Murder on the Metro

by Margaret Truman

  Lia gave the enhanced photo a long look, then compared it side by side with the transmitter and camera Mossad had recovered from Dar Ibrahim al-Bis’s workshop.

  “They’re the same,” she said, of the conclusion that Mossad had reached as well. “It’s why I’m here.”

  “Not the only reason,” Winters told her.

  “You think the Washington Metro bombing was the start of a wave?”

  “I believe, Colonel, it’s the precursor to something much bigger, yes. I think somebody wants to bring this country to its knees.”

  CHAPTER

  30

  RESTON, VIRGINIA

  “You mind riding the Metro again?” the man asked Brixton, while they were still seated on a bench beneath the pergola at Georgetown Waterfront Park.

  “Why would I, Panama?”

  “Panama?”

  Brixton pointed toward the man’s head. “I like your hat. You told me I could make up any name for you I wanted, and since you haven’t given me a name…”

  “Then Panama it is.”

  “And why would I mind taking the Metro to wherever we’re going?”

  “What happened three days ago, of course.”

  “Worried we might come across another suicide bomber?”

  “No,” the man said, stone-faced as ever. “But I’m afraid you would be.”

  “Once is more than enough for one lifetime.”

  “Twice,” Panama corrected.

  “The first time was at a restaurant, and I haven’t stopped eating out either.”

  * * *

  “So where are we headed?” Brixton asked Panama, after they’d set out on foot for the nearest Metro station, at K Street and Wisconsin Avenue.

  “Reston, Virginia.”

  “I’m surprised a man like you doesn’t have a driver.”

  “If a man like me had a driver, Brixton, he wouldn’t be a man like me.”

  “Good point,” Brixton acknowledged, as they continued their stroll.

  “You haven’t mentioned your trip to New York,” Panama said suddenly.

  “You didn’t ask me about it.”

  “You paid a visit to a man affectionately known in our circles as the professor.”

  “You were watching me?” Brixton said, feeling his shoulders tense.

  “We were watching him, actually. Picking you up at that point was a matter of routine. Your former girlfriend is quite the attractive woman, by the way.”

  Brixton felt surprisingly at ease with the knowledge that his movements had been tracked the day before in New York City. “Maybe that explains why it’s former.”

  “What was the name of the restaurant you enjoyed an early dinner at?”

  “Novita. You should try it sometime.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. I’m going to assume your visit to the professor wasn’t a social call. Care to enlighten me on what the two of you discussed?”

  “You don’t know already? Since you’re watching him, I’m surprised you don’t have his rooftop wired.”

  “We did,” Panama told him. “Several times. The professor found and destroyed the transmitters within hours on each occasion, so we gave up. He’s strictly hands-off these days. Too many names in his digital Rolodex, too many operations he can bring out of the darkness into the light. So I’ll have to rely on you to enlighten us.”

  “Maybe it was a social call.”

  “No such thing when it comes to the professor—or when it comes to you, for that matter, Brixton.”

  “I’m not sure how to take that.”

  “I meant it as a compliment.” Panama moved slightly in front of him and slowed his pace before stopping altogether and then backing up into the shade. “I’m going to make an assumption: there’s something else going on here that you don’t want to talk about because you’re not sure you can trust me yet. Perfectly understandable, given that you’ve already proven yourself to me but I’ve done nothing to prove myself to you.”

  “Not to mention that we’ve known each other for all of thirty minutes,” Brixton reminded him.

  “But I’m here now because you made a phone call.”

  “A friend of mine did.”

  “At your behest, which makes it the same thing. Another safe assumption I can make is that how quickly this all developed, and we responded, is testament to the gravity of what you find yourself involved in.”

  Brixton noted Panama’s ever so slight emphasis on the word we, as he continued.

  “Given that, if what you’re not telling me carries a comparable, equal, or even connected gravity, I suggest you come clean, no matter any doubts you may have about my identity or position. I don’t have a rank, a badge, a position, a portfolio—nothing like that.”

  “Or even a name,” Brixton reminded him.

  “Well, truth be told, I kind of like ‘Panama.’ In my work, I’ve learned not to trust a lot of people, especially strangers. I’m going to make an exception in your case.”

  “And how exactly are you going to do that?”

  “By bringing you inside, by making you a party to what we’re about to learn, in real time, by making you part of my world.” Something changed in Panama’s expression. “But beware, Brixton.”

  “Of what?”

  “That once you step through that door, you can never step out again.”

  * * *

  But the next door Brixton stepped through was to a UPS Store in Reston, Virginia, located in a strip mall on South Lakes Drive, between a Safeway and a CVS drugstore. Just a run-of-the-mill storefront, its interior laid out like every other UPS Store that he’d ever seen.

  He and Panama had taken the Metro to the Wiehle-Reston East station, then a taxi to a local community college branch, before an Uber driver took them the rest of the way.

  “I never go anywhere directly,” Panama explained.

  “And you don’t drive a car because they’re too easy to paint.”

  “Paint,” Panama repeated. “An intelligence term. I’m almost impressed. You’re a quick study.”

  “I learned the whole spy lexicon when I was with SITQUAL, since that’s who I was often charged with protecting, as it turns out.”

  The UPS Store had been shut down and closed off, any number of harsh-looking men in dark suits watching over the place, both inside and out, when Panama arrived. They yielded to him, parting in deferential fashion to clear a path for him to enter the store, where another pair of suited figures stood before a single mailbox, which was propped open.

  “Your friend Detective Rogers was going by the name of Brian Kirkland these days,” Panama told Brixton. “That’s who the mailbox is registered to.”

  “So how did you find it?”

  “We didn’t find it; we found him. We pulled a still shot off security cameras down on that Metro platform, where the triage was set up after the bombing, and red-flagged it in our facial recognition software. Remember that door I mentioned walking through? Beyond it you’ll find the fact that NSA computers are now capable of scanning an individual face across multiple platforms in milliseconds.”

  “Platforms meaning security cameras and systems, I assume.”

  Panama nodded. “Care to take a guess as to how many that is?”

  “Thousands? Tens of thousands?”

  Panama came close to smiling. “The ones people know about, anyway. Then there are those cameras nobody knows about. The ones that watch you when you fill up at a gas station or pass under a tolling gantry on some highway or walk down any major city street. NSA’s computers have access to all of them and stores the feeds in real time.”

  “So you’re NSA.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “You just mentioned—”

  “That we used information cobbled off the NSA’s computers to find the so-called Brian Kirkland.”

  Brixton held Panama’s stare for a moment. “But not in the past two hours.”

  “Like I thought I’d said, he was on our radar, w
hich means we were doing a digital tail on him to see if we could determine patterns in his movements, what he was up to and who he might’ve been working with. We pinged the most visits to any single location to this particular venue.”

  Brixton considered the timeline. “You work fast, Panama.”

  “One of the advantages of being accountable to no one.”

  “Everyone’s accountable to someone.”

  Panama remained silent, letting his last remark stand on its own. His blank expression cracked briefly into the semblance of a smirk before dissolving into nothingness again.

  Brixton turned his attention to the two men, who might have been twins, standing on either side of the open mailbox. Two more, who might have made them quadruplets, stood farther back in the store, near the counter, upon which he spotted something lying.

  “You’re telling me something important, vital even, got mailed to him here?”

  Panama scoffed at the comment. “I doubt anyone even had the address. Nothing but junk mail delivered since he rented the box three months ago.”

  Brixton wondered if that spoke to the timeline of whatever it was they were facing, three months back marking the start.

  “Who knew, Brixton,” Panama continued, “that the internet would carry more security risks than ordinary paper? It’s become ridiculously easy to track a person’s digital footprint, so operatives like our friend Brian Kirkland have gone old school. No digital footprints left behind when all you have is paper.”

  “He was using that mailbox as a storage drop,” Brixton realized.

  “Beats the hell out of a safety deposit box. You know how many mailboxes are available for rent in the United States?”

  “Haven’t got a clue.”

  “Neither have I, but I’m sure it’s a staggering number. And nobody would think twice about somebody renting a box who happens to be more interested in deposits than withdrawals.”

  Brixton looked toward the open mailbox again. “And I’m guessing you found several of those when your people opened the box.”

  Panama’s expression remained empty. “Follow me, Brixton. I’ve got something to show you.”

  CHAPTER

  31

  LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  “There’s only one possible explanation for how the devices could be identical,” Lia Ganz said to the man who called himself Winters. “But it makes no sense.”

  “You mean the fact that the bomb maker you killed, this Dar Ibrahim al-Bis, was responsible for the munitions in both attacks?”

  Lia nodded. “There’s nothing in his background to suggest he fancied himself as anything but a patriot. He wasn’t a terrorist for hire.”

  “And what does that suggest to you?”

  “Somebody wanted us to find this connection. Somebody knew that we’d find it.”

  “Explain that rationale to me.”

  “Whoever’s behind this wants us to believe that the Metro bombing was the work of Islamic terrorists.”

  “Suggesting it was the work of someone else entirely.”

  “Is Mossad aware of this?”

  Winters looked as if he were going to nod, then didn’t. “Why do you think you’re here, Colonel?”

  “They didn’t really need al-Bis, either, just his signature design for assembling the elements of the bomber’s suicide vest. It’s on record with every intelligence organization in the world.”

  “Thus assuring we’d know exactly who to point the finger at. Same way we pointed it at the Saudis after nine eleven.”

  “Only that was legitimate,” Lia reminded the American spymaster.

  “Was it really? Are you sure? Or did we fall for that, just like we’re falling for this?”

  “We’re not falling for this.”

  “But we could have, Colonel, by all rights should have. We’d be running around chasing our tails, following ghosts, while they prepped the next attack.”

  In that moment, for the first time in longer than she cared to remember, Lia Ganz felt like the Lioness of Judah again. Gone was the fear and anger stoked by the drone attack that would likely have left her granddaughter dead if they hadn’t been in the water. In its place was the cold, calculated reason of the professional warrior, a human missile who only needed to be pointed in the proper direction.

  “How can I help?” Lia said to Winters. “Tell me what you need.”

  After a pause, Winters said, “I need you to believe me when I tell you that we don’t know how deep this stretches.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Winters leaned closer to her. “Do you understand why we’re meeting in this room?” He continued, answering his own question before Lia had a chance to, “Because it’s got active jamming measures and is still swept for listening devices every hour.”

  “You don’t want anything I might say to leave this room.”

  “No, I don’t want anything I might say to leave this room. We have strong reason to suspect whatever’s coming is coming from the inside.”

  “Your own people?”

  “But, like I said, we don’t know how deep it goes.”

  “You mean high up, not deep.”

  “Semantics.”

  “Not where I come from,” Lia told him. “I’m here because you can’t trust your own people.”

  “I trust them to a point, Colonel, but none of the ones I trust possess your unique skill set, not even close.”

  “Which I haven’t used in a long time.”

  “You survived the attack in Caesarea.”

  “I happened to be in the water at the time.”

  Winters ignored her statement. “You didn’t just happen to become the Lioness of Judah, though, did you?”

  “That was different.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Israel was at war. Israel is always at war.”

  “And now America is following suit.”

  “From the inside,” Lia said, her gaze boring into Winters.

  “We have our share of crazies, too, Colonel.”

  “And laws to protect them, which we don’t.”

  “I think you’re getting the point.”

  Lia looked him in the eye. “You need an assassin … So I’m on my own. That’s what you’re telling me,” Lia said to him.

  “Not quite, Colonel.”

  CHAPTER

  32

  RESTON, VIRGINIA

  We found a single item in Kirkland’s mailbox,” Panama said, as he led Brixton toward the counter, where an oversize document that covered much of the space between a pair of cash registers had been laid out. “Our best guess is that it’s been there for just about a month, based on what we’ve been able to string together from his visits.”

  “He’s been here since then, right?”

  “Several times. We’re assuming in some cases to tuck something away and in others to take something out. But what I’m about to show you has, by all accounts, stayed right where it was.”

  They reached the counter upon which rested the document, still showing the many folds that had allowed it to be stored in a UPS Store mailbox.

  “Any idea what you’re looking at?”

  Brixton studied the contours of a scale drawing of some kind, noticing two or three additional pages peeking out from behind it. “Looks like blueprints or structural schematics of some kind.” He turned back toward Panama. “Of what?”

  “We’re good, Brixton, but only God can work that fast. It’s obviously a building of some kind, a secure installation that’s been potentially targeted, but we don’t have a clue yet as to what or where.”

  Brixton looked back at the drawing. “Could be architectural plans.”

  “Could be a lot of things, including nothing at all. Operatives like Kirkland have been known to leave red herrings in their wake to throw us off the track. So the plans you’re looking at might be utterly meaningless, a distraction to keep us from seeing something more important that’s right before our eyes. Like t
his,” Panama said, pointing to a series of numbers scrawled in handwriting in the bottom right-hand corner of the page: 66543076.

  “Those numbers mean anything to you?” Panama wondered.

  “Eight of them,” Brixton said, counting.

  “I didn’t need you to tell me that.”

  “Social Security numbers contain nine figures and phone numbers ten. I was just trying to figure out what utilizes an eight-number sequence.”

  “Anything come to mind?”

  “I would’ve told you if it had.”

  “Like you told me what really led you to visit the professor in New York?”

  Brixton wasn’t about to break Kendra Rendine’s trust. It was her call when to inform others up the food chain of her suspicions regarding the death of Vice President Stephanie Davenport. The problem with that was that Brian Kirkland, whoever he really was, might have also been implicated somehow in Davenport’s murder, suggesting a clear connection among that, the Metro bombing, and wherever the plans laid out before him led. That connection seemed to trump all else when it came to telling Panama the truth, but Brixton still felt he owed it to Rendine to discuss the latest revelations with her first. And once she approved, it might even be best to bring her in to meet Panama so he could hear the story directly from her.

  “You wouldn’t have brought me here if you didn’t trust me, Panama.”

  “My trust extends only so far.”

  “Then it needs to extend a bit farther,” Brixton said, leaving his intentions there.

  Panama came close to a smile again, eyeing Brixton as if seeing him for the first time. “Maybe I can find a place for you with us, now that you’re looking for work.”

  It came as no surprise, of course, that Panama knew that about him, since he seemed to know everything else.

  “I’m not sure I’m cut out for your kind of work, Panama.”

  “Maybe you’re not giving yourself enough credit.”

  “Maybe I’m giving you too much.”

  “The pay’s really good on my team, Brixton. You should think about it.”

  “Sure, it’s good, since I’m sure plenty of your people don’t live long enough to enjoy their golden years.”