Hard Road

by J. B. Turner

  Meyerstein was ushered through the glass door etched with the silver FBI seal and into his huge office by Margaret, his PA, who had worked for the Bureau for nearly twenty-five years.

  “Take a load off, Martha,” O’Donoghue said, not lifting his head. He was sitting behind his oversized mahogany desk, reading a raft of briefing documents, ahead of his meeting with the Director of Intelligence at 10am. Probably why he was so preoccupied.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  She sat down in a deep leather chair and looked around the office. His desk contained two phones neatly placed beside each other – one for internal calls and the other for the President – two gold lamps and three framed family photos. The pictures all showed a proud O’Donoghue pictured wearing a smart dark suit with his wife and only son Andrew, taken at his son’s recent Princeton graduation.

  Behind O’Donoghue was a floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookcase – flanked by an American flag and an FBI flag – with a huge TV in the middle. Political biographies of Roosevelt, Rockefeller, Churchill and Truman; history tomes; law enforcement awards and photos took up most of the space. The prints adorning one of the walls looked like Rembrandts while on an opposite wall were black and white photos of the San Francisco and Washington DC offices.

  To Meyerstein’s right, an oval conference table with six burgundy leather chairs. On the wall in front of the table, a plasma TV with a video teleconference feed camera, used primarily for video conferencing with the President, the Attorney General or any Special Agent in Charge of the fifty-six FBI field divisions.

  To her left, in the far corner of the room, a new blue and burgundy pinstriped sofa with three burgundy wing-back chairs beside a mahogany coffee table stacked with FBI books and magazines. Adjacent to where she was sitting, a mahogany credenza that had mementos received from visiting dignitaries.

  O’Donoghue continued to read the document as Meyerstein shifted in her chair. She cleared her throat, but still he didn’t let on. He was always first in each morning just after 6am and rarely left before 10pm. He had served in the military as a navy pilot in Vietnam before he joined a powerhouse Washington legal firm, eventually making partner. He even knew her father from his high profile court cases. He was scrupulously polite, occasionally asking how her father was. She invariably smiled and said he was the same old lovable curmudgeon, which made the Director smile, knowing her father’s fearsome reputation in court.

  O’Donoghue, like herself, lived and breathed his job. He had been recruited to the FBI six years earlier as Deputy Director – before his latest promotion to Director two years later – and had transformed the organization ensuring a seamless flow of information to all the field divisions, HQ and other government agencies, making it fit for the twenty-first century.

  He was comfortable with broad-brush strategy documents or mission statements, but also meticulous with detail, hauling anyone over the coals for not following correct procedure. He was that sort of guy. But she had always found him to be a very professional, unfailingly polite, perhaps not on this occasion, albeit a slightly aloof, by-the-book kind of man.

  O’Donoghue let out a long sigh, leaned back in his seat and fixed his gaze on Meyerstein. “OK, down to business. I’ve got the bare bones so far of what happened at the St Regis. What’s your take on this?”

  Meyerstein cleared her throat. “This has all the hallmarks of a professional assassination. To take down a Federal agent in such circumstances indicates planning and backup, either military or special ops. Perhaps, if I’m to speculate, we may be talking about a foreign government.”

  He went quiet for a few moments before he spoke. “Any intel?”

  “Not so far. But this is a bespoke job, not off the peg.”

  “Foreign governments, eh? Got any in mind?”

  “Take your pick from any number of countries which hate America at this moment.”

  “What about Iran? They hate America.”

  “Well, they fit the bill. We foiled the Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in 2011. Is this payback? I don’t know. So, they can’t be ruled out. But the National Counterterrorism Center is working the problem as we speak.”

  O’Donoghue sighed. “Look, I’m meeting with the Director of National Intelligence. He will want some detail. He will also want to know how this is possible. How could this happen?”

  “That’s what I intend to find out.”

  “Then again,” O’Donoghue said, shaking his head, “is it possible there’s a problem in our ranks?”

  Meyerstein saw where this was going. “I hear what you’re saying.”

  O’Donoghue shrugged. “Just playing Devil’s Advocate.”

  “I agree we can’t discount such a possibility.”

  O’Donoghue leaned back in his seat and stared across at her. “I’m intrigued you think a foreign government might be behind this. What’s your rationale?”

  “Luntz’s area of expertise makes him valuable to any government. But the fact that he specifically asked to speak to the FBI so urgently makes me think something else is afoot – and that’s why they want to silence him.”

  O’Donoghue nodded. “Taken from right under our nose. Very audacious. And dangerous.”

  Meyerstein nodded.

  “Tell me more about Connelly. Is he new?”

  “Just a few months with us, sir. Was based in Seattle for a couple of years, before being posted here.”

  “Is he married?”

  “Young wife, two kids.”

  O’Donoghue turned and stared out of his window over the Washington skyline. “I want the bastards who did this, Martha. And for once, I don’t give a shit about cost or overspend. You have whatever resources you want.”

  “Sir, my team will also be alive to the possibility another story is playing out. I’m of course talking about national security. We can’t rule that out.”

  O’Donoghue nodded. “Indeed. OK, won’t keep you any longer.”

  Meyerstein got up out of her seat.

  “Oh, Martha?” he said.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Let’s do this right. And let’s nail those responsible.”

  “Count on it, sir.”

  Meyerstein walked out of the office and took the elevator down two floors to where Roy Stamper was standing waiting for her, unsmiling. He was wearing his customary navy suit, white shirt, navy blue silk tie and highly polished black leather shoes. He had been in the FBI since he was headhunted after graduating from Duke, coming top of his class at law school. They had both started training at the FBI’s academy at Quantico at the same time.

  He wasn’t a great mixer. Never had been. He was quiet, but, unlike her errant husband, he was a great family man. Her own father, despite being a workaholic like her, was the same, trying to take time out of his punishing schedule to meet her mother for lunch or supper. He was devoted to Meyerstein’s mother. He liked being with her. He liked being around her. She could see that. They looked relaxed in each other’s company. She never felt that with her own husband. He never wanted to share a glass of wine with her when she got home. He never wanted to go to the park with their children. He didn’t want to do anything with the kids. It was as if they were an inconvenience to his academic life, getting in the way. She herself didn’t have a great work/life balance, but when she was home her family was the be all and end all.

  That’s what she admired so much about Stamper as a man. He loved his wife and his three kids with a passion. He was teetotal, and had once told her he was truly happiest when he had his family around him. He was that sort of guy. He didn’t talk about women, he didn’t chase women and he simply got on with doing his job. He rarely raised his voice. But apart from being one of the good guys, he was also a good listener.

  They had worked their way up the ladder together. But whilst she was his boss, Meyerstein had always used him as a sounding board, knowing him to be discreet, offering wise counsel when the job threatened to swamp her.

  �
�What a mess, Roy,” she said.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “So, have the schedules been created to ensure we will be fully manned for the duration of this case?”

  “Yeah, crisis management guy with SIOC – Guy Stevens – has sorted it out. We’ve been allocated OPSD.” It was the main operation room for major cases. “The Rapid Deployment team has created logs from the Washington field division, so we’re all up to speed. They’re setting up boards in our SIOC room as we speak.”

  They headed straight along the corridor as her heels clicked on the beige tile floor, then straight into the windowless and radio-secure Strategic Information Operations Center (SIOC) – pronounced ‘sigh-ock’ - on the fifth floor and into their allotted briefing room. A huge full size wall screen on one wall, which could be manipulated to show twelve different screens for showing the news channels or video teleconferencing, was currently showing a live feed from the St. Regis Hotel.

  A young male agent greeted her with a “morning ma’am”, and handed her a fresh cup of black coffee when she entered the room.

  “Thanks,” she said, as Stamper went to the far end of the room to speak to one of his team.

  She felt mentally exhausted and jet-lagged, having only napped in the last forty-eight hours. Now she had virtually no chance of catching up on her sleep until Luntz was found.

  A quick glance around the briefing room. Most of the faces were familiar and she had worked with them for years on numerous investigations. The task force pulled together the finest investigative and analytical brains from numerous government agencies. They each brought their own areas of expertise into a large pool.

  There were two agents from Stamper’s criminal investigative division who specialised in kidnapping investigations; a profiler, Jan Marino, from the national center for the analysis of violent crimes; four agents from the critical incident response group including behavioral and tactical; two critical incident and intelligence analysts; three members of the Computer Analysis Response Team who would be responsible for laptops owned by Luntz or at his place of work; a member of the Cyber Division to run down whether a threat was made electronically, and to see if computer systems were hacked; and a handful of counterterrorism specialists.

  In addition, she recognised representatives from Homeland Security, the police and the CIA dotted around the briefing room.

  Meyerstein sipped the steaming-hot coffee as she stood at the lectern taking a few moments to gather her thoughts.

  “Alright folks,” she said, leaning over to put down her cup on a nearby desk, “we’ve got three problems. Firstly, a government scientist has gone missing. We need to find him and we need to find him quick. Secondly, one of our colleagues babysitting him is dead. Strangled. We need to find the people responsible. Thirdly, the specter of a major security threat to this country.”

  The men and women all nodded solemnly. A few scribbled notes on pads of paper, while others worked on iPads.

  She turned and faced the huge plasma screen. “I must warn you, this will not be pleasant viewing.” She pointed at Stamper. “OK, Roy, let’s roll it.”

  The huge screen showed graphic forensic pictures of the body of Special Agent Connelly, stuffed into the base of a wardrobe in the adjoining room to Luntz. His face was grey-blue, distinctive marks around the neck.

  “OK, freeze-frame the picture. Roy, what are we talking about?”

  “Manual strangulation, but with a twist.”

  Meyerstein closed her eyes, feeling a headache coming on. “Meaning?”

  “Initial toxicology reports were clean, but we retested the body fluids which show traces of succinylcholine in the brain.”

  Meyerstein nodded. She knew all about the properties of the quick-acting, depolarising, paralytic anesthetic drug that could render a person incapable of resisting any intruder. It was the drug of choice for intelligence services the world over. She looked around at the grim faces of her team before turning to face Stamper again. “This is a hit, right?”

  “This has all the hallmarks of a neat job.” Stamper was using ‘neat job’ as a euphemism for a professional kill. “The drug’s immobilised Connelly, and then he’s been killed by someone’s bare hands. He would’ve known what was happening to him but would’ve been helpless to do anything.”

  “Fingerprints? Cameras catch anything?”

  Stamper pointed the remote control at the screen. “Grainy CCTV pictures of a white man in his thirties checking into a hotel.”

  “Freeze it there, thanks,” Meyerstein said. “We got any idea who this guy is?”

  Stamper cleared his throat. “Face recognition has confirmed this is highly likely to be a guy called Reznick. Used to be involved with the Agency.”

  Meyerstein looked over the assembled faces towards Ed Hareton who had been seconded from Langley. “What’s Langley saying, Ed?”

  Hareton paused for a few moments as if thinking out his answer. “He’s not on their books. Then they just give us the usual spiel, ‘we don’t do that shit’.”

  Meyerstein shook her head. “Does that strike you as a likely scenario, Ed?”

  Hareton shook his head as the briefing room became deathly quiet, all eyes trained on him.

  Meyerstein stared at Hareton for a few moments, letting her withering gaze linger. “So, that’s it?”

  “No, I’ve made some calls. He once did work for us. But he hasn’t worked for us in an official capacity for three and a half years.”

  Meyerstein sipped some more coffee. She felt her anger grow. Why did she need to wheedle the information out of him? What happened to post-9/11 inter-agency cooperation? “Does he now or has he ever worked for the CIA in an unofficial capacity? Sub-contracted, so to speak.”

  “There are indications–”

  “I don’t want indications or some agency doubletalk, Ed. We are looking for a missing government scientist and one of our colleagues has been murdered. Now I’m going to ask you again: has he now or ever worked for the CIA in an unofficial capacity?”

  Hareton shifted in his seat. “He once did wet work for the government. What he’s doing now, no one knows.”

  Meyerstein’s senses had switched on despite her tiredness. The phrase wet work was a euphemism for murder or assassination, alluding to spilling blood. She gazed again at the footage. “OK, now we’re getting somewhere,” she said sarcastically.

  Hareton flushed a deep red, embarrassed in front of everyone.

  It wasn’t Meyerstein’s style to humiliate individuals in front of their peers. But she needed answers not prevarication. She turned to face the freeze-framed footage. “Well, he’s certainly not retired. So, has he got any links to private security firms? Sub-contracting assassinations for foreign governments?”

  Hareton shook his head. “He only ever worked for the American government.”

  Meyerstein looked across at Stamper. “What else, Roy?”

  “Reznick checked in under a false name only hours before this happened. His fingerprints are all over this.”

  Stamper picked up the remote control again and played more footage. It showed Luntz and Reznick caught on camera outside the St Regis Hotel in the middle of the night after a fire alarm had gone off. He froze the image of a white guy – average height – wearing a dark jacket. “We’re scouring the hotel’s internal CCTV as we speak.”

  Meyerstein stood up and studied the image, hands on hips. The man was ruggedly handsome, a day or two’s growth, short dark hair, an impassive expression. “Tell me more about Reznick.”

  Stamper shrugged. “The guy’s a ghost. Black ops. No one knows or is admitting whose responsibility he is, but like Ed says, we believe he’s carried out countless assassinations on behalf of the American government for the best part of fifteen years. Former Delta Force. The unit is also known as CAG, short for Combat Applications Group, for those familiar with Fort Bragg. This guy, Reznick, is something else. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Also got a major beef w
ith authority, according to his file.”

  Meyerstein sipped the coffee. “You want to elaborate?”

  “It was noted by Colonel Gritz at Fort Bragg, who incidentally personally invited Reznick for the Delta assessment following glowing reports, that Reznick didn’t like officers and was openly hostile during the Delta Selection phase. Apparently despised nearly all the officers he ever met.”

  Meyerstein put down the coffee and folded her arms. “Anything else?”

  “Highly decorated. A bit of a legend amongst the Delta cadre, by all accounts.”

  “And then?”

  “And then… then he disappeared into the clutches of what we assume to be the Agency, working across the globe.”

  Meyerstein noticed Hareton shift again in his seat.

  “The files note that Reznick was directly responsible for killing Hamas commanders, Al Qaeda operatives hiding in Pakistan, and he has advised friendly governments on assassination for the last decade.”

  Meyerstein looked at Hareton. “Special Activities Division?”

  Hareton shook his head. “CIA has issued a denial, but I think we can take it as read that he was at one time known to Langley.”

  “Full name?”

  Stamper continued, “Jon Reznick. Lives alone in a house on the outskirts of Rockland, Maine. He pays his taxes. On his IRS return describes himself as management consultant. He has two bank accounts.”

  “How much has he got in them?”

  “Three hundred and forty thousand dollars in the main one. He has no stocks, but he owns his own home, estimated to be worth eight hundred thousand dollars outright.”

  “What about the second account?”

  “That is topped up each year to the tune of fifty thousand dollars. It goes on tuition fees at Brookfield boarding school for his daughter Lauren Reznick, which comes in at $43,800 per year, and the rest on piano lessons, vacation money, that kind of thing.”

  “Is he married?”

  Stamper sighed. “He was. Elisabeth Reznick was a partner for a law firm, Rosenfeld & Williams Inc, who had their offices in the Twin Towers. She… she died on 9/11. Pulverised to dust. No body found.”