“I gave it to him.” She smiled. “And before you freak out, no, I’m not hitting on him. He wanted it in case he needed to reach you. He said you were screening his calls this morning.”
Elizabeth couldn’t believe he’d told her that.
“Was it that bad?” Lauren asked, and Elizabeth didn’t pretend not to understand what she was talking about.
“It wasn’t bad at all. It was—” Amazing. Thorough. Exhilarating. “It was fine, right up to the point when he disappeared.”
Lauren looked at her. “Really?”
“It’s my fault. I don’t know what I was thinking, and I really don’t want to talk about this now, so—”
“So at least tell me what you think of his theory. That we might be dealing with a chemical weapon.”
“You’re taking a left up here.”
Lauren shifted lanes. “Well?”
“I think it’s a serious possibility,” Elizabeth said. “Based on what I know about Ameen, he has the expertise to pull it off, and if he’s planning something, it’s probably against civilians. Gordon said civilian targets are his specialty. Here, this is it.”
Lauren pulled into the lot, but they saw no sign of Jamie’s white Honda. She circled the building, bumping over potholes behind the motel as they squeezed past a Dumpster. Elizabeth noted a pair of black pickups in the Smoke ’n Toke parking lot and called Torres.
“The boyfriend’s pickup truck,” she said. “You know what color that is?”
“Sorry—yeah, it’s white. And there’s a logo on the side. I think he has a lawn-mowing business.”
Lauren parked in one of the motel’s front-row spaces facing the office. “I’ll check inside,” she said. “Maybe she got dropped off.”
“Doubtful. We’re early.” Elizabeth glanced around, but she didn’t see any white pickups. “We’re not seeing her,” she told Torres, “but we have a few minutes—wait, hang on.”
Elizabeth twisted around in her seat as a white pickup truck pulled out of the lot’s east exit. There was some lettering on the side, but she couldn’t read it.
A woman rounded the corner of the building, and Elizabeth’s pulse quickened.
“Think I see her,” she told Torres. “Let me call you back.”
She pushed the door open and tucked her phone into her pocket. The woman was five-two, plump, wearing cutoff shorts and flip-flops. Her jet-black hair was at odds with her fair skin, and her eyes looked wary as Elizabeth approached.
She attempted to relax her with a smile. “Are you Jamie?”
Rat-tat-tat.
Elizabeth hit the ground, smacking her chin against the pavement. Gun! The word rocketed through her brain as she jerked her weapon from the holster.
Her heart jackhammered as she looked for the shooter, trying to keep her head down. She saw tires and bumpers and asphalt. She spied a pair of purple flip-flops and scrambled toward them.
“Jamie!”
The girl was flat on her back, motionless, in a rapidly expanding pool of blood. Elizabeth frantically dug for the phone in her pocket as she tried to stay low.
Rat-tat-tat-tat.
She sprawled over Jamie’s body, covering their heads with her arms as she tried to flatten them both into the pavement.
Tires squealed. Horns blared. She hazarded a glance up, then grabbed Jamie’s arm and pulled her behind the shelter of the nearest car. Blood was everywhere—streaming down the girl’s face and neck, soaking her hair.
“Call nine-one-one!” she shouted, hoping Lauren or anybody could hear. She darted a look at the motel office, where shards of glass glistened like ice crystals at the base of the shattered door. She pictured Lauren and the office manager crouched behind the desk, and she prayed they were already calling, because where the hell was her phone?
She put her gun down and stripped off her blazer to press it against Jamie’s neck.
“Hang on, okay?” Her voice trembled. “Help’s coming.”
She tried to remember her location, tried to recall the type of gun used, the car. The weapon was definitely automatic.
Blood gushed from Jamie’s neck, and Elizabeth felt a surge of panic as she glanced around.
She spotted her phone. It was on the sidewalk near the front bumper of the Taurus, but between here and there was an empty car space. She grabbed her gun and made a dash for it, immediately ducking behind the engine block as she snatched up the phone. Thank God.
A faint wheezing noise sent an icy jolt of fear through her. On the asphalt beside the Taurus, a black shoe.
Elizabeth darted around the car and found Lauren slumped against the wheel well, her head against the tire.
“Lauren!”
Blood seeped through Lauren’s fingers as she clutched her side with one hand and tried to work her phone with the other. Elizabeth grabbed it from her and hit the emergency button. Lauren’s lips moved, but Elizabeth couldn’t hear over the roaring in her ears.
“Oh, God. Lauren!”
Lauren’s eyelids fluttered shut, and she made a rasping sound. Elizabeth’s heart clenched.
“Hang on, okay?”
She was bleeding from her abdomen. Elizabeth pressed her hands against the wound as a soft, tinny voice emanated from the phone.
“Nine-one-one operator. Please state your emergency.”
“Shots fired! We have an agent down!”
Chapter Nineteen
Derek struck out at the gun shop. After talking to the third of three people on Cole’s list, he’d gotten nowhere. None of them had had any dealings with Matt Palicek or had even heard of him.
Or so they said. Gun guys tended to be tight-lipped, but it wasn’t like Derek was walking around with the letters ATF tattooed on his forehead. Derek had made sure to mention that he was teammates with Cole, but still he’d netted nothing useful.
He jumped onto the freeway and pointed his truck toward the FBI office. He needed an update from Elizabeth or someone on her team. Hell, even Potter might be able to help him. He wanted a physical description of this female jihadist, preferably a picture. He was beginning to think she was playing a much bigger role in this than they’d given her credit for.
All Derek knew was that she was likely related to one of the terrorists, either by blood or by marriage. If she was a wife or a sibling, that put her in her twenties or early thirties. She’d likely have dark brown hair, which Elizabeth believed she’d dyed auburn. And if she spoke English—which seemed logical if she was laying the groundwork for a plot in America—she probably spoke with an accent. No doubt she’d be wearing Western-style clothes to fit in.
It sounded like a lot to go on, but it wasn’t, and Derek needed a photo or at least a composite sketch to flash around, along with the photo of Palicek that Torres had given him.
He trained his gaze on the bloodred horizon. The sun was setting on his last day in Texas, and his tension was mounting. He couldn’t stay, but he damn sure couldn’t leave with so much unfinished. He had less than twenty-four hours to get a break in this thing, or he would face the choice of leaving the task force high and dry or going UA. An unauthorized absence was no small offense, especially in the teams, and especially when they were going wheels-up on an honest-to-God mission, not some training bullshit out in the desert. If Derek failed to report Thursday morning, Hallenback would have his ass in a sling, and possibly even his job.
He tried Elizabeth again, and again it went straight to voice mail. He scrolled through his phone and called Lauren. Three rings, and then Elizabeth answered.
“Hey, I’ve been calling you all night.”
“My phone’s dead.” she said, and her voice sounded strange.
“What’s wrong? Where are you?”
Silence on the other end, and a wave of fear hit him.
“Elizabeth?”
“I’m at the hospital.”
* * *
Elizabeth paced the room, compulsively darting glances at the double doors. Nothing. She passed by the wall of windows that looked out over the medical center. She swung by the coffeepot, then back to the chairs. It was a well-worn path in the carpet where hundreds or maybe thousands of anxious people had walked before.