Act of Justice by Alex Ander

Author:Alex Ander
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Alex Ander
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23: Continental U.S.

2:02 a.m.

Having swept an arm across a battered and worn kitchen table that was left behind by the home’s last owners, Hardy spread out the map found folded up and taped to the inside of Nadir’s jacket sleeve. For the next ten minutes, Hardy, Cruz and Dahlia studied the tri-colored atlas of the continental United States. The area from the Rocky Mountains west—to the Pacific Ocean—was shaded in light blue. The section from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, including a portion of northern Texas, was dark green. The rest of Texas was tan.

Picking up a few pieces of the junk he had flung onto the floor, Hardy placed items at the map’s four corners to keep the paper flat. He stood straight, crossed arms and held his chin. “Well…any ideas?”

Hunched over the table, on Hardy’s right, Cruz tapped the origin point of a zigzag line that ran on a diagonal—two o’clock to seven o’clock—from the Northeast to the South. “New York.” She slid her index finger along the first leg and stopped at the next dot. “Looks to be Ohio.” She followed the rest of the route, estimating and calling out the other states where similar marks existed: Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and Louisiana.

Bent over, forearms folded and flat on the table, Dahlia cranked her head to the right, to look up at her teammates. “I think we have to assume these are all potential targets, sites of future terror attacks.”

Hardy nodded. “True, but what attacks? And where will they occur?” He thrust out the hand cupping his chin and pointed. “Those are only specks on a blank map.” He transformed his pointing finger into an open hand, palm up, and barely shrugged. “We’re just guessing on the actual states let alone the city within that state. We need more information.”

Pushing off from the table, Dahlia righted her body. “I agree, but at least it’s a start. Let’s get Cherry in on this.”

“Already on it.” Hardy touched Charity’s icon on his phone, tapped ‘speakerphone’ and put the cell on the blue shaded area—Western United States. A second later, a voice filled the small kitchen that was blacked out by dark blankets hanging over the room’s two windows, and dimly illuminated by Cruz’s flashlight, shining on the map.

Charity: “I’m cross-referencing it with everything in the database. So far…no hits.” Hardy had sent her a picture of the map. “Were you able to get anything from Nadir?”

Hardy shook his head. “He said the man in the fireplace photo—the one we’re calling Sunglasses—gave him a burner phone and told him to go to New York and wait for further instructions. The phone, however, was not on Nadir when we grabbed him. He must have left it on the table at the night club.”

“Oh…I’m glad you mentioned that. I have a name for him—Sunglasses that is. When he crossed the border into the U.S., the name on his passport was Roman Pushkin, a Russian national. He told Customs he was here on business, investigating a new potential site for his startup business.

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