Capitol Murder

by Phillip Margolin

  “I’ve got eight people from the hot dog concession out here,” he said. “How do you want to handle this?”

  “Is the person in charge of the concession here?” Keith said.

  “Yeah, that’s Jose Gutierrez.”

  “Okay, let’s start with him.”

  Moments later, the guard ushered in a heavyset man in his forties with long black hair and a dark pockmarked face. The man’s eyes ricocheted around the room, and he was obviously nervous.

  “My name is Keith Evans, Mr. Gutierrez, and this is my partner, Maggie Sparks. We’re with the FBI, and we want to thank you for taking the time to talk to us.”

  Keith gestured toward the food. “Are you hungry? Can I get you something to eat?”

  Gutierrez shook his head. “No, thanks, but you can tell me what’s going on here.”

  “Ali Bashar works at your stand, right?” Keith asked.

  “Yeah, where is he?”

  “Mr. Bashar is under arrest. He and several other men were planning to set off suicide bombs in the stands. Fortunately, we were able to thwart their plot.”

  “You’re shitting me? Ali was going to blow the place up?”

  Keith nodded.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Why don’t you sit with us and we’ll talk about it.”

  Gutierrez took the seat Keith indicated.

  “What can you tell us about Mr. Bashar?” Keith asked.

  Gutierrez started to say something. Then he stopped and thought for a moment before shaking his head.

  “Now that I think about it, not much. He was a good worker, always on time. He never complained. That’s about it.”

  “Did he ever talk about his personal life? You know, what he did when he wasn’t working at the games?”

  “Not that I remember.” Gutierrez shrugged. “He wasn’t around much. He sold hot dogs and drinks in the stands, so that’s where he was on game day, and we’ve only had a few home games. He told me he was a student once, but we never talked about personal stuff.”

  “Did he say where he was studying?”

  Gutierrez’s brow furrowed. “No, just that he was a student.”

  “Do you have a copy of Ali’s job application?” Keith asked.

  “No. Mr. Cooper does the hiring. I just got a call saying Ali was going to show up for an exhibition game and to give him a job hawking. Mr. Cooper owns the concession. He owns a couple. You should talk to him. I can give you his business address and phone number.”

  “That would be great.”

  “Is Ali crazy?” Gutierrez asked.

  “He’s a jihadist, an Islamic radical like the people who brought down the Twin Towers.”

  “Holy Mother.” Gutierrez shook his head. “He never said anything like that. I mean I thought he was a Muslim with that name, but he never talked crazy shit.”

  “He wouldn’t have.”

  “Yeah, I guess not.”

  “Mr. Gutierrez, was Mr. Bashar friendly with anyone in the concession stand? Is there someone he talked to more than the other workers?”

  Gutierrez thought for a moment. Then he nodded. “Yeah, Ann, Ann O’Hearn. They seemed friendly.” Suddenly Gutierrez looked concerned. “But she’s no terrorist. She’s in college. This is her second year here.”

  “We don’t suspect anyone in your concession of being a terrorist,” Keith assured him. “We just want to learn as much about Mr. Bashar as we can. Ann isn’t in trouble.”

  Gutierrez exhaled. “That’s good. She’s a nice kid.”

  “Is she waiting in the hall?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. You’ve been very helpful. Can you get us that address and phone number for Mr. Cooper before we go?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Keith gave Gutierrez his card. “Give me a call if you think of anything else.”

  Maggie escorted Gutierrez into the hall and asked him to point out Ann O’Hearn.

  “Ann, they want to talk to you,” Gutierrez said.

  Maggie walked up to the girl and smiled to allay her fears. “Hi, Miss O’Hearn. I’m Maggie Sparks,” the agent said as she led the nervous girl into the skybox.

  “The first thing you need to know,” Maggie said when they were seated, “is that you aren’t suspected of any criminal activity. We want to talk to you to get more information about a man who worked with you in the concession stand, Ali Bashar.”

  “Why do you want to know about Ali? What did he do?”

  “We’ll talk about that in a minute. Mr. Gutierrez told us that you were friendly with Mr. Bashar.”

  “Yeah. I mean I only saw him at work, and we’ve only had a few games, but he was always nice.”

  “What did you two talk about?” Maggie asked.

  Ann took a moment to think. “He told me he played soccer. I’m on my college team. Once, after a game, we talked about soccer.”

  Maggie nodded to encourage her to continue.

  “He said he was going to school too, that he was a student.”

  “Did he say where he went to school?”

  “No, I got the impression he wasn’t going yet, that he planned to go, but I’m not completely sure about that.”

  Ann looked troubled. “Can you tell me why you’re asking about Ali?”

  “I can see that you liked Mr. Bashar, so this may upset you. Ali Bashar was part of a cell of Islamic radicals who tried to blow up FedEx Field today.”

  Ann lost color and looked as though she might faint. Maggie laid a hand on her shoulder.

  “Are you okay? Do you want some water?”

  Ann shook her head. She seemed dazed. “He tried to warn me,” she managed, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “Warn you how?” Maggie pressed.

  “Just before he took his tray into the stands, he told me he had to talk to me, that it was important. Then he told me to say I was sick and to go home.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him I wasn’t sick and we were very busy. If I left, Jose would have been shorthanded. I asked him why I should go home.”

  “What did he say to that?”

  “He looked like he wanted to tell me something. Instead he said he was being foolish and that it was nothing. Then he left, and I was too busy to think about what he’d said anymore.”

  “It sounds like Mr. Bashar likes you. Did he ever ask you out or say anything inappropriate?”

  “No. I told you, we barely talked because he hawked in the stands. I’d only see him before the stand opened or when we were cleaning up. He seemed shy. The day we talked about soccer, I got the impression that talking to me took a big effort.”

  “Can you think of anything else that might help us understand Mr. Bashar?” Maggie asked.

  “Not really.” Ann shook her head. “This is a lot to take in. You’re saying he was going to kill everyone?”

  Maggie nodded.

  “My God. He was so nice. I can’t believe it.”

  “He just appeared to be nice, Miss O’Hearn.”

  “No, he was nice to me. He . . . he tried to save me. God, I feel sick.”

  Maggie questioned Ann O’Hearn for a few more minutes before getting her address, e-mail, and phone number. Then she told Ann she could go home. Mr. Gutierrez was waiting outside the door with Lawrence Cooper’s phone number and business address. Maggie thanked him and called the next witness into the skybox.

  An hour later, Keith ushered the last witness into the hall. No one knew much about Ali Bashar. He was quiet, worked hard, and didn’t cause any trouble. No one except Ann had talked with him about anything except work.

  Keith closed the door and settled into a seat beside Maggie. “What do you think?” he asked.

  “We have to talk to Cooper to find out how Bashar got his job.”

  “I’m betting Cooper placed all four of the bombers, which is interesting.”

  Maggie nodded. “Do you think Bashar liked Ann O’Hearn?”

  “H
e must have if he tried to get her to go home.”

  “Let’s tell Harold. Maybe he can use it when they interrogate Bashar.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  All of the concessions where the suicide bombers worked were owned by Lawrence Cooper, and the managers had been told by him to let the suicide bombers work at each one. Harold Johnson told Keith and Maggie to pick up Cooper and bring him in for questioning.

  Cooper lived in a ranch-style house at the end of a cul-de-sac in a development in Rockville, Maryland, that had been built in the late fifties. It was dark when Keith parked in the driveway. He noticed that the lawn was mowed and the house looked as though it had been given a fresh coat of paint in the not too distant past. The agents walked up a narrow slate path to the front door and rang the bell. There was no answer. Keith rang again, then knocked and called Cooper’s name. When there was still no answer, Maggie walked around back while Keith tried to see around the curtains that had been lowered to cover the picture window that looked out on the lawn. The living room was dark, but Keith made out a pale glow that he took for lights that were on in some other part of the house.

  Maggie returned to the front yard. “The side door opens into the kitchen. It isn’t locked. What do you think?”

  “I don’t like this.”

  “Let’s have a look.”

  Keith followed Maggie around the side of the house. They drew their guns, and Maggie eased the door open. They were immediately hit by the nauseating smell that hung over every scene of violent death they had ever entered.

  “Mr. Cooper,” Maggie called, not expecting an answer.

  Keith nodded and the agents crept into the kitchen. The lights were on, and there were pots soaking in the sink and half a loaf of bread and a knife with a serrated blade on a cutting board.

  Keith and Maggie entered the dining room cautiously. They saw half-finished meals at place settings where two chairs had toppled over when their occupants leaped up from them. Neither the man nor the woman had made it very far. Mr. Cooper had been shot in the head and had toppled to the floor. A woman who Keith assumed was Mrs. Cooper had made it halfway to the living room when a shot to the back had brought her down and a second shot to the back of the head had finished her off.

  Maggie knelt beside Mr. Cooper and studied the entry hole in the center of his forehead.

  “One shot, dead center. That’s not easy,” she said.

  “Tying up loose ends,” Keith said wearily as he took out his cell phone and dialed Harold Johnson’s number.

  “The bombers didn’t do this,” Maggie said as soon as Keith finished the call.

  “Their handler, the guy who told Cooper to place Bashar and the others?”

  “That’s a good guess.”

  “Let’s check Cooper’s bank records to see if he deposited a large sum of money recently.”

  “He could have been a dupe. I mean, Bashar and the others were probably smuggled in, so they couldn’t have gotten jobs legally. Cooper might have thought he was getting a group of illegals jobs without knowing what they were planning to do.”

  Keith looked at Cooper’s corpse. “We may never know the answer to that one.”

  Chapter Thirty

  One of Imran Afridi’s companies owned a home on the beach in Southern California. Another owned a palazzo near Lake Como in Italy and an apartment in Tokyo. But Afridi had watched the Redskins play the Giants on a big-screen television in the den of his mansion in northern Virginia because he wanted to be close to the terror and chaos that would follow the demolition of FedEx Field.

  Afridi knew that the networks used many cameras during a football game so they could film the action from many angles. He hoped some of them would still be filming as FedEx Field crumbled to dust beneath the feet of the infidels. Lying naked between silk sheets in his bedroom was a fifteen-year-old girl who had been provided to him by a Russian who specialized in such things. Afridi planned to ravish her as soon as the full extent of the devastation at the football stadium was clear. Violent sex was his preferred way to release tension.

  Afridi waited with a combination of elation and nerves as the game clock counted down the minutes. He tensed when the scoreboard clock showed seven and a half minutes left in the first quarter. He leaned forward expectantly when the clock showed 7:00. Then nothing happened, and the clock ticked down to 6:59.

  One of the announcers commented on disturbances in several sections in the stands. Another commentator said that it looked as though some of the vendors were being arrested. Then Washington’s tight end caught a pass in the end zone, and the incidents in the stands were forgotten by everyone except Imran Afridi.

  Afridi waited five minutes more, to see if the ambulances would explode, before grabbing a disposable cell phone and calling Steve Reynolds.

  “We will meet in one hour! You know the place,” Afridi shouted into the phone before disconnecting and repeatedly slamming the phone against his coffee table until it was smashed to pieces. Then he stormed upstairs to visit his fury on the naked girl who was bound and gagged in his bedroom.

  Half an hour later, Imran stuffed a bonus into the purse of the severely battered girl and had his driver take her to a private clinic that had dealt with the objects of his sexual attentions in the past. He was calm now that his needs had been satisfied, and he was able to think clearly about the debacle at the football stadium. There had to be a traitor, but who was it?

  The Chesapeake and Ohio Company was chartered in 1825 to construct a canal connecting tidewater on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., with the headwaters of the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania. The canal would open a trade route for ships between the eastern seaboard and the trans-Allegheny West. The endeavor did not go smoothly, and the canal was not completed until 1850. In 1938, the 185-mile-long C&O Canal was sold to the United States government, and the C&O Canal National Historical Park was established by Congress in 1971.

  Afridi parked in Georgetown and followed a walking path alongside the canal until he arrived at a stone bridge that crossed it. He was wearing jeans, running shoes, and a hooded sweatshirt that hung over a black Glock. A sheath holding a hunting knife was attached to his belt on the side opposite the holstered gun. Afridi was no stranger to violence and had used the knife and the gun on different occasions.

  Five minutes after Afridi settled into the shadows beneath the bridge, Steve Reynolds materialized out of the darkness. The American was dressed in black. The bill of his baseball cap left his face in shadow. Afridi was certain that Reynolds had been hiding, watching him, when he arrived.

  “This isn’t smart,” Reynolds said. “The last thing we want is to be seen together.”

  “Don’t tell me what is smart. Tell me what happened,” Afridi demanded. “I have been planning this . . . this event for years. Everything was in place. Why is that stadium still standing?”

  “The detonators failed.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I tried to detonate the explosives in the ambulances. Nothing happened, and I never heard any explosions in the stands, just the normal noise you hear during a game. When I was certain that the plan had failed, I drove to the safe house to sanitize it. When I was through, I set charges using the detonators we bought. They didn’t explode, so I torched the house. Then I took a close look at one of the detonators. It was defective.”

  Afridi looked furious. “You told me your seller was reliable.”

  “He’s an arms dealer, Imran, a criminal. I checked him out the best I could. Everyone I talked to said he wasn’t law enforcement, but he could also have been FBI or CIA or ATF. Anyone can be bought or scared into cooperating.”

  “And if he did not betray us?”

  “Ali Bashar is the only member of the cell with the skill to sabotage the detonators. He was trained to use explosives in the camp, and he’s smart.”

  “Why would he betray us?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Afridi thought
for a minute. Then he looked directly at Reynolds. “Did you test the detonators before you bought them?”

  Reynolds glared back, and Afridi saw the American’s hand drift toward his side. “Are you accusing me of something, Imran? Let’s get this shit into the open.”

  “Did you test the detonators?” Afridi repeated. His voice was steady and his tone was as cold as ice.

  Reynolds started to answer Imran angrily, but he stopped and his brow furrowed.

  “Ali tested a stick of dynamite and a detonator, and they worked. The box with the detonators and the box with the dynamite were open. While we got the money out of the van, the seller had his men go into a barn where the rest of the explosives were being kept. They also brought the open boxes into the barn to reseal them. A switch could have been made while the boxes were out of sight.”

  “You idiot,” Afridi snapped.

  “Calling me names isn’t going to solve anything, Imran. And if you calm down, you’ll see that we have a bigger problem. It’s the reason I think this meeting is a mistake. I’m going to find the man who sold us the detonators, and you can be certain that he’ll tell me if he’s responsible for this clusterfuck by the time I’m finished with him. But whether it’s him or Ali or someone else behind the switch, one thing is obvious. Someone got to the seller or Ali, and that person knew what we planned to do, where we planned to do it, and when. And they may know that you and I are involved in this, which could mean we’re under surveillance. So we should not meet or communicate unless it’s absolutely necessary. And we should both try to figure out who the mole is in this operation.”

  “Do you think Ali Bashar is in custody?”

  “I’d bet on it,” Reynolds said.

  “Can he tell the FBI about you?”

  “Yeah, but he’d have no idea where I live or who I am. He just knows me as Steve.”

  Afridi was quiet. The men could hear the water flowing softly beside them.

  “You’re right. We should have no further contact unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  Reynolds nodded. Then he folded into the darkness and disappeared.