“I’ll do my best, ma’am.” He mimicked tipping an imaginary cowboy hat. “We’ll at least get them to accept temporary quarters while they consider any future plans.” He stood and shrugged into his leather jacket. All he needed was the hat to look exactly like the cowboy he was deep down.
She tried to embrace a cheerier attitude, but sadness enveloped her as she grabbed her backpack and a clean windbreaker from her cubicle. They stopped in the break area for to-go cups of coffee, Kiley adding a liberal dose of cream to hers, while Mack liked his black and “Texas strong,” as he called it. They took the long hallway to the parking garage. Kiley tried to concentrate on the warm cup in her hand, the fresh and tantalizing smell of the coffee, but each step pounded in the reality of their upcoming mission.
A family’s life was about to change in a way she knew only too well from past experience. The thought chilled her. She tugged her jacket closed with her free hand but lifted her face to the rush of air sweeping through the parking garage to clear away any residual thoughts of crying. Though telling the Abedsabout Firuzeh was going to be hard, Kiley would hold herself together for the sake of the family.
She saw Mack’s old truck parked by Sean’s SUV and remembered her car was still at the crime scene. “Can we pick up my car on the way back? I also want to see what Detective Lancaster found.”
Mack unlocked the passenger door for her. “You sure you want to talk to Lancaster?”
She slid onto the seat and took comfort in the cab that always smelled like savory barbecue. “Why not?”
He arched an eyebrow. “First, Firuzeh was your CI, and you’re still in shock. And second, Eisenhower made it clear he didn’t want you interfering with the locals.”
“Then he won’t like it. And Firuzeh being my CI is precisely the reason I need to know Lancaster is doing a thorough job.” She pulled the door closed to end the conversation.
Mack took his place behind the wheel and steered his truck out of the parking structure. He kept glancing at Kiley.
“Enough already,” she said. “You’d do the same thing in my position and you know it.”
“Yeah, but I like to live on the edge. You’re a by-the-book person.” He pointed the vehicle in the direction of the Beltway.
“Well, not anymore. Firuzeh deserves my best effort to find her killer.” She took a long pull of the creamy yet sharp coffee, nearly burning her tongue.
He nodded, but his narrowed gaze said he wasn’t convinced she should pursue the murder investigation. “How did Firuzeh come across her intel?”
“I didn’t get the chance to ask her. In the past, she’d overheard things at her parents’ mailbox business. The box number she mentioned could very well be the key.”
“Tell me about the business,” Mack encouraged.
“It’s a basic mailbox rental and package shipping store. Her parents are semiretired. She ran the business with her older brother.”
“It would be risky for terrorists to communicate using written mail.”
“True, but when she’s behind the boxes distributing the mail, they might not know she’s there and feel free to talk.”
“But this attack is hyped as something big.Huge.Seems too careless to be talking about it in public.” He merged into the Beltway traffic, which was light at this time of night. “Have you given any more thought to the other words she said?”
“In the shower. Unfortunately, I didn’t come up with anything. Maybe she was trying to tell me there’s someone in a coma who knows more.”
“Sounds possible.” He reached for his coffee cup but paused before sipping. “But how would a coma relate to ‘port’?”
“Yeah, that’s the weird part.” Kiley stared at the cup in her hand and tried to focus her thoughts. “What kind of ports are there? And did Firuzeh mean port as a noun or verb? Like a place where ships take harbor or to port information like in a software upgrade?”
“Or even a wine. Or did she mean airport, and you only heard port?” He shook his head. “What kind of background did she have that might have informed the word?”
“Her family emigrated from Iran when the last shah was overthrown in the late seventies. Her father was just a baby. Her grandfather bought the business when they moved here, and it’s been in the family ever since. In addition to working there, she was going to school part time for legal studies.”
“I don’t know how any of that informs the wordport, but she could’ve gotten her intel at the university.”
“I’ll text Cam to run background on her university connections.” Kiley set her cup in the holder, sent the message to Cam, and traded a few more texts with their team analyst where he expressed his sympathies.
Cam was the only civilian on the team, but his work was on par with everyone else’s, and he’d made it very clear that hewanted to become an agent. A problem for him because the bureau didn’t want to lose an incredibly talented analyst.
Mack turned off at Tysons. The Abeds’ house was only minutes away.
Kiley’s throat felt dry, and she reached for her coffee but changed her mind as unease swam in her stomach like a sea of acid. She was out of her depth here and prayed she was ready to help this soon-to-be grieving family through the loss of their precious daughter.
To protect the scene’s integrity, Evan had waited and waited some more, testing his patience as he sat with Cartwright for three hours in an FBI incident response vehicle that reeked of stale microwave meals. But finally—finally—they had action. A top-notch FBI Evidence Recovery Team from Quantico pulled into the area Evan had cordoned off with crime scene tape. He’d fought to keep the forensics under ICE’s HSI Forensic Laboratory, as they were familiar with ports. He might have won the battle if there hadn’t been an FBI Quantico team in Seattle finishing up another investigation.
