The Collective (20 page)

Turcotte’s grin was tired. Josh couldn’t see it anyway.

“I went to my best researcher, back in D.C. She’s been doing searches, cross-referencing files, trying to find anything that connects terrorist groups, murders, or Middle Eastern radicals with Herod the Great or, really, with any reference to the word
Herod.
”

Voss arched an eyebrow. “She actually found something?”

“Not in our files,” Turcotte said. “I’ve got her scanning it right now so we can read the whole thing.”

“Wait, scanning what?” Josh asked. “If it wasn’t in FBI files—”

“It’s in an article from
Rolling Stone,
” Turcotte said. “In May of 1971, they ran a long piece that included interviews with an FBI agent named Nixon—no relation—and an anonymous source he had supposedly been working with. The article apparently covered a lot of ground, ticking off the reasons why Vietnam was a clusterfuck, but in one section, Agent Nixon and this anonymous source talked about what they called the ‘Herod Factor.’ ”

Voss narrowed her eyes. “The same phrase al-Jubouri used,” she said. “What the hell does it mean?”

“According to my researcher, they claimed that—for lack of a better word, I guess—
breeding
between enemy cultures could help bring about peace.”

“Gotta love
Rolling Stone
, especially in the seventies,” Josh said.

“It makes a certain amount of sense,” Voss said. “I mean, when people fall in love, that doesn’t just connect them, it connects their families, and it impacts the people around them … the people who see them.”

“It wasn’t the relationships that these guys thought could influence the war,” Turcotte went on. “They claimed that the babies born from those relationships actually had an effect on hostilities.”

“Again—” Voss began.

“Wait, you mean on, like, a metaphysical level?” Josh interrupted.

“It’s clear from the article that Agent Nixon was some kind of conspiracy nut. A fan of the Grassy Knoll,” Turcotte said. “But, yeah, that’s the gist of it. And remember, this was the time of the Vietnam War.”

Voss exhaled. “Mrs. Kowalik is Iranian.”

Turcotte flinched and stared at her. “You’re not seriously—”

“Just pointing it out,” she said. “This Agent Nixon obviously believed in this stuff. Is it so hard to buy that someone else might believe it, too?”

“There’s always someone willing to believe, no matter how crazy something sounds,” Josh said.

Voss massaged her temples. Her headache was spreading. “What happened to Agent Nixon? We should at least track him down.”

Turcotte stood up. “He’s dead. Heart attack in ’73. The guy who wrote the article is also no longer with us.”

“Which is going to make it hard to ID the anonymous source,” Voss said.

“Unless it’s somewhere in
Rolling Stone
’s files,” Josh added, his voice sounding strangely far away on the phone. Voss wished that the case hadn’t split them up, but they both had a job to do. “Something that confidential, I’d guess the writer probably didn’t put it on paper anywhere.”

“That’s what I figured, too,” Turcotte said, heading for the door. “But we’ll look into it.”

“You realize how unlikely it is that there’s a connection
between some conspiracy nut from the Vietnam War and this case?” Voss asked.

Turcotte shrugged. “Given al-Juroubi’s comment about Herod, we’ve got to look into it, and this is all we’ve got. But it’s not like we’re putting all our efforts into chasing ghosts from thirty-odd years ago. We’ve got real bad guys in the here and now. The second we get another lead, we’re going to run them down. That’s when we’ll get real answers.”

“Thanks, Ed,” Voss said.

Turcotte nodded and left, pulling the door shut behind him. Voss picked up the phone and turned off the speaker.

“You doing all right up there?” she asked.

“Personally, yeah. Chang’s good company. Though we’re not as chummy as you and Turcotte.”

“Funny guy.”

“Listen, I just want to find this guy. And I want to find the Kowaliks’ baby alive.”

“Josh—”

“I know, Rachael. I know. But I can hope, right?”

Instead of making her feel safer, the police car in the rearview mirror made Cait more nervous. She glanced up again and again to confirm that it was still there, but she hated the idea that Monteforte and Jarman thought she needed the escort. Did they think that whoever had tried to snatch Leyla would make another attempt? It made no sense. If A-Train wanted payback, he would have come after her directly. And Cait couldn’t really believe that Nizam’s sisters had tried to abduct the baby, never mind the fact that they were too poor to hire someone to do it.

No, the men in their dark-windowed sedans had come after
Leyla for some other reason, and there was only one connection she could think of that made any sense. Sean.

Her brother was never able to speak plainly about the work he did for the government, but Cait knew he worked in intelligence, and she had the impression that his covert operations involved infiltrating terrorist organizations and training camps in the Middle East. If dark-suited men had come after Leyla in a car with untraceable plates—after watching Auntie Jane’s house and looking for an opening—Cait figured it had to be connected to Sean somehow.

A strange unreality settled over her. The world looked different to her today. It even felt different on her skin. What would the police do now? If the canvass of the neighborhood turned up nothing, what
would
they do?

Before leaving her aunt and uncle’s house, she’d retrieved her car charger from the trunk. Now, one hand on the wheel, she plugged in the phone to charge and called Channel 7, then asked to be transferred to Lynette’s office. As she waited on the line, she glanced at the dashboard clock. Noon had come and gone, and she realized Lynette had probably already left for the day. On the weekends, she usually only worked mornings.

“Lynette Thompson.”

“Good, you’re still there,” Cait said.

“Who is this?”

“Sorry. It’s Cait McCandless. Listen, you wanted me to save the A-Train story for you. But I’ve got something else now, and it can’t wait.”

She told the story as quickly and succinctly as she could. Lynette stopped her only twice to ask questions—one about the untraceable license plate on the car out front and the other a more personal inquiry.

“Do you have anyone who can come stay with you?”

Was Lynette asking her if she had friends? The question troubled Cait, because she had no clear answer. Of all the kids she’d gone to school with, only a handful of those relationships had survived into adulthood. Of those, two lived out of state and one out of the country entirely. Miranda Russo had remained local, but had gotten married while Cait had been in
Iraq, and they had seen each other only once since she’d come home—an awkward lunch in which Cait had realized that they didn’t really know each other anymore. Her best friend in high school had been a guy named Nick Pulaski; they had stayed in touch, but Nick had grown up to be an unreliable burnout who smoked far too much pot. There were only three people she still kept in touch with from her time at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, but those were e-mail and Christmas card relationships, far more about the time they’d spent together than the lives they now lived.

Then there was Jordan, of course. These days he was probably her closest friend. And in any inventory of the people she might call when she was in trouble, she’d have to include Ronnie Mellace. She and Jordan and Ronnie had been inseparable during their stint together in Iraq. But it wasn’t like Ronnie lived down the street.

“There are people I could call,” Cait told Lynette. “My aunt and uncle live here in Medford. But I’m fine.”

Cait glanced in the rearview mirror at the police car, and then at Leyla’s car seat. She could see Leyla’s right hand, open and relaxed, and knew the baby had started to fall asleep.

“If you come into the office—”

“I don’t want to leave my daughter with anyone, Lynette. Not right now.”

“How about if I send someone to you? We can do the piece at your place. Who do you want to interview you? Aaron’s off today, but you’re friendly with Sarah Lin, right?”

“Yes. Sarah would be perfect. Do me a favor, though? Can you put Jordan on camera for this?”

“I don’t think he’s still here,” Lynette said.

“He’ll come in for it. I can call him myself, if you want.”

“You’ve got enough to think about,” Lynette replied. “I’ll take care of it. We’ll run it on the six o’clock broadcast, but we’ll want to tease it at five. Does three o’clock work for you?”

“As soon as they can get here,” Cait said.

She turned into the driveway of the house on Boston Avenue where she rented the first-floor apartment. The bright
green VW bug in the driveway belonged to David, the Tufts graduate student who lived upstairs.

“Cait,” Lynette said.

“Yes?”

“I won’t try to tell you there isn’t exploitation in what we do—you know better—but you’re doing the right thing, publicizing it like this. We’ll tell the story, and if anyone saw anything useful, they’ll call in. Meantime, I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“Thank you,” Cait said.

They exchanged awkward good-byes and Cait ended the call. She killed the engine and sat in her car, listening to the engine ticking as it cooled. After several long seconds, she realized the car should not be so quiet, and she turned to find that Leyla had fallen asleep. Once again, her daughter’s schedule would be messed up all day.

But she was safe, and beautiful, and alive.

Josh pushed back from the computer and rubbed at his eyes. Gray afternoon light filtered through the window, yet it felt like midnight to him. He needed sleep, but he wasn’t going to get it anytime soon. The Maine State Police had given him and Chang more than enough space to work—a recently renovated room full of cubicles that hadn’t yet been reoccupied. They were pretty much on their own. It was nice to have the privacy, but with the gray skies and the light rain that had begun to fall outside, and the quiet inside, he had to keep himself alert with coffee and a constant reminder that there was a child out there in the hands of a stranger. The Kowaliks would be horrified if they could see him looking drowsy behind the computer.

On the other hand, the search and the investigation continued at full speed. He and Chang didn’t know the territory, so—thus far—the FBI had been put into a management position. Down in Florida, Turcotte had been moving state and local police around like chessmen, searching for the two remaining suspects now that Gharib al-Din was apparently in Maine and Karim al-Jubouri was dead. In Maine, with Josh’s input, Chang was doing the same with state cops and FBI agents out of two separate New England bureau offices. They were questioning the hospital staff and checking surveillance cameras to see if they could track the vehicle that al-Din had used for his getaway.

And they had nothing. How could all of these departments and agencies be focused on these guys and not come up with anything truly useful? Even what little had been in the Black Pine file that Norris had turned over to Turcotte had given them next to nothing. Al-Din had been born in Basra, had been a militant Sunni since emerging from the womb, and was considered a jihadist. Big fucking surprise. He had dropped off the radar three years before, after a bomb had exploded in the London Tube, killing six people. Black Pine had connected al-Din to the bombing, but the file provided no supporting evidence.

And this was the FBI’s case, not his and Rachael’s.

When the offer to work for Homeland Security had first come up, Josh had been dubious, and his partner even more so. They had witnessed interagency turf wars too many times to think anyone could make it all run smoothly.

Then they had sat down with Theodora Wood, the director of the days-old InterAgency Cooperation Division of the Department of Homeland Security. African-American, forty-six years old, attractive and charismatic, but deadly serious about her job, Director Wood had convinced them both with one sentence: “You get to put an end to the pissing contests.”