As she left the Blue Parrot, Lewis knew she would be followed by Aziz’s operatives. She didn’t bother to look for them. She hailed a taxi, and told the driver to take her to the Dolphin Mall.
It was a bit of a drive, and she smiled to herself as they headed that way. Of course Aziz would have her followed. Knowledge was power, and if he could track her, perhaps it would give him leverage.
The mall, a few miles west of the Miami International Airport, was a huge place, hundreds of stores, a million and a half square feet. If she couldn’t lose a tail there, she didn’t deserve to be playing this game.
She enjoyed the air-conditioning in the cab. This dress, plus what she had on under it, was passing warm.
Finally, they arrived. She paid the driver and entered the mall. It was crowded, even on a weekday—shoppers, elderly walkers, mall rats. She walked purposefully to Lace and Secrets. She had been here to check it out before the meeting with Aziz. He would not have brought a female op to their meeting because he would not have considered the idea that he was going to meet a woman. A man alone in a woman’s lingerie shop wasn’t exactly rare, but he’d stand out. The help would be all over him—if the op was stupid enough to come into the place.
She browsed lingerie until she spotted her tail. A short, young, swarthy man with a moustache stood by one of the benches outside the store, pretending to look at a newspaper. He wore a white shirt and gray trousers. A few meters away, a second man, cut from the same cloth, pretended to be talking on a pay phone.
Both kept stealing quick looks at the shop.
They were amateurs. Might as well be wearing neon signs proclaiming them as undercover operatives. Here—look here!
Lewis would have grinned, but she was in persona now. So predictable. If Aziz was as smart as he ought to be, he’d have hired a blond surfer-type in shorts and a tank top for a sub-rosa op, or a barely dressed woman with a tan, who couldn’t have possibly spent her whole life under a burka. But these guys liked to keep things in the family. Lewis would bet that both of the young men out there were related to Aziz—brothers, cousins, nephews, like that.
She went to find a clerk. A young woman with a nose ring and a pierced eyebrow, about nineteen or so, was behind the counter.
“Yes, ma’am?”
Lewis tried to look frightened. “I wonder if you might help me? My ex-husband is out there, he’s following me, and I’m afraid he’s going to kill me.”
The clerk blinked. “You want me to call Security?”
“No, I don’t want any trouble. He’s—he’s a violent man. He beat me when we together. He carries a gun. I have a restraining order against him, to keep him away, but that won’t help. If I can get away from him without him following me, that would be the best thing. Is there a back way out of here?”
She already knew that there was, but using it would set off an alarm—unless the alarm was deactivated.
“There is.”
“If I could go out that way, I could get to my car. I’m leaving town, going to stay with my sister in Houston. Can you help me, please?”
“No problem,” the clerk said.
Once she was in the hall behind the shop and the clerk had closed the door behind her, Lewis stripped off the dress. Under it, she wore shorts and a T-shirt. She pulled a pair of sandals from her bag, then left the dress, sensible shoes, and bag in the nearest garbage can. She headed for the parking lot and her rental car. With any luck, she’d be on a plane back to D.C. before Abdul and Sayed back there realized they had lost her.
There were, of course, other potential buyers. And she would contact them if Aziz didn’t work out. The next time they met, she would have Carruth and a couple of his troops backing her. You couldn’t trust a fanatic, and once Aziz realized that she could deliver, he would certainly try to avoid paying for it if he could. That was expected.
Lewis had reasons to hate the Army, but she didn’t hate her country. There was no way she would put an atomic weapon into the hands of a zealot who would kill hundreds of thousands without blinking, in the name of some warped sense of reality. He had to believe that she would, he had to know that she could give him what he wanted, so she had to demonstrate it, but it wasn’t going to happen. Not to mention that the target such a man would select might well be the town in which Lewis herself happened to be. Sure, she’d sell him the key—but there would be a nasty surprise waiting for Mr. Aziz when he tried to open that door. And the Army would give her a medal for it. How ironic was that?
8
Fine Point Salle d’Armes
Washington, D.C.
Thorn was sweating, and he hadn’t expected that.
He was fencing Jamal, just the two of them, in the small, threadbare salle he’d opened up a little while earlier.
This was his dream—or at least it was one of his dreams.
Thorn himself had come up the hard way, from a hardscrabble existence on the reservation, and fencing had been an escape for him. He wanted to help make it an escape for others, too.
So a few years ago he’d quietly bought this tiny gym in D.C., refurbished it slightly, and reopened as a salle. Then he’d put the word out on the street that he was open and looking for people who were interested in fencing.
Jamal was one of the few who’d responded.
Thorn toyed with the idea of putting in more time here, really putting forth the effort to grow this place into something big. Something like what had happened in New York City a few years back. He could hire a coach, reach out to the community, and put together something that could really make a difference in people’s lives.
But not now. A coach alone wouldn’t be enough. It would take a tremendous effort by someone with vision, with commitment to the dream. And since it was his vision, his dream, it pretty much had to be him pushing it. But he couldn’t. Not now. Not as long as Net Force demanded so much of him. But maybe, someday . . .
Jamal came in fast. Thorn threw a quick high-line parry and riposted to the open wrist, but the wrist wasn’t there. It had been a feint.
Jamal’s point dropped, circling beneath Thorn’s bell guard, then pressed lightly on the outside of Thorn’s blade, guiding it further inside and then leaping off for a quick strike to Thorn’s shoulder.
Thorn smiled and leaned back, letting Jamal’s point fall short. That had been a good try.
As he leaned back, he allowed his guard to drop further, then brought his own point up sharply, striking behind Jamal’s bell and landing solidly on the heel of his palm.
“Hey!” Jamal said. “How’d you do that? I should have had your shoulder!”
Thorn grinned. He was aware of Marissa seated on a bleacher off to the side, but he wasn’t fencing any harder just because she was watching.
Well, maybe he was fencing a little harder. . . .
“Nice try,” he said. “You set it up beautifully. The thing is, you can’t think too much. If I’d been paying attention to what you were doing, trying to anticipate your next move, you’d have had me.”
Even through the mesh mask, Thorn could see his young opponent frown. “What, then?”
“It’s like I’ve said, Jamal, anticipation will get you killed—as it would have cost me a touch just now. No, there’s a different approach I want you think about. When you fence, what do you focus on? With your eyes, I mean? Where do you look?”
Jamal shrugged. “I don’t really focus on anything. You taught me that. I keep my eyes pointed pretty much straight ahead, but by not focusing I allow my peripheral vision to see more.”