much preferred doing business this way. His joy was short-lived, however.
Rapp pointed the muzzle of his rifle at Zahir's chest and said, "But if I find out you're fucking me, or that you had a hand in any of this, you're dead."
Chapter 40
HAYEK had donned her white paper suit, hood, and booties. She wore her mask and kicked everyone out of the house, including the bomb techs. For more than an hour she thoroughly photographed everything, and in the room where the torture had taken place she took two samples of every fluid she could potentially identify. When she'd been with the FBI, they would have had no fewer than six agents combing over a crime scene like this. She was well aware that she was likely missing a bevy of potential evidence, but her focus here was very different from that of an agent collecting evidence that would be challenged in a courtroom. Her immediate goal was pretty straightforward - she needed to be able to tell Kennedy with near certainty if Joe Rickman had in fact been in this room.
Even as Hayek carefully collected her evidence she knew what she would recommend to Kennedy. She needed to bring in a forensic team from the Joint Expeditionary Forensic Laboratory at Bagram or have the FBI send one of their teams over. Kennedy wouldn't like the idea of bringing in someone from outside the Agency, but the truth was the CIA didn't have the capability to do this job at the level it needed to be done. Hayek's preference was the FBI, but she recognized that she was biased from having worked with them.
When she was finished collecting all of her samples, she was left with one small dilemma. On the floor, across the room from the two dead men, was a digital camera with a tripod screwed into the bottom. It appeared the camera had been knocked over, as only a small wire tethered the viewfinder. Several pieces of the camera's black plastic casing were also cracked and broken. If the FBI were going to get involved they would want her to leave the camera where it was so they could follow their own strict protocols for evidence collection. Hayek was no electronics expert, but she knew that some cameras came equipped with internal memory drives as well as slots for removable memory cards. Using her gloved hands she cradled the camera as if it were a bird with a broken wing. She carefully turned it over in her hands and saw that the slot for the memory card was empty. She was about to leave the camera when she decided that would be foolish.
Hayek chastised herself. There were times where she still thought too much like a law enforcement officer and not enough like a member of the Clandestine Service. The priority was to get Kennedy as much information as possible as quickly as possible. She could always hand the camera over to the FBI later, along with the photographs that would show where she'd found the camera. She carefully unscrewed the tripod from the bottom and placed the camera in a clear evidence bag.
When she stepped into the afternoon sun, she saw that everyone was in a far more relaxed posture.
Rapp was standing just inside the gate with Coleman, who looked like he was about to fall asleep. Rapp asked, "How did it go?"
Hayek pulled the paper hood off her head and the mask from her face. "I've got what we need to get a start, but we need to get someone in there to go over the entire house."
"Like who?" Rapp asked.
"Probably one of the FBI's forensic teams."
"I'm not sure I like that idea."
"I didn't think you would, but they're the best."
"Irene's going to have to make that call."
"I agree. In the meantime we need this place secured. I don't want anyone going in or out, including the local police."
Rapp looked to Coleman. "Any ideas?"
"Well," he said, rubbing his tired eyes, "having the JSOC boys guard an empty house is like asking a thoroughbred horse to plow a field. Besides, I'm sure they have ops they have to run tonight." Coleman was about to say he could call Hubbard and get some grunts from the air base to come over and secure the place, but then he remembered Hubbard was missing. "I'll make some calls. In the meantime, I'll see if we can get the Rangers to keep an eye on things."