his hand. “It’s horrible we had to meet under these circumstances, but I appreciate your honoring Ahmed’s wishes,” I said. “Thank you for bringing the envelope.”
“You’re welcome.”
I walked him out, watching as he made his way down the hallway to the elevator. Annabelle was watching him, too. I gave her a squeeze and whispered in her ear, “Thanks for taking one for the team, Anna-banana.”
I’d smelled something, all right. But it wasn’t her diaper. It was Al-Kazaz, who was full of crap. If that was even his real name.
Whoever he was, he had delivered a near perfect performance. In fact, he probably would’ve had me were it not for one little mistake.
CHAPTER 15
“NICELY DONE, Needham,” said a fellow agent walking by as Elizabeth stepped off the elevator. Elizabeth didn’t even know his name.
“Thanks,” she said.
She delivered about a dozen more thank-yous en route to Evan Pritchard’s office in the back corner of the JTTF field unit. It was the proverbial morning after and everyone was up to their necks in chasing leads and poring over past intelligence reports, but at some point they had all managed to see the video of Elizabeth saving their boss’s life. They’d also heard she was the first to spot the drones in the second-wave attack.
“Oh, great. There she is, the bane of my existence,” said Pritchard’s assistant, Gwen, sitting behind her desk outside Pritchard’s office. Gwen, pushing sixty, was five foot nothing and ninety-eight pounds of chutzpah and sarcasm. “You had to do it, huh, rookie? You had to save his life so he could continue to make mine miserable?”
There was absolutely nothing to laugh about in the wake of the attacks, but Gwen didn’t give a damn. Her brother had worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and was on the 105th floor of One World Trade Center the morning of 9/11. If poking a little fun helped her fend off having to relive the memory of that day all over again, so be it.
“Any chance I can get in there for a few minutes this morning?” asked Elizabeth, nodding at Pritchard’s door. It was cracked open about an inch.
“Send her in!” came Pritchard’s booming voice. He sounded like James Earl Jones talking through a megaphone. “And if you want me dead, Gwen, you’re going to have to do it yourself.”
Gwen winked at Elizabeth. “Finally, something to live for,” she said. “He’s all yours.”
Elizabeth stepped inside Pritchard’s office. It was only the second time she’d been in there, the other being on her first day when he told her she needed to go to Boston. She hadn’t even been assigned her own desk yet.
“Is it good?” Pritchard asked immediately.
“Is what good?”
“Whatever it is you have for me, Needham, because you’re sure as hell not here just so I can thank you again for saving my life,” he said.
“No, once was enough,” said Elizabeth.
“All the same, thanks again,” he said. “You were heads-up out there, good under pressure. That’s the kind of people I need, that this unit needs. Now, what do you have for me?”
Elizabeth blinked a few times, trying to digest Pritchard’s flash of humanity. She wondered how much of his act was just that, an act. The guy was far from loved in law enforcement circles, but he was universally respected. Revered, even. Gwen’s kidding around about wanting him dead was exhibit A. She clearly thought the world of her boss.
“Earth to Needham,” said Pritchard.
“Yeah, sorry,” said Elizabeth, snapping out of it. She quickly got down to business, directing him to the file of Professor Darvish and the mystery woman returning with him to his hotel.
Pritchard paused the footage on his computer to stare at the white glow around the woman’s face. “Hmmm.”
“My first thought is that it’s either a glitch or someone tampered with it,” said Elizabeth.
“Yeah, we’ll have the geeks in the lab look at it,” he said.
“Who do I call for that?” she asked.
“No one.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m taking you off the case, Needham,” he said.
CHAPTER 16
“WHY?”
“Think about it,” said Pritchard.
“I am,” said Elizabeth. “I’m thinking about what you told me yesterday about trying to stop the next attack, that your agents are needed on all fronts.”
“They still are,” he said. “But you specifically are needed now on the attacks that happened yesterday.”
It was the way he said specifically.
“This wasn’t your decision, was it?” she asked.
“As I said, think about it.”
Elizabeth winced, realizing. “The mayor?”
“I suppose I couldn’t really blame him,” said Pritchard. “As much as I hate politics, the optics for him