Carrie's run

CHAPTER 10

Glen Burnie, Maryland

She met Jimbo Abdel-Shawafi for an early lunch at a Chick-fil-A in a mall in Glen Burnie, just outside Baltimore. He had texted her: “ever had disabled sex?”

“can u get it up?” she’d texted back.

“4 u, I can try harder.”

“hard is the word im looking 4.”

“c u anyway? something u need 2 c.”

The redhead was waiting for her in his wheelchair at a table in the mall food court. It was early enough that the tables weren’t too crowded with shoppers grabbing a quick bite.

“Why here?” she asked.

“Far enough away from both our shops so we won’t run into anyone,” he said, leaning toward her. “Plus, access.” He indicated a wheelchair sign. “Besides, it’s cheap and I like the chicken sandwich,” he said, taking a bite.

“What’ve you got?” she asked, poking at a salad with a plastic fork.

“We reactivated tracking COMINT on all the phone numbers. I programmed my input streams to alert me if anything popped up. There were no messages of particular interest, so I decided just for the hell of it to run face-recognition software, especially on anyone taking interest in the U.S., and look what popped up.” He showed her a passport photo on a DS-160 online application form for a visitor’s visa, the kind foreigners use to come to the United States, on his laptop computer. She stared at it.

The hair was different. Instead of being long, black and sleek, it was short and streaked, but Carrie recognized her immediately. It was Dima. She’s alive, she thought excitedly.

“Is it her?” Jimbo asked, holding the original photo of Dima she’d given him next to the photo on the screen to compare.

“It’s her,” Carrie said, her heart beating fast.

“And this,” he said, showing her on his laptop. Displayed in another window on the screen was an airline reservation entry from Beirut to New York on British Airways with a stopover in London. Also, a Lebanese passport page and the DS-160. “As you can see by the passport and reservation, she’s using the cover name Jihan Miradi.”

“God,” she said. “I could kiss you.”

“Who’s stopping you?” He grinned.

She got up, came around the table and kissed him on the cheek.

“I think you missed the target,” he said.

“I like you, Jimbo. And I owe you, big-time. But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“Well, at least I got a peck on the cheek,” he said.

“For stuff like this, anytime. Any idea where she’s staying?”

He winked at her. “The reservation was made by a travel agency. Seems she’s alone.”

“Trust me, she’s not alone,” Carrie said. She said it without thinking, but now that she thought about it, it was true.

“Have a look,” he said, showing her a copy of the airline reservation. It was made by Unicorn Travel on Rue Pasteur. She knew roughly where that was. In Beirut’s Central District, not far from the harbor. “She’s staying at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. She must have money.”

“Not her own. She knows how to get men to spend it on her,” she said.

“Not the only woman in the world who knows that trick.”

She looked at him sharply. “We’re not all like that,” she said. “Not even close.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean that the way it came out.” Then he brightened. “Would I like her?” He grinned.

“You like anything in a skirt.” She smiled. “But yes, you’d like her. Definitely.”

Suddenly, it was as if all the cylinders in a slot machine stopped on sevens. Dima had set her up with Nightingale, who tried to grab or kill her. Dima had disappeared and now was suddenly surfacing in New York right after the rape and killings in Abbasiyah. Dima was here on an op. But for whom? GSD? Hezbollah? That didn’t make sense. If anyone was going to avenge Abbasiyah, it would be al-Qaeda. This had to have been set up before then. There’s a missing piece somewhere, she thought. And it’s in Beirut.

She looked at the airline and hotel reservations again. Dima was due in New York in four days. Estes had mobilized the entire CTC in anticipation of something aimed at the U.S. Saul had said the target would be either Washington or New York. Was this it?

What was happening at the Waldorf or anywhere in New York this week? She had to get back to her OCSA computer fast.

“Jimbo, thanks,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “This is a big deal. Really.”

He looked at her. Blue eyes. He really did have beautiful eyes, she thought.

“Maybe we could get together sometime?” he asked.

She hesitated. “No.”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “It’s the chair, isn’t it?” He put both hands on the wheelchair’s armrests.

“Maybe a little,” she said, ducking her head. “Maybe more than a little. But that’s not it.”

“I don’t do it for you?” he said, looking away.

“I don’t know. I hate being put in this situation. That’s always a problem for a woman-and anyway, it’s beside the point.” She took a breath. “I like you, Jimbo. Thing is, I like you too much to screw you up-and that’s what I do. I know you think it’s bullshit, but trust me, I’m doing you a big favor.”

“Sounds like bullshit.” He frowned.

“It’s not. I’m not kidding. Besides, I’m kind of involved with someone,” she said, thinking of Estes.

“You’re a fantasy girl, you know, Carrie? You should let someone in. Here.” He handed her a flash drive with the data he’d shown her on it.

“I will, someday. But not today. This,” she said, getting up and showing him the flash drive, “is going to save lives. You did something important, cowboy.”

“Listen, there’s something else on the flash drive.”

“What?”

“I reinstituted tracking on those three cell phones of Fielding’s that had been deleted. Those are all the calls he’s made on them since. There are a bunch to a single number. A woman. I put the data on the flash.”

“You really are something,” she said, and kissed him on the forehead. “Thanks.”

“Glad to help. Listen, you be careful,” he said. “Not everybody likes this cross-agency communication. I’ve been warned.”

“Makes two of us,” she said, every fiber in her screaming to get back to Langley. She had to figure a way to turn Estes. What was it Saul had said with his vaguely Catholic turn of phrase? God, he knew her. Shades of Holy Trinity High. “Bring him to the light,” he’d said.

Dima was on her way, courtesy of British Airways, and if she couldn’t figure out a way to stop her, she was bringing death.