The big old slug of a boat has crawled up to the quayside and moored below the approach to the select development where Mitzi Fallon is being held.
‘Tac response is ready.’ He turns to Owain: ‘We’re getting parabolic microphones trained on the building, we should have audio any minute.’
‘Good. Keep the men on standby,’ says Owain. ‘We have to maximize the chance of getting to the girls before they go in.’ He calls Madoc to catch up on developments across the Atlantic.
‘Gareth, can you speak?’
‘Not for long.’
‘How are we doing on finding the Fallon kids?’
‘Ross Green and Eve Garrett have identified some suspects. They’re pro teams that Marchetti or Mardrid are indirectly linked to. We need time to get a fix on where they are right now.’
‘Time is the one thing we don’t have.’
‘I know. I’ve got six tac teams out in the Bay area, spread both sides of the water, but it’s a big space. To be honest, without top-notch intel on faces and places, we’re going to draw a blank.’
Owain has already contemplated that bleak outcome. ‘If it goes badly, Gareth, I don’t want these animals leaving California in anything but a box.’
‘Understood. Is there anything else?’
‘There is. I’ve decided we can’t let al-Shibh and his followers run until the morning.’
Madoc winces. ‘We have a really good chance of identifying all the key members of this reconstructed cell.’
‘I realize that, but without knowing who their target is, let alone the location and time of the attack, it’s a risk we can’t afford to take.’
‘I just need a little more time. Let it run until al-Shibh takes us to wherever he’s going to lay his head tonight.’
Owain stands firm. ‘We can’t. I’m sorry.’
Madoc blows out a long sigh but doesn’t argue. ‘Okay. How do you want to play it? You going to call Ron Briers at the NIA?’
He wants to soften the disappointment to him. ‘Do you have someone on your “Tried and Trusted” list who you’d like to give a boost to?’
‘Yes, I do. Several people.’
‘Then you call it in. Always good to help those on the way up.’
‘Thanks, I appreciate that.’
‘No need. Just make that call to your guy and make it soon.’
‘Will do.’
Owain turns off the phone.
‘We’ve got sound,’ says Dalton. ‘It’s muffled but I can hear Fallon. She sounds in a bad way.’
145
The brunette spreads newspaper on the floor of the built-in closet. Her muscled friend strips Mitzi waist down, throws her into the space and shuts the sliding doors.
Being treated like a dog hurts almost as much as her busted nose and wounded shoulder. Gradually comes the added grief of extreme stomach cramps caused by the pills. Mitzi suffers in silence for as long as she can, then shouts through the blackness, ‘You guys best get me to a john. And quick.’
There’s a bang on the doors and the muscle shouts back, ‘You just do your mess in there, little doggie, and hurry the fuck up.’ He gives the wood a kick as he steps away.
Mitzi feels lower than low. Time is running out. She shifts sides to try to release the growing cramps. In the blackness she remembers the words of the strange old man at Caergwyn Castle. In her weakest moments she’s capable of the most amazing things.
Pain drains from her wounds and stomach. The thumping in her head stops. She’s able to distance herself from the torture, slip through an imaginary trapdoor and hide away and grow strong.
Mitzi pictures her babies. Remembers them being handed to her in the hospital bed. The soft touch of their faces. The wonder of kissing their cheeks for the first time. The surge of protective, maternal love. A love so strong she’d kill if she had to.
The closet doors slide open. She blinks as light floods her space.
The brunette puts her hand to her mouth and looks like she’s going to be sick. ‘Oh my God, what a fucking mess.’
Mitzi feels no shame. No embarrassment. Whatever happens next, she won’t give in. Won’t give up. Won’t let her girls down.
146
Joe Steffani of the NIA recognizes the incoming number on his desk phone and picks up straight away. ‘Let me guess,’ he says in his Bronx accent, ‘you’re calling to keep me from my kids and you’re gonna ruin my evening?’
‘Ruin it or make it?’ says Gareth Madoc. ‘Depends how you interpret the news I’m about to give you.’
‘Ha freakin’ ha. So, what exactly have you got for me, my strangely well-informed foreign friend?’
‘Ali bin al-Shibh.’
‘Shut the fuck up.’
‘Seriously. He is here in New York.’
Joe feels his stomach flip. ‘You sure of this? You got eyes on him or something?’
‘Eyes and ears. We’re so close we could floss his pearly whites.’
The NIA man grows suspicious. ‘Why?’
‘Why doesn’t matter. He just recorded a video message in the home of a senior mosque figure; now he’s in a car with a couple of bodyguards heading to JFK. Once he’s there, I guess he’ll go to a private hangar and vanish.’
‘Motherfucker.’ He pulls his jacket off the back of his chair. ‘You got hook-ups for me?’
‘Will have by the time you’ve called a team together. You’ll need other units too. At least four. We’ve got tails on the cell’s bomber, commander and associates.’
‘Jeez! You and your cowboys have been keeping things from us, Gareth. Naughty, naughty.’
‘I consider myself told off. Once you’re up and running we need to talk face-to-face.’
‘You bet your ass we do.’
Madoc hangs up. A screen on his desk shows Zachra Korshidi re-entering the place she calls home. He hopes to God that when everything starts happening he can get her out of there, alive.
147
CARDT psychologist Helena Banks opens the door of her boss’s office. ‘You got a minute?’
‘That’s all I’ve got.’ Bob Beam waves to a chair. ‘I just heard from Spinks. He struck out in Walnut Creek. The single guy who hired the big shack came up kosher. Turns out he’d split from his wife but still went to the cabin he’d rented for her and their three kids. He’d figured he’d paid for it so he might as well use it.’
‘Should have sub-let it,’ says Helena. ‘He’ll need all the dough he can get for maintenance. I’ve been thinking about vehicles.’
‘Go on.’
‘We talked again to Ruth Everett and she said she saw a sedan at the bottom of her drive. It was part of why she bought into the woman’s story about being alone and broken down.’
‘We went through this.’ He pulls a file from a tray stack on his desk. ‘Only two dozen single women renting sedans in the last week and they all paid by credit cards.’
‘I know. But I had research run rentals again and guess what, we have a guy who rented an RV at San Fran International and also a sedan in San Mateo.’
Beam feels his heart jump. ‘You got a name and address?’
She puts a yellow Stick-It on his desk. ‘Chris Wilkins, married man, has a business in LA.’
He peels off the paper. ‘Name and address check out?’
‘Yep. He exists. So does his business. House isn’t his though — it’s rented and the company is a mom-and-pop affair on an industrial estate. Type you could walk away from in a blink.’
‘Record?’
‘None.’
‘Wife?’