False Signs (John Taylor Book 2)

by Travis Starnes

  On the table was a pitcher of what looked to be lemonade, along with several glasses. Taylor was again surprised since the traditional drink you would be served in most Middle Eastern homes would be tea.

  “This is Jason Keene,” the woman said by way of explanation. “He’s a family friend.”

  “Naziah’s husband Fuad served with my unit during Iraqi Freedom,” Colonel Keene said. “I’ve known Samar since he was eleven years old.”

  “I take it you don’t think he is guilty of what the FBI is accusing him of, Colonel?”

  “No, I don’t. And please call me Jason.”

  Taylor nodded and turned to Naziah, “Tell me about your son.”

  “He’s a good boy. He loved his father very much and was very sad when he died. He was always proud of his father, and would sometimes salute him when Fuad left the house in his uniform. He said he wanted to be a soldier like his father when he grew up. Fuad wasn’t a soldier of course, but Samar was little and did not understand the difference. He just knew his father dressed in a military uniform and left with American soldiers. He loved America, and the day he enlisted was the happiest of his life. He would never do what they are saying.”

  “It’s hard for a parent to really know their kids. Are you sure he hadn’t made any friends that might have … changed his way of thinking.”

  “Not like you are suggesting. His friends were all Americans. We are not a religious family, Mr. Taylor. We did not attend the mosque very often. He didn’t even follow halal, although I still do. He played sports in high school and was popular. He hadn’t planned on attending college. Since we came to America, his only dream was to join the military. He enlisted in the Army the day he turned eighteen.”

  “Is it possible he was reading anything that might have radicalized him?”

  “He didn’t read much, but when he did, it was Tom Clancy or books like that. I knew all of his friends, at least until he shipped out to basic training.”

  “Maybe on the internet.”

  “Not while he lived with me. He hardly used the computer. I’m telling you I knew my son. He wasn’t like that.”

  The older woman was becoming agitated, her accent becoming thicker as she spoke faster.

  “I knew this kid,” Colonel Keene said, breaking in. “Samar was like the little brother I never had. I would visit as often as I could. I went to his games, bought him his first football. I spent time with him, and I can tell you I didn’t see a hint of it. I’ve also talked to some of the guys he went through Basic with. They describe him being about as All-American as you can get.”

  “How about something not related to his religion. Did he owe someone money?”

  “Enough to blow himself up over?” the Colonel replied.

  “Good point. Maybe he didn’t know that was going to happen. Maybe he sold his code?”

  “He would not have done that. He was his father's son. To Samar, this country was everything,” Naziah said, practically spitting in anger.

  “Maybe he was blackmailed. Maybe he had a vendetta against someone in that armory. Maybe he took some kind of drug and went nuts like that guy in Florida who ate someone's face.”

  Naziah skin darkened as she stood shakily up, “Why are you saying these things. He was a good boy.”

  She turned to look at the Colonel, tears slipping down her cheeks, “This was a mistake. We should have not have invited this man here.”

  “I’m sorry, I am not trying to dishonor your son. I just am trying to think of anything that might back up the FBI’s current direction. I’ve seen these guys up close. I know how the FBI thinks. It’s not going to be enough to prove someone else did this. We are going to have to prove Samar did not do it, which is a lot harder. Otherwise, they will just reclassify him from some lone wolf to a member of whoever it is that actually did do it.”

  Keene reached across and laid his hand on the weathered skin of the old woman, gently guiding her back into her chair.

  “He’s right, Naziah. I know his questions are hard; but we need to think of every angle, so we know what to say when the feds start asking these exact questions. And he’s right, they will ask these, and probably more. This, more than anything, proves we didn’t make a mistake. He’s the right man for this.”

  “But why? My son is dead, and now the country he loved has decided to make him into a monster. It isn’t fair.”

  Taylor sat quietly for a moment, hunched over, elbows on his knees with fingers steepled together, the tips resting on his lips. His brow furrowed in thought as his hosts stared expectantly.

  Taylor flashed back to a chase down the side of an Afghan mountain and a desperate escape from a terrorist camp. It wasn’t the terrorists Taylor was remembering; but the people who found him, broken and dying, at the bottom of that mountain.

  They had risked their lives to take him to their village and nurse him back to health. Had the Taliban, Al-Qaeda or any of the other terrorists or warlords that called that God-forsaken stretch of land home found him, they would have killed whole swathes of villagers.

  These people risked their lives, their family's lives, their children's lives to save an incoherent, semiconscious, wreck of a man they found in a mountain ravine. They did it because it was the right thing to do. Now here Taylor sat, given a second chance at life, with a grieving mother crying in front of him asking about what was right and what was wrong.

  After more than a minute of silence, he put his arms down.

  “I believe you,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “I’ll look into it, and see if I can find out who did this and why.”

  The old woman stood and hobbled over to him, reaching out and gripping Taylor’s forearm.

  “Thank you, Sergeant Taylor. Thank you. Barak Allah fik. May God bless you ... thank you.”

  Taylor looked past her to the Colonel, not trusting himself to look at Naziah when he said, “I want to be clear. I will follow this wherever it goes. I am not trying to prove he is innocent! I am just going to try and find the truth. If I find evidence that he actually did this, I will hand it over to the FBI.”

  “That’s all we ask. We know who Samar was, and we know what you’re going to find.”

  Taylor helped the old woman sit down on the couch, but she never let go of his hand, gripping as if Taylor were a lifeline and she were stranded in the ocean. Which, in many ways, was true.

  “Of course, doing that is easier said than done. I don’t have any type of access or resources. I’m pretty sure the FBI isn’t going to let me just waltz into the crime scene.”

  “Actually,” the Colonel said, “I might be able to help with that. I have several favors I can call in. Don’t worry, Sergeant, I’ll get you through the door.

  Chapter 2

  Taylor said his goodbyes to Naziah and Colonel Keene and headed out to join Robles in the SUV.

  “How’d it go? he asked, as John opened the passenger side door and slid into the seat.

  “I told them I’d look into it.”

  “See, I told you there was something here!”

  “I’m not going that far. It’s possible this kid is innocent, but all they have is how they feel about him. Mothers are usually the last to know what their kids are really like.”

  “Yes, but Colonel Keene agrees.”

  “Sure. That and your support of this is a big reason I decided to look into it. I sympathize with Naziah, but I’m not sure the faith a grieving mother has in her son is enough evidence of anything.”

  “But you believe them.”

  “Like I said, maybe. I’ll look into it and see what I can see. I didn’t promise anything beyond that.”

  “Great. That’s all we can ask for.”

  Taylor didn’t reply and looked out the window as they pulled out of the driveway and headed into a more built-up area near the freeway filled with restaurants and hotels.

  Finally, Robles broke the silence

  “The Colonel told me if you agreed he’d make so
me calls and get you access. I’m the new guy in the office, so I told him I wouldn’t be able to get shit. He was pretty confident he could get you in though. I’m gonna drop you at a motel and get you a room so you can get some rest while we work out the details.”

  “Is the mother paying for ...”

  “No. Hell no. She offered, but I’m not that much of a dick. We didn’t want you to do this outta pocket though, so I threw in, the Colonel threw in, even some of the guys from the unit the kid's dad served with. We’ve got enough to cover the bills while you look into it.”

  “Thanks. While we’re talking about covering stuff, I had to leave my sidearm behind to get on the flight. I feel kinda naked without it.”

  “I figured as much. I mentioned it to the Colonel before your plane landed. He is going to see about getting you some kind of authorization to carry while you work on this.”

  “How much pull does this guy have? I mean, he’s a Colonel, but that doesn’t mean shit in the real world.”

  “Remember he works at the Pentagon, and he’s good at his job. He has favors on top of favors. This guy has some real juice.”

  “If you say so,” Taylor said, and let the conversation drop.

  A minute later they were pulling into a budget motel parking lot on the side of the freeway.

  “It’s not the Hilton, but...”

  “It’ll do.”

  Robles handed some cash to Taylor, who waved goodbye and headed inside.

  After five minutes Taylor was pushing open the door to a single room at the end of a long, dank smelling hallway. Shutting and bolting the door, Taylor flopped on the hard, squeaky bed and closed his eyes, ignoring the cigarette burns in the bedspread of this supposedly non-smoking room.

  He let himself drift off for a minute, his brain jumping from item to item, but didn’t fall asleep. Taylor hadn’t slept much in the last six months. Between his time in captivity and the events in Miami, there were too many ghosts floating just behind his eyelids. More often than not he would drift off to sleep around one A.M. as exhaustion overtook him, only to wake up screaming just before sunrise in a cold sweat.

  Eventually, he settled on a pattern of quasi-meditating that one of the old Army guys that regularly made their way through Albert’s shop recommended. It wasn’t sleep, but it let him quiet his mind a bit and relax, if not rest. Sometimes he even fell asleep that way, although that didn’t happen often.

  Taylor sat, drifting in and out for a while, and must have nodded off after a time, as the next thing he was aware of was a ringing phone jerking him awake. Wiping his eyes, he took a second to get his wits about him, momentary counting his blessings it was a phone waking him up and not a flashback.

  “Yeah,” he said picking up the handset.

  Robles' voice came through the speaker, saying, “The Colonel came through. There is a meeting in two hours to brief agents who were just assigned to the case. You’ve got access, and they want to introduce you to the ASAC running the task force. I’m pulling up in two minutes. We need to hurry if we’re going to make it to Dallas before the meeting starts.”

  “I’ll be out front,” Taylor said, hanging up the handset without waiting for a response.

  Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, Taylor stood up and made his way to the bathroom, splashing some water on his face to help clear his head a bit. He had never even removed his shoes when he lay down, so Taylor only had to grab the small duffel he carried with him, and he was out the door, walking back down the grimy hotel hallway.

  Dropping the keys on the front desk of the hotel without a word, Taylor breezed past the confused looking clerk, who had checked him in only hours before, and was walking out the front door of the roadside hotel.

  The timing worked out, as Robles pulled up under the awning covering the front entryway just as Taylor exited the hotel, allowing him to slide into the SUV with little break of momentum. Moments later, they were tearing out of the parking lot and headed onto the freeway that would carry them into Dallas.

  They rode in relative silence the whole way. Robles attempted to make conversation a time or two, but after a few monosyllabic replies he gave up. It had been small talk anyway. So, instead, the two men rode in silence.

  They made good time until they reached the outskirts of the city, proper. It was hitting quitting time, and the roads were well clogged, slowing them to a crawl. They pulled into the parking garage assigned to the FBI building with only a few minutes to spare before their scheduled meeting.

  Robles stopped at the front security desk, where a visitors badge with Taylor’s name was waiting for him. A short elevator ride later, a secretary was hustling the men into an office labeled “Special Agent in Charge, Fernando Ruiz.”

  “Sir,” Robles said, stepping into the tastefully furnished office.

  “Just in time, Trevor. Tony’s briefing is starting in five minutes, but I wanted a chance to meet Mr. Taylor first,” the man sitting behind the desk said.

  He was an older Hispanic man in his late forties or early fifties with black hair on its way to gray in a slicked back, almost wet looking, style. He was wearing a crisp white shirt and a stylish dark blue silk tie. A suit jacket lay ignored, draped on the back of the chair the man had been sitting at a moment ago.

  Reaching Taylor, he stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Fernando Ruiz.”

  “Good to meet you,” Taylor replied.

  “Trevor, why don’t you head on to join everyone else in the conference room? Let them know I’ll be there momentarily.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Robles said, and left after a quick glance at Taylor.

  “Thanks for allowing me in on the investigation,” Taylor said after a second of silence that hung between the two men.

  “It’s not every day I get a call from both a Deputy Attorney General and an Army Brigadier General. When they asked for access for a special investigator, it’s pretty tough to say 'no.'”

  Taylor couldn’t help but think that when Robles said Colonel Keene had juice, he wasn’t kidding.

  “Still, it's appreciated.”

  “My pleasure. I was wondering something, however. I took a look at the file we have on you and I saw nothing in it to suggest an investigative background.”

  “I’m more of a subject matter expert,” Taylor replied.

  “Yeah, I saw that, too. I’m happy to have you here with us, but I want to make it clear I do not want a repeat of that business in Miami.”

  “I only did what was necessary to get the job done, Sir.”

  “Humph. There’s a smuggling, white supremacist, gang leader who tells a story that suggests you went a little above what most people would consider ‘necessary.'”

  Taylor hadn’t thought about Ronnie, the gang leader in question, since he walked out of the house the gang used as a headquarters six months ago. Taylor had applied what the military liked to call enhanced interrogation to Ronnie to get information that would help him track down a woman grabbed by Russian gangsters. Taylor didn’t have any qualms about what he had done then, and he had none now. A woman’s life was in danger, and Ronnie was the poster child for scumbags.

  “They're welcome to their opinions.”

  “Well, let's try and not leave bodies in the street. Okay?”

  “I’ll do my best Sir.”

  “Uh-huh. Ok, I’ll take you in to meet Tony, and get you up to speed. It’s been made crystal clear to me that I should offer you all the support you need, so if there’s something, please let me know.”

  “Sure thing. Also, I had mentioned to Robles that I wasn’t licensed to carry in Texas and had to leave my weapon behind. I’d asked if there was some kind of dispensation to allow me to carry.” Taylor said.

  “Tony will be able to take care of that for you.”

  “Okay.”

  Ruiz led Taylor out of the office and down a hallway into a conference room with about fifteen people in it, all in suits, all looking exactly like you’d expect a room fu
ll of FBI agents to look. The room itself had a large table in it, with a monitor hung on the wall at one end of the room and was clearly the head of the table where the presentation would be given.

  Taylor saw Robles talking to a couple of other agents at the opposite end of the room, but Ruiz directed him towards a man with blond hair cut very conservatively. It wasn’t quite a high and tight, and Taylor would have picked his background as law school rather than the military. Next to him was a woman who looked extremely serious, with dark brown hair knotted in a tight bun, wearing a dark pantsuit.

  “Tony,” Ruiz said when they walked up, “this is John Taylor, the investigator I told you about. Taylor, this is Tony Dorset, the ASAC in charge of the task force. He’ll be your point of contact and will provide you with everything you need.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Dorset said, in a way that suggested it was anything but.

  “Well, I’ll get out of your hair and let you get started,” Ruiz said, excusing himself.

  “Mr. Taylor, this is Special Agent Loretta Whitaker. She will be assigned to you for the duration of your investigation to assist you. Let her know if there is anything you need. Now if you will excuse me, I need to get started.”

  “Sure,” Taylor said.

  Taylor knew when he was being dismissed, and walked to one side of the room, to lean against a wall. Whitaker followed and stood some distance away. He hadn’t spoken to her yet, but it was hard to miss the dismissive look she had given him when she was introduced. He also couldn’t help but notice that she was the third person he had been passed to since he arrived in the building. The FBI was playing kick the can, and Taylor was apparently the can.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your seats,” Dorset said, standing behind the chair that sat at the head of the table. After a little rustling, everyone was either standing against the wall like Taylor or sitting at the conference table.

  “By now, you’re all aware of the explosion at the National Guard Armory outside of Waco, but just in case you’ve missed it, here are the broad facts. Shortly after nine in the evening last Wednesday, the code of one Corporal Samar Abbas was entered into the security system, and all of the cameras and fence sensors were shut off moments later. Four minutes after the code was entered, there was an explosion. Technicians are still trying to put together the initial point of the blast, since this armory stored demolition charges, small arms and light vehicle ammunition, and a notable amount of fuel; all of which went up, didn't leave much more than a crater.”