He looked down at Vanessa, his niece, his brother’s only child, then up at the agents. “We need to stop here for a moment. Nessa, while you were in surgery, we realized Darius is actually Zahir Damari, the assassin hired to kill the vice president.”
Savich nodded to Mike. “She figured this out already. My question is why you people at the CIA didn’t think this information was important enough to pass it along to us?”
Grace shot a look of approval to Mike, splayed his hands in front of him, “Please understand, everything has been moving so fast, we only just made the connection ourselves, plus I wanted to tell you in person. We knew about Zahir Damari, but we had no idea he was the same man as this Darius who joined up with COE. This wasn’t a matter for phones, you see.”
For a moment Vanessa couldn’t get a breath, couldn’t think her way through it, then said, “Darius, he’s really Zahir Damari? I knew Darius wasn’t his real name, but I didn’t expect this.”
Nicholas said, “How did he hook up with Spenser and your group?”
“He showed up at our camp in South Tahoe, a million in cash, and he told us his name was Darius Coles, and he went to Oxford, which was one of the reasons Matthew talked to him in the first place. Matthew went to Oxford, too. But the way he hooked Matthew was that he claimed he’d lost friends in the July 2005 London terrorist bombing. He appeared to be genuinely surprised to learn that Matthew had lost his family. All a ploy, of course.”
Grace said, “Based on Vanessa’s information, we ran Darius Coles through every known database, and a few off-book ones. It was a false identity.”
Mike said slowly, “Now all the pins are lined up. Zahir came to COE, to Spenser, because, like you, he wanted the bomb for his clients.”
“The clients would be Iran and Hezbollah,” Carl Grace said. “This chatter about the amazing new bomb the CIA heard about has been heard elsewhere, obviously. But now we believe Zahir’s mission was two-pronged: to get Spenser’s bomb and kill the vice president.”
Nicholas said, “May I have a crack at the photo and the identity? Savich and I have designed a new update for the NGA database utilizing a different method for identifying underlying bone structure. Perhaps we’ll be able to find something that will allow us to identify him.”
Grace nodded. “We were hoping you could help. I’ll have it for you when we’re done here.”
Vanessa said, “But how can that be right? Zahir was hired to assassinate the vice president? Because she’s so against the peace talks? Why would Iran and Hezbollah care? I mean, the president is in charge, he’s the one who insisted on the peace talks, he’s the one who believes if he can make them happy, they won’t continue to threaten Israel and the West.”
Savich looked at her pale face, her eyes losing focus, and knew she couldn’t hang on for much longer. “All sound points, Agent Grace, but think about who these people are, what they are. Now, one more question and then we’ll leave you in peace. Where is Matthew Spenser now? And Andy Tate? And the rest of the members of the COE?”
“With Ian dead, I think all the other COE members have already run for cover. None of them is stupid, most are online, anyway. So that would leave only Matthew and Andy.”
Savich continued, “If Spenser hadn’t shot you, what would you be doing today?”
“Working with Andy to comb through the data they stole from the cyber-attack on the oil companies—verify the schedules for Yorktown, the president’s, the vice president’s, find out all the visiting oil company representatives coming, itineraries, hotels, everything. But most important was getting the Yorktown plant blueprints.”
Mike had nailed it.
Savich said, “So Matthew plans to blow up Yorktown when all these people are there, using his new bomb?”