The Consultant

by TJ O'Connor

  As I drove past the garage, a dark-skinned man walked around the rear of one of the buses and froze when he saw me. I only saw him for a second, but when he saw me, he disappeared immediately. By the time I turned around and looked back, he was already gone.

  Now, now, don’t be shy.

  My tires complained all the way around a quick U-turn, and I parked just outside the garage. But as I climbed out of the rental, another car made the turn at the intersection and pulled up beside me.

  Artie Polo. What a coincidence.

  Artie whipped his car in front of mine and jumped out. “Hunter, what are you doing here?”

  “Looking for Sam.” I slid onto the hood of my rental. “What are you doing here? I thought you guys weren’t interested in this place without all that legal mumbo-jumbo.”

  “Oh, you mean evidence and warrants and probable cause? That legal mumbo-jumbo?”

  I nodded. “Exactly. So, what are you doing here?”

  “My job.” Artie walked over and folded his arms, looking me over. “Now, your turn.”

  I threw a chin toward the garage. “Looking for Sam. This place is a ghost town, Artie, but there’s a mechanic inside. Maybe he’s seen Sam.”

  “What makes you think Sam hangs around here?” Artie set his jaw with that FBI-in-charge look. “A little far out of town, isn’t it?”

  I told him about Sam running off from Noor’s and I explained what I’d discovered on Sam’s cell phone at Fool’s Lake the night before last. He was nodding the moment I explained about using the phone’s check-in details from its settings.

  “Smooth, Hunter. Here I thought you had some kind of spook intel I didn’t.”

  “Just common sense.” I gestured to the garage again. “Victoria and I are looking for Sam, and I figured I’d come visit here. Want to help me roust the locals? I’ll call Victoria, and we can start with the mechanic.”

  “We better talk.” Artie’s face got tense and he lowered his eyes. “Victoria’s a problem, Jon.”

  Uh-oh. That didn’t sound good at all. Artie wanted to share without any quid pro quo, and about Victoria, too. “What? She didn’t file a sexual harassment suit against me, did she?”

  “No, get serious, Hunter.” He took out a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. “I was going to talk to you later but maybe now’s better. You know, away from the office.”

  “What? You’re acting a little spooky, even for me, Artie.”

  “Victoria’s lying to us.”

  “About what?” I unfolded the paper and looked it over. It was a copy of a cell phone printout with several calls highlighted. Many of them were Kevin’s cell phone and a few back to the FBI task force. I knew because Artie had labeled the calls in his chickenscratch handwriting.

  “It’s from a burner phone.” Artie’s eyes grew darker. “The phone comes from a shop outside Leesburg. There are two calls the night Kevin was murdered at the river. One about an hour before and one just about when it was going down. We never recovered his phone.”

  “Okay, let’s make believe I don’t know what this tells us.” I didn’t, but suddenly there was a nagging tap on my brain. “This is—”

  “Victoria’s. We got into Kevin’s phone records and found this burner number. It took them a couple days, but they traced it. Victoria bought it several months ago.”

  It couldn’t be. “You can trace burner phones?”

  “You’d be surprised what we can do when we know what we’re looking for.”

  “You were looking for her?”

  He said nothing.

  Dammit. “What else do you have?”

  “Hunter.” He looked away a moment. “There are calls to another burner phone, too. The number’s come up before, and we’re sure it belongs to Saeed Mansouri. We can’t prove it yet, but we’re working on it.”

  “What? Are you sure?” The look on his face was sure. “What’s her motive?”

  “The oldest motive in the world. Money. She was in Saudi and Kabul with an FBI team for a couple months a year or more ago. Before she left, her father had been gravely ill, and she almost went under paying his medical bills.”

  “And?”

  “When she returned, her problems went away. Suddenly. No more money troubles.” Artie hesitated before delivering another hard blow. “She came back to DC and all but begged for this assignment on the task force.”

  “She asked to get here? Why?” When the questions left my lips, the answer reached my brain. “You’re saying she made some kind of connection in the Middle East and they paid her off? Then she came here to be a double agent?”

  “Yes.” Artie looked down and his face got tight and angry. “There’s a reason we haven’t been able to get a foothold in this town, Hunter, or with Saeed Mansouri specifically. Victoria’s the reason. Maybe that’s what got Kevin murdered, too. Maybe Kevin was part of it and maybe not. Maybe it’s been Victoria all along and she framed him.”

  Was it possible? Had she betrayed everyone? Betrayed Kevin?

  I started to question him when he held up a hand. “I know about the hundred grand at Noor’s place. Victoria was very quick to tell me about it earlier. Too quick. It’s like she was adding a nail to his coffin or something.”

  “I know I should have told you. I’ve been working my own angles, Artie. Sorry.” When he shrugged, I pressed him some more. “You think she’s actually working with Khalifah?”

  He nodded. “It’s very possible. I haven’t any other explanation. This proves she’s been lying.”

  “I don’t hear any hard evidence, Artie. Just speculation. These calls could be anything.”

  He nodded. “Unfortunately, you’re right. But why do you think I spend so much time out here instead of my cushy office in DC? I’m responsible for this mess. I have to untangle it.”

  Dammit, Artie was making some sense. Could it be true?

  “Hunter, keep this to yourself. I don’t want to spook her until I have the rest of the proof.”

  All I could do was nod and curse.

  “Good.” He took the phone printout from me and pocketed it. “Now, you need to leave, Hunter. I’ve got agents coming in a few minutes to help me and I don’t want you mucking this up. If Sam’s here, I’ll find him. If he’s been here, I’ll let you know pronto.”

  Well, it wasn’t going to take more than one more agent to cover this place, so my time was best spent elsewhere looking for Sam. I told him as much and reluctantly climbed back into my car. “Call me with anything on him, Artie. As soon as you get it. He’s scared and upset about Bobby. Let me talk to him first. Deal?”

  “Deal. But I get what you get. All of it.”

  * * *

  As I headed back to Winchester, Victoria was stuck in my thoughts. It was bad enough Kevin had an affair with her, but for her to be a double agent for Khalifah turned my stomach. If, I should say. Artie seemed a bit too positive about her with just a cell phone bill. He had something else. Something more damning that he wasn’t sharing. I’d known him a long time, and he wasn’t a guy to make accusations without hard evidence.

  Could it be as simple as he said?

  I decided to find Bond just in case he’d seen Sam around town. Maybe he could put the word out and the deputies could be looking for him. So I returned to the task force and, just as I was about to jump out of my car in the rear lot, I noticed Bond sitting in his car alongside the task force’s building. He hadn’t noticed me, so I stayed put and watched him. Maybe I’d have a few motivational words with him about his rabid assault on me earlier.

  I was about to walk over to ask him about Sam when another car pulled up and parked driver’s side to driver’s side with him. The newcomer spoke with Bond through the open window. After several moments, the newcomer handed a large manila package out the window to Bond. The car backed up and headed out of the parking lot. He passed near enough for me to see him.

  Mo Nassar.

  What were these two up to?<
br />
  There was only one way to know. I followed him.

  Surveilling someone who doesn’t want to be followed is tricky. Especially alone. You have to give the suspect lots of room. But not too much room. Then, let them run their own surveillance detection without you getting caught. That includes lane changes, U-turns, and other tricks without being pulled in too close. Sometimes, you have to let them make the turn and pass by, then recover and double back to find them again—hopefully. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

  It didn’t for me, and twice I lost Nassar, who was heading east out of town. I missed a traffic light and got stuck behind two mopeds. But he was careless. Fueled by CIA hubris, I’m sure. He never checked for a tail. He easily could have pulled to the roadside to watch for anyone fading back or pulling over, too, or gone completely around the block to see who followed him through. He simply crossed Winchester and picked up Route 7 East. No deviations.

  Still, to be safe, I stayed way back.

  Luckily, I never lost sight of him for more than a few moments. Each time, he was still heading east, and I was able to keep him in my sights about a half a mile ahead of me while we made the trip to nearby Berryville. There, he wormed his way along some side streets to a condominium development south of town. I pulled into a shopping center and parked with a good view of the condo entrance. There were two condo buildings, and they both faced a small courtyard in front of the parking lot. All of that was in my sights.

  A good thing, too.

  Thirty minutes later, Nassar reappeared out of one of the buildings and jumped in his car. Tempted as I was to follow him out, I waited. Why, I had no idea, but my gut wasn’t just grumbling from hunger, it was telling me I was about to score.

  Oh, yeah.

  Fifteen minutes after Nassar left, a familiar face left the same condo entrance and walked to the far end of the parking lot. He climbed into an old, beat-up pickup truck and drove quickly out of the lot. He passed my position twice. When he did, I got a good look at him between a dozen other cars and again when he drove off.

  Caine.

  Bond. Nassar. Caine.

  Happy birthday to me.

  * * *

  I considered tailing Caine but doubted he’d be as careless as Nassar. I didn’t have the help to properly tail him, and if he caught me, he could ambush and kill me before I realized it was too late.

  Bond, Nassar, and Caine? What was going on in sleepy Winchester that had a rogue lovesick cop, a duplicitous CIA spook, and an international assassin all holding hands?

  On my way back to town, I called LaRue.

  “Pour me a very tall bourbon, Oscar. We have to talk.”

  His voice was gruffer than usual. “I’m at the hotel. Has something changed?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I stomped on the gas. “Mo Nassar.”

  CHAPTER 64

  Day 5: May 19, 1915 Hours, Daylight Saving Time

  Rural Frederick County, Virginia

  “SAEED WILL KILL us both.” Doc shoved Caine back from his laboratory table outside the makeshift bio lab. He tried to strike Caine across the face, but Caine blocked the assault without effort. “You pig. Saeed already asked about the sarin supply. He wanted the test results.”

  “On which sample?”

  Doc raised his chin. “The sample you have. If he finds out what you’ve done, he’ll kill us both.”

  Caine lashed out a right hand and grabbed Doc by the throat. He pushed him backward over the lab table with ferocious force and pinned him there. “Then he shouldn’t find out, Doc. That would be bad for both of us.”

  “I must tell him,” Doc croaked, gasping for breath. “He will kill me and my family if I do not.”

  “Only you and I know this batch of sarin is inert, right?”

  Doc managed a meek nod. “You switched the cylinders.”

  “Listen, Doc.” Caine relaxed his grip but didn’t release him. “You and I are the only ones who could know I swapped them. Saeed’s a thug. He wouldn’t know the difference between sarin and Shamshiri tea.”

  Doc’s eyes got big. “What have you done with the other cylinders?”

  “I found a higher bidder. A much better price. Do you know how much money this stuff is worth?”

  “You’re selling it?”

  Caine said nothing.

  “It is so lethal. Only someone who wishes to use it as Khalifah does would pay you.”

  Caine still said nothing.

  “I see.” Doc closed his eyes. “Saeed has taken the remaining cylinders away.”

  “What?” Caine looked around the lab furiously. “Taken where?”

  Doc shook his head. “I do not know. He had me prepare three cylinders earlier and place them in the protective case. His men took them.”

  “You’re lying.” Caine tightened his grip on the scientist. “Where were they taken?”

  “I do not know.” Doc’s face twisted and fear filled his eyes. “But I can find out. I want money. Half of what you receive. But first, you must save my family before Saeed kills them. Please.”

  Caine studied him for a long time without allowing him to move from the table. “What makes you think I can save your family?”

  “Saeed’s men call you an alqatil. The assassin.” Doc’s eyes bore into him. “Saeed holds my family. If I do not do these things, they will kill them. Save them, Caine, and pay me so I may escape with my family. Only then will I help you.”

  “Ten percent,” Caine said, releasing his grip on him.

  “No.” Doc struck quickly and caught Caine unsuspecting with a heavy glass container across the temple. As Caine fell back, Doc grabbed a glass vial from the table and hurled it at him. “Mercenary, do you believe I will help you? Saeed will trade my family for you now. He will pay.”

  The vial crashed on the floor at Caine’s feet and splattered his legs, instantly burning holes in his pants and leather boots. Acid. As the vile struck, he pulled his switchblade out, launched himself on top of the scientist, and plunged the knife into his solar plexus. Grasping the man’s throat with one hand for control, he twisted side to side and up in violent, staccato movements.

  It was over. Doctor Hosni Al-Fayed was dead before Caine realized he’d reacted.

  “Fool. Your family’s already dead.”

  CHAPTER 65

  Day 5: May 19, 1915 Hours, Daylight Saving Time

  The George Washington Hotel, Winchester, Virginia

  “SARIN NERVE AGENT?” I couldn’t believe what LaRue had just told me.

  We were sitting in his suite’s living room. I had my legs propped up on a glass coffee table, much to his ire, and LaRue was sipping a fresh cup of tea across from me in a large leather chair. He dropped “sarin nerve agent” on me like he was offering me tea—“This chamomile is divine. Oh, and the Iranians have smuggled sarin nerve agent into the country. Have a cookie?”

  I stared at him. “I’m chasing sarin?”

  “Yes.” LaRue was, as always, polishing his eyeglasses while he contemplated his next response. “That is what was spilled at the river and why the truck was torched that night. Whoever was there—Caine, I believe—was ensuring any spillage was destroyed.”

  Sarin is a lethal nerve agent. A chemical weapon of mass destruction. There are many such nerve agents, but sarin is a favorite of the former Soviet Union and some in the Middle East—like Iran, Libya, and Syria. You know, club whacko. Sarin is nasty stuff, too. It can be deployed in many ways, including air-dropped bombs, weaponized aerosols, and ground-level releases. If you are unlucky enough to be there when it’s used, you won’t be able to breathe, you’ll be nauseated and drool, and then the bad stuff happens. You’ll lose control of your bodily functions. All of them. Eventually, you’ll twitch and jerk about until you fall into a coma and suffocate. Death is not fast or fun. No fun at all.

  “You’re just telling me this now?”

  He just looked at me and replaced his eyeglasses.

  “Anything else I need to know?”


  “We believe it came in from Syria or perhaps direct from Iran.” He slipped his glasses on and adjusted the fit. “Khalifah’s delivery method is unclear. He and Caine have enough to kill thousands. If Baltimore is indeed the target, it could be horrific.”

  I got up and paced the living room. As I watched LaRue, he was calm and cool. No sign that Armageddon loomed in the room.

  I felt a chill even thinking about sarin gas. “How do you know how much they have?”

  He said nothing.

  The CIA stall. “I’m supposed to find it and the remaining targets, right?”

  He nodded slowly. “Shepard and I were working another component. Unfortunately, there was a major setback.”

  “How major?”

  He stood and walked to the window. This was not a melodramatic gesture. “Sokoloff escaped. We were on the verge of learning everything. Shepard was killed.”

  Shepard was dead? “Why didn’t you call me? Is Noor in danger?”

  “No. We know where he’s going. It is not to Winchester.”

  “Shepard? What happened?”

  He didn’t turn around. “It is a cost of our business, Hunter. We will address that failure another time.”

  “No, now.”

  He thrust up a hand for silence as he looked at nothing outside the window. “Please. Another time.”

  I said nothing.

  He went to the small kitchenette, returned with a small ballistic nylon pouch, and handed it to me. “You will go nowhere without this.”

  The pouch was about eight inches long and a couple inches in circumference. It had a snazzy belt clip affixed like a case for eyeglasses.

  He aimed his omnipotent finger at me. “Nowhere, Hunter. Do not fail in that.”

  Inside the pouch were two narrow, plastic pen-like devices the size of a heavy, thick magic marker. I’d carried these kits many times on the battlefield and during other sensitive operations. It was a Mark 1 nerve agent kit. The kit contained atropine and pralidoxime chloride—or 2-PAM—auto-injectors. One of only a couple defenses against nerve agents. If exposed to, say, sarin, you plunged the atropine injector into your thigh and a long, painful needle plunged into your leg and injected the antidote. Repeat with the 2-PAM injector. Then hope and pray the antidote worked. Survival depended on the nerve agent, timing, and, above all, luck.