Page 115 of Holmes, Margaret and Poe

Obaid — he thought of himself as Obaid again, now that he was looking at the original Marion Davis — laughed as he took a right onto Ox Road heading north. “The game is still on, Captain, and once again you are going to take the fall. Along with poor Fiona Plum.”

He heard her whimper almost directly behind him. “Ah, she’s awake too. So much the better. She loves you, you know, Captain. And what have you done for her in return? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Another reason to get rid of you for good.”

Traffic built as the rain began to turn into sleet. It came down in curtains, and they were crawling along with cars honking all around them.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

Obaid, startled, looked over his shoulder and saw Captain Davis pounding the back of his head against the wall of the van. Obaid pulled a sound-suppressed pistol from the center console and aimed it at the ex-coach. “One more and I’ll put a bullet through her brain,” he said. “I promise you that.”

Captain Davis’s face went red and he tried to scream through the duct tape.

“You’ll kill me?” Obaid said and laughed. “No, I don’t think so.”

Traffic lightened as they passed into a wooded and less dense residential area. He turned the radio to an all-weather station and was happy to hear that the temperatures would drop and the storm would gain strength; there’d be snow and wind gusts approaching thirty miles an hour.

Obaid did the calculations in his mind, contemplating the direction of the shot and the angle of the wind. If he had it all straight, he couldn’t miss, not with the Stinger’s infrared homing system. And every test he’d conducted in the past three days said that Leslie Parks had been right. Despite the system’s age, despite all the U.S. efforts around the globe to eradicate the shoulder-to-air missiles, the FIM-92 Stinger in the crate behind him would not only work but show the world the fragility and fraught future of air travel.

Obaid smiled, looked over his shoulder at Captain Davis, and said, “When you’re done tonight, Captain, the airline business will be in turmoil, and the precarious economy of this country will lurch, stagger, and fall.”

He returned his attention to the road. “And when I’m done, Captain, it will never rise again.”

CHAPTER 97

NED MAHONEY ALERTED MEMBERSof his AA 839 team, still operating out of the big tents opposite National Airport, about the new developments. The FBI was talking to the security chiefs of the major auto and truck agencies, looking for a dark gray Mercedes Sprinter van with Pennsylvania plates rented to a Marion Davis.

While they did, Sampson and I searched the internet for anyone who had recently changed his name to Marion Davis. We got a hit in West Virginia.

Sampson and I were in Sampson’s car in front of Rosella Santiago’s house when Ned called to say that no Marion Davis had rented a Sprinter van in a five-state area. I said, “Try Ibrahim Obaid. He changed his name to Marion Davis late last year. The application says he is a naturalized American citizen,living in Charleston, West Virginia. Emigrated to the U.S. under U.S. Army sponsorship a few years ago. Guess who he listed as one of his references.”

“Leslie Parks?”

“Bingo.”

“I’ll call after running Ibrahim Obaid,” Ned said, and he hung up.

The temperatures were plunging. The all-news radio station was warning of a serious storm, with the sleet turning to snow.

“Home?” Sampson said, starting the car.

“Until we hear something different,” I said.

Sampson turned on the wipers; they slapped at the frozen rain and pine needles blown on the windshield. He put the car in gear, and we drove away from Rosella Santiago’s house feeling helpless.

Ibrahim Obaid, a terrorist playing a long game as Marion Davis, was clearly ahead of us.

“What’s his target?” Sampson asked. “And why does he have Captain Davis and Fiona Plum with him?”

That surprised me. “You think he does?”

Sampson nodded. “We know Captain Davis took an Uber to her house. We know she’s missing. We know Obaid ran a painting business. We know a painter was there.”

“True on all counts. I think he’s going to continue the frame-up of Captain Davis. And maybe make Fiona Plum part of it.”

“Exactly my thinking,” Sampson said. “So what’s his target?”

“And when?”

Before we could discuss possible answers, my phone rang. Mahoney said, “Ibrahim Obaid leased a dark gray MercedesSprinter van from a West Virginia company. We’ve got the West Virginia plate numbers.”

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