Surrept (26 page)

She flashes back again as she leans her head to listen in the apartment. She hears nothing and is about to knock when suddenly the adjacent apartment door opens. A woman backs out of the apartment across the hall and locks her door. She sees Dana and smiles; she walks to the elevator, her back to Dana.

Down in the parking structure Reggie checks his watch. Nine minutes have passed; he exits the car and takes the stairs to find Dana.

Dana knocks and leans forward as she listens. There is no answer. She knocks again. No answer, so she reaches for the doorknob to check it and it opens, startling her. She freezes and listens with the door cracked. Dana enters the apartment slowly and checks the rooms, taking note as she moves through the unit. This chick was definitely on her way out, and there is nobody there. Dana moves back toward the door to leave.

Downstairs in the lobby Adriana is leaving the leasing office. "Thanks so much, Brenda. They will drop the keys at the office when they are done loading. Bye." Adriana makes her way to the elevator and pushes the button.

Dana exits the apartment and closes the door as Reggie emerges from the stairway door and sees her. She motions for him to retreat as they go down together and emerge back into the garage.

Reggie asks, "What's up?"

Dana looks at her new friend. "She is definitely out of here like right now. She must be moving stuff right now. There is not much in there. Let's get out of here before someone sees us."

"How did you get in there?"

Dana smiles at him. "The door was unlocked."

"What do you mean, get out of here? I thought we came for the bitch?"

"I just mean away from here for a minute. I need to check something out." She goes over to her BMW to look inside as Reggie gets in the Cadillac as Dana checks Adriana's car.

Adriana enters her apartment and stops as if someone is there. She looks around as she senses a presence but finds nothing. She begins to gather a few more things.

Dana walks over to Adriana's BMW. She pans the backseat, and sees a laptop bag on the passenger side on top of a wardrobe bag. Reggie watches the door and the elevator area. Dana tries the driver door. It's locked. She goes to the other side and tries the other car door. The alarm goes off with a deafening squeal in the underground garage. Reggie starts the car and yells at Dana to come on. Dana pulls the pistol from her belt, and hits the rear window three times and it finally shatters. She reaches for the laptop and runs back to the car. Reggie slides over to the driver's seat as Dana jumps in. He drives out of the structure as the alarm wails.

Reggie motors away and Dana is trying to catch her breath. She has pulled her first felony.

He says, "Well she's going to know something's up, what now?"

Dana tells him to pull over and he parks. She opens the Macintosh laptop and hits the on button. The glow of the screen lights up the inside of the car. She clicks and scrolls.

"Oh my god," she says. "Take a look at this." Dana turns the screen so he can see as she clicks slowly through the same exact presentation as the professor gave Ahmed.

Reggie is quiet as she clicks and scrolls, she reaches the formula page for the devices used in the recent terrorist attack, design, mixture, and detonation.

Reggie looks at Dana. "We in real deep now for sure, and we are chasing the devil's daughter herself."

She stares out the windshield. "I was right the whole time. She is the reason David was arrested. She is the reason my life has been ruined, and she has something to do with killing all of those people."

Reggie closes the laptop and realizes that he is holding the key to everything the nation has just suffered at his hands. "This is thick, real thick."

Dana says, "I am going to kill this bitch. Reggie let me drive. Get out."

He starts to try to calm her down. She pulls the pistol from her belt and pulls back the hammer with her thumb and points it to Reggie's head, "I said, get the fuck out now."

He looks at her eyes. He has seen that look before in combat, and on the streets in the hood. She is way over the edge. He looks down the barrel of her weapon as her hands are clamped together on the gun with her trembling fingers gripping the trigger. He slowly opens the car door and speaks softly, "All right, now girl, be cool. I'm moving slow. Can I take the laptop to Mr. C.? Please Dana?"

He sees her eyes ablaze with furry. "Yeah, take it. Just get the fuck out now."

Reggie slides out onto the dark street holding the laptop and closes the door softly. She slides over and starts the car, and drives off still pointing the gun at him. He watches her turn the corner and hears the big car accelerate down the other block back toward Adriana's apartment.

He pulls his cell phone and dials as he walks toward Colorado Boulevard, down Kentucky Avenue. "Mr. C., are you still at your office? Good, don't leave. I need to see you now. I will be there in thirty minutes." He hangs up and makes his way five blocks back to Dave and Buster's parking lot.

Dana eases into the parking structure. She can see that Adriana's BMW is gone, and there is glass on the ground from her window where it was parked before, just ten minutes ago. She feels her heart racing, she feels the fear overcome her; she lost her, and she blew it. Her anger evolves to rage as she pictures David in her mind. Dana pulls up to the wall and presses the big car's bumper against the wall and floors the engine, the tires screech and billow with smoke like the rage within her as she screams like a mad women filling the parking structure with white smoke as she screams. "No, no, noooooooo!"

Reggie has briefed Matt regarding his and Dana's events in search of Adriana and Dana's meltdown on the street. They have tried repeatedly to reach her by cell phone with no luck, and Matt is holding off on calling her father, Richard Underwood.

They are reviewing the laptop and the lawyer is in disbelief that his career has brought him to this incredible responsibility. He realizes that this case may end up as one of history's greatest burdens for an attorney with his closest friends as clients, and their lives being at stake. In addition, Dana may be in trouble, or even worse, dead.

Matt switches off the Mac and asks Reggie again, "What happened after Dana allowed you to get out of the car with the laptop at gunpoint."

He's been over this twice with his attorney. "Then she took off and left me standing there on the street, and I called you and walked about five or six blocks to my car, back at Dave and Buster's, and drove straight here."

"Did you try to call her after she left or on your way here?"

"She never gave me her digits. Last time I saw her crazy ass she was pointing a gun in my face. She didn't want to talk to me, and she was way out there."

"Let's give her a call again and see if we can bring her in. I'm worried that something bad has happened." Matt dials her number again and they hear a phone ringing down the hall. He jumps up and opens his door and Dana is standing there with her mascara all over face and looking emotionally drained. Reggie jumps up and reaches for his gun, and waits to see what this crazy chick might do.

Dana says, "I'm not carrying my gun, Reggie, relax."

He says, "Relax? The last time I said that to you, your ass lost your mind and put a pistol in my face."

Matt says, "Dana, what happened after you left Reggie?"

Dana pushes past Matt to get through his door and plops down in a chair. "I lost her, she's gone." When I got back her car was gone, and that makes me think that she was watching us or knew we were there. I was in her apartment while her car was still there. I was only gone for about fifteen minutes or so; I blew it. So I ran up the stairs to her apartment and the door is now locked, when before it was open. In addition, when I went in before, she was not there, so that probably means that she was watching us while I smashed her window and stole her laptop. Then I lost my mind. I am so sorry, Reggie. Please forgive me"

Reggie sits down and shakes his head as he rubs his neck.

Matt says, "Or you just missed her. She could have been doing laundry or out with someone else."

Dana responds to him indignantly, "This chick had a stack of dry cleaning receipts on her dresser for about five hundred bucks in a month. Did you see what is on that Mac? She was involved in the biggest crime against this country in its history. So you really think she does her own laundry? And if so, would that be between smuggling heroin, killing thousands of people, framing David, or just after she tried to assassinate Reggie?"

Reggie pipes in, "She got a good point, Mr. C. That bitch ain't got no time for laundry or some shit like that. She's busy."

Matt sits down behind his desk. "Let me get this all straight. I have two clients out playing the Avengers or Bonnie and Clyde, who were committing auto burglary, breaking and entering, criminal trespass, and brandishing firearms in the process. In addition, they believe that this woman is solely responsible for the most horrifying terrorist action in the history of America. And this one woman, who also is a major drug trafficker, who supplied Clyde of the pair with his narcotics that he is presently being federally indicted for by the DEA. And this same chick is the personal assistant to my closest friend. She, the suspect, is also from the Middle East, but has an Italian last name because her birth father was killed by the Jews, in an aerial bombing on a nuclear facility in Iraq. Then, she has somehow managed to get my best friend arrested by the FBI, for treason and terrorism, who just happens to be Jewish. Does that about sum it up?"

Dana says, "Now you're getting it."

Reggie adds, "If we're wrong, then we're betting on the wrong horse, but this all seems to fit the race card pretty damn skippy."

Matt drinks some water and rubs his face. "I think that Dana has gotten into your stash, Reggie. Moreover, you are just a target of whoever is in the forest. However, if we can use this very valuable evidence that is on this Mac, then we can sell this to the assistant U.S. attorney, or better yet, his boss. Then I think David will be home soon, and you will be very short to a new life in whatever is left of the free world. I have to be out of my mind to consider this as a possibility. I guess I could always open a bar or something and maybe cut down on my escort expenses by comping cocktails for all the girls. I never wanted to be a lawyer anyway. I hate suits."

Dana pipes up, "Now that we have a common theory, where do we go from here? I mean what is first on the list. Where do we go from here to get David home and Reggie out of his mess?"

Matt says, "We need to research all the data on this Mac first of all for any more evidence. Once we do that, we need to turn it over to the feds right away. Otherwise, we could face charges of obstruction of justice and other national security issues. I need to research past legal precedent, and case law regarding treason and terrorism. I need to research federal plea agreements, and assistance in apprehension. And provision of crucial evidence."

Reggie asks, "How long will all this take? Don't we still need to find Adriana?"

Dana says, "We need to find Adriana Pucci. She's the key."

"Yeah, we need to find her," Matt says, "but not alert her anymore, she may think that she was burglarized for her laptop. We don't want her to rabbit. The research could take hours and she could be on the run already." Matt addresses Reggie, "Do you have any ideas as to where she is, or may have gone, from what you have found, or from past conversations with her?"

"Until today I never knew where she lived or where she worked. She is real good at keeping it on the down low."

"Reggie, how did you meet her originally, you never told me?"

"You never asked. I was wondering when we would get to this. Okay, here is how it went. When I was doing my first tour in Afghanistan, our unit got stationed just outside of Kabul. Our unit then was assigned to provide support to a security detail for officials of the United Nations, and to the Afghani government officials to provide security. The orders were constantly in conflict, so we ended up on what we called 'something to do patrols', and sometimes we would end up in the middle of endless poppy fields and would engage Taliban fighters and drug lords not expecting us to be there. One day, we had been camped out on a recon, and a soldier who came back from night patrol told us about a big-shot drug lord who was there at the compound. He was with some locals at a compound, they were watching the meeting, and he said that there was some fine-ass woman that was with this person. And also that she was interpreting for the big shot, with the locals."

"So when we went out on next patrol, we came to the compound, where this went down, and there she was, walking right past us to a Range Rover. So we stopped and questioned them. That was the first time I ever heard Adriana Pucci speak, and she said this guy she was working for was an official from the Arab Emirates seeking copper mining contracts with the Afghanis, and that she was an interpreter hired by his corporation, and they were on their way back to Kabul. When we questioned the man, he spoke perfect English with an British accent, and he seemed very educated, as if he went school in England or something. So we checked out their papers, and searched their ride and then cut them loose. The next time I saw her was about a week later in the Serena Hotel in Kabul. This place is one of the nicest hotels in the country. We were assisting on a security escort detail for some of our embassy officials and an Afghan government official from the Ministry of Mines. We posted men all over that place. Then out of the blue sky, here comes Miss Adriana Pucci, she was dressed in a black robe with a scarf on her head; she came out of the hotel restaurant. And she remembered me from the field interview, and came up to me, and asked me if I was following her? She had a smile that could knock down the Great Wall of China. So we talked and discovered that we were both from Colorado, so she gave me her card and said to look her up when I rotated back to the world, and that's how it all happened."