Beyond Limits (Tracers #8)(64)
“Neither of them is married,” Gordon said. “As for sisters, we’re running that down now. What we do know is that Rasheed and Ameen lived in London at the same time and attended the same mosque.”
“So lots of connection points, and maybe that extends to others in the family,” Elizabeth said.
“Yeah, but isn’t the whole family on a watch list?” Torres asked.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, “but even if they are, what do we really know about the women? That’s my point. We don’t have their images or prints on file. And while we’ve been busy combing the globe looking for the men, one of the women in either of these families could have slipped into this country months or even years ago to start laying the groundwork for an attack.”
The door opened, and Potter entered the room, juggling an armload of files.
“Hi.” He glanced around, then dumped the folders at an empty place at the table. “Updates on the families.” He opened a file. “Neither Ameen nor Rasheed is married, which we already knew. As for sisters, between Ameen and Rasheed, there are four. Add the sisters-in-law, and we’re up to eight.” He glanced around the room. “Ameen’s brother has three wives, and Rasheed’s brother Ahmed had a wife.”
“The brother who was killed in the drone strike?” Elizabeth asked. “Maybe it’s the widow.”
“Doubtful,” Potter said. “She’s actually in the system, because she attended college in England, which was where they met. The Brits have a jacket on her from when she applied for a student visa.”
“What about pictures?” Gordon asked.
“Those are much harder to come by,” Potter said. “We have Rasheed’s sister-in-law, like I mentioned. But other than that . . .” He thumbed through the papers. “It’s thin. We have a couple of surveillance pictures from public venues. Of course, the women are covered. The only shots we have that show any facial details are from years ago.” He pulled a picture from one of the files. “Here’s Rasheed with his family at a soccer match. He’s nineteen in this picture, and the only reason it was taken was that his father is standing next to the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., which attracted the Agency’s attention, so they caught the shot.” Potter stepped over and pinned the photo to the board with a magnet.
“We should focus on Rasheed’s family,” Elizabeth said. “Maybe losing a brother to a drone strike caused one of the sisters to shirk gender traditions and join the jihad.”
“If her parents would allow it,” Potter said. “These two families are very conservative.”
Elizabeth glanced at Potter’s mountain of files, then at Gordon. He and Torres still looked doubtful, which was probably a good indicator of how the rest of the team would react when they heard this theory.
“We need to confirm this one way or another,” Torres said, “so we don’t waste everyone’s time. What do the CSIs have from the submarine?”
“Still working on it,” Gordon said. “But we have a new lead on who might have been the passenger in the submarine, assuming he’s the one who murdered the ship channel worker, Palicek. The victim’s Avalanche was discovered in a vacant lot a few miles from the scene where the body was dumped. Someone had doused the front seat with gasoline and set it on fire.”
“Probably to destroy prints,” Lauren said. “Which makes me think they know we have them on file. Any chance we can get anything useful?”
“From the truck, it doesn’t look good,” Gordon said. “But police recovered a discarded gas can not far from the vehicle, and the prints on that might give us our best lead yet about who killed Palicek.”
“What about evidence from the motel?” Torres asked.
“We’re waiting on DNA from the motel room and also the Chevy Cavalier,” Gordon said. “Preliminary tests can tell us whether we’re dealing with any female subjects, but that may not mean anything. Just because a woman was in the motel room at some point or in the car—even if her DNA’s all over the steering wheel—that doesn’t mean she’s a terrorist. It’s not like we have DNA on file to compare it to, and it could have been left by someone not involved.”
“What about familial DNA?” Elizabeth suggested. “I’ve seen it used to solve cases before. We have Rasheed’s from the autopsy. We can find out if the DNA at any of these crime scenes is from the same family line. And if so, if there’s a Y chromosome.”
Gordon nodded. “Good idea, but that technique works best with people who share the same mother. As Potter pointed out, a lot of the men in these families have multiple wives. How many wives does Rasheed’s father have?”
Potter shuffled through one of his folders. “That would be . . . three. Rasheed’s mother was the first, which is sort of an honor position.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “Gimme a break.”
“We should talk to the lab,” Potter said. “See what they can come up with comparing the profiles.”
Elizabeth glanced at the clock. “That could take days or weeks. What about now? We need to talk to that motel clerk.”
“Agreed,” Torres said. “If she checked them in or even saw them coming or going, she probably noticed whether they had a woman with them.”