Just as Knox had sat down to rest his legs after a continuous hour of pacing, a call came over the radio clipped to the HRT squad leader’s uniform.
“Repeat? Over.”
“We have Melissa Knox. She’ll be at the front door in fifteen seconds, sir.”
Sylvia’s whimper of delight pierced the sudden silence of the room.
The squad leader looked to Knox, whose eyebrows had arched downward toward his nose. “Give me that,” Knox said as he grabbed the radio. “Was anyone with her? Over.”
“No, sir. She said she was dropped off a few blocks away and ran home. Over.”
“Shit,” Knox said, handing the man back his radio. “If she saw any of them, I want an identification tech with a laptop here within the hour.”
Melissa was embraced and kissed by her mother and father, ate a container of yogurt, and then agreed to be debriefed by the HRT agents.
“And you only saw one of them,” Knox said.
Melissa nodded. “Just that one agent — I mean, man. He told me to lie down on the backseat so no one would see me. I asked him what was wrong, and he said he couldn’t discuss it, that it was very sensitive. Then after a while he got a call and he said he was taking me to a safe house. He gave me a blindfold to put on and said I wasn’t allowed to know where we were going because the CIA uses it, too.”
“How long did it take to get to the safe house?” one of the HRT agents asked.
Melissa shrugged. “I don’t know, we drove around for like an hour or two. After he got that call, it was like, maybe twenty minutes before we got there.”
“Did you hear any unusual noises? Bells, horns, jackhammers, trucks—”
“Maybe some trucks, big ones, you know, like tractor trailers.”
“Anything else?”
“It didn’t really seem like I was in a house. It smelled more like a cheap motel.”
Knox exchanged glances with the agent. “What makes you think it was a cheap motel?”
“It smelled like Lysol. And immediately after walking in, there was a really soft bed. I think I smelled cigarette smoke, you know, kind of like in the drapes or something. It was gross.”
“Then what happened?” Knox asked.
“He got another call.”
“Did you hear him mention any names? Did he talk about anything in particular?”
Melissa thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Not that I can remember.”
“What happened after he got that call?” the agent asked.
“That’s when we left. He said it was time to go, that everything was secure.”
“How long was the ride back home?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you’ve got to give us some kind of an idea,” Knox blurted, his frustration evident. “Ten minutes, an hour, two hours—”
“I said I don’t know, Dad,” Melissa said just as firmly. “I fell asleep. When I woke up, he was stopping the car and telling me I was a few blocks from home and that I should run. I thought he was kidding.”
There was a knock at the door, and one of the HRT agents walked out of the room to answer it. A few seconds later, an identification technician walked into the kitchen, followed by a handful of relief agents for the security detail and the head of the HRT. Agents Waller and Haviland brought up the rear, shirts creased, ties removed, and collars splayed open.
“Take ten minutes to get up to speed,” Knox said to the HRT assistant special agent-in-charge. “Then I want you to assemble a fresh team. I want some of them on my house, some with my wife and daughter should either leave the house tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, turning toward the door.
“Waller, Haviland, come into my study for a moment.” They followed Knox in and watched as he closed both doors. “We’ve got us a situation here, one that requires you two to be privy to highly sensitive information.” Knox looked at each of the men, reading their faces. After a brief pause, he continued, “How much background did Lindsey give you on Scarponi’s release?”
Waller shrugged. “Just that he was granted a new hearing based on some bogus witness that came forward. The judge bought it and that’s why we had to find Payne.”
“He was under electronic surveillance,” Knox said, “using a new type of microchip the Bureau developed. It was embedded deep in the buttock and was supposed to locate the offender at all times to within a ten-foot radius using the GPS system. The device was supposed to be foolproof.” Knox sat down heavily in his desk chair. “A month after Scarponi was released, we received some odd readings, like he was moving almost in a drug-induced manner. A couple of agents were put on him and they finally found out why he’d been running in circles. He’d somehow removed the chip and placed it in a rat. Obviously, we lost track of him.”
Waller shook his head. “Jesus Christ.”
“Suffice it to say that for the past four months, he’s eluded our search efforts. This threat letter we received was the first indication that he might still be in the country.”
“He stayed to finish the job,” Waller said. “Payne’s the only one who can hurt him. He gets rid of Payne, his problem’s solved.”
Knox nodded. “The surveillance chip was a covert operation. He didn’t know it had been implanted. At least, we don’t think he knew. No one — no one gets wind of any of this, am I making myself extremely clear?” Knox looked hard at both agents. “There can be no misunderstandings, or I’ll have your careers.”
“What about Harper—”
“No one. No… one,” Knox said, emphasizing each word separately.
The agents exchanged an uneasy look, then turned back to Knox.
“Yes, sir,” Haviland said as the door to the study opened.
“Dad?” Melissa walked in holding her purse in one hand and a small electronic device in the other. “Did one of you put this in my bag?”
Just then, the device began to beep. Haviland jumped out of his seat and advanced on Melissa. “Give it to me real gently,” he said, holding his handout. “Jon, call the EOD unit and alert ATF. I think we’ve got us a small incendiary device.”
“A what?” Melissa asked.
“A goddamned bomb,” Waller said as he grabbed the red telephone.
“Everyone out of the house,” Knox yelled.
“Hold it,” Haviland said, still cradling the suspect device in the palms of his hands. “Are we sure the area’s secure? They could be using this as a way to flush everyone out into the street. Car bomb, sniper, even a drive-by — any of which could take us all out before we knew what hit us.”
Knox looked at the small device, which was about half the size of a television remote.
The lead HRT agent walked in, saw the unit in Haviland’s hands, and cursed under his breath. “Don’t make any sudden movements.” He stuck his head through the study door. “Vasquez, take three men with you and secure the area. We need a clear path to the HRT truck. You’ve got one minute.”
“Hold it,” Waller said. “One minute? In the dark—”
“One minute,” Knox said as the device continued to beep. “Then we all come out and take our chances.”
EOD, Metro Police’s bomb-disposal unit, was at the Knox home in less than nine minutes. Fifteen minutes would have been an acceptable response time, but that it was the director’s residence forced a quicker, more immediate reaction.
After having done their best to secure the vicinity, the agents began evacuating the neighbors in the surrounding two-block radius and secured both entrances to the street. Brief examination and X-ray analysis of the device revealed it was safe enough to move by robotic transport to the bomb detonation truck.