Chapter 1
Being in the wrong place at the wrong time happened to other people, not Janice Lewellyn. Not until the last night of her life, anyway.
Just before twelve o’clock that night, she was speeding back to her office on the sprawling campus of Martin Research in a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. A memo her boss needed before a field test of their new chemical weapon detection system wasn’t complete. The itinerary for next week’s visit by the Secretary of Homeland Security had been left out. She had time to get that done. Everything was packed, a couple of hours at the office, and she’d still have time to get the kids up and family to the airport. She’d sleep on the plane, and rest in Maui.
The vacation, ordered by her doctor, was supposed to provide a rest before starting an aggressive chemotherapy treatment for ovarian cancer. The vacation couldn’t have come at a worse time. Cancer scared the hell out of her, no question, but she was prepared to fight it with or without a vacation. She wasn’t prepared, however, to let her boss down. Properly hosting the head of Homeland Security when he visited was her responsibility.
A rich perfume of roses carried on the summer breeze as she stepped from her car in the executive parking lot. Some savvy landscaper had placed a small rose garden nearby. Deep red rhododendrons and azaleas lined the walkway, and two acres of lush green lawn surrounded the four-story glass and stainless steel office building. A reflecting pool ringed the building on three sides, bathing it in a soft blue light. It was the most beautiful place in the world to work, she thought for the hundredth time.
~~~
At the back of the executive office building, Kaamil Sayf waited in the shadows outside an emergency fire door. At midnight, the security system his company installed and maintained would crash and go offline for five minutes. In those five minutes, he needed to run up four flights of stairs to the CEO’s office, retrieve a keylogger device he’d placed on the CEO’s computer a month ago, and get back out before the security system rebooted.
On the outside, after his prison conversion to Islam, he led a covert cadre of assassins working as employees of the International Security and Information Services, or ISIS. The mission he trained for, and was selected to lead, aimed to assassinate powerful American leaders. Mighty America killed its enemies with cowardly high-flying drones, but the world would soon know how jihadists killed enemies, up close and personal.
Before the first strike next week, he had to ensure encrypted passwords for the security plan at the chemical weapons depot had not changed. The only way to know was to retrieve the keylogger that recorded every keystroke on the CEO’s computer.
When his watch flashed 12:00 a.m., Kaamil used a key to open the steel fire door and ran up the stairs. He knew the old security guard posted at his station at the main entrance wouldn’t hear him, just as he knew the security cameras wouldn’t record his visit for the next five minutes. No one was expected in the building.
He raced down a long hallway to the middle of the top floor. Through Janice Lewellyn’s office, he entered the CEO’s inner sanctum. Kaamil was under the large rosewood desk when the elevator doors chimed. Somebody besides the security guard was in the building. Kaamil pocketed the device, getting up as the office lights came on, and froze.
Sweat formed on his forehead when he heard someone walking into the office.
“What are you doing in here?” Janice Lewellyn demanded. “Why are you hiding in Mr. Martin’s office?”
“Take it easy, Mrs. Lewellyn, you know me. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m just checking to make sure the upgrade for the security system is working.”
“Since when do you do middle-of-the-night upgrades without my clearance? I think you better stay here while I call security. You shouldn’t be in Mr. Martin’s office.”
“Call security. They know all about it. I’m just doing my job, Mrs. Lewellyn.” Kaamil feigned a smile, hoping she didn’t notice the beads of sweat on his forehead.
As Janice Lewellyn turned toward the phone on her desk, Kaamil took an Emerson combat folding knife from his pocket. Moving quickly, he caught her from behind and pulled the razor-sharp blade across her throat.
Lowering her body to the floor, he cursed his rotten luck. He would keep on the surgical gloves he was wearing until he left the building. And pray to Allah nothing was left behind to identify him, because his five minutes were almost up.
He would have enough trouble explaining the collateral damage to his leader without worrying about the police.
