“Sit down before you fall over,” Cal said.
Kelly shook her head, leaned back against the pale green wall, not wanting to show any weakness, Cal thought. She stretched, trying, he knew, to keep herself upright and together.
“Really, Giusti. Sit down.”
She looked back at him. “If I do, I’ll go comatose.” She fell silent, started worrying an opal ring on her thumb. It looked old. A family heirloom?
“Have you heard from the medical examiner yet?”
Kelly shook her head again. “It should be soon. I told him to call me the minute he found anything like an embedded GPS chip. I guess Nasim never planned on going through the X-ray machine at JFK. They would have wanded him, maybe found the GPS. But maybe not, if it was mostly plastic.” She looked down at her cell, as if willing the medical examiner to call her. Finally, she slipped it into her jacket pocket. She sighed. “I should have wanded him myself.”
“Why?” Cal said, an eyebrow going up. “That isn’t something you’d normally do. So why Nasim?”
“Shut up, McLain. I don’t need logic right now.”
He studied her pale face, saw the tension, the depression settling on her shoulders like a heavy weight. “I remember when my mom used to hug me when I was younger, telling me it would be okay. I wish she didn’t live all the way over in Oregon. I could use one of her hugs right now.”
Kelly gave him a small grin. How could he joke like that? She realized it was on purpose and she gave him another grin. It steadied her. “I remember my grandma used to hug me like that,” she said. “After she died, my mom took over the big hugs.” She didn’t mention her college professor ex-husband, no support from him, either, when he’d been around. He’d hated it when she became an agent in the FBI, thought they were a den of right-wingers who wanted to control the world. Last she heard, he was filling all the smart young brains at Berkeley with how Mao had saved China, how he’d been maligned by the West. At least now he was surrounded by like minds.
Kelly waved her hand at Sherlock, who was staring down at her clasped hands. “I saw your kid on YouTube once.”
“Along with the rest of the world,” Cal said. “Sean’s a pistol.”
Sherlock raised her head. “Pistol’s a good name for him, all right.”
“It shouldn’t have happened, none of it,” Kelly said. “I shouldn’t have let it happen.”
Cal yawned. “Let me know when you get powers like that so I can bow down.”
“I was in charge. Nasim is dead. My fault.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I can see that. I’ll be happy to send your boss an e-mail, maybe even write him a letter. And I’m always available for a hug.”
He heard her hiss, then laugh, not much of one, but it still qualified.
Sherlock said, “I’m with Cal. A hug would be perfect about now.”
Jo Hoag appeared in the doorway. “Our shooter’s out of surgery, and stable. The surgeon took pity on us, said if we give it another ten minutes, he’ll let us talk to him briefly in Recovery.
“Better yet, Kelly, we know who he is. His prints match a Jamil Nazari. Turns out MI5’s got a file on him, but no one knows yet how he got into the country. He’s a thirty-four-year-old Egyptian, at one time a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was a muntazim, which roughly means he was an organizer, in touch with the Brotherhood hierarchy. He was with them during the resistance to the military-backed regime. Bombings, kidnappings, they did it all. He’s also a crack shot. He showed up in Algiers three years ago with his two sisters and his mother after his father was killed in a skirmish with government troops. He’s thought to have joined one of the local militant groups. We’ll know more soon about his family, his associates. Oh, yes, he’s known to speak English as well as Arabic, and some French.”
Sherlock jumped to her feet. “You got your pliers, Kelly?”
Cal said, “You’re going to pull his tonsils out his ears?”
Kelly gave them all a manic grin. “Nah, I’m going to use my wiles on him. Come on, guys, let’s go talk to Mr. Nazari.” Kelly was suddenly a woman on a mission, the fire back in her eyes. Good, Cal thought, she’s got her mojo back.
She laughed as her long-legged stride took her out the door.
Nurse Betina Marr buzzed them into the PACU and rounded on them. “You’re the FBI, right?” She held out her hand and they took turns giving her their creds. “Okay. You’re here to see Mr. Nazari. Dr. Baker said to let you in for ten minutes, no longer. Mr. Nazari’s beginning to come out of anesthesia—talk about a happy camper, what with all the morphine cruising through him. His thinking’s going to be muddled, so I don’t know how you’re going to get anything useful out of him. He’s really a terrorist?”
“Yes,” Sherlock said. “He killed a man tonight.”
Nurse Marr’s tone flattened. “Well, maybe, with all the drugs on board plus the residual effects of the anesthesia, he’s groggy enough to spill something you want to know. We have one other patient in here. If something happens, though, do what we tell you and stay out of the way. Mr. Nazari’s right over there. Good luck.”
Jamil Nazari’s bed was in the far corner of the room. The other patient was an older woman lying on a narrow bed, her head wrapped in bandages, smiling vacantly up at a nurse who was patting her hand.
Nazari was lying still, his eyes closed, as if he was asleep, an oxygen cannula in his nose. He looked uncomfortable taking shallow breaths, probably because it hurt to get in enough air with the large plastic bag coming out of his chest, draining pink fluid into some kind of vacuum pump. It was hard to hear him breathe at all over the noise the vacuum made and the hiss of the oxygen.
They moved around Nazari’s bed, careful not to disturb the IV tubing and monitoring wires connected to his body. Kelly pulled the curtain closed for privacy. It was a tight fit, but she wasn’t about to ask anyone to leave. All of them had a big stake in this. Kelly said quietly, “Please don’t say anything, let me handle this.”
Kelly shook his shoulders, said next to his ear, “Jamil, open your eyes. It’s me, you lazy baboon, it’s your sister. Wake up!”
He moaned, blinked his eyes, and frowned up at her. “Jana, I do not feel good, Jana. Where is Mama?” His English was clear, though stilted, his accent heavily Arabic.
Kelly did her best to mimic him. “She’s at home, you fool. Tell me what you’ve done, Jamil. Tell me right now or I’ll make you very sorry,” and she smacked him again on his shoulder.
“That hurt. You hurt me when we were young.”
“You always deserved it. Stop whining and tell me what you did right this minute.”
“I am thirsty.”
“Tell me right now and I’ll get you water, all right?”
“Yes, that would be good.” His brain tripped off into the ether, and he fell silent.
Kelly shook him again. “Jamil, tell me about the man who sent you to shoot Nasim. Tell me about the Strategist.”
“Ah, Jana, you always liked Hercule, didn’t you? You wanted to marry him, but he wasn’t interested.”
“Yes, I liked Hercule. What is he doing now, Jamil? Where does he live?”
Something clicked in Jamil’s glazed eyes. He blinked up at Kelly. “Wait! You are not Jana, she can barely speak English. You cannot be—I remember. I saw you at the safe house, you are—” Nazari pressed his head against the pillow and yelled, “Help me! Help me!”
Nurse Marr appeared around the privacy curtain. She looked dispassionately down at Jamil Nazari, whose mouth was still open as he stared up at her. “Help me.”
“You will have to keep your voice down, Mr. Nazari. You’re disturbing our other patient.”
“Wait, listen, they are going to kill me—”
“I’m sure you’re mistaken, Mr. Nazari. It’s the drugs making your mind fuzzy. They’ll wear off soon now. You’ll be fine. Trust me.”