To her left, a flash of movement. Derek shot across the rooftop like a missile. Bodies smacked to the ground. The knife skittered across the pavement as Elizabeth rushed forward with her handcuffs.
“Check for weapons!” she shouted as Derek flipped him onto his stomach and wrestled his arms behind his back.
Elizabeth snapped the cuffs on as Rasheed squirmed and cursed. Derek roughly searched him for weapons.
Elizabeth’s radio squawked. She ignored it.
“He’s clear.” Derek yanked him to his feet. He eyed Elizabeth, taking in her torn jacket and bloodied arm. He grabbed Rasheed by the shirtfront and shoved him backward, cursing. Rasheed attempted a head butt. Derek popped him in the jaw, and his head snapped back.
The radio continued to squawk, and then came the steady thrum of an approaching helicopter. Swirls of dust kicked up around her, stinging her eyes.
She glanced at the chopper. “Is that ours?” she yelled over the noise.
“News!” Derek shouted.
Panic shot through her. “We have to interrogate this man! We can’t have his face on TV. Wave them off!”
The helo swooped closer, creating a mini-tornado of dirt and debris.
Derek grabbed Rasheed and hauled him to the nearest door. Elizabeth tried to open it, but it was locked. She cast a frantic look across the helipad. The treadmill users were standing at the window now, staring slack-jawed at the unfolding scene. The chopper dipped lower, kicking up more and more dust, and she realized it was trying to land practically on top of them.
Derek stepped onto the helipad and waved them off.
Elizabeth glanced at Rasheed, who was inching back from her. Their gazes locked. She stared into his eyes, and an icy fist closed around her heart as realization dawned.
Time slowed down.
“No!” she screamed, lunging after him, grasping for his arm, his jacket, anything.
But she was too late, and he hurled himself over the wall.
Chapter Eleven
Gordon took over the hotel’s security headquarters as a makeshift command center. Agents in plain clothes and SWAT gear crowded into the space, sucking up all the air.
Elizabeth spotted Derek on the far side of the room watching a row of video monitors. He stood rigid, arms crossed over his chest, and he looked to be narrating events for an agent who was furiously taking notes.
His gaze homed in on her. After a trip to the nearest urgent-care center, she’d spent two hours being debriefed and then another hour at the morgue. She hadn’t stopped to take a breath, and the events of the last four hours tumbled through her head.
“LeBlanc, Torres.”
Her attention snapped to Gordon.
“Come with me.” He crossed the room. “Lieutenant Vaughn?”
He led the three of them down a narrow corridor and into a windowless room. From the ancient coffee-pot parked on the counter, she took it to be the break room. Potter sat at the end of a faux-wood table, talking on his phone and jotting notes on a legal pad. He ended his call as Gordon pulled out the chair beside him and everyone sat down.
Everyone except Derek. He leaned his shoulder against the wall and gave Elizabeth a look she couldn’t read. Glancing at the faces around the table she realized it was the group from Coronado, except this time Derek was the only SEAL.
Gordon looked at Elizabeth. “Tell me about the morgue.”
She took a breath and tried to collect her thoughts. “The assistant ME was called in to do the autopsy.”
“He had to be called?”
She looked at Potter, then glanced at the clock on the wall. “Well, it was already nine, so yeah, it’s after hours. Normally they’d wait until morning, but given the circumstances, they’re getting started right away. Agents Holmes and Chen are standing in to observe.”
“And you collected the personal effects?”
That had been her purpose in going there. “Got everything sealed up and delivered to our lab guys,” she reported. “Some of the analysis can be done here, but for DNA, I think they’ll send it to Quantico.”
“What’d you find?” Gordon asked.
She stifled a shudder as she pictured the bloodied clothing that had been cut from the body, the clumps of brain matter stuck to the jacket.
“Your basic clothes, shoes, belt, all domestic brands.”
“Pockets?”
She glanced at Derek and remembered him checking Rasheed for weapons. “Not a lot,” she said. “Lieutenant Vaughn took the knife off him during the takedown. He had some pocket litter—loose change, Marlboro Reds, eighty-three dollars in cash.”
“Wallet?” Torres asked.
“No. And no driver’s license. So no tentative ID, at least not from the ME’s office.”
Although the story of the suicide jumper had made the local news, without an ID, there was no hint of connection to something bigger, so it hadn’t garnered much attention. But that could change.
Gordon watched her, his look intent. “So what do you think happened?”
She stared at him. She’d spent two hours recounting what had happened to no fewer than four senior agents, including him.
“You want me to rehash—”
“I mean on the roof,” Gordon said. “I’ve been going over the video footage. I want to know what happened up there. What prompted him to jump?”
“I—” She glanced at Derek. “I can only guess. He knew he was about to be arrested. Interrogated.”
“Tortured.”
At the sound of his voice, she shot Potter a look.
“If the ‘takedown,’ as you call it, was any indication of how he was going to be treated,” Potter said, “then he knew he was going to be subjected to extreme measures.”
“Extreme?” Derek’s voice was ice. “What the fuck’s that mean?”
“It means—let’s be honest here—the apprehension was a little rough.” Potter glanced at Gordon. “She should have waited for backup so the suspect could be secured properly, and this whole situation could have been avoided.”
“The suspect?” Derek didn’t move a muscle, but his face was taut. “Barely three weeks ago, this piece of shit walked in front of a video camera and slit a woman’s throat.” Derek looked at Gordon. “A few hours ago, he went after your agent with a combat knife. And by the way, where the fuck was her backup then?”
“We were on our way,” Torres said, and Elizabeth could feel the tension ratcheting up.
“Too bad they didn’t get there sooner,” Potter said. “Our key suspect wouldn’t have had a chance to kill himself before he told us anything valuable.”
“What, are you blind?” Derek stepped away from the wall. “He told us plenty. This man covertly entered this country for the sole purpose of carrying out a major attack.”
“A major attack?” Potter folded his arms. “We haven’t confirmed that, Lieutenant. In fact, we know very little about his plans, and now we may never know, because he’s dead.”
“Let’s look at the facts,” Derek said, clearly struggling for patience. “U.S. forces raid an Al Qaeda safe house and recover intel pointing to a terrorist attack in Texas. Soon after, a top Al Qaeda operative is smuggled into Texas through a narco tunnel controlled by one of Mexico’s most powerful cartels.”
“Two operatives,” Gordon said.
“What?”
“Rasheed had a traveling companion. Zahid Ameen.”
Derek shot Elizabeth a look that told her he knew exactly who Ameen was—and he was not happy to have been left out of the loop.
“That just proves my point,” Derek said. “Another person provided transportation in Del Rio, and today yet another person Rasheed had never met before was meeting him at the mall.”
“How do we know he’d never met him?” Torres asked.
“The red hat,” Elizabeth said. “It seemed to be a signal.”
“We’re up to four people at a minimum,” Derek said. “This sleeper cell probably contains three times that. Everything about the logistics involved tells us they’re planning a major strike.”
“But on what? That’s the question.” Potter slid a look at Gordon. “And now we can’t answer that question, because the suspect is dead.”
Suspect. Elizabeth wanted to reach across the table and slap him.
“He was already dead. Don’t you get it?” Derek shook his head. “He’d decided to die for his cause before he ever showed up here. He just did it early to protect the mission.”