Off the Grid

As we stepped out of the coach, I snapped a picture on the q.t. with my iPhone of the sun setting and the Secret Service agents. When I held the phone up, no one knew if I was texting, e-mailing, or playing a game. It didn’t occur to them that I might be taking their photo.

People were already starting to line up outside the gate, even though the concert didn’t start until eight.

Pat Callaghan pushed his way to the front of the line. After flashing his badge and getting a little guff from the uniforms, he was let through. He looked a little more presentable than he had as a protester but not by much. His short brown hair was covered in dust and debris, and his suit was smeared with dirt from crawling around the parking structure where the bomb went off.

He walked over to us. “How you doing, kids? Mind if I have a word with Boone alone?”

Angela and I looked at Boone.

“They’re on the team,” Boone said. “No secrets between us.”

Pat shrugged and proceeded to tell us what he and Uly had discovered at the parking structure, which didn’t add much to what we already knew.

“It could have been far worse,” Pat said. “They could have parked at a different place at a busier time and killed a lot more people. The hard part was getting that much explosive material into D.C. It’s as if they pulled their punch.”

Boone nodded. “It’s a message. No one’s safe. Not even in the nation’s capital. For the next few days people will hesitate before going to the mall. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more car bombs in different cities. It’s not the number of people the bombs kill. It’s the fear and terror. They’re letting us know that ghosts actually exist.”

“Speaking of ghosts,” Pat said. “I ran into X-Ray across the street, hooking a trailer up to a van. He told me to tell you that they lost track of Malak.”

Boone frowned. “How’d that happen?”

“Three car switches. Lost her on the third. All her cell phones were tossed out the window, and they found her laptop in a Dumpster. Hard drive removed. Her guy Ziv, I guess his name is, told X-Ray that she and he had an emergency backup communication, but that’s out too. She’s completely off the grid.”

Boone swore.

I took Angela’s hand.

Malak knew she was off the grid.

The crew driving her made every operative and terrorist she’d ever worked with look like amateurs. The man in back did not go through her backpack; he systematically tore apart the pack and everything inside it. She heard him crush the cell phones and felt the rush of air as he opened the window and threw them out, along with other items from her pack. About a block later he threw the pack out, along with the tracking device hidden inside. She was lucky he hadn’t found the device as he tore the pack apart.

Before Malak was transferred to the second vehicle—which seemed to be inside an empty warehouse—they found the cell phone in her back pocket and the gun stashed in her sling. They said nothing as they took them away, nor did she. It was then that Malak knew that she was completely on her own. A few minutes after the third vehicle exchange, she heard the hum of an electric garage door opening and then closing behind them.

She was led through a kitchen with the smells of a dinner being cooked and down a steep staircase. A carpet at the bottom. Cigarette smoke. The crinkle of heavy-duty plastic underfoot as she was made to sit in a hard wooden chair.

The plastic had her worried. Plastic was used to protect carpet from stains such as blood.

The black hood was pulled off her head, replaced by the cold steel of a pistol touching the back of her head. She squinted at the bright white light pointed at her face from a foot away. Beyond the light was blackness. The only sound was the breathing of the person standing behind her.

A full minute passed, then a man beyond the light said, “Tell me what happened.” He had a slight Middle Eastern accent.

Malak told him everything from the moment she left the safe house until she stepped out of the doctor’s office.

“How did Eben Lavi find you?”

“I have no idea. He might have been following Amun.”

“Did you know that Eben Lavi sent his two Mossad agents back to Israel with word that you were dead and buried in a shallow grave at a farm outside Philadelphia?”

“No.”

The fact that the man knew this meant that the ghost cell had done the impossible: they had infiltrated the best intelligence agency in the world.

The man continued. “Eben also sent with them his official resignation from the Mossad.”

“Apparently, he lied,” Malak said. “Or else he’s gone rogue on them.”

“Tell me about Amun,” the man said.

“Amun was a liability,” Malak said. “He was a fool.”

“Amun was my son,” the man said.

Malak hid her surprise. The revelation explained how Amun had risen to his position within the cell.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Malak said. “But Amun was still a fool. He was reckless. He should never have been put in the position he was in. He compromised our cell on a daily basis.”

This was followed by a longer silence. All the man beyond the light had to do was nod and Malak would be dead. They would wrap her corpse in the plastic under her feet and haul it away.

Showdown

Angela was in bad shape as we walked back into the East Room. Pale, shaky, worried-looking—which was natural under the circumstances. But we couldn’t afford to look this way. Pale, shaky, and worried would lead to questions we could not answer without blowing Malak’s cover and ruining our parents’ music careers.

I was relieved to see that Mom and Roger weren’t down from the Residence quarters. One look at Angela and they would know that something was terribly wrong. The room had emptied out except for a few roadies, camera operators, and Secret Service agents.

I held Angela back as Boone and Pat walked ahead.

“Get a hold of yourself,” I whispered. “Malak is tough. She knows what she’s doing.”

“So does the ghost cell,” Angela said. “When things went bad in the apartment she should have thrown in the towel. Even Boone’s scared. I could see it in his eyes.”

“He’s not scared,” I said. “He’s concerned. I know the difference. The only time I’ve seen him scared was in Philly when you ran away.”

“He was scared?”

“Petrified, and mad. You shouldn’t have—”

“Let’s stay on subject,” Angela interrupted. “My mom’s totally on her own now. No one knows where she is.”

“They’ll find her. Or she’ll find a way to get in touch with Ziv or SOS. This can’t be the first time she’s walked a tightrope without a net.”

“Maybe so, but she’s teetering, and if she falls.…”

“What are you doing in here, Agent Callaghan!” Chief of Staff Todd shouted. He started across the room, flanked by two skinny aides in suits. His chest and jaw were jutting out like he was going to tackle Callaghan. His surly bluster reminded me of Buddy T. I wondered if they were related.

Patrick James Callaghan gave Todd a wide grin, no doubt thinking about the dozen ways he could snap Todd’s neck with his bare hands.

The good thing about the confrontation was that it was taking Angela’s mind off her mother. In fact, everyone in the room had stopped what they were doing and were staring at the impending collision.

P.K. joined us with Heather, who was dabbing cheese curd residue from around her lips. Heather was an addicted runner. I wondered how many miles she was going to have to run to burn off the nine thousand calories from Chef Conrad’s specialty.

“Where have you been?” P.K. asked.

“Out in the coach, changing,” I said.

“Your clothes look the same.”

“They are the same, but they’re clean.”

Todd had closed the gap to about fifty feet and was still charging forward like a bull.

“You’re going to want to watch this,” I said to P.K. “Your dad wanted to see it, but he’s not here. You’ll have to describe it to him.”

Pat squared his body toward the charging Todd and shifted his weight to the balls of his feet.

Todd stopped two feet away. His red face looked hot enough to explode.

“You didn’t answer my question, Agent Callaghan!”

“I guess you didn’t get the memo,” Pat said cheerfully. “Maybe your security clearance isn’t high enough. I’ve been put on special assignment to the president of the United States. I’d tell you what it entails, but then I’d have to kill you. Which of course would be a shame because you’re so likable.”

“We’ll see about that!” Todd drew his cell phone from his pocket, flipped it open like a switchblade, stabbed a button with his thumb, and stuck it to his ear. “I need to speak to the president… I know he’s in a meeting in the Situation Room! Who do you think you’re talking to? This is important.” He waited a second with a confident, nasty grin on his face. “What? Did you tell him it was important?” His grin faded. He snapped the cell phone closed and pocketed it.

“Busy, huh?” Pat said. “Let me give it a shot.” He took out his cell phone, pressed a button, and waited about two seconds. “Sorry to bother you, sir.” He winked at Todd. “I’m in the East Room, and apparently Mr. Todd is confused. I think he wants to toss me out of the White House.” He looked at Todd. “Yeah, I’d say so… No, he hasn’t tried that yet, but I think he’d like to…” Pat laughed. “No, sir. I’d never do that to a member of your staff unless I felt that your life or mine was threatened… Right, I will.”

He held out his phone to Todd. “It’s the president. He’d like to have a word with you.”

Todd grabbed the phone. “Right, but—Right, but—How do you expect me to—Right, but—Hello? Hello?”

“Dropped signal, huh?” Pat said, grinning. “Guess I need to get a different service provider. Or maybe Peregrine hung up on you.” He held out his hand for the phone. Todd slapped it in his palm and walked away.

“What was that all about?” Heather asked.

Pat gave her a broad smile. “That was the most beautiful moment of my Secret Service career, Miss…”

“Hughes…Heather Hughes.” Heather’s face flushed.

Pat turned a little red too. For a second I thought he was going to kiss her. It didn’t look like Heather would mind.

“My name’s Patrick Callaghan, but you can call me Pat.” He looked at his watch. “Would you like a private tour of the White House? I think there’s time before the concert.”

“That would be wonderful,” Heather said.

They walked away, smiling at each other as if we didn’t exist.

“My son was perhaps a little impulsive,” the man beyond the light said. “But he was a great warrior for Islam.”

“Then your son is in paradise now,” Malak said.

Was the man Amun’s real father? Amun had never mentioned him. She’d always assumed that he had been raised by an adoptive family as she had been. Perhaps she had misjudged Amun. He had never said a word about the man behind the light.

It was Amun who had placed the bomb at Independence Hall that killed her sister. It exploded as Anmar was trying to disarm it. Amun had bragged to Malak about the bomb. He said that it had killed dozens of people, but the only person who died that day was her twin sister. She remembered the conversation well—Amun grinning as he told her about joining the school group touring the building and placing the backpack with the bomb inside. As she had listened, it was all she could do not to kill him on the spot.

“Of course you know that Elise was my younger sister,” the man said.

Here we go, Malak thought. The question game Elise started is about to continue.

Malak and Anmar had spent hours talking about Elise and Sean. Anmar would have told her if Elise had an older brother. If the man were Elise’s brother, providing she could get the information to Ziv or SOS, they would be able to find out who this man was.

“Elise never spoke about her family,” Malak said. “I didn’t know she had a brother.” She thought about saying that she was sorry about Elise’s death, but the truth was that she wasn’t sorry, and the Leopard wouldn’t be either.

This was followed by another long silence.

“How long were you at the apartment before Eben came in?” “No more than ten minutes,” Malak answered. “Which you no doubt already know. I assume you had spotters outside the apartment. How did Eben Lavi get past them?”

Interrogating the interrogator.

It didn’t work.

The man answered her question with another question.

“Who did Eben kill first?”

“Sean. He was in the bedroom. Eben came out of the bedroom and shot Elise and then Amun. I think I hit him in the leg. As he went down he got me in the arm.”

“Why didn’t you finish him off?”

“Eben was behind a chair, well covered. I couldn’t afford an open gun battle. Did the spotters take him out?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“He got the drop on one of them.”

“Where is he?”

“I imagine he’s getting the bullet you put in his thigh removed. We will find him.”

No you won’t, Malak thought. But she was relieved. Ziv’s smoke and mirrors had worked. She might just live another day.

“What did you and Elise talk about before Eben arrived?” Malak knew this was coming. If Elise was the man’s sister she would have shared her suspicions with him.

“She told me that I had an identical twin sister and accused me of being her. Apparently, your younger sister was crazy.”

“You do have a twin sister,” the man said.

“Where is she?”

“We don’t know.”

“Where are the adoptive parents?”

“Lebanon. But they severed all ties with her years ago. They have no idea where she is either. We’re looking for her.”

Malak gave a harsh laugh. “Well, you’re not looking at her now.”

Romance

Boone wandered away to check equipment and talk to the roadies leaving P.K., me, and Angela alone.

“How did Heather like the curds?” I asked.

“She liked them,” P.K. said. “But not as much as she liked Agent Callaghan.”

Again, P.K. didn’t miss anything. He looked at Angela. “What’s going on?”

“Huh?” Angela said.

“You look like your dog just got hit by a car.”

That was a pretty accurate description.

“I’m just tired,” Angela said. “And I don’t have a dog.”

P.K. shook his head. “No offense, but you’re lying.”

He was right about that too.

“I can’t tell you what’s going on,” Angela said.

I couldn’t believe she said that.

“Why?” P.K. asked.

“Because it’s personal,” Angela said, and walked away.

“Whoa,” P.K. said.

We watched her leave the East Room.

“Girls,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Her boyfriend just texted her and said that he was going out with another girl.”

“Oh,” P.K. said, but he looked confused.

I’d just stumbled onto the one thing he wasn’t a complete expert in.

“She liked him,” I said.

“She can get another boyfriend,” P.K. said.

“Yep, but it’s a little hard on tour like this. We’re not anywhere long enough to really get to know people. We’re in a different city every day.”

“Bethany had a boyfriend,” P.K. said. “But when she took Mom’s place here, he dropped her. She was messed up for days.”

“There you go,” I said. “Angela will be all right in a couple of days.”

And by then we would be long gone.

“Elise was convinced that you were not Anmar,” the man said.

“When I was eighteen Elise was convinced that I wouldn’t make it through my training,” Malak said. “She was convinced that the only thing I would contribute to the jihad were warrior babies. Elise was jealous of my capabilities. She was jealous of my success.”

“Tell me about Alfredo,” the man said.

“My dog?”

“Yes.”

“Elise asked me about him too. Eben Lavi shot her before I was able to answer her. Sean and I found Alfredo.”

“Where?”

“The Sonic Drive-In down the street from our house. He and I went there at least once a week to get limeades and burgers.”

“Why did you name him Alfredo?”

“Because he had white fur. Sean and I both loved fettuccine Alfredo. Elise hated it. And she hated the dog almost as much as she hated me.”

“Elise could be difficult,” the man said. “She was not happy with the role she was given. She felt she could have contributed more to the organization in another position.”

Malak did not respond. This explained a great deal about Anmar’s adopted mother. Malak’s twin sister had told her that Elise was an intelligent but frustrated woman. She took out this frustration on Anmar and Sean.

“How is your arm?” the man asked.

“A flesh wound,” Malak answered.

“The doctor said it was deep.”

Malak started to remove her sling. She felt the pressure of the pistol’s barrel increase but continued, dropping the sling on the plastic beneath her feet. She flexed her arm twice, keeping her face neutral despite the searing pain.

“Excellent. After the loss of Amun and Elise I thought we would have to scratch this mission. The car bomb this afternoon was just a prelude. Before I tell you about the primary mission I must warn you that if you fail us tonight, this will be the Leopard’s last hunt. Because of Elise I still have my suspicions about you. But if you succeed, you will be brought into our inner circle…”

As the man outlined the assignment, Malak found it more difficult to keep her expression neutral than she had when she flexed her wounded arm. Amun had not been exaggerating when he’d told her that today would be a day no one in the United States would ever forget. Unless Malak could keep everyone from knowing about it…