The Archangel Project Read Online Free PDF Page A

up the missing files and dismantled computer that they’d decided to torch the building.
    An investigation might in time discover that the fire had been caused not by some leaky gas line but by a sophisticated incendiary device of the kind favored by the U.S. military. An autopsy would definitely turn upa couple of well-placed bullet holes in whatever the fire left of Henry Youngblood’s head. But by then it would all be over. As soon as they took care of the girl, Lance thought, his embarrassing little problem would be solved. Even in the best of times, the NOPD hadn’t exactly been known for their brains, and these were hardly the best of times. They’d never be able to connect the dots.
    From somewhere in the distance came the screaming whine of an emergency vehicle’s siren. Lance flipped open his phone. “Get me the address of a woman named October Guinness…That’s right, October,” he said again, when the voice at the other end of the line queried the name.
    Lance leaned back in his seat and waited. With just a single phone call he could find out virtually anything he needed to know about anyone, from the most embarrassing details of their medical history to the brand of toilet paper they used. Within a minute he had the address.
    â€œNumber 5815 Patton Street?” he repeated. He nodded to Lopez. “Good. I want as much additional information on this woman as you can put together ASAP.”
    Lance slipped the phone into his pocket and smiled as the Suburban pulled away from the curb. Things hadn’t exactly gone according to plan with Youngblood, but at least they had the girl’s name. All they needed to do now was make sure she hadn’t told anyone about what she’d seen, and then silence her. Permanently.

8
    Fire engines and police cars clogged the street, their flashing blue and red lights reflecting off the water that pooled at Tobie’s feet. She stood with her arms wrapped across her chest, her gaze fixed on the roaring inferno before her. Oh, God, Henry, she thought. Please tell me you weren’t in there.
    There were times when Tobie believed she probably deserved her psycho discharge. She still broke into a cold sweat when she heard the thump of a helicopter overhead, still awoke too often, screaming, in the middle of the night. And when Tulane’s Psych Annex exploded in front of her, knocking her off her feet, for one hideous, heart-pounding moment, she’d actually thought she was back in Iraq.
    When they sent Tobie to Iraq, they told her the linguist she was assigned to replace had been blown to pieces when his Humvee rolled over an IED. She always tried hard not to think about that when she went out into the field as an interpreter. She also tried not tothink about the fact that the officers she was assigned to accompany were prime targets—which made her a prime target, too.
    But it didn’t take her long to realize that in Iraq, she was never safe. At any moment a mortar round could come smashing into their compound. Snipers might lurk behind any rock or ruined wall. Ambush potentially awaited every convoy that ventured out of the Green Zone. Every person she passed in the souk might be a suicide bomber.
    Yet alternating with those intense moments of terror stretched vast hours of tedious boredom. Most of her days were spent at a scruffy desk in an airless room where she translated endless reports and transcriptions of intercepted telephone or radio conversations.
    Then, in early September, her unit buzzed with the anticipation of a major coup. Telephone intercepts suggested a large gathering in the western desert, and some of the names bantered around in the intercepts seemed to be on their watch list. Satellite photos showed images of tents and white pickup trucks. The intel people went nuts. They were convinced they’d stumbled on a huge terrorist gathering. Tobie wasn’t so sure. But she was just a linguist, an