Part 5 (1/2)
The back of Nicole's neck began to tingle. She knew nothing about Danielle's father. Danielle had always avoided talking about her family, changing the subject whenever she brought it up.
”So if I tell you that this colonel was one of the last people your father was seen with before that car bomb took his life, you'd agree that that's an awfully strange coincidence, wouldn't you, Nicole?”
The question sent Nicole reeling backward on the figurative heels inside her head, grasping for something mentally solid to keep her from falling and cras.h.i.+ng, but her brain went blank. She was at a loss, empty inside and bereft for an answer.
”That's impossible,” she claimed, stumbling back to the chair, unconsciously clinging tightly to her necklace.
”It is. And just what are the chances that twelve years after your father was killed, you end up sharing an apartment with the daughter of the very man we believe your father was about to turn evidence against? Danielle's father is Rhyse Taylor. Colonel Rhyse Taylor.”
It was all too much. Reliving her father's death, the hijacking, the time changes, the fever, the realization she had no idea what she was going to do with her life, the attraction to a woman who was being downright hateful to her, and now these insinuating allegations involving Danielle. The next thing she knew she was buckled forward on her knees, face in her hands, trying to stem the sudden flow of tears that would not be denied.
Chapter Eight.
”I'm sorry if I was a little rough,” Kira said, her voice gentle and sincere as she plopped down into the other plastic chair next to her.
”Do ya think?” Nicole asked. She rubbed her palms against her eyelids but stopped when a warm hand pressed against the small of her back. Upset and disturbed as she was, she was conscious of Kira's body so close to her own and the light scent of soap and jasmine. Part of her wanted to relish the physical connection, while another part wanted to flee in panic, while still another part was suspicious of this sudden concern. ”So why the third degree?” She wiped away the last of the tears from her eyes.
”I had to be certain you weren't somehow involved with Danielle.” Kira retrieved a box of tissues from a metal shelf and handed them to her. ”You're not, are you?”
Nicole's sniffled into one of the tissues. ”If what you're saying is true, I had no idea about Danielle.”
She pictured Danielle, with her wheat-colored hair, large hazel eyes, and the sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her tilted nose. ”My G.o.d, are you absolutely sure?”
Kira nodded solemnly. ”Danielle's father killed your father, Nicole. And there's no way you two coincidentally crossed paths one day and became best friends. Your meeting and friends.h.i.+p was planned.”
Making friends with other girls had always been difficult for shy, introverted Nicole. But that hadn't been the case with Danielle. Danielle had pursued her, she now realized.
”During the short time you two lived together, Danielle never mentioned her father?”
Nicole shook her head. ”She was reluctant to talk about her family. No one ever came to visit either.”
”I was worried she might have told you a bunch of lies, tried to win you over. But I see I was wrong.” Her eyes held Nicole's for a long moment. ”And you're positive she never mentioned anything about her father?”
”You seemed to know what books I've read and what courses I've taken, so I'm sure you already know all the details of our conversations. And you must also know I haven't spoken to her since December.”
”Sometimes we miss things. Not all discussions occur within range of our equipment.”
”You mean the bugs you hid in my apartment,” she snapped. Thank you very much, George Bush, for your Gestapo politics. ”So if Danielle wasn't trying to recruit me to the dark side, what did she hope to gain by pretending to be my friend?”
”She was looking for something.”
Nicole frowned, her tone dubious. ”What would I have? And why now? It's been over a decade since my father died.”
Nicole watched Kira pace back and forth in front of the desk before finally returning to sit next to her. ”Look, Nicole, we both lost people we love at a very young age. Just as I'm seeking justice for my parents' murders, I'd like to help you do the same. Your father's death was no random act of terrorism by some religious zealot. It was a premeditated and deliberate homicide. And we know Colonel Rhyse Taylor was behind it-we just need to prove it.”
Nicole tried to sit back, but the plastic wings of the chair jabbing at her reminded her she couldn't. A memory flashed in her head. On the mantel in her mother's living room was a picture of Luke Kennedy holding a baby. A three-year-old Liz was standing at his side in a cardboard crown from some fast food promotion accompanied by a gaudy pink boa around her neck. She'd never forget her father's expression as he looked down into Nicole's baby face in that picture. She had always been the apple of his eye. They ”got” each other. He'd understood her need to climb trees and build forts in the backyard. Or use her mother's makeup to paint a mural on the back of the house. And he'd been the one to introduce her to French as she sat on his lap in the den and they listened to the Pimsleur ca.s.settes over and over. He'd even glued a giant map of the world on her bedroom wall, and together they would point at countries they were going to visit together when she was older. He always made it seem like the biggest cause for celebration was her birthday, making the twenty-third of April the most spectacular day on the calendar.
”It doesn't make any sense.” She shook her head. ”My father was a geologist for Davenport Petroleum. He gathered sand and soil specimens for possible oil exploration. Why would someone from the military have wanted him dead?”
”I'll start at the beginning and tell you all I know. And then maybe you can help me?”
”I'll try,” she replied.
”About a year and half ago, I was part of a team reviewing car bomb attacks before 9/11. We were hoping to find some overlooked detail that would lead us to bin Laden. As you already know, an unknown anti-American religious group not linked to al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the bomb that took your father's life, but we wanted to be thorough. In the past decade, technology has become a lot more sophisticated. And we've also become much more knowledgeable about terrorist groups. So when we reexamined all the evidence, we were quite surprised to find that this incident didn't fit the paradigm of a terrorist act-the area in Yemen where the explosion occurred was vacant. Most take place in highly populated areas. The more victims, the better. The type of explosive used in the detonation wouldn't have been available on the black market at that time. And the parts used to construct the bomb were extremely high quality. Then we took a closer look at the group that claimed responsibility for the bomb and discovered no trace of such an organization before or after this attack. When I began digging into the victim's background, I grew even more intrigued. Your father's name surfaced as an informant in a case involving the sale of the army's own weaponry to terrorist groups in North Africa. In the report I read, Rhyse Taylor was investigated, but they didn't have enough evidence to indict. After the car bomb killed your father, the illegal trafficking of the weapons and ammunition immediately ceased. The trail was cold and the case suspended.”
The air inside the small office s.p.a.ce felt thick and oppressive. Nicole inhaled a deep breath, trying to take it all in.
”This is difficult, Nicole, but...” She paused and looked away. Her voice, usually so sure and confident, was small and hesitant: ”We think your father may have been working with Rhyse Taylor.” Kira held up a hand as if to say hear me out. ”Your father spent a lot of time in the Mideast. Working for the oil company, he made many connections. He would have been the perfect candidate to act as the conduit between Taylor and those who wanted to buy illegal weapons.”
”You didn't know my father,” Nicole replied, setting her jaw stubbornly. ”There's no way he'd commit treason.”
”You're right,” Kira soothed. ”I didn't know him. I'm only reading old files and making calculated a.s.sumptions. Either way, it doesn't matter because your father eventually did do the right thing. We believe he was collecting evidence to incriminate Taylor. And somehow, he was found out.”
Nicole felt queasy. ”Dead men can't testify, right?”
”Yes, but now we believe your father hid that evidence before he was killed. You were a child, barely ten when your father was taken from you. But you two were extremely close. Did he perhaps give you any papers or CDs or tell you to keep something for safe keeping before his death? I need your help, Nicole.”
Nicole needed a chance to think. Kira was obviously not going to give her that courtesy.
”c.r.a.p, my head. It's killing me.” Nicole bent forward, grasping her skull between her hands. ”I feel sick.”
She sensed Kira's skeptical eyes glaring at her. But after an awkward minute, Kira finally said in a resigned tone, ”Let me get you some water.”
”Aspirin too,” Nicole mewed, her voice barely an octave above a whisper.
As soon as the door shut behind Kira, Nicole was up and pulling open desk drawers that had been left unlocked. She fumbled through dozens of army green office folders with a nervous haste, looking for anything that might provide her with a missing piece to this strange puzzle.
”Hurry!” she chastised herself. ”There has to be something in here!”
But every folder she opened was either empty or filled with pages written in Russian. Nevertheless, she managed to discern a small blurb in English written in blue ink at the top of one of the memos stuffed within a thin folder hanging in the very front of the drawer.
United Airlines flight 423 arrives 10:00 a.m. Attack to take place at-followed by and the longitude and lat.i.tude numbers, which had to lead to a barren road just outside of Muranga. Win her trust. Get to it before they do, was scribbled alongside the flight info.
She could hear Kira's voice again, in her head.
”And still in other scenarios, we'll manipulate our target psychologically in order to acquire the information we need, and then we'll disappear from their life without anyone being the wiser.”
”You torture people?”
”No, Nicole, nothing as medieval as torture in our line of work. We're very modern in our methodology, and I'll just leave it at that.”
She pictured the pa.s.sengers of the bus during the hijacking. Calm and quiet. No mad stampede down the aisle to get the h.e.l.l off the bus and far away from the guys with the guns. The only hysterical screams ringing through the tinny interior of the bus had come from her because everyone else had been antic.i.p.ating the crash, bracing for it. She recalled the bus driver-climbing on board the bus almost an hour late.