Free Staying Alive by Debra Webb Page B

gaze as wellas her attention back to him, “at 2:04 p.m., you received a telephone call from Abdul Nusair.”
    She blinked, startled or maybe unsettled. The FBI had been monitoring her calls?
    “That’s right.” She moistened her lips. Everyone at the table was staring at her now.
    “What do you know about Nusair?”
    Krueger took off his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair in front of him. Her gaze followed the movement, noting the graceful action with maybe a little too much interest. She was going to have to stop letting Darlene’s desperation for a relationship rub off on her. Fixating on a stranger’s physical assets wasn’t her usual style.
    “Nothing,” she admitted in answer to his question. She chewed her lip as she considered what Darlene had told her. “Well, I mean, I’ve heard the name on the news.” She cleared her throat softly in a futile attempt to give her brain time to string together the proper response. “He’s a terrorist.”
    Krueger pulled out the chair and lowered his tall frame into it with that same undeniable grace. “That’s correct.”
    Claire felt like a student the teacher had singled out for humiliation. No one had made her feel this on the spot since college.
    Krueger leaned back in his chair and stared at her as if waiting for additional details. She didn’treally have much more to give him but something was better than nothing she supposed.
    “My friend said he’s on some sort of top ten list.” Wait, that wasn’t right. That was the other terrorist she’d told her about. “Nusair is the…ah…most evil terrorist in the world. I suppose he’s at the very top of that list.”
    Krueger loosened his tie. He had long fingers. Broad shoulders, too, she realized as her gaze traced the path from the tie he’d loosened to the tested seams of the crisp white shirt outlining those wide shoulders. Wait, she’d already noticed the shoulders. Stop it, she told herself again.
    “Abdul Nusair,” Krueger went on where she’d left off, “rose up from a well-known terrorist group with cells in a number of Middle Eastern countries, including Israel, most major European capitals and far too many cities to name here in the States. He specializes in blowing things up. He made a name for himself rather swiftly, became the new leader to watch, as we say in the Bureau.”
    If she was supposed to comment on that information she had no idea what to say, other than her first thought of Dear God . She was reasonably sure that the depth of her dismay would not impress these people.
    “As you suggested, Nusair is at the very top ofour wanted list. Our agency, as well as the CIA, has focused unparalleled effort on trying to capture him, dead or alive.”
    He paused, apparently to permit that statement to penetrate fully.
    Claire worked hard to maintain eye contact. She didn’t generally have this much trouble doing so but Krueger made her tremendously uncomfortable. Nervous to the point of needing to fidget. Incredibly, she kept her hands at rest and tucked away in her lap.
    “That effort has failed to this point. Nusair is not only a highly intelligent adversary, he is fiercely cunning and utterly ruthless. He prefers to manipulate his army of devoted followers rather than risk personal involvement in his schemes. His followers look up to him in a way not unlike Christians do Jesus Christ himself.”
    Just when Claire thought nothing he could say would shock her, those words did. The idea that there were people out there who believed in a mere man to the point that they would kill masses of innocent people made her sick to her stomach.
    “Nusair has claimed credit for the recent bombings in London where upwards of one hundred civilians lost their lives. Last year his followers bombed a dozen nightclubs in Europe, claiming that the clubs promoted American music and,therefore, embraced American ways.” Krueger pushed away the report lying on the table before him, not bothering