Surgeon Sheik's Rescue

“What did it say?”

He rubbed his brow, inhaling deeply. “It was a digital image from an old newspaper. I’m sending it to you now.”

Bella clicked on the icon, accepting the file. It opened onto her laptop—an image of two men in black-tie attire, champagne glasses in hand. One of the men was Sam Etherington, taken when he was a lot younger. He had his arm around the shoulders of a dark-haired, stocky guy with receding hairline and a small goatee.”

“Who’s the guy with Etherington?” Bella said, peering closer.

“Benjamin Raber. The photo ran on the social page of a Chicago newspaper fifteen years ago.”

She glanced up, met Hurley’s eyes. “Raber? As in Johnson’s boss? The head of Strategic Alliances, the alleged front for STRIKE?”

“Same guy.”

“Did the tipster say anything about this photo?”

He swallowed, and worry wormed deeper into Bella.

“Hurley, what’s going on?”

“All the message said was ‘Blackmail is a powerful tool and Johnson was an instrument.’”

“What does that mean?” Bella asked, looking more closely at the two men in the photo, arm in arm. Friends. Celebrating. “That Etherington was blackmailing Raber? Forcing him to use STRIKE—and Johnson—to carry out assassinations?”

“Maybe it’s vice versa—Raber blackmailing Etherington.”

“Holy Christ,” she whispered. “Hurley, we have got to find whoever sent these tips. We need more information, we need proof. We—”

“Scoob already found her, Bella.”

“Her?” Bella whispered.

“She’s dead.”

Bella’s world spun. “What do you mean...dead?”

“This IM with the photo attached appeared on your Watchdog profile just over forty-eight hours ago. Scoob’s software trap caught it instantly, and his program started tracking back to her IP address even as she tried to burrow out ahead of the trap. But we got an ID.” He swallowed. “Her name was Althea Winston. She was Travis Johnson’s widow.”

Bella put her hand over her mouth.

“Althea was a computer expert, Bella. Her husband could have told her things no one else would have known. Her tipping us off could have been about revenge for her husband’s death, her way of seeking justice for him. But she must’ve been scared they’d come after her. And now, forty-eight hours after she sent that last IM, she’s dead.”

Bella’s heart began to thud against her rib cage. “How did she die?”

“It was all over the news this morning. Althea and her five-year-old daughter were killed in a freak car accident on the way to the kid’s school. Road was icy. They were sideswiped by a gray Dodge Ram 4500, no plates. Impact forced them through the bridge barrier and they went over, through ice, into the river. The truck fled the scene.”

Just like the “accident” that had sent Senator Sam Etherington’s ex-wife and twins over a bridge.

Looking ill, Hurley said, “Scoob figures someone started monitoring Althea’s electronic movements after you posted that photo linking Tariq Al Arif to Alexis Etherington. It must have sent up red flags, and they had to have fingered Johnson’s widow as a possible leak. Then when she contacted your page again with this, they had her red-handed.”

Bella sat back, horrified. She’d found an old newspaper photograph of the senator’s missing ex-wife, Dr. Alexis Etherington, with Dr. Tariq Al Arif at a medical convention in Chicago years ago. She’d posted it online with a story she’d written after Tariq’s family had announced his “death.” In the caption, she’d suggested there might be old links between the Etheringtons and the Al Arifs. Bella had hoped this hoped this might solicit information, and it had. Now this.

“Jesus, Hurley,” Bella whispered. “We killed her. My investigation. This is my fault.”

“Bella, even if her death is linked to this, it’s not your fault—Althea had to have known she was taking a risk by tipping you off in the first place. She had to have known they meant serious business after her husband was killed.”

“Who the hell is they, Hurley! STRIKE? Strategic Alliances? Raber? Sam Etherington’s people? Why on earth would Etherington want to kill an Al Arif prince, anyway? He’s the one promising an oil deal with their kingdom should he get into office. And how does MagMo fit in to all this?”

“We need to figure all that out before they find you.” Hurley’s features were tight. “This is why I’ve been trying to get a hold of you—since Scoob’s trap chased back to Althea Winston’s IP addy, someone’s been trying to use the same digital trail as a route back into our systems.”

Nausea washed through Bella’s stomach. “Did they get in?”

“Not yet. We’ve increased security parameters. But they’re circling like sharks, and they’re going to keep trying to find a way to penetrate our system.” Hurley paused, wiping the gleam from the top of his lip. “It’s best you contact us only when really necessary, Bella. You’ve still got that prepaid cell?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to get one, too. And I’m using a laptop that’s not connected to our servers to be safe. We’ll run these photos you’ve just sent through the biometrics software, then I’m going to shred them, so keep copies on your end. I’m not going to store anything this side, in case these people get in.”

The gravity of Hurley’s words, the news of Althea Winston’s death, settled like ice in Bella’s chest. Finding that tipster had been Bella’s hope of finding proof, someone who might eventually go on record. Now she was dead. Like her husband. Silenced.

“We’re up against a wall now, Hurley,” she said quietly. “We have nothing concrete to link Etherington to the attempts on the lives of the Al Arifs. Or to these recent deaths. Or my attack.”

“You still have the fact that Tariq is alive, if these photos are a match. That’s a big story in itself. We run that, and we could get more tips. Plus Scoob is still trying to clean up that audio we recorded of Senator Etherington and his aide, Isaiah Gold, near the fountain last summer. That new parabolic mike design picked up everything, the trouble is filtering out the noise of the water.”

“The odds of something coming from that audio are practically nonexistent, even if Scoob does manage to clean it up. They could’ve been discussing baseball for all we know.”

“There’s a reason Sam and Isaiah routinely leave the office and cross the lawn to talk by a noisy fountain. We think it’s to discuss things they don’t want on tape. We took photos of them doing it—if we find something on that audio—”

“It’s a long shot, Hurley. You guys have made a hobby of eavesdropping on politicians with your gimmicks for years, and what have you got so far?”

His mouth flattened, and she instantly felt sorry.

“I’m sorry. It’s just...I’m rattled about Althea’s death.”

“We all are. Go get the sheik, Bella. Get him to talk. Somehow this all ties back to Sam.”

She signed off, shut her laptop and sat staring into space awhile. Outside the snow continued to fall. She’d survived her attack. Althea Winston had not been so lucky. Had it been the same people?

Bella’s assailants had spoken Arabic and she figured they might be part of MagMo. Two of them also had Arabic daggers. But this wouldn’t fit Sam Etherington’s people.

Bella reached into her pocket and took out a small, gold medallion. She’d ripped it from the neck of one of her assailants as she’d tried to fight him off.

The medallion depicted a sun superimposed by a hooked dagger, and it lay warm in her hand, the gold gleaming dully in the light from her lamp. She hadn’t shown it to the police—the cops had been no help when her apartment had been ransacked, and by that point, Bella trusted no one.

It was also when she’d fled the country.

Slipping the medallion onto a chain around her neck, she turned up the oil heater and climbed under the duvet on her small cot. She lay there, feeling alone, vulnerable. Scared. This story was potentially so big it overwhelmed her.

She muttered a curse. She was a journalist. This was everything she’d wanted, surely—an earth-shattering scoop? And when something truly scared you, it generally meant you were heading in the right direction. Wasn’t that the mantra of self-help gurus?