Actual Stop (Agent O’Connor #1)(48)
The name checks didn’t do me much good. Apparently the name Amin Akbari was relatively common. The search on the address where he used to reside in Maryland yielded a few more definitive results, and I jotted down the case numbers in which the address was mentioned. I’d read the full text of those reports to see whether it was relevant to my investigation when I had more time.
The FBI’s phone-record database was unbelievably impressive and held all the phone numbers that their main target number had made calls to and from. The data was sorted and compiled in such a way that you could see exactly how many calls had been placed between the two numbers during a particular time period as well as the length of those calls. And if you were lucky, the numbers your target was placing calls to and receiving calls from were listed somewhere else in the FBI database.
Entering all of that data into the database was a painstaking process that amounted to hours of work for the analysts, but the information that could be gathered was invaluable. The pictures they revealed and the patterns that often emerged could provide leads that had the potential to make a stellar case, provided you were motivated enough to follow up on them and take the time required to reveal the entire image. I, of course, was.
First, I searched the cell-phone and landline telephone numbers Akbari had provided me the other day. Unsurprisingly, this search yielded negative results. It was about what I’d expected. The man had been in New York for only a few weeks, and the analysts weren’t quite that current with their database entries.
Next, I searched for the cell-phone number Akbari had used when he was in Maryland, fully prepared to end up with nothing on that search as well. I was stunned when a long list of numbers that went for several screens was displayed on the monitor in front of me.
I blinked, flabbergasted, as I registered what the case code classifications I’d come up with revealed. I’d gotten multiple hits on Akbari’s number in connection with subjects who were targets of terrorism investigations. And at least two of those were main targets, suspected heavy hitters.
That couldn’t be right. Could it? I flicked my eyes back and forth between the number from my notes and the number displayed on the computer screen. Huh. They definitely matched, so there was no mistake there. Could I have copied the number down wrong when I was talking to Sarah? It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, but I always meticulously check and recheck my information when copying something from dictation, so it was unlikely.
I scribbled a note to myself to call Sarah tomorrow to verify the number and then hastily copied the first two dozen hits that had cropped up on the list as the ones my target number had been in contact with the most. I also included any additional information provided, such as the number of calls made and the average length. I wasn’t yet positive whether it’d be worth my time to look into every number on the list, but—
The ringing of my desk phone shattered that thought. Without taking my eyes off the screen and while still attempting to make notes with my right hand, I reached for the phone with my left.
“JTTF. O’Connor.”
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling you for hours.” My sister’s irritated voice floated over the line and conjured up images of what her face and posture surely looked like as she scolded me.
“Hey, Rory. What’s up?”
“Well? How’d it go?”
“How’d what go?”
My sister made no attempt to hide her exasperation and allowed me to hear the rude noise she made in the back of her throat. “Tea with the queen. The visit, jackass. Did everything go okay?”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. Yeah, it went fine. Thanks. Wait, how did you even know about that?” I hadn’t spoken to my sister since that assignment had been dropped into my lap.
“That’s it? That’s all I get? ‘Fine’? You’d better come up with a better response than that! I want details, Ay-vo, and I want them nep.”
Rory’s use of a couple of our old code words from childhood startled me. She must’ve felt pretty strongly about this to have slipped back into that habit. I glanced up from my notebook, shocked when I noticed the time. Shit, I had to hurry or I’d be late for the PT tests. Mark would just love that. I made a few more quick notes and then started shutting everything down and storing it, so I could get the hell out of there.
“Ryan? Are you listening to me?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m here. Sorry. What’d you say?”
“Why have you been avoiding me all day? What happened?”
“What? Nothing happened. I haven’t been avoiding you.”
“Well, I called your cell phone like a hundred times.”
“That’s a lot of time to invest in one activity. You do still have a job, don’t you? How’d they feel about that?”
“I’m working the night shift this week, smart-ass. And I woke up in the middle of the afternoon—hours before I even needed to be awake, might I add—just to call you to see how everything went, and you’re giving me shit. Nice.”
“Sorry. You still didn’t tell me how you even knew about the visit.”
“How do you think I knew? Dad told me. I loved finding out something like that from him, by the way. Thanks.” Her voice was laden with sarcasm, but I ignored it as the tiny little lightbulb in my head went on. Dad. Of course.