“I’m Special Agent Margaret Dominguez. Agent Taggart is waiting for you upstairs. If you will please follow me.” She was pretty, at least part Latina, with creamy skin and big brown eyes.
They rode in silence as the elevator swept them up to the fourth floor and the doors slid open. In a glass-fronted conference room, Quinn Taggart waited next to a long mahogany table.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” he said, shaking hands with each of them.
“If things hadn’t been happening so fast,” Beau said, “we might have figured it out sooner.”
Taggart indicated they should sit down, so they each took a seat in one of the rolling black vinyl chairs that linedthe table. Beau set the manila folder they had compiled in front of him.
“Before we start,” he said, “we’d like to know where you are with Malcolm Vaughn.”
Taggart frowned. “Sorry, that’s FBI business. I’ve given you more than I should have already.”
Their lives were on the line. They needed to know what was going on with Vaughn, and as they had feared, the FBI wasn’t going to tell them.
Beau rose from his chair and braced his hands on the table. “You don’t have time to stonewall, Taggart. What’s in this file is urgent. It could be a matter of life and death. Tell us what we need to know.”
Cassidy noticed the faint tightening of Taggart’s square jaw. He wasn’t happy, but he was intrigued.
“We found a disposable phone in Franco Giannetti’s car,” the agent said. “There were calls between him and Clifford Jennings. We’ll be able to get a warrant for Jennings, but we aren’t quite ready to pick him up. If Jennings gives us what we need, we can bring Vaughn in. With luck, we can use him to go after Luca Reichlin. If Jamal Nawabi is connected to terrorism, our hope is Reichlin can help us prove it.”
Beau sat back down in his chair and opened the file. “It might not matter. What we have in here will answer most of your questions.” The information was also on the flash drive he handed to Taggart.
“This file contains a list of the companies currently working on deferred maintenance at the Texas State Capitol,” Beau said. “I think you’ll find one company of particular interest.”
He pointed to the name circled on the list. “Hardrock Trenching. Senator Scott Watson—now deceased—recommended them at the request of my father—now also deceased. It wasa favor done for Malcolm Vaughn as repayment for a portion of a loan.”
“Go on,” Taggart said, clearly interested now.
“Hardrock Trenching qualified through a special program for small contractors. We can’t confirm since we don’t have the same information you have, but we believe at least some of the employees’ names will correspond with members of the terrorist cell you’re investigating.”
Taggart’s gaze sharpened on Beau. A pulse beat excitedly at the side of his neck. “How do you know this?”
They knew because Cassidy had dug through Hardrock Trenching’s bank accounts, employee tax withholdings, anything that would give them the names of the people working on the project, many of whom were Middle Eastern. She had also gone into the corporate records, which eventually led them to the name they were looking for—Jamal Nawabi.
Beau leaned back in his chair. “Let’s just say we received the information through an anonymous source.”
Taggart wasn’t pleased. “That’s your story?”
The glance Beau flicked Cassidy held a hint of amusement. “That’s right, and we’re sticking to it.”
Taggart’s mouth edged up, but only for a moment. “All right—for now. So you believe the men who work for this company are part of a terrorist cell.”
“That’s right. Turns out Hardrock Trenching is owned by a company named Mardax, which is owned by a corporation called Sandon. One of the owners of the Sandon Corporation is Jamal Nawabi.”
“What?” Taggart’s whole body went tense.
Cassidy spoke up. “If Nawabi is a terrorist, as you suspect, we think it’s possible the men working for Hardrock Trenching are planning to destroy the Texas State Capitol.”
Beau leaned toward Taggart. “For the most impact, it’s likely to happen when the entire legislature is in session.Which, though repairs are currently in progress—is going on now.”
Taggart was out of his chair before Beau had finished his last sentence. “Stay right here.” Striding through the door of the conference room, he disappeared outside.
Cassidy could hear him shouting orders as he headed down the hall. True, it sounded like something out of a TV movie, but the information they had compiled proved the threat was real.
“No matter what happens now,” she said, “it’s all out in the open. No point in Vaughn having us killed when the FBI knows everything we know.”
Beau rose from his chair, pulled her up, and into his arms. “Once the FBI follows the chain of evidence that starts with my father’s murder and ends with Jamal Nawabi, I should be completely in the clear and neither of us will be targets.”
