“Excellent. I like that guy.”
“He’s the best, albeit a little unorthodox in his methods.”
“Keep me posted.” Smith hung up.
“Was that Ms. Russell?”
Smith nodded. “They were unable to catch the shooter. She’s suggesting we lie low for a while.”
Nolan looked around the room. “For how long?”
He put up his hands. “I don’t know.” He wanted to dive right in and demand some answers from her regarding her connection to Dattar, but he didn’t think she’d respond well to a blunt question. He decided to try to build a rapport with her first. “Are you hungry? I’m told there’s food here somewhere.”
She nodded. “Very.”
He smiled. “Then let’s have a look.” He shrugged off his jacket, draped it over a chair and stepped past her into the kitchen. He noticed that her eyes were locked onto his gun in the shoulder holster. She followed, which he counted as a win, given that it was the first time she had since he’d met her. It took him no time at all to find the ingredients for a sandwich. He made two, handed her a plate and a bottle of a tea drink.
“No bottled water, sorry.”
“Tea is fine,” she said. “I’m going to go upstairs to wash my hands first.” Smith nodded and settled into a chair by the kitchen table to eat.
Ten minutes later, when she still hadn’t returned, he shoved away from the table and headed upstairs to the second floor to investigate. The stairs ended in a long hallway, with two doors placed at the beginning and the end. He slowed and pulled his gun out of the holster. The first door opened into a small bedroom, sparsely furnished with a bed, a dresser with another flat-screen on top, and two nightstands. A door at the back opened into a compact bathroom with a shower and one sink. No Nolan.
He returned to the hallway and headed to the next door, which he now assumed must contain the master bedroom. He opened the door to find just that: a slightly larger room with a king-sized bed, standard dresser, and television. A bank of three separate double-hung windows were to his right, and a cool breeze flowed into the room from the one farthest from the door.
She was gone.
17
STUPID ME, SMITH THOUGHT, and sighed. He placed his free hand on the windowsill and leaned out. The fire escape was empty, the bottom rungs still retracted. She must have jumped from there to the ground. He looked around the area but could see no sign of her. He closed the window, locked it, returned to the kitchen, and pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. He dialed Marty, who picked up on the second ring.
“Jon, I’m surprised to hear from you. Did you find her?”
“I did. And just lost her again.”
Marty snorted. “I’m watching breaking news about the gunman in the Landon Investments building in New York. So the dead woman wasn’t her.”
“It was her receptionist. I brought her to a safe house, but she gave me the slip. Ms. Nolan is not as cooperative as I expected.”
“I told you she looked angry. Angry people never do what you want.”
Smith paused. Marty’s comment was astute, but once again he didn’t think “angry” was the right word to apply to Nolan. “I know she’s got a telephone on her, as well as a tablet computer. Can you track her through either?”
“What type of software on her phone?”
“No idea.”
“Number?”
“Nope.”
Marty gave a gusty sigh. “You’re not giving me much to go on here.”
“I know. Sorry.”
“I’m going to have to hack the major carriers, find her number, and then see if I can track her. Some systems have built-in GPS, which will pinpoint her exact location, but others only triangulate her signal from a nearby tower. In the last case I’ll only be able to get you a radius. You’ll have to canvass for her. How did she get away? Are you losing your touch?”
Marty’s comment served to raise Smith’s annoyance with himself. Marty was right; he should have predicted that she’d run, but the reality was that he couldn’t have held her in the safe house against her will in any event. “I made the mistake of assuming that as a civilian she’d be a whole lot more cooperative than she was. In fact, she’s not behaving like a civilian at all.” She’s behaving like someone with something to hide, Smith thought.
“What’s she like?”
“Serious, smart, and obsessed with her job. She reacted to the news that an assassin was after her with a lot less emotion than I expected.”
“She sounds like me,” Marty said. Smith raised an eyebrow. Once again, Marty was close to the truth. Smith wouldn’t be surprised if he was told that Nolan was somewhere on the spectrum for Asperger’s. Marty continued, “What are you going to do while I track her, again?” Marty seemed to be enjoying himself at Smith’s expense.
“I’m going to her home. As an amateur that’s probably the first place she’ll head.”
“You just told me she’s not acting like a civilian. Why are you treating her like one?” That brought Smith up short. There came a beep on his phone.
“I’ve got a call coming through. Let me know the minute you find anything.” Smith hung up and switched over.
“It’s Randi. I’m coming in the front door so don’t blow my head off.” Smith still had his gun in his hand. He shoved it back in the holster. He heard the door open and after a moment Russell stepped into the kitchen. She wore dark jeans topped by a loose-fitting cotton T-shirt and a short blue blazer. On her feet were black sneakers with white rubber soles.
“I lost Nolan,” he said.
“What? How?” Russell looked shocked. Smith told her the whole sordid story, finishing with the information that he had Marty tracking her cell. Russell looked down at Nolan’s sandwich, still sitting on the table. Smith followed her gaze.
“Do you want it? She didn’t touch it.”
Russell nodded. “I’m starving.” She pulled up a chair and uncapped the tea. Smith thought she looked pale and wan.
“Are you sick?” he said.
She nodded. “Picked up a bit of a virus, which is not surprising. We’ve been working around the clock in the hunt for Dattar.”
“Not from the swab, I hope,” Smith said.
She took a bite of the sandwich. “I wondered about that, too. I actually called Ohnara back and asked him, but he said cholera wouldn’t present with my symptoms or as a mild illness. If I had it, I would know it.”
“Well, that’s certainly true. I’ve seen it in action in Third World countries. It’s awful,” Smith said.
“What the hell does Nolan have to hide?” Russell said. “And I agree with you, she’s headed home.”
“Then let’s go. We’re only a few minutes behind.”
Russell pointed at his sandwich. “You haven’t finished. Don’t worry. I’ve got an officer stationed at her place. She shows up, he’ll lock her down for us. And I need to talk to you about something else.” Smith took a deep breath in relief. He should have known that Russell would have all angles covered. He sat at the table, but he found he was too keyed up to eat.
“Ohnara says the cholera sample is mutant, but he doesn’t think it poses a risk — at least not in this country. He ran it through our standard water treatment process and it died. In fact, he said it died so swiftly that he thinks the mutation weakened it somehow.”
Smith pondered that for a moment. “If that’s true, then he should start an experiment to introduce the mutation to the general cholera population. With a little tweaking, he could weaken the disease.”
Russell shook her head. “Don’t forget, without treatment it multiplied at an astonishing rate. It could just render the disease more virulent.”
“Well, that’s why you tweak it. Boost what you need and leave the rest,” Smith said.