“That’s what Andy Rooney would have said,” she quipped.
“Yes.”
“Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
There was an awkward moment as they sat in Brixton’s car in front of her apartment building. He had the feeling that she wanted a good-night kiss, but he didn’t want to make the move, nor did she.
“Thank you,” she said, “for the wine.”
“Hey, what’s a guy for? I’m sorry about your brother.”
“And I am sorry about your daughter. So much sorrow in so many peoples’ lives. Good night, Robert.”
“I’ll call you, maybe have dinner?”
“I will be disappointed if you don’t.”
With that she was gone, and he wished that she was still there.
CHAPTER
13
After showering and dressing early the next morning, Brixton poured the ingredients of his morning shake into the blender he’d brought with him from New York. Old habits die hard, he thought. His fingers hovered over the switch while he weighed whether or not he could stomach another healthy smoothie. He decided he could not.
After checking that the media hadn’t returned, he jogged to a local deli, picked up two egg-cheese-and-bacon sandwiches, orange juice, and a large coffee, and brought them back to the apartment, where he sat on the balcony with his breakfast and read that day’s Washington Post.
A long front-page article that was continued inside the paper was a report on the café bombing, researched and written by three Post reporters. Brixton scanned the piece in search of anything that would bolster his claim that Paul Skaggs had accompanied the bomber, but there was nothing. The section devoted to Brixton’s shooting of Skaggs focused on a new statement by Congressman Skaggs, in which he chastised the Justice Department for not moving fast enough in its investigation of Brixton and why he’d killed his unarmed son. It was noted that reporters were unable to reach Brixton for his comment.
There was, however, new information on the bomber herself. The article identified her as Shahinaz Chamkanni. She was eighteen years old. Her family belonged to one of the many Pashtun tribes in Pakistan that provide warriors to the Taliban and whose government is based upon Islamic sharia law. A serious face looked out from her picture in the paper. Although details of her arrival in the United States were sketchy, sources indicated that she had come to Washington on a student visa. However, when contacted by the paper, officials at myriad local colleges and universities had no record or knowledge of her, leading officials at Homeland Security to conclude that her visa and accompanying papers had been falsified. Her whereabouts since arriving were unknown. The local address she’d listed on her visa application proved to be an abandoned storefront in southeast Washington.
“What the hell is wrong with our immigration people?” Brixton growled to himself. “How does she come up with phony papers and disappear until she’s called upon to blow up a café?” He was also impressed that they’d been able to identify her so quickly, considering that she’d entered the country using false papers and had undoubtedly been blown into little pieces.
He read the article a few more times until satisfied that there was nothing of value to him regarding Paul Skaggs. As he finished his breakfast and sipped what was left of his cold coffee, his thoughts shifted from the story to the previous evening.
He was glad that he’d had dinner at the Smiths’. He needed to get outside of himself and not wallow in his misery. The physical wounds he’d suffered in the bombing had healed sufficiently for him to abandon the dressings, but he knew that his psychic wounds also had to be administered to.
He was pleased with himself that he’d invited Asal Banai for a drink. The time spent with her had been easy and pleasant. She was one of those people who practiced the cardinal rule of a good conversationalist: She listened. Her large dark eyes had focused on him as he recounted more about his life than he’d intended, his failed marriage, his two daughters, the years spent with the Savannah PD, and the retreat to his Brooklyn roots. It occurred to him that he was on his first date since Flo ended their relationship. That made him smile. He was too old to be on a “date.” English seemed to lack an appropriate term for a mature unmarried relationship. When people used to ask how his girlfriend was, he often responded that Flo wasn’t his “girlfriend.” That was for teenyboppers and lovesick college kids. But no matter what you called sitting with a lovely Iraqi woman in a cool, dark bar, he knew that he’d enjoyed it, so much so that he intended to repeat the experience.
After slipping four photographs of Janet into a manila envelope, he went to his car and headed for Arlington and his eight o’clock meeting with Mike Kogan.
Kogan was on the phone when Brixton entered his office. Two other SITQUAL agents sat on a small couch near a window.
“Hey, Robert,” one said, getting up and shaking Brixton’s hand. The other agent also greeted Brixton but stayed seated and waved.
“How are you feeling?” the more enthusiastic agent asked.
“I’m okay.”
“Your daughter. Man, I am sorry.”
“Thanks.”
“Have the arrangements been made? I mean for the funeral.”
“I’ll know more later today.”
“I’ll be there. You can count on that.”
“I appreciate it.”
Kogan motioned for the men to stop talking so he could better hear his phone conversation. The agent returned to the couch, and Brixton took a chair across the desk from his boss. A minute later Kogan ended the call, looked at Brixton, and said, “Thanks for coming by. Give us a minute.” He pointed at the agents on the couch. “Give me an update on the cases you’re working on,” he said.
They had little to offer. One had worked undercover near the Canadian embassy on Pennsylvania Avenue. There had been two purse snatchings of female embassy employees in the vicinity, and Canadian security officials had asked State to investigate. SITQUAL had sent in a plainclothes agent dressed in casual clothing to blend in, but as far as Brixton was concerned, he had “cop” written all over him. MPD help had also been requested, resulting in a marked patrol car making a pass each day. Lots of luck.
“I hung around the embassy,” the agent said, “but there was nobody who fit the description of the perp. I talked to one character who looked like he didn’t belong there—white, scruffy, middle-aged, a street guy. The snatcher was young and black, according to the women.”
“And grabs purses in daylight,” Kogan said. “Go back this afternoon. His MO is late afternoon. Put in some time around then. Give me a report that I can show DSS, so they can show the Canadians that we’re on it.”
The second agent had been assigned to investigate anti-Semitic graffiti that had been spray-painted on cars belonging to members of the Israeli embassy who’d been attending an art exhibit by Israeli-born sculptor Dalya Luttwak at the Kreeger Museum.
“Whoever did it is no artist,” the agent reported, “just painted ‘Jew bastards’ on two cars. He doesn’t spell so good either.” He laid photos he’d taken of the cars on the desk. Bastards was spelled BASTADS. “MPD says they’re looking into it.”
“Stay on top of it with MPD,” Kogan said, “and give me a written report end of the day.”
“You take care, Robert,” one of the agents said as he and his colleague left the office.
“So,” Brixton said, “business as usual.”
“If I had my way, I’d tell the embassies to investigate their own purse snatchings,” Kogan said, “but I don’t have it my way. Look, I asked you to come in because I can use you.”
“To do what, help stake out the Canadian embassy and nab the purse snatcher?”
“I want to pick your brain about the bombing.”
“It’s already been picked clean, Mike. Read the papers; watch TV.”
“I know you’ve told everybody what you experienced, but maybe you can help fill in a missing piece for me.”
“How come
SITQUAL’s involved?” Brixton asked.
“Because of where that café was located, and because a number of embassy staffers were victims.”
“You think they might have been targets?”
“Nobody knows. The FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security have raised the possibility with State, and I have to follow through on it. Can you think of anything that you saw or overheard that would give that theory credence?”
“No.”
“Skaggs’s son. You said that he spoke with the bomber before he left. Did you hear anything he said?”
“No. He whispered in her ear. I didn’t hear a word.”
“Was there anything in the café that indicated that State Department employees were there?”
“Like what, a neon sign?”
“Like maybe some customers still wore their State ID tags around their neck. You said the bomber and Skaggs’s son passed the café three or four times before deciding to come in. Possible that they were scoping it out looking for embassy types?”
Brixton shrugged. “Sure, it’s possible, Mike, but I can’t tell you anything that would back it up. Sorry.”
“I just thought—is there anything I can do for you, Robert?”
“Like provide an eyewitness that Skaggs’s son was in the café?”
“I wish that were the case. You do know that I tried to avoid suspending you.”
“Sure.”
“That blowhard Skaggs wants your head, and mine too. If it weren’t for him I—”
“No explanations needed, Mike. Actually, it’s better that I’m on my own trying to prove that Skaggs’s son was with the bomber. Keeps the heat off you.”
“Any success?”
“No, but my friend Will Sayers has put me in touch with a retired guy from Justice, Charles McQuaid.”
“What’s he got to offer?”
Brixton explained that McQuaid had devoted much of his tenure at the Justice Department trying to build a case against Samuel Prisler.
“Prisler. Sure, the cult leader.”
“International arms dealer.”
“Same guy. He lives in Hawaii, doesn’t he?”
“So I’m told. On Maui. Paul Skaggs’s sister lives there, too, and works for Prisler.”
“‘Works for him’? You don’t work for Prisler, as I understand it. You sell your soul to him.”
“Will Sayers also told me that Paul Skaggs lived there for a period of time.”
“Interesting, Robert, but he just could have been visiting his sister. State has a thick file on Prisler. He’s clever, has a bunch of corporations. One gets investigated, he shifts everything into another. He’s tight with some of the Middle Eastern countries, Pakistan in particular.”
It took Brixton a moment to respond. “You read in today’s Post that the bomber came from Pakistan?”
“Yeah.”
“Paul Skaggs lived on Maui before coming back to D.C.”
Kogan leaned back and rubbed his eyes. “That’d be a tough connection to make,” he said through a yawn.
“Sure it is. Maybe this guy McQuaid can help make it. As it stands, I don’t have anything to link the Skaggs kid to the bombing other than what I saw. What I have to find out first is how long Paul Skaggs was here in D.C. before the bombing, where he was staying, what he was doing. You’ve got a good line into MPD. Will you make a few inquiries for me?”
“Happy to.”
“I appreciate it.”
Kogan walked Brixton to the stairwell.
“Why don’t you tell those guys downstairs in the restaurant to get an exhaust fan?” Brixton said. “Your office smells like a Thai kitchen.”
“I kind of like the smell,” Kogan said.
“To each his own. Thanks for the time, Mike. I’ll stay in touch.”
Kogan returned to his office, sat in his chair, closed his eyes, and thought about the predicament Brixton was in. He was out on a limb that was quickly snapping off. He’d shot and killed the son of one of the House of Representatives’ most powerful voices, Congressman Walter Skaggs, a my-way-or-the-highway politician from Mississippi, chairman of the House’s most influential committees, and an unabashed champion of the invasion of Iraq: “I don’t give a damn whether those weapons of mass destruction were there or not. Saddam Hussein was evil and had to go. Well, he’s gone, and the Iraqi people can live in freedom and peace. We get rid of a few more like him, and maybe this world will be a better place.”
Brixton had no one to corroborate his claim that Paul Skaggs had been in the café with the suicide bomber. It was only his word; anyone who could have backed up his story was dead. On top of that, Skaggs’s son had been unarmed, carrying only a cell phone in a shiny silver case.
And Brixton had lost a daughter in the bombing.
Unless the ghost of someone who’d died in the bombing came to life and testified that Skaggs had been there, Robert “Don’t Call me Bobby” Brixton was dead meat.
And Mike Kogan couldn’t do a thing about it.
CHAPTER
14
MAUI, HAWAII
Samuel Prisler walked into the dining room of the main house on his twelve-acre estate outside of Kapalua. His acreage jutted out into Honolua Bay and delivered not only spectacular sunsets over the bay and Pacific Ocean, but he could also see the island of Molokai in the distance. The massive table had been set for one; it could accommodate thirty. A fresh vase of red hibiscus had been placed on the table moments before his arrival, along with that day’s newspaper, a shortwave radio, and a pink legal pad and Flair pen. His multicolored aloha shirt—reds, yellows, and greens, especially made for him out of imported fabric—was worn loosely over white muslin slacks secured with a drawstring, and he wore sandals. He was an imposing man, well over two hundred pounds and standing six feet three inches tall. A hair transplant, which took on an odd shade of pale orange in certain light, provided cover for his bald pate and hung down over the collar of his shirt and his ears. His face reflected his mixed parentage—European and Hawaiian—strong, angular features and a natural tan.
A member of the staff delivered his breakfast—fresh pineapple, pastries baked that morning in the kitchen, and strong Kona coffee.
“Anything else, sir?” Prisler was asked.
“No, thank you. I’ll call when I’m finished.”
He tuned the radio to the BBC and listened while nibbling at his food and scanning the local paper. Prisler was addicted to his shortwave radio, taking pleasure at all hours of the day and night hearing reports from around the world. He devoted his total attention to the radio when the announcer reported about the bombing of the café in Washington, D.C. The report ended with: “The father of the young man killed following the bombing, American congressman Walter Skaggs, is pressing for an inquiry into his son’s death and into the U.S. State Department agent, Robert Brixton, who shot Paul Skaggs and who alleges that the young man was involved in the bombing. This is BBC World News.”
Prisler summoned the young woman who’d served his breakfast to remove the plates. He left the dining room, walked through the expansive living room, and emerged into the front gardens, where a team of landscapers busily tended to a vibrant array of plants and flowers. He walked past them in the direction of a series of three two-story white structures housing thirty small apartments. They bordered a one-story building in which the occupants of the apartments took their meals, attended meetings and seminars hosted by Prisler, and from where his sizable business empire was administered.
He was greeted with great courtesy bordering on reverence by those he passed, some who worked in the complex, others who were on their way to their offices at various Prisler businesses on Hawaii’s second largest island. He entered the one-story building and went directly to an area where an attractive young woman sat at a desk just outside a conference room.
“Is Kamea here yet?” Prisler asked.
“No, sir.”
Prisler checked his watch. “Call her,” he said. “Sh
e’s late. I’ll wait for her inside.”
The conference room’s walls and floor were covered in bamboo. The oval table that accommodated twenty people was polished to a burnished glow, its armchairs covered in rich tan leather. Two vases of freshly cut red and yellow hibiscus were the only items on the surface.
Prisler took a chair at the head of the table and drummed his fingers on it. He didn’t take kindly to people who were late. After five minutes he was about to go back to the receptionist when Kamea Wakatake knocked, then entered the room. “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I was on the phone to the mainland and—”
“Speaking with whom?” Prisler asked.
She hesitated before saying in a low voice, “My mother.”
“She called you?”
“Yes.”
“About Paul?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“She said—well, she wants me to come home to attend Paul’s funeral.”
Prisler said nothing, but his stern expression implied a great deal.
Kamea, whose given name was Morgana Skaggs, which she changed her first year living on Maui, avoided Prisler’s hard stare as she said, “I told her I didn’t think I could.”
His face softened, and a small smile crossed his lips.
“Did she accept that?” he asked.
“She was angry.”
“Which is to be expected. But she’ll get over it. You haven’t been home in what, five years?”
Kamea nodded.
“You do remember, of course, why you left home in the first place.”
A shadow crossed her round, plain face framed by lank brunette hair. She didn’t respond.
“I remember vividly the day you came to see me. You were extremely upset with your family, and your view of yourself was negative, almost suicidal. Do you remember that?”
She nodded.
“My heart went out to you that day, Kamea, but I knew that what the center offered would provide you with the chance to shed the shackles your family had put on you and allow you to grow into the splendid young woman you are today.”
Margaret Truman's Undiplomatic Murder Page 12
