Red Cell Seven (4 page)

They hadn’t given Kaashif anything since yesterday afternoon, so it had been almost twenty-four hours. He had to be pretty well dehydrated at this point. “Agent Smirnoff,” Travers called over his shoulder. “Can I have that glass of water for our guest?”

“Absolutely.”

Nathan Kohler’s ongoing agony from the Taser attack was still audible—which Travers liked. It made this situation even more frightening. He could tell by Kaashif’s expression that he was hearing those sounds of suffering coming from the other side of the open door. He had no idea who was in pain or why—only that someone was.

“How old are you, Kaashif?”

“Seventeen,” he muttered as he strained against the rope binding his wrists.

“That’s what your driver’s license says, but I don’t believe it. I say you’re at least twenty-four.”

“I don’t know why you are so hating me. It must be because I am a Mus—”

“Here you go.” Boyd tapped Travers on the shoulder. He’d also donned a ski mask before entering the interrogation room. They always wanted to leave open the possibility of letting the subject go. That couldn’t happen if the sub saw their faces. Then they’d have to kill him.

“We good?” Travers wanted to know.

“Oh, yeah.” Boyd handed over the glass and then headed back out. “Very good.”

Travers held the glass up to Kaashif’s lips and tilted. He nodded approvingly as the young man drank every drop. When the water was gone, Travers turned and hurled the glass against the wall, shattering it into hundreds of pieces. Then he picked up the bucket in the corner—it was filled with ice water—and doused Kaashif.

He waited for the frigid liquid to have its effect. When Kaashif was shivering and sobbing uncontrollably, Travers grabbed the young man’s chin and shook it hard. “What exactly do those transmissions mean?”

“I do not know what transmissions you are talking of. Please let me go home. I want to see my mother and father.” Kaashif’s sobs grew even louder. His trembling lips were turning dark blue.

“Why was your name mentioned in them?”

“It must have been someone else they were talking about. I am just a high school student.”

“High school’s your cover. You and I both know that.”

“No, that is wrong.”

“You started this year at this school, but there’s no record of where you were before that.”

“My parents moved down to Philadelphia from Toronto last summer. You can check it out.”

“You’re lying, you little bastard.” Travers shook Kaashif’s chin hard again. “When will the attack come?”

“What attack?”

“
Where
will it happen?”

“I do not know, I swear.” Tears began to roll down Kaashif’s face in fast-running torrents. “I told you, I am just a high school senior. How could I know anything?”

Travers grabbed a rope from one of the chest drawers and then moved back to where Kaashif was hanging. He tied the ends of the rope together so it formed a closed loop ten feet long, slipped one end of the loop over Kaashif’s head so it rested on the young man’s neck and shoulders, and then stepped back several paces. The rope sagged in the middle until Travers took a short piece of pipe he’d also snagged from the drawer, put the pipe into his end of the loop, and began to turn. The sag in the rope decreased as the head of the twist slowly approached Kaashif’s vulnerable throat.

“Tell me about the attack,” Travers demanded as the twist advanced. “That’s the only way you live.”

Kaashif turned his head slightly to the side as his upper lip curled, and he swallowed hard. “I do
not
know anything.”

“Save yourself, son. Why die? What’s the point?”

“I cannot save myself. I have no information. I should be taking a calculus test today. Please let me go.”

“I don’t have time for this. Tell me.”

“I do not know anything,” Kaashif repeated. His voice was shaking wildly.

“Tell me!” Travers roared. “Or so help me God I’ll kill you!”

As the rope closed in on Kaashif’s soft throat, he began to scream. Even through the screams, Travers could hear Boyd chuckling in the doorway.

Travers liked Harry Boyd. The man’s honor, bravery, and commitment to country could never be questioned. He was a hero, a true patriot, though few people knew how many times he’d risked his life to keep America safe—how many times they both had. And they’d become fast friends along the way.

Travers grimaced as Kaashif continued to scream and Boyd continued to laugh. Harry Boyd was a good man, all right. But there was nothing funny about this.

CHAPTER 3

“I
T
’
S THE
best cell phone ever,” the young salesman said confidently, smiling widely from behind the glass counter as he handed the young woman the device. “Fits perfectly in your palm, right? Screen’s way cool. And what it can do is epic.”

Jennie nodded. It
did
fit perfectly in her hand, and it
was
very cool looking.

“You’re just lucky we’ve still got a few left over from the national rollout last week.” His smile grew even wider. “You must be a naturally lucky woman. Pretty, too,” he murmured after a few moments. “Very.”

“Thank you,” she answered self-consciously at his forward compliment.

She had long jet-black hair, green eyes, light brown skin, and full lips that framed a high-cheekbone smile. Today she was wearing a low-cut blouse, snug jeans, and heels—edgy but not over the top. She’d caught the looks on her way through the mall to this store.

“Is this a last-minute Christmas gift for your boyfriend?”

Jennie recognized the intent behind the question—and the smile. She’d seen that smile many times from white boys. He was fantasizing about being with a Latina, but that was okay. She didn’t mind. He wasn’t being obnoxious about it, and guys were guys no matter the color of their skin. That was just the way of the world. She was only twenty-six, but she’d come to that conclusion long ago.

And she appreciated it when things were predictable. Predictability enabled one to prepare, and preparation was a key success factor in any endeavor.

“I’m getting it for myself, Chad.” He wasn’t bad-looking, either. “
If
I get it.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“I’m not sure yet,” she cautioned, glancing at her watch. She still had time. “Don’t count this thing in the sales column yet.”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant the part about you not having a boyfriend.”

She grinned as she glanced at the camera in the ceiling corner, which seemed to be aimed straight at her, wondering. “Okay, I’ll take it. It’s a lot of money, but hey, so what?”

“Impulsive. Love it. What about dinner tonight? Can you be impulsive about a date with me?”

“Where are we going? Wendy’s?”

The guy’s happy expression disintegrated. “Is it that obvious I don’t—”

“I’m just kidding. And I wouldn’t care where we went. Besides, I like Wendy’s.”

“Hey, I can do better than that,” he said confidently, looking relieved. “I think I’ve still got a hundred bucks left on my third Visa card.”

They laughed together, and it felt right. A sense of humor, and he didn’t take himself too seriously. Good, because both of those things were requirements in a man for her. Jennie tapped the phone’s box as she gave him her sincerest smile. “Just ring this up, okay?”

“Sure.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her old flip phone.

He shook his head and snickered when he saw it. “Dinosaur.”

“I know, but can you transfer the numbers and the pictures over?”

“Absolutely,” he agreed as he took the old phone from her. “Let me get the SIM card out and work a little magic in the back. Give me a minute.”

When he’d returned and the new phone was ready, he started to hand her the plastic bag filled with all the ancillaries—case, cords, her old phone, receipt—but pulled it back at the last second as she went for it. “I should show you a few really cool apps before you leave.”

She shook her head as she checked her watch again. “No time. Gotta go. And I’m busy tonight. Sorry.”

“Come back tomorrow then,” he suggested, relinquishing the bag. “Seriously, it’ll save you a lot of time if I do it.”

“Maybe.”

“What’s your name?” he called as she headed for the front of the store and the huge mall beyond.

“Jennie,” she called back over her shoulder as she tossed her hair. “Jennie Perez.”

“I like it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she murmured as she moved into the mall and her heels began clicking on the tiles of the wide main corridor. “I know what you like.”

The Tysons Corner Center, known in the area as Tysons One, was a sprawling, multilevel mall located in upscale McLean, Virginia, just outside the Capital Beltway, fifteen miles west of the White House. One of the largest malls in the region, it was anchored by the big names: Bloomingdale’s, Lord & Taylor, Nordstrom. And with only a week to go until Christmas, the cavernous structure was jammed with shoppers searching for last-minute gifts.

“Wish I lived around here,” Jennie murmured to herself as she admired the big diamond on the finger of a woman who was walking past. Jennie lived farther west, in Sterling. It was an okay area, but it wasn’t anything like McLean. “Maybe someday.”

As she hurried toward the south entrance, zigging and zagging through the crowd, she took a few random pictures with the new phone. She had to admit the definition and color were much better than the old flip phone she’d been using. She tapped the reverse camera option on the touch screen and took a picture of herself.

“Ugh,” she moaned softly as she looked at the photo. “Do I really look like—”

Jennie stopped abruptly as she neared the entrance—six doors across, which led to the buffer lobby beyond, and then six more doors beyond that leading to the outside and a cold, gray December afternoon. Three men were just entering the mall from the buffer lobby. They were dressed in matching long black overcoats, and they wore baseball caps with the brims pulled low over their eyes.

Her gaze flashed right when something else caught her attention. For a few critical moments she was distracted from the entrance by a beautiful little girl who was coming out of a store. She couldn’t have been more than seven years old. She had long, shimmering blond hair and gorgeous eyes, and she was carrying a new doll in a large box. She was being followed by a man who was slipping a credit card back into his wallet and who must have been her father, given how proudly he was watching her.

As the three men at the entrance lifted guns from beneath their coats, Jennie spotted a security guard running toward them. Her eyes raced back to the little girl, who was clutching her new doll and smiling at it, unaware of what was about to happen.

Jennie wanted to run; every instinct inside her was
screaming
for her to get away and save herself. But she couldn’t. She had to help that little girl. She’d hate herself for the rest of her life if she didn’t. She’d never been a coward, and she wasn’t going to start being one now.

T
HE BLACK
VAN
pulled to a quick stop in the deserted Philadelphia alley. This location was twelve miles from the address on the driver’s license, and that was exactly how Travers wanted it. He wanted the young man to have a long way home—if that address on the license really was his home.

Travers glanced at Boyd from the back of the van. “Ready, Agent Smirnoff?” he called.

Boyd nodded. “Yeah, good to go. Nobody around, Agent Walker. You’re clear.”

Travers leaned over so he was close to the young man, whose hands were secured tightly behind his back. “We’ll be watching you, Kaashif,” he whispered through the heavy dark blue T-shirt, which was wrapped around Kaashif’s head so it covered most of his face. “You understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Kaashif murmured fearfully.

The young man still wasn’t sure he was going to be set free. Travers could tell by the frightened tone of his response. “I’ll be watching you, but you’ll never know when.” Kaashif probably thought that was an idle threat, but it wasn’t. “You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Guess you’ll have to make up that calculus test.”

“I shall.”

“Liar.”

“I am not a—”

Travers reached for the handle, yanked the van’s side door open, and pushed Kaashif roughly out onto the broken glass strewn across the pavement. “Clear!” he yelled to Boyd as Kaashif tumbled out.

Three minutes later Boyd pulled to a stop in another alley not far from where they’d ditched Kaashif. They needed to put plates back on the van so they wouldn’t arouse suspicion from local law enforcement. They’d removed the plates in case Kaashif had somehow gotten his blindfold off quickly once he was out of the vehicle.

Travers leaned back in the seat and rubbed his eyes as Boyd climbed out of the van. He still had that terrible feeling they were running out of time and that an attack was imminent. He grimaced as he listened to Boyd reattach the plates. Would the plan work before the attack went down? That was the key question now. Because his instincts told him the moment was at hand, and hell would rain down on the country if they didn’t do something soon.