The Scent of Revenge

by Russell Moran

  “With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you, won’t you say you love me too,” said the purple freak with a weird squeaky voice.

  “Hey, Rick, smile. Aren’t you happy to see Ellen enjoying herself?”

  “Nancy, let me tell you a few things about Ellen that you may not know. She has an undergraduate degree in architecture from MIT. She then went to Wharton where she got an MBA. Architectural Digest magazine picked her as Architect of the Year in 2014. She’s written two books on modern architecture, one of which was a complicated mathematical treatise. The other book is on The New York Times Best Seller List. She and I are working on a novel together, but, of course, that project is on hold. And you expect me to be happy that she enjoys watching a stupid fucking dinosaur show?”

  “Rick, I’ve learned over the years working with dementia patients that you take small victories and welcome them. Now park your ass on the chair next to her and enjoy the show, the stupid fucking dinosaur show, as you call it.”

  Chapter 37

  “Rick, it’s Buster. There’s a guy you need to meet. He’ll be here at two this afternoon.”

  “What’s he all about?”

  “All I can tell you is that he’s the most talented man I ever met when it comes to tracing money, and what goes on behind the money.”

  ***

  A guy wearing the most expensive Savile Row suit I’d ever seen walked into Buster’s office.

  “Rick, meet Trevor McMartin. Trevor’s a bank examiner from Australia. He’s been hired by our friend Angus MacPherson. Trevor’s also done a lot of work for the CIA. Angus called and suggested we get together. I’ve worked with Trevor before, and I’ve been amazed at his money tracking skills.”

  “G’day, mates. Pleasure to meet you, Rick. Long time no see, Buster (Bustah).”

  “I’ve briefed Trevor on our investigation, including the spray bottles. I’ll let him fill us in on what he’s up to.”

  “Let me start off by saying how sorry I am to hear about your wife, Rick. Angus MacPherson’s daughter, as you know, just came down with this thing you call The Syndrome as well.”

  I thanked him for his kind words.

  “The first observation I want to share with you blokes is the money involved in radical Islamist operations since the start of this whole mess on 10/15. These bastards are swimming in money, and a lot of it comes from ISIS and its oil revenues. They also take in a lot of income by selling the American assets they’ve stolen in Iraq. Except for the occasional train or building bombings, some of their operations are expensive to pull off. Many of the jobs require a lot of men and a lot of payroll, and both ISIS and al-Qaeda have the money to burn. As you know, they also have an unending supply of young people willing to commit suicide.”

  “Trevor,” I said, “please bring me up to speed on how you track money and how that links with terrorist activities.”

  “Sure, Rick. Your Aussie friend is a bit of a computer whiz, if I do say so myself.”

  “He’s a fucking genius, Rick,” said Buster. “Sorry, Trevor, please continue.”

  “I always enjoy a compliment, mate. I’ve developed a number of computer algorithms that send up flags whenever a substantial amount of money goes from one place to another. Then I look to see how the money is spent. There’s been more money laid out on hazardous material suits and paraphernalia than I’ve ever seen. There is also a huge amount of being spent on chemicals of all sorts. And how’s this: I could never imagine such a large amount of funds being spent on humble water spray bottles, the apparent weapon of choice for crippling those poor women.”

  “But how can you tell what the money is being used for?” I said. “I’m sure they’re not stupid enough to use credit cards. They probably pay cash.”

  “Rick, it would take me all day to explain that, but let me assure you, my algorithm can track how many sticks of gum you chew in a day.”

  “Trevor, can you track the money to specific locations?” I asked.

  “It’s always a question of cash flowing from one location to another. Most of the funds that I’ve tracked recently originate in a bank in Yemen, and most wind up clearing through Bank of America, if you can enjoy the irony.”

  “And what location on earth seems to bother your algorithm the most?”

  “Baltimore.”

  Chapter 38

  Melanie Copeland walked down Fifth Avenue hand in hand with her fiancé, Derek Richardson, a linebacker with the New York Giants. They walked toward the entrance to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where Melanie had just begun her new job as a reporter with NBC News. At the age of 29, she considered herself lucky to land such a prized spot. Melanie had recently written an article about Islamic terrorism that was published in The Atlantic. In the article, she complained about the silence of the Muslim clergy in face of the constant terrorist attacks. “The sound of silence can be the sound of cowardice,” she wrote.

  In the article, she also discussed her recent trip to Afghanistan. While there, a local woman she had befriended told her that a stoning would occur in the village soccer field one afternoon. The thought sickened her, but the journalist in her forced her to go as a witness. Dressed in a full burqa, Melanie watched “the ceremony.” According to people she interviewed, a young woman, age 19, was sentenced to be stoned to death. The offense for which she was convicted after a 20-minute trial was being raped by three young men. She couldn’t believe that a woman could be sentenced to death for having a vicious crime committed against her. She interviewed a total of 10 villagers, including a local imam, who all corroborated the story—the woman would be executed because she was found to have acted “provocatively” by having her legs exposed.

  As was the custom, the convicted woman was buried up to her chest in a standing position. The subhead in the article read, “Savagery in a Soccer Stadium.” She wrote about the apparent glee of the men throwing the death stones at the woman. Her editor at The Atlantic suggested that she turn down the heat of her words, but Melanie insisted that he go with the draft as written. About a month after the article was published, Melanie changed her email address, Twitter, and Facebook accounts because she was tired of the constant death threats.

  A man was washing the windows of the building entrance as they walked toward the door. He turned his spray bottle toward Melanie’s face. With the instant reflexes of a veteran NFL linebacker, Derek drove a fist into the man’s face, dropping him to the pavement. John McGuinness, a nearby policeman, saw the melee and ran to the scene, gun drawn.

  “Don’t touch that bottle,” McGuinness yelled. He had read the All-Points Bulletin that morning that all police officers should be on the lookout for men wielding spray bottles. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a plastic evidence bag along with pliers he carried with him. As the bulletin had recommended, he carefully lifted the bottle with his pliers and placed it into the bag. McGuinness called for assistance as he put handcuffs on the still unconscious window washer.

  As McGuiness took statements from Melanie and Derek, an SUV with the words Columbia Presbyterian Disease Control Unit pulled next to the curb. Tyrone Mackle, a medical technician and assistant to Dr. Frank Buchannan, reached into the back of the vehicle and withdrew a Styrofoam box. He picked up the evidence bag containing the bottle and placed it into the box.

  “Did any liquid escape the bottle?” Mackle shouted.

  “The only liquid that escaped around here was the blood from that scumbag’s nose,” said Derek the linebacker.

  As Mackle was about to put the box into his car, McGuinness yelled, “Hey, pal, that’s evidence. You’re not going anywhere with it.”

  “I understand, officer. Please let me make a phone call so we can clear this up.”

  Within three minutes, a call was placed to Dr. Buchannan, who called the White House, where the Chief of Staff placed a call to the NYPD Police Commissioner, who then called McGuiness on his radio.

  “You’ve got some serious connections, pal,” said McGuinnes
s.

  “And you’re going to have a glowing commendation in your record, officer.”

  Mackle drove away as McGuinness helped the window washer into the back of a patrol car.

  Basic police work.

  ***

  “Rick, it’s Buster. We just got a big break. A window washer tried to spray a woman reporter for NBC news. Fortunately, her boyfriend is Derek Richardson, the linebacker with the Giants. Richardson clocked the guy, and the cops put the bottle in an evidence bag. It’s now in the hands of Frank Buchannan.”

  “Where’s the window washer?”

  “In custody at police headquarters. I called and they understand that this is an FBI and CIA matter. I’ll meet you there. You may need an Arabic translator.”

  ***

  “I know nothing. I am weendow washer,” said Yousef Mousell.

  “And what led you to believe that the young woman needed a washing?” I asked. He seemed to want to talk, which surprised both Buster and me. He didn’t take his chance to lawyer up.

  “I am making joke with young lady. I not making harm to her.”

  “What was in the bottle?”

  “Water and cleaning stuff. My boss telling me be careful because cleaning stuff can sting your eyes.”

  “And you weren’t concerned about getting the ‘cleaning stuff’ in the woman’s eyes?”

  “I not spray. I just hold bottle up to her and make joke.”

  “It’s not a very funny joke. Who is your boss?”

  “Some guy from National Cleaning Contractors. Office is on 32nd Street.”

  “I’ll check it out,” said Buster as he went into the next room to make a call.

  My cell phone rang. It was Dr. Buchannan’s office.

  “Rick, do not let that fucker out of your sight,” yelled the gentle intellectual Dr. Frank Buchannan, dropping an uncharacteristic f-bomb. “We’ve just started testing, but I can tell you that the contents of the bottle is definitely not any kind of cleaning solution. We don’t know what it is yet, but we know what it’s not.”

  “Bless you, Frank. Call me when you find out anything,” I said as I unwrapped a Maalox.

  Buster came back into the room.

  “They confirmed that the guy works for them. It’s a good thing I speak Arabic.”

  “Why?”

  “The boss man sounds like he’s from Afghanistan. This may be a bigger lead than we thought, not that I would ever profile somebody.”

  “Did you tell the boss man anything about what’s going on?”

  “Hey, Rick, what kind of spook do I look like? I told him that I was a doctor and Mousell was in a car accident and couldn’t talk.”

  ***

  “You and I need to relax a bit, Buster. I hear there’s a terrific aquarium in Baltimore. We’ve got to locate that factory. How about you and I head there tomorrow?”

  “Great idea, Rick. I’ll call and make plane arrangements.”

  “Plane? I thought we’d take a road trip. We have a lot of things we can go over in the car.”

  “But why not fly, Rick?”

  “Do you want to fly? The airlines are running on a shoestring schedule, and it takes a couple of days to reserve the FBI Gulfstream.”

  “Actually, a car sounds like a great idea. It’s only about three hours or so to Baltimore.”

  Buster and I were bullshitting each other. Two tough guys didn’t want to come right out and say that we were afraid to fly.

  Chapter 39

  We drove to the Baltimore FBI office where we met a driver assigned to us. We agreed that we didn’t want the distraction of one of us driving a car. Our driver, Don Frankel, was an FBI agent. He had been briefed on the sensitive and Top Secret nature of the investigation.

  “Let me see those satellite photos again, Buster.”

  Buster handed me a few photos that were snapped from the sky.

  “We see a lot of coming and going to this building,” Buster said as he pointed to the structure on the photos. “This place gets a lot of package deliveries of all different sizes. The address is 128 Walton Street.”

  “Don, plug that address into your GPS.”

  The building, right down the block from the National Aquarium, looked like any small industrial structure. It could be used as a distribution facility—or a factory.

  “Pull over and park across the street, Don. We’re going to do a little old-fashioned surveillance.”

  We sat for two hours, snapping pictures and recording what we saw. Five deliveries in two hours, and ten different men entering or leaving.

  “I didn’t see one beard or even a turban, Buster. This place could be a Knights of Columbus Hall.”

  “Remember, Rick. The new face of terror is home grown, and they’ve learned to lurk in the shadows. The latest newly hatched jihadis that we have on our database don’t use their Muslim names, don’t have beards, and don’t wear religious clothing. They don’t go to mosques, and they don’t visit radical websites. Their new pattern is to fly below our radar. They live in the shadows of terror.”

  As if to confirm what Buster had just said, a man yelled to another as he approached the building. “Ali, may peace be upon you.” I thought the other guy was going to punch him. The other man shouted, “Shut up. What have you been told about using our Muslim names?” Obviously, they didn’t notice the three of us sitting in the car. Tinted windows are a great invention, I thought, especially for surveillance.

  “What we just heard, Rick, was a man shouting the new protocols of jihad.”

  “Check out the roofline,” said Don Frankel as he snapped photos. “I count four security lights just on this side of the building alone. And look at the security cameras mounted at the corners. This is no food distribution plant.”

  “Well, we don’t have anything that would hold up in a court of law, but I think we’ve narrowed our focus to 128 Walton Street. What do you think, Buster?”

  “Now if we could just figure out what the hell they’re doing.”

  Chapter 40

  “Wanna throw up?” said Bennie as we walked into Barbara Auletta’s office for a meeting.

  “Not really, Ben, if it’s all the same to you. What would make us throw up?”

  “Are you guys dog lovers like me?” said Bennie.

  Barbara, Buster and I nodded. I don’t own a dog, but I like them.

  “Check out this flash video that we liberated from that window washer’s workbag.”

  Bennie gave it to Barbara, who plugged it into her computer and swung around the monitor for us to see.

  A man, without a trace of an accent, was playing with a yellow Labrador puppy. “Fritzie,” the man yelled, and the dog responded by approaching and wagging his tail.

  “Where’s George?” the man said. Fritzie ran across the room and put his paw on the lap of another man, presumably George. The guy then put three objects on the floor. They looked like dog treats. “Where’s the chicken?” said the man. Fritzie went for the treat to the left. Obviously, this guy was an experienced dog trainer.

  “Now comes the funny part,” announced the guy named George. He then sprayed a water bottle into Fritzie’s face, saying, “Enjoy The Scent of Revenge.” Fritzie shook his head, his ears flapping in protest.

  The scene faded to black. This guy knows how to make a video, I thought. He’s also a sadistic scumbag.

  “It’s now three days later,” announced the training guy to the videocam, barely able to contain his glee. “Fritzie, come here.”

  The dog looked at him with that face of confusion when a dog doesn’t know what’s going on.

  “Where’s George, Fritzie?”

  No response at all from the dog, other than its head tilted to the side and his ears cocked. His tail was dead still, not the normal excited wagging of a Labrador puppy.

  “Where’s the chicken?” asked the trainer, as he put three morsels on the floor. The dog ran and ate all three, resulting in a vicious kick to its stomach from George,
which the trainer found hysterically funny.

  “It gets better,” said the man to the videocam. “The next scene will be three days from now.”

  Fritzie lay on the floor with his tongue out. The trainer repeatedly called his name, which resulted in no response from the dog. The operator of the videocam showed a close-up of the dog’s face as the trainer said, “Where’s the chicken?”

  I never knew that a dog was capable of what we call a “vacant stare,” but there it was. Words, or even food, did not register with the poor animal. He lay on the floor, as the trainer shouted, “Bad dog.” With that, he cracked a baseball bat across Fritzie’s head. All three men in the room laughed hysterically as the dog lay motionless, apparently dead.

  “We’ve just seen a jihadi training video,” said Bennie. “That poor dog was a rehearsal prop for attacks on young women.”

  Chapter 41

  “How’s Sarah doing?” I asked the new FBI Director Barbara Auletta.

  “I visited her this morning. Rick, I understand what you’re going through with Ellen. To answer your question, Sarah Watson is doing terribly. She didn’t know who I was, of course, but the worst part is that she doesn’t recognize any of her nurses or assistants. She’s extremely agitated and aggressive. Her doctor told me that they have to sedate her more than any other dementia patient he’s ever worked with. Sarah is one of the smartest people I’ve ever known. Now she’s reduced to a tantrum-throwing toddler.”

  “Imagine how I feel when I visit Ellen and find her watching a children’s show on TV. The only thing she enjoys is Barney the dinosaur.”

  “Rick, I’m not telling you something that you don’t already know. We’ve got to find a way to put an end to these attacks.”

  “Madam Director—”

  “Call me Barbara for chrissake.”

  “Barbara, you and I are law enforcement people. We’re used to weighing evidence, but mainly we’re used to taking action. Problem is, it’s out of our hands. Hell, it’s out of the president’s hands. We think we’ve isolated that factory in Baltimore, which is a good breakthrough, but it will only answer part of the question. If we take out Baltimore, we’ll prevent mass manufacturing of whatever the substance is, but we won’t be able to stop a lone actor with a spray bottle in his hand. Whether we like it or not, the fate of future victims is in the hands of doctors and scientists.”