Twenty

by James Grippando

  It was actually chillier as she stepped into the city than when she’d left her apartment. A fast-moving cold front was injecting a taste of winter into the middle of autumn. She buttoned her coat and forged ahead three blocks, fighting the wind all the way to her meeting at the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Ned Griffin, chief of Operations Branch I in the Counterterrorism Division of the FBI’s National Security Branch, was waiting for her in a secured and windowless conference room in the building’s basement.

  “Nice hair,” he said as she entered.

  The cold wind had taken a toll, and the situation was pretty much hopeless.

  “Nice gut,” she said, referencing the extra ten pounds hanging over his belt.

  As one of the top prosecutors in the DOJ’s National Security Division, Sylvia had a close enough relationship with Griffin to allow for good-natured kidding. A little humor was good for the soul in this line of work. Operations Branch I was devoted entirely to al-Qaeda, and Griffin was a walking encyclopedia on the organization.

  Griffin adjusted the audio on the LCD screen on the wall. Agent Carter was joining them by videoconference from the Miami field office. Carter had an image of sunny South Beach displayed on the green screen behind him. Agents who transferred from Washington to Miami or Los Angeles always seemed to do that for videoconferences, bragging about their balmy new location, until they caught on to the fact that no one at headquarters really gave a shit that they were living in the midst of palm trees and crime.

  “What you got for us, Carter?” asked Sylvia.

  “Pure gold,” he said, the on-screen movement of his lips not quite in sync with his words.

  Sylvia had drafted the court filing and coordinated with the US attorney in Miami to get the federal judge to approve electronic surveillance of the Khoury residence. Carter was responsible for monitoring and pulling out the gold nuggets of conversation between husband and wife. There was only audio, so Sylvia closed her eyes and imagined the scene as the entire exchange unfolded, from the argument in the kitchen over the footie that had arrived in the mail, to the shouting match in the living room:

  “Because I’m the only Muslim in this marriage!”

  Molly Khoury’s voice was next, a series of pleas:

  “What are you doing?”

  “Amir?”

  “You can’t burn it! That could be evidence.”

  And finally, Amir: “Not anymore.”

  The audio recording ended. Sylvia opened her eyes.

  “Well, what do think?” asked Carter.

  “It’s complicated,” said Sylvia.

  “How is this complicated?” asked Carter, incredulous. “It’s just like Amir said. The mother managed to ditch everything but the footie on the day of the shooting. It turned up somewhere, and she got a crazy idea about the real shooter sending it to her in the mail. She was probably ready to call Jack Swyteck any second. We’ve got her, and now we’ve got her husband for destroying evidence.”

  “The point is not to build a case for accessory after the fact,” said Sylvia. “We want the accomplice on the front end.”

  “I understand,” said Carter. “We bring in mom and dad for questioning. We play the audio, and then I squeeze the shit out of them until they tell us who their son’s accomplice was.”

  “Assuming they know the name of the accomplice,” said Sylvia.

  Carter scoffed. “Is there anyone on this videoconference who doesn’t think one of them knows? Get real, Gonzalez. Amir Khoury has to know.”

  “No, he doesn’t have to,” she said. “You’ve been eavesdropping since the search team executed the warrant and planted the devices. Almost a month.”

  “Twenty-six days,” said Carter.

  “And not a word has been spoken in that house to suggest that either one of them knew anything about the shooting before it happened. This audio doesn’t change that. If anything, it makes it sound even more like the parents didn’t know.”

  Griffin seemed eager to get to a decision. “What are you recommending, Sylvia?”

  “We can do one of two things,” she said. “We can pull the trigger now, like Carter recommends, and bring them down for questioning. Or we can let this play out and see if we hear what we really want to hear.”

  “I vote we haul them in now,” said Carter. “If they know who helped their son, I’ll get it out of them.”

  “Carter’s interrogation skills are second to none,” said Griffin.

  Sylvia was well aware. Although his multiple tours in Iraq as a US Special Forces adviser to Iraq’s Counter Terrorism Service had come to an abrupt end, the bureau had given him a second chance as a legal attaché in the US embassy in Baghdad. The official duty of a “legat” was to serve as a liaison between the FBI and the law enforcement agencies of other nations, but some—as Carter had—functioned as intelligence agents and more.

  “I’m not denying his talents,” said Sylvia.

  “No, you’re just chickenshit, and if we blow this opportunity, the next shooting is on you.”

  Rumor had it that Carter was once in line for Griffin’s job as section chief, but his propensity for berating and even sacrificing his colleagues to achieve his objectives—which Sylvia was experiencing firsthand—was the untold story behind his obvious demotion from legat in Baghdad to a mere squad member in the Miami field office.

  She kept things professional. “Bringing in the Khourys for questioning now is a risky proposition. At the end of the day, we could be left with nothing but a mother who made a really bad decision after the shooting, and a father who burned the evidence of her crime because he’s tired of being the Muslim scapegoat.”

  Griffin glanced at the LCD screen, as if to see if Carter had changed his view.

  “You know what I want,” Carter said to him.

  Griffin looked at the lawyer. “What do you think we should do?”

  Sylvia appreciated his respect for her opinion, but the decision was not clear-cut. “What are you hearing on the ground about a possible second shooting?”

  “I told Swyteck there’s no time to waste,” said Carter.

  “It’s good that he thinks that,” said Griffin. “But we have some room to maneuver here.”

  “Some,” said Carter. “Not a lot.”

  Sylvia’s gaze settled on the phony palm trees on the green screen behind Carter. “Let’s give the Khourys a little more rope. Smarter people have hanged themselves.”

  Griffin mulled it over for a moment, then came to his decision.

  “All right. We wait.”

  Chapter 43

  Jack was in the room for the polygraph examination, but he stood in the corner, behind his client and out of view. Xavier was seated in an old wooden chair with an inflatable rubber bladder beneath him and another tucked behind his back. A blood pressure cuff squeezed his right arm. Two fingers on his left hand were wired with electrodes. Pneumographs wrapped his chest and abdomen to measure depth and rate of respiration.

  Seated across the table was Ike Sommers, a former FBI agent who, in the estimation of many, was one of the finest private polygraph examiners in the business. He was watching his cardio-amplifier and galvanic skin monitor atop the table. The paper scroll was rolling as the needle inked out a warbling line.

  “All set,” said Ike. “Are you ready, Xavier?”

  He didn’t answer. Jack wasn’t sure his client was going to keep his promise and go through with the examination. He’d reverted to the silent treatment right after uttering the words I’ll take the polygraph.

  Ike tried again. “Xavier? Are you ready?”

  He nodded.

  “Good. Let’s get started.”

  Jack had explained the basic process to his client in advance. The examiner’s first task was to put him at ease. He started with questions that would make him feel comfortable with him as an interrogator. Do you like chocolate? Did you ever have a dog? Is your hair purple? They seemed innocuous, but with each spoken answer the examiner was monito
ring Xavier’s physiological response to establish the lower parameters of his blood pressure, respiration, and perspiration. It was almost a game of cat and mouse. The examiner needed to quiet him down, then catch him in a small lie that would serve as a baseline reading for a falsehood. The standard technique was to ask something even a truthful person might lie about.

  “Have you ever thought about sex at your mosque?”

  Xavier shifted uneasily. “No.”

  Jack didn’t need a polygraph to know he was lying about that one.

  The room was silent as the examiner focused on his readings. He appeared satisfied. The trap had worked, and now the examiner knew what it looked like on the polygraph when Xavier lied. It was clear sailing to test his truth telling on the questions that really mattered.

  “Is your name Xavier?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you like ice cream?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you a medical doctor?”

  “No.”

  “Do you own a gun?”

  “No, my dad—”

  “Just answer yes or no,” said the examiner.

  Jack couldn’t overlook the irony: his client finally started to talk, and the examiner immediately shut him down.

  “Is today Sunday?”

  “No?”

  “Have you ever climbed Mount Everest?”

  “No.”

  “Did you kill Lindsey Abrams?”

  Xavier hesitated. Maybe it was because he didn’t know who Lindsey Abrams was. Maybe there was another reason.

  “No.”

  The examiner continued. “Are you sitting down now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you a woman?”

  “No.”

  “Are you the Riverside School shooter?”

  “No,” he said, a little louder than his previous answers.

  “Are you deaf?”

  “What?”

  “Yes or no, please.”

  “No.”

  “Are you fluent in Chinese?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who the Riverside shooter is?”

  “No.”

  “Are you glad this test is over?”

  Jack suspected that the last question was Ike’s standing joke, a little levity intended to elicit a cathartic smile from the subject. He got nothing from Xavier. He turned off the machine and looked at Jack.

  “You want to talk outside?” he asked.

  Jack called for the guard, who unlocked the door from the outside, and the two men stepped into the hallway.

  “Any initial impressions?” asked Jack.

  “I’m a polygraph examiner, not a mind reader,” said Ike. “I need to study the data.”

  “How soon can I have the results?”

  Ike checked his watch. “Give me a couple hours.”

  “Sounds good,” said Jack. “Call my cell.”

  Andie left Abe Beckham’s office in the Graham Building with her suspicions confirmed.

  Her visit had not been on Jack’s behalf. She’d gone on her own account, as an FBI agent facing disciplinary review for her behavior during the Riverside school shooting. She had only one question for the prosecutor.

  “Is the state of Florida on board with no death penalty if Xavier Khoury gives up his accomplice to the FBI?”

  Beckham’s response had come as no surprise. “Absolutely not. And I told Sylvia Gonzalez exactly that.”

  Ever since Jack had called and told her about his meeting with Duncan Fitz, Andie had been wrestling with the question it had raised: Who in the federal government would ask Fitz to lodge a disciplinary complaint against her? At first, she’d dismissed Fitz’s claim as more hot air from a pompous old lawyer who was skilled in the ways of casting confusion to his adversaries. Her meeting with Beckham, however, had vaulted one suspect to the top of the list.

  Andie drove straight to the field office, brought her ASAC fully up to speed, and laid her theory on the table.

  “I think it was Carter,” said Andie.

  It nearly knocked Schwartz out of his desk chair. “Whoa.”

  “I know it’s a serious accusation, but it adds up.”

  “How?”

  “Jack and I don’t discuss much about his cases, but he told me about his meeting with Carter outside the detention center. Clearly the pressure is being put on Jack to get his client to name his accomplice.”

  “As it should be.”

  “Yes, but not at my expense.”

  “You lost me there,” said Schwartz. “How is this at your expense?”

  “The original deal was that if Jack’s client names his accomplice, he avoids the death penalty.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Me, too. But it only works if the State Attorney’s Office is on board. They’re not. I just talked to Beckham this morning. The death penalty is nonnegotiable for him. Sylvia Gonzalez knows that—which means Carter knows it, too.”

  “I still don’t see what that has to do with you, Andie.”

  She chose her words carefully, not wanting to sound paranoid. But she was certain she was right. “There’s no leverage on Jack if Beckham won’t give up the death penalty. Carter and Gonzalez need a new pressure point to make Jack play ball.”

  Schwartz took a deep breath, seeming to sense where Andie was going with this. “You’re saying Carter pushed Fitz to lodge the complaint against you.”

  “Yes. I think it’s Carter’s ace in the hole. He’s of the badly mistaken view that Jack will give him whatever he wants—betray his own client, if need be—if Carter promises to make my troubles go away.”

  “Did Jack tell you that Carter put that quid pro quo on the table?”

  “No.”

  “So this is just a theory of yours?”

  “It’s not just a theory,” said Andie. “Carter has a history of throwing colleagues under the bus to get his way. That’s why he’s a squad member on the Miami Joint Task Force instead of the Special Agent in Charge of the Washington, DC, field office.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The man is grossly overqualified for his current position. Agents talk.”

  Schwartz leaned back in his chair, eyes cast toward the ceiling, thinking.

  “I don’t hear you saying I’m wrong,” said Andie.

  He lowered his gaze, looking straight at Andie. “His undoing was actually the Office of Security Cooperation–Iraq, part of the US embassy in Baghdad. The Iraqi government passed a law that said the Counter Terrorism Service couldn’t hit a target without a legal warrant issued by a judge from the Central Criminal Court of Iraq who was independent from CTS. Carter didn’t think that was such a good law.”

  Andie was surprised by the revelation—surprised that Schwartz had shared it, not that Carter had broken the law of a host country.

  “But I do know this,” said Schwartz. “Not everyone agreed with his demotion, and he still has friends in high places.”

  “He’s using me,” said Andie. “I’m an expendable pawn in his big plan to crack the big terrorist plot that will get him back in Washington.”

  Still no denial from Schwartz, but Andie felt an appeal to reason coming.

  “Andie, this complaint against you from Duncan Fitz is bullshit. It won’t amount to a hill of beans. Don’t take on Agent Carter.”

  “Really? You want me to stand by and get steamrolled by a disciplinary review?”

  “You won’t get steamrolled. This complaint against you won’t go anywhere. Let it play out, and the disciplinary review committee will see that there was absolutely nothing wrong with your response to the shooting. You don’t have to pick a fight with Carter to clear your name.”

  “I should let it go? That’s what you’re saying?”

  “Yes,” he said, his expression very serious. “For your own good, let it go.”

  Andie rose. “Sorry, boss. Not in my DNA to let it go.”

  Chapter 44

  Jack rode wit
h Theo to Miami’s Little Havana. It wasn’t yet noon, but Theo had already scouted their lunch spot.

  “Pinolandia! Let’s do it. I could go for fritanga.”

  A fritanga was a restaurant that served a wide assortment and large quantities of home-style Nicaraguan foods, often sold by the pound. Little Havana was once known for everything Cuban, but a new wave of immigrants brought new culinary treasures. The carne asada at Pinolandia was so famous that reviewers wrote poems about it on the tables.

  If you like dominatrix, go to Pain-o-landia.

  If you like crap jokes, go to Pun-o-landia.

  If you love Nic BBQ, go to Pinolandia!

  “Work first,” said Jack. “Then lunch.”

  Miami Senior High School’s official address was on First Street, but its grand entrance, hailed upon its opening in 1928 as “befitting of a Gothic Cathedral,” was on Flagler Street, Miami’s east-west equivalent of “Main Street.” The main structure had suffered from years of neglect, but a major twenty-first-century renovation had restored much of the Mediterranean-style architectural glory. The first graduates were the children of Miami’s pioneers, all white. By 1984, the student-run newspaper had declared “Spanglish” the official school language. And in another three decades, the student body of nearly three thousand was 93 percent Hispanic, mostly Cuban, Honduran, Guatemalan, and Salvadoran.

  “Did you know this is where my dad went to high school?” asked Jack, as they pulled into the parking lot.

  Former governor Harry Swyteck was one of many famous alumni, including I Love Lucy actor Desi Arnaz, an all-star lineup of professional athletes, and the CEO of Apple Computer, Gil Amelio, who was replaced by Steve Jobs after an anonymous party—who turned out to be Jobs—sent the company into free fall by selling off 1.5 million shares of Apple stock in a single day.