The Consultant

by TJ O'Connor

  Outside the funeral hall, ten police motorcycles and thirty cruisers waited. The officers came from all over the state and escorted the black hearse and limousines to the cemetery. At the gravesite, the state police superintendent, Colonel Somebody, delivered a gut-wrenching prayer for all fallen officers. When Kevin’s name was chanted, my veneer cracked. I faltered. Noor nearly dropped. Sam and I caught her before she tumbled to her knees. I could barely heft her weight.

  Steady. One, two, three … thirty, thirty-one … fifty-nine …

  The Honor Guard’s rifle salute forged my grief into steel. I found my second wind and tightened my arms around Noor and Sam. Artie touched my shoulder and squeezed. Victoria was beside him and refused my eyes. Hers couldn’t rise above the ground. Never had I seen them on Kevin. I knew they saw him now.

  My demise was the flag—flags and grieving families—always that. When the flag was crisply folded and laid into Noor’s hands—the ceremony for the fallen—it choked my breath and weakened my knees. I cried outright, not swollen eyes and moist cheeks, but a full cascade of grief. The first time since my parents’ funeral. The only time. The deafening silence drove a spike into me. Noor trembled against me, and I pulled her closer, trying to draw the pain from her. I took Sam’s shoulder in a long crush of support.

  Ops-mode failed me.

  I couldn’t control the pain. Couldn’t stay the tears. With closed eyes, my parents’ funeral surrounded me. After a moment, the here and now returned. No escape.

  I looked into the crowd behind Kevin’s headstone. Standing in the rear, just off to one side, I saw LaRue and Shepard. They were in dark suits and both wore a black band around their arms in a symbol of solidarity with a fallen officer.

  LaRue’s face was stone. He looked up from the grave to me and simply nodded. Shepard caught my eyes and sent me a message. When I looked over at Noor and then back to them, they were gone—vanished as quietly as they had arrived.

  Shepard’s message needed no deciphering. Revenge is a dish best served cold. Mine would be ice.

  * * *

  Two hours later, the last mourners left the town hall reception. I drove Noor and Sam home. They sat in the back seat simmering in shock and despair—silent. At home, Noor took a prescribed tranquilizer, and Sam sought refuge in his dad’s den. Me, I couldn’t relax. I couldn’t allow the darkness to consume me. Not now. Not again.

  Focus.

  I jumped into my rental and returned to the cemetery. There were things to say. Private things. Brother things. Overdue things.

  The graveside crew had just left. Only the garden-sized memorial of flowers remained. I strolled through a tree-lined knoll well away from his grave. Even now, Kevin and I were magnets that repelled each other. When finally the right words formed, I crested the knoll and gazed down on him.

  Someone was there.

  A small woman, who even at a distance was familiar, stood with head bowed and prayed her rosary. She wore dark sunglasses with a scarf pulled tightly around her head. When I moved closer, she looked up and pulled her scarf tighter.

  She turned to go.

  “Wait,” I called, and closed the distance. “No, please don’t go.”

  The closer I got, the more familiar her features became. Of course. It was the young Middle Eastern woman from the Old Town Café. She had been with her daughter eating ice cream the night I’d met Bobby Kruppa.

  I smiled the best I could. “I’m sorry to disturb you. How did you know Kevin?”

  She stared and straightened herself with poise and confidence. She held my eyes. There was something strong and proud about her—confident and unapologetic.

  “Motevajeh nemishavam … Ah, I no understand.” She nodded politely.

  My Arabic wasn’t the greatest, but I’m sure she told me she spoke no English.

  I gestured toward Kevin’s grave. “Please, stay.”

  For a moment, she looked as though she would speak to me. It lasted only a second before she turned and walked away toward the cemetery gate. I watched her leave and a nagging feeling overtook me. The woman, for whatever reason, waited until everyone was gone before visiting Kevin. Why?

  I turned back to Kevin. Unease lingered. Standing there, alone and unsteady, the guilt—born of so many silent years—wrapped its arms around me and squeezed.

  I stood with him, whispered a short prayer, and hoped he was in the mood to listen.

  CHAPTER 44

  Day 4: May 18, 1630 Hours, Daylight Saving Time

  One Block from Arlington IFCU Mosque, Arlington, Virginia

  CAINE EXECUTED HIS precautionary surveillance-detection maneuvers through Fairfax, DC, and Alexandria. Recent events dictated extra attention, and one mistake could cost him everything. Cost everyone everything. Finally, after his customary changes of cabs, trains, and city blocks, he traveled the final few miles to Arlington by cab for his meeting with Khalifah and the accented man with no ring finger. Two blocks away from Hafez and Fasni, where his colleagues waited, the cabbie slowed and pulled to the curb.

  “No closer, buddy. Cops have the road blocked. What you wanna do?”

  Half a block ahead, a row of flashing police lights blocked traffic and uniformed officers milled around. Caine climbed out of the cab and handed the cabbie a twenty. “Stay right here. I’ll be back.”

  “You got five minutes. I keep it if the cops chase me out.”

  Caine walked toward the police but found the reason for the barricade before he even reached them. His plans then changed. He took out his phone and tapped in a phone number from memory.

  Khalifah answered on the first ring. “Where are you? You’re late.”

  “Look out your window. I’m not getting through that.” He tapped the call off and pocketed his phone.

  Down the boulevard, a block west of Hafez and Fasni, a crowd of protestors was swelling in front of the Arlington IFCU Mosque. A second line of Arlington County police were positioned to protect the mosque entrance and separate the protestors from an equally growing crowd of Muslims attempting to enter for afternoon prayer. Angry words volleyed between the crowds. One of the protestors chanted angry slogans using a megaphone, agitating the followers even more.

  More protestors arrived. This group was armed with signs and hastily prepared banners demanding justice for the Fair Oaks and Union Station victims. Some of them wore old clothes bathed in red paint. Banners displayed huge photographs of the attack’s carnage.

  The crowd was morphing into a mob, and it began moving toward the police as signs stabbed the air and were readied as clubs. Chants turned to shrill threats. Protestors, spurred by anger and the fever pitch of the crowd’s emotional swell, edged toward thuggery.

  From somewhere inside the Muslim lines, its own anger swelled as the worshippers were pushed away from the mosque by the police. Pushing and shoving began as they attempted in vain to breach the police line and engage the protestors.

  Flashpoint.

  As Caine reached his waiting cab, a gunshot cracked the air from somewhere beyond the mosque. The police near the cab drew their weapons and rushed in. The chanting turned to panicked screams as fear erupted. Someone cried out for an ambulance. Police commands to disperse echoed up the boulevard.

  Another gunshot.

  “Get me out of here,” Caine barked at the cabbie as he jumped into the cab. “Dulles Airport. Now.”

  As the cab made a hasty U-turn, Caine turned and looked back as the crowd churned out of control. He understood Operation Maya now. At least part of it. The Foreigner had lit a fuse of molten terror, and with each new attack, fear would explode over and over across the country.

  From there, the country was on its way back to war.

  CHAPTER 45

  Day 4: May 18, 1830 Hours, Daylight Saving Time

  Noor Mallory’s Residence, Frederick County, Virginia

  THE MOVE INTO Noor’s garage loft was both a distraction and a curse. It gave me something else to think about other than the funera
l. A curse because this was Kevin’s home. I didn’t belong. I lugged my oversized duffel and a backpack full of dirty clothes up the outside staircase and stumbled through the doorway. The duffel went on the bed. The backpack on the floor.

  Voila, all moved in.

  The loft was not a four-star suite, but it had the basics and beat my hotel. Actually, it beat most hotels I’d been in in recent years. A five-star suite in those places meant the bathroom was inside the building. This was heaven. It was close to Noor and Sam, and I wouldn’t hear TV blaring through the walls or some trucker’s torrid misadventure.

  “Jon?” Noor stood in the doorway with two steaming mugs. “Are you settled?”

  I glanced at my duffel on the bed. “Sure. Noor, I can’t thank you enough. This is great.”

  “Coffee?” She handed me a mug, sipped hers, and glanced around. After several moments, she’d run out of ways to avoid eye contact and still she hadn’t moved from the door.

  “What is it, Noor? What’s wrong?” What a stupid question considering today.

  “Well … there is something I need to show you.” She bent down outside the doorway and retrieved a package. “This was hidden in the barn.” She handed me a plastic shopping bag wrapped around a bundle. The bundle had the remnants of duct tape used to seal it. She’d yanked at the tape and exposed the contents.

  Money. Cash. Lots of it. Twenty dollar bills still wrapped in the original banking bands.

  I pulled out several stacks of crisp twenties and tried to do the math in my head. I was never good at arithmetic.

  “Five thousand. There are nineteen more in the barn.”

  That math was easy. A hundred thousand dollars. Add that to the ten grand that I found at the cabin and things looked bad for Kevin. What had happened to him over the years?

  “Noor? Kevin had this? It looks like he—”

  “Do not say that. Not Kevin. No.” Her face flushed and she grabbed a bundle of cash. “It cannot be. Please tell me there is another reason for this. Please, Jon.”

  “Noor, I need to tell you some things.” Fair was fair. I’d been the filling in a shit sandwich since I arrived in town. Now, I was living a hundred feet from her front door. She deserved to know the details. She deserved to know it all.

  “More despair.” It wasn’t a question and her eyes lowered. She walked to the dinette table and sat. “All right, Jon Hunter. Tell me.”

  I swallowed hard. “Kevin never sold the cabin. He kept it secret, and I don’t know why.”

  “But … we needed money. He said we were in trouble.”

  I shrugged. “The cabin wasn’t sold and still there’s this cash.”

  She slowly shook her head. “I do not understand. He did not sell and he has this money. What does this all mean?”

  “There’s more.” I told her about Bobby Kruppa and hiding him at the cabin. I told her everything including the FEMA and FBI shenanigans at the river and meeting Ghali last night. Even harder, I explained about finding him dead this morning. When her eyes closed and she started to rise for a retreat from the loft, I blurted my innocence and my release by the FBI. I didn’t want her thinking I was a mass murderer and couldn’t get the proof out fast enough. If I was going to gain her trust, I had to be honest. I poured it all out, and every syllable was bitter and hard to pronounce.

  By the time I’d reached a safe place to breathe, she stood by the door with a confused, anxious look in her eyes. She stared at the floor and tried to absorb it all. She tried to make sense of a dead husband and a brother-in-law bathed in trouble.

  “What does this all mean, Jon? Kevin was in some kind of trouble. That is clear to me now. You have not been here for years and now you are caught up in it, too.” She folded her arms, leaned against the door, and looked at me with soft, painful eyes. “Did the man who broke in here come for this money? Please—tell me you do not think Kevin and that man were …”

  “Partners? No.” Deep down, though, it was possible. Regardless of what LaRue thought. The best I could do for Noor right then was lie. “It’ll be okay, Noor.”

  She shook her head and wept.

  Without thinking, I stood and went to her, pulling her to me and gently kissing her on the forehead. “Whatever this is, I’ll take care of it. I promise.”

  She pulled away and looked up into my eyes, searching for something hidden from both of us. She leaned close and pressed her cheek into my chest. Her body trembled, and for a long time, she clung to me with familiarity I hadn’t felt, well, ever.

  Fingers of fear seized me. I had no idea what to say or do. I did nothing. Said nothing. Moments were hours and the nothing I did became heavy and daunting. Everything I knew about women—any woman—I’d already played with cheap one-liners on Victoria. I was out of ammo. Spent.

  After a long time, she leaned back and faced me again. “You are nothing like Kevin. Nothing any longer, at least. Just then, if I closed my eyes, the man I once knew had returned.”

  My heart stopped. I struggled for words. If there was one good reason I spent most of my life alone, it was moments like these.

  “Noor, I’m sorry. I’m being too—”

  “No, you are not.” A faint smile etched through falling tears. “You are all I have now. You and Sameh. Please, be my family. Do not be afraid.”

  Afraid? Afraid to join Kevin’s family or afraid of her? Perhaps the sudden warmth of affection that shouldn’t be there? Neither? Both.

  Time to change the subject. “Noor, did you know Kevin had passports for you and Sameh, and himself, with false names?”

  “False names?” Her beautiful dark eyes exploded. “Was Kevin so bad we had to run?”

  My cell phone rang. Thank God.

  It was Artie. “Hunter, we need to meet.”

  “Sure, Artie.”

  “I’m at the Valley Road House.”

  “When?”

  “Nine thirty. Hunter, come to listen.”

  Noor had said about the same to me. “Sure, Artie. I always have an open mind.”

  “Of course you do. Nine thirty, Jon.”

  Click.

  What was this about? A thought popped into my brain. “Noor, you told me Kevin started acting odd a few months ago.”

  “Yes, and he scared me very often, too. He became moody. Angry. We hadn’t talked much for two years, but it became worse. Sometimes, he would go out at night and not come home for a day or more. No explanation. Never.”

  “When did it start? Exactly?”

  She thought a moment. A tear landed on her cheek. Another. “He forgot Valentine’s Day. I never cared for the custom, but he loved it. He never forgot. It was then I knew our marriage was truly over. It had been for a long time. But then I knew.”

  “Valentine’s Day,” I repeated, more for my benefit than hers. “Did anything else happen around that time?”

  She thought a long time, looking down. When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes. “Yes. He told me just before that someone gave him a file, a secret file, about your parents’ death. This file said the man who killed them was a refugee here. Someone who was supposed to be sent home to Iraq. Instead, even after killing your parents, this man was allowed to stay in this country. Kevin was angry. He was in a rage as he told me this thing.”

  Who was the someone who gave him the secret file? If there was information on the drunk driver, it was never released to us before. Kevin and I never sued. Mom and Dad’s life insurance was more than what we needed and all we wanted to do was move on. The faster we moved beyond the accident, the better. So why, after all these years, would someone think it important that he know those details?

  “It’s all confusing, Noor. I just don’t know what it means.”

  “He was never the same.” She leaned against me again, sending a shiver through me like a heat wave. “He had a terrible fight with Polo and Dave. Dave and Kevin were close, but the past few months they were not. My husband was not the man I married. This man was not Sameh’s f
ather any longer. It made me very sad.”

  A month after he changed, he began searching for me. If he wanted me to handle it—whatever it was—then it had to be bad. Calling for me cost his pride. That was an expensive price to pay after all these years. Breaking the silence was the down payment. Admitting he needed my skills was the vig on a twenty-year debt.

  I said as much to Noor. Then added, “Do you have a gun?”

  She nodded.

  “Can you use it?”

  Her smile was as surprising as it was devilish. Neither had I seen before. “I am Iranian. Of course I can use a gun.”

  “Good. Get it and keep it with you.”

  “And, Jon Hunter,” she said and kissed my cheek, “I am not afraid to kill.”

  CHAPTER 46

  Day 4: May 18, 1830 Hours, Daylight Saving Time

  Alexandria, Virginia

  LARUE SAT IN silence as Shepard pulled the Mercedes into the Alexandria office complex’s underground parking garage and backed into a space near the elevators. When LaRue climbed out of the back seat, he waited for Shepard to slip on leather driving gloves and double-check the weight beneath the overcoat draped over his arm.

  LaRue asked, “How much time do we have?”

  “No more than two more hours, sir,” Shepard said, glancing at his watch. “The FBI found enough of the bomb car outside Union Station to trace back to here. Our asset is slowing the progress until we’re through.”

  “Very well. Proceed.”

  They moved together to the elevators and took the car up to the fifth floor. There, they made a left and followed the corridor down to the first suite on the left—Number 509, belonging to Kazan Limited, Importers of Fine Middle Eastern Furnishings. They knew the suite number from the registration for a dark SUV that had been parked outside Union Station that morning. Just before, of course, it exploded and killed hundreds fleeing Union Station.

  The suite door sign requested visitors to ring the bell. Instead, LaRue nodded to Shepard, who lifted his right hand from beneath the raincoat.