Twenty

by James Grippando

  “The more important question is, did Maritza Cruz go here,” said Theo.

  At Jack’s first meeting with Maritza at San Lazaro’s Café, Maritza had told him that she was a graduate not of Fancy-Pants Day School, as she’d called it, but of Miami Senior High. Over the years, Theo had coached a number of boys from Miami High on his travel basketball team, and he knew the school’s principal. She’d agreed to a meeting for eleven a.m. Elena Cantos took them back to her office, and after a few minutes of banter about the top ballers in the school, they got around to the purpose of the meeting.

  “I remember Maritza,” said Cantos. “Such a sweet girl.”

  With all the lies he’d gotten from Maritza, Jack tried not to show too much surprise. “You do remember her?”

  “Yes.” Cantos swiveled in her chair and ran her index finger across the spines of “MiaHi” yearbooks on the bookshelf behind her before pulling one that was five or six years old, guessing from its position on the shelf. She cracked it open and flipped through the pages, a nostalgic smile creasing her lips as she came to the right class portrait.

  “This is her,” said Cantos, and she handed Jack the open yearbook.

  The student body was so large that headshots were about the size of a postage stamp. Jack examined this one closely. It looked a little like the Maritza he knew, but he wasn’t sure.

  “How old is she in this photograph?”

  “Fourteen or fifteen. She was a freshman.”

  “Do you have any pictures of her as an upperclassman?”

  The question seemed to strike her as strange. “Well, no. Of course not.”

  Jack didn’t understand. “Sorry, am I missing something?”

  “Maritza was with us only one year. She was killed by a drunk driver the summer before her sophomore year.”

  Jack caught his breath. “I wasn’t aware. So sorry to hear that. Are her parents still in Miami?”

  “No. Her father never left El Salvador. Her mother was devastated after the accident. Last I heard, she moved back. I could look up the names of her teachers, if that would help.”

  Jack was about to accept the offer, then reconsidered. The phony Maritza Cruz was using the name of a deceased teenager who vaguely resembled her. Talking to the real Maritza’s teachers, parents, or friends five years after her death seemed pointless.

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Jack. “Thank you for your time.”

  Cantos walked them across the administrative suite to the exit. Theo reminded her that there was still room on his travel team and asked that she put in a good word with Jose Ramos, a six-foot-eight power forward on the Stingarees’ varsity basketball team.

  “He’s another Udonis Haslem,” said Theo. “Just sayin’.”

  Haslem played his entire NBA career with the Miami Heat, the local kid made good who’d grown up eating as many fish sticks as he could finagle for lunch at Miami Senior High and maybe a red box of raisins for dinner at home. Jack listened and enjoyed it as Theo recounted a half dozen Haslem highlights on the walk back to the car.

  Jack’s cell phone rang as he climbed into the front seat and got behind the wheel. The results of Xavier’s polygraph examination were in. Jack put Ike Sommers on speaker as he backed his car out of the space.

  “How’d he do?” asked Jack.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have great news,” said Ike.

  Jack stopped the car. “He failed?”

  “No. But he didn’t pass, either. The results are inconclusive.”

  “Does that mean he was lying or being truthful?” asked Jack.

  “Neither. It means the results are useless.”

  Jack put the car in gear and continued out of the lot toward Flagler Street. Ike went on for another minute or so explaining the possible reasons for the inconclusive results. Maybe the questions weren’t quite right. Maybe Jack’s presence in the room, albeit out of sight, had made his client nervous.

  “I can do a second test, if you like,” said Ike.

  Another thousand bucks. “I’ll get back to you on that,” said Jack, and the call ended.

  “Sounds like that was a waste,” said Theo.

  “Not really,” said Jack. “I don’t believe in polygraphs. I’ve seen too many liars pass and too many truth tellers fail.”

  “White man’s logic. Not even gonna try to understand that one.”

  “It’s actually pretty basic. I believe someone’s willingness to take the test is more reliable than the results of the test itself.”

  “Okay, I get it. So the fact that Xavier was willing to take a lie detector tells you he was telling the truth?”

  “Not conclusively. But it says more than the test results. On the other hand, back when I first met her, I asked Maritza to sit for a polygraph examination. She freaked out and started screaming at me because I wouldn’t take her at her word.”

  “What does that tell you?”

  Jack stopped at the traffic light. “It tells me we shouldn’t be surprised to hear that the real Maritza Cruz is dead.”

  Chapter 45

  Maritza moved into a furnished efficiency apartment on Tuesday. She’d snagged a bargain on a daily rental in Hollywood through the end of the month. She was by far the youngest tenant in the complex, probably the only one born after Nixon was president, which was a good thing, as people would leave her alone. The rent would triple on November 1, the official transition from hurricane season to snowbird season, but she never stayed anywhere more than two weeks. Her job application was in the manager’s hands at five different coffee shops, and surely one of them would bite. She just hoped they didn’t call until the afternoon. That morning she would be away from her phone. Abdul had given her strict orders: no electronics on this trip. She left her cell phone on the kitchen counter and headed out.

  She was driving to Palm Beach County but nowhere near the millionaires and mansions on the famous island off the coast. Abdul’s directions took her west to the farmlands near Lake Okeechobee. Belle Glade was a city of fewer than twenty thousand residents that somehow managed to land near the top of so many lists. Highest rate of HIV infection in the twentieth century. One of the highest crime rates of the twenty-first century. Highest number, per capita, of high school football players to break out and play in the NFL. Maritza had read all those things on the Internet, none of which had anything to do with her visit. This was about open space. Vacant land. A place to target shoot.

  She turned at the gravel road, exactly 1.1 miles east of the yellow building on Main Street, the one that still had the “temporary” blue tarp on the roof after a hurricane that had cut across the peninsula four years earlier, and a big sign out front that said we buy gold. She followed the road all the way to the barbed-wire fence at the end, another 1.3 miles. She stopped the car, turned off the engine—Abdul’s instructions had been that detailed—and got out. The cloud of dust rising up from the road behind her evaporated. Empty fields stretched before her in every direction. It felt like the middle of nowhere, and she might have thought she was in the wrong place, but for one thing. Just as Abdul had promised, an array of paper targets was set up and standing in the north field. They were set at various distances, some just a few feet beyond the barbed-wire fence, others a good thirty yards farther away. Each a human silhouette.

  Maritza opened the trunk. Inside was the long, rectangular plastic carry case Abdul had brought to her in the church parking lot. She opened the case, and for the first time—“Don’t open it till you get there,” he’d told her—she saw the weapon of choice.

  It was the AK-47. She recognized it immediately, though she’d not actually seen one since leaving Baghdad. Not since her last meeting with Abdul in Iraq. He’d had one just like it when he took Rusul back to see the cleric.

  “Another Mut’ah,” said Abdul.

  He was speaking to the cleric, who was seated behind his cluttered desk in an office that was barely big enough for the three of them. They were in Kadhimiya, central B
aghdad, and Rusul could hear the typical noises of the shopping arcade just outside the office door. Millions visited the holy shrine, and couples often came to get married there. The certificate from the Iraqi Ministry of Justice that authorized the cleric to perform marriage ceremonies was framed and hanging on the wall behind him.

  “For you?” asked the cleric.

  “No. A friend.”

  “Another lonely colleague at CTS?”

  Rusul was dressed as before, cloaked in a black chador, but she wondered if the dark blue niqab that covered her face below the eyes had hidden her surprise. She’d heard of the American-trained Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service, but this was the first she’d heard that Abdul was part of it.

  “No,” said Abdul, smiling. “Not from CTS. At least not directly.”

  Rusul sat in silence as the two men negotiated the “dowry” that Abdul’s friend would pay to her, less the cleric’s fee for performing the ceremony and the commission to Abdul as a finder’s fee.

  “The dowry from your friend is not enough.”

  “One hundred twenty thousand dinars is more than enough,” said Abdul. “She’s not fresh.”

  “She is still young. A beautiful girl. Your friend must pay more.”

  “He is a good friend. I treat him fair. The dowry is right.”

  The cleric lit up a cigarette. He and Abdul were locked in the stare down of seasoned negotiators. The cleric inhaled deeply, then spoke.

  “For this dowry, one hour.”

  “It’s better for the whole day. A man gets tired.”

  “Two hours,” said the cleric. “Final offer.”

  “Fine. Two hours.”

  Abdul opened his wallet, deducted his cut of the dowry, and handed the rest of the cash to the cleric. He counted it, then removed enough bills to cover his fee and locked them in the metal strongbox in his desk. He promised to deliver the rest to Rusul’s uncle after the two-hour-long pleasure marriage to Abdul’s friend ended. He could not pay the money directly to Rusul. She was, after all, “just a girl.”

  “Where is your friend?” asked the cleric.

  “He is waiting by your taxi,” said Abdul.

  The first time, for her marriage to Abdul, it had struck Rusul as strange that the cleric performed the ceremony in a taxi. But she had since come to understand. No matter what the cleric told girls about the Mut’ah as an ancient religious custom, it was illegal under Iraqi law. If caught, a cleric risked detention by one of Iraq’s feared Shia militias. Better to be in a moving vehicle than trapped in an office in the shopping arcade with no escape.

  “Come with me,” the cleric said.

  The men parted ways outside the office. Rusul went with the cleric, remaining several steps behind him as they wended their way through the crowded arcade, along the cobblestone pedestrian-only walkway. A few minutes later they reached the taxi stand on the busy boulevard. The cleric’s cab looked like any other in Baghdad, but she remembered it as “the one” from that ride she’d taken with Abdul as a fourteen-year-old girl. Even the smallest details continued to haunt her. The missing hubcap. The scratch on the right fender. The nauseating smell of tobacco that poured from the back seat as the door opened.

  “Get in,” said the cleric.

  Rusul obeyed. She watched through the windshield as a man approached the cleric on the sidewalk. Abdul hadn’t mentioned that his friend was black, and from the bits of conversation Rusul was able to gather through her open window, the cleric apparently had a problem with interracial “marriage,” even if for pleasure. The man opened his wallet, handed over more cash, and the matter was resolved. The cleric walked around to the driver’s side. The man opened the rear door on the passenger’s side. Rusul’s heart pounded.

  Just then, a black sedan pulled alongside the taxi on the driver’s side. The man she was about to “marry” reached across, opened her door, and pushed her out of the taxi. He went with her, and in one fluid motion, the passenger’s-side door to the sedan opened, the man pushed Rusul into the back seat, and he got in the sedan with her. The door slammed, and the sedan sped away.

  Rusul was certain that she was going to die.

  “Don’t be afraid,” the man said in English.

  She could barely speak, overwhelmed by fear and confusion.

  “Rest easy,” said Carter. “You’re safe with me. I’m getting you out of this hellhole.”

  Rusul caught her breath and forced out the words. “Who are you? How did you know I speak English?”

  “I knew your father.”

  “From the oil company?”

  He smiled sadly. “No, Rusul. Your daddy was one of the bravest men I’ve ever known. He didn’t work for no oil company.”

  Maritza slammed the trunk closed, slung the rifle over her shoulder, and walked to the barbed-wire fence.

  A trail of dust rose from the dirt road behind her. She watched as the approaching vehicle and the man behind the wheel came into focus. The car stopped right behind hers. The driver’s door opened. Abdul got out. He walked toward her and stopped.

  “This will be your only chance to practice,” he said in Arabic.

  “Do we have a date?”

  “Soon. I will tell you the exact date when I know it. Now, let me see how much work we have to do.”

  Rusul inserted a plug in each ear, raised her rifle, and took aim at the nearest target. One squeeze of the trigger sent a bullet straight to the bull’s-eye of target one, followed a second later by another squeeze and another hit, another squeeze, another hit, and another, and another. In less than twenty seconds it was over. Fifteen hits. She removed her earplugs.

  “Not bad,” said Abdul. “Not bad at all.”

  Chapter 46

  Tuesday night was enlightening.

  Jack had heard Andie complain about the bureau before, but it had always been the way anyone complained about a job. The boss is an idiot. So-and-so is a brownnoser. Tuesday night was unlike anything Jack had ever heard from his wife.

  “Carter is using me,” she said. “I’m a pawn.”

  They were sitting outside on their patio. The overdue turn in the weather had finally arrived, and Andie was covered with a cable-knit blanket. Jack was wearing the UF Gator fleece that he hadn’t donned since March. Andie spared no details in laying out a theory that, not too far in the distant past, might have sounded like paranoia. He wondered if Carter would be the one to broach the quid pro quo, or if he was waiting for Jack to be the one to come and say, “I’ll give the FBI the name of Xavier’s accomplice; just back away from my wife.”

  Jack was still steaming about it when he left the house on Wednesday morning. Sylvia Gonzalez was in Miami. It was the four-week anniversary of the Riverside shooting, and maybe that explained her visit, knowing how terrorists seemed to love anniversaries. Whatever the reason, Jack seized the opportunity and set up a meeting with her and Agent Carter at the US Attorney’s Office in downtown Miami. They listened, along with the US attorney, as Jack explained all that Andie had pieced together. Then he added his own twist.

  “This is more than just Agent Carter encouraging Mr. Fitz to lodge a complaint against my wife, though he certainly has a reputation for stepping on anyone and everyone if it helps him achieve his objective. I believe others are in on it,” said Jack, and he was looking at Gonzalez as he spoke. “Including you.”

  Sylvia was too cool to be defensive. She said nothing and showed no reaction at all to the accusation. Jack continued.

  “It goes back at least to the DOJ’s opposition of my motion to withdraw as counsel for Xavier Khoury. All this BS you fed the court: ‘Mr. Swyteck’s a known quantity, we can trust him, he has a security clearance going back to his defense of Gitmo detainees.’ Very smooth on your part. But let’s get real. You wanted to keep me in the case because I’m married to an FBI agent. If push came to shove, you had a pressure point on me like no other defense lawyer.”

  Jack let the accusation linger. Sylvia and Agent Carter were lo
oking straight at him. The US attorney, per usual, was checking messages on his phone.

  “You done?” asked Sylvia.

  “No. Not until I get an answer.”

  “We agreed to this meeting because we thought you were going to give us the name of your client’s accomplice. Not to hear this nonsense.”

  Jack had implied as much when he’d called to arrange the meeting, so he gave her what he had. “Who is Russell?”

  “Russell?”

  “It’s a name my client mentioned.”

  “Rusul,” said the US attorney, looking up from his smartphone.

  At once, the FBI agent and the lawyer from Washington shot him a double-barreled look that Jack read as You’re out of the club.

  “Interesting that my work at Gitmo comes back to bite you,” said Jack. “Rusul. That’s a woman’s name. Quite common in Iraq.”

  Jack got no answer, but the wheels were turning in his head, and one thing after another fell into place.

  “Maritza is Rusul, isn’t she? She’s Iraqi, not Salvadoran. And she’s using the name of a dead girl, as I’m certain you’re aware.”

  The US attorney took a shot at damage control. “Hispanics are actually the fastest-growing segment of converts to Islam. At least in South Florida.”

  Gonzalez shot him another look, this one translating roughly to Shut the hell up.

  It was almost fun to watch, this living and breathing reminder that the position of US attorney was a political appointment, a highly powerful post that was not always filled with the sharpest tool in the shed. But Jack hadn’t forgotten the reason for his visit—or his anger. He started with Carter.

  “The FBI literally stood by and did nothing when Maritza ambushed me right outside my office and threatened me with a gun inside her bag. She could have shot me, for all you cared.

  “And you,” he said, bringing Gonzalez within his crosshairs. “You’re standing by, if not helping him screw over my wife. So let me tell you something. I’ve had enough. Tell me who Rusul is, or I’m going public.”