Killer Reads: A Collection of the Best in Inspirational Suspense

by Luana Ehrlich

  She smiled at me as if we were co-conspirators. “Oh, sure,” she said. “Is he an OU fan too?”

  I suddenly remembered I had on my OU ball cap. “He is.”

  “Well, both of you should be very careful while you’re here.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because Texas fans carry grudges. When OU beat us at the Cotton Bowl last year, we vowed revenge.” She spread her fingers apart to make the “hook ‘em horns” sign for the University of Texas Longhorn football team.

  “I can assure you, we’ll be very careful while we’re here.”

  After entering my room on the fourth floor, I deposited my duffel bag on the floor and took out my laptop. Although I didn’t plan on spending the night, I’d carried some luggage just for appearance’s sake. However, the only items inside my bag were my laptop and some extra ammo.

  After booting up my computer, I opened my email account.

  It was empty.

  I checked the flight schedules of planes coming in from Chicago and saw one had landed five minutes ago, and two more were landing within the next two hours. It was obvious I had some time to kill before Wassermann arrived. With that in mind, I decided to do a quick survey of the building and memorize the hotel’s floor plan.

  Before leaving the room, though, I turned on the Weather Channel. The radar indicated a big thunderstorm was bearing down on the metroplex area in less than two hours, but no tornadoes were in the forecast.

  I took the stairs down to the first floor, and, as I waved to the desk clerk, she patted the top of her head playfully.

  I had left my OU cap in the room.

  When I entered the hotel’s restaurant, I scanned the place as if I were meeting someone. There were only a few patrons. Perhaps the impending rain had scattered the crowd.

  I sat down at the bar and ordered a cup of black coffee. Then, I did a second recon of the room.

  Only one other person was sitting at the bar. He was a middle-aged, pot-bellied guy with barely enough hair to cover the top of his head. As I sat down, he glanced in my direction. Then, he saluted me a couple of times.

  It was obvious he’d had few too many.

  If at all possible, drinking alcohol was something I tried to avoid. When I was being vetted to join the Agency, a psychiatrist had analyzed my aversion to alcoholic beverages. He had done so in agonizing detail. Finally, after several hours of talking about it, he’d announced my attitude stemmed from my father’s alcoholism. When he’d told me this, I hadn’t shown any outward reaction to this diagnosis.

  However, on the inside, I was screaming, “You think I don’t know that, you idiot!” or something to that effect.

  Occasionally, in order to maintain my cover, I took a drink, but neither the taste, nor the concept of pickling my brain held any appeal to me.

  When I finished my coffee, I toured the rest of the hotel, making careful note of its exits. Then, I returned to my room. After removing my gun from its holster, I settled in for what I hoped would be a short wait.

  At that moment, it occurred to me I should have prayed before leaving the house.

  Javad had always prayed before he ventured outside the safe house. I’d observed him do this on numerous occasions, pausing at the door, bowing his head and taking a moment to ask for safety on the streets of Tehran.

  I bowed my head and asked God to keep me safe.

  Then, the phone rang.

  The clerk told me that my brother, Ramon Figueroa, had checked in and was in the elevator. When I hung up the phone, I left the room and walked across the hall to a small area containing a couple of vending machines. From there, I was able to see back down the hallway and observe the entrance to my room.

  If Wassermann had been forced to bring unwanted companions, I would soon know about it.

  The elevator dinged as it opened up on the fourth floor.

  Simon Wassermann rounded the corner.

  He was alone.

  He looked tired and disheveled, as if he’d been traveling for several days, but he carefully scanned up and down the hallway as he approached the door. Then, he pulled his key card out of his pocket, quickly inserted it, and turned the knob.

  He started yelling, as soon as he entered the room. “Raul, it’s Ramon, your handsome brother.”

  I raced to the door and slipped in behind him.

  Sensing my presence, he turned toward me, ready to fend off an attacker. However, when he recognized who I was, he grabbed me by the shoulders and started laughing.

  Still playing the brother, he said, “Raul, it’s so good to see you.” Then he whispered, “Thanks for not shooting me.”

  After scanning the hallway again, I shut and bolted the door. When I turned around, Wassermann had already crashed on the bed.

  “Boy, I’m bushed. Got anything to eat?”

  While I ordered room service for us, he filled the in-room coffeepot with water and plugged it in. As it was brewing, he went inside the bathroom and stayed for at least twenty minutes.

  His behavior didn’t surprise me.

  Wassermann was a chronological kind of thinker. He operated with both a timetable and an ongoing priority list at all times. Until he got to the part of his mental list where it was time to reveal why he wanted to see me, nothing I said was going to affect that timetable.

  When he emerged from the bathroom, the coffee was ready, and he carried two cups over to a small round table in a corner of the room where I’d set up my laptop.

  Removing his Agency satphone from his pocket, he said, “I need to check my messages.”

  As he fiddled with his cell phone, I couldn’t help but notice his dirty jeans and wrinkled shirt. From the whiff of body odor I encountered when he hugged me, he’d evidently been wearing them for several days. There was little doubt he needed a shower.

  Wassermann’s curly black hair looked greasy, and there were more lines in his face than the last time I’d seen him. He was also much thinner.

  Because he was such a big eater, his weight loss surprised me. However, he was also fidgety, throwing off tons of nervous energy.

  He closed his phone with a snap. “Okay, nothing. That’s good.”

  He took a big gulp of hot coffee.

  I asked, “Are you coming in from an assignment?”

  “Yeah. I’m supposed to be flying from London to D.C. tomorrow. I’m schedule to be debriefed on Monday.”

  “Carlton thinks you’re still in London?”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “What were you doing in Chicago?”

  “Waiting to hear from you. Yesterday, I flew from London to New York. I’d heard you were on medical leave, and I thought maybe you’d gone back to Michigan, but, even if you hadn’t, I knew I could get a flight out of O’Hare to wherever you were staying. So, after landing in New York, I caught a flight to Chicago and emailed you.”

  “No wonder you look—”

  There was a sharp knock at the door.

  Both of us sprang up from our chairs. Since I had a gun, I signaled for him to answer the door while I covered him from the bathroom.

  “Who is it?” Wassermann asked.

  “Room service.”

  He unlocked the door, swinging it all the way open and casually stepping behind it as I covered him.

  CHAPTER 17

  It really was room service. However, Wassermann elected to roll the cart in the room himself.

  After quickly devouring some food, he began explaining his reason for contacting me.

  As I predicted, he began chronologically.

  “For the past two years, I’ve been in Damascus running a couple of assets inside a Hezbollah group. Their leader takes his orders straight from Iran.”

  “What kind of assets were you running?”

  He gave me an irritated look. “Slow down. I’m getting to that.”

  “Sorry. Lost my head.”

  “I recruited two people, a man and a woman, inside a group calling itself Asaib al
Haq or League of the Righteous. I targeted a man named Talib because a reliable source told me he needed the money and was willing to get inside the group and work for the Agency. Sure enough, within six months, he was giving me some valuable stuff.”

  Wassermann concentrated on his eating for several minutes.

  When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I asked, “And the woman you recruited?”

  He took a drink of water before answering. “Rasha was a peripheral person, a cousin of one of the group’s leaders. In reality, she didn’t have much access to their plans and knew next to nothing of actionable intelligence. However, she prepared meals for the leaders and was excellent at identifying people in the organization and giving us intel on members attending their meetings.”

  Wassermann paused while drowning his French fries in ketchup.

  I prodded him. “I’m assuming all this background has something to do with me?”

  “Hold on, I’m getting to that.” He stuffed a big forkful of French fries in his mouth. “You know, when we first met, you had a lot more patience.”

  “I was younger then.”

  “And better looking.”

  I held up my hands in mock surrender. “I’m patiently listening now.”

  “Good. Here’s where it gets interesting. The first high-quality piece of intelligence from Talib detailed how Asaib al Haq was bringing operatives into the U.S. He said they were working with the Mexican drug cartels to bring them across our southern border. Once Hezbollah members got here, they were supposed to organize deep cover cells and wait for further instructions.”

  I interjected, “I recently had an OSBI agent outline the same scenario. He’s in the process of trying to locate those cells right now.”

  He nodded. “That piece of intelligence came from my network.” He gestured at me with his fork. “Now, this is where you come into the picture.”

  “About time.”

  He ignored my comment. “Talib told me three weeks ago that Ahmed Al-Amin—someone I know Hezbollah has used in the past for assassinations—attended an Asaib al Haq meeting in Damascus. It was a send off celebration for a team of agents leaving for Mexico.”

  “Was Al-Amin giving them a pep talk before they left?”

  “Not exactly. Talib said Ahmed Al-Amin was going to Mexico with this group, but he wasn’t going to be setting up cells in the States or waiting for orders, because he already had his orders. Do you want to venture a guess as to why Ahmed was coming to the States?”

  “To kill me?”

  Wassermann seemed surprised. “You already know this?”

  “I was given some raw data on someone named Ahmed, but that was all, and it hasn’t been verified yet. Was I mentioned by name?”

  “No, and I didn’t know it was you until much later. Talib just heard VEVAK had been hunting an American spy who had escaped from Iran, and he said they had hired Ahmed to kill him.”

  “So how did you find out the American spy was me?”

  Wassermann took a deep breath and pushed himself away from the table. He stared at me for a second.

  I knew that look. He was about to step off into some deep water, and he was giving himself a moment to turn around and walk away.

  He decided to take the plunge.

  “Years ago, you held my career in your hands, and to this day I’m not sure why you chose to feed Carlton the lies we told him about how that Russian got killed in Mexico. However, what I’m about to tell you today will mean you have control over my career once again, because I’m going to give you the means to destroy it, if you choose to do so.”

  I shook my head at him. “I’ve never regretted saving your career, Simon.”

  He looked at me without saying a word.

  I decided to push him. “So tell me how you knew Ahmed was coming to the States to hunt me down.”

  He shifted nervously in his seat. Finally, he blurted out, “Because my controller in Mossad told me.”

  I’m pretty adept at managing my facial expressions, so I suppressed my shock at his admission. While I’d been certain Wassermann had a back channel into the Israeli spy organization, it never occurred to me he was a full-fledged Mossad operative. If he was discovered working for Mossad while also working for the CIA, he would be arrested for treason. My knowledge of his activities could make me guilty as well.

  I must not have suppressed my feelings all that well, because he took one look at my face and hurriedly assured me, “I’ve never passed them any classified information, Titus.”

  “Let’s not go into what you’ve done or not done for Mossad, Simon,” I said, while trying to keep the anger out of my voice. “Just tell me what you know about Ahmed.”

  “I gave my controller in Mossad the information I’d obtained from Talib about the American spy, and that’s when they let me know you were the operative VEVAK had targeted. My controller told me your Iranian network had been busted, and Mossad agents had saved your life. He also said Mossad had recently given the Agency some intercepts indicating Hezbollah was coming after you in the States, but they didn’t specifically know which Hezbollah agent VEVAK had sent.”

  “So I’m guessing Mossad told you not to tell the Agency you knew the identity of the American spy because they knew such information would have revealed your relationship to them.”

  “Yes, but I’d already made up my mind I was going to contact you, whether Mossad approved or not.”

  The pace of Wassermann’s narrative picked up now that his secret was out. “I also felt I owed it to you to find out as much as I could about Ahmed, so I asked Talib to make some inquiries about him. I told him to find out where Ahmed might be staying in the States, what name he was using—in other words, all the details Talib could discover that might be useful to you.”

  “That was pretty dangerous for him, Simon.”

  He sounded defensive. “I knew that, but I warned him several times to be careful. However, after I gave him the assignment, several days went by, and I didn’t hear from him. Naturally, I got worried, so I made contact with Rasha. She was frightened and refused to have anything to do with me. I realized she knew something about Talib, so I bribed her to tell me what happened to him and promised I would never contact her again. That’s when she said the head of Asaib al Haq had executed Talib—shot him in the head—after accusing him of being an Israeli spy.”

  Wassermann was suddenly quiet, staring down at his plate for several seconds.

  The images of my own dead assets suddenly flashed in front of me. “I’m sorry, Simon. I know how that feels.”

  He didn’t respond.

  Trying to change the subject, I asked him, “So you decided to get out?”

  He looked up at me and nodded. “There was nothing else I could do. Plus, I wanted you to have this information as soon as possible. I contacted Carlton and told him my main asset had been killed. We both agreed my mission had been compromised, so I flew to London within a few hours of talking to Rasha.”

  Wassermann got up and paced around the room. “I’m sorry I can’t give you any more details about Ahmed. I’m positive he’s in the States right now.”

  “Chatter out of NSA confirms that.”

  He walked back over to the table and sat down. After a few seconds, he picked up his fork and started mindlessly pushing the remaining scraps of food around on his plate.

  While I knew he must have been waiting for me to condemn him for his treasonous revelation, I was still processing how I was going to deal with it.

  A strained silence lingered between us for a few moments.

  Finally, I made a decision.

  “Don’t worry, Simon, your career choices are your own. I won’t be the one to judge you.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, a loud crash of thunder shook the hotel.

  Both of us jumped.

  The moment I started laughing, Wassermann joined me, and the tension between us quickly disappeared.

  “There’s a big
thunderstorm coming,” I said, pointing at my iPhone on the table between us, “but my weather app says no tornadoes are in the forecast.”

  “Is that why you’ve been looking at your phone? Are you afraid of storms now?”

  “Nothing bothers me about storms,” I reassured both of us.

  Wassermann said he was still hungry, so I urged him to finish what was left of my dinner, while I gave him the specifics of what had happened to me in Tehran. I also explained why the DDO had put me on a year’s medical leave.

  He shook his head. “I would give a year’s salary to see the video of your debrief.” Then, he turned serious. “I don’t believe there’s much chance of Ahmed finding you in Oklahoma, but don’t let your guard down.”

  “Why do you think I had you meet me here?”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not used to hiding out from the hunter; I’m used to being the hunter.”

  He grinned. “When I get back to Langley, I’ll try and spin a story about Ahmed Al-Amin to Carlton. Maybe he’ll let me go after him for you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything, Simon.”

  He ignored me and grabbed the room service menu. “Let’s have some dessert.”

  Wasserman decided he wanted some chocolate cake, and he insisted I pick out a dessert too, even though I said I was leaving soon.

  After calling room service, he asked, “Hey, don’t I still owe you some money on that bet we made?”

  “Yeah, pay up.”

  He grinned. “Well, I’m a bit short of funds right now, but give me your address in Norman, and I’ll send you a check.”

  After giving him one of my cards, he told me his plans were to spend a couple of nights in Dallas before flying to Langley for his debrief with Carlton on Monday morning. Since I knew how vulnerable he felt without a weapon, I put on my jacket and ball cap and went out to my car to grab my extra Sig for him.

  As I walked out of the hotel, I checked for any changes in the scenery.

  A few cars were gone from the parking lot. At this late hour, those were probably bar patrons or hotel staff. One car had arrived and was parked a few spaces beyond mine. It looked like a rental car, so I figured it belonged to Wassermann. There was also a dark-colored Dodge van parked on the far side of the parking lot away from the other vehicles. I knew I hadn’t seen it before. However, no one appeared to be inside, so I dismissed it.