The Observer (Derek Cole Suspense Thriller Book 3) (22 page)

“Anyone see you in that apartment, boss man?” Crown asked.

“If they did, I don’t think I’d still be walking and talking.”

“Who knows? Any chance you still have the letter?”

“Yeah,” Derek said. “Shoved in my pocket. Why?”

“Calm yourself down and go find a place to have a scotch. When you can think clearly, snap a few pics of the letter and send it as an attachment in the BuryMe app. You know how to use the camera on your phone, right?”

“Yes, Crown. I know how to take a picture.”

“Good. I’ll take a good read and share it with Nikkie. She’s gotten in good with Detective Connor at the NYPD. It’s time we bring in the good guys.”

“What about the FBI?”

“What about them?”

“Don’t you think they’d be interested in knowing what the hell is going on with this whole case? They did hire me, after all.”

“I don’t have any problem with the FBI but I do have a problem with the shithead who is pulling the FBI’s strings with this case. Just send me the pics. Nikkie or I will contact you once we have back-up. Don’t you go all freelance on me and try to be the hero. From what I’ve found out about the IUIEEO and their connections, you wouldn’t last a second if you try to stop Kevin all by yourself.”

“I’ve gotten this far without any problems,” Derek said.

“Sure,” Crown said. “Only got yourself involved in a massive man hunt, suspected of being a victim in an explosion, suspected of being a part of a double killing of two FBI agents, and strongly suspected of being associated with a rogue agent who is quickly climbing his way up the Most Wanted list. No problems at all.”

“You actually make a good point.”

“I usually do.”

“The fact that I haven’t been located by the FBI yet, and no one from the IUIEEO group has tried to silence me, leads me to believe that someone is pulling some strings to keep me safe.” Derek paused. “Isn’t it strange, considering all the problems you just rattled off, that I’m not in some interrogation room or lying on a steel gurney inside a very cold room?”

“What are you thinking?” Crown asked.

“That maybe Juan Cortez has more influence than I thought. Maybe he has the ear of some people at the FBI.”

“Or maybe he’s involved with the IUIEEO. Have you considered that lovely option?”

“I’m trying not to think about that possibility.”

“Well maybe you need to get your head out of your ass and start thinking realistically. It makes sense. Cortez uses you to bait Henderson. He probably figured that Henderson would tell his superior that he located you. Enter Marissa Rica.”

“But Rica was about to kill me. If Juan wanted to use me, then why would he put me in a situation where I may have been killed?”

“You don’t save the worm after you catch a fish with it. If you were bait, you were supposed to die. Maybe what he needed was to have Rica and Henderson in the same location.”

“But Henderson killed Rica and was only killed when he went back to the hotel. No way Juan could have planned that.”

“Henderson and Cortez were partners, right?” Crown said.

“And you think that partners know what each other will do in situations after they’ve been partners long enough,” Derek said.

“Exactly. Kind of weird that Cortez went dark on you once Henderson and Rica were taken out.”

“He did tell me not to trust him.”

“Listen,” Crown said. “Find a bar, drink your shit scotch and send me the pics. I think it’s time for you to meet your associate.”

“You mean Nikkie, the woman I hired without knowing and am paying her a salary that I probably can’t afford?”

“That’s her. Get your ass to a bar, do what I told you and don’t forget to tell me the address of where she can meet you. And Cole?”

“What?” Derek said.

“It’s never a good idea to fall in lust with someone who works for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll know what I mean when you see her. Don’t shit where you eat.”

“Wonderful imagery, Crown. Wonderful.”

Derek was two deep into cheap scotch when she walked up and stood beside him.

“Derek Cole, I presume?”

Derek glanced up and went instantly silent. “Um, yes. Nikkie?”

“Glad to finally meet you,” she said as she sat beside him on the booth’s bench seat. “You look just like I expected. A little more tired, though,” Nikkie remarked as her delicate smile crinkled her noise.

“Yeah,” Derek stammered. “Good to meet you as well.”

“You look shocked. Didn’t Crown tell you I would be meeting you here?”

“She did. Sorry. I’ve had a long few days.”

“Didn’t Crown tell you that I was a black woman?” Nikkie asked. “I mean, I know she’s a bit rough around the edges, but I assumed that she’d at least give you my description.”

“Well,” Derek said as he swirled the one remaining ice cube in his drink around the glass, “all she suggested was that you were attractive.”

“While I’m flattered, I highly doubt she used the word ‘attractive.’ She probably described me with the same degree of detail as she did when describing you.”

“I’m afraid to ask,” Derek said, instantly liking Nikkie, her approach and, as Crown probably expected, her looks.

“She described you as a hot man, charging towards middle age, with a confused look tattooed into your eyes.”

“That’s more than what I got about you. All I got was that you were ‘hot’ and that I shouldn’t hit on you.”

“Victoria certainly has a way with words,” Nikkie said.

“You probably shouldn’t call her Victoria. She told me that she would do something nasty if I ever called her that.”

“I got the same warning. Mine was that she’d coat my vibrator in cajun pepper if I ever called her Victoria. I thought it was funny, but I really think she’d find a way to do it. I only call her Victoria when I am very far away from her.”

“My warning was piss in my coffee mug. Not to get too personal, but I think your warning sounds worse,” Derek said, instantly feeling his face and neck blush.

Nicole Armani, Nikkie as she was known, was, as Crown had suggested to Derek, very attractive. Her dark skin was flawless; a smooth surface of consistent perfection, interrupted only by her stunning brown eyes and her brilliantly white smile. She stood five foot seven, and her body demanded the attention of men and the envy of women.

“So,” Nikkie said as she waved towards the waitress, “how’s your week going?”

What started as a quick release of tension-laden laughter, evolved into a tear evoking, belly laugh. “I’d say this week is one for the record books. On the bright side, however, I haven’t been shot, pushed down a flight of stairs or beat up.”

Nikkie gently touched Derek’s chin and pulled his face so that she could look into both of his eyes. “That bruise happen all by itself?”

“That, believe it or not, was part of a plan. Let me catch you up to speed.”

“Mind waiting for my drink and our guest to arrive? I don’t want you to have to repeat yourself.”

“Guest,” Derek said. “Don’t tell me Crown is joining us.”

“Fortunately for us,” Nikkie said. “Crown doesn’t like the city. Detective Patrick Connor should be here any second now.”

As if on cue. Patrick Connor approached the booth, shook Derek’s hand then sat across from Derek and Nikkie.

“Last time I saw you,” Connor said, “we were wiping the remains of Abdul off your face. What have you been up to since?

“Not too much, You know, same old same old.”

The waitress brought Derek another scotch, took drink orders from Nikkie and Connor, then left the three alone.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning. The real beginning. Not the story you told me in the midtown station.”

***I***

By the time Derek had finished telling Patrick and Nikkie the details of his last few days, the August sun had set, and the dinner crowd filled the small, midtown tavern. As he spoke, Patrick asked questions while Nikkie took notes.

“So,” Nikkie said after Derek’s conversation seemed to reach an end, “Juan Cortez never got back to you after you left the diner in Connecticut?”

“Right.”

“And, Crown didn’t discover any information from her FBI hack that suggested that he had been apprehended?”

“Nothing.”

“Wait a minute,” Patrick said. “What do you mean Crown’s FBI hack?”

“She found a cross tension point. I have no idea what that means, but she was able to get into the Columbus FBI office’s news stream.”

“I think you mean a cross attenuation point. And, you know that hacking a governmental network is highly illegal?”

“Figured it was, but you have to know Crown to understand how little she probably cares about staying on the good side of the government.”

Their attention was pulled away from discussing how Crown would crumble whichever Federal penitentiary she would be sent to if her actions were ever discovered by Derek’s vibrating iPhone that was placed in the middle of the table.

“Speak of the devil,” Derek said, flashing the phone to Nikkie and Patrick. “Crown must have known we were talking about her.”

“That may not be a joke,” Nikkie said. “She probably bugged us somehow.”

Derek answered the phone, smiled, then placed the phone back in the middle of the table.

“Can you all hear me?” Crown said through the speaker phone.

“Yes. Loud and clear.”

“Knowing that you’re all not a bunch of shit-headed idiots, I assume that you’re not in a public place, like, I don’t know, a midtown tavern in the heart of Manhattan?”

“Well, actually…”

“Finish your drinks, shove a few nachos into your faces, and call me back when you’re in a private area. Don’t make me wait long. I may actually have something better to do than to sit around in the office and talk with you three.”

***I***

Derek, Nikkie, and Patrick Connor sat huddled around a small table in the corner of a Sheraton Hotel lobby. Though the lobby was busy with guests milling about, none seemed at all interested in the three.

“Okay Crown,” Derek said, “we can talk now.”

“Have you filled Nikkie and Detective Connor in on everything that has happened so far?”

“I have,” Derek said.

After asking some questions to Patrick and Nikkie, Crown was satisfied that Derek had given them every last bit of important detail. She then proceeded to fill Nikkie and Patrick Connor in on everything she had discovered. Once she was happy with their retention of details, she turned things back over to Derek. “So what mastermind plan have you three come up with?”

“Patrick is going to inform his captain about what I’ve discovered,” Derek started. “His captain will inform the FBI.”

“And if what Derek is thinking is accurate,” Connor said, “the NYPD will be instructed to pull all uniforms and presence from a one or two block radius of the tavern. They either will want to take Aahill out themselves or…”

“Or let Kevin Washington blow himself and everyone in that tavern up to Allah,” Nikkie said.

“If no such issue is given, then we will have the full force of the NYPD on the streets to prevent any bombings.”

“But we have to assume, based on everything that we’ve experienced so far, that the FBI won’t be asking anyone, let alone the NYPD to assist. So,” Derek said, “we need to stop Kevin in case the FBI chooses not to.”

“There’s a problem with that,” Connor said. “The agents will be on the lookout for Aahill as well as for you and me. If they see you casing the area, they will pick you up.”

“And if they do allow Aahill to carry out the bombing, they will probably need to shut you up as well,” Nikkie commented. “We have no idea just how high this corruption, if there actually is any corruption, goes. If Aahill is allowed to detonate, they will do whatever they can to keep things quiet.”

“I can’t believe that every agent on the case is involved in a possible cover-up. No way,” Derek said.

“You’re probably right, but it only takes a few high-ranking officers to pull this off. Look at what happened to Henderson. Based on what Crown is finding out, the FBI is making him out to be a traitor to the country. Unless we are completely wrong about everything, Henderson was just doing his job.” Patrick Connor sighed deeply. He had been involved in his fair share of corruption during his 16 years with the NYPD, but nothing that even came close to what he was involved in with this case. “And the thing that we haven’t considered yet, is even if we are able to stop Aahill, there’s probably a dozen other Muslims lined up behind him, ready to take his place in the express line to 72 virgins in Heaven.”

“Not every Muslim is a terrorist, Detective.” It was the way Nikkie said it that gave both Patrick and Derek pause. “That’s right, I’m a black woman whose father was a Muslim. Think you have challenges overcoming stereotypes?”

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” Patrick said. “It’s just that the only terrorists we seem to be fighting around the world are Muslims. I don’t believe that all Muslims are terrorists or potential terrorists.”

“My father was a Muslim from Syria,” Nikkie continued. “He and my mother met in the 80’s when my mom was in Syria for her job. My father was a teacher at the University, teaching, believe it or not, History of Religion, and my mom worked for an international IT Services company as a project lead. Her company won some big contract to refresh the University’s entire fleet of servers, workstations and printers.
 
Same old story: they meet, fall in love, get married and live happily ever after. The only problem, my mom is an Anglo-Saxon Christian, and my dad, a black Muslim.

“They were married for around 7 years, bouncing between Syria and my mom’s hometown of San Diego when I entered the scene. I spent most of my early years in San Diego, but visited Syria every couple of months. My dad’s visa got pulled after some of the professors in my dad’s university were accused of funding a terrorist organization in Palestine. Never knew why my father’s visa was pulled but, according to my mom, everything changed after he got put on a list of terrorist supporters.

“I was 13 when 9/11 happened. My memories are a bit cloudy but I remember hearing my mom talking to my dad on the phone, saying that everything would be different now. That he needed to find a way to get out and maybe they could start a life together in Europe. What I didn’t know was that my father was very active in the counter-radical Islam movement. He had moved to Palestine and devoted his days working with troubled youths, trying to prevent them from being recruited by the terrorist group du jour. I guess my mom was afraid that something bad would happen to him with the rise of al Qaeda and how my dad wasn’t afraid to make his work and beliefs public.