One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [111]
“What’s that mean?” She flicked her hand and backhanded my stomach. “Would you like to see me be a jerk? I don’t think you’d enjoy it.”
“Oww. Jesus. I don’t like it right now.” I snatched her hand out of the air to prevent her from hitting me again. “I was just kidding. What I was going to say was it would help if you went out and bought a laptop. One with wireless so we don’t have to keep searching for Internet business centers. Can you do that?”
She squinted at me, the touch of a grin on her face. Waiting a beat, she said, “Sure. Gives me something to do, anyway. We’ll just meet back here?”
I realized I was still holding her hand and dropped it like a piece of hot iron. “Yeah. I should be gone no more than an hour. Get your stuff. We can walk to the Metro together. If you get off two stops after Reagan National you’ll be at a pretty big mall. The stop’s Pentagon City.”
When she saw my embarrassment, Jennifer’s little grin threatened to break into a smile, causing a clash of confusing feelings. I dealt with it the usual way—by getting pissed off.
“What? What’re you grinning about? Can we go?”
She rolled her eyes, holding her hand in front of my face and making me feel like an ass. “Yeah. Let me get my purse before your head explodes.”
We headed to the Metro station and hopped on the first train in, the Blue Line. We sat in the back, away from anyone else, and rode silently past the first two stops. One minute out from the Pentagon City stop I remembered what we were doing, and the fact that Jennifer wasn’t a professional. I kicked myself for having taken her precautions for granted. She was going out by herself, into a world where someone wanted both of us very badly. A world full of invisible predators.
“Hey, the next stop is yours. Look, I don’t want to scare you, but please be very, very careful. I’ve racked my brain about the Homeland Security alert, and can’t come up with any reason whatsoever for that to have occurred. One name might be a coincidence, but both our names together is outside the realm of believable. I think that the alert has something to do with what we know.”
“You said that was just a mistake. Why would anyone do that on purpose?”
I held up my hands. “I don’t know it was done on purpose. On the one hand, it could simply be a mistake, some crossed wires from our visit to the embassy in Belize. There is also the very, very slim chance that it was sent by Kurt, and once we were in the interrogation rooms they would have simply put us in contact with him.”
“And if it’s not?”
“Well . . . the other reasons aren’t that good. It could mean that someone knew we were traveling together, and so knew why we were traveling. Whoever that someone is wanted us to get arrested so that we’re out of the picture.”
Jennifer pondered a bit, asking a question softly: “You really think that alert was done intentionally to get us out of the way?”
“I honestly don’t know. In my heart, I don’t believe that, but I want you to act as if it’s true. Treat the entire mall trip as if you’re walking through a crack slum. Check out anyone coming near you. Avoid any contact with strangers. Someone stares at you the wrong way, get the fuck out. Go back to the hotel room. You tracking?”
She nodded.
I continued. “As soon as you’re off the train, call my cell phone so you can simply hit redial in an emergency. Call me every thirty minutes. If you don’t get through, if I don’t answer, get out. Go straight to the hotel. Lock the doors and wait. I’ll get in touch. If I don’t hear from you, I’m coming straight here, to the mall. If anything happens, try to stay in the area, create a scene, whatever you can do to give me a clue on finding you.”
“Whoa—are you serious? You think it’s that bad? I can’t believe this. All right . . . I’ll try to leave a bloody napkin or maybe a finger for you to find.”
“Come on. That’s not funny. I don’t think it’s that bad, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”
“Okay, okay. I can handle myself. I’ll stay in crowded areas and scream my head off if someone