James Patterson - Kill Alex Cross

“Tell her she’ll be in a hotel tonight, perfectly secure. Once we have everything we need, other arrangements can be made,” Stroud answered.

Sivitz kept his thoughts to himself. The woman seemed a little simple to him. It was amazing that the Bureau had put this much stock in her. Although, by the same token, all of her intel had been good so far. Maybe her own people had underestimated her, too.

He also noticed that her hijab was down around her shoulders, even with these strange men in the room. That spoke volumes about her.

“‘I want a new life,’” she went on through her translator. “‘My husband is not the same man that I married. I can’t stand by and watch this happen anymore. I have friends here. American friends, do you understand?’”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got it,” Sivitz said.

Somewhere in there, she’d turned her attention on him. Maybe she felt like she wasn’t getting anywhere with Stroud and Lindley. But he was no baby-sitter. “Ask who her husband reports to in Saudi Arabia. We need to know who’s giving the orders here.”

“We’ve been trying, Matt. You do know that, right?” Stroud said.

“Pretty please?” Sivitz’s adrenaline was still high, and he didn’t give a shit whose pay grade was up the scale from whose right now.

Stroud nodded at the interpreter, who posed the question to Mrs. Angawi.

“‘I don’t know,’” she translated.

“What about the Coyle kids?” Sivitz asked.

“‘My husband says that The Family is responsible. He said as much to two of our people just the other day. The ones who are in charge now, I think.’”

“And who are they? What are their names? What do they look like? Where are they?”

Sivitz tried not to rush, but he was finding it difficult. Time was short.

“‘I believe she is a doctor. The man is somewhat plain — in his looks, but also maybe in his head. I think it’s the wife who controls things. She’s very strong.’”

“And you don’t know their names?” Sivitz tried again.

No.

“Or where they are?”

No.

“Jesus.”

He turned and walked to the window. The Capitol dome loomed just a few blocks away. The needle of the Washington Monument stood tall in the distance. It was a great nighttime city, really. Not that he ever got to enjoy it.

Again, the woman spoke up, followed by the interpreter. What the woman had said seemed important. Her voice had risen.

“‘What I can tell you is where the next attack will be. Also maybe when it is scheduled.’”

Everything in the room seemed to go still. When Sivitz turned around, Mrs. Angawi’s expression had changed. Was she smiling? The corners of her mouth looked curled.

“Tell me,” Sivitz asked. Lindley was already dialing his phone. “Give me a location. A time. Whatever you’ve got. Then you’ll get what you want.”

She sat back then. Yes, she was definitely smiling. She was just as smug as her husband when she wanted to be, wasn’t she?

Taking her time now, the woman picked up the uneaten half of her sandwich and carefully wrapped it in a paper napkin. She tucked it into the purse on the table next to her and then put the purse on her lap, speaking quietly through the translator as she did.

“‘As soon as you get me out of this godforsaken city, I’ll tell you what you want to know.’”

First thing the next morning, I was back on the trail of Zoe Coyle’s cell phone. The number I got from her friends traced to a prepaid Firefly flip model. It was the kind of thing you could pick up at any convenience store — no calling plan, no subscriber information required. Zoe had obviously gone to some trouble to keep this thing a secret.

Fireflies were especially popular with schoolkids, since they were so small and easy to hide. Even their advertising campaign played it up — Where’s Your Firefly?

I hated to think about where Zoe’s might be right now. Buried underground somewhere? In pieces at the side of the highway? Sitting in some maniac’s glove compartment? None of the images that flooded my mind were good ones.

As soon as I had the signatures I needed, I faxed off an administrative subpoena for records to the phone company down in Jacksonville, Florida. I gave them exactly one hour to respond.

When I didn’t hear back, I called and left a message for their director of security: another subpoena was on the way. He could bring those records up and present them to the grand jury himself, if that’s how they wanted to play it.

Five minutes later, my phone rang.

“Detective Cross, it’s Bill Shattuck with Essential Electronics. How can I help you?”

“What don’t you already know?” I asked, cutting through the bullshit.

“Well, I’ve got the records for the number you requested right here in front of me. Should I e-mail you a copy?”

“Please and thank you,” I said.

Shattuck cleared his throat. “There’s one other thing. I can send you the transaction logs for text messages and voice calls, no problem, but we just don’t have the kind of data storage you get with an AT&T or a Verizon. The actual content of any texts drops off our system after seven or eight days, and the last transaction on this phone was... let’s see. Twelve days ago. An incoming text on September ninth.”

No surprise there. Just a little punch to the stomach. That was the day of the kidnapping.

“Just send me what you’ve got. Thanks again,” I told him, and hung up.

The report came through a minute later. As soon as I got it, I scrolled down to the bottom and looked at September 9. The text in question was the only entry for that day.

It had come into Zoe’s phone at 8:05 a.m., right in the middle of Branaff’s homeroom period. That was also about fifteen minutes before Ethan and Zoe disappeared.

It took me only a few keystrokes to run a reverse lookup on the incoming phone number. It was registered to a Cathy Allison, with an address in Foggy Bottom. And in fact, I knew the exact house. I’d been there on Saturday to interview Ms. Allison’s daughter Emma, one of Zoe’s inner circle of girlfriends.

I looked up at the clock. It was 10:15 a.m. Emma would be in class right now — third period.

If I left right away, I could be there by fourth.

Emma Allison’s eyes went wide as she stepped out of the science lab and into the hall, where I was waiting for her. So was the headmaster.

“Emma, Detective Cross is here to ask you a few questions,” Mr. Skillings told her.

She seemed like a scared little girl to me, but in a fourteen-going-on-thirty kind of way. She had too much dark liner around her eyes and a pair of half-shredded leggings under her school uniform. The thick-soled boots looked just like the red ones Zoe had been wearing the morning she disappeared.

“Did they find Zoe?” she blurted out. “Oh please. Please, please, please .”

“No, I’m sorry, Emma,” I said. “Actually, what I need is to get a look at your phone.”

“My phone? But why? What’s going on?”

“Do you have the phone with you?”

“I hope not,” Skillings said pointedly. “The students aren’t allowed to have any electronics in class. Isn’t that right, Emma?”

“It’s in my locker,” she said.

The headmaster motioned her up the hall, not even trying to hide his impatience. I’d already spent a good fifteen minutes in his office, tracking down Mrs. Allison and getting permission to speak with Emma in the first place.

We followed her outside and across a breezeway, into one of the campus’s several redbrick annex buildings.