Twenty

by James Grippando

  Andie slammed the brakes, and the front bumper nearly kissed the pavement as her car came to an abrupt halt at the police barricade.

  LeJeune Road was completely shut down, both north and south, for as far as Andie could see. Eerie was the mood on a normally busy street that was suddenly deserted, particularly at night, with the swirl of police lights coloring the neighborhood. Andie rolled down her window as the Miami-Dade police officer came toward her.

  “Agent Henning, FBI,” she said, flashing her badge.

  Schwartz had made good on his promise to alert perimeter control that she was on her way. She parked at the curb, where another traffic control cop was dealing with media vans with satellite dishes jockeying for position. Andie counted at least three helicopters whirring overhead, their bright white search lamps cutting through the clear night sky to improve the images on television.

  Schwartz came out to the barricade to get her.

  “Jack’s alive and sounds unhurt,” were his first words to her. “We snaked a microphone through the attic and heard his voice.”

  Andie was so happy she could barely speak. “What about Molly?”

  “Heard her voice, too. Also got a visual. Amir put her right in the window to make sure we knew he had a hostage. Or to keep us from shooting.”

  Amir was clearly in contention for worst husband ever.

  Schwartz led her down the block toward a fast-food restaurant. Law enforcement was setting up a command post in the parking lot. Its location was strategic—close, but not too close, to the motel—and a ready source of burgers, fries, and coffee didn’t hurt. The FBI SWAT van was parked in the drive-through lane. The tactical teams stood idle outside, drinking coffee—decaf, Andie presumed, so as not to get too stimulated. Behind the van was an ambulance at the ready, just in case. Andie hoped Jack wouldn’t be the one to need it.

  “Well, look who’s here,” said Schwartz.

  A large motor van bearing the blue, green, and black logo of the Miami-Dade Police Department rolled into the parking lot and stopped. The antennae protruding from the roof signified that it was equipped with all the necessary technical gadgets to survey the situation and make contact with the hostage taker. The rear doors to the SWAT vans flew open, and the tactical teams filed out. They were armed with M16 rifles and dressed in black SWAT regalia, including helmets, night-vision goggles, and flak jackets.

  “Wait here a sec,” said the ASAC, and he started toward the MDPD van.

  Almost immediately, Schwartz and the MDPD team leader were in a heated discussion, as if the face-to-face confrontation were a mere continuation of an argument they’d been conducting by telephone or radio. Andie was too far away to overhear, but she knew a turf war when she saw one. A helicopter whirred overhead—low enough for Andie to read the Action News logo on the side.

  “Too close!” shouted Schwartz, this time speaking in a voice that Andie and everyone else could hear. “Get them to back off—now!”

  An officer grabbed a loudspeaker from his patrol car and told the intruding chopper to mind the restricted airspace. It seemed to have no effect.

  Schwartz and the MDPD officer continued to haggle for control of the situation. A pair of tactical teams at the ready awaited instructions, doing exactly what many believed to be the true meaning of the SWAT acronym: sit, wait, and talk. Andie’s patience was at an end. The FBI’s hostage negotiation team had already set up shop in the mobile command center across the street. Andie went alone. Agent Carter stepped out as she arrived.

  “You’re on the negotiating team?” asked Andie.

  “I’m lead negotiator. I did hostage negotiation in Iraq. I speak Arabic. I know how al-Qaeda thinks.”

  “You’re saying Amir is al-Qaeda?”

  He didn’t answer her question. “I’m sorry, but you can’t come inside.”

  Andie knew that a hostage negotiation mobile command center left little room for visitors. But there was always a secondary negotiator, if only to take notes.

  “I can be secondary,” said Andie.

  “Got one,” said Carter. “It’s Jones.”

  This was not the negotiation she’d come for. “I’m going in, Carter. And no one’s going to stop me.”

  “Look, I’m not being petty or sexist or whatever you think I’m being. Last thing I need as lead negotiator is a demand from Amir Khoury to talk to Jack Swyteck’s wife.”

  “Amir doesn’t have to know I’m in the van.”

  Carter looked away, then back, for no apparent reason except that she was annoying him. “It’s just not a good idea for you to be at the nerve center of this operation. Aren’t you still under disciplinary review?”

  It was a shitty thing to say, even from a guy with Carter’s reputation for crushing out anyone like a spent cigarette if he or she didn’t fit his personal vision of the mission. Andie decided to fight friendly fire with friendly fire.

  “Awful lot of media out here,” said Andie. “You don’t want me talking to them. Not after the earful I just got on the phone from Maritza Cruz.”

  That got his attention. His gaze drifted toward the mobile command center.

  “Sounds like you’re in, Agent Henning.”

  “Good call. But first I have some questions for you. About the fingerprint on Amir’s gun.”

  “Which gun?”

  “Don’t play stupid. The one used in the school shooting.”

  “Oh,” he said. “That fingerprint.”

  “Are you going to enlighten me?”

  “Here’s the only thing I have to say to you, Henning. And this doesn’t go beyond you and me.”

  She didn’t commit herself to any of his conditions.

  Carter took a half step closer and looked her in the eye. “I’ve been working this case for almost a year, and I’ve been watching the Khoury family almost that long. If I have to lose the Riverside School shooter’s mother and his lawyer to stop the next school shooting . . .”

  He let her draw her own conclusion. It didn’t require much brainpower on Andie’s part.

  “Now, you’re welcome to come inside,” he said. “But it is what it is.”

  He turned and disappeared into the van. Andie glanced down the street toward the motel, where Jack was at the mercy of whoever this Amir really was.

  Chapter 56

  Jack’s feet were killing him. He and Molly had been walking for so long that, had they not been trapped in a motel room, they probably could have made it all the way to Key Biscayne and back.

  “Can we please sit down?” asked Molly.

  The furniture was piled to block the door and most of the front window, but motel furniture didn’t stack up with the precision of a jigsaw puzzle, so there were openings here and there—where the trash can butted up against the desk, the chair against the valet stand, and so on. The double layer of drapes and blankets should have alleviated Amir’s concerns about sniper fire through the window, but he was taking no chances. On his order, Jack and Molly had started on opposite sides of the room and were on a loop: walk toward the other wall, pass each other in the middle, continue to the other wall, turn around, and repeat.

  “Keep walking,” said Amir.

  He had the desk chair, the only place to sit in the room, other than the floor. And the floor was looking pretty good to Jack.

  “I believe this is a violation of the Geneva Convention,” Jack said with sarcasm.

  “Shut up, smart-ass. Since when does this country follow the Geneva Convention?”

  It wasn’t the response Jack had anticipated, but it offered insight as to what he was really up against. Alleged violations of the Geneva Convention had sparked numerous challenges to the treatment of al-Qaeda detainees by US interrogators.

  Amir’s cell phone rang. He checked the number. It kept ringing.

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?” asked Molly.

  “Just keep walking,” he said.

  The ringing stopped. The call had probably gone to voice mail. Ami
r’s phone rang again. Jack couldn’t be certain, but a call from a hostage negotiator would have made sense.

  “They probably want to talk,” said Jack, still walking.

  Amir silenced the ringer on his phone. “When I want to talk, I’ll call them.”

  Jack was no expert in hostage negotiation, but a hostage taker who didn’t want to talk was not a good thing.

  A ringtone pierced the silence. Amir had all three cell phones, and Jack knew that Madonna’s “Material Girl” was definitely not his ringtone.

  Amir jumped up from his chair, clearly agitated. He silenced Molly’s phone, and then silenced Jack’s.

  “Please talk to them,” said Molly, pleading.

  “Shut up!”

  Jack and Molly exchanged looks of concern as they passed each other on their endless loop. Without talk, there was no negotiation. Without negotiation, there was only one ending to this crisis. Jack had to do something. He was betting that the FBI was eavesdropping through some kind of listening device. He had to get Amir talking, if not directly to the FBI, then indirectly—through Jack.

  “If you’re hungry, you could negotiate for food,” said Jack.

  Amir didn’t say anything. The fact that the suggestion didn’t draw the usual vitriol told Jack that maybe he was on to something.

  “Just a thought,” said Jack. “No telling how long this might last.”

  Molly picked up Jack’s lead. “I’m kind of hungry.”

  “You can stand to lose a few pounds,” said Amir.

  The hostages crossed paths on their walk. Jack made eye contact, and they reached a silent agreement to let him do the talking. The mere sound of Molly’s voice was enough to set off her husband.

  “There’s a great little Cuban restaurant not far from here,” said Jack. “You could tell the FBI to leave the food outside the door. Arroz con pollo. Plantains. Maybe a little tres leches for dessert. Whatever you want.”

  Amir didn’t answer. He removed the magazine from his pistol and checked the remaining rounds. He was definitely more concerned about ammunition than food.

  “You think they’ll bring me more bullets?” he asked, clearly facetious.

  That was the one thing Jack was certain was off the negotiating table.

  Amir shoved the magazine back into the butt of his pistol. Jack hadn’t noticed before, but it was a 9 mm semiautomatic, the same type of pistol that had been used in the Riverside shooting, though probably a newer model.

  “You like the Glock?” asked Jack. “My wife swears by the Sig Sauer.”

  Amir studied his weapon, as if actually considering Jack’s question.

  “Easy to clean, she tells me. I’ve actually seen her take the whole thing apart and put it back together again in less than a minute.”

  Jack wasn’t just making small talk. Over the past four weeks, he’d spent many hours thinking about the old Glock used in the Riverside shooting. Many of those hours had been spent wracking his brain over the unidentified fingerprint—the lone print that didn’t belong to Amir or his son.

  “How easy was it to clean that old Glock you owned?” asked Jack.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Just curious,” said Jack. “You must not have cleaned it very often. Or maybe you didn’t do it right.”

  “Are you some sort of expert marksman?”

  “No. But my wife is. I’ve watched her clean a pistol. You wouldn’t find any stray fingerprints on her Sig Sauer. So, when the forensics team examined the murder weapon and found a fingerprint that didn’t belong to you or Xavier, my first thought was, didn’t they ever clean that thing?”

  Jack and Molly passed each other again. She was dragging but pushed on. Jack kept talking.

  “Then I saw where the forensics team found the print. It was actually inside the gun, under the slide, a place that would come in contact with a person’s fingers only when the gun was completely disassembled.”

  Jack stopped at the wall, turned, and started back toward the other wall.

  “So I asked myself, why would someone disassemble a gun? To clean it, obviously. Or a gun could also be easier to conceal if it’s in pieces. Anyway, my conclusion was that the unidentified print belonged to the last person to completely disassemble the gun, whatever the reason. It was on the inside, so it was never smudged or wiped away in normal handling or external cleaning.”

  “And whose fingerprint do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know. But I know this, Amir. If that fingerprint belongs to the real shooter, there’s a way out of this for you. I’ve defended clients in much deeper shit than you’re in right now. You don’t have to go down in a gunfight. Talk to them. Answer the phone and just talk.”

  A minute passed. Jack had him thinking.

  The phone rang. The FBI was definitely listening.

  Jack kept walking. The phone kept ringing. Jack tried the most reasoned voice he could muster.

  “Pick up, Amir. You have the power in this negotiation. Only you can tell them whose fingerprint is on that gun.”

  Chapter 57

  Maritza parked her car on a side street and walked toward LeJeune Road. In the neighborhoods just outside the police perimeter, MDPD officers were going house to house asking residents to stay inside for their own safety. But this was excitement, Miami-style, and onlookers were lined up three deep on the civilian side of the police barricades. Maritza wormed her way to the front and looked all the way down the street, her gaze landing on the old, half-lit sign outside the motel that proclaimed there was acancy.

  She probably shouldn’t have come, but after the phone call to Agent Henning, she found it impossible to stay away. Maritza had done most of the talking, but in each response and follow-up question, Henning’s fears and worries for her husband had come through on the phone, no matter how hard she tried sticking to the role of staid FBI agent. There was probably nothing Maritza could do to help resolve a hostage standoff, but she was curious in a way that no other onlooker was curious.

  She wondered if Abdul would show up.

  If he was there, somewhere in the crowd, Maritza was the only person who knew he alone was rooting for the hostage taker. Carter seemed blind to it. Indispensable was the word he’d used to describe Abdul in their Baghdad operations.

  Carter had been right about her. Fighting bad guys was in her blood, this daughter of an American CIA agent. Carter had been a Green Beret when he’d met Rusul’s father, and though he’d moved on to the FBI and was no longer army when he’d rescued Rusul from that fraud who called himself a cleric, Carter had even more pull at the US embassy in Baghdad as a legal attaché. He put her to work for the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service, where she was an invaluable set of eyes and ears in the mosques, in the schools, in the markets—anywhere people gathered and talked. He trusted her with the intelligence she brought him from her sources, and she trusted him to keep her out of any mission that might bring her face-to-face with Abdul. It was Carter who’d handpicked Abdul, trained him, and brought him to CTS. He had too much invested in Abdul to get rid of him, even if the man was a pig who married one fourteen-year-old virgin after another. Carter had saved her life, but if Abdul was indispensable in Carter’s eyes, she simply had to swallow that pill, no matter how bitter.

  But this was Miami, not Baghdad. They were no longer in a war zone, even if they were still “at war” against al-Qaeda. It was mind-boggling to Maritza the way Carter refused to see Abdul for the man he really was three thousand miles from the world in which he’d made himself “indispensable.”

  Agreeing to be part of Carter’s Operation Khoury without first getting the name of her handler had been Rusul’s mistake. Naming Abdul as her handler had been Carter’s betrayal.

  “I’m not asking you to do me a favor,” said Abdul. “This is Carter’s decision.”

  They were in the parking lot at San Lazaro’s Café in Little Havana. She was five weeks into the Khoury operation, working under the
name Maritza Cruz. Carter had placed her there because it was Xavier’s regular coffee shop.

  “I’ve done everything Carter asked,” she said. “I talk with Xavier almost every morning. Every time he comes in.”

  “We need to take this to the next level.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “What do you think it means?”

  She couldn’t find the words to respond. “I need to hear that from Carter himself.”

  “You know he can’t speak to you directly,” said Abdul. “He’s breaking the FBI’s rules by using you. He tried playing it by the book, but the bureau gave him three agents to choose from. The youngest was twenty-five, and not one of them could have pulled off playing a teenager. We’re playing this by Carter’s rules, and my directions to you are coming straight from Agent Carter. You owe him, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Rusul had no doubt in her mind that she would have been dead long before her nineteenth birthday had she stayed in Iraq. Still, the irony of Abdul speaking of her rescue—from men like him—was more than she could stomach.

  “What would he have me do?”

  “Carter wants his net to snare as many operatives in this country as possible. That means we have to let Amir and his son play this out to the very last step. Obviously, it’s critical that we not push this too far. We need to know when the attack is in motion so we can stop it. We can’t be left with egg on our faces and dead victims on the ground.”

  “How do I help with that?”

  “Casual chitchat with a customer at the coffee shop isn’t going to get us the information we need.”

  “You want me to ask him out? Like on a date?”

  His expression turned very serious. “We need you to do whatever is necessary.”

  The words repulsed her, especially coming from him. “I don’t believe Carter would ask me to do what I think you’re asking.”

  “You’re right. He wouldn’t. But that’s because he’s under the impression that you hated doing what you did for the cleric in Baghdad. I know differently.”

  “You don’t know anything about me, Abdul.”