Sudden Deception (A Jill Oliver Thriller) by Judith Price

wondered just how he had got her e-mail address. It was not public knowledge and for the life of her, she could not remember giving it to him. Perhaps he had called her work and they had given it to him, she half-heartedly thought.

    Jill,
    Please get in touch with me regarding David.
    Stan

    “Whatever,” she said as she closed his e-mail.
    Jill surfed for any information on Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and LSA. She Google-earthed the region in Afghanistan and got a feel for the terrain. It looked fairly mountainous. The time passed fast perusing different maps and photos, and then she grabbed the phone.
    Jill explained to Karine the encounter with the server and what he had said, and gave Karine her mobile number. “Pay-as-you-go is all they have here, so call the hotel when possible.”
    “I’ll call Issy—you remember my Interpol sleuth—and give you a buzz back,” Karine spouted.
    “Oh, and check out a man named Zayed Saleem; he says his family is in the airplane parts business. This Zayed is definitely trained, Karine. Check any military ops you can get. He’s Arab, just not sure from which country. Also any information on who frequents Al Binood or anything that might link him to there. Scan relatives of Al Qaeda. If Matta is involved, then I think David has stumbled onto his Pulitzer.” Jill did not notice that she had gently placed her hand on the small leather bag sitting on the right side of her laptop.
    “Gotcha.” Karine hung up.
    Jill leaned back and propped her feet up on the desk and pondered. Staring blankly at the TV screen beside the desk, she thought, What am I missing?
    The TV was blaring and Jill felt comforted as it drowned out her thoughts. Her thoughts of gloom. No new reports on CNN about the missing journalist as the tag-lines zoomed by. She was on the fence about whether to be happy or not about that fact. With missing people, the faster you got the story onto the news with the details, the more likely it would be to find them.
    David’s not officially missing. He’s on a story. She kept pushing that thought to try to convince herself.
    Jill recalled a document in one of her files that disclosed the Pakistan Secret Police had executed a CNN reporter for obtaining a connection between Matta, Dr. E, and a laboratory located in Pakistan. Trying to remember the reporter’s name, Jill jumped when the phone rang.
    It was Karine … with some welcome information. Karine told Jill that her investigation and conversations had revealed two clues regarding what David might have found of interest to make him go into a dangerous country such as Afghanistan.
    “LSA means Lost Soviet Arsenal,” Karine said excitedly. “There was a report about camps along the border of Turkmenistan and in particular a town called Kushka. Documentation shows that there is evidence of voice recordings to substantiate the possibility that enriched uranium existed in this area back in 2008.”
    At this point Jill felt like kicking her own ass to the door and back to Tucson.
    “What kind of profiler am I if I can’t even figure what LSA means?” In her own defense Jill told herself, We don’t use that term. We use loose nukes, suitcase nukes, or even broken arrows. “Shit!”
    “Well, we know it now, so don’t sweat the small stuff,” Karine chimed positively.
    Jill was still pissed at herself for missing the acronym. Karine told her that she would load the documents to the VPN for her to download. “I'll send you an e-mail when I'm done. It shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.” Jill looked over at the minibar, contemplating what she should do in the meantime.
    David had commented on the increase in her drinking when she was under pressure. But to Jill it was the one comfort that settled her when her body and mind couldn’t do so on their own. She couldn’t blame that one on McGregor; she’d always been that way. This was her vice. But today was different. This new information affected her life, her