Nemesis (19 page)

Kelly realized shock was nibbling at the edges. She had to get herself together.

She saw Cal was shaking his head at her.

“What?”

“This wasn’t your fault.” He’d wanted to blast her for this debacle but didn’t because he knew she’d blast herself enough for all of them.

Giusti gave a scratchy laugh. “Then whose fault was it, Cal?”

“There’s a lot to be done,” he said matter-of-factly, “and you’re in charge. You’re the one everyone will look to.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right.” Giusti nodded, sucked in air, rebooted.

Cal said, “Sherlock came closer to dying than any of us. I saw a bullet part her hair over her ear, scared me spitless. Those last shots were aimed at her and they came well after the shooter had to know Nasim was down. If he hadn’t stayed in that tree to try to take Sherlock out as well as Nasim, he might have made it out of here. Point is, Sherlock wasn’t a bystander, she was one of his targets.”

Kelly looked like she’d taken a punch to the gut. “I’m very sorry about this. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Cal said, “Nah, she’d never admit it to you because if she did, she’d have to spit it out to Savich.”

She closed her eyes. “You swear your arm’s not bad?”

“It’s only a flesh wound,” he said, and grinned at her. Cal saw it steadied her.
Good.
He knew Giusti had to be wondering about her career prospects in the FBI. She’d lost a major terrorist on her watch. Not good.

Sherlock said, “Cal, let me take a look at it. When the paramedics get here, they’ll have to deal with the shooter and Thompson.” She cleaned the wound with alcohol from the first-aid kit, then wrapped his arm in a soft white bandage. It didn’t hurt all that much. Both of them were listening to the agents discussing what had happened, trying to figure out how it had happened. She said to Cal, “When we get to the hospital, they can take a look. As far as I can tell, all you’ll need is Steri-Strips, Cal. You were lucky.”

No,
he thought,
you were the lucky one.
“You guys got any ideas on how they found Nasim?”

Pip Erwin shook his head. “I don’t understand it. No one would break protocol and get us followed. I can’t imagine there’s a leak in the Counterterrorism Task Force.”

Cal looked at Sherlock. “You know, don’t you?”

“Yes, I think so. Remember Nasim kept repeating he was going to be killed, even though he was tucked away in a safe house? All he could talk about was that his life didn’t matter, just his family’s. Once he told me everything he knew, I think Nasim made it easy for them to shoot him. Did you notice the bathroom curtains were wide open? He did that to make an easy target of himself. He thought it was the only thing left for him to do that might let them live—that, and tell me everything. He figured he’d done everything he could to save them.”

Kelly said, “So you think the terrorists were still in control, that they’d convinced him he had to die, one way or the other, if his family was to live? But that leads to the question: How did they find him?”

Sherlock said, “I’m betting the ME will find a small wound hidden somewhere on Nasim’s body, maybe his armpit or inner thigh. He’ll find a low-power chip under the skin, a tracking chip. If I’m right, the terrorists have known where Nasim was every minute since he walked into JFK. With the chip, they could be sure he was walking into the security line and track him if he walked away.”

Cal looked at her like a proud papa. He said to no agent in particular, “She’s really good at this. I’ll bet you she’s right.”

Giusti said, “Whether you’re right or not, Sherlock, it still means we’ve been had. And not by some group of young men with box cutters or homemade bombs. These guys, whoever they are, who they represent, are stone-cold professionals.”

Giusti’s cell rang. She answered it, then hung up. “The paramedics took our shooter directly to the hospital. He’s going into surgery to remove the bullet from his shoulder.” She paused, pressed speed dial. “Time I spoke with Zachery.” And she walked out the front door.

Sherlock called after her, “When the ME gets here, Kelly, he needs to find and remove the chip and leave it here, otherwise the terrorists would know Nasim’s dead.”

D.C. JAIL

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Friday afternoon

T
he D.C. Jail was a grim spot in a beautiful landscape, Savich had always thought, at the end of D Street near the Congressional Cemetery, the Potomac at its back. Ten minutes after he’d showed his creds at the gate, he’d gotten permission from Warden Spooner to use the conference room. He was shown to a small utilitarian room with pea-green walls and institutional furniture where Walter Givens and his family had been seated around a large square table. Savich hadn’t wanted to speak to Walter Givens through bulletproof glass, and when he learned Walter’s family was visiting, he’d asked the warden that they all be moved.

Mr. Givens turned when Savich came into the stark room. He waved his arms around him. “I suppose we should thank you for this? Getting my boy out from behind that wall of glass with guards standing behind him?”

Savich introduced himself, showed his creds. “I thought this room would be better so all of us can speak together.”

Mrs. Givens waved her fist at him. “Our lawyer found out you hypnotized Brakey Alcott. So if you’re here to push hypnosis, Walter will not do it. I don’t care if you take us all to the Ritz-Carlton.”

“There’s no need to have Walter hypnotized,” Savich said. He motioned for Mr. Givens to be seated again. He was surprised to see a teenage girl in the room. It had to be Walter’s seventeen-year-old sister, Lisa Ann. He smiled at her.

“I don’t see what we have to talk about unless you’ve found out something,” Mr. Givens said. “Walter still doesn’t remember what happened with Sparky Carroll until that crowd of people tackled him in the hallway, told him he’d stabbed Sparky. We want to bring in doctors to have him tested, prove he had a seizure of some kind and was not responsible for Sparky’s death. Can you help us with that?”

Twenty-three-year-old Walter Givens looked pale after only two days behind bars. Worse, he looked leached of life, from the inside out. He was taking it hard. And why not? Two days ago, he’d killed his own friend, lost the thread of his life, and for all he knew, his own sanity.

Savich said, “We will conduct medical and psychiatric tests, and you will be allowed to arrange for your own. Your own attorney will arrange it. He won’t need my help. I want you all to know I also think Walter wasn’t responsible for Sparky Carroll’s death. I’m going to try to prove that.”

Mrs. Givens leaned forward toward Savich. “I knew it, I knew Walter couldn’t have done this willingly. Do you know what happened to Walter to make him do this?”

“I hope to find out,” Savich said, “and I hope you all can help me by answering some of my questions. I know you’re worried—I would be as well—but I will need all of you to stay calm. Do not agree to any interviews, don’t talk about this to anyone—that includes you, Lisa Ann. The tabloids and headline news sites would be happy to jump all over Walter’s story, and that wouldn’t help any of us. I would guess Walter’s attorney already counseled all of you not to speak to the media. Have you?”

“I told that pack of hounds what they could do with their microphones,” Givens Senior snapped out. “Those vultures were even waiting outside when Lisa Ann was let out of her high school today, weren’t they, sweetie?”

Lisa Ann was a very pretty girl with long, glossy brown hair that framed a heart-shaped face. She nodded. “It was horrible. This one overweight guy with a microphone in his hand yelled at me, and when I started running, he chased me, but not for long. He was bent over and heaving, he was so out of shape.” She paused, licked some pale lipstick off her lips. “But I actually wanted to talk to them, tell them Walter wouldn’t hurt anybody. He never even hit me once, even when I stole his shorts and hung them up in the girls’ locker room at school. All he did was turn red in the face and tromp outside to Daddy’s old Jeep and pop the hood.”

“I changed the plugs,” Walter said.

Mrs. Givens chuckled, shook her head. She had a glossy brown ponytail, the same color as her daughter’s. “I fix hair in my home, Agent Savich, and one of my clients’ daughters saw her do it. That’s how Walter found out.” She stopped cold, paled, then shook her head, as if disbelieving what she’d said.

Savich kept his voice calm, even. “I need you to tell me if any of you have harmed or angered or injured anyone in any way, anyone who might have a reason to strike out at you or your family.” He saw they were confused, knew they believed Walter had suffered some sort of fit. “Indulge me on this,” he said. “Are you in conflict with anyone, Walter? Mr. Givens?” He nodded toward Mrs. Givens and Lisa Ann.

Lisa Ann opened her mouth, then shook her head.

Savich leaned toward her. “What, Lisa Ann?”

“It just popped into my head, but it’s silly. Tanny Alcott said she hated me. She hit me with a football once on purpose because I told on her.”

“Whatever was that about?” her mother asked her. “Goodness, Tanny’s only ten years old.”

Savich said, “What did she do?”

“One day when I was visiting the grade school, I was in the restroom and there was Tanny, making fun of another little girl. She’d had leukemia and her hair was just starting to grow back because of her chemotherapy. Tanny said she wouldn’t stop it when I asked her to and I couldn’t make her, so I told their teacher, Mrs. Abrams. I called her a mean little witch. She gave me this freak-weird look and said she’d get me for that. That’s when she said she hated me.”

“Why did you call her a witch?” Savich asked.

“Everyone in Plackett knows the Alcotts are witches. Well, Mrs. Alcott says she’s a Wiccan, so I guess she’s not a bad witch.”

Savich nodded, turned to Walter. “Has anything like that happened between you and any of the Alcotts, Walter?”

Walter shook his head, but Mr. Givens said, “Wait, Walter, remember when you were at The Gulf and got into a fight with Liggert Alcott?”

“Yeah, I remember. What happened was I saw him hit his kid, Teddy, outside the feed store last month and I told him to stop it. A week later we got into it at The Gulf. He was drunk, so Deputy Lewis hauled him off to spend the night in jail. He let me go because everyone backed me up, said Liggert was the one who started it.”

“Walter,” Savich said, “did Sparky Carroll ever harm the Alcotts in any way you know of?”

Walter thought, shook his head. “I’m sorry. Agent Savich, I can’t think of a thing. He and Brakey and I were friends all through school. Sparky and I were in and out of the Alcott house when we were kids. There was never any trouble. We always thought the Alcotts calling themselves Wiccans was funny. Sparky and I drifted away from Brakey when we got older, you know how that goes. We had less in common.”

Mrs. Givens said, “There’s Liggert. He’s older and a bully. He hits his wife, too, if what I’ve heard from my ladies is true.”

Walter said, almost in a whisper, “Sparky was one of my best friends, ever since we were kids. How could I have killed him, Agent Savich? And why?”

It was almost the same question Brakey had asked him.

PLACKETT, VIRGINIA

Friday evening

T
he front door at the Alcotts’ flew open. “Brakey!”

Griffin recognized Deliah Alcott easily from Savich’s description. She picked up her gauzy skirt and ran to her son, hugging him close. She ran her fingers through his hair, held his face between her hands, and asked him, “Are you all right, Brakey? Did you remember what happened? Why are you smiling? Did they prove you didn’t kill Deputy Lewis?”

Brakey put his hands on his mother’s arms, gently pushing her back. “I didn’t remember anything, but it’s okay, really. It turns out they can’t hypnotize me, but they let me come home anyway. Agent Hammersmith brought me, and look”—he bent down and pulled up the leg of his jeans—“I’ve got to wear this ankle bracelet until they find out who killed Deputy Lewis. That’s it. Otherwise I’m free to do as I please, Agent Savich told me.”