Elena Wisk was tall, thin, and pretty, and looked both tired and excited. She nearly bounced into the suite, then suddenly yawned right in front of them. She flushed with embarrassment, told them she was just going off duty from the night shift. Evidently, Jeb hadn’t told her Mr. Condor was a terrorist—yet, at least.
Yes, she’d brought Mr. Condor a tuna salad sandwich with potato chips and a bottle of chardonnay. He was good-looking, she said, but he looked tired. He told her the chardonnay would help him sleep, and he had a big day tomorrow—today, now—and he wanted to be ready. “I uncorked the chardonnay for him and told him I was from northern California. I said something about Golden Slope being a good choice. It’s from a Napa winery I’d visited some years ago. He said it was better than anything he’d ever tasted from his family’s vineyard. I asked him where that was, and he frowned and got me out of the suite real fast. I guess he didn’t want to talk about it. I don’t know why. He gave me a big tip.”
Slipped up there, didn’t you, Hercule? Cal showed Elena his picture of Samir Basara. She nodded. “Yes, that’s him.”
They asked her more questions, but the well was dry. Then, on her way out of the suite, Elena turned in the doorway, “I guess I’m really tired. I forgot, Mr. Condor was talking on his cell phone when I arrived.”
All three of them went on red alert. Kelly asked, “Did you hear anything he said, Elena?”
Elena pursed her lips. “I wasn’t really listening, you know? But it was something about the person he was talking to doing a good job and he knew he could always count on him, something like that. That’s all I got. What’d he do? Something really bad?” She shivered.
Sherlock merely patted her shoulder. “Thank you, Ms. Wisk, we really appreciate all your help.” She called Dillon on speakerphone, told him about the call Basara had made.
“Yes, that checks out,” Savich said. “I pulled up the cell data from the cell tower that services the Four Seasons Baltimore, looking for outgoing calls after Basara arrived there last night. One single call was made from an unregistered phone, a burner phone, and it was activated yesterday. The number that cell phone called was right here in Washington, D.C., and it was also unregistered. We’ve either found ourselves a pair of drug dealers, or Basara called a henchman.”
“The room-service clerk said it was about midnight,” Sherlock said.
“Yes, that’s it. Good to have confirmation even though we thought he would be heading toward Washington.” He added, “You live here. Now I’m working with the carrier to try to locate both of those phones in real time.” He paused again. “Well, maybe I’ll use a shortcut.”
Cal took the phone. “Keep us in the loop, Savich. We’re finishing up here and we’ll be heading to Washington to join you. That call means someone arrived here ahead of Basara to see to his needs, like parking a car at the airfield, with that burner cell left in the glove compartment. It means he’s very probably got a gun.”
“I know,” Savich said, “I know. I’ll see you soon. Be careful, all of you.”
Sherlock took the cell back from Cal. “Dillon? Are Sean and Gabriella out of the house?”
“They’re at my mom’s already. No worries there, Sherlock.”
INTERSTATE 95, EN ROUTE TO WASHINGTON, D.C.
Tuesday afternoon
Samir Basara pressed the gas to pass a beer truck that had slowed to thirty miles per hour for no reason he could understand, then slowed immediately back to exactly fifty-five and eased smooth and easy into the right-hand lane. He wasn’t going to let his excitement for what was coming affect his driving. He wanted no trouble from the state police. The car Salila had left him in the airfield parking lot was perfect, a three-year-old light tan Toyota Camry that would draw no attention. A Walther P99 semiautomatic was on the seat beside him, Salila’s own weapon, he’d told Samir when they’d spoken on the phone briefly late last night. Everything else they would need, his nephew had driven down to Washington. Everything was ready for him in the condo Salila had rented, and enough C-4 to blow the FBI woman’s house in Georgetown into a pile of rubble, her and her family with it. She would return to her home soon enough. Basara would simply wait. He couldn’t fault Salila for the debacle in Brooklyn. Salila had been so mournful about the failure of his “soldiers”—Salila called everyone he worked with his “soldiers,” no matter how young or how old—that Samir had felt moved to comfort him, but still he’d had to make it clear that his soldiers had mucked it up, gotten themselves wounded and caught, and the oldest comrade in arms, Mohammad Hosni, had gotten himself killed. Salila had told Basara he feared the two younger soldiers, Mifsud and Kenza, whom he thought of as his children, would never be released from the American prisons. He assured Basara neither of them had anything to fear from the young ones. They would never talk. His children were loyal to the cause, as he was loyal to Basara.
A pity the FBI agent hadn’t roasted to death in that house in Brooklyn. It was a royal cock-up, but it wasn’t Basara’s fault, he’d planned it well, given clear, concise instructions. Salila’s soldiers had somehow given themselves away, alerted the FBI. Best not to think of it now. It was no longer important.
It was time to move forward, to focus on the woman, and Basara trusted Salila to handle the details, trusted him to do whatever it was Basara wished. He’d trusted Salila since he’d saved his life in Syria when a bomb exploded next to their car outside Damascus and Basara had pulled Salila to safety. Salila wouldn’t fail him in this, his final assassination, unlike Bahar, who’d failed him miserably. He planned to reward Salila handsomely for this day’s work.
Traffic thickened and he was forced to slow down. He wondered if MI5 had found the papers in the imam’s office yet that listed out the huge donations Mrs. Sabeen Conklin had made to the imam with funds she’d embezzled from her husband. That alone would be enough to send them both to prison. Nasim Conklin’s widow, Marie Claire, who had survived, would no doubt press charges. He felt rage build because he didn’t know how the American FBI had found her and her children, but he knew that damned woman Sherlock had taken part, and she would pay for that as well. Thinking of how he’d make her pay calmed him.
He wondered briefly if he would ever see his family again. His sisters could rot in hell for all he cared, but he admitted to himself he would like to see what his mother did to his father in the months and years to come, and how long his father would survive her endless tender care.
He laughed, wondering what Elizabeth thought of him now that she knew she’d defied her parents and shared her secrets and her quite lovely body with a terrorist. And not just any terrorist, but the mastermind who’d planned to blow up St. Paul’s and her along with it. What would her father have to say now? Poor Elizabeth, there would be no more jewels to pawn for her wastrel brother, but more than that, the London Times might print the whole sordid story and ruin both her and her noble family. He would watch from afar and enjoy the media free-for-all.
His stomach growled. He realized he hadn’t eaten after that late-night sandwich from room service and a bottle of wine, his favorite, which always made him sleep like a baby. He looked down at his watch. Nearly noon. He’d eat after he met with Salila.