Agent Olson survived the attack.
"Everyone's fine, but we lost everything moving our investigation forward. Jessica Petrovich is all we have right now," said Sharpe.
"I'm getting close with her," said Edwards.
"Do you think she knows how to find him?" asked Sharpe.
"She has to know something. Two calls originating from D.C. cell towers were placed to her house this evening. Each from a different cell phone. She's changed her story once. Now she remembers that her husband checked in with her about an hour before we hit the house, but he didn't give her any details about where he was staying or when he'd be back. She told me in the house that he hadn't called. She knows more than she's telling us," he said.
"Alright. I need to trust you with something delicate…"
"You can count on my discretion, sir," said Edwards.
"Can you log into a computer in that office?" asked Sharpe.
"Uhhh…yeah. I have an access code. I just need to grab one of the empty offices."
"Here's what I need you to do. I'm going to send a few images to your bureau account. I want you to show these images to her. Let me give you a little background on this. Nothing I say to you is to ever be repeated. Are we clear on that? I can't stress how important this is," said Sharpe.
"I understand. You can trust me implicitly," said Edwards.
"Daniel Petrovich lived a very different life less than a decade ago. A life that gave him the skills to pull off what you saw today at Mr. Ghani's house, and vanish without a trace. A background that allowed him to cut through two teams of ex-special forces security contractors without skipping a beat. I'm sending you a picture of Petrovich from his former life, and the picture shows him with a woman he is accused of brutally murdering. Hacked her head off to be precise. This is one hundred percent confirmed. No mistake.