Black Friday. Alex Kava

Patrick got closer he could see the white type on the man’s baseball cap. Paramedic? Strange, he didn’t think there was a rescue squad here yet. He looked down over the railing. Two uniformed police officers scrimmaged the mall entrance two floors down. They were the first responders that Patrick had heard or seen though he guessed it was certainly possible for more to be here without him noticing.

       Blue jeans, hiking boots, a duffel bag.

      Patrick still wasn’t satisfied. And there was something in the guy’s hand that looked like…damn, it looked like a needle and syringe. None of the volunteer rescue and fire units Patrick had ever worked with would approach an injured person with a syringe.

      “Hey,” Patrick shouted, but his voice was drowned out in the whirl of noises.

      “Rebecca,” he yelled and saw her body jerk up. But it wasn’t in response to his call.

      In one swift move she jumped to her feet, kicking at a table leg and sending it into the man’s path before sprinting off in the other direction. The man stumbled but only for a second. He pocketed the syringe and bolted after Rebecca, shoving a pair of teenaged girls out of his way. In the chaos no one else noticed.

      Patrick took off after both of them.

       What the hell was going on?

      Chapter

      15

       Washington, D.C.

      Andrews Air Force Base disappeared below and Maggie forced herself to not look for it, to stop watching out the airplane window. Killers, she could handle. Being at 38,000 feet and not in control still required conscious effort.

       Conscious effort or a Scotch, neat.

      It didn’t even matter that it was a private jet with comfortable leather lounge chairs. To make matters worse, Assistant Director Ray Kunze sat across from her alongside Allan Foster, the silver-haired senior United States senator from Minnesota. To Maggie’s left was the Assistant Deputy Director of Homeland Security, Charlie Wurth. The three men were finally quiet after exchanging pleasantries, a few barbs and then the requisite comments of disbelief and anger. Maggie had simply sat back and tuned them out.

      “They warned us,” Senator Foster said for a second time.

      “We’ll know soon enough if this was the work of any organized group or simply one madman.” A.D. Kunze looked to Maggie and nodded like it was some secret signal to back him up. “Our Special Agent O’Dell should be able to tell us exactly who to look for as soon as she sees those videotapes.”

      Instead of agreeing or offering any assurance, Maggie asked the senator, “What exactly were the warnings?”

      “We haven’t substantiated or authenticated them yet,” Kunze answered for the senator. “But I’m certain once we get a look at the terrorists—on the security cameras and from eyewitness reports—we’ll be able to determine if the warnings provide an appropriate template.”

      Maggie found herself staring at Kunze. Did he always talk like this? As if surrounded by TV cameras and reporters?

      “I’m just curious,” she said and shrugged as though it didn’t matter whether or not they shared. “Warnings and threats often reveal more than intended.”

      Senator Foster met her eyes and nodded, “That’s very true.” Then as if to squelch any protests, he added, “And the warnings are all we have right now.”

      “You said security had video,” Kunze tossed at Wurth, again reminding Maggie of a politician looking to already place blame if need be.

      “Yes, they should have video,” Wurth said with a calm that made Kunze’s bulging vein in his forehead look manic. “But you know how retail security is. They’re more concerned about shoplifting than bombs. We’ll be lucky if we caught any of the terrorists on camera. And hopefully the cameras weren’t tampered with or destroyed.”

      Maggie knew Wurth had been awarded his position in Homeland Security for his work investigating the fraud and failures of the federal government after Hurricane Katrina. He had a reputation for pushing the envelope and getting things done. Compared to his FBI counterpart and the senior senator, Wurth would be the one least worried about political correctness or organizational protocol.

      Ironic, Maggie thought as she watched the small, wiry black man. Ironic and refreshing to meet someone who didn’t premeasure his actions to limit his accountability. In other words, it was refreshing to meet someone in this business whose number one concern wasn’t covering his own ass.

      Kunze dug a file folder from a bulging leather satchel and handed it to Maggie.

      She glanced at the three men as she started to sift through the contents. Each man watched her with different looks that telegraphed their different agendas—looks and agendas as different as were the men.

      Maggie guessed Wurth somewhere around her age, middle thirties with a small but athletic frame. He shed his sport jacket as soon as they boarded and rolled up the sleeves of his oxford shirt, a pale pink shirt with a bright red necktie. She immediately liked Wurth who didn’t seem to care about putting on airs or hiding his working-class past. He sat on the edge of his chair, nervous energy tapping out with his foot.

      In contrast Senator Foster’s tall, lanky body lounged back in his chair with legs crossed at the ankles and extending well beyond his personal space. His elbows braced up on the chair arms, hands together creating a steeple of fingers that held up his head and seemed to point out the deep cleft at the bottom of his chin. He reminded Maggie of an academic professor, thoughtful, slow to speak as if he truly were pondering every answer before he responded.

      Assistant Director Kunze was physically a direct opposite of both Wurth and Foster. Square head on massive shoulders, Kunze looked more like a well-dressed bouncer at a private nightclub. His stare could easily be mistaken as vacant while, in fact, his mind analyzed and processed every move his opponent made. He used the image of all brawn, no brains to his advantage and had even been rumored to play it up every chance he got.

      A.D. Kunze’s superiors called him straightforward and quick-thinking. Maggie considered him reactive and impulsive. Colleagues described him as determined, focused and passionate. Maggie saw him as unpredictable, short-tempered and vindictive. In plain English, a petty brute of a man who didn’t deserve to walk in Kyle Cunningham’s shadow let alone take over his position.

      Previous to Kunze being assigned interim assistant director of the Behavioral Science Unit Maggie had never worked with the man, and yet he came to the position loaded with an unshakable perception of her, a preconceived misperception. Evidently her reputation of bending the rules was something Kunze had no patience for. His accusation that Maggie and Agent Tully had contributed to Assistant Director Cunningham’s death somehow, by their individual negligence in the case, was absurd. Why Kunze insisted on using it against them puzzled her. It almost seemed ridiculous, except that Maggie knew Kunze might actually be able to pull it off.

      Inside the file folder were poor-quality copies of memorandums about several phone calls and e-mails. They seemed standard fare. The group called itself Citizens for American Pride, CAP for short. Maggie was familiar with the group and similar ones. Most of them had gained popularity through the Internet and on college campuses. Their missions weren’t all that different from the white supremacist groups of the ’80s and ’90s, which they disguised with a veil of normalcy and a level of legitimacy.

      Instead of holing up in cabins or compounds, the groups—always professing America pride and ideals—held family picnics, sometimes church sponsored, though not affiliated with any one church or Christian denomination. They held rallies on college campuses. From what Maggie remembered, most of the groups preached family values and focused on putting an end to exporting jobs, stopping the floodgate of immigrants coming across the border and encouraging the purchase of American-made products. Maggie remembered recently seeing, as the holiday shopping season began, a fullpage ad