“Look after him?”
Desh nodded. “Don’t let him fool you. He’s not doing as well as he’s pretending.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his thick stack of hundreds; passing about forty of them to Griffin in the back seat. “A little spending money,” he said. “I need you to see to it that he gets to a doctor.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Griffin solemnly.
“Colonel, any good military doctors you trust with your life?” asked Desh.
Connelly considered. “Yes. Don Menken. He’s retired but still lives near Bragg. I can trust him to patch me up and not ask any questions.”
Kira opened the SUV’s center console and pulled out a cell phone. She passed it back to Griffin. “Use this phone to reach us,” she instructed. “I have its mate. Hit Autodial 1 and it will speed-dial my number. The phone is completely secure.”
“No cell phone is secure,” said Connelly wearily, the vitality of his voice beginning to wane as his blood loss began to catch up with him.
“The signal can be intercepted easily enough, but the phone can’t be connected to me. Even if it could, the audio is sent scrambled. These two phones can unscramble each other’s signals, but even top cryptographic experts won’t be able to decipher the conversation.”
Connelly doubted her code was nearly as tight as she thought it was, but he didn’t argue the point.
“Let’s come up with a game plan we can use when we get to the mall,” suggested Desh.
“Agreed,” rasped Connelly. “But first give me the shorthand version of why we’re joining forces with enemy number one here.”
Kira glanced at Desh with interest, as though curious as to what he would say.
Desh sighed. Connelly was the least well informed of any of them. “We both know there’s far more going on here than we understand,” he began. “Smith’s men crashed the party at the motel. And Smith had a cell phone that responded to the number you gave me and told me you were taking orders from him. But we know that was a lie. Kira claims she’s innocent and not involved in any terror plots. She warned me that you were in danger from Smith, and she was right.” He raised his eyebrows. “And she did risk herself to rescue us,” he added pointedly.
“You’ve seen her file,” responded Connelly. “She’s a brilliant manipulator and liar. This could all have been staged.”
“This is true. And believe me, I haven’t lost sight of that. But she claims she can prove her innocence and explain what’s going on, and I’m going to give her that chance. I can assure you that I’ll bring a healthy dose of skepticism to the table.”
Desh looked at his watch and calculated how long it would take them to reach their destination. “We need to be sure we know what we’ll be doing at the mall and think it through so we don’t make any obvious mistakes,” he said. “But that shouldn’t take long. With the time remaining I’ll try to give you a thirty-thousand-foot view of what I know. Matt can fill in more of the details when he has the chance.”
“Fair enough,” said Connelly.
“Before I begin, I need to warn you: without the details you’re going to find most of this hard to believe.”
Matt Griffin smiled slyly and rolled his eyes. “You can say that again,” he muttered from the back of the SUV.
26
The Manor Hill Mall was a hive of activity. Between them, Petersburg and Richmond had a population of over a million people, and it wasn’t hard to believe that half of them were shopping at Manor Hill. The mall was four stories high, with all four stories under a vaulted atrium ceiling, and encompassed a total square footage of retail space that was hard to comprehend. Connelly had donned Desh’s windbreaker to hide his blood soaked bandages. Desh and Kira had dropped Griffin and the colonel at one end of the mall before driving almost half a mile to enter the mall at its opposite end.
As they had planned during the drive, Griffin and Connelly entered a crowded clothing store and made themselves over from head to toe in an ensemble chosen to help them blend in. They then bought scissors and shaving gear and emerged from a restroom ten minutes later without any facial hair. When Griffin had been told this would be necessary he had almost mutinied; but in the end he had agreed that this was a better alternative than being discovered and shot to death—barely. Connelly was also pained to part with his prized mustache, but he took the loss with military stoicism.