“No, Alex, that’s not possible. They might have been good enough for the parking lot, but they would have had to run the ID through the machine at the checkpoint. That would have stopped them.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Oh, come on, Alex, the new ID’s are practically fool proof! They can’t be forged, and they have to match the correct fingerprint. Otherwise the machine throws an alert.”

“Okay, David, then how else did this guy get a gun into the ball room? Did he take it through the metal detector?”

“No way. They were all calibrated less than two hours before the party.”

“Then how?”

“I don’t know, maybe someone slipped him the gun inside.”

“Okay, how did they get it in?”

Alex pinned him to the wall with her glare. David could tell that she’d already reached her conclusion, and was trying to make him follow her logical road.

“Maybe one of the kitchen staff brought it in?”

Alex shook her head. “Nope. All kitchen staff were wanded before entering the room. They had to have all metal in sight of the officer scanning them.” Wanding referred to being scanned with a hand held metal detector, and David knew that it was quite effective if used properly. “And if you’re going to say someone there screwed up, you better be ready to argue with Ken on that, ‘cause he was a part of that team.”

“So, maybe a police officer gave it to him?”

“Fine. You go tell Captain Davies that one of his officers concealed a weapon, then passed it to the assassin once he got into the room.”

David sighed, knowing he’d been trapped. “No. There’s no proof of that either.”

“That’s right. All we really know, David, is that two guys were supposedly flashing FBI badges. Personally, I’d like to clear that up before we go accusing Philadelphia’s finest.”

“Right. So what now?”

“Like I said, we wait for Wister. We can find out from him where Sargeant Leonard is, and what he told the Lieutenant. Then I want to check the ID machine, and take a reading of all badges read last night.”

“You think Leonard was telling the truth?”

“I don’t know,” Alex answered. Her face was grim. “But if he wasn’t I’ll have his badge before noon.”

************************************************************************

Cliff Jackson slapped the manila folder down on his desk. He stood and began pacing, still directing his voice toward the speaker phone on his desk.

“Let me get this straight, Agent Reis. You had three security cameras, two walk-through metal detectors, over twenty local police officers, and four - no five, FBI agents. And this guy just walked into the room, shot Dabir in the back of the head and walked out?”

There was silence from the other end, and then Agent Wu’s muffled voice came over the speaker. “Well, no, sir, he didn’t walk out, he ran.”

“You find this funny, Agent Wu?”

Alex’s strained voice answered. “No, sir, there’s nothing funny in this at all. The two of us are tired, and David’s a little … punchy.” There was a muttered “sorry” from David in the background, and then Alex continued.

“As far as the hitman is concerned, I’d have to say, sir, that we covered all the bases except for one.”

“And that was?”

“The guy had an FBI badge and ID.”

Cliff was silent for a long moment.

“You’re sure about that?”

“Yes, sir. Not only was it seen by a member of the local police force, but it was used to gain access to the banquet room.”

“Shit. You’re right. That was unexpected. Fuck.” Cliff returned to his seat and opened the folder he’d thrown on the desk. “It says here, though, that you had the new ID machine. Weren’t you running the cards through?”

Back in Philadelphia, Alex tensed. This was going to be difficult for her boss to hear.

“Yes, Cliff, we were using the new machine. All ID’s were checked for microchips — and they all had them.”

There was only silence from the speaker phone in front of Alex and David.

“Agent Reis, that’s not possible. Those chips cannot be forged.”

“Well, sir, either that’s not true, or … “

“Or there’s a rogue agent out there, sir, ” David concluded the statement for her.

It took Cliff a moment to process this. “What was the name on the ID, did you find out?”

“The name was Watson, Perry Watson. Registry number, 4568935771-6.”

There were several expletives from the speaker.

“Sir?”

“That’s not an FBI registry number, Alex.”

It was Alex’s turn to stare in shock at the phone. “Then what is it?”

“It’s CIA.”

David leaned forward, frowning. “What the hell is the CIA doing assassinating senatorial candidates?”

“Good question, David. I’ll run right over and ask them.” The two agents could hear the sarcasm in his voice. “All right, Reis, what else do you have?”

“Well, it looks like Mr. Watson was not acting alone. We don’t have the name of the other guy, but we know that there was a second man, a driver.”

“Was he found?”

“Yes, sir. Unfortunately, he was in the same condition as the hitman. Burned beyond recognition.”

“I don’t get it, Reis. Who would have wanted these guys dead? Besides us, I mean?”

“I can’t tell you, sir. Maybe they wanted more money, or maybe they’d become a liability?”

“In that case, why go to the trouble of rigging the bomb? Why not just kill them later?”

“Possibly to make a point, or to present us with an obvious dead end?”

“Then why not just disable the car and let them shoot it out with the cops?”

Alex rubbed her forehead. “I’ve been thinking about that, sir, and the one thing that keeps coming up is that they didn’t want to chance our taking either of them alive. They wanted these guys dead, not in prison.”

“Good point, Reis. But if this unknown agent was indeed CIA, then you’re saying the CIA killed its own operatives just to keep them from talking, after they had one of them sign into your little party using his own ID. Does that make sense to you?”

“I never said any of this made sense, sir. And if the CIA is indeed involved, I don’t expect anything to ever make sense.”

They could hear a chuckle from the phone.

“Another good point. All right, you two. I want your reports by Monday at nine a.m. Got it? I know that doesn’t give you a lot of time, but we’ve got a team meeting on this at ten, and I want a chance to at least glance over them. Finish up there, then get your butts back down here. We’ve got a lot of work to do.” He paused. “And Alex?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Don’t beat yourself up over this. You took all the appropriate precautions. Nobody could have predicted that the killer would have the ID to get in. I know it doesn’t help right now, but it wasn’t your fault. Do what you can, come home, and let’s nail the fuckers behind this.”

Alex was silent a moment longer. “Yes, sir, thank you, sir.”

“Safe flight, you two.”

David reached over and turned the phone off. There was a sudden quiet in the hotel suite. Then David yawned.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you need sleep.”

“Hey, get serious, we both need sleep, Reis.”

“I know.” Alex looked at her watch. “Tell you what. Our flight leaves at 9:30 this evening. We’ll sleep for four hours, be up around one. The autopsy for the shooter is at two-thirty, so we can make that and maybe still have time to meet with Price and Keller.”

“Sounds good. I’ll call Ken and let him know.”

“Tell him we’ll meet here after the autopsies. That usually takes at least a few hours, so tell him about five thirty.”

“How ‘bout I bring caffeine and lunch to you at 1:00?”

“That’d be great.”

“I just hope you’re up, Alex.”

“I’ll be up. I’m not saying I’ll be coherent, but I’ll be up.”

***********************************************************************

The phone rang at exactly twelve-thirty, and Alex leaned over to pick it up. She listened for a second to the buzz that said her wake up calls had started. Then she put the phone back on the hook and fell back onto her pillow.