“I’m not his son, I’m his nephew.”
“Good to know.” Ruth handed Savich a well-worn alligator wallet. Inside was a New York driver’s license, three credit cards, five hundred dollars in cash, and a photo of a woman with three children surrounding her. “So, Mr. Salila,” Savich said, looking at him, “you’re Samir Basara’s advance man. I don’t see this young man in the photo, so I guess he didn’t lie, you are his uncle. What is his name?”
Salila didn’t say anything.
Ollie shook his head. “No wallet on him. Ruth, keep an eye on him. I’ll check the drawers in that pigsty of a bedroom.”
“You will not call us pigs. We are men,” Salila said, and spat at Ollie.
“It won’t help you if you continue to be rude,” Ruth said, and punched him in the arm. “You’re already in very big trouble.”
“You are nothing but a stupid woman, you mean nothing. Look at you, dressed in your trousers, playing at being a man.”
She smiled, patted his blackened face. “You need to rethink that, Mr. Salila. I’m the one who has you handcuffed to a chair.”
Salila stared at each of them, at his nephew sitting on the sofa opposite him. “I demand you let us go. We have done nothing wrong.”
Savich raised his eyebrow. “Would you like to explain the six Glocks in the bedroom closet, or care to tell us what you’re doing with all that highly illegal C-4?”
Salila shook his head.
His nephew said, “We know nothing about firearms. Perhaps the last person who stayed here left them.”
Ollie came back into the living room, holding a wallet. “I found this under a dirty shirt. We’ve been talking to Mr. Asad Salila. So your uncle here, Husam Salila, has a brother. Is your father in the terrorist business, too?”
Salila said nothing. He frowned at his nephew when he started to speak, and Asad lowered his head.
“When is Basara to arrive?” Savich asked him.
Salila started, then grew very still. “I do not know any Basara.”
“Is that a fact? I see you live in New York. Did you help him with trying to bomb Saint Patrick’s? You were the handler for those three who tried to kill Agent Sherlock?”
He stayed silent, but his breath quickened.
“They sure mucked that up, didn’t they, Mr. Salila? Did Basara have no one else left to help him after he flew into Baltimore?”
Salila looked at Savich. “It is all impossible what you say. How do you know all this?”
“I also know Basara called you from the Four Seasons hotel at midnight last night.”
Salila’s mouth fell open. “That is impossible. You are lying to me.”
Savich reached his hand into Salila’s shirt pocket and pulled out his cell. He waved it in Salila’s face. “Your cell phone came to me and whispered all its secrets. Now let’s see what you’ve been up to since you arrived in Washington.”
Savich scrolled through the call list. There were only three. One from Basara and two to a number in New York. His family?
“Tell me, when Basara arrived here, were you planning to plant the C-4 around Agent Sherlock’s house and blow her up? You see, it’s also my house, and that of our five-year-old son.”
Savich saw the pulse pounding wildly in Salila’s neck. Savich knew he was afraid, he knew failure was staring him in the face, but he managed to hold himself together. “If that is so, what happens to your house is her own doing. Your fate is in Allah’s hands.”
“Whatever that means,” Ollie said.
“We are all in Allah’s hands,” Salila said. “And those who commit evil, Allah will see that they pay for their sins.”
Ruth said, “I can’t imagine Allah encourages you to murder innocent people, like the hundreds of people at that funeral in Saint Patrick’s in New York. So will Allah make you pay, Salila? Will Basara pay? Basara will come and we’ll catch him, you know.”
Savich knew he couldn’t ask Salila to call Basara, even if Basara was expecting him to call. Salila would warn him if given the chance, no matter how Savich threatened him. He also realized he could make as many threats as he could think of and Salila would never give him up. What had Basara done to earn such loyalty?
Salila closed his eyes and his lips moved in a prayer. Asad stared at his uncle, fear bleaching his newly shaved face bone white.
Salila’s cell phone rang. And rang.
SIXTEENTH STREET NW
Cal turned off the siren and flashers and seamed back into traffic as he turned right off Sixteenth onto U Street. “We’re close, maybe five minutes to Nyland.”
Sherlock’s cell sang out “Born to Be Wild” and she put it on speakerphone. “Dillon, we’re five minutes out. What’s happening?”
“Salila’s cell rang with a call from Basara, probably to confirm their meeting, so he could be close. I didn’t risk letting Salila answer it. Keep a low profile as you approach. We still don’t know what kind of car he’s driving. Hurry, guys.”
“Turn left here on Pritchert, Cal,” Sherlock said, after Savich punched off. “It’s the locals’ way to Nyland and the Gilmore.”
When Cal turned right onto Nyland, Sherlock said from the backseat, “The condos are two blocks up, on the left. There’s Griffin now, trimming bushes. He looks good. Basara wouldn’t spot him for a Fed.”
Kelly sucked in her breath, not wanting to believe it. “There he is! Ten o’clock, Cal, a Toyota Camry. He’s driving slow, studying the street. Let’s get him!”
Cal hit the gas only to see an ancient Chevy Impala pulling out of a driveway directly in front of him. He slammed on the brakes, barely missing the driver’s door. At first he thought there was no one driving the Impala, then a curly gray head and a terrified white face appeared above the steering wheel.
Basara looked back at the sound of screeching brakes and spotted them. He threw his cell phone out the window and hit the gas, barely avoiding an elderly man with a walker who’d stepped out onto the street. Griffin dropped his cutter and took out his cell as the Toyota two-wheeled around a corner and headed south, toward 29.
Kelly yelled, “I don’t know Washington, where’s he going?”
“Don’t know yet,” Sherlock said. She unfastened her seat belt and sat forward between the front seats, her Glock in her hand. “No, wait, he could take 29 east into D.C. or try to cross the Key Bridge into Arlington.”
Cal turned on his siren and flashers again as he swerved past a dozen cars and a Silverado flatbed stacked with tires, to the sound of blasting horns and shouted curses. He was only three cars behind when the Camry swerved around a Cadillac onto the Key Bridge. “He’s not a bad driver,” Cal said, “but he’s at a big disadvantage because he doesn’t know Washington.”
Kelly said, “What’s this way?”
“Arlington National Cemetery, if he keeps heading south,” Cal said. “He’ll see the sign soon enough and realize he doesn’t want to get caught in that maze. Hang on!” He swerved around a black limo with government plates, two startled faces staring at them as they whipped past. Cal slipped back into his lane with feet to spare to the horrified face of the Mustang driver headed directly at him. “No,” Cal said, “Basara’s not going to the cemetery, he’s headed onto 66 and that’ll take him back across the Roosevelt Bridge into D.C. I wonder if he knows that. Hey, isn’t that Dillon’s red Porsche behind us?”