“You mean you’re some kind of spy?”
“Not exactly. You need to understand, there are a lot of great, dedicated people working for US intelligence services. Those services used to appreciate having my help. But their bosses didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I help find killers by using people who can do what you can do—well, not exactly what you can do. I’ve seen some people who could do quite a lot, but I’ve never seen anyone who could do anywhere near what you can do.”
“Why—”
Jack held up a hand. “Just listen for a moment. What I did fell out of favor for political reasons. There are people in those agencies now who would not just like to see me gone, but would like it just fine if I ended up dead.”
She frowned. “Why, if you were helping them stop killers, why would they want you dead?”
“Probably for some of the same reasons that you don’t like the police. There are good people in the intel agencies, just as there are lots of good police officers who would risk their lives to save yours.”
She huffed a half laugh. “I’ve never met any of those.”
“I understand. I have a somewhat similar problem. What I’m doing, what I’m doing here with you, is because I still believe that we can do some good in this world. I think that I have a purpose in this life, and my purpose is to find people like you. Do you have any idea what I mean? Do you understand?”
She considered his words for a long moment. “There are people among us that shouldn’t be allowed to be among us.”
Jack smiled. “Bingo.”
“So, the spy agencies don’t approve of your methods.”
“No, they don’t. Some people in intelligence agencies, if they could, would see to it that I was charged with murder and put away for life for stopping some of the killers I’ve found. Like I say, there are lots of great people in intel, but anymore I have trouble telling the good ones from the bad. So, the best thing for me to do is stay off their radar.”
“I can understand that. I’ve had that same problem.”
Jack smiled. “Then we’re much the same. I’m telling you all this because I want you to understand that I have no intention of ever telling any authorities anything we discuss, or anything about you. I don’t want to get you noticed by them, either. I hope you will treat me the same. People like us have to stick together.”
“So what are you doing here? What is it you want from me?”
“You heard about the terrorist attacks all over the country?”
“Sure. I work all the time so I don’t listen to the news much, but I heard about it. It’s all the customers in the bar have been talking about. Seems like a lot of them blame Russia and want to go to war.”
“People like simplistic solutions.”
“You think it’s more complicated?”
“Yes. One of those attacks—one of the big ones—was at the Oeste Mesa border crossing between Mexico and California.”
He pulled a second photo out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her.
“That’s him,” she said after she looked back up. “That’s Cassiel.”
Jack nodded confirmation. “He was there.”
She frowned back down at the photo. “Why can’t I see that he’s a killer from this photo, see everything about him from his eyes like I could from the other one?”
“There is an important difference between the two photos. This one was taken by one of the automatic cameras at the border crossing, just before the attack. It’s a digital photo that’s been digitally enhanced, enlarged, and sent over the Internet. Your ability to recognize killers only works in person, or with a photo printed from a negative onto photo paper.”
“Huh. That’s weird.”
“Have you ever seen a photo of a killer on photo paper before, like the first one I showed you?”
“No.”
He looked at her from under his brow. “So … then you’ve seen a killer before? I mean, in real life? A real killer?”
“Yes,” she said, dismissing the question by not elaborating. “So Cassiel crossed during the attack?”
“Actually, we think he may have been part of the attack.”
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense,” she said as she looked at the blowup of Cassiel’s face from the camera at the crossing.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he’s a killer, a monster. He works alone. Killing is his passion. He is consumed by it, haunted by it. He can’t go for long before his urge to kill overtakes everything else. It drives him to the point of taking foolish risks. It doesn’t make any sense that he would be taking part in a terrorist attack.”
“See, now, that’s part of the puzzle I don’t understand, either. All I can figure out is that it could be he just wanted to be in on the slaughter.”
Angela shook her head. “No, that’s not his style. He doesn’t care about seeing people get killed. That’s not what gets him off. It’s the personal act of killing in all forms that fascinates him. He is obsessed with watching people die at his hands, whether it’s cutting their throat … or shooting them in the back of the head.”
Jack knew she was thinking about her grandparents again, so he steered her back to the puzzle pieces he was trying to fit together.
“I thought the same thing. He doesn’t fit the psychological profile of a terrorist. That’s why I’m at a loss as to what he was doing there, in this photo, just before the attack. The only other possibility in the back of my mind is that he might be coming back into the US to kill you, and coming in with the terrorists was the simplest way. He killed members of your family in Italy. He killed your grandparents. I think he might be coming back to kill you.”
“He does like to kill entire families.” She finally looked back from staring out into the dark woods across the road. “Give me that photo again—the first one.”
Jack handed it over and watched as she looked into Cassiel’s eyes, but this time for a long moment.
“No. That’s not the reason. He was careless. He killed a woman and her family, Khorshid Hamidi. Funny.” She frowned thoughtfully. “I’ve never heard any of these names before, but I know them now simply from looking into his eyes.”
“You were saying … he was careless?”
“Yes. He killed that family and was captured by Iranian authorities. She was the daughter of an imam. They were going to put him to death. He was spared to be part of this mission, this terrorist attack.”
Jack sat stunned by what she was able to tell from looking at his eyes.
She handed back the photo. “So what other pieces are you trying to figure out?”
“Well, I was in Israel helping them identify terrorists—killers—who were coming into Jerusalem.”
She frowned. “How were you able to do that?”
He didn’t think it was the right time, so he waved off the question.
“That’s not important right now. The important part—one of the pieces of the puzzle that I think involves you—is that we captured a suicide bomber before he could detonate his bomb vest.”
“That’s fortunate.”
“Yes. But the strange thing is, the guy was Mexican. He only spoke Spanish. He said he was born in Mexico.”
Angela’s expression darkened. “Mexican. A Mexican suicide bomber in Jerusalem. That seems pretty strange.”
“They’d never had it happen before. But the key thing is, he was supposed to blow himself up in the attack. Had he succeeded we would never have known that he only speaks Spanish.” He could see that behind her eyes, the wheels were turning. “One of my talents is that I find connections in things that at first don’t seem like they fit together.”
“You mean you work on connections like the captured Mexican suicide bomber and Cassiel crossing into the US from Mexico.”
“That’s part of it,” he said, watching her face as she started putting pieces together in her own mind.
“Cassiel could pass for Mexican,” she said as she stared off. “He speaks several languages. Spanish is one of them.”
Jack smiled. “That was my thought. It’s a connecting thread. But I don’t know what it means.”