Burying the Past Read online

  Taylor stepped out of the waiting room in the office and pulled out his cellphone, punching in Crawford’s number.

  “Taylor, just the man I wanted to talk to,” Crawford said as he answered.

  “I doubt that. I saw the list your team put together. Have you been able to track them all down?”

  “Mostly. Except for the girl from Memphis, the one from Virginia, and a male from San Diego, the rest of the kids stayed in town instead of going home. Agents from the office here are headed over to the college this morning to interview them while I go interview the girl in Memphis. The kid from San Diego got on a plane this morning, and I’ve arranged for someone from our San Diego office to meet him at the airport. I was hoping you and Agent Whitaker would go track down the girl that headed your way.”

  “I’d rather go see the kid in San Diego. I get the two girls going home, since they’re both within driving distance. Getting on a plane for a five-hour flight when one day of school is canceled seems a bit extreme. Except for Saeed’s friends, he’s the only one that stands out at the moment, especially if you consider how politically active he seems to be.”

  “Which is why I have an agent meeting him at the airport. They know their job, Taylor. If there’s something off, they’ll let us know. We still need to talk to everyone, and I’d rather it'd be you and Whitaker, who are familiar with the case than a random agent tracking down our lost sheep. Sure, it’s probably nothing, but that just means it won’t take you long.”

  “I guess. Let me know what you find out about the rest of the kids after you talk to them.”

  “Sure,” Crawford said and disconnected.

  Taylor walked back into the office to find Kara sitting in the chair he’d vacated, holding a tissue to her nose.

  “He wants to talk to you,” she said when she saw Taylor come back in.

  Taylor nodded and headed into the doctor’s office.

  “You wanted to see me, Doc?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Oakes said, standing up from the chair he’d been sitting in, writing notes. “I understand you’ve had a small breakthrough with Kara?”

  “Really?”

  “She told me about a conversation she had with you the other day where she fell asleep.”

  “Yeah. I told her she just needed time to work through everything that happened to her. Nothing you haven’t told her.”

  “True, but I was less interested in what she said than the fact she said she fell asleep on the couch with you. We’ve talked before about it being normal that Kara avoids physical contact. The fact that she described it as comfortable is quite the breakthrough for her. I’m not saying she’s over her trauma, but her being able to share normal casual contact is notable.”

  “She also hugged Loretta that same night. It was short, but she initiated the hug.”

  “That’s wonderful. You’re doing the right thing. Just make sure you keep listening to her and keep letting her know that she’s loved. That alone is going to have more impact than anything I can do for her. I wanted to make sure you knew that what you’re doing is working, and you’re doing a good job.”

  “I appreciate it, Doc. I’m not much of a touchy-feely kinda person, so it’s tough.”

  “That’s probably a good thing, at least in this situation. You're not pushing her like some other families might in similar circumstances. Just take things at her pace.”

  “Will do. Thanks again,” Taylor said, shaking the man’s hand and leaving.

  Taylor actually found the man’s words reassuring. While he’d recognized the importance of what had happened with Kara, it was good to get confirmation. He hadn’t been joking when he’d said he wasn’t equipped for all the emotion Kara brought with her, and he needed to make sure he was doing the right thing.

  Kara looked up as Taylor walked out of the office.

  “Ready to go?”

  She nodded, wiped her nose one last time, and stood up, following him up. Like normal, Kara had retreated into herself, making for a quiet drive back as she worked through her own thoughts. Taylor was also working through his thoughts on everything that had happened over the last several years. As he drove past a strip mall, a thought popped into Taylor’s head, causing him to pull in and park in front of a row of stores.

  “Why are we here?”

  “I … uhh … wanted to run into this store and get something.”

  Seeing that Taylor was pointing at a jewelry store, of all things, Kara’s brow furrowed.

  “In there? Why?”

  Taylor was unusually hesitant when he answered, finally saying, “I think I’m going to ask Loretta to marry me.”

  “Really!?” she said, her attitude suddenly switching from introspection to excitement. “That’s great!”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “Has she … has she said anything?”

  “She not saying specifically, but I see how she looks at you. Don’t worry, she'll say 'yes.'”

  Taylor hated how hesitant and unsure of himself he was, while looking at the jewelry store. He’d always prided himself on his decisiveness and ability to not second guess himself. Now he felt like a lost kid. He knew it probably stemmed from what had happened the last time he’d asked a girl to marry him, but it still put him in uncharted waters.

  “I hope so.”

  “No need to hope. She loves you, I promise.”

  “I don’t know shit about rings,” he said as almost a non sequitur.

  “Lucky you have me, then. I being an expert in them.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “I am a girl. We know about these things.”

  “Good, then you can help me pick out a ring for her.”

  She gave a little hop in her seat and clapped. Taylor couldn’t help but laugh at her antics as he slid out of the car and followed her into the shop. While the stop at the store had almost been on a whim, despite being something that Taylor had been considering for a little while, he was glad he’d done it when Kara was with him.

  A lot of the questions asked by the clerk were completely foreign to Taylor. Without her, he would have had no clue as to what Whitaker would have preferred. Even more surprising was that Kara somehow knew Whitaker’s ring size. Beyond those practical concerns, the look of joy on her face wasn’t something Taylor had seen often, and this stop was turning into quite the bonding experience for the two of them.

  Taylor didn’t know when he’d actually ask Whitaker to marry him, but he knew, watching Kara looking through the rings and talking to the jeweler, that he was looking forward to making this small family he’d found official.

  Chapter 8

  The ring felt like an anchor in Taylor's pocket, weighing him down as he and Kara walked back into the apartment. It struck him as odd how easy it was to ignore the phone, wallet, keys he regularly carried, even the gun clipped to his belt, but he couldn't stop feeling the small little box pressing against his leg.

  "You're late," Whitaker's said as they walked through the apartment entryway.

  Taylor pulled up short, Kara almost running into him, both because he hadn't expected her to be home and because he wasn't sure how to take the next step after the ring yet.

  "I …" he started and paused, his mind going blank.

  "We drive slow, talk about appointment," Kara said smoothly, weaving around past him.

  "Did Crawford call you?" Whitaker said, accepting the explanation.

  "About going to see the girl headed home to Virginia? Yeah."

  "Good. I've already re-packed our go bags. The sooner we can scratch her name off the list, the sooner we can get back to tracking down Qasim's connection to the cell in Tennessee."

  "We should just skip this and go right to that," Taylor said as he checked his bag, to make sure nothing he'd need was missing.

  "That's not how this works. Skipping leads, even ones that look like dead ends, is how you miss things. Working the procedures step-by-step, eliminating every lead as
you go is how investigations turn into prosecutions."

  "We don't need a prosecution for Qasim, just a bullet."

  Whitaker set down what she was packing and whirled around, "Let me be very clear, you're working with us on this. You're not in the desert and you're not back in Russia. We follow procedures and do things the right way. That means, unless he gives us no choice, we take Qasim into custody and put him before a judge."

  "You don't know this guy. He'll find a way out."

  "If that happens, it happens. I'm not going to give up what makes our government work just to guarantee one scumbag gets out of circulation. We only have one system, but there will always be another scumbag."

  Taylor gave a sigh and let it drop. She didn't know Qasim except for reports and didn't know what kind of man he was. Taylor had spent years with the terrorist and his cronies and knew exactly how dangerous he was.

  "You'll be ok for a day or so?" he said instead, turning to Kara.

  "I'll be fine. No babysitter needed."

  "OK, but if you run into problems …"

  "I call Mary Jane or her mother. Yes, I know."

  "I know you do, I just want to make sure you're safe."

  "Which is the only reason I am not kicking you in the butt to leave me alone."

  "While I'd love to see that," Whitaker said walking past them carrying her bag, "we gotta go."

  When Whitaker's back was turned Kara lifted her hand and waggled her ring finger at Taylor, which he ignored, instead of saying "See you soon."

  ♦♦♦

  It was early enough in the afternoon that traffic out of the suburbs surrounding the capital was light. The girl they were going to find was named Mary Bennett and she was from a small town in western Virginia named Amberville, located just outside the Shenandoah Valley, an hour and a half car ride out from Washington. It was one of the many single stoplight towns that littered the rural parts of America. While he'd never been there, Taylor had been to enough small towns to have a good sense of what he'd see when he got there.

  Instead of thinking on the pointless interview ahead of them, his brain kept going to the ring and how he'd ask Whitaker to marry him; the looming idea of having to ask her was gnawing at him. It wasn't that he was worried she'd say no since he was nearly certain what her answer would be. There was, however, a pressure to do it right. This was one of those moments people talked about when they got old, and he was enough of a realist to know that he wasn't going to be great at it.

  Of course, the thought of that, in and of itself, was strange, since he'd done it before. They'd gone to Duke Gardens with a picnic lunch. He'd laid out the blanket and set down the cooler with their lunch, their spot looking over one of the large ponds there. He'd asked her to get something out of the cooler while he fixed the blanket. When she turned back around he was on one knee with the ring.

  Thinking back, he'd been pretty nervous then. Now … things were different. He wasn't that man anymore. The idea of doing something like that again, felt like a lie. Worse, he knew Whitaker would see it too. She wasn't like Claire either. Loretta had an edge to her, which was why they were such a good match.

  "Hey?" her voice cut through his rambling thoughts.

  "Uhh …"

  "Did you hear anything I've been saying?"

  "Honestly, no. Sorry. I kind of zoned out."

  "No shit. What's going on?"

  "Nothing. Just thinking through some stuff."

  "Stuff with the case? The Senator? Kara? What Stuff'?"

  "Just stuff. Sorry, I'm paying attention now."

  She rolled her eyes but thankfully didn't push.

  "I said …" she started, but was interrupted when her phone rang.

  Letting out an exasperated sigh, she answered it, "Whitaker … almost … uh-huh …. uh-huh … Hold on a sec."

  Reaching over she pushed a few buttons on the console, connecting her phone to the car's hands-free system, "Taylor's in the car with me. I just put you on the speaker. Could you start over?"

  "Sure," Crawford's voice came through the speakers. "So we got the initial report back from the lab. They gave a huge caveat that they weren't even close to being finished with their examination, but I'd asked them to tell me the second they knew anything, no matter how insignificant."

  "Sure," Taylor said.

  “They've confirmed the chemical traces the field techs sent over were strange. They haven't been able to identify it but said it forms some kind of unusual bond with diluted chlorine. I wasn't clear on the next part, but they found that once the bond is made, it reacts by turning parts of the water and chlorine into an odorless gas they described as ‘an extreme form of chloride gas’.”

  "That doesn't sound good," Whitaker said. "So it's some new form of toxic gas."

  "Worse than that. It hadn't occurred to me at first either, but they pointed out that …"

  "Many public water supplies go through a chlorination process to kill bacteria, which would leave trace amounts of diluted chlorine in most municipal water supplies," Taylor said.

  "How the hell did you know that?" Crawford asked.

  "We worked with civil affairs a bunch of times, winning hearts and minds of small tribal villages. One of the first things those guys looked at was getting the village a clean water supply."

  "Huh, well, he's right."

  "It also tells us what Qasim's plan is," Taylor said.

  "Poisoning the water supply? That's a bit of old-time radio, mustache-twirling villainy, isn't it?" Whitaker asked.

  "Doesn't keep it from being a way to kill a whole lot of civilians, and make people scared to turn on the faucet."

  "Plus, all the work Homeland's done working with locals to protect their water supply won't do shit to stop something like this," Crawford added.

  "We don't know where, though," Whitaker said.

  "We know some places where it isn't through. Not everyone uses chlorine. Some places use UV systems, other's use other chemicals to sterilize the water," Taylor said. "What's worse is, the places that use both chlorine and UV systems, the UV system won't stop it."

  "Once again, he's right," Crawford said

  "So what does that do for our target list?" Whitaker asked.

  "Not as much as you'd hope. I have some people building a list, prioritizing important locations or large population centers, but a whole hell of a lot of the country uses chlorine in their water supply. The list is still going to be too big to do us any good. We'll put out a notice to local agencies, and put our own people at some of the more important weak points, but without knowing where he's planning on hitting, we're just guessing."

  "So we keep working the case. It at least fills in some pieces," Whitaker said.

  "Right. Do you have an NBC kit in your car?"

  "Yes. Policy after the anthrax thing was for agents to keep the small field kit in official vehicles at all times."

  "I figured you did, but I wanted to make sure. I’m putting a memo out to all agents in the task force now to make sure everyone has equipment on hand. You guys keep it at hand, ok?"

  "Sure," Whitaker said.

  "We're almost at Amberville," Taylor said, taking the exit off the state road they'd been on.

  "Good. Clear the girl and then get back here."

  "Will do," Whitaker said.

  Amberville, Virginia

  The Bennett's house was close to Amberville's single street downtown area on one of the several half-acre lots that had once been farmland but later bought and broken up for homes in the 1950s. It wasn't in disrepair, but it was weathered and could have used a new paint job. It was a classic small American two-story house, with a wide porch and short picket fence, and a swing hanging off of one branch of the tree in the front yard.

  Taylor pulled into the driveway and he and Whitaker headed to the door, with Whitaker taking the lead. A barking dog inside the house alerted the owners to their presence, as the front door opened and a smallish woman with brown hair cut with grey stre
aks and wearing an apron came out before they reached the porch.

  "Can I help you," she said.

  "Yes, Ma'am. I'm Agent Whitaker with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and we were hoping to have a word with your daughter."

  "Mary? What for? Has something happened?"

  "There was an incident at her school, and we think she might have been a witness. We just want to ask her a few questions."

  "Have you checked at school?"