So the damage wasn’t total! she told herself, but the smoldering desire to find Robert MacCabe and snap his head off was leading her to short responses and a continuous push toward the exit. With her purse slung over her shoulder and a leather folder held tightly against her chest, she paused for a second outside the door, her eyes sweeping left and right before coming to rest on a figure almost directly in front of her.
Robert MacCabe was waiting ten feet away. His large hazel eyes watched her as he leaned uneasily against a huge concrete post with both hands shoved into the pockets of his suit coat. A case that probably held a computer was at his feet.
Kat strode the few feet to him with her jaw set, ignoring the mingling aromas of rich coffee from an espresso cart and suppressing her desire for some.
“So, Mr. MacCabe, to what do I owe the honor of that attack? That little sabotage-the-speaker routine?”
He smiled nervously, a disarming, toothy, Kennedy-esque smile, his tanned face framed by a full and slightly tousled head of dark hair. Five foot ten, late thirties, and probably an Ivy Leaguer, Kat decided. He was very young to have won a Pulitzer, but a lot better-looking in person than in the newspaper picture she remembered.
Robert MacCabe straightened up and took his hands from his pockets, raising them in a gesture of capitulation. “Agent Bronsky, honestly, I wasn’t trying to sabotage you.”
She fixed him with a steely glare. “That’s pretty hard to believe!”
He stared back, his eyes penetrating hers with equal intensity. “Look…” he began.
“No, you look, Mr. MacCabe! What I want to know is precisely what…”
She paused as he put his index finger to his lips and inclined his head toward several delegates standing nearby, talking in a cloud of cigarette smoke. The gesture instantly irritated her. She lowered her voice to just above a whisper, angry with herself for having lost control and ignoring the pleasant hint of a woody aftershave.
“I want to know what you were trying to accomplish in there, needling me about that MD-eleven crash and terrorism.”
“We have to talk,” he said simply.
Kat straightened up, her eyebrows raised. “I was under the impression that we were doing precisely that. Talk about what?”
His eyes had shifted to another group of delegates talking in the distance, audible above the background din of distant traffic and closer voices, and he continued to watch them as he answered. “About that crash. About the reason for my questions in there.” He wasn’t smiling now, she noticed.
Kat shook her head in disgust. “Sorry to disappoint you, but you are not going to trick me into a statement!”
Robert MacCabe’s hand was up in a “stop” gesture. “No! I’m trying to give you something, not get an interview. I remember you from the Colorado hijacking. I’ve been following you.”
Kat tried not to look stunned. “You followed me here?”
His eyes snapped back to hers. “No, I mean I’ve followed your career. I was assigned to cover this convention for the Post. That’s why I’m here.”
Kat stood in silence for a few moments, trying to read his expression. He shook his head and rolled his eyes before filling the silence. “Look, I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m not making myself clear. I bored into you back there because I had to know if you were the right one to talk to.” MacCabe looked around quickly. “And you are. Can we, maybe, go somewhere private?”
“Why?” Kat asked, aware that one of the delegates was waiting patiently at a respectful distance to talk with her. She smiled at the man and gestured “just a moment” before turning back to MacCabe.
“Because…” He stopped and sighed, shaking his head as he momentarily dropped his gaze to the floor, licked his lips, and struggled with a decision. Once again he glanced around, taking inventory of the man waiting and various stragglers nearby before nodding and leaning toward her.
“Okay. Look. Something’s happened. I’ve ended up as the recipient of some very frightening information… maybe I should say allegations. From a very, very reliable source. I wasn’t sure what to make of them at the time, but now…”
“Allegations about what?” A second delegate was waiting for her, she noticed.
“The MD-eleven crash and what might have caused it.”
“I told you in there, Mr. MacCabe, I am not on that investigation.”
His hand was up again. “Hear me out. Please! Something happened this morning that I don’t want to talk about here, something that makes me think the information I was given is dead-on correct.” He waited for a response, smiling nervously while running a free hand through his hair.
She sighed and shook her head. “So, why come to me? I’m not on duty here in Hong Kong. Well, I am, but only as a delegate.”
“You’re FBI, Agent Bronsky. Even when you’re taking a shower or sleeping, you’re FBI. I remember you said those words yourself in an interview after the Colorado hijacking. I’m coming to you because you know a lot about international terrorism. And I’m asking you to listen because I’ve changed my reservation and am flying back to Los Angeles in a few hours, around midnight, and it frankly scares me to death that I’m the only one who knows what I now think I know.”
Kat could see genuine worry in his eyes. “So,” she began, “this information is something you picked up here in Hong Kong?”
“No. Back in D.C. But I really don’t want to discuss it here, okay?”
“You said you’re leaving around midnight. Is that on Meridian Airlines?” Kat asked, her voice still cool, her thinking cautious.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Then we’re on the same flight.”
A look of surprise crossed his face. “Really? Tell you what. I’m staying in a hotel down the street and I have to go check out and get my stuff. Let me get a cab and come by here to pick you up early, say in about forty-five minutes. If you’ll let my newspaper buy you dinner, I’ll lay this all out for you.”
Kat shook her head no, then shot another “please wait” smile at the gathering fan club ten feet away. There were four men now waiting for her.
“Please!” Robert MacCabe added, keeping his voice low.
“I’ve got a better idea, Mr. MacCabe. Let’s just talk on the plane.”
“No. Please! I hate to make this sound like cloak-and-dagger stuff, but what I have to tell you is too sensitive to throw around on a crowded airplane.” He reached out and carefully touched her arm. “Look. I’m not kidding. This may be very serious and I don’t know whom else to talk to.”
Kat studied him carefully for a few seconds, wondering what sort of ploy could possibly spawn such a request.
None, she decided. She sighed and nodded.
“All right, Mr. MacCabe. Forty-five minutes. As much as I hate to admit it, you’ve tweaked my curiosity.”
“Great!” he said, turning to go.
She watched him walk off, reminding herself suddenly that people were waiting to talk to her.
CHAPTER 3
Robert MacCabe folded the international edition of USA Today and put it in a side pocket of his computer case. He glanced at his watch, his mind far away as the hotel elevator opened on thirty-two. Forty-five minutes had been ambitious, he concluded. He’d have to hurry to pick up Katherine Bronsky on time.
He shot through the elevator doors and almost collided with a large man in his path. “Sorry,” Robert mumbled, as he turned down the long hallway, belatedly aware that he hadn’t heard the elevator doors close. He was thirty feet down the hall when a sudden compulsion to look back overwhelmed him. He stopped and turned.