Independence Hall Read online

  “Four: Days after the video was taken one of the men is found dead on the Mexican border. A couple of days later the second man is caught on camera in San Francisco—the same city where Malak Turner’s surviving husband and daughter live.”

  Boone paused and took a breath.

  “Five: No agency reviewed the crime scene video taken the morning after the explosion here at Independence Hall. And in their defense I don’t blame them. Terrorists generally don’t reappear at the scene of their crimes. The videos are taken to document the chain of evidence. Since no one was arrested for the crime there was no reason to review the tapes.”

  He looked at Angela.

  “And six: Without any prompting, even though you couldn’t see her face, you identified your mother by the…” Boone glanced at me “…tell. That could be a coincidence, but the chances of someone having the same nervous habit in the same building in the same twenty-four-hour period are pretty darn slim.”

  He let everything he had told us sink in for a moment then said, “Your mother has, or had, an identical twin.” He paused again. “And her sister is, or was, a terrorist.”

  50/50

  “Was the woman at the café Malak or Anmar?” I asked. “The angel or the leopard?”

  “I don’t know,” Boone answered.

  “My mother is not a terrorist,” Angela said.

  “But she could be posing as a terrorist,” Boone said.

  “So you think the woman in the video is Angela’s mom,” I said.

  “All I know is that Eben believes the woman in the video is Angela’s mother. He thinks that she’s changed her name to Anmar.” He looked at Angela. “And he thinks she’s going to make contact with you. He doesn’t know that your mom had a twin sister.”

  “My mom would have told me if she had a twin sister,” Angela said.

  “Not if her sister were a terrorist,” Boone said. “And I don’t think your mother knew herself until a year or two before the explosion at the Hall. Eben doesn’t know how or why, but he believes your mother faked her own death, switched sides, changed her name, and dropped off the grid. As a former Secret Service agent she would have the skill, the access, and the intel to wreak terror wherever and whenever she wanted. And for all we know he might be absolutely right.

  “The video in Paris set off a terrible chain reaction. Eben’s brother Aaron was killed. The threesome fled France and ended up in Mexico. I think Eben caught up with them there and killed Salim Kazi. The other man and your mother—or your aunt—got away. Then one of them shows up in the very city where you and your father live.

  “I thought the Mossad was on our side,” I said.

  “They’re on our side,” Boone said, “except when it comes to hunting down terrorists.” He looked back at Angela. “As I said, Eben thinks Anmar is going to make contact with you, or that she already has, and that’s why he’s following you. He’s going to wait for her to show herself, and if that doesn’t work, he’s going to grab you and force her hand. In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t already done it.”

  “But why would my mother switch places with Anmar?” Angela asked.

  “That’s enough speculation,” Boone said. “You know what I know. We have one more thing to do before we go back to the warehouse.”

  We followed him downstairs and into the room where the bomb had gone off, but you wouldn’t have known it. The room looked as pristine as it had in 1752 when it was finished.

  Boone began walking the perimeter of the room staring up at the ceiling.“What’s he doing?” I asked.

  “He’s looking for the blind spot,” Angela said. “If there were two people in the room when the bomb went off Anmar was standing in a place where the cameras couldn’t see her.”

  “That’s right,” Boone said. “There’s a blind spot in every room, but they’re hard to find without looking at the surveillance monitors. Security cameras have different lenses with different coverage.” He pointed up at one of the cameras. “You can’t tell from down here what kind of lens is up there. That means that the kid who planted the bomb was told where to put it by someone with a lot of intel and training.”

  “Kid?” I said.

  “Remember the kid with the school group,” Boone said. “The young man at the Paris café and Fisherman’s Wharf. He planted the bomb on November 30. It took the FBI days to figure that out. By then the kid and his family were long gone. They’d only been in Philly for three weeks. They were sent here specifically to blow up this building. And it might have worked if one of the leads hadn’t come out of the explosives stashed in his lunch pack. It was detonated remotely somewhere outside the building. Probably by the kid’s father or mother, or handler, as soon as they saw him get onto the school bus safely.”

  “Then what was Anmar doing here?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Boone answered. “She might have been trying to defuse the bomb when Malak came in. If that’s the case she saved Malak’s life because there were enough explosives in that lunch pack to turn this building into dust.”

  “I don’t understand how Anmar got in here without being recorded by at least one of the cameras,” Angela said. “The FBI must have gone over the tapes from the hours leading up to this. They’d certainly notice someone who looked just like my mom.”

  “You’re right,” Boone said. “Providing the footage had survived, which it didn’t.” He pointed to a wall. “This is where the bomb was placed. On the other side of this wall was the surveillance recorder closet along with all the videos from that day. If you’re a terrorist who doesn’t want to be a martyr you want to make sure you’re not caught on video. The blast destroyed most of the footage. The vids I showed you in the conference room were just about all that was left. And they were lucky to piece together those fragments.” Boone looked at Croc, who was sniffing a wall on the far side of the room. “I need you, Croc.”

  Without hesitation Croc clicked his way across the room to him. Boone looked up at the cameras one last time, then pointed to the floor. Croc sat down exactly where he had pointed.

  “Any more questions?” Boone asked us.

  I had a thousand of them, but couldn’t figure out which one to ask first.

  “So, my mom came here to stop the bomb,” Angela said.

  “Like I told you I have no idea what her motivation was. All I can tell you is what her movements were. She left San Francisco on the Friday after Thanksgiving. She got to New York very early Saturday morning and checked into a hotel in Manhattan. She was in anti-terrorist task force meetings all day Sunday and most of Monday. She was booked on a flight to Amsterdam Monday afternoon and she was late leaving the meeting. A Secret Service agent drove her to the airport in a government vehicle and had to use the siren and flashers to get her there in time. She checked into her flight, cleared security, and got to the gate about ten minutes before the flight took off. She got a call on her cell. The gate agent told her that she would have to board or the flight would take off without her. She told the agent that she would take a later flight and rushed off. She rented a car and drove to Philly. They found her rental car out front.” Boone looked at Croc. “Stay put,” he said.

  We followed him out of the room, through the hallway, and into the entry area. Brod was sitting at the guard desk in front of a series of blank television screens, reading a newspaper.

  “We’re about done here,” Boone said. “You can turn the cameras back on.”

  Brod hit several buttons and the screens blinked to life. “Did you find what you’re looking for?” he asked.

  “We did,” Boone said. “And please thank Mr. Little for me.”

  “I will.” Brod looked around. “Where’s that dog of yours?”

  “Good question,” Boone said, looking around as if he didn’t know, either. “We should be able to pick him up with the cameras.”

  There wasn’t a sign of an ancient Blue Heeler missing a few teeth.

  Boone whistled.

  �
�Oh, there he is,” Brod said, pointing to one of the screens.

  Croc had left the blind spot and was slowly clicking his way to the guard station.

  Taxi

  There was a taxi waiting at the curb. Boone must have called for it when he left us in the conference room by ourselves. It was better than the produce truck, but where was his team? Why didn’t we just hitch a ride to the warehouse with them?

  Boone opened the back door. “I’ll see you at the coach.”

  “You’re not coming?” Angela asked.

  I peeked inside at the driver and tried to hide my alarm. With all this terrorism talk I wasn’t exactly eager to go for a ride with an old man who looked like he grew up next door to Osama bin Laden.

  “I have a couple of things to take care of,” Boone said. “It’s only ten minutes to the warehouse. I’ll be there soon.”

  Angela slid into the back seat like it was no big deal, which meant that I had to slide in like it was no big deal. As we pulled away I looked out the rear window and saw Boone and Croc standing alone in the street light. A cherry-red Range Rover drove up. (Presumably the same one we had been towing.) Boone and Croc climbed inside. The Rover did a U-turn and headed in the opposite direction. I wondered who was driving.

  “This whole thing is…well…pretty weird,” I said.

  Angela stared straight ahead, lost in thought, and didn’t respond. I couldn’t blame her. Her mother was either a terrorist, or still dead, which was a lot to wrap your mind around. I pulled out my deck of cards, then changed my mind and put them back in my pocket, thinking the shuffling noise might bother her. So, I pulled out a length of cord and practiced some knots.

  The driver hadn’t said one word to us and I was about to say something to him like, “Do you know where we’re going,” when a car came out of nowhere and rammed us. Angela screamed. The taxi did a complete three-sixty and might have done a second spin if we hadn’t broadsided a telephone pole. The driver, who still hadn’t said a word, was bleeding from his head and it looked like half his left ear was missing. The car that slammed into us had stopped fifty feet away. The passenger and driver doors opened and two people got out. Another car drove up on the other side of the taxi and two more people jumped out. All four of them were wearing ski masks and the two who had gotten out of the second car were carrying pistols.

  The driver uttered his first word and it wasn’t a word that you’d find in a standard dictionary. (I’ve looked it up.) Angela had noticed the masked people too and was fumbling with her phone. I didn’t think the distress signal was going to help us, considering the masked men were now walking toward the taxi, three on one side and one on the other, and would reach us in about ten seconds.

  The driver’s phone rang. He turned his head and gave us a maniacal grin. “Got the distress signal,” he said. “Thanks. Now get down and hang on!”

  “You work for Boone?”

  I don’t think he heard me over the screeching tires as he punched the taxi into reverse. There was a loud thud like it had hit one of the men, but I couldn’t see because I was scrunched down in the seat. He slammed the car into drive and the taxi fishtailed down the street.

  Emergency

  “You okay?” Angela asked.

  “Yeah. How about you?”

  “I’m fine. Do you think they’re following us?”

  By the way the streetlights were whizzing past the windows we had to be going a hundred miles an hour. “Yeah,” I said. “I think that’s a safe bet.” I poked my head above the backseat. There was a vehicle about a block behind, but it didn’t look like it was gaining. The driver’s phone rang. He ignored it. There was a lot of blood on his left shoulder. His phone stopped ringing and mine took over. It was Boone. He asked how we were.

  “Angela and I are fine, but the driver hit his head and he’s bleeding.”

  “What happened?”

  I told him.

  “How far behind are they now?”

  I looked out the window again. “Still about a block.”

  “Too close,” Boone said.

  I saw another problem out the rear window. “There’s a lot of smoke coming out of the back of the taxi,” I said.

  “Put me on speaker phone so Everett can hear me.”

  I didn’t think that was such a good idea considering how fast Everett was driving, but I hit the speaker button and held the phone up to his good ear.

  “Are you okay?” Boone shouted.

  “Negative,” Everett said. “Dizzy, blurred vision, and the engine’s RPMs are dropping.”

  Great. We had a driver who was about ready to pass out and a car that was about to break down.

  “I hit one of them,” Everett continued. “Maybe two.”

  That must have been the thud, I thought.

  “We’re about ten minutes out,” Boone said. “There’s a hospital up ahead of you. Pull into emergency. They won’t move on you with people around. Can you make it that far?”

  “I’ll try,” Everett said.

  Angela had taken over my spot at the rear window. “They’re gaining,” she said.

  Our one-block lead had shrunk to half a block and there was even more smoke pouring out of the back of the taxi. All they had to do was catch up, give us a nudge, and they’d have us.

  “Keep the line open,” Boone said. “I’ll stay on until you get there.”

  Everett didn’t look good. He was pale and his head was starting to wobble like he was dozing off. Angela undid her seatbelt and clambered into the front seat.

  “Can you drive?” I asked.

  “No,” Angela answered. “Are you with us, Everett?”

  “Barely,” he slurred.

  I looked through the rear window. The car was now close enough for me to see the silhouettes of the two people sitting in the front seat.

  “There’s the sign for the hospital,” Angela said. “You’re going to have to take the next right.”

  Everett gripped the wheel tighter as if he were struggling to hold himself up. He made the turn, but nearly flipped the taxi in the process. The car came around behind us, but had to slow to make the turn.

  Up ahead I saw the red EMERGENCY sign. “Half a block,” I told Boone.

  “We’re going to make it,” Angela said.

  There was a terrible sound of metal scraping on metal as the engine seized and died, but our momentum kept us moving forward. The car rushed up behind us. I saw the people in the front seat clearly now. They were still wearing their ski masks.

  “What do we do?” Angela said.

  “As soon as the taxi stops, jump out and run into the hospital,” Boone shouted over the speaker.

  “They have guns,” I reminded him.

  “I don’t think they’ll shoot you,” Boone said. “They need you alive.”

  I didn’t like the “don’t think” part.

  “We’re only a few minutes behind you,” Boone added.

  Everett missed the driveway and jumped the curb. We rolled to a stop on the lawn across from the emergency entrance.

  “Gotta go!” I clicked off and stuffed the phone into my pocket.

  “Help Everett out of the taxi,” Angela said.

  Everett was fumbling for the door handle like he couldn’t figure out how it worked.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Just help him!” Angela said, getting out of the taxi.

  I jumped out the back door.

  The chase car screeched to a stop in front of the emergency entrance, blocking our way. The driver and passenger got out. They still had their ski masks pulled over their faces, but they weren’t carrying their guns.

  “It is over,” a man with a foreign accent said.

  I jerked Everett’s door open and he nearly fell out on top of me. I put his arm over my shoulder and got him to his feet. Angela was standing about ten feet in front of us facing the two men. What was she thinking?

  “Get into the hospital!” I shouted. “Run ar
ound them! Get help!”

  Angela stood her ground. There was an intense look in her eyes, very much like the look I’d seen in the photograph of her mother at the target range.

  “Angela, you really need to…”

  One of the men lunged for her. Angela dodged, then kicked him in the head. He dropped like a sack of rocks. Before the other man could react, Angela lashed out with another vicious kick. There was a sickening snap as her foot connected with his knee. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the two guys lying on the grass.

  “Let’s get Everett inside,” Angela said, calmly. She put Everett’s other arm over her shoulder and we started toward the door.

  “How’d you do that?” I asked.

  “Nervous feet,” Angela said.

  “I’ll say.”

  I glanced back at the lawn where Angela’s taekwondo demo had taken place. Her victims were helping each other up.

  “They’re coming,” I said.

  Everett’s knees started to buckle.

  “We’re almost there,” Angela encouraged him. “Just a few more steps.”

  Everett tried his best but by the time we reached the automatic door we had to drag him over the threshold. The glass door slid closed behind us with a hiss. I was hoping, and I’m sure Boone was too, that the emergency room would be jammed with broken arms, legs, contusions, and bellyaches. Instead, it was completely empty except for the nurse sitting behind the admitting desk. She got up as soon as we stumbled inside and came around the desk pushing a wheelchair.

  “What happened?”

  Everett looked even worse in the light than he had in the dark taxi.

  “Auto accident,” Angela said.

  “Is this your grandfather?”

  Angela nodded.

  “Are either of you hurt?”

  “We’re both fine.”

  “Have you called your parents?”

  “We left them a message on their cells,” Angela said. “They’re out of town. Granddad was taking care of us. I got a hold of my uncle though. He’ll be here soon.”