by JB Turner
The guy nodded hard. He opened up a panel on a wall behind him and flicked a couple of switches. "We're offline now."
"You sure?"
"Alarms are all off, I swear on my mother's life."
"Don't worry, I'll pay you. Just not now."
Reznick ordered the man into the stock room where he tied him up parcel duct tape and old string. He locked the guy inside. Then he threw all the ammo, rifle, gun and binoculars into a black nylon rifle case he took from a shelf. His mind was racing. He got back in the car and lifted up the rear seating and slid in the bag to keep it out of view, before he headed straight for the airport.
His mind flashed up images of Tiny in Fallujah. Then the tears in Pete Dorfman's eyes as he stared into his drink.
A cold fury was building deep within him. He felt a switch being turned on inside him.
It was time.
FORTY NINE
Meyerstein's chopper landed in the parking lot of a mall, just off the freeway. She jumped out and climbed into a waiting SUV. Her sidekick Roy Stamper was sitting in the back seat.
"So where the hell is he?" she said, buckling up. "He can't just have vanished?"
"The NSA says the signal died less than a mile from here."
"He was heading north at the time, right?"
"Due north on the freeway."
Meyerstein was handed an iPad and pulled up a Google Map. "The Ventura Freeway nearby, his options are unlimited."
"Pretty much. That is if he's looking to break out."
Meyerstein thought of that for a moment as she rubbed her eyes, the tiredness washing over her. "Veitch was running the scenarios. What's the latest?"
Stamper said, "He's incommunicado the last time I tried to speak to him."
Meyerstein punched in the unlisted number for Veitch into her cell.
"Martha," he said, sounding harassed, "we're on it."
"I need you to find him. Now. I don't need excuses."
"Martha, gimme a break. These things take time."
"We're out of time. What's the latest on Morlach?"
"NSA is still on it."
Meyerstein slammed her fist into the seat in front. "That's all I keep hearing. We're on it. We're on it. So what the hell is taking so long?"
"We're working our way through it."
"Gimme what you've got."
Veitch sighed down the phone. "Estimated worth is $249 million. He's a big spender. Top of the line Porsche, BMWs, Mercedes . . ."
"What else? Who's looking over this? A name.
Veitch sighed. "Special Agent Sarah Munro."
"Get her to call me right away."
A few moments later Munro was on the line. "Ma'am, how can I help? I'm sifting through Morlach's finances and outgoings etc."
"As well as his thing for upscale cars, he's bought a couple of trendy restaurants in Hollywood."
"Sarah, I don't mean to be tetchy, but I'm looking for anything unusual about the expenditure to you. A very wealthy man. Okay, I get it; he buys big presents for himself and friends. This is Hollywood. I get that. But what else? In many ways that's a predictable pattern of spending. I want to know about unusual patterns of spending, do you know what I'm getting at?"
"Ma'am, I'm at present compiling the report, but I'm nowhere near . . ."
"Special Agent Munro, listen to me. Gimme what you've got. Not tomorrow. Not in an hour. I want it now. What do you know now?"
"There is something which caught my eye."
"What?"
"Morlach doesn't like lashing out for flights."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, instead of flying first class for LAX to New York, I see he has taken dozens of flights on a budget airline. Jet Blue."
"Not a clincher for me."
"But what if I told you he owns a Cessna based at Burbank airport."
Meyerstein took a few moments to absorb the information further. "Okay, now that's interesting. Munro, I'll call you back if I need anything else." She ended the call and turned to Stamper and relayed the story for him. "Morlach was the link man. And he has a goddamn Cessna at Burbank."
Stamper shrugged. "So?"
"FBI cover at Burbank, if memory serves me, is non existent. Compare and contrast with LAX. Think about it. Burbank has minimal Feds and cops. Internal commuter stuff. Not international. Is that right?"
Stamper nodded and said nothing.
"What if Morlach has been using this route as he knows or has been told it's less likely to attract the attention that a hub airport would have which had international connections."
"I see where you're going with this."
Meyerstein tapped the driver on the shoulder. "Bob Hope airport, Burbank. Let's get to it!"
FIFTY
Reznick slowed down as he approached the short term parking garage. And glanced across at the main terminal building opposite. A few travellers with backpacks, others pulling trunks on wheels. All Caucasian.
He pulled up at the security barrier for the parking.
The guard stepped forward. "Evening sir. Can you drive through and park it up on the left," he said. "We need to have a look inside your car."
Reznick nodded and drove on to the designated security vehicle screening area. He stepped out. "Be my guest."
"You mind opening the trunk?"
Reznick opened the trunk and the guard poked a flashlight inside and took a cursory look.
"That's fine, sir," he said. "You picking up?"
Reznick nodded. "I'm a bit early. Picking up my sister."
"Two hour waiting, max."
"That's fine, she's due in around an hour."
Reznick got back in his vehicle and drove to the top of the four-story car park. He parked at the far end, furthest away from the nearest vehicle. He checked the line of sight and saw it overlooked the main terminal building. He shut off the engine and pulled the bag out from underneath the rear seats. Then he quickly assembled the rifle, inserted the magazine and attached the night vision scopes. He placed the rifle on the floor and picked up the night vision binoculars.
He focused in on the area, directly in front of the main terminal. Nothing of interest.
Reznick waited and waited.
What if the guy didn't turn up? What if it was a ruse? How could he know he had the right guy? These thoughts ran through his head.
Reznick was a stickler for detail. He knew from doing wetwork the importance of knowing for sure who the target was. He wondered if he shouldn't try and get in closer.
The more he thought about the set-up the less he liked it. He wondered again if he shouldn't just get up close and deal with it. The bottom line was that there were no good clean solutions.
He liked certainty. It was ingrained in him. It was that certainty that would keep you alive.
He peered through the binoculars again.
Slowly, like a ghost, a man emerged from the terminal into the periphery of his vision wearing a Seahawks hat. The man stopped and stood in front of the terminal building.
Reznick's heart rate quickened. He stared through the binoculars and studied the man. The man didn't have any luggage or bags of any sort.
Reznick could tell he was making too much of an effort to stare straight ahead. The man touched his left ear.
Reznick zoomed in on the man's head. The man turned and Reznick saw it.
The guy was wearing an earpiece.
He scanned the front of the terminal. A laughing mom with her two young kids, a couple holding hands, people entering and exiting. He checked each of them over.
He trained the binoculars on the man with the Seahawks hat. Eyes staring straight ahead. The man touched his ear again.
Reznick scanned a wider area and examined those within a twenty meter radius of the front of the main terminal.
It was then his attention was drawn to a figure sitting on a bench at the cab line, reading a paper. He watched as the figure turned the page of the paper and then touched his right ear.
/> Reznick zoomed in. His heart hiked up a notch. The man on the bench had classic Persian features. He turned sideways and Reznick saw it.
The man was also wearing an earpiece.
FIFTY ONE
Meyerstein was sitting in the back of the SUV as the FBI driver sped towards Bob Hope airport in Burbank. Three cars ahead was a plain-clothes FBI SWAT team riding in a Lincoln. Her radio cracked into life. It was Veitch.
"Martha, the intercept has been analyzed and we're certain the call is genuine and from the GPS indicated," he said.
"What else?"
"We're using the airport's surveillance cameras. Looking at the guy in real time, cool as you like, with his Seahawks hat on."
"Face recognition?"
"Nothing so far."
Meyerstein said nothing.
"I know, it's frustrating, but the hat, the angle of the camera, it's not allowing for a full face scan."
"Who've we got on the ground?"
"Airport cops are aware of the situation."
"Listen to me, they need to back off on this. Likely this guy is going to have to be taken down."
"They're under strict orders."
"How many people in the area?"
"Thirteen people in addition to the Seahawks guy."
"If there's any heat this Quds guy will take down as many innocents as he can."
Veitch sighed long and hard.
Meyerstein was handed an iPad, which showed the real time pictures from the airport. "Okay, I'm looking at what you're seeing. Yeah, I see your problem. Face partially concealed."
"Martha, what's your ETA?"
Meyerstein tapped the driver on the shoulder. "How long?"
"Two minutes, three max."
Meyerstein said, "Did you hear that?"
"Copy that, Martha."
Meyerstein went quiet for a few moments as they sped through the dark Burbank streets.
"Talk to me, Martha. I know you too well. What else is bothering you?"
"Reznick."
"What about him?"
"I'm certain it was him who sent the text. Had to be. We know Morlach was dead when the message was sent."
"I'd concur, Martha."
"Reznick must be in the vicinity. So where the hell is he?"
"We both know Reznick will try and take this guy down by himself. It's what he does."
Meyerstein stared at the footage. "What I'm seeing . . . the profile is similar but I'm not sure." She watched as the man in the Seahawks lit up a cigarette and dragged hard on it.
The driver turned and said, "Ninety seconds, ETA."
Meyerstein shook her head. "Where the hell is Reznick?"
Veitch said, "My guess, he's there already. Watching and waiting."
Meyerstein's blood ran cold. That's what she had feared.
FIFTY TWO
Reznick stared through the field glasses at the guy in the Seahawks hat smoking his cigarette. He then swept the binoculars to the guy sitting reading the paper on the bench. He was now wearing shades and a Lakers cap pulled low.
The more he thought about it the more he was beginning to doubt whether he could take the guy down as his line of sight kept getting interrupted.
"Who are you?" he said through gritted teeth.
He needed certainty.
Reznick turned his focus on the guy reading the paper. His hand on his mouth as if thinking, but also good cover for communicating. He was sure they were part of the same Iranian crew.
His problem was how to deal with both of them. If he took out one, the other would possibly get away in the ensuing chaos and panic.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Both needed to be neutralized.
He considered taking out the guy on the bench up close. Then focus on the Seahawks guy.
Time dragged.
He needed to decide and to make his move.
Reznick watched as the Seahawks guy turned his head. Two SUVs pulled up in front of the terminal, blocking his sight. "Shit!" He stared through the binoculars.
The doors of the first SUV burst open and four plain-clothes guys with short sleeve shirts ran out towards the Seahawks guy. The half a dozen or so people nearby dived for cover. In less than thirty seconds, the four-man team had the Seahawks guy cuffed and in the back of their SUV. Then they sped out of sight.
His heart was racing as he turned his attention to the Lakers guy on the faraway bench.
Just at that moment, Reznick saw Meyerstein emerge from the last SUV, cellphone pressed to her ear. He figured they had intercepted the message. He watched as she directed operations whilst talking into the phone.
Reznick turned the binoculars to the Lakers guy and saw the spectral figure disappear into the crowd like a ghost.
FIFTY THREE
Meyerstein stood outside the terminal with three other Feds and surveyed the parking garage opposite, cellphone pressed to her ear. "Give me the latest on Sazegara."
Veitch sighed. "Martha, that's why I'm calling. It's not him."
"What?"
"It's definitely not Mohsen Sazegara. It's his young brother. Behzad."
Meyerstein closed her eyes. "Gimme a break, will you."
"Martha, we're one step behind all the goddamn way."
"The guy in our custody . . ."
"Behzad Sazegara."
"Why wasn't he on our radar before now?"
"He was a sleeper, Martha."
"If we had his brother under surveillance until recently, why not his brother?"
Veitch sighed. "Someone has fucked up on this, that's for sure."
"Well that's just great." Meyerstein thought for a moment. "This Behzad . . . he was wearing an earpiece. What distance would it operate at?"
"Two hundred feet if it was bought off the Internet. Military grade would be up to maybe half a mile."
"What about the travel documents that he was carrying?"
"We're looking them over, Martha. False IDs all the way."
"The dead guy in the hills. What else do we know about him?"
"Back channel to Tehran."
"Mohsen's here at the airport. I know it. We need to shut this down."
"We're on it, Martha."
"Listen to me. We need to find him before this night is done."
Veitch sighed. "Martha, I'm on it I said."
"We need to find him. Before Reznick gets his hands on him."
FIFTY FOUR
Reznick had watched from afar as the Lakers guy had slipped away from the periphery of the crowd at the front of the terminal and jumped on a shuttle bus. He quickly packed away the guns, ammos and field glasses into the rifle bag and put it under the back seat of the BMW convertible.
He got into the driver's seat and sped out of the garage exit. As he sped down a near-empty road he spotted the airport shuttle van.
Reznick tailed the airport shuttle van a few hundred yards to the Ramada Inn, Burbank. The van stopped at the entrance and the Lakers guy got out with two others and went inside.
Reznick parked the BMW in the parking lot of the small hotel so he had clear line of sight to the entrance. He ran the options in his head.
He reached back to retrieve the rifle bag and checked the rifle and 9mm were locked and loaded. He watched and waited. The time dragged. The guy might be holed up in there for hours. But less than fifteen minutes later, he was in luck.
The man emerged wearing a change of clothes, a brown leather bag slung over his shoulder, accompanied by a Mexican woman. His gaze wandered round the parking lot.
Reznick slid down low in his seat as the Lakers guy and Mexican woman crossed the parking lot to an Escalade with tinted windows. The woman climbed into the driver's seat as the man threw the leather bag onto the back seat, before he slid into the front passenger seat.
The Escalade's lights came on and it pulled away.
Reznick waited a few moments before he pulled out of the parking lot and joined the heavy traffic on the busy freeway. It wasn't long
before they were on I-5S headed for San Diego.
He drove hard and wondered about the final destination.
Ten minutes later the Escalade pulled off the freeway and into a truck stop. He followed. He watched as they headed into the restrooms inside. A short while later they resumed their journey south.
Reznick got back on the freeway, foot on the gas, the Escalade in his sights. Sixty. Seventy. Cutting south on the freeway, headlights all around, snaking towards San Diego.
Reznick wondered if the Lakers guy was going to escape across the Border. The Mexican woman would be the cover. And it would be a perfect fallback plan if the airport scheme had to be abandoned.
The headlights strafed the freeway stretching out in front of him. The Escalade was cruising in the fast lane.
Reznick stayed put in the middle lane, out of the rearview line of sight, as they got closer and closer to the Border.
FIFTY FIVE
Meyerstein was buckled up in the back of the SUV, iPad on her lap, ready to head back to the FBI's L.A. field office, when the armrest phone began to ring. She picked up at the moment a message from Veitch dropped in her inbox. "Better be good news."
Veitch said, "Check my message."
Meyerstein double clicked on the email and it opened up. Grainy color footage showing a man with a baseball cap sitting on a bench outside the terminal where they were parked. "Who the hell is this?"
"We've had to bump up the image size by three hundred per cent."
"And?"
"This is Mohsen Sagazera caught on surveillance footage. Airport security was focusing on the Seahawks guy. But when we ran the footage, we saw this guy on the periphery of the footage."
Meyerstein looked long and hard at the image. "Son of a bitch. So where the hell is Mohsen now?"
The sound of another message dropping into her inbox.
Veitch said, "We're checking a whole bunch of footage within a two mile radius with face recognition, and it's caught this image from a camera at the Ramada in Burbank, real close to the airport."
Meyerstein opened it up and saw Mohsen leaving the hotel with what looked like a Mexican girl. "Who's the girl?"
"This is where it gets interesting. She is Rosario Lopez. She is the youngest daughter of a lieutenant in the Tijuana drug cartel. The least powerful of the big three in Mexico. The question is what's a drug cartel doing teaming up with Iranian Special Forces?"
