“I’m not lying to you.”
“No, but you are repeating someone else’s lies,” the Ambassador cut him off with an angry sweep of his hand. “Ullman and Khalidi must have gotten a very solid lead on Ibrahim Al-Bari in Boston, because their IRA contact — an IRA Brigade Commander named Sean Murphy — was found brutally murdered in a Boston apartment yesterday evening. He had not been dead long, perhaps a few hours; but he had been beaten, tortured, and shot in the head. IRA slogans were painted on the walls to make it appear to the police that he was a traitor assassinated by his own people, but we believe that is highly unlikely.”
Barnett stared at him to see if the man was serious, but it was obvious from his expression that he was that, and a lot more.
“We now know that Murphy sold Al-Bari a heavy weapon, a 4.2-inch American mortar. If you are not familiar with one of those, it is big. It can level a house. We believe Al-Bari drove it to Yorktown, near Williamsburg. Khalidi did fly back from Boston to Dulles Airport, as you said, but he did not purchase a ticket to Los Angeles. He purchased a ticket to Newport News.” The Ambassador leaned forward and continued very slowly, pronouncing each word. “Did this Israeli Colonel Ullman say anything to you about Virginia, or Yorktown, or Williamsburg?”
“Williamsburg?” Barnett asked, stunned. “No, she said nothing. But that’s crazy. That just can’t be true… Why would she…?”
“If it is not true,” the Ambassador’s eyes grew pained and malevolent, “please explain to me why a ticket to Newport News was found on Khalidi’s body when it was found in a rear service area at Dulles Airport late last night.”
“His body?” Barnett gagged. “What…?”
“He had a bullet in his head… not unlike the IRA fellow in Boston.”
Barnett slumped back in the corner and looked up at the car’s black ceiling in shocked silence. The last pieces of the puzzle had suddenly crashed down into place, and the picture they revealed made him sick. It was all too unimaginable, perverse, and obscene, and he felt a deep personal grief mixed with his own rising anger and hatred. Looking into the face of the Ambassador, their eyes locked for a few seconds as the beginning of understanding passed between them.
Barnett cleared his throat and said, “Moustapha and I were friends. If you seriously think I had anything to do with his death…”
“No, not really. For a few moments last night and then again this morning, I must admit I held you responsible by commission or omission; and I had thoughts of allowing Kamal to take out his frustrations on you,” the Ambassador said as he began to puff on his cigar again. “But no; you would never have told me such a stupid story if you did not think it was the truth.” His eyes narrowed as he added, “However, there remains one very troubling aspect to this episode.”
“Ullman,” Barnett said sharply.
“Yes, your Mossad Colonel Rachel Ullman. Kamal, Gamal, and I returned from Dulles Airport several hours ago. Khalidi’s passport and wallet were missing, but the killer missed the airplane ticket in an inside pocket. It took some hours for the police to determine who Khalidi was and connect him to the Embassy. We drove to the morgue and identified his body. Because of his diplomatic status, we were allowed to bring back his luggage and personal things, but Los Angeles was a smokescreen Ullman laid down to deceive you. I doubt you will ever see her again. By the time Khalidi’s body was discovered by some maintenance workers, she had boarded an El-Al flight through Rome to Tel Aviv, and was long gone.”
The Ambassador paused and looked out the window. “When his body was found I assumed he had gotten too close to Al-Bari and paid the price. I was angry, because Khalidi is not that stupid, and I wanted to find out what went wrong and whose mistake got him killed. Now, I can see that is not the case. Ullman’s story was a quick lie, an expedient that was not intended to hold up for more than a few hours. She did not want you to know where she was going or where Khalidi was, because she intended to kill him, presumably to silence him. But why?” he asked in frustration. “What is she trying to hide?”
Barnett nodded also wondering. “How do you know all those details from Boston about Murphy and the mortar? That could only have come from Mouse. Did you talk to him?”
“No, but we Egyptians are not rank amateurs, Agent Barnett. Our field operatives always carry a small wire-to-wire recorder in their luggage. It is built into an electric shaver, so they can keep notes on their assignments. Apparently, it has its uses in more tragic circumstances, too. Kamal retrieved it from Khalidi’s briefcase, and we had his notes transcribed before we picked you up. I assure you it was Khalidi’s voice. When he recorded it, he was expecting Ullman to join him at the airport.” He turned to face Barnett again. “That is how I knew your story was so totally wrong, but it was so consistently wrong it was obvious you had been duped.”
“May I see the report?” Barnett asked.
“Here,” the Ambassador said as he tossed an envelope onto Barnett’s lap. “Read it to your heart’s content.”
As Barnett opened the envelope and pulled out the report, the Ambassador sat back in his seat and said quietly, “I had the very painful duty to call Moustapha Khalidi’s father and tell him of his son’s death. He and I are very old friends, from our university days. Our children often played together and I loved Moustapha as if he were my own. I was the one who asked them to assign him to my staff, to get him out of that snake pit in Cairo. That means I had a very special obligation to him and to his father.”
Barnett sat back in the plush car seat and quickly scanned the short transcript of Mouse’s audio tape. Why? he wondered, as he felt an ice-cold rage creep up his spine. Mouse’s words were not disembodied black type on white paper to him. They were alive and spoke to him in the voice of a dead friend.
“Boston. Ullman is smart. She set Murphy up and interrogated him. Tortured him, really, and broke him down. Al-Bari used the name Teraki. Murphy met him twice in Boston. Al-Bari paid him $100,000 for a 4.2-inch U.S. Army mortar and 12 rounds of ammunition. Al-Bari drove south in Murphy’s wife’s car, with the weapon in a U-Haul trailer. Murphy had two of his men follow him to Williamsburg. They put the weapons in a storage shed near Gloucester. Murphy’s men lost him, but they waited there. When Al-Bari came back, they jumped him, but Al-Bari must have turned the tables on them. Murphy hasn’t heard from his men since. Al-Bari got on the phone and told Murphy he was going to kill him. Ullman figured she had squeezed everything out of him and shot him in the head. She is one angry woman. I am going on to Williamsburg. Ullman is updating Barnett and she will be meeting me there soon.”
“Williamsburg,” Barnett said quietly as the pieces suddenly fell into place. “Al-Bari is going after Wagner.”
“Wagner? Your President Wagner?” the Ambassador asked, stunned.
“That’s where he is, in Williamsburg. He is giving a speech in Yorktown later today.”
“Yorktown? How stupid of me. I never was good at your American geography or history, but I am supposed to be there too, sitting up there on the podium with your President. Yorktown is near Williamsburg, and I had completely forgotten.”
“My girlfriend is a TV reporter. She’ll be there too. That’s where Al-Bari will try to kill Wagner, with that mortar.”
The Ambassador leaned forward and said something in Arabic to Gamal. “We are going to National Capital Airport, Agent Barnett. We shall deal with this Israeli Colonel later. For now, you and I must find Al-Bari before that madman kills us all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Gloucester Point, Virginia, Friday, October 19, 6:00 a.m.
It was well before dawn when they pulled into the small gravel parking lot that sat down along the riverbank at the north end of the York River Bridge. Taking the empty back roads from the marina in Achilles, they slowly wound their way west toward Gloucester Point. After studying the USGS maps for many long hours in Washington, this was the location Al-Bari selected to set up the camper. On paper at least, it was perfect. It was
on the opposite side of the river and at the optimum distance from the Yorktown Victory Center. When he finally saw it on the ground, he immediately knew he had chosen well. The parking lot was used by local fishermen, partying teenagers, carpooling commuters, and farmers selling produce to folks from the city, so seeing a wide variety of cars, trucks, and even campers parked here would be commonplace. As he expected, the lot was already half full when they arrived, but they were able to park in almost the exact spot he had picked out on the map a week before. It was in the rear row near the exit, on firm, level ground. Behind them and to the left was a stand of tall trees that ran around most of the lot. They were not in the line of sight to the Victory Monument, but they helped provide a bit of cover for the truck. He parked with the rear of the camper pointing toward Yorktown and the front toward the exit road. Yes, he thought, this was perfect.
There was a cold early morning chill in the air, and a wispy ground fog hugged the low-lying areas along the water. Al-Bari let the truck idle for a few minutes, while Arazi got out and ensured they were away from any overhead wires or trees. With the truck now positioned exactly where he wanted it, he knelt down and carefully smoothed the gravel where the pad of each jack would rest. Looking back across the river, he saw the moonlight shining on the Victory Monument, turning the granite needle a bright, pure white. He used a compass and surveyor’s transit to shoot the precise angles to it from the truck, and then quickly stowed the equipment back inside. Their work complete, the two men locked themselves inside. The camper now appeared to be just one more deserted vehicle sitting in the back row of a dusty, commuter parking lot.
As the sun began to rise, they heard other vehicles arrive and take some of the spaces around them. They could track the cars and trucks by the crunch of their tires on the brown pea gravel. Engines were turned off, car doors slammed, and people laughed, or argued, or said nothing, as their footsteps trailed away up the hill. As the sun rose higher and topped the trees to the east, it began to warm the air and soon beat down on the camper’s roof. The big skylights were an opaque white, but they remained closed tight, as were the side windows and the rear door. It soon became quite hot inside the camper. There was a small turbine vent in the ceiling, but it was not enough to help. There was not a cloud in the sky. By late morning under the full power of the sun, the temperature inside had reached broil; but the two men continued to sit and endure. Al-Bari had experienced far more discomfort and pain for far less important goals, and Arazi would not allow his cousin to see any sign of weakness. Security came first, but the lack of ventilation troubled Al-Bari. The physical discomfort was trivial. What bothered him was that he had not planned for it. It was a mistake, a flaw in an otherwise perfect plan that he had put everything into. Was that the only one, or were there other things he had overlooked?
At six-hundred miles per hour, the flight from the private airfield west of Alexandria, Virginia, to the corporate terminal at Logan Airport in Boston in the Egyptian Ambassador’s new Gulfstream V took less than an hour, wheels up to wheels down. Kamal was the pilot. Once on the ground, Gamal drove the sleek, black Mercedes S63 limo that was waiting for them planeside, demonstrating that both men had skills that went far beyond cracking heads. It took Gamal less than fifteen more minutes to drive to a brick two-story duplex in a working-class neighborhood in Chelsea, three miles northwest.
Gamal and Kamal got out of the car and glanced casually up and down the street — as casual as two giant Arabs in dark suits alighting from a gleaming Mercedes S-Class sedan could hope to appear in a neighborhood like this. The morning was still quite early, however, and no one was watching. With a nod, Kamal strode up the front stairs of the house, with Barnett and the Ambassador following and Gamal taking up the rear. Kamal did not knock on the door or even try the nob. His muscular shoulder and forearm were far more effective. The front door flew open with a loud, splintering ‘Crack!’ and the four men walked inside.
Barnett and Ambassador Fawzi waited, while Kamal and Gamal went back to the kitchen. The living room was small and crowded, with a badly worn couch, two overstuffed armchairs, a large, flat screen TV, and pictures on the wall of the last three popes and Jesus, decorated with wilted palm fronds. It took less than a minute for Gamal to return, herding a well-worn, thirty-year-old woman and three small children into the room. She had her arms around them like a mother hen and was alternately screaming at Gamal and at her husband. Behind them, Kamal led Big Pat into the room in an arm lock and pinned him against the living room wall with apparent effortlessness. The two men were eyeball to eyeball, with Kamal’s meaty forearm pressed against the bartender's chest and his feet dangling off the floor.
“Mr. Neely, is this your lovely wife?” Ambassador Fawzi asked politely.
The bartender managed a quick, panicked nod.
“Please ask her to be quiet. We are merely here for some conversation. That is all. No one will be harmed, provided you cooperate. Now tell her, if you please.”
Kamal loosened his grip, just enough for Pat to talk. “Fiona, for God's sake shut yer yap!”
“There, that is better,” Fawzi smiled as he turned to the woman. “Mrs. Neely, please permit Gamal to escort you and the children into the kitchen. You will be perfectly safe, I assure you. We will only be here a few minutes.”
“I know all about you damned Protestant gunmen!” Fiona glared at the Ambassador.
“Fiona,” Fawzi laughed. “Do we look Irish? Now please go.”
She studied Fawzi a moment, then turned and pushed the children down the hallway, glaring at Gamal, at the Ambassador, but most of all at Big Pat. “You!” she hissed.
Ambassador Fawzi straightened his suit coat and arranged the seams of his trousers, before he looked up at the bartender. “Let him down a bit, Kamal. I would prefer it if he could breathe,” he said. The big Egyptian let Pat slide down the wall, but kept his forearm in his chest. “Please excuse our interrupting your breakfast, Mr. Neely. This will only take a minute. As you know, the late Sean Murphy had dealings with a Palestinian by the name of Ibrahim Al-Bari. I believe you knew him by the name ‘Teraki.’ ”
“The late who…? You mean Murph?”
“Sadly, yes. He passed away yesterday afternoon from a terminal case of bullet to the head.”
“Bullet to the…? Look, I didn’t…”
“Of course you didn’t, and neither did we,” Fawzi said as he nodded to Kamal.
Kamal grabbed Pat by the shirt, and slammed him higher up on the wall, pinning him there with one hand. The bartender's feet were now well off the floor.
“Our time is very short, Mr. Neely, very short. We want to know about Teraki, about the men you sent to the storage shed in Gloucester, Virginia, and what happened after that. Where exactly is the shed, by the way? And where is Teraki?”
Kamal pulled a ten-inch stiletto from his rear jacket pocket, flipped the blade open in front of Big Pat's face, and held it up so the blade flashed in the light.
“Look, mate, I swear I don’t…”
Instead of stabbing him, Kamal jammed the knife into the wall between Neely's legs, a few inches below his crotch, blade up.
“I assume you are Catholic, Mr. Neely. I don’t know if you wish to have any more children, but you might want to rethink that answer before Kamal lets you slide down the wall… slowly, ever so slowly.”
Big Pat looked down at the blade as Kamal let him drop a few inches. Sputtering, the bartender's voice cracked, “Jay-zuz, you coppers can’t…”
“I am not with the Police. I am the Egyptian Ambassador. But lives are at stake here, yours now being one of them.” Big Pat’s eyes went wide, but he said nothing. The Ambassador snapped his fingers and Kamal loosened his grip. Pat slipped down the wall an inch or two more, his crotch now riding on top of the long blade.
“No, no! Look, the Wog — this Teraki, he wanted some guns.”
“Guns? Neely, we know all about that, we know about the mortar, and we know they took it to V
irginia. What we do not know is where they are and where the storage shed is?”
Big Pat said nothing. The Ambassador stared at him for a moment and asked, “Neely, you have what? Three children back there? Well, I guess that is probably enough.” He snapped his fingers again, but Kamal did not need to do anything. Neely could not talk fast enough.
“The boys said it’s in the back row of one of those self-storage places off Route 17 just north of Gloucester, across the river from Yorktown. This was all that damned fool Murph’s idea. They took his wife’s car and the U-Haul, but Murph had planted a bug in one of the boxes, so two of our boys could follow them down there. They lost the bastard, but when he came back the next evening to pick up the goods, our boys jumped them. Then all hell broke loose. We ain’t heard a lick from either of ‘em since, and they ain’t answering their cell phones. They just disappeared, so we figured Teraki killed 'em both.”
The Ambassador considered Neely’s words for a moment, and then nodded at Kamal. He pulled the knife out of the wall and let the bartender drop in a heap at his feet.
“I'm callin' the bleedin’ coppers,” Big Pat growled.
Barnett looked down at him and laughed as they headed for the door. “Really? What are you going tell them? The Egyptian Ambassador and the FBI broke into your house and tried to cut your nuts off? Lots of luck with that one.”
They sat in the back of the Gulfstream, heads together, as the jet flew back south.
“We must convince your President to cancel his speech,” the Ambassador stated emphatically. “I see no other choice.”
“That, Sir, will not be easy. The President is a very stubborn man.”
“So was Anwar Sadat, Agent Barnett. I was in the reviewing stand the day they gunned him down, and one can only tempt fate so many times and hope to survive. I shall arrange for a helicopter to meet us at the airport so we can have an audience with your President. But I must also talk to the Israeli Ambassador.”
Aim True, My Brothers Page 23
