Echo of War

by Grant Blackwood

  Tanner smiled back. “None taken.”

  “Good. Now: Why don’t you tell me who the hell you are, and why you’re looking for Susanna Vetsch.”

  10

  FBI headquarters, Washington, D.C.

  At ten a.m., Oliver got the Word: a fingerprint match. The fax was on its way from Quantico. He called McBride at the Root house then spent twenty minutes bending paper clips and sipping cold coffee as McBride drove over.

  Joe appeared in the doorway, panting, his hair disheveled. “Well?”

  Oliver jerked his head toward the fax machine where a lone sheet of paper sat in the tray.

  “You haven’t looked at it?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “I applaud your self-discipline, Collin, but read the damned thing. Jesus, you’re killing me.”

  Oliver sprang from his chair, snatched the fax from the tray, scanned it. He shook his head in disbelief. “I never thought I’d say this, but there’s one good thing that came from nine-eleven.”

  “Huh?”

  Oliver handed over the fax. McBride read. The match had come from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. After the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked, one of the first changes the FBI and the Office of Homeland Security had lobbied for was an integration of IAFIS at both the state and federal levels. Agencies that had before kept their own in-house fingerprint database joined IAFIS. Of these, the INS maintained a watch list of countries with known links to terrorist groups.

  The man who had rented the van and bought the Stone-walkers was named Hekuran Selmani, a twenty-two-year old Albanian national who’d entered the country on a work visa three months earlier.

  “Shit,” McBride said.

  Oliver nodded. “Took the word right out of my mouth.”

  Given his nationality, the chances were good Selmani was a terrorist affiliate, and given how long he’d been in the country he and his cohorts had likely come here with the Root kidnapping in mind. But why? McBride wondered for the hundredth time. Why Jonathan Root?

  “We gotta get these guys before it gets any uglier,” Oliver said. “Is there an address listed?”

  “Westphalia.”

  Oliver reached for the phone.

  Westphalia was twelve miles from Downtown Washington. Selmani’s apartment building, a three-story house that had been converted into a quadplex, was on Brown Station Road across from the Oak Grove Electrical Substation.

  An hour after Oliver started making calls, he and McBride pulled into the substation’s parking lot followed by an evidence response team van. Already waiting were three squad cars from the Prince Georges County Sheriff’s Department and a rapid-response team from the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Unit. Grim faced and all-business, they milled around the van, donning body armor and checking weapons. The sheriff’s deputies stood off to the side, arms folded. McBride read their collective expression: Federal prima donnas.

  Whatever the perception, McBride knew the HRT was universally respected as one of the finest tactical units in the country, if not the world. They trained hard and knew their business. The last thing any criminal wanted to see was an HRT team crashing through the door.

  Oliver got out and started toward the group. His cell phone rang. “Oliver.” He listened for a few moments, then hung up He took off his sunglasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose.

  “What, Collin?” McBride asked.

  “The fourth guard from the Roots’—the college kid—he died a few minutes ago.”

  “Ah, man.”

  Oliver took a deep breath, muttered “Okay, okay,” then walked over to the sheriff, shook his hand, and exchanged a few words. McBride collected a pair of blue windbreakers with “FBI” emblazoned on their backs. He handed one to Oliver who donned it and then turned to the HRT.

  “I know you guys already had a look at the quad’s blueprints, so here’s the scoop: We’re looking for a single suspect, adult male, white, aged twenty-two,” he said, passing out photos of Selmani. “The subject is a foreign national. His grasp of English may or may not be tenuous. According to the subject’s landlord, he hasn’t been on the premises for five days. Don’t count on that. Assume he’s there; assume he’s armed—and though it’s unlikely, assume he has a hostage.”

  “Who’re we talking about?” asked the team’s commander, a fortyish man named Gene Scanlon.

  “Have you been reading the papers?”

  Scanlon thought for a moment, then groaned. “Aw, jeez. Root?”

  “The CIA guy?” another said.

  “That’s the one,” Oliver replied. “The landlord will meet us on Brown and lead us to the quadplex. We’ll be entering through an alley behind the apartment; there are no windows facing the alley. We’ve confirmed the rest of the occupants are gone. Selmani’s apartment is the first unit on the second floor.

  “We’ve got keys, so we’re gonna go in quiet. If Selmani is gone, the HRT will withdraw and clear the area while myself and these agents execute the search warrant. We’re hoping to find evidence that’ll lead us to him. Failing that, we’ll set up surveillance on the off chance he returns.

  “Finally—and this is crucial—if Selmani’s in the apartment, we need him alive,” Oliver said. “He may be the key to recovering the hostage.”

  “And if he’s disagreeable?” one of the HRT men asked.

  “Do you really need me to answer that?”

  “Guess not.”

  “Right now, he’s our only suspect. Get him alive if you can, but get him.”

  Following the directions of the Quad’s landlord, an elderly Mexican man, who sat in the van’s passenger seat, the convoy rolled down the alley and coasted to a stop at the back door. The landlord handed the keys to Oliver then hurried down the alley, feet crunching on the gravel, and disappeared around the corner. Sheriff’s cars had taken up stations at either end of the alley.

  Oliver nodded to Scanlon, who led his team through the back door. Oliver and McBride followed. Inside was a cramped foyer. Linoleum stairs led upward. Oliver turned to McBride.

  “You want to wait here? I’ll call you once it’s clear.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice. Last time I touched a gun was at the county fair.”

  “Water balloon game?”

  McBride nodded, and Oliver muttered, “I hate those things. Thanks, Joe. If you got killed it would really ruin my day.”

  McBride chuckled. “Me, too.”

  Oliver crept up the stairs. The team’s four-man entry train was already in position, crouched single file against the wall, each man’s hand on the next’s shoulder, weapons held at ready low. Behind them, two team members stood in reserve.

  Lying on his belly before Selmani’s door, an HRT man slipped a fiberscope camera into a slit he’d cut in the carpet. He studied the monitor for thirty seconds, then gave a thumbs-up over his shoulder. Scanlon crept forward and slipped the key into the lock. He paused, then looked down at the camera man. Another thumbs-up. Scanlon motioned him clear, waited for him to join the reserve, then hand signaled to the team, Prepare to enter,

  Oliver drew his Smith & Wesson 10mm, flicked off the safety, and tucked it against his thigh.

  Scanlon turned the knob and pushed open the door.

  With only the sound of shuffling feet, the train charged into the room and fanned out. Ten seconds passed, then: “Clear … clear … clear … all clear.”

  One of the HRT men poked his head out the door. “Nobody home.”

  Oliver, McBride and the four techs from the ERT stood in the hallway while the team searched the apartment for bombs and booby traps. Once done, they filed out and Oliver’s team went in. Scanlon lingered in the doorway. “It’s a flophouse,” he said. “No telephone, no TV. He probably just needed a mail drop, someplace to crash. Need anything else, Collin?”

  “No thanks, Gene. Tell the guys thanks, will ya?”

  “Yep.”


  Hekuran Selmani’s apartment was a two-room affair with a half bath, yellowing wallpaper, and warped hardwood floors. The living room contained four couch cushions, a small transistor radio, and a stack of newspapers in one corner. In the bedroom they found a bare mattress on the floor, a telephone book, and a loose-leaf notebook. The bathroom smelled of stale urine and toothpaste. The shower curtain, black with mold, hung stiffly from the rod.

  “This guy was here on an operation,” Oliver declared. “He didn’t bother getting comfortable.”

  “Agreed,” McBride said.

  Oliver turned to the ERT: “Dust everything. Get hair, fibers, piss splatters—all of it.”

  As the ERT went about its business, Oliver and McBride paged through the notebook in the bedroom. Most of the sheets were covered in random scribbles: grocery lists, phone numbers. Similarly, the dog-eared telephone book was tattooed with doodles, but nothing else.

  Oliver said, “I can picture him sitting here: killing time, waiting for the call.”

  Kneeling beside the mattress, McBride studied the notebook, flipping pages with a gloved index finger. “If he was a scrounger, he’s probably got a storage locker somewhere,” he said. He was about to turn another page when something caught his eye. He lifted the notebook up to the overhead light. “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “Get me some print powder.”

  Oliver went into the living room and returned with a vial. McBride laid the notebook on the floor, uncapped the vial, and sprinkled some powder onto the page. Using the tips of his fingers he jiggled the notebook back and forth, spreading the dust into every corner, then gently blew off the surplus. He lifted the notebook to the light again. In the center of the page was a ghostly scribble:

  Bob 7.5 . 9

  Oliver knelt beside McBride and peered at it. “What the hell is that?”

  “Not sure,” McBride replied. “But I’ve got an idea.”

  11

  St Malo, France

  “Never mind,” the stranger told Tanner. “Not here.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and tossed it to Tanner. “Your cheek is bleeding.”

  The stranger knelt beside one of the unconscious Germans, pulled back his sleeve, studied the skin briefly, then dropped the arm and started frisking him. Tanner and Cahil searched the others but found nothing—no IDs, no credit cards, no paperwork. A few feet away, the man whose wrist Tanner had broken groaned and began crawling away. The stranger placed a foot between the man’s shoulder blades and shoved him down.

  “Bewegen Sie nicht!” he ordered. He heel-kicked the man in the back of the head and he went limp.

  In the distance came the wail of police sirens.

  “Follow me,” the stranger said, and took off jogging.

  Tanner and Cahil exchanged glances, shrugged, and followed.

  He led them southeast through the streets, moving confidently through the alleys and empty courtyards. Twice they ducked into the shadows as police cars swept past, blue strobes flashing. After twenty minutes’ travel they reached the Hotel du Louvre on Rue des Marins.

  He led them through a back entrance and down the hall to his room. Once inside, he tossed the keys onto the credenza, opened the liquor cabinet, and poured himself two fingers of bourbon, took a gulp. He dropped into an armchair beside the window. “Help yourself,” he said.

  “No, thanks,” Tanner replied.

  In better light, Tanner realized their rescuer’s hair was not blond, but white. The man was in his mid-forties. His face showed a week’s worth of stubble and his eyes were bloodshot. As he lifted the glass to his lips, his hand trembled. Whoever their rescuer was, he was on the edge of exhaustion.

  “The truth is,” the man said, “you didn’t look like you needed help, but I figured what the hell. It seemed like the thing to do.” He gave a weak, almost manic, chuckle. “Sit down, sit down.”

  Tanner and Cahil sat on the edge of the bed.

  “So, who the hell are you?” the man asked.

  “We’re friends of Susanna’s,” Tanner replied.

  “Not just friends. Friends would’ve talked to the police, friends don’t wander around Paris’s nastiest neighborhood; friends don’t serve themselves up to four German knuckle-draggers hoping to find a lead. Friends, maybe, but that ain’t all you are. You’re on the job, aren’t you?”

  “After a fashion.”

  “Yeah, who? DEA? Nah, you don’t look it.”

  Interesting, Tanner thought. The tone of the question sounded exclusionary. He’s not DEA, either. Who then? “We know her father,” Briggs said. “He’s worried about her.”

  The man gave another chuckle. “Yeah? Well, he can join the club. What do I call you? No, forget it … I don’t wanna know.” He took another gulp of bourbon. “You can call me Jim. Okay, so we’re all looking for Susanna. How’d you end up here?”

  “Something we found in Susanna’s apartment. What about you?”

  “I picked you up in the Pigalle.” Jim noted Cahil’s frown and said, “Don’t feel bad. I’ve been here for two years. I’ve learned how to blend in. I’d been staking out her neighborhood, seeing if she’d turn up. Instead, you guys did. It was the only lead I’d gotten for a week, so I followed you.”

  “You already had a hotel here,” Cahil stated.

  “Susanna had mentioned St Malo before, so I came here last week, but couldn’t find her. I hopped the TGV back to Paris. I had something I wanted to try.”

  “What?” Tanner asked.

  “Nope. Your turn. You guys are damned resourceful for concerned friends. What’s your story.”

  Tanner thought it over. It seemed unlikely they knew anything Jim didn’t. Maybe some good faith on their part would break down the wall.

  He gave Jim the same pitch he’d given Slavin: Susanna’s assignment with the FCI, her alias, her code name, the flurry of coded radio traffic between Paris and Washington around the time of her disappearance. “And now I’m getting the feeling she wasn’t DEA.”

  “I didn’t say that”

  “You implied it”

  “Big leap.”

  “It’s all we’ve got Look, we don’t know where she is, you don’t know where she is. Maybe between the three of us, we can do what none of us has been able to do alone.”

  Jim exhaled heavily, then tugged at his lip with his thumb and index finger. He got up, refilled his glass, and plopped back down in the chair. “Jesus, I’m tired. You know? Really tired.”

  “I can see that,” Tanner replied. “Jim, sometimes you’ve got to trust somebody—sometimes you’ve got to make that leap. That’s what I’m asking you to do.” Tanner waited until Jim met his gaze. “You can trust us.”

  Jim squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. “Okay … yeah, okay. I guess you could say I’m her … supervisor.”

  Closer, Tanner thought, then went with a hunch: “Case officer, you mean.” Jim simply stared at him. He’s CIA ... a goddamned CIA case officer. They had stumbled into a CIA operation buried within a DEA operation. Wheels within wheels. Briggs said, “Are you telling me Susanna was moonlighting?”

  “Yeah. For a good cause, believe me. You have no idea.”

  “Give me an idea.”

  “You know who those four Germans were?”

  Cahil said, “Cohorts of Stephan’s?”

  “Jesus, how’d you—”

  “A couple friends we met in the Pigalle.”

  “Yeah, I saw them: Trixie and Sabine. Susanna mentioned them a couple of times.”

  “What about the Germans?” Tanner asked. “What were you looking for under his sleeve?”

  “A tattoo—a wolf’s head superimposed on a parachute canopy. You know it?”

  “I know it. Spetsialnoye Nazranie.”

  Jim nodded. “Spetsnaz.”

  Cahil groaned. “Oh, boy.”

  Spetsnaz soldiers—literally, “troops of special purpose”—we
re the cream of the Russian special forces community. Trained and commanded by the GRU, the intelligence branch of the General Staff, Spetsnaz were trained in weapons handling, tracking and camouflage, surveillance techniques, hand-to-hand combat, sabotage and demolitions, prisoner interrogation, and combat swimming. Tanner had encountered his share of Spetsnaz on both friendly and unfriendly terms. Of the two, he preferred the former. They were superbly trained, ruthless, and dedicated.

  In the early eighties there had been rumors that the GRU, anticipating a major ground war in Europe, had started expanding the Spetsnaz program and were recruiting soldiers from all corners of the Soviet bloc for inclusion in divisions that had thus far been restricted to native Russian troops.

  If the mystery man named Stephan and the four Germans from the Black Boar were Spetsnaz, Tanner’s search had just taken a disturbing tack. What in god’s name had Susanna gotten herself into?

  “All four—five, including Stephan—are from the same unit,” Jim said.

  “Present tense?” Cahil asked.

  “Past. They’re freelance now.”

  “Maybe you better tell us the whole story,” Tanner said.

  “Right. It started about ten months ago. Susanna was on a—”

  Behind Jim, the window shade bulged inward slightly. Tanner caught the scent of cigarette smoke. Backlit by the streetlamps, a man-shaped silhouette filled the shade.

  Cahil saw it: “Light!”

  Tanner leapt forward, reached for the table lamp.

  Jim looked around. “What’s—”

  There was a deafening roar. The shade blew inward. The lamp exploded. Tanner dove for the ground. The back of Jim’s head dissolved in a halo of blood. His face frozen in an expression of confusion, Jim toppled face-first onto the carpet.

  “You okay?” Cahil called from the floor.