by Rick Mofina
“Varner.”
“What the hell is going on with the car in Queens? I thought we had a deal!”
The line crackled in the silence.
“Come on, Varner. I sat on a lead for you, but I’m not going to do it much longer.”
“We found his car.”
“Yeah, no kidding! Everybody knows that now. So what else? Did you find Fulton?”
“There’s not much more I can tell you.”
“Come on, the whole country’s seeing this live. Did you find him? Or the money? A note? A bomb? Anything?”
“Listen to me, I can’t jeopardize the case and give you information that will aid the suspects.”
“Given what’s already gone public, I think they know you’re on to them. Did you find Fulton?”
“No, but...” Varner seemed hesitant to continue but eventually added, “We’re looking for a second car.”
“So they dumped his at the mall and switched?” Kate asked, reading the news ticker that ran across the bottom of the TV screen as it showed Dan Fulton’s blue Taurus surrounded by police tape and a gathering crowd.
“It appears that way. We’ll put out details on the second car shortly.”
“Can you tell me now? I need something to report here, Varner—and it’s either this or the details about Lori’s past. We had a deal.”
Varner sighed. “It’s a 2014 green Chevy Impala with New York plates, registered out of Alexandria Bay.”
“Anything else?”
“It was stolen from the airport lot in Ogdensburg. That’s all I can give you for now.”
41
New York Thruway
Not long after Dan Fulton had stopped at Weldon’s Gas and Grocery, the little station was overrun.
A big yellow Blue Bird school bus carrying “The Fighting Wildcats,” a New Jersey high school football team, had stopped to refuel, emptying close to forty players and coaching staff into the store.
Boisterous teenage boys formed a long, winding line to the restroom. Given that no girls were present, Roy Weldon, the proprietor, told them to use the women’s room, too, prompting shoving and teasing.
“You have to do it sitting down, DeFoozie!”
“That line’s for wusses and wimps!”
“This line’s for men! Get your candy ass over there, Wilson!”
Roy didn’t mind the chaos because of the business it brought. The players grabbed sodas, chips, snack cakes, candy bars, gum, magazines, juices, milk and cookies. With the gas for the bus, Roy did a couple of hundred dollars’ worth of business in less than half an hour.
But there was a price to pay.
In the calm that followed the departure of the Wildcats, Roy shook open a big orange plastic garbage bag, got his cleaning bucket holding his brushes, cloths and bottle of cleaner, tugged on rubber gloves and waded into the aftermath.
He was a stickler for cleanliness. Ever since his days as a hotel manager in Boston he had a thing about spotless bathrooms. It was a dirty job but Roy insisted his operation be a clean one at all times.
He started with the women’s room, bracing for the worst and was pleasantly surprised.
Some water had been splashed on the mirror over the sink, the trash can overflowed with damp, crumpled napkins. A few sheets of toilet tissue covered the floor in the women’s stall.
Not too bad.
He tidied up, emptied the trash into the plastic bag, opened the window and moved on to the men’s room.
He nearly slipped and fell when he entered.
As he’d expected, the floor was soaked—likely from a water fight. Crumpled napkins were strewn everywhere, torn shards of toilet paper were dissolving on the floor of the stall. Cleaning this mess would take a bit longer. Roy got his mop and broom and set to work establishing order.
He stopped when he saw what else the boys had done.
Fresh, dark graffiti shouted at him from the stall wall next to the urinal. What foul thing was it this time? He drew his face up to the scrawl.
“DAN FULTON GREEN IMPALA HH47H490 CALL POLICE!”
Roy drew back, shaking his head.
Kids.
Still shaking his head, he ran his damp cloth over it. It was just as he thought. They’d used a permanent felt-tip pen.
Roy read it again. He’d have to repaint the wall to cover it up, but he was pretty sure he had some extra paint in the storage room.
He froze when he got to the door.
Wait. Just hold everything for one damned minute.
Something about the message made him turn around once again.
Dan Fulton.
That’s the guy in the news!
42
Los Angeles, California
Everyone Is Welcome.
The sun-faded sign rattled above the doors of the mission in downtown LA. Old men, women, teenage boys and young mothers with children were leaving the building after the last meal.
Inside, twenty long tables topped with vinyl tablecloths filled the dining hall. The rules were written on laminated pages and displayed everywhere: All meals are to be eaten in this room. No swearing, no fighting, no drugs, no booze, no weapons. We offer food, love and respect.
The walls were papered with optimism in the form of children’s art, finger-paintings and crayon-colored presentations of flowers, rainbows and happy people. They were clustered around passages of Scripture, some of the pages fluttering in the wake of two FBI agents who’d rushed passed them.
They’d pinpointed their subject to this location.
He was a retired accountant who’d volunteered seven days a week at the mission. When the agents found him, he was wiping tables.
“Ted Irwin?”
The man glanced at the IDs the agents held up.
“Yes.”
“Bill Kendrick and Wade Darden, FBI. We’d like to talk to you about your nephew Jerricko Titus Blaine. It’s urgent.”
Sadness washed across Irwin’s face and he took them to a private corner table where he wiped his hands with a dish towel.
“I expected this when I saw the news report earlier today, only not this fast. It’s been weighing on my mind. In fact, I was going to call police when I finished up here, but I—”
“Mr. Irwin, do you know your nephew’s whereabouts?” Kendrick asked.
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“What about an address, phone number, an email?”
“No.”
“You understand that lying or holding back information could be construed as obstruction of justice, sir?”
“I’m telling you, I have no idea where he is. I haven’t seen him in years—not until I noticed his face and name flashing on the news about those hostages in New York. It’s terrible,” the man said. “Just like it was with his older brother.”
“When exactly was the last time you had contact with Jerricko?”
“Oh, ages ago. Years. We just lost touch with Naz and the boys after Andrew died.”
“Who’s Naz?”
“Nazihah. Andrew’s wife and Jerricko’s mother. We all called her Naz.”
“Do you know where can we locate her?”
“I believe she’s in Afghanistan, last I heard. She went back a long time ago.”
Kendrick and Wade exchanged quick glances before Kendrick continued.
“Tell us what you can about the family’s history.”
“My wife, Michelle, and her older brother, Andrew, were true Good Samaritans who wanted to make this world better. Years ago, Andrew took a leave of absence from his job as an electrical engineer and volunteered with a church group as an aid worker in Afghanistan.”
“What were Andrew Blaine’s politics?”<
br />
“He had none, really. He just wanted to help people. He was working in a volatile area of Kandahar. I think it was Zhari, where he’d met Naz. She was born in the region. She was an aid worker, too, a teacher, and quite striking. They fell in love, and he brought her home to Los Angeles. They got married, she became a citizen, and they had two boys, Malcolm and Jerricko.”
“Were you and your wife close to them?”
“We were at that time, yes. They seemed to be a happy family. We had no children of our own and we thought the world of the boys. Then Andrew told Michelle that, even after several years, Naz was not settling in. I guess she was having a hard time adjusting to life in America.”
“In what way?”
“Just with accepting American behavior, attitudes, values, that sort of thing. Naz had an ultraconservative religious upbringing—it’s very different from life in the States. She couldn’t adapt—didn’t want to. She wanted to return to Afghanistan with her sons. Andrew didn’t want to leave the US, but she kept insisting that she couldn’t raise the boys properly as long as they stayed here.”
“What happened?”
“It was around then, when she became determined to move back, that Andrew was killed in a traffic accident on the Hollywood Freeway. It was horrible. A tanker truck jackknifed and exploded. They said Andrew died instantly.” Irwin paused, staring at nothing, lost in a memory. After a few moments, he continued. “That really hit us hard. By this time, the boys were older and Malcolm began running with gangs, just as his mother had feared. He got into trouble so often, and eventually he was convicted of a robbery and sent to prison in Tehachapi.”
“Was his mother still in the country at that time?”
“Yes, she and Jerricko would visit Malcolm in prison. Michelle still kept in touch, then. She worried about them all and talked often on the phone with Naz.”
Kendrick glanced at the clock on the wall. Time was ticking by, but he didn’t want to rush this man as he opened up.
“Prison had hardened Malcolm, changed him. He came out a cold, embittered man. He took his mom’s name, calling himself Malcolm Jordan Samadyh. He seemed...disdainful of his American heritage and he continued with his criminal ways until—” Ted paused again, shaking his head. “He was killed during a robbery in Santa Ana.”
“What happened to his family after that?”
“Naz was devastated, out of her mind with grief. During one call with Michelle, Naz blamed America for the deaths of her husband and son. She really believed everything would have been different if they’d gone back to Afghanistan when she’d asked.”
“Malcolm murdered a police officer and shot a pregnant woman while robbing a convenience store. And she blamed America for his actions?” Kendrick asked.
“I know, it was her son. Naz refused to accept reality. She claimed there was some sort of conspiracy against her family, that they were being punished by the US because Andrew had helped people in Afghanistan. It wasn’t long after Malcolm’s death that she returned home.”
“What about Jerricko?”
“He idolized his big brother and was never the same after Malcolm’s death. He was lost. My wife heard that he drifted across the country doing odd jobs, but we couldn’t find a way to contact him.”
“He didn’t go to Afghanistan with his mother?”
“Not initially, but we’d heard that he did a few years later—stayed a few years and then returned to America a very angry young man.”
“Who told you this?”
“My wife. She’d tried so hard to stay in touch with Naz after she’d left. They both had something important in common—they loved Andrew. And Michelle felt like she owed it to her brother to keep Naz close, to remember they were family, despite everything else.”
“We’ll need to talk with your wife,” Kendrick said.
Ted stared hard at them, something dark and painful behind his eyes.
“Michelle died a year ago. Heart failure. That’s why I’m down here doing what I do. It’s what she would’ve wanted.”
“I’m sorry about your loss, Ted,” Kendrick said. “I’m sure you’ll understand, we’ll need contact information of everyone in the family. Can you provide it to us as soon as possible?”
“Yes, anything to help. There’s only a few people—a cousin in New York, one in Texas.” Irwin reached for his cell phone, shaking his head while scrolling through contacts. “It’s a sad irony, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“Andrew went to Afghanistan to help people in need, a wonderful legacy. But that legacy also includes a son who killed a police officer, another involved in a terrible robbery and hostage situation, and their mother, who blames America for it all.”
43
Deer Kill River, New York
“What the f— Watch where you’re going, jerk!”
Bruce Grover battled to control his Jeep Wrangler after a white SUV barreling around a blind turn had forced him off the dirt road.
The Jeep bucked, gravel peppered the undercarriage and broiling dust clouds swirled as Grover slid to a stop on the shoulder. His blood thumping, he looked hard in his rearview mirror until the clouds dissipated and the SUV was long gone.
Where did that idiot come from? Nobody ever uses this road.
He let out a long breath, shoving the incident out of his mind and his Jeep into gear, as he continued. Although wary, he strained to reclaim the serenity he had been enjoying before his encounter with stupidity.
After all, this was his vacation, his first real break in two years since he took over as editor-in-chief of the Weekly Highlands Sun-Bulletin.
Running a small paper had taken over his life. It meant that every complaint like, “My paper was left in the rain again, I’m going to cancel.”
“Your website sucks. It freezes my computer.”
“You’re obviously on the payroll of corporations.”
“Why are you covering up what’s really going on at that military base?”
“I want you to write about my neighbor’s barking dog”—came to him 24/7.
Still, Bruce loved it because he was also part owner of a paper that, surprisingly, even in these dismal times for the industry, was turning a profit. And he loved it because he was a news junkie who craved panning every call for the gold that would lead to a real story.
He’d gotten that from sixteen years as a reporter, then editor, at the New York Post. His appetite for news was impossible to satisfy. It’s why the whole time he was on the Thruway he’d followed radio news reports of that bank robbery in Queens.
Manager takes a quarter million from his own bank. Bombs strapped to him and his own family, and maybe a mob tie? It’s one helluva story. Wish I was on it.
But he’d made a promise to his wife when he’d kissed her goodbye this morning—he would turn off the news, forget about the business and go fishing. It was just what the doctor ordered, and she never failed to remind him of that.
“Don’t forget what the doctor said about your blood pressure, Bruce.”
So he’d shut off the radio when he’d left the freeway and took in the scenery instead, embracing memories of the “Nick Adams, Big Two-Hearted River” period of his life when he’d come up here alone to fish. Over the years he’d still driven through the area to keep a vigil on all the secret places he knew.
Like this one.
The jagged rock formation jutted from the forest up ahead.
The dense growth hid the entrance he knew was there and he slowly guided his Jeep on to the rugged path. As he tottered along the earthen trail, branches smacked and scraped at the Wrangler, as if he was driving through a woodland car wash.
Bruce loved how the light had dimmed, slivers of sunshine piercing the forest canopy in brilliant shafts as if through t
he stained-glass windows of a great cathedral.
His fishing tackle and camping gear rattled in the back. The Deer Kill River was a mile ahead. It was one of the best regions in the country for brook and brown trout and this long-forgotten logger’s trail led to pockets of deep pools and frigid springs that were heaven for fly-fishing.
Then Bruce’s reverie was suddenly interrupted by a flash of chrome.
So much for my undiscovered trail, he thought with disappointment.
As he reached a clearing he saw the trespasser’s car. A little ticked, though admittedly selfish, Grover stopped beside it to make an assessment of the interloper. No one else was around, but the green Chevy had a New York plate.
Hope I don’t see you upstream.
Bruce tightened his grip on the gearshift to move on when a twinge of concern stopped him. From his vantage on the car’s right side, he noticed something odd.
The keys were still in the ignition.
Who does that?
He looked around again. No one in sight.
Hold on. That’s a green Chevy Impala—a late model green Chevy Impala! Damn, that’s—that could be the one from the robbery!
He seized his phone and took several pictures. Checking his bars, he saw cell phone service here was spotty.
Sorry, honey, he thought, knowing his relaxing fishing weekend just got canceled.
The Wrangler’s motor roared as he wheeled back down the pathway to the road and the New York Thruway where he could call police.
44
McLean, Virginia
The National Counterterrorism Center, one of the country’s most vital security facilities, was located at the edge of Washington, DC.
The fortified glass and stone complex rose several stories in a hilly wooded Virginia suburb northwest of the capital. In this building, analysts and agents from government branches such as the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency used the most sophisticated intelligence gathering systems in the world to analyze threats to national security.
The point of control was the Operations Center, a cavernous room whose far wall was dominated by huge screens listing known terror threats and incidents. All were coded by priority and analysis. Other large screens displayed every major US news network and those in countries around the globe.
