Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  Matt gripped the paper and shook his head. “They don’t belong there in the first place.”

  “You know that and I know that, but try telling that to the president’s pollsters.”

  “The Kurds have every right to fight back. Just because Turkey is part of NATO, doesn’t mean we should always side with them.”

  “It’s all politics,” Nick said. “The Turks slaughter thousands of innocent Kurds and when the Kurds retaliate, we show up and claim that innocent Turks are being killed. Shit, everyone’s innocent.” He turned to Matt, “Except you.”

  Matt gave him an aw-shucks grin. It reminded Nick of the night they’d met nine years earlier when Matt was still a sharpshooter with the FBI’s SWAT team. Matt chose to purchase a 10mm semiautomatic pistol with his own funds and had an opportunity to use it that night while leaving a bar in West Baltimore. He saw a man in a blue FBI windbreaker crouched behind a Volkswagen, dodging shots from another man crouched three cars ahead of him. The man in the FBI windbreaker was Nick. It was his first year with the Bureau, and he’d found himself chasing down a wily gun smuggler by himself.

  Across the street, Matt had acquired a perfect angle. From thirty yards away he blew out the right kneecap of the assailant, sending him to the ground, immobile and wailing with pain. Nick swiftly took advantage of his good fortune and cuffed his prisoner. When Matt approached, Nick asked him for identification. “They never asked Superman for any ID when he saved the day,” Matt quipped, holding up his credentials. It was Nick’s introduction to the aw-shucks grin.

  A few months later Nick’s partner retired and he needed a replacement. Matt was the first one he called. Now, Nick glanced over at his partner, who was slowly working his way through the newspaper. “Anything about Rashid yet?”

  “That’s what I’m looking for.”

  “If it was there, it would be on the front page.”

  “You would think,” Matt said. He folded the paper and reached back to drop it on the backseat. “How does Walt keep that stuff locked up so well?”

  “He’s the best I’ve ever seen at controlling the flow of information.”

  Matt pulled a baggie of assorted cheese cubes from the lunch pail and held up a cube to Nick.

  “No. Thanks.”

  Matt popped a cube in his mouth and began a slow chew. “So, what did Dr. Morgan have to say?”

  “He said I don’t see the birds and the trees.”

  “What?”

  “He says I don’t spend enough time noticing the world of nature around me.” Nick shrugged. “Go figure.”

  “Did you tell him that staring at sparrows while doing our line of work could get you killed?”

  “He wouldn’t understand.”

  Matt ate another cheese cube. “Did you go into your dysfunctional family?”

  Nick glanced at his partner. “What dysfunctional family?”

  “Oh, come on. Your cousin is connected to the Capelli’s and your brother is a compulsive gambler out in Vegas.”

  Nick frowned. “Phil’s not a compulsive gambler. He’s just on a prolonged losing streak.”

  “Yeah, a twelve-year losing streak.”

  Nick smiled. “That’s about right. He’ll spin out of it eventually.”

  Matt examined the contents of a power bar he took from the lunch box. He appeared dissatisfied and returned it to the box. “Too many carbs,” he said.

  “I’ll mention it to Julie.”

  “So if you didn’t talk about your family, what else did you discuss?”

  “Well, he says I should avoid stress.”

  “Uh huh. Did he tell you anything of practical value?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes even common sense needs to come from a different voice before you recognize it. Besides, I was thinking about taking some time off anyway. Julie deserves a vacation. We haven’t been anywhere that wasn’t job related in . . . shit, probably five years.”

  “How long have I been telling you the same thing? You’re burning out. Take some time and recharge your batteries. What else did the good doctor have to say? Maybe I can offer some insight.”

  Nick sighed. “I’m going to get advice from you?”

  “Hey, we’re coming up on our ten-year anniversary together. Why wouldn’t you listen to me?”

  “Pardon me, sir, aren’t you the guy who parked his car in the fast lane of the interstate at three in the morning to have sex with a stripper?"

  “Yeah, so?”

  “A stripper you’d met that night at a bachelor party?”

  “Okay, so I’m a little impulsive. That doesn’t mean I’m not trustworthy.”

  “It was your bachelor party.”

  “All right, so I realized I was too young to be married and I subconsciously sabotaged my engagement. I was just a kid. That was before I even met you. Besides, I only told you that story so you could see how far I’ve come.”

  Nick laughed. But when he looked back at Matt, he knew he’d exposed an old wound. Matt’s fiancée was a fellow FBI agent he’d met at Quantico. They were both young, but beneath the smug veneer, Matt always lamented the loss of Jennifer Steele.

  “How long did you guys date?”

  “Three and a half years. She hated the city. Any city. She was a country girl at heart.”

  “Where did she end up?” Nick asked.

  “Somewhere out west. New Mexico, something like that.”

  “All that time you were together she never mentioned the fact that she wanted to live in the country?”

  Matt shrugged.

  “I see,” Nick said. “You didn’t think she’d be able to resist your charm. You thought she’d be a city girl for the great Matt McColm.”

  When Matt didn’t respond, Nick decided to let it go. They drove with the windows open, just the noise of the busy streets passing between them. After a while Matt took a bite of his apple and pointed to a cruddy white spot on Nick’s windshield. “You may not see the birds, partner, but they sure see you.”

  Chapter 4

  Just outside the Beltway, amidst the undistinguished block structures of an industrial park, a lone brick building sat quietly behind an American flag and the shade of a royal oak. The Baltimore field office afforded the FBI quick access to the highway, yet was unobtrusive enough to be mistaken for a post office. Nick parked in the lot behind the building. It wasn’t a coincidence that the building itself prevented a clear view of the agents’ cars. Very few things the FBI did were by chance.

  Matt gripped the doorknob to the employee entrance and waited for Nick to swipe a security pass through the receptor. A small black box blinked green and Matt yanked open the steel door to the administrative wing. They entered the building and nodded to secretaries who were busy talking into headsets and tapping keyboards. They made their way down a corridor with illuminated portraits of past FBI directors surrounded by ridged wallpaper with somber geometric patterns. The corridor emptied into the center of the building; an open space whose perimeter was comprised of mismatched fabric chairs. The bullpen. A waiting area for visitors who were summoned to the office by one or more of the agents. In the center of the bullpen sat a wooden table with magazines sprawled across the top.

  When Nick and Matt saw who sat in the worn-out chairs, they both stopped. Ed Tolliver, Carl Rutherford, Mel Downing, and Dave Tanner were at the far end of the bullpen in deep conversation. They were known simply as “The Team.” The four of them, along with Nick and Matt, made up an elite counterterrorism squad of agents who specialized in significant foreign threats to the United States. The three two-man teams circled the globe in pursuit of foiling terrorist activity with American targets. The best of the best.

  J. Edgar himself began the specialist trend in 1934 when he authorized a special squad of agents to capture John Dillinger. It was this philosophy that produced the group of specialists now gathered in the bullpen of the Baltimore field office. It also meant that each team was rarely on the same continent, never mind the s
ame building. You didn’t have to be a seasoned veteran to know that something was amiss.

  As Nick and Matt approached, Dave Tanner stood and extended his arm. He tapped fists with Nick, then Matt. A tacit congratulation for capturing someone on the top-ten list. Then he got a close look at Matt’s left ear.

  “What happened, Deadeye?” Tanner smiled. “You finally hook a woman with too much spunk for you?”

  Matt gingerly touched his taped earlobe. “Gee, Dave, that’s uncanny. I’m beginning to think you’re some kind of investigator or something.”

  Tanner didn’t seem to hear him. He reexamined Matt’s ear. “Rashid didn’t go down without a fight, did he?”

  “Would you expect him to?” Matt said, not answering the question directly, but close enough for two spies who understood the language.

  “Probably not,” Tanner said. “Let’s just hope it sticks.”

  Nick picked up on Tanner’s tone. Next to Nick, Tanner was the Team’s senior agent and he always had his ear to the ground whenever a big prisoner was being interrogated.

  “What do we know, Dave?” Nick asked.

  “Nothing yet.”

  Nick looked at the elite group. Before he could ask the question, Matt beat him to the punch.

  “What are we all doing here, Dave? I mean the last time we were all in the same room together . . .” He raised his eyebrows.

  Tanner seemed to recognize the reference to a false intelligence report of a dirty bomb in Manhattan three years back. “I don’t know,” he said. “But Walt doesn’t call us all in without good cause.”

  “The safe money is on Rashid,” Matt said. “What else could it be? I’m sure he hasn’t flipped, but I’ll bet we got something. Something that nets us Kharrazi, maybe?”

  Tanner nodded vacantly, but if he knew something, he wasn’t giving it away.

  There was an edginess to the banter now in the bullpen as the Bureau’s finest minds spun their wheels in anticipation. A red ball meeting was urgent, so the hurry-up-and-wait routine added to the anxiety.

  Nick nodded toward the closed door at the end of the hallway. “Who’s he with?”

  “No one,” Tanner said. “He’s on the phone. We’re waiting for him to call us in.”

  From his chair, Ed Tolliver called out, “Hey, Matt, I hear that was the first time you were caught without your Glock since you were in the crib.”

  This provoked a round of laughter that caused a few secretaries to look up and smile.

  Matt gave a tight-lipped scowl and saluted Tolliver with his middle finger.

  Another boisterous roar lit up the room.

  “Knock it off,” a voice boomed from the end of the hallway. A broad-shouldered man with dark-chocolate skin leaned out of his office with the door half open.

  “Bracco,” Walt Jackson said. “Get in here.”

  Nick felt his stomach tighten as Jackson shut the door behind him. The big man disappeared and left an overt silence in his wake. Nick looked back at the team and saw something approaching compassion in their eyes. Matt seemed confused. He’d never been apart from his partner in a meeting before. Nick looked at Tanner and got an open-palmed shrug.

  Finally, after a long moment, Matt said, “Better get in there and find out what’s going on.”

  Nick moved toward Jackson’s office like he was walking to the gas chamber. It had to be Rashid, he thought. Maybe some attorney found a loophole in their arrest. Shit, they were being shot at like fish in a barrel. How do you squirm out of that? Never mind the other eighteen charges that were awaiting his apprehension.

  Nick opened Jackson’s door and saw the immaculate desk he’d come to expect. What he didn’t expect was a chair in front of his desk. A lone chair that he’d never seen before. Not even for meetings about nuclear threats or assassination attempts. Jackson always preferred people use the sofa against the wall.

  Jackson gestured toward the chair. “Sit.”

  Walter Jackson was the Special Agent in Charge of the Baltimore field office. As SAC’s go, Jackson was regarded as a prince. He was a laconic man who asked only for competence and loyalty. In return he provided unending support and sanctuary from the brass at FBI headquarters just down the road in D.C. Baltimore was far enough away to stand on its own, yet close enough to draw comparisons. It was the main reason the Team was harbored there. Besides being Baltimore’s SAC, Jackson was also the Team leader and Nick was his point man.

  Jackson sat behind his desk and leaned back to open a miniature refrigerator behind him. He pulled out a bottled water and tossed it to Nick.

  Nick studied Jackson’s solemn expression as he took his seat and twisted open the water. “What’s going on, Walt?”

  Jackson clicked his laser mouse and examined the flat screen computer monitor to his left. He tapped a couple of keys on his keypad and swiveled the screen around so Nick could see its content. At first the image was fuzzy, but Nick was familiar with the program. As the solid completion bar at the bottom of the screen moved to the right, the clarity sharpened. By the time it reached seventy percent, Nick could tell that the image came from a surveillance camera. Two men sat side by side at a green-felt table. At eighty percent he knew it was a black-jack table. When it was complete, Nick felt the room get warm. The man on the left side of the screen was his brother. The man on the right, he couldn’t identify.

  “Phil,” Nick muttered.

  Jackson nodded. “Yes.”

  Nick pointed to the man next to him. “Who—”

  “Don’t recognize him yet?”

  Nick shook his head.

  “Keep watching.”

  Nick studied the man’s face. He wore a beard, sunglasses and a wide brim hat you might see on a tourist, yet there was something familiar about his mannerisms. The way he carried himself, full of confidence and bravado.

  Jackson punched a couple of keys on his keyboard and the figures came to life.

  “This is seven hours ago,” Jackson said. “About two-thirty in the morning, Vegas time. It’s a surveillance recording from the Rio. I understand Phil frequents the place quite a bit.”

  Nick’s eyes narrowed as he struggled to make the man next to his brother. There was no audio, but it was obvious the two men were having fun. Phil’s normally bloodshot eyes were in full bloom. The man elbowed his brother as if they were old buddies while Phil tossed back the last of his rum and coke with a flip of his wrist. The drink was so fresh it still had a full complement of ice cubes. It was his brother, all right, Nick thought. He’d never seen Phil allow a drink to linger.

  Now Phil raised his hand to a cocktail waitress. The tourist pulled Phil’s arm down and raised his own hand, waving a wad of folded bills. Phil made a half-hearted attempt to decline the offer, but the tourist seemed determined to buy Phil a drink. By the way Phil swayed, it wasn’t the first drink he’d accepted.

  Nick breathed a sigh of relief. Phil must have gotten swindled by a pro, and Walt was offering to keep it confidential. Let the FBI handle it inhouse. It was something Walt would do. It made sense now why Nick was called in alone.

  Except he was wrong. Dead wrong.

  “There,” Jackson said, stopping the playback. In the frozen image, the tourist had lowered his sunglasses and seemed to be looking directly at the camera. His expression transformed into a sinister glare. His eyes were like black holes and his smile was pure acid.

  Nick’s tongue instantly dried up.

  “Recognize him now?” Jackson said.

  Water spewed from Nick’s plastic bottle as he clenched his fists. Sitting next to his brother was the face of death. Kemel Kharrazi. Nick stared so intently at the image that he tried to will himself into the scene, or better yet, suck Kharrazi out of the image and pummel him from head to toe.

  “Nick, what exactly did Rashid say to you during the arrest?”

  Nick noticed that Phil was wearing his lucky shirt. The Preakness Stakes shirt that he wore the day he hit the pick-six for fifty thousand. Nick n
ever had the heart to remind him that he wore the same damn shirt every day for the next three months until he’d relinquished every last penny back to Pimlico.

  Nick looked at up at Jackson and said, “He’s got four kids.”

  Jackson nodded. “I know.”

  The silence was filled with a heavy sigh from Jackson and the crumpling and uncrumpling of Nick’s water bottle.

  “Rashid asked me if I knew who would come after me,” Nick finally answered.

  “I see.”

  Nick stared at the image. It was the most incongruous pairing he’d ever seen. Like Hitler next to a ballerina.

  Nick tried to remove emotion from the equation and mine the analytical side of his brain. He sensed Jackson watching him and he was careful not to overreact. He didn’t want to give Jackson an excuse to keep him off the case. “Tell me about it, Walt. What does he want?”

  “He wants to trade your brother for Rashid.”

  Nick kept his voice even. “We’re going to trade an alcoholic gambler for a known assassin? That’s the deal?”

  Jackson nodded deliberately, as if he were measuring Nick’s reaction before continuing the discussion.

  “All right,” Nick said. “Exactly how many nanoseconds did you wait before you said no?”

  Jackson frowned. “He’s still your brother, Nick.”

  “He’s dead already and you know it.”

  Jackson squeezed the back of his neck like he was juicing a grapefruit. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We just received the fax an hour ago. I’m still trying to assemble a strategy.”

  Nick placed the deformed, half-empty water bottle on the corner of Jackson’s desk, leaned forward, and stared hard at his boss. “Now tell me what’s really going on here, Walt.”

  Jackson stood and began a slow pace. He carried his large frame smoothly, like a cougar on the prowl. Back and forth he strode. Nick’s eyes followed him like match point at Wimbledon.

  Jackson flipped off the overhead lights and pulled a remote control device from his pants pocket. When he clicked a button on the remote, an illuminated image was projected onto the white wall behind his desk. The faces of more than twenty Kurdish terrorists came to life. Some were grainy surveillance shots, while others were clear mug shots. Although their names were unknown to the American public, they were as familiar to Nick as Babe Ruth was to a Yankees fan. They belonged to a militant faction of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party known as the Kurdish Security Force. The name was a direct response to the Turkish Security Force, which had been tormenting the Kurds for more than two decades. They were better known as Kharrazi’s death squad. When President Merrick ordered troops to the area, his intention was to prevent Kharrazi and the KSF from dividing Turkey along ethnic lines.