The Project 04 - Black Harvest

Black smoke poured through the hole. Yellow and orange tongues of flame flickered in the darkness.
    "That's where Kevin's office is. Right there."
    "Not any more." He sniffed the air. "Smell that? That's an odor tag for Semtex. The package he just got was a bomb."
    "Why?"
    "Maybe the message he told us about. Someone killed his friend and now they've killed him. What else could it be?"
    She felt her jacket pocket and the paper copy of the tablets. "We could have been there when it went off."
    "Yeah, but we weren't."
    She looked stricken. "Nick, Kevin had a wife and three grown kids. He was a sweet man. I can't believe this. What's so damned important about those tablets someone would want to kill him?"
    "I guess we'll find out when you translate them. I'm sorry about your friend."
    Selena looked up at the smoke pouring out of the fourth floor. People were streaming out of the building. Sirens sounded in the distance.
    "What now?" she said.
    "We go back to the Project before the cops get here."
    "Shouldn't we tell them about that package?"
    "They don't need us to figure it out. We need to talk with Harker."
    They got into Selena's Mercedes. A man in a dented white pickup parked two rows away watched them leave. He noted the time and reached for his cell phone.

CHAPTER THREE

    Project Director Elizabeth Harker was a small woman. She always dressed in black and white. Today she wore an all black linen suit with a white scarf tie at her throat. The suit matched her raven black hair. Her hair was artfully cut to frame the fine bones of her face. Her emerald green eyes were wide, cat-like. She had milk-white skin, small ears and a slim figure, like an elf or fairy sprite from a Shakespearean tale. Her looks tended to make self-important people dismiss her. It was a mistake they didn't make twice. Harker was no fairy sprite.
    Harker's desk was wide and clean. She had a green desk blotter with leather corners. She had an antique ink stand and a silver pen that had belonged to F DR . There was a picture of the twin towers on 9/11 in a silver frame. A reminder.
    Stephanie Willits sat between Nick and Selena. She had a wide, attractive face and dark eyes. This morning she'd chosen a red dress and white blouse and dangly gold earrings. There were three gold bracelets on her left wrist. Steph was responsible for all computer resources at the Project. She talked to her computers as if they were her family and could make the big Crays on the floor below do things no one else thought possible.
    Nick couldn't put his finger on it, but she seemed different. She'd done something to her hair, but that wasn't it. She'd lightened up since Elizabeth had returned, but that wasn't it either. She seemed more alive. Even happy.
    Harker played with her pen. "Selena, do you think McCullough was murdered because of the message from his friend?"
    "It seems like too much of a coincidence."
    "I wonder if the bomb was meant for you and Nick?"
    Nick rubbed the scar on his left ear. A Chinese bullet had taken off the earlobe the first day he'd met Selena. Sometimes it burned like fire when everything was about to go bad. This time it was only an itch.
    "It wasn't for us. No one knew we were going there. Besides, there are easier ways to take us out than blowing up a university. That bomb was Semtex, someone with serious resources like a terrorist group."
    "You're sure it was Semtex."
    "I'm sure."
    "Steph, see if you can find out what the police in New Hampshire know about the murder up there."
    "I'll do it now." She got up and left.
    "I wouldn't bet on the local cops finding much," Nick said. "Whoever sent that bomb knew what they were doing. If they killed Campbell they won't have left clues."
    "Why would someone target these men? Selena, I'd like a full translation on those notes McCullough gave you."
    "I'll have it done later today."
    Harker toyed with her pen and set it down. Picked it up again. Began tapping. Thinking. Carter watched her.
    "The Bureau will be on it because of the bombing," she said.
    "Do we want to get involved with them?"
    "Not if we can help it. You know what it's like, they try to control everything. They're good at what they do, I'll give them that. If they get a lead, I'll take it. They don't know about you and Selena being on the scene. They won't have any reason to think it's more than a routine inquiry."
    Stephanie came back into the room.
    "That was quick. What have you got?"
    "I talked with the chief up there. It's a