Code Name: Dove. Judith Leon

overweight and unshaven man stood in shirtsleeves taking coffee with knock-you-down aroma from a stainless-steel urn. Three sets of eyes examined her and Cardone, but quickly settled on her. “Afternoon, gentlemen,” she said.

      A blond with a sharp nose, well-cut blue suit and horn-rimmed glasses spoke first. “CIA? Blair and Cardone?”

      “Right,” Cardone said. “Agent Joe Cardone. And this is my partner, Agent Nova Blair.”

      The blond shook hands, first with Cardone and then with her, and introduced himself. “David Stivsky, FBI. Been on the case from the get-go.”

      He introduced the two other men. The hefty man, Jacobson, was a Fairbanks’ police lieutenant whose reassuring smile offset several unattractive chins. The other was an Alyeska man, from the office in charge of pipeline security. He was a sandy-haired beanpole named Duncan, and his expression seemed stuck on grim. He flipped open the log, checked their ID’s, and entered their names in the record.

      “This is one helluva mess,” Stivsky said. He twirled one of the straight-backed chairs, sat and rested his arms over the back. “Three pumping stations and the terminal blasted to smithereens. Burning like they’re never gonna quit. I gather, since we were told to wait for you two, Langley has hard evidence these guys are foreigners.”

      “A reasonable assumption,” Cardone said in a serious tone.

      The men were getting into FBI-CIA turf issues and Nova had zero interest. Instead she asked, “Have you talked to either man yet?”

      Stivsky scowled. “No. They were brought in by helicopter about oh-five-hundred. Pumping Station 6 is just north of here. Unfortunately the terrorist is busted all to hell. Been sedated since before arriving here. When he was first brought in, Wiley, the pipeline employee, talked to the doc, but he’s also been under sedation since before I made the scene.” The scowl deepened. “We’ve waited to have a go at ’em till you two arrived since waiting also made the doc happy.”

      She nodded to Cardone. “Let’s see if the doctor is finished.”

      “Is Dr. Graywing free yet?” Nova asked at the nurses’ station.

      The nurse started to leave the desk. From a room along the opposite corridor, a slender Native American woman with glasses, salt-and-pepper hair and a doctor’s white coat entered the hall and bounded in their direction. The nurse pointed and said, “That’s her.”

      Dr. Graywing looked questioningly at Nova and Nova’s new partner but addressed her nurse. “So who do we have here?”

      After the doctor examined their credentials herself, Nova said, “We’d like to talk to you before we see your patients.”

      The doctor glanced at her watch. “The pipeline employee is sedated, but should be able to talk in, say, half an hour. I can’t let you see the one that’s presumed to be a terrorist. He’s in critical condition.”

      “I know that, but still, we have to see him.” Nova put a little bite into her words. “As you can imagine, it’s urgent.”

      “You simply can’t talk to the terrorist until he’s in better shape,” she said, lacing her words for the first time with a sharp edge.

      The nurse was absorbing their every word. Nova said, “Could we find a more private place?”

      Dr. Graywing briskly led them back toward the waiting room. She stopped in front of a door that led to a space hardly larger than a closet. The room held a desk and chair, charts and some posted work schedules. Graywing waved her arm for Nova and Cardone to enter, followed them in, and closed the door. She leaned back against the desk and looked at Cardone with the same charmed sparkle in her eyes that Nova had seen in the woman at the reception desk. “It’s a miracle either of these men is alive.”

      Nova fingered through her purse, extracted her mini-recorder and started taping. Graywing saw the recorder and halted. “This won’t bother you, will it?” Nova asked.

      Graywing shifted position slightly. “Not at all.” Again looking at Cardone, she continued. “The presumed terrorist is, as I’ve explained, in critical condition. He fell down a shaft on the pumping station site. Broken neck. Broken right leg. A concussion. He was unconscious when he arrived and is only barely conscious now.” The doctor’s brow wrinkled in a sign of minor impatience. “Actually, I’ve told all of this to your three colleagues down the hall.”

      Cardone countered with an easy grin. “We appreciate you bringing us up to speed.”

      “Well…” Graywing took in a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Everyone seems to feel he was left behind because his colleagues couldn’t locate him before they took off. As I said, you’re not going to get anything out of him for some time. If ever.”

      Graywing’s gaze shifted, met Nova’s briefly with a challenge, then went back to Cardone. Nova let the challenge pass—for the moment.

      “The pipeline employee—his name is John Wiley—he’s in better condition, but he’s been sedated. He’s the only survivor from any of the three pumping stations.” Graywing gave Cardone and then Nova a questioning look. When they said nothing, she continued. “I don’t know about the other two stations, but all of the personnel at Number 6 were shot in the head. Really nasty. The medic told me they were almost all in bed. It was as though they’d been put to sleep, then shot. Wiley’s alive only because he has a steel plate in his head. The bullet simply grazed it.”

      “That is a break,” said her partner.

      Dr. Graywing smiled at him. “I presume you’re going to question the man, and I want to warn you, he’s still very confused—”

      Nova cut in. “The FBI has the lead here, Doctor. They’ll be in charge of the questioning. We’re simply observers, and I’m sure they expect us to keep pretty much out of the way. But if we have questions, I’ll be the one asking.”

      Finally she had Graywing’s full and surprised attention. Agent Cardone’s lips pulled into a thin line. He crossed his arms and stared at the wall. A notion that the kid might be a bit touchy about his status in their relationship again crossed Nova’s mind.

      Dr. Graywing’s ears flushed pink. “I, yes…well,” she stammered. “I stand corrected. Please forgive me, Ms. Blair. Mmm. Let me say, I had a chance to talk to Wiley briefly. He said three things I thought might be of interest.” The doctor hesitated.

      “Yes,” Nova said.

      “First, even though it was nearly one in the morning, Wiley was awake, reading in bed in the company residence quarters, when he heard a noise. Then someone ran past the door to his room wearing a gas mask. So the first thing is, it looks like they did use some kind of chemical to incapacitate the workers, all eighteen of them, then took their time going to the rooms to dispatch them one by one before blowing up the place.”

      Graywing shook her head. Nova shared her feelings. Eighteen men dead at Number 6, shot like cattle. More at the other two stations.

      “The second thing Wiley mentioned was burned coffee. The smell was the last thing he remembered.”

      “That’s odd,” said Cardone.

      Nova said, “Maybe it has something to do with the chemical agent that was used on them.” That struck her as plausible and a piece of information possibly useful for forensics. She’d have to make sure they started looking for traces of drugs in Wiley’s blood and tissues immediately. “And what was the third thing?”

      The doctor opened her mouth. The sound of two gunshots penetrated the small room followed by blood-chilling shrieks.

      Chapter 4

      Nova beat her partner into the hall. Both guards were sprawled on the hospital’s white linoleum floor, blood and tissue splattered on the walls behind where they’d stood.

      Bile