He wished the supplements weren’t necessary. He wished the country could grasp the nature of the threat, as he did, and give him without question the tools he needed to combat it. But he supposed he couldn’t blame them. They didn’t have access to the information he did, they didn’t understand just how dangerous the world was, they didn’t know what was needed to keep that danger at bay.
Well, they knew slightly better today than they had the day before. And that was something, anyway.
CHAPTER
24
Evie was in her office, reviewing camera network footage. The director had told her to task the biometrics system with queries on every jihadist in the database, but she had received no meaningful positives. And though the prospect of manually reviewing the amount of footage her system scraped up from DC was daunting, she thought it was at least worth a try.
The working theory was that the terrorists had planted the device on the chassis of the food truck while it was out making deliveries, then had monitored the truck’s movements via a GPS-equipped phone attached to the device, detonating it when it was close to the White House. She had tried a few XKeyscore searches of various Internet and email parameters — anyone searching for food delivery routes, things like that — but got nothing useful. The detonator was likely the key. Which meant that somewhere in the building, teams of technicians were scrutinizing mobile phone metadata, trying to track whatever phone had made the call that triggered the device. She wished as always she could have access to that data; it would have helped her focus her own efforts. But of course everything was too compartmentalized for that.
The FBI had obtained the truck’s route from the day and week before, so she worked backward, going on the reasonably safe assumption that the bomb had been planted as recently as possible as a way of minimizing the chance of discovery. The work was tedious. So much footage, so many possibilities she had to zero in on, only to abandon them upon closer inspection. All the while knowing that her efforts would probably be useless, that no matter how diligent she was, the terrorists might have planted the device earlier, or from an angle she couldn’t see, or in a place where there was no camera coverage.
She tried not to let thoughts of the other night intrude, but it wasn’t easy. God, it had been so long. And while a vibrator was certainly better than nothing, she hadn’t realized just how much she must have been craving real human contact. Because… lord, she had really seduced poor Marvin. She felt herself blushing as she remembered. Was it the wine? She wasn’t sure where she had gotten the courage to talk to him like that. To… be with him like that. It wasn’t like her. She’d always let the man make the first move. Or at least she thought she had — before Sean, it had been so long she wasn’t even sure anymore. But something about the way Marvin kept trying not to look at her, and when he did, the hunger she saw in his expression, the longing… it was just such a turn-on, to be looked at that way. She remembered how easily he had lifted her and set her on the washing machine, how strong he was, and at the same time gentle. Well, not that gentle. She closed her eyes and remembered that moment when he had really started to fuck her, when she could feel him still trying to hold back but no longer able to, and she felt herself get wet. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been fucked like that. Never, was the truth. She’d ached the next day, wonderfully so. She wanted to ache like that again.
She smiled and thought, Slut.
He had texted her the next morning. Just one word: Wow. Such a perfect text. Not too much, not too little. She had texted back, Yeah? And had waited an awful few minutes before getting something even better than the first one: Can’t stop thinking about it.
Not Can’t stop thinking about you. That would have been too much, at this point. She didn’t want that. Can’t stop thinking about it felt honest. It felt right. It felt like… exactly what she was thinking.
He’d told her he had to be out of town for two days — a work thing. But that it would be good to see her again when he got back, if she wanted. She’d told him yes, she wanted. Wanted, there was a word. Right now, she didn’t even know what would happen when they saw each other. She couldn’t imagine having dinner with him, or a conversation, or anything like that. All she wanted was for him to put his hands on her again, and his mouth, and set her on that washing machine and do everything he’d done last time, everything and more.
She hadn’t heard from him since, but she wasn’t worried. If she’d been him, she’d be concerned about coming on too strong, and she would have waited a bit. Two days was nothing, and anyway that meant today, or tonight. Tonight was a nice thought. If he texted her after Dash was asleep, she’d invite him over for a drink. The thought made her shift in her seat and blow out a long breath.
She shook it off and focused again, tracking the truck’s positions through every available network of cameras. The mind-numbing hours crept by. And just as she had reached the point where she was convinced the whole exercise was useless, she saw a man, in glasses and an Orioles cap and pulling a wheeled carry-on bag, leave the sidewalk to cut behind the food truck where it was parked near Farragut West Metro Station. For about ten seconds, she couldn’t see him. Then he emerged and stepped back to the sidewalk. He was smiling slightly, the smile almost a sneer.
What the hell was that?
Feeling her heart rate kick up a notch, she backtracked and watched the footage again. Damn it, she couldn’t get the correct angle. She couldn’t see what the man was doing behind the truck — only that he stepped behind it, then out, and then was back on his way. Why would someone do that? Confusion over which way he was going, a street he was looking for, something along those lines? Maybe. He was carrying a bag, after all, and there were numerous hotels in the area. It was possible he was from out of town. But he was keeping his head down in a way she didn’t like. If he was a traveler and unsure of where he was going, he wasn’t going to pick up any clues looking at the sidewalk.
She tracked the man southeast and picked him up again near the Capitol. He was no longer carrying the bag.
Her heart kicked harder. What had happened to the bag? Had he checked into a hotel and kept walking? She examined the time lines and saw there was no way, he must have been walking steadily southeast, with no detours. He’d discarded the bag. He must have.
She was able to stay with him all the way to the Congressional Cemetery, where her coverage went dark. Frustrated, she expanded her search to the cemetery’s periphery. She could find no sign of the man. She examined the footage of every network all the way up until she was looking at things in real time. Still no sign of the man. She had a crazy thought: Could he still be in there? She’d have to apprise the director of the possibility.
But in fact, it felt like… something else. Like the man had known the cemetery was a blind spot. That he’d gone there deliberately, understanding that if anyone were tracking him through the camera network, in the cemetery the trail would go dark.
No, that didn’t make sense. How could anyone know something like that? Probably just a coincidence. Lucky for the man; unlucky for her.