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Ashes of Roses

Chapter 1 - First Blood

It was the Fourth of July in Washington, D.C. and Jill Kincaid was celebrating the holiday in true local fashion. She was at an air-conditioned shopping mall, sheltered from the hundred-plus degree heat and withering humidity.

She was also enjoying a rare day off. Jill supervised the Middle East desk at the Directorate of Intelligence division of the CIA. Once considered a career-limiting assignment within the DI, Jill’s department was now at the center of the intelligence maelstrom. Skilled in Arab language and culture, she was in constant demand for translation and analysis of suspected terrorist conversations and documents intercepted from around the world. Evenings and weekends to herself had been a luxury since 9-11. However, Thursday before the Fourth, she declared independence for herself and her staff. She’d shooed them out the door at five with orders not to return until Monday.

“Don’t even think of signing in from home either. I’ll check! No cheating,” she said to her staff as she was shutting down the computer network.

As a result, today she wasn’t a stressed-out CIA computer-spook. Today, she was just another woman on a shopping spree at the mall. Putting down her bags, she settled gratefully onto the bench under a third-floor skylight. White Flint Mall was a three-story commercial palace, and Jill had explored every bit of it.

‘Okay. What do I want to do tonight?’ she thought, opening the mall guide.

At first, she thought a movie might be fun. However, looking toward the theater, she saw more than fifty people, most of them young, in line for the newest action-adventure movie.

“Nah,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

She also rejected the idea of dinner at the mall. To her right was ‘Dave & Buster’s,’ a sixty-thousand square foot combination of restaurant, bar and arcade. Crowds thronged the entrance and there looked to be at least an hour’s wait for a table. Jill had no reason to believe the mall’s other restaurants wouldn’t be just as packed.

“Okay, take-out Chinese it is! However, since it’s not a school night, I do believe I’ll add a bottle of wine,” she said to herself with a smile.

As she gathered her bags, two young women dressed in Arab finery caught her attention. They were a dash of color and exotic beauty in the sea of denim and khaki.

‘Must be with an embassy or trade delegation. Those girls aren’t commoners,’ Jill thought.

Both wore jilbabs, the full-length loosely-fitted coat favored by Muslim women when they went out in public. However, instead of drab brown or black, these girls wore nubby pink raw silk garments lavishly and expensively decorated with embroidery and carved buttons. Dainty lace arm cuffs peeked out from under the bell sleeves.

Jill admired their hijabs. A forty-three inch square of cloth, the scarf was a combination of modest head covering, religious symbol and fashion statement for millions of Muslim women around the world. These two young women eschewed the common style that covered the entire head and shoulders like a hood, leaving the face exposed like an oval suspended in a field of black or white. They wore their rose print scarves elaborately twisted, draped and pleated to cover their hair and lower face, leaving only their kohl-rimmed eyes in view. The sheer fabric floated around them like a cloud, and suggested as much as it covered.

Jill always marveled at how a well-dressed Muslim woman, completely covered in fabric, could be as provocative as any co-ed in cutoffs and a crop top. Jill was no prude. However, after an afternoon of fourteen-year-olds with thong underwear peeking from hip-hugger jeans, and women dressed expressly to reveal a jumble of tattoos, the modesty and dignity of these girls was a refreshing sight.

They reminded her of the Arab women she’d known in childhood. Jill was the daughter of a career diplomat who spent most of his career in the Middle East. Her mother had told her the story of her birthday party on June 7, 1967. She barely remembered that birthday. However, the story went that her party at the American Embassy was attended only by staff and soldiers. The Marine guards had locked the embassy staff in the compound and kept watch while the Six-Day War raged around Israel. Her mother, eight months pregnant with Jill’s younger brother, had done her best to make it festive, but the party-goers were somber and restive.

The Ambassador had debated over whether to wait out the escalating conflict or evacuate the embassy. However, the doctor had told him that his wife’s condition was delicate and the child could be born in a jeep or on a military plane if they moved her. Consequently, he decided to stay in the comparative safety of Saudi Arabia.

Walter Kincaid had also believed that the world could ultimately reconcile Arab demands with Israel’s needs. He’d volunteered his language and negotiating skills to the United States peace effort. However, he’d understood that war was inevitable when President Abdur Rahman Aref of Iraq had said, ‘The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. Our goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map.’ After that incident, he’d left the peace delegation, and turned his attention to fortifying the embassy.

By the time Jill was old enough to play, she’d known nothing of the escalating ideological differences between Arabs and Jews. She’d romped with the innumerable young princes and princesses of the sprawling Saudi Royal Family and the children of the other embassies. Jill had an ear for languages, and spoke Arabic like a native by the time she was six. Her childhood was an idyllic dream.

When she turned ten, the adults had inexplicably barred Jill and the other girls from playing with the boys. On that day, her mother had told the Arab nanny to outfit her daughter properly for social visits to the palace. Ayah had taken her to the bazaar and bought Jill her first jilbab and hijab. After that shopping trip, she had two outfits for visiting, one powder blue and the other emerald green. Jill had felt like a princess and loved to twirl in front of the mirror to flare the skirt of her long embroidered coat and make the bells on the corners of her scarf tinkle.

That was a long time ago. After graduating from a Swiss boarding school, she’d returned to the United States to attend college. She graduated with honors in Political Science and minors in Arab Studies and languages. A Masters and Doctorate soon followed. Her qualifications and connections had guaranteed her a position in any university or government agency. She’d rejected the Foreign Service, remembering how she’d hated sitting by her mother’s side at tea parties that had seemed to last forever. Her favorite times had been when her father had discussed politics, tactics and strategy with her. Consequently, Jill had wanted to be part of the action arm of American foreign policy, not the ritualistic part. She’d accepted a position with the CIA. The overwhelming and mundane job of intelligence analysis had soon replaced dreams of spying and glamor. However, she was good at it and still enjoyed her job.

Anyone looking at Jill Kincaid today saw a typical American career woman in her mid-forties. Short stylish hair, minimal make-up, and no flashy jewelry. Slim and fit more through luck than any conscious effort, she favored tailored pantsuits for work and jeans with polo shirts for the off-hours.

However, last year when she’d taught Arab culture at the FBI academy, she’d arrived on the first morning swathed from head-to-toe in a burqah. She’d sat in silence, staring at the class through the net-covered eye slit in the drab tent-like garment. The class had stared and squirmed and not known what to do. That was her lesson for the morning. To remember always that one strength of Arab women is their anonymity. That the Arab woman is an enigma. You had no idea what she was thinking or feeling. They kept their secrets, even inside their own family. For every Arab man that screamed hate, an Arab woman whispered it. An agent who forgot that put himself and his case in danger.

The sound of the two women chatting in Arabic brought Jill back to the present. Out of habit, she concentrated on the soft voices and translated in her head.

For the most part they talked of inconsequential things: clothes, books, prayer, and family. Jill had to concentrate to follow their soft singsong conversation. Most intelligence intercepts had male speakers and male speech patterns. Middle Eastern women had their own lilt, accent, and patois. However, after a childhood in the women’s quarters of an Arab palace, Jill could follow their exchange. After a few minutes, they came to the formal parting phrases.

“Ma’assalama,” said one.

‘Goodbye to you,’ translated Jill.

“Fi Aman Allah. Jazak Allah Khairan,” replied her friend.

‘In protection of Allah. May Allah give you the best reward. A little formal for someone that young. Must have been raised in a very strict household,’ thought Jill.

The girls kissed each other on the cheek through their scarves and walked toward the crowds around the theater and restaurant. What Jill didn’t see were the words they were now repeatedly mouthing in unison . . .

‘Bismillahir Ranmanir Raheem. Astagh-firu-Allah. Ya Hasbi Allah.’

Had Jill heard them say, ‘In the name of Allah, the Compassionate and the Merciful. O Allah forgive me. O Allah will suffice me,’ things may have turned out differently. Had Jill seen the girls both flip open the cell phone they each held in their right hand, she might have seen that the phones connected to tiny wires hidden under their lace cuffs. Had Jill been more aware, things may have turned out differently. However, by the time the women passed from her view, the fates had made their choice.

The two explosions occurred a few seconds apart. The first was on the other side of the elevators, near the theater. The second was to Jill’s right, in front of the restaurant.

The concussion threw Jill to the floor. Fortunately, the initial blast of debris did not injure her. Instantaneously, every skylight and plate glass window on the third floor had shattered. She had only a second to scramble under a bench before the shower of razor-sharp glass shards hit the tile floor and exploded in every direction. Her arms and face hurt from cuts, but when she opened her eyes, her vision was clear and undamaged. As she looked out from under the bench, a jagged piece of glass fell from the broken skylight frame and decapitated a woman dressed in a jogging suit. The body fell near Jill and blood exploded into her face. Disgusted and horrified, she shrank back as far as she could. Thick choking smoke and dust rolled down the corridor.

She heard screams mixed with fire alarms. Jill edged out from under the bench and turned toward the wall of sound. However, she pushed herself back to safety as people not injured by the blast stampeded past her toward the escalators. Screams of fear turned to howls of anger and pain as people trampled each other, tumbling down the escalators and over the rails to crash down on the floor below. The escalator mechanism snagged an unlucky few, and their painful shrieks competed with the mechanical whining as the motor bogged down and stopped.

“No. No. No.” The voice was soft and scared.

Jill realized she wasn’t alone. The voice was off to her right, behind a large concrete planter.

“Hello? You okay?” called Jill.

“If you mean ‘am I bleeding?’ the answer is no. But, I’m a world from okay,” said the voice.

Jill heard some scuffling and soon a face peered under the bench. She was very young, no more than thirteen.

“Jesus, lady. Are you okay?” she asked.

Jill rubbed her hands on her face and saw the blood. Involuntarily, she smiled. She must look a fright.

“Yeah, just cuts from all the glass flying around, and from . . . her,” she said gesturing toward the headless body. “How’d you keep from getting sliced up?” asked Jill.

“Not sure. Guess my hoodie stopped most of it. I took it off because it was all scratchy.”

Jill had to smile. Only a teenage fashion-victim would wear a hooded sweatshirt over her clothes on the hottest day of the year.

“Smart girl. What’s your name? Mine’s Jill.”

“Andrea. What happened here?”

“I’m not sure, Andrea. Are you alone? Where’s your parents?”

“Um, they let me off here to see a movie. I’m supposed to call them.”

“Andrea, listen to me. I don’t know whether there’s a fire, or what. You need to run down to Bloomingdale’s and take the stairs down to the first floor. Don’t take the elevator and stay away from the escalator. Find somebody that looks like a police officer and tell him you are alone. Now, go on!”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure. Try to help I guess. Now go on.”

Andrea looked around nervously. She could see people peeking out of the shops unaffected by the explosion. Everyone looked as scared as she felt. She turned back to the woman lying on her back under the bench. To see an adult in that posture struck her as funny and she smiled.

“Guess you’re right. Man, my mom is going to freak. Bye now.”

Jill watched her step around the decapitated woman and walk off toward Bloomingdale’s at the other end of the Mall. Jill marveled at the resilience of youth, and wished her biggest worry was how her mom was going to react to this.

After the hysterical fled the blast site, the wounded followed. Some walked. Some crawled. Jill saw them as if she were watching a movie. A man who was sitting on the floor mumbling to himself caught her attention. On closer inspection, Jill saw a two-foot square of skin and abdominal gore literally attached to his chest. He looked up at her with vacant eyes and smiled as blood burbled out of his mouth. Around her were people doused in blood with terrible injuries on their bodies. People with their hands clamped over lacerated eyes. Confused children crying for their parents. Jill closed her eyes tight to block out the particularly horrifying sight of a young woman clutching a blood-soaked baby-pack to her chest. However, she hadn’t closed them fast enough to miss seeing a piece of metal that pierced the baby-pack and continued into the mother's chest.

‘No. No. This can’t be happening,’ she thought. She wanted to shrink back into her hiding place. However, the young mother’s shrill keening cry penetrated Jill’s consciousness. All CIA staff received training in basic fieldcraft, including first-aid. She knew she had to help those people as best she could until the professionals arrived.

In one of Jill's shopping bags was a stack of towels intended for her bathroom. However, they would now be perfect for bandages and tourniquets.

In her duties at the CIA, Jill had seen many photos of battle scenes and terrorist attacks. However, none of her training or experience prepared her for the scene on the other side of the elevator. Bodies and debris covered the floor. A few people sat stupidly, cradling a dead loved one. Very few people were moving. The few that were uninjured seemed confused and terrified. When they saw Jill standing unaided, a chorus of cries for help spread across the area.

As she wrapped a bleeding cut on a teen boy’s forehead, she could hear Mall Security trying to sort out the mess on the escalator, and take control of the few staircases. The fire alarms had locked the elevators, and with the escalators blocked, the third floor was momentarily isolated. She also thought about what was happening outside. Every emergency vehicle in the county was headed for the mall, with calls going out to the District and Virginia. Cops were guarding the mall exits, and putting up road blocks to direct traffic away from the area. FBI pager alerts interrupted barbeques and picnics. Because of the proximity to the Capitol and White House, a squad of fighter jets would soon scramble, and they were calling Marine officers back to Quantico. A phone was ringing at Camp David, spoiling the President’s three-day weekend.

Jill was using her last washcloth as pressure on a spurting chest wound when the first emergency response team poured out of the elevators. Usually off-limits during a fire or emergency, they used the elevators because the injured and dead still blocked the escalators and stairways.

The firefighters and paramedics stopped and stared at the devastation. Even those who had responded to the Pentagon disaster had never seen anything like this. The front of the theater was in ruins - shattered glass from the doors, windows and signs covered the floor like snow. Bodies lay in bloody rows, like corn felled in a hail storm.

“Crap, Captain. They were standing in line. Just waiting to get into the theater. They didn’t stand a chance. Man, there’s women and kids in there,” said one firefighter, tears welling up in his eyes.

To the right was a similar scene outside the restaurant. Those closest to the explosion had arms and legs blown off and chests flayed open. Blood was everywhere - splashed and pooled. Splattered pieces of flesh clung to every surface like a grotesque surreal painting. From inside the enormous restaurant complex, they could hear cries for help. The rescue team fanned out, to help the survivors. The firefighters inspected the area for the source of the smoke that drifted out of the smashed storefronts.

“Over here!” Jill said. The screaming had subsided as anyone who could move had either walked or crawled away from the center of the blast. What was left now was the moaning of the wounded and the silence of the dead. An EMT ran over to her and evaluated the situation. Jill was almost as bloody as the man she was trying to save.

“Ma’am, step back. Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m not. But, you’ve got to help me. I can’t stop the bleeding.”

“Ma’am, step back.”

“Damn it! Help me! I’m . . . I’m with the government. I have a Civil Defense clearance and the training to be here. Come on! Let’s not pee on the tree to see who has a higher rank! He’s bleeding to death.”

Something in her voice spurred the young paramedic into action. Soon they had the bleeding stopped and an IV dripping life back into the fallen man.

“I think I’ll step back now. Thank you,” she said, wiping her hands on jeans that would never be clean again.

“That’s a good idea. Um, thank you, too.”

Jill walked back through the wreckage. Now that help had arrived, her analytical training kicked in, and she started noticing other things. She picked up some small steel balls and rolled them around in her hand. A thought she had been denying and pushing back finally worked its way free into her consciousness.

‘This is shrapnel. This wasn’t a gas leak or other freak accident. This was a bomb,’ she thought.

As she walked through the worst of the wreckage, a bright color caught her eye. She reached down and picked up a bloodstained piece of fabric - sheer pink fabric with a rose print.

Terrible realization flooded her, and she heard a soft feminine voice in her head.

‘May Allah give you the best reward.’

“They were saying goodbye, forever. Oh my God, this was a suicide bombing.”

Running to the Command Post, she pulled out her CIA identification, and said, “My name is Jill Kincaid and I have to talk to the FBI. Immediately!”

____________________________________________________

Ashes of Roses

Chapter 2 - The Bouquet Blooms

“Enter.” The voice was female and spoke in clear unaccented English. The window of the row house looked over an alley every bit as dreary as those in Damascus. She’d expected more from America. However, she didn’t mind. Like all shadowy creatures, she preferred to be able to come and go unseen.

Ayman pushed open the door and hesitantly entered the gloomy room. He hoped that his name, ‘lucky’ in Arabic, would hold true today.

“Mistress, I bring you news. They have delivered the packages,” he said in Arabic.

“Speak English! When we fight the enemy, we speak his tongue. The better to stay inside his head!”

“Yes, lady. I sorry,” he replied. His English was not as good as hers.

His attitude pleased the woman known only as ‘Fatima.’ She smiled under her hijab, although it was little more than a grimace. It was the most pleasant expression that her broken and twisted mouth could produce. The women in her organization followed her orders out of respect and devotion. The men, though they distrusted strong women, followed her out of fear and pragmatism. She produced results. If what this fool had said was true, then she had produced results better than anyone had expected.

Ayman couldn’t see her expression. All he saw in the dim light was a single eye glittering above the folds of a black hijab. Rumor had it that Fatima was hideous under her wraps and scarves.

‘Perhaps she is like the creature in the Infidel’s legends that turns men to stone if they see her face,’ Ayman thought. He had no desire to find out.

“Is there more I do for you?” he asked in his broken English.

“No. There is absolutely nothing. Tell Aludra that I would like some tea,” she said.

Ayman wasted no time leaving the room.

‘Na’uzhu-bi-Allah,’ he thought, heading to the kitchen. It never occurred to him to disobey her order. That woman frightened him.

Fatima, meaning ‘daughter of the prophet,’ had been her name for so long that she doubted she would even answer to her birth name if called. The theatrical name helped her maintain and perpetuate her shadowy, almost mythical, presence in the international outlaw community. A woman without a country and without papers; she depended on the underground for housing and travel.

She walked over to a small rose bush growing in a large ceramic pot. The fragrant blossoms were incongruous splashes of color in the otherwise squalid and gloomy room. Carefully, she cut two of the roses and carried them over to a photo album. Flipping through the pages, she stopped at a color portrait of two beautiful Arab girls. They sat side by side in the photo, smiling and holding hands. As inseparable in life as they ended up being in death. Fatima remembered how the girls had nodded when she told them that the explosions would physically blend their bodies even as it released their souls to Allah.

“Abrar and Hanifah. My faithful one and my true believer. It has begun, my roses. You are the first shahidas in the Jihad against the Americans. You will live forever in Paradise and in the hearts and minds of our people,” said Fatima.

She taped a rose at the feet of each young woman in the picture and closed the heavy album, pressing the flowers between the pages.

“Inna Lillah,” she said, intoning the words of respect for the newly dead.

The ritual taken care of, Fatima turned her mind to more practical and pragmatic matters. She was fully aware of the capabilities of American law enforcement. Before the next sunrise, the Infidels would know the basics of the bombing. To their horror, they would realize that their people lay dead and their pleasure cesspit lay in ruins because of two girls, neither one old enough to buy alcohol in the restaurant they had destroyed.

Fatima went to the bookcase and pulled out the video tapes recorded the night before their journey to Paradise. The tapes had a traditional format, similar to those made by Palestinian suicide bombers destined for targets in Israel.

In their tapes, the girls had each donned the expected green checked keffiyeh and headband, brandished her rifle, and mouthed the expected revolutionary phrases:

“The heroic martyrdom operation to avenge the enemies who kill Palestinian women and children round the clock.”

“Men do not monopolize the Revolution. Jihad is obligatory both for men and women.”

However, unlike the tapes produced by Hamas and other male-dominated organizations, Fatima’s warriors finished their tapes with a bit of chilling prophecy tailored to their current enemy.

“You American women talk constantly of equality. Well, you can take a lesson from us Palestinian women. We die in equal numbers to the men.”

‘That should stir the Infidel pot,’ thought Fatima, smiling her hideous grimace again. The pain in her face reminded her of the incident that turned out to be the first step on the road that led her to this fate and mission.

Fatima had been five years old in June of 1967. After Israel’s lightning victory in the war, her father had repeatedly told the other displaced refugees the story of a Jewish bullet taking his daughter’s beauty, and only by the grace of Allah, sparing her life. Fatima had learned many years later that the bullet that maimed her came from an ancient rifle wielded by a drunken uncle while he was raving about Israel. Fatima had cared little. In her mind, the Jews had made her a monster, either way.

However, in an odd way, her curse had become a blessing. Hidden and shunned since she was a child, fate had spared Fatima the responsibilities and trials of womanhood. She hadn’t needed to worry about becoming a skilled homemaker or a charming companion, because she would never attract a husband. Even the grossest and poorest man had never considered her as a wife.

Ignored by her society, Fatima had developed her mind and her independence. She’d risked flogging and loss of a hand by stealing books from both Muslim and Jewish shops. Crouching outside windows, she’d eavesdropped on the boy’s classes and learned the Koran the same way they did - by rote memorization. However, unlike the boys, she’d used her books and growing intellect to question and analyze what she learned. At an age when most girls had been learning how to apply kohl to their eyes, Fatima spoke and read Arabic, Hebrew and English. Had an Iman taken the time to talk to her, it would have surprised him to know Fatima could have argued the Koran nearly as well as he.

When she was fourteen, her entire family had died in a fire. Her father, drunk as usual, had fallen asleep while smoking and burned down the house. Fate had spared Fatima, she’d been outside in the small shed reading while the fire had spread through the ramshackle structure. The local authorities had assumed Fatima had also died in the blaze and the official records reflected that error. That night, she’d become nameless and homeless. She’d also become free.

Fatima shook her head to chase away the ghosts. She was not by nature a sentimental woman and rarely thought about her past.

Her next decision was when to send the shahida video tapes to the media. She could wait a few days and let the Americans fret over the incident. The newspapers would pule over the number of dead and cringe in fear of another attack. Leaders in the party opposite the President would gleefully lay blame and point fingers at those in power. Experts would prattle on how they could have prevented it and what might happen in the future. The citizens would shun shopping malls and public places. The few souls that dared go would be nervous and fearful.

Fatima decided she would wait. Without a specific target to hate, the Infidels would drift rudderless and wallow in their fear and shock. She had time. The season of the blood roses had only begun.

__________________________________________________

Ashes of Roses

Chapter 3 - Thorns

The Fourth of July was the first day off FBI Agent Abby Maxwell had enjoyed in more than two weeks. She’d been working on a narcotics money laundering case that involved reviewing hundreds of bank transactions to confirm the pattern of cash deposits occurring right after shipments arriving at a known drug house. However, the warrants were finally on the judge’s desk and now, not only would they bag the dealer, they would also take down his pet banker.

Consequently, she was not happy when her pager started buzzing. She dialed the office number, and the switchboard connected her to the holiday supervisor. It sounded like a riot in the background.

“What’s up? Did the courier spill latte on the warrant package and smear the numbers?” she asked. That had happened before.

“Abby, turn on CNN while you get dressed, and then get your ass out to White Flint Mall. There’s been an explosion. Mass casualties. The liaison is Captain Andrews of the Bethesda Police. They’ve set up a command center in a joint called The Coffee Beanery on the first floor. He’ll fill you in on the particulars. You’re up next on the assignment list, and live the closest. Move it!” He hung up before she could ask any questions.

‘What the fuck?’ she thought, reaching for the remote. She’d already half dressed by the time the commercials were finished.

“Top News Story - an explosion rocked the third floor of the White Flint Mall in North Bethesda, Maryland resulting in a roadblock around the entire area. No details yet as to cause, or numbers of wounded. Bethesda police will only say that motorists need to avoid the area. They will not allow you on the Mall property. If you believe you have a friend or family member at the Mall, the police have established a special information number and we will show it on the screen at the end of this segment. Repeat, there has been a large explosion of unknown cause at the White Flint Mall in Bethesda, Maryland,” said the announcer.

“Great. Probably a damn gas leak. But, it’s so close to the Capitol that everyone is panicking. Well, Wonder Agent is on her way. Take care of the place, Simon,” she said to her dog as she opened her front door. Simon, a Chihuahua-Dachshund mix, barked and wagged his tail in acknowledgment as she closed the door behind her.

What should have been a ten-minute drive turned into a thirty-minute ordeal as she negotiated the roadblocks, and pulled over for emergency vehicles coming and going from the enormous retail complex. Finally, a uniformed officer motioned her into a parking space and pointed her to the designated entrance.

“Better display your badge, Ma’am. The guys guarding the door are pretty jumpy,” said the officer.

“Why? What happened here?” said Abby.

The officer looked left and right and seemed uncomfortable. After a moment, she stepped closer to Abby, never taking her eyes off the building entrance.

“Grapevine is saying it was a bomb and a big one. Got a mess of dead and wounded on the third floor and another bunch that trampled each other trying to escape. Ambulances been coming and going full speed for damn near an hour,” said the officer, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

“Damn. Um, thanks. Gotta go!” Abby ran toward the entrance, stopping only long enough to affix her badge to the chain, and drape it around her neck.

At the entrance, the officers checked her badge and her identification card. After convincing themselves that she was not a reporter, or some other undesirable, they directed her to the coffee shop being used as a command center.

“Abby Maxwell, FBI. I need to talk to Captain Andrews.” The officers did a double-take and asked to see her formal identification. She was in familiar territory now. The officers had expected a severely-groomed man in a dark suit, well-shined shoes, and a fedora. What they got was a woman with long curly hair held back in a clip, dressed in casual slacks and a wool blazer. However, the laid-back exterior hid one of the smartest and most tenacious investigators in the FBI.

“Captain, what’s up?” she asked. She found an offhand question caught people by surprise and often elicited a better answer than a more formal inquiry.

“Agent Maxwell, good to see you. I assume you listened to the news on the way over here. So, you know almost as much as we do. It’s a mess up there. They’ve recovered most of the wounded. Some won’t make it. They haven’t even started on the dead yet,” said Andrews.

“Son of a bitch. Do the fire boys have any thoughts on the cause?”

“They say they won’t know until the arson investigators give it a good going over. However, they have some theories,” he answered.

“It was a bomb. A suicide bomb.” The soft voice came from behind Andrews. Abby looked around him to see a woman in bloodstained jeans stand up and walk over to them.

“Um, Maxwell. I have someone here who was upstairs when the explosions occurred. She says she’s with the CIA and has identification. She also says she won’t leave until she speaks to the FBI and tells them what happened. We have authenticated none of her story. Repeat, none of it. Still, she’s got the right papers, so I told her she could wait here for you. Come on, Miss Kincaid. Let’s get this over with,” he said.

“Whatever, Captain. Carry on, or whatever it is you do here. I have business with Agent Maxwell. Hi, I’m Jill Kincaid. We need to talk. We need to talk somewhere else,” said Jill, pointing away from the bustling command area.

“Sure. First, let me grab some of that coffee. It smells like heaven, and this is beginning to stink of an all-nighter.”

Abby poured two cups of fragrant coffee from the seemingly bottomless pot. One young clerk had tears running down her face, but she kept up the flow of coffee to the police and rescue personnel streaming in and out of the shop. Abby followed Jill out to a table in the central promenade. She saw that the police had two large groups of people cordoned off.

“One group is customers. The other group is employees. The officers are checking identification and collecting contact information. I recommended that to Captain Andrews. He was about to let them all leave. That was the beginning of our mutual admiration society,” said Jill, smiling into her coffee.

“I think I like you already. Okay, let’s get the formalities out of the way. You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine. We’ll establish our places in the security food chain, and then you can tell me what this is all about,” said Abby.

Jill smiled and opened her wallet. She extracted a driver’s license, social security card, and CIA photo identification card.

“I also have a letter addressed to ‘Aunt Jill’ in my purse. However, you don’t have time to do handwriting analysis.” Her smile took the bite out of her words.

Abby looked over the documents and knew she was talking to a genuine CIA employee.

‘Yeah, but what department? The spy mill is a big place. Could be a secretary,’ she thought. However, one look at the woman across the table made her dismiss that thought. Jill Kincaid was sharp and professional. Even with all she had apparently been through, she’d brushed her hair and changed into a clean shirt. Abby wondered if it was from her own shopping bag, or a quick purchase from one of the stores.

“I have to verify this. Just take a second. You understand,” said Abby.

“I don’t just understand, I insist. We have important things to discuss. Stuff you probably wouldn’t be cleared for at the Agency.” Again, the words had bite, but Jill was still smiling.

Abby smiled back. She liked this prickly broad. Although the women sitting across the table from each other were about the same age, Jill reminded her of her mother. Who was she kidding, Jill reminded her of herself.

She stepped to one side and dialed her cell phone. After a couple of minutes, she returned to the table and faced Jill.

“You could have told me you were a top drawer spook. Shit, you’re a frigging Deputy Director, in charge of Middle East affairs,” said Abby, sipping her coffee.

“You’re close, but not quite right. Spooks are over in the Operations side. I’m in the Intelligence shop. Yeah, I do a bit of spying, but only through the internet. Think of me more as a puzzle-solving geek. However, right now I’m just a witness. You need to take my statement, and then we both need to go find our bosses.”

“Let’s hear it,” said Abby flipping open her notebook. She also subtly turned on the mini-cassette recorder in her jacket pocket. Not totally legal, and not admissible in court, but she didn’t want to miss a thing. It was also an ass-covering maneuver in case this spook, she couldn’t think of her any other way, tried to twist this around for her own use. Since 9-11, the relationship between the two agencies had improved. However, it was still far from perfect.

Jill recounted seeing the two girls, giving detailed descriptions of their outfits. She repeated the girl’s parting phrases, spelling the Arabic words for Abby.

“I didn’t put it together until I found this,” said Jill, placing the piece of fabric and three steel balls on the table.

“What’s this?”

“I found the fabric at the worst part of the blast site, with these little balls scattered around. I believe they are shrapnel from the bomb. This scrap shows the force shredded the hijabs. The girls had to be at the center of the explosions.”

“Shredded their what?”

“Hijabs! The head scarves. Look at your notes,” said Jill. She kept her tone even, but her narrowed eyes and tense posture betrayed her anger.

“Sorry. This is a lot to take in. You’re telling me that this was a suicide bomb. Not just one, but two bombs, and the bombers were female. That’s rare in Israel. It’s unheard of in the United States. And, oh yeah, that you came to this conclusion by illegally removing evidence from what appears to be a crime scene,” said Abby, her voice rising in anger.

“Okay, okay. Point taken. I forget that people, even law enforcement, don’t see what I do every day. Suicide bombings are a regular occurrence in Israel and Palestine. I see all the emails and cell phone chitchat where the terrorists crow over their latest victory. I see the photos taken right after the explosion. The ones that they didn’t sanitize for television. Believe me. This was a pair of bombs. Big ones. In all the photos I have reviewed, I have never seen anything like this. The death toll could be as many as a hundred. The number of wounded could be twice that,” said Jill, wiping her face with her hands. Her anger expended, the horror was creeping back into her mind.

“Sorry. I was out of line as well. First day of FBI School - ‘don’t beat up your witnesses and victims.’ It’s just not every day that a witness is a high-level government spo . . . um . . . agent telling a rather outrageous story. It’s really hard to digest. Can you go back up there and show me what I need to see? I also need to talk to the crime scene guys and see what they’ve come up with,” said Abby.

“Sure. However, you might want to change the tape in your recorder. It’s nasty and dusty up there and I wouldn’t want the first one damaged,” said Jill as she stood up.

“What? Damn. Sorry. I felt like I needed all the detail and thought you might be uncomfortable being recorded. How’d you catch me?” asked Abby. Her face felt hot. To her chagrin, she realized she was blushing.

“No offense, but the CIA has better tradecraft teachers than the FBI. I may not be a field spook, but I got much of the same training. No harm done. Put in your report that you got my permission. I want you to listen and remember every word I say about this,” said Jill, looking her straight in the eye.

“I’m sure glad I like you. Because if half your story is true, I have a feeling we’re going to be spending a lot of time together,” said Abby, extending her hand.

Jill looked at Abby and laughed. She immediately felt some of the stress melting off her.

“The feeling is mutual. You seem to have your head on straight. I was afraid they’d send a suit,” said Jill.

Abby reached into her pocket and turned off the tape.

“Wait until you meet my boss,” said Abby. When she turned the tape back on, they were still laughing.

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