Targets of Deception

by Jeffrey Stephens[epub]

  “Mr. Groat said you wanted to see me.”

  Fryar shook his head, still distracted.

  His secretary was standing there, waiting for a response, when she noticed the silver attaché case. “What’s this?” she asked.

  Groat rode down in the elevator alone, stepped quickly through the granite-floored lobby, crossed the street and hailed a cab. As a taxi pulled up, Groat reached into his coat pocket and pressed the button on the remote he was carrying, a device smaller than a pack of cigarettes. Almost instantly, the explosives hidden in Groat’s attaché erupted with a deafening roar, shattering the full-length, plate glass windows, sending a deluge of metal and glass and wood to the street below. Flames followed the falling debris, climbing the building’s blackened façade, and fire spread throughout the large office above, consuming the entire space in a searing blaze.

  “Holy shit,” the cab driver said as Groat climbed into the back seat.

  The driver craned his neck for a better look at the cascading mix of smoking fragments. “I don’t know what’s going on, mac, but I’m getting’ the hell outta here before somethin’ falls on my car.”

  “Good idea.” Groat gave the driver an address in Georgetown and eased himself into the seat, not bothering to look back at the confusion and panic that was growing behind them as they pulled away.

  Driving along the Potomac, the cab driver chattered on about the explosion. At some point in the midst of his mindless speculation about the blast he paused.

  “Yes,” Groat responded to the silence, “just awful.”

  The taxi pulled up to the curb in front of Clyde’s Restaurant. Groat paid the driver, then stood there and watched him drive away. He turned in the opposite direction and walked around the block. He tossed the remote transmitter in a public waste can, pulled out his cell phone, and punched in the numbers of an office at CIA headquarters.

  As soon as the voice on the other end answered, Groat said, “I know the group responsible for the explosion today.” Then he recited the address of an apartment in Washington where three Arabs from the extremist Wahhabi sect were in hiding.

  This was the last part of Groat’s current assignment: to betray his own team of terrorists waiting for instructions from Vincent Traiman for a mission they would never carry out. Only Traiman knew that he would expose them. And only he and Traiman knew the reason why.

  Groat ended the call, tossed the cell phone into another trash can he passed, then hailed a taxi and headed for the airport.

  SIXTEEN

  “You’ve got more to worry about than me,” Jordan said, seated in Prescott’s office with John Covington and Todd Nealon.

  “Meaning what?” Covington replied wearily.

  “Meaning . . . that for you to be involved means something big is going on.”

  “I’m here to monitor the investigation. Let’s just say the Company is an interested party.”

  “Ah, John Covington, always the Company man.”

  “And Jordan Sandor, always the crusader in pursuit of justice, always holding the higher moral ground.”

  Jordan leaned back and stared at him. “How is Byrnes? Still as warm and fuzzy as bullet-proof glass?”

  Covington responded with a blank stare.

  “Bet he misses me,” Sandor said with a slight smile.

  “If he does, he’d be the only one.”

  “Now that hurts.”

  “You’re a pain in the ass, Sandor. We’re better off with you gone.”

  “You may be right. But since you’re the ones who flew up from Washington to see me, why not let me in on what we’re dealing with here?”

  “We are not dealing with anything, and I’m not authorized to divulge a single shred of information to you. You’re inactive, remember? You want to talk, you go ahead. You want to dummy up, I’ll have the FBI hold you as a material witness till you’re sucking jell-o through a straw, which would suit me fine.”

  “Come on,” Jordan said with a short laugh, “that tough guy act didn’t work for you ten years ago, why try to sell it now? Maybe you should let Nealon have a go at it.”

  Covington and Nealon exchanged a glance.

  “It seems I tripped into a whole vat of your problems,” Sandor said, “and now I’m involved, whether you like it or not. You can bully me, which we both know isn’t going to cut it, or you can ask me to help, which irritates you more than a little bit. Either way, I figure you’ve got something you want me to do.” He turned to Nealon and grinned. “That the party line?”

  Nealon did not reply.

  “No. Not this time,” Covington said. “You’ve been on ice for more than a year. You’re not on the team anymore.”

  “We finally agree about something.”

  “Good. So tell us what you know about James McHugh.”

  “Who’s McHugh?” Jordan asked, not revealing what Captain Reynolds had told him about Ryan’s real name.

  Covington gave him a look that said he wasn’t buying it. “McHugh was the other man who was murdered in Woodstock.”

  “Ryan, you mean?”

  Covington frowned. “His name was McHugh, as you no doubt know by now. We think he had sensitive intelligence we needed. Our guess is you were after it too.”

  Sandor saw no point in denying it so he said nothing.

  “Why don’t you start by telling us how you were introduced?”

  “Dan Peters set it up. I never got to speak with the guy.” Jordan shrugged. “I don’t even know what he had.”

  Covington paused. “For once I believe you.”

  The way he said it, Jordan suddenly had the thought that it might have been Covington who orchestrated the break-in of his apartment.

  “So, where does that leave us?” Jordan asked.

  “I’m not authorized to divulge that.”

  Sandor got up and walked around the room, needing to do something before he punched Covington in the jaw. When he sat down again he said, “You’re playing me, John.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about the shooting in your building today?”

  “Just a florist with a bad attitude.”

  “Way I hear it, they’d already turned your apartment into a recycling station.”

  Jordan sat there staring at him.

  Covington leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “McHugh was a combat vet. He comes home. Civilian life doesn’t take, so he heads back to Saudi Arabia, gets recruited by a bad group out of Libya. He becomes one of the play-for-pay boys, working field ops, training these scumbags. Probably the same cell that killed those college students for Qaddafi, went after our ambassador in Italy, took out the charge d’affaires in Paris. McHugh was making a buck, pretending to himself that he was just a guy doing a job until one morning he wakes up and reads the headlines about Nine Eleven and presto, this isn’t just a video game in the desert anymore. He waits a while then bolts for home.

  “So, they wanted him. We wanted him. They got to him first.”

  Covington drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Did you ever speak with McHugh? Did he ever tell you anything at all?”

  Sandor stared into Covington’s cold, pale eyes. “I told you the truth. I never met him. Peters was taking me to see him yesterday. You know the rest of that story.”

  “Never spoke with him?”

  “Never. So let’s have it. Who was he working for?”

  Covington sat upright in his chair, resuming his wooden posture. “We think he was working for Vincent.”

  At first, Jordan could not bring himself to respond. His mind raced back to a thousand old images as he tried to reel his thoughts forward again. He ran his fingers through his hair, then scratched the back of his neck. “Traiman?” he finally said.

  “We think so.”

  Jordan felt his jaw tighten.

  “McHugh was working for that bastard?”

  “Imagine, someone you hate more than you hate us—”

  “You mean someone I hate even mor
e than you.”

  “It’s clear now you have nothing we need.” Covington closed the file he was holding. “You can go.”

  “That sonuvabitch tried to kill me.”

  “Yes, he screwed you. He screwed us. He screwed his country. But this is not your battle anymore—not since you walked out. Stay out of it.”

  “Stay out? I couldn’t be deeper in it.”

  Covington waited for Sandor to finish. “Our friend Prescott is going to ask you some questions. He doesn’t know what kind of work you did with us, and he doesn’t need to know.”

  “Still happily sharing information among the federal agencies, I see.”

  “In this case it could compromise our plans.”

  “While I’m dodging bullets.”

  “You’re not my problem, Sandor. Maybe the Bureau will place you in protective custody if you like, or you can go somewhere and hide until we sort this out.”

  “That’s a good one.”

  Covington’s cell phone began ringing, but he ignored it until it stopped. He stood there, looking down at Jordan. “We’re done here. Do us both a favor and answer Prescott’s questions, then stay the hell out of our way.”

  The two men stared at each other, the silence broken by the sound of Nealon’s cell phone ringing.

  Nealon flipped his phone open. “Nealon.” He listened without speaking. And, when he finally responded, it was brief and to the point. “Yes sir, I’ll tell him.”

  He ended the call and couldn’t help glancing at Sandor before he spoke to Covington. “We need to talk, sir,” he said.

  Nealon and Covington went to the far corner of the room. Nealon whispered for a few moments, and Covington’s look of surprise was no act as far as Jordan could tell. Then they turned to him.

  “What now?” Jordan asked.

  Covington hesitated then said, “You’ll see it on the evening news anyway.” He shook his head. “There was an explosion in an office building in DC. A few people dead, several injured.”

  “Where?”

  “A company called Loubar. Deal in high-end electronics.”

  Jordan knew the name, recalled it had something to do with a series of controversial military contracts. “Anything else?”

  “An anonymous tip led to the capture of three men, believed to be a hit team sent by al-Qaeda.”

  “Also in DC?”

  Covington nodded. “Nealon, let Prescott back in now.” And turning to Jordan, he added, “You handle him however you want. If you get in the way of the feds’ investigation, they’ll charge you with obstruction and lock you up. Just in case you were wondering.”

  Sandor watched as they headed for the door. “You’re a real piece of work, John.”

  Covington turned back to him. “As far as the Company is concerned, you are a liability, which puts you in a different category of risk, if you catch my drift.”

  Sandor smiled at the threat. “You’re still the same pathetic, little paper pusher,” he said, then watched Covington and Nealon walk out the door.

  SEVENTEEN

  Tafallai must not fail again. He knew the consequences. He also realized that his target was now alert to his efforts, and the authorities were involved. The situation had to be resolved before Rahmad returned to New York. He had to act, and time was short.

  Tafallai had never failed before. In one capacity or another, he had been involved in a number of political assassinations. Not murders, but wartime executions of the enemy. Some assignments had been so expertly conceived and implemented that the deaths had been ruled accidental. Others had been brutal, such as the bludgeoning of a Saudi student in California or the shooting of the Qaddafi liaison who had become too comfortable with Western ways. In these instances, Tafallai was instructed to use unequivocal methods. His charge was plain—to leave a clear message for others who might be tempted to imprudent action.

  In the case of this American, there was no need for subtlety, nor was there any particular reason for his death to bear warning to others. In the matter of Jordan Sandor, the means would be justified by the end.

  Tafallai sat in a coffee shop across the street from the building where he had tracked Beth earlier that day. It was a tall, modern-looking edifice, and when he had followed her into the lobby, he discovered it was home to several floors of federal offices. He had watched as she used a magnetic card to pass through security and disappear into an elevator as he casually browsed the directory on the wall. The building was far too secure for him to make his move there, but this woman was his best lead for now, so he reported in to Rahmad, remaining in the area until just before five, when he found his way to a table in this diner. Now he stared out the etched-glass window into the darkening shadows of evening, and waited.

  Making his return , Prescott strutted in ahead of Covington and Nealon, his bearing and expression intended to convey a message to Sandor—that Prescott was still the man in charge.

  Jordan was amused, realizing that of the four of them, Prescott understood the least of what was at stake. All the same, the two CIA officers obligingly submitted to Prescott’s show of authority, reminding Jordan yet again why he had chosen to turn his back on these bureaucrats and their corrupt and, ultimately, lethal games.

  Covington was at his obsequious best, an act Sandor had had occasion to witness in the past. Covington agreed with Prescott’s assertion that the FBI had jurisdiction over the matter, and was certainly in the best position to conduct the investigation. He maintained his ruse about the State Department, giving his assurance that they had only intervened because of the coincidental involvement of their former employee, the insubordinate Jordan Sandor. Covington and Nealon were there to assist Prescott solely for whatever purpose the Bureau might regard as helpful.

  They were soon joined by an FBI agent who operated the recording device and, as Prescott pursued his interrogation of Sandor, his questions only confirmed the shallowness of his understanding. Jordan saw no reason to educate him. If the Agency wanted to keep the Bureau in the dark for now, that was their business. He answered the questions, volunteering nothing. Covington suggested an occasional question, but steered wide of anything that might actually lead to the truth of his relationship with Sandor. Jordan did not interfere, allowing Covington to maintain the deception.

  Prescott inquired into the shootings upstate, Sandor’s intended visit to McHugh’s home, the trashing of Jordan’s apartment and the attack that afternoon. Prescott reached into a file and read off a series of Arabic names, none of which Sandor admitted recognizing as he memorized the list for future reference.

  At the conclusion of the interview, Jordan was invited to stay overnight at a nearby hotel.

  “Invited?”

  “Let’s say you are being requested to stay.”

  “You’re locking me up, is that the idea?”

  “No, I wouldn’t put it that way,” Prescott replied testily.

  “Just how would you put it?”

  “It will only be for a short time,” Covington interrupted, giving his best imitation of a concerned tone. “You are in serious danger. Your apartment has been vandalized, you’ve been the target of an assault and your safety is obviously compromised. Mr. Prescott is offering his help. There are agents available, and a night or two under guard might be the best thing for all of us.”

  “For all of us? I suppose being taken into custody is a fitting reward for saving a cop’s life.”

  “You can stow that hero bullshit,” Prescott snapped. “That may go over big with your new friends upstate, but as far as we’re concerned, you just showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Who am I to disagree?” Jordan shrugged. “That’s it, then?”

  “That’s it.”

  Jordan stood to face him. “They have a penthouse suite at this hotel?”

  Agent Springs led Sandor down to the underground garage and got into the FBI sedan.

  “No motorcycle escort?”

  Springs gru
nted.

  “I get the feeling you don’t like me.”

  “Not much, no.”

  “Any reason? My face, maybe? It’s been known to annoy people from time to time.”

  “You’re an inconvenience, that’s all.”

  “And you don’t like acting as my babysitter.”

  Agent Springs allowed himself a slight grin. “Not what I signed on for, no.”

  “Fair enough. How about I make it up to you? I’ll buy you dinner. On the government account, of course.”

  The grin faded.

  “Lighten up,” Sandor said. “You allowed to drink on duty?”

  The hotel they were using was on Times Square, just a couple of blocks west. Springs checked Sandor in. Then, to Sandor’s amazement, he handed him his leather bag.

  Jordan declined the desk clerk’s offer to get him help with his luggage. “I can handle this,” he said, holding up the satchel.

  Springs took him to the elevator and they got in together. “You need this to get off at our floor,” Springs said, placing a plastic room key in a slot that cleared access in the elevator to the concierge level, where the contingent from Washington was staying.

  “No penthouse suite, eh?”

  Springs frowned and said, “We’ve arranged for room service. If you want something to eat, just dial the operator.”

  “Right,” Jordan said. “So I guess dinner for the two of us is out, then.”

  They got off the lift and found their way to Sandor’s room without further conversation. Springs held out the electronic key, which Jordan took and opened the door. He turned back to Springs, who was still standing there, then looked down at the agent’s hand. “You’re not expecting a tip, are you? I mean, I carried my own bag.”

  Springs gave him a look that told him how happy he would be to close the hand Jordan was looking at and plant it squarely on his chin. Instead, he turned and strode away.

  Jordan switched on the light, locked the door behind him and went to the small desk near the window. The first thing he did was check the contents of his leather bag. To his surprise everything was there, even the two handguns. He sat down and thought that through.