Doyle had arrived in the city the day after Sarah and I met with Linda Webb. Things were heating up down here, and Doyle said he would be of more use on site. I think he just wanted to be part of the action. After all, he certainly had the pedigree for this kind of work, and we could use his expertise going forward. The closer we got to Prisha, the tougher things were going to get.
Sarah had insisted that Doyle stay in her Dupont Circle townhouse, which she had surreptitiously purchased in preparation for her divorce from her husband, Victor the cop. Doyle thanked her but declined, thinking it best that he book a month at one of those extended-stay hotels just outside the Beltway. He found one near a Metro station and also purchased—with cash—the beater car we now sat in.
Doyle had also upgraded our comms. He’d asked around Boston and got us the latest in cellphone skullduggery. We still used burner phones, but now purchased them randomly in different high-volume retail outlets. We also switched out these new phones and SIM cards weekly, sometimes daily. It proved to be a low-tech but effective way to secure our comms. Doyle also taught us to be more observant and aware of our surroundings. Particularly Sarah.
Doyle and I had squabbled over this. He detested Sarah being operational in any way. I agreed, but accepted that at times it was unavoidable. Plus, Sarah felt strongly that she should be involved, and she was a woman who usually got what she wanted. Doyle and I came to the understanding that we would use Sarah only when necessary, and as long as we could keep her out of harm’s way. I feared that this would be a hard pledge to keep.
Sarah had been hard at work with Robinson, doing background on two of the names Webb had given us: Khabir Ahmad and Charles Albert Hewitt. It had taken him a while, but Robinson had identified Ahmad through the take from Prisha’s computer. Ahmad had a distinctive Middle Eastern accent and spoke with Prisha daily. Robinson had scrutinized these recent conversations and made the contextual identification. Some more sleuthing revealed the car Ahmad drove, a leased silver Acura RLX sedan. I slapped a tracker on it the next night at 0-dark-thirty.
We had been monitoring all communications between Prisha and Ahmad for a few days now. They spoke of a place they called “the shop.” It appeared that they met there frequently after hours. Two days ago at noon, I’d got an urgent call from Sarah saying that Ahmad was now headed over to the shop, alone. I’d jumped in my car and, using the tracker, found Ahmad at a bodega in the Petworth section of the District, northwest of downtown near Rock Creek Park. I got only a fleeting look at him as he hustled into the bodega, named Parkview Market.
Doyle and I sat outside the Parkview Market now. Doyle had asked to come along on Ahmad’s next lunchtime visit to the bodega, saying he had just arrived from Boston and wanted to “get his feet wet.”
This time I had plenty of notice from Sarah, and Doyle and I got to the bodega early, which afforded us enough time to have our awkward chat about my mother.
Ahmad arrived and parked down the block as before. I got a few good photos of him this time. He was a dark-skinned Pakistani, tall and thin. He wore khaki pants and a dark button jacket. Ahmad emerged from his car with a cigarette, and lit another right before he entered the bodega. Doyle asked me if that was him. I said it was.
A shiny new Lexus passed us and turned right at the end of the block. I suspect I only noticed it because it was spotless and cost well over six figures, unusual for this part of town.
I saw her minutes later. On foot, emerging from where that Lexus had just turned. My stomach clenched and I fought for breath. I leaned forward, stuck my head over the dashboard up close to the windshield. Tunnel vision. Long raven hair, pulled back into a perfect ponytail. Expensive heels and long cashmere coat. Erect posture and elegant gait. It was her. Prisha Baari.
I hadn’t expected her to be here. Sarah had said nothing of it. Only Ahmad had been mentioned. But here she was. Gliding down the sidewalk, head slightly downcast, hands tucked in the side pockets of her coat. Heading straight my way. My mind flashed back to that late night in her office. Me on top of her. Her nails on my back. How one moment of weakness had changed everything. And now this woman was blithely sauntering down the sidewalk. Her world hadn’t changed like mine had. A rage, like a dragon, arose in my gut. I wanted to breathe fire, incinerate her and her cashmere coat. My hands trembled on the steering wheel.
Doyle was shaking me by the shoulder. “Frankie! What is it?” He followed my eyes to her. “Who’s that? Is it—”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“That’s her? The woman? Prisha?”
I nodded.
We both watched in silence as Prisha entered the bodega.
I reached for the door handle and opened my door a crack.
“No!” Doyle hissed, grabbing me by the arm. “You’re not going in there, Frankie. You rush her now and it’ll ruin everything. All that we’ve done.”
I pulled my arm out of his grasp, fire in my eyes.
“Sorry, Frankie. Now’s not the time. Get back in the car. I’ll go in.”
I slammed the car door shut. Doyle exhaled loudly.
“You all right?”
I nodded. My eyes fixed on the front door of the bodega.
“Okay, I’m going in to take a look around. You stay here. Nothing stupid. Promise me, Frank.”
I nodded without looking at him. Doyle took me at my word, got out of the car, crossed the street and walked into the bodega.
My mind raced. Still photograph flashbacks. Prisha under me on the sofa. Nicole yelling, me waving her off. My first night on the streets. And my last one, the night I was almost beaten to death. The look on Sarah’s face when she saw me at the hospital. And Teddy. Most of all him.
My hands milked the steering wheel with enough force to turn my knuckles white. Nervous energy rocked me back and forth in my seat. I closed my eyes and forced some deep breaths. Then some more.
When I opened my eyes, they were fixed on a second-floor window above the bodega. A young Arab boy was looking directly at me through the gap in the lace curtain. We made eye contact. I slouched down, pulled the lid of my Redskins cap low on my face. I looked up through my eyebrows and the kid was still watching. I pulled out my cellphone and pretended to make a call. The kid lingered a minute more, then closed the curtains tight and disappeared. There was something about the kid. Like he somehow knew why I was there. It spooked me.
I checked my watch. Damn, Doyle, let’s go. I checked my side mirror and saw a guy approaching the passenger side of the car. He was a homeless guy, or appeared to be. The kid had made me a little paranoid. The guy stopped at the front passenger window, bent down. His lips were flapping, trying to get my attention. I turned the key and lowered the window. He leaned in. He was homeless, all right.
“Any spare change? Help a brother out?”
I had never panhandled, out of stubborn pride, but knew what this felt like. I reached into my pocket, pulled out a five and extended it to him. Then a thought flashed in my head and I pulled the bill back before he had a chance to grab it.
“You in this neighborhood?” I asked.
The man looked confused. He nodded yes.
“I’ll tell you what, brother. There’s another ten in it for you if you tell me who lives above that market,” I said, pointing to the bodega.
The guy looked across the street, stroked his matted beard. “There?” He pointed a filthy finger.
“Yeah, the market.”
He leaned back into the window of my car. I leaned against my door. His breath was awful.
“A family of ragheads live there. The ones that run that market. Fuckers always run me outta there too.” He turned his head and spat.
“What about the kid?”
“What kid?”
“The kid at the market?” I asked.
“I dunno. He lives there with ’em. Got big eyes, but don’t say shit.” The guy snorted. “Okay? Now give me my money, man.”
I handed him a five, and then his ten.
“All right, then,” he said and walked on, folding and pocketing his cash.
I looked back towards the bodega and saw Doyle crossing the street at a brisk pace. He approached the car with a small smile on his face, opened the door and got in.
“See anything?” I asked.
“Plenty.”
“This street is hot. I think the kid above the market might’ve made me.”
“Let’s go, then,” Doyle said.
I pulled out past the bodega and drove down the street. I checked my rearview as I left. Prisha and Ahmad were still in there, as best I could tell. I held my questions until after we cleared the first traffic light and a few cars had pulled in behind me.
“Well, what did you see?”
“I didn’t see Prisha or the Arab at all. There was a Muslim guy at the register. Smiled at me when I walked in. Older guy. Short gray hair and a beard. Neatly dressed. He watched me like a hawk. I walked through, pretending to look for something. The place was cluttered. Shit everywhere. Food, diapers, office supplies, everything. All crammed together.”
“Was there anyone else in the market?” I asked.
“No. Just me and the guy behind the register. I asked him if he had any Pepto. He didn’t understand, so I explained that I had cramps. Still a blank. He did understand the word diarrhea, apparently, because he pointed me to the right aisle.”
Doyle pulled the pink Pepto-Bismol bottle out of the small paper bag. Then reached in, retrieved something and tossed it in my lap.
“Got you something.”
I looked down. A bag of peanut M&Ms.
“Pepto’s for you?”
“Don’t mock your elders, young man.”
We both needed to laugh.
“The register guy,” Doyle said, taking a swig of Pepto straight from the bottle. “His English was good. Not as heavy an accent as the call you played me.”
I told Doyle about my conversation with the homeless guy. We both agreed the register guy probably lived upstairs, and that the kid checking me out was his son. Doyle said this was common with the mob. They put an old stay-at-home couple from the neighborhood above their social clubs to keep the feds away, like garlic and vampires.
I pulled into Rock Creek Park and looked for a shaded parking spot. It didn’t take long. I parked under a towering oak in the far corner, away from the other vehicles.
“Anything else, Quinn?”
Doyle thought a long moment.
“What?”
“I don’t know,” Doyle said, scratching his chin. “It might be nothing, but I thought it a little strange.” He paused. “Behind the register guy was a passageway, packed with boxes and such. And to the right, against the wall, was a door. A big fortified steel door.”
“A walk-in cooler?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Doyle said. “It had a big combo door lock and a security keypad on the wall just to the right of the door. Just looked strange. Out of place.”
“What kind of combo lock?” I asked.
“The kind you punch a numerical combo into. Right above the doorknob.”
The thought hit me with a thud. The five-digit numerical code Robinson had found taped to the top of Prisha’s desk drawer. I shared this with Doyle. He smiled broadly.
“We’ve got to see what’s behind that door,” he said.
“Yes, we do,” I agreed.
We toasted our discovery. I popped a fistful of peanut M&Ms into my mouth, and Doyle took another swig of his pink Pepto.
Chapter Thirty-Two
November 10, 2016
Parkview Market
Petworth, NW WDC
“So old Mo Udell got his second term, just as we wanted,” Prisha said.
The presidential election had been held two days ago, and Udell had won with fifty-six percent of the popular vote. Not the mandate he had hoped for, but it put him in the driver’s seat when ODYSSEUS was scheduled to go online in eighteen months. Or so he thought.
Prisha shared the crowded basement space with Khabir Ahmad and Henrik Karlsson. Frank and Doyle had not seen Karlsson enter the market; he had arrived early, as was his custom.
Prisha focused her attention on Ahmad. She again pushed him to accelerate ODYSSEUS, reminded him she needed it to be fully tested and operational well before mid-terms. Prisha planned to run for a senate seat in New York and joked that ODYSSEUS would be her campaign manager.
Ahmad scoffed at democracy and the tyranny of fifty-one percent. He said ODYSSEUS would be ready, and that one day, Inshallah, it would be instrumental in establishing the caliphate right here in the heart of the great Satan.
Ahmad’s American Caliphate proclamation drew a loud, guttural laugh from Karlsson.
“I don’t care about this country,” Karlsson said, “nor my own, for that matter. It’s all just arbitrary lines drawn on a map as far as I’m concerned. But you’re crazy, Khabir, if you think Americans are going to embrace Allah and let you wipe your ass with their Constitution.”
Ahmad bristled every time Karlsson spoke the word Allah. His face reddened.
“Hey, Khabir, how’s your team doing?” Karlsson continued, unconcerned.
“What business is that of yours?”
“Because I know your team of geniuses are growing mutinous. You’re pushing them too hard. And they’re sick and tired of all your Islamic bullshit.”
“And what of you, Henrik?” Ahmad said, raising his voice. “We’ve had a twenty-five percent rise in tripwires in the past month, a spike in unauthorized access to ODYSSEUS personnel files, and the homeless guy is back in the picture, talking to his old supervisor. What are you doing to address all this?”
Karlsson stepped towards Ahmad, who retreated.
Prisha stepped between the two men, much to Ahmad’s relief. She chastised them to keep their voices down.
Prisha tolerated Ahmad’s religious extremism because he was an effective team lead and his loyalty was unquestioning, as it was with many religious zealots. She strung him along, placating him and his dream of an American Caliphate. But Prisha had no interest in such things. She would not share power with anyone—including Allah. Karlsson was well aware of Prisha’s secularism, of her many illicit behaviors that would result in a death sentence in her Wahhabi faith.
Prisha and Karlsson had already agreed that Ahmad would be disposed of once ODYSSEUS went operational. But for now, she needed him. Ahmad was no tech genius, but he was good enough to wrangle the real geniuses who worked in the shadows. Ahmad kept the project moving forward, and so she dripped enough Islam his way to keep him placated.
Ahmad did have a point about the tripwires, though. There had been too many for her liking. And Frank Luce was back. Prisha was not sure what to make of that yet, but it made her anxious. She would speak to Karlsson about this, have him step up his efforts against Luce.
Silence filled the basement as the argument waned. Suddenly Karlsson looked up at the ceiling towards the head of the basement steps. He placed a thick finger over his lips, then pointed. Prisha and Ahmad followed his gaze.
Prisha heard the doorknob jiggle. Then stop. Then jiggle again. All three of them tiptoed across the basement to a computer monitor. Prisha saw a teenage boy standing outside the basement door, wide-eyed.
Ahmad broke for the staircase. Karlsson grabbed hold of Ahmad’s arm and jerked him back with enough force to pull him off his feet. They watched the boy try the knob one more time and then flee.
Prisha turned to face Ahmad. Her narrowed eyes bored into him.
“I told you to handle Yazid,” she scolded. “Speak with the boy’s father tomorrow. See to it that he fixes this problem—or Henrik will. Understood?”
Ahmad broke eye contact with Prisha. He nodded yes with downcast eyes.
Yazid’s family was from Saudi Arabia and had been hand-picked by Prisha’s Saudi benefactors to mind the bodega. They were instructed to keep their eyes open and mouths shut, and were to contact Ahmad if they saw or heard
anything suspicious. Their family back in Saudi were being heavily monitored. It was unsaid but clearly understood what fate would befall them if anything went wrong at the bodega. Yet despite this very real threat, curiosity had gotten the better of Yazid. Ahmad thought him a good but precocious teenage boy, already too Western for Ahmad’s liking. He had already spoken sternly to the boy, but apparently to no effect. And now he had lost face in front of Karlsson.
Ahmad would fix this. Once and for all.
Chapter Thirty-Three
November 15, 2016
Tysons Corner Marriott
Tysons Corner, VA
The man slumped at the edge of the bed, sheets balled up in tumult. He wore a thin hotel robe, hanging open at the sash knotted under his slight paunch. His gray eyes were several shades darker than the sparse hair that haloed his pale, bald pate. Deep red indents sat on either side of his nose from the square eyeglasses on the nightstand behind him.
I sat in a chair pulled up tight to the bed, my knees inches from his. Doyle sat next to me.
“I’m glad it’s over,” the man said, looking down at his chest. “God help me.”
It had been a little over a week since we had learned of Charles Hewitt and Khabir Ahmad from Linda Webb. Robinson’s research supported Webb’s claim that both men were close to Prisha and critical to ODYSSEUS. We had chosen Hewitt as our next talion ladder step, believing Ahmad to be too much of a zealot and not worth the risk.
And so it was Charles Hewitt that now slouched in front of Quinn and me, avoiding our eyes and muttering to himself.
The honey trap had been Doyle’s idea. A time-tested espionage tactic that was highly successful with the right target. A target like Hewitt. Doyle had started working on this scheme several months ago, well before either one of us had heard the name Charles Hewitt. Sex never fails. Doyle had used his criminal contacts with the Russian mob in Boston to find a beautiful Russian woman with just enough dirt in her background to blackmail any unsuspecting male with a government security clearance.
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