Perkins and Walsh look at me but say nothing. Which means I’m on the right track.
I decide to keep going. “Whatever he was doing over there needs to stay buried. So you guys need to get to Phillips before he decides to go public with something that will compromise the Company.”
“We think Phillips was deep in-country, trying to rescue some interpreters and informants who worked for us before the fall,” admits Perkins. “He failed in that mission, but he brought out some of the C-4 that we left behind. Stuff that had been in the hands of the Taliban.”
“Why would he take it?” I ask.
“Maybe he was planning the bombings already,” Perkins says. “Maybe he figured there’d be no way to trace it.”
I can see Walsh getting itchy in his ill-fitting suit. “So are you with us or not?” he asks bluntly.
“Tell you what. Add Anna Rizzo from ATF to the team. Make her a consultant too,” I say. I don’t know how much leverage I have with these guys, but why not push it? “Give her the taggant data and anything else she asks for. We need to know how much C-4 Phillips had access to and how much he brought back with him. And how much he might have left in his stash.”
“Okay,” says Walsh. “We’ll get Rizzo cleared.”
Perkins stands up and pulls a card from his wallet. He puts it down on my counter. “We’ll stay in touch. You do the same.”
I pick up the card. “In other words, you keep my secrets and I keep yours.”
“Something like that,” says Walsh.
CHAPTER 62
Phillips
Forty-eight hours earlier …
NEAR THE PEAK OF a wooded hill overlooking the Sunset Shores Motel, Aiden Phillips lies flat on his belly, using his Zeiss monocular to observe activity at the motel.
He’s got a radio receiver with a single earpiece, which allows him to listen in on the law enforcement frequencies while keeping one ear open for threats behind him.
But he doubts that anybody will bother him.
From the way the assault went down, it looks like the operation was quickly staged and executed. No blocking units on the road. No recon patrols in the woods. No hunt for a second getaway vehicle. Too much focus on searching the motel room and impounding his pickup truck. Probably assuming the former occupant is miles away.
Overhead, Phillips hears the hum of a surveillance drone, but he’s not worried. His ghillie suit has a built-in barrier to deflectthermal imaging. From above, he looks like just another leafy lump in the woods.
Even from ten feet away, nobody could spot him. He’s that well camouflaged.
Phillips watches the FBI agent in charge speaking with the motel owner, Margie Coffey. Nice lady. Always concerned about him. He feels bad about breaking the mirror. But the rage came on so fast, he couldn’t stop himself.
That was weak.
He can’t afford to be weak.
Phillips recognizes the tall Black man talking to the FBI supervisor: Detective John Sampson. This is serious business, bringing in a heavy hitter like him. From what Phillips knows, Sampson is tight with Dr. Alex Cross, the famous forensic psychologist.
But Cross has his own problems, Phillips has learned. A missing son down in North Carolina. Good. Maybe that’ll keep him out of this case.
A stern-looking Hispanic woman withATFon her blue windbreaker comes into view. That must be Anna Rizzo—a sharp investigator, according to Phillips’s research. And a former EOD specialist with the U.S. Army.
Another Afghanistan vet. Like Sampson.
Like him.
In a fair fight, Phillips knows Rizzo and Sampson would beat him in no time.
Unfortunately for them, he doesn’t play fair.
