They followed Lazlo uneventfully back to the Olympic village and talked over their options. It was less than forty-eight hours until the ladies’ figure skating finals and whatever Gorabchek had planned. Vanessa went back to the ops center to report on what the Medusas had learned, and Isabella refrained from begging to go with her. Dex was a busy man, and she needed a decent night’s sleep. But she missed him as she crawled into bed, and she fell asleep wishing he were with her.
Isabella spent all of the next morning going from interview to interview with Anya, and came away knowing more about television studios than she’d ever cared to. They’d declined all interviews with any potentially hostile news agencies. Anya didn’t need the stress of being attacked, and Isabella didn’t need the security risk.
Liz Cartwright was awake, and Anya went to visit her after lunch. Liz’s brother, Peter, was also at the hospital, and at Liz’s request, agreed to step in for his injured sister and coach Anya for the next couple days.
To that end, he met Anya at one of the practice rinks late in the afternoon. Dex had arranged with the ISU for the session to be closed to the public, and the space echoed with the slicing sounds of blades digging into the ice. Anya ran through her long program and then the American coach worked with her on her jumps. It was a light workout that looked designed more to build Anya’s confidence than anything else.
Peter skated off the ice with Anya. “You’re ready. Go home, have a good dinner, and go over to the athletes’ spa for a rub down. Then get a good night’s sleep and we’ll see if you can’t snag a medal tomorrow. You’ve got the point value in your program to do it.”
Anya nodded in determination. The girl already had her game face on. Usually Isabella didn’t see it until three or four hours before the competition. Anya was tucked into her room for the night by eight o’clock, with Misty babysitting her.
Isabella didn’t quite know what to do with herself. She wasn’t used to being done this early. She wandered over to the ops center to see if there’d been any new developments. Nada. She sat down at one of the empty desks and laid out the entire folder of case notes on Anya. Maybe there was something in here they’d missed. Some clue as to what the Red Jihad and Gorabchek had planned.
It was nearly midnight when she spotted it. She rocked her chair forward abruptly and read the last paragraph again. It was an inventory listing all the equipment in Harlan Holt’s lab. She picked up the phone in front of her and dialed Dex’s cell phone.
He sounded falsely alert, like she’d woken him up and he was still in that thirty-second window of jolted awareness before his body’s protest at being dragged from sleep slammed into him. “Thorpe here.”
“Hey, Dex, it’s me.”
“Hi, sweetheart. Are you coming over to help me get back to sleep?”
“I wish. I just found something in Anya’s file. I should’ve seen it earlier.”
“What did you find?”
“I don’t think Harlan Holt’s lab is adequately equipped to manufacture Agent Alpha.”
Dex sounded wide-awake now. “Talk to me.”
“I was looking at a list of the equipment in his lab. When I was in college, I took some chemistry classes, and I recognize most of this stuff. It’s really basic. I don’t think any of it is high-tech enough to engineer complex chemicals.”
“I’ll be right there.”
While she was waiting for Dex to arrive, Isabella looked up the phone number of the FBI briefer who’d told them about Agent Alpha two nights before. She called the woman at home. “This is Isabella Torres from the Olympic Security Group. I was at your briefing night before last.”
The agent gave a cautious acknowledgement of remembering her.
“Since this is not a secure line, I’m going to read off a list of laboratory equipment, then I’d like a yes or no answer out of you. Would this equipment be sufficient to manufacture what you briefed us on?” Isabella read off the list.
At the end of it, the agent gave a succinct, “No.”
“Thank you,” Isabella replied. “You’ve been immensely helpful.”
“Do you need any help with your…research?”
“We may. We’ll call if we do.”
“You do that.”
Cryptic phone conversation over, Isabella hung up. She leaned back in her chair. If Holt didn’t make Agent Alpha in his lab, what was it doing there? Their assumption that he was part of the Red Jihad’s conspiracy might be premature. But he and his wife were still missing, and he did have Agent Alpha in his possession. Her gut rumbled in foreboding. The guy had access to Agent Alpha and to the figure skating rink. Was he trying to kill Anya?
She picked up the phone. Called the FBI scientist again. “Hey, it’s Isabella Torres again. One more question. Can our research product be packaged in individual servings?”
A long pause. “I suppose. Why?”
“Just asking.”
“I’ll be right there,” the FBI agent announced.
The line went dead in Isabella’s ear.
An hour later, all the Medusas minus Misty sat in the ops center’s conference room with Dex, Hobo, the FBI scientist, and a couple other unidentified men Dex vouched for but did not introduce. Spooks, then. Spies. Or guys with jobs so classified they weren’t really sitting here and didn’t legally exist.
The Khalid folder lay open on the table, and Vanessa stood at the big whiteboard. A green line ran vertically down the center of the board—a timeline of the threats and attempts on Anya’s life. Then, off to each side were two arcing lines that started at the top of the green line and ended at the bottom. The whole thing resembled a giant football standing on end.
The left curving line listed the events surrounding Lazlo, his family and Ilya Gorabchek. The right curving line listed the events apparently connected directly to the Red Jihad and its Middle Eastern operatives. Drawn like that, it made Anya appear as more of a catalyst than an end target.
And all three lines led to a box at the bottom of the board labeled, Ladies’ Finals. Vanessa finished her drawing with a flourish and turned around to face the room. “We have more than a simple security problem, ladies and gentlemen. We have a bona fide terrorist threat on our hands. I don’t think Anya Khalid is the target. I think the ladies’ figure skating final and its thirty thousand spectators are.”
Isabella nodded her agreement. “Put in this context, the attacks on me start to make sense, too. I was jumped in the alley by guys from the Red Jihad timeline. But, I’m convinced I was attacked in my apartment by guys from the Gorabchek timeline. Why me? I’m a measly bodyguard. Yeah, I symbolize Anya Khalid and I’ve been easier to get to than she is. But what if the attacks were a distraction? What if both groups are coming after Anya and me to draw attention away from themselves?”
Nods around the table. Dex commented, “That feels right.”
Isabella stood up and went to the board. “There’s somebody invisible up here.” She pointed to the top of the timeline. “Somebody out of sight. He or she wants to blow up the figure skating venue when it’s crammed to the rafters with people. So, he makes a stink about Anya and launches this highly visible chain of events down the middle. Then, he secretly sends out not one, but two terrorist cells to attack the end target. That way if one fails or gets caught, he’s still got a backup team in place. After all, an opportunity like this only comes along every four years—or every thirty years if you want to make the attack at an Olympics on U.S. soil.”
The line of reasoning felt spot on to Isabella. “These cells know about each other. Maybe they even met once or twice. But for the most part, they operate independently. They don’t know that both groups attacked Anya and me a few times, not with any intent to kill either one of us. Because let’s face it. If these guys wanted us dead, they’d have come at us with a hell of a lot more than bags of doggie doo-doo and snowballs.”
A grim chuckle sounded around the table.
“I think both groups wanted us to concentrate our manpower around Anya. The fatwa itself may have been a feint to hide the real target.”
The FBI scientist leaned forward. “So we’re looking for elements outside that diagram. People and events that can give us some clue as to how they plan to take out the Hamilton Arena—or at least all the people in it.”
Vanessa took over writing on the board as the group brainstormed possibilities:
—Harlan Holt
—Lazlo Petrovich
—the Agent Alpha powder
—Agent Bravo?
—Emma Holt’s disappearance
—the Petrovich family’s apparent attempt to defect
They all stared at the list for several minutes in silence. It was a Special Forces technique to let everyone sit and percolate during these sorts of sessions. As folks started to get fidgety, Dex asked, “Anyone come up with anything?”
The FBI scientist dived in. “We need to search the figure skating venue from top to bottom for any sign of the two halves of that nerve gas. To target a place that size, you’re talking about a couple hundred pounds of Agent Alpha and several hundred gallons of Agent Bravo if you want to actually kill everyone.”
Dex wrote a note. “Anyone else?”
Isabella leaned forward. “We approach Lazlo and make him talk. He may be a sleeper, but he’s not a hardened terrorist. He’ll crack if we put him under pressure.”
Dex looked over at Vanessa. “Can I put the Medusas in charge of that since you know him better than the rest of us?”
Isabella snorted. “After you chewed his butt over the road trip, he won’t want to talk to you any time soon.”
Dex rolled his eyes. “He deserved it.”
Isabella shot back, “He deserved worse.”
Vanessa nodded. “We’ve got it covered. We’ll figure out the best way to approach him and take care of it in the morning.” She added, “And in the meantime, you all can move heaven and earth to find Harlan—and Emma—Holt.”
An APB was put out on the Holts in addition to the FBI launching a good, old-fashioned manhunt. Television and radio stations would be blitzed with the Holts’ pictures, and agents all over the country would be put on high alert. Informants would be squeezed and snitches shaken down. Wherever the two Holts were hidden, their lives were about to get really damned difficult.
Next, the biohazard guys were dragged out of bed and sent over to the figure skating venue with a team of FBI agents to search the place. Even using forty agents, it would take several hours to clear a building that size.
There wasn’t much more the Medusas could do until morning. Lazlo Petrovich was an Olympic athlete scheduled to compete in the men’s singles finals. Without concrete evidence of his participation in a criminal conspiracy, there were some lines even the OSG dared not cross.
Too wired to sleep, Isabella went over to the Hamilton Arena to watch the FBI search. It was an impressive thing. Forensics experts crawled all over the venue with high-tech gadgets, spraying, swabbing, scraping and generally poking and prodding everything. And in spite of it all, they didn’t turn up any white powder or barrels of suspicious liquid.
The biohazard guys were equally anal. Although they had somewhat more interesting results. They kept picking up shadow readings of Agent Alpha—traces too faint to be definite hits, but enough to trigger the sensors in their equipment. This time the machines were saying the Agent Alpha was airborne. Except when small air samples from different parts of the building were specifically run through the sensors, they came up empty. The chemical warfare experts were like bulldogs smelling an enemy no longer present, but the lingering scent of it still agitated them.
About 4:00 a.m., Isabella packed it in. Her eyes were gritty and she finally felt like she could sleep. She made her way back to the Olympic village and slipped quietly into Anya’s room. Misty nodded and left to get some sleep herself.
Isabella had made Dex promise to call her if there were any developments overnight. So, with her cell phone set to vibrate under her pillow, she crashed on the sofa bed.
Anya’s alarm clock went off at nine o’clock. Isabella leaped out of bed, wide-awake. The two of them had established a routine over the past few days. Isabella got up, took a shower and did the morning bathroom thing while Anya rolled over and caught an extra half hour of sleep. With a nudge to Anya at nine-thirty, Isabella answered the door and let in Kat, who was on guard duty next.
Time to go put the squeeze on young Lazlo. First, she headed for the ops center to get approval for her plan and to get wired for sound. With Dex’s permission still vibrating in her ears and Vanessa manning the receiver at the other end of the microphone taped to Isabella’s stomach, she headed for Lazlo’s room to offer the boy a deal.
Abdul finished his midmorning prayers and rolled up his prayer rug, stowing it in the closet. Distastefully, he reached for Western clothes. It was necessary to blend in with the infidels on this day, this greatest of all days when he would earn his place in paradise forever. Ironic that he should have to lower himself like this, to mingle with the unbelievers as one of them, to accomplish such a sublime goal.
The van his nephews had used for the Holt woman’s abduction was still parked behind the house. He went outside into the miserable cold, despising the wet mess of it all. What possessed anyone to live in a climate like this? It chilled a man right to the bones and could kill in a matter of hours. It might get hot in Bhoukar, but at least a soul had a day or two in the desert to find water before he perished outright.
He got into the generic, white van and backed out of the driveway. He pointed the vehicle south and west toward his target, which was in an even more remote and isolated house than this one. He wound down the half-mile long driveway. His boys had spent yesterday afternoon riding up and down it on snowmobiles, packing the new snowfall until it was passable once more by car—or van. He’d had a moment of panic that the plan, so many years in the making, might be foiled by a simple snowstorm. But he’d prayed all night as the storm raged, and his prayers had been answered by the cessation of new snow yesterday morning.
It would take him a couple hours to reach his destination. Although he only needed a few minutes to tie up the woman and put her into the van, he would also need to sanitize the house she’d been kept in for fingerprints or other evidence. No reason to make it easy for the FBI to identify them. After all, the idea was not to die here. The idea was to accomplish the mission and go home. As heroes. As the chosen of Allah.
Isabella knocked on Lazlo’s door.
He threw it open, clearly not expecting her, and whatever he was going to say died on his lips as he recognized her.
“May I come in?” she asked with a certain amount of insistence.
“Uh, I guess so.” He stepped back to allow her into his messy room. A clumsy attempt to pack fast was in progress. Lazlo unobtrusively pushed two suitcases off the bed as he passed by it. Preparing to flee with his family to New York. Of course, she wasn’t supposed to know that.
“Lazlo, I know you have to skate tonight and don’t need any distractions, so I’m going to get right to the point. I’m here to offer you a deal.”
He looked startled. “What sort of deal?”
She stated it baldly for maximum shock value. “A few of my colleagues and I will help you and your family escape from Ilya Gorabchek and his cronies if, in return, you will tell me exactly what Gorabchek is up to and what he’s got planned for the ladies’ figure skating finals.”
Lazlo stared. Collapsed into the chair behind him. Stared some more. Swore long and hard. Finally managed to splutter, “How in the bloody hell do you know about that?”
Whether he was referring to his family’s upcoming escape attempt or Gorabchek’s conspiracy, she couldn’t tell. Probably, he meant both. At any rate, she could capitalize on his shock.
She shrugged. “The Olympic Security Group is the best-trained, best-equipped security force in the world. Did you honestly think the messes you’re embroiled in would escape our notice? You’re an amateur, Lazlo. You’re in way over your head.”
She shut up to let him stew. Sometimes silence was a more powerful argument than any words.
It took a few minutes, but finally he spoke. “You’d have to guarantee political asylum for my family.”
“They’ll have to agree to tell us everything they know about Gorabchek, Red Jihad—” that got a big lurch out of him, but she pressed on “—and any other illegal activities they’re aware of.”
“How…” Poor kid was too stunned to even form a sentence.
“I told you. We know everything that’s going on in this town. Your family—and you—agree to spill the beans, and yes, I’ll guarantee all of you asylum in the United States. If you don’t take this deal, all of you can expect to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for collaboration with the Red Jihad and as coconspirators in the plan they’ve got cooked up for tonight. Oh, and did I mention there’s a death penalty for certain terrorism convictions in this country?”
Lazlo went pale.
The screws were now sufficiently applied to his thumbs. She leaned against the door, telegraphing that there was no escaping her. It didn’t take long. Under a minute. He nodded slowly. His shoulders slumped in defeat, and then rose as if a great weight had been lifted off of them.
“You’re making the right decision,” she said gently. “You had no choice. No choice at all. Now, here’s what we’re going to do tonight…”
Harlan Holt slouched on the end of the bed, staring at his face on the TV. And now they thought he was a terrorist? Would this nightmare never end? Despair squeezed his heart until it felt empty. If he couldn’t show his face in Lake Placid, how was he supposed to retrieve Emma? They said they’d bring her to him. She’d be left at the figure skating rink after the…event. That’s what they’d called it. An event. Tens of thousands of people murdered was an event. And he thought they would let his Emma live?
They would. They would! They had to. He’d tell if they didn’t. And they’d get caught. Harlan Holt, the biggest dolt. Believes anything you tell him… The memory of a child’s voice taunted him. His own childish voice. He’d always been the gullible kid. The brilliant nerd who couldn’t even tell when someone was pulling his leg. He’d cried over kittens that were never killed, raged over injustices that were never committed, and he’d never learned. Nope. Never learned.
A feverish hallucination of Emma’s dead body being handed into his arms made him scramble backward on the bed, scrubbing at his arms in horror.
No! They would hold up their end of the bargain. He’d kept quiet. And they would let Emma live. Harlan Holt, the biggest dolt. Believes anything you tell him…
The rhyme went around and around in his head, getting louder and louder until it was so insistent he clapped his hands over his ears. Finally he collapsed on the bed and yanked the pillow down over his head. Still the voices sang.
Then another voice intruded. A strong, determined male voice. “…anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of Dr. Holt or his wife is urged to contact the authorities immediately. This is a matter of national security.”
National security? Did they know about the terrorists’ plans? They must!
If they knew already, then he wasn’t breaking the deal with those bastards. He could talk to the police! Tell them about Emma without putting her in more danger. Ask for help. Sure, the FBI had a manhunt going on for Emma. But they’d never find her without his help. But he could do that now!
His hands shook as he fumbled with the phone. He picked up the receiver and stared at the archaic dial. Who should he call? Who knew the truth? Those suits on TV wouldn’t know the whole story. They’d want to debrief him and verify his story and waste too much time filling out paperwork. He needed to talk to those women who’d been chasing him. That dark-haired one in particular. The one who’d been the girl figure skater’s bodyguard.
He dialed the operator. “Connect me to Lake Placid. To whoever’s in charge of security for the Olympics.” He waited impatiently.
“How does the Olympic Security Group sound, sir?”
“Fine, fine. Just put me through.” Even if it wasn’t the right people, maybe they’d be able to forward his call to the perceptive brunette.
“Breckenridge here. Go ahead.”
Harlan blinked. This guy sounded like another one of those suits on TV. “Uh, I need to speak to a woman. She’s got dark hair. Dark eyes. Pretty. She’s the bodyguard for that Arab skater girl.”
“Isabella Torres.”
“Uh, yeah. Her.”
“May I tell her who’s calling?”
“Tell her it’s about that guy on television that everyone’s looking for.”
“Harlan Holt. If you have information about him, I’ll forward you to the FBI field office—”
“No! I want Ms. Torres!” He broke off. His voice was rising hysterically that probably wasn’t the way to get connected to her. He calmed his voice down, but it still shook. “Please. It’s urgent.”
The suit named Breckenridge sounded skeptical. “Lemme see if she’s available.”
“C’mon, c’mon,” he muttered under his breath. “Be there.”
A cautious voice spoke in his ear. “This is Isabella Torres. May I help you?”
Thank God. His bladder threatened to empty down his leg, his relief was so intense. He crossed his legs tightly. “I…my name…this is Harlan Holt. Thank God you figured out what’s going on. They’ve got my wife and that’s why I didn’t call you sooner. They say they’ll give her back to me after tonight, but I don’t believe them. I mean, I wanted to believe them, but this song kept going through the back of my head, and I finally figured out it was trying to tell me something.”
“Who’s they?” the woman asked.
“The terrorists, of course,” he replied, alarmed. “You do know what they’re doing, don’t you?”
“Uh, of course,” she replied. “The ladies figure skating final.”
“Right. Killing everyone.”
“Right. With a binary nerve agent.”
He nodded vigorously. “Nasty stuff.”
“What else do you know about their plan, Dr. Holt?”
“I don’t know how they’ll get the second half of the agent onto the ice, if that’s what you mean. But now that you know the plan you can get Emma back.”
“So, they did kidnap your wife?” the woman exclaimed.
“Yes, I already told you,” he replied impatiently. “That’s why I didn’t come to you sooner. But when I saw on TV that you’d figured out their plan, then it was okay for me to call you. They told me they’ll give her back to me alive after the event. But I don’t believe them. I think they’ll kill her after it’s all over. I need you to follow them and find my Emma. You’re a woman. You’ll understand. She’s all alone with them. She has to be terrified. And I—” his voice cracked “—I wasn’t strong enough to save her from them. I…need your help.”
“I’ll help you, Dr. Holt. But I need you to help me, too. What can you tell me about the terrorists’ plans?”
“They didn’t tell me anything! They just made me put their powder in the rink and told me to disappear until tonight was over. Said they’d contact me after they succeeded and arrange for Emma’s return. But, I figured out what that stuff was. Obviously, they’re planning to gas the crowd.” Panic gripped him. Had he misread what that suit on TV had said? “I thought you knew everything!
“That’s why I called you—” He slammed down the receiver. They’d probably traced the call, too. Had he just ended Emma’s life?
He grabbed his backpack and his coat and rushed out of the room, tossing the key on the bed. He wouldn’t be coming back here, that was for sure. Sick to his stomach, he stumbled to his car, climbed in and drove out of the parking lot.
Isabella glanced around the ops center. Pretty much everyone in the joint was gaping at her. Hobo broke the silence. “Well? What’d he say?”
“He said terrorists kidnapped his wife and forced him to put Agent Alpha in the rink. He doesn’t know how they’re planning to get the Agent Bravo into the arena, but they said they’d give him his wife back after they succeeded at tonight’s figure skating finals.”
“It’s a lie!” Hobo blurted. “We went over that arena with a fine-toothed comb, and there’s no Agent Alpha there.”
She frowned. “It’s a hell of an elaborate story. The evidence we found at his home is consistent with a forced entry and abduction. And we know he couldn’t have made the Agent Alpha at his lab. He said he analyzed the powder and figured out what it was. That would explain how the chemical made its way into his lab.”
“You believe this guy?” Hobo asked just as Dex came striding into the ops center. From the look on his face, someone had already told him who’d just called her.
She made eye contact with Dex as she answered, “My intuition says Dr. Holt is telling the truth. He sounded scared to death, somewhat disoriented, impatient, not quite rational. Just like a man whose wife has been kidnapped and who’s terrified of the consequences of what he’s been forced to do.”
Dex replied quietly, “He could also be a brilliant scientist who has pieced together what we’ve got on him from the television reports and has cooked up a wild story to explain it all.”
She nodded in candor. “He could indeed. But he’s not. The man I just talked to is the real deal. He was a mess.”
Dex studied her for a moment. And then nodded. “I concur.”
Her relief that he’d agreed with her was tempered by the tiniest niggle of fear that he’d done it because he was about to be her boyfriend. Note to self: never, ever work with Dex again.
“Now what?” Hobo asked.
She looked down at the guy. “Now, I go take my girl to a skating competition. And hope like hell we can spot the mechanisms by which these two nerve agents are going to be delivered and stop them before thirty thousand people die.”