Harlan Coben
Page 20
I miss Ralph. About now he’d be working himself up doing his best Clint Eastwood and trying to dazzle me with all his bad cop stories.
I’m pretty sure I can handle this, but even if it works out all right, it’s still flying solo. And let me tell you, flying solo can get to be pretty damned lonely.
Destiny City
James Grady
FROM Agents of Treachery
FOUR MEN WALKED through the December night along tracks for Washington, D.C.’s subway and Amtrak trains that rumble through America. Their shoes crunched gravel. Música ranchera drifted from a nearby industrial park where Sami, who drove a taxi, remembered signs for a Latino ballroom.
“When?” Maher was a California blond born with the name Michael.
“Soon,” said Ivan, their Ameer.
Zlatko said, “Ameer, I have money for my last buys tomorrow.”
“Brother, I can ride you with my taxi,” said Sami.
“No,” said Ivan. “Work alone. Let no one see us as fingers of a fist.”
“A fist is five,” said Maher. “I thought there were only us four.”
“Jihad is the thumb that shapes us,” proclaimed their Ameer.
Sami said, “Someone’s coming.”
A trio of hombres swaggered toward them through the darkness.
“Hola, amigos, “said that trio’s jefe. “What you doing here, eh?”
“Leaving,” said Sami.
“Don’ thin’ so.” Jefe soured the night with his beer-and-tequila breath. “You gringos got lots of nowhere to run.”
His tallest compañero frowned. “Not gringos. Only the blond guero.”
“Who cares?” Jefe drew a black pistol. “Tool up, Juan.”
The third Hispanic fumbled inside his coat’s back collar.
Maher jumped Juan as he unsheathed a machete.
Jefe blinked—and Sami ripped the pistol from him with a move taught in Al-Qaeda’s Afghan camps, while Zlatko and Maher wrestled the machete from Juan.
Ivan relieved Sami of the gun. “See what they have.”
“Amigos!” said Jefe as Sami searched the three thugs, made them kneel on the gravel. “We all just joking, si?”
Maher said, “Shut up, motherfucker!”
Sami gave confiscated cell phones, cash, and IDs to Ivan. Zlatko threw away the machete.
“Let’s go,” whispered Sami. “They can’t tell anybody anything.”
“Whach you sayin’?” called out the kneeling jefe.
Ivan whispered, “They are kuffars. Unbelievers.”
“That is not enough.” Zlatko shrugged. “But they saw we don’t belong—especially with Maher.”
“They can’t tell police or FBI or CIA,” said Sami. “They don’t dare.”
“You talkin’ FBI? La migra? Don’ fuck with us! We MS-13!”
Ivan said, “Loose ends. They’ll tell someone. And America is full of ears.”
He put the pistol in Maher’s hands. The blond kid stared at it. Stared at three men kneeling before him. The night floated their clouds of breath.
Ivan told him, “You asked when. Allah granted you the answer.”
Maher fired three flash-cracking shots. The thugs crumpled into the gravel.
Ameer Ivan led his followers away from the trackside executions. He gave Zlatko the gun. Distributed the dead men’s cash to all of his soldiers. Sami saw Zlatko tuck his bills inside an envelope he returned to his jacket’s outside right pocket.
The Ameer tossed the thugs’ cell phones. Plastic clattered on unseen rocks.
Maher staggered away from his comrades. Vomited.
“Be proud, Maher.” The Ameer wrapped an arm around the youngest man’s shoulders. “Diverting the enemy with the gun let us attack.”
Maher mumbled, “I went wild in my mind.”
“And learned a key lesson,” said the Ameer. “Timing. When is now, and if all goes well with Zlatko’s work … three days.”
“Three days?“said Sami. “Are you sure, Ameer?”
“Yes.” They neared the gap in the chain-link fence. “And only we four know.”
“And Allah,” said Zlatko.
“Sami,” said the Ameer. “Keep that vaquera in your control.”
“She is no problem,” said Sami.
They left the tracks for a street that was once a route from the capital to a rural town. Now city sprawled from Congress’s white dome to far beyond D.C.’s Beltway.
Ivan stood alone by a roadside white pole, an ordinary, fortyish man waiting for the bus that took him to his gold SUV stashed among a multiplex’s moviegoer machines.
When the bus rolled out of sight, his three warriors walked from the shadows to a Metro subway station. Sami made Maher stand alone on the platform. Zlatko’s nod approved such tradecraft for the cameras mounted on the platform’s ceiling.
A silver subway train snaked to a stop. Maher carelessly drifted onto the same car as Zlatko and Sami. Words bounced in his eyes. Sami’s glare welded the young man’s jaws shut.
The subway slid out of the station. Zlatko sat between Sami and the window. They memorized their fellow passengers: A black guy bopping to earphone music. Two Spanish-babbling women dressed like office cleaners. A white-haired security guard.
Zlatko whispered, “Brother Maher did well, though not like our karate school teaches. But he would not last fifteen minutes in interrogation. He needs to tell. Get fame so he can be real. I worry that he’ll always be a born American.”
“Our Ameer must know what he’s doing, choosing Maher.”
“The smallest cog turns the whole assembly.” His engineer past haunted Zlatko’s words. “But, brother, that is not what troubles me most.”
Brake squeals killed Sami’s question. The train stopped. Zlatko and Maher stood to leave the train for wherever they would spend that night, facts the jihad brothers did not share among themselves.
Sami stood to let Zlatko pass. Pickpocketed the money envelope.
Zlatko stepped onto the platform.
The train slid away.
Sami rode to a neighborhood known for vegetarians, PEACE lawn signs, and citizens who thought the 1960s meant something holy. A bus took him to twin high-rises on a smog-soaked hill.
A high-rise elevator clunked him to its ninth floor. He entered his one-room apartment and closed the door with a thunk for any eavesdropper. Fought for breath. You ‘re clear! Clear! He eased back into the hall. Glided down the stairwell like a shadow.
In the basement, Sami dialed open the combination lock on an electric breaker box. Left the Glock pistol on the box shelf. Turned on the shelf’s cell phone, texted a four-word message. Grabbed keys for a stashed car, drove toward the white dome center of town, and parked by a brick building with a peeling sign for Belfield Casket Company. The coffin factory’s door flew open.
Harry Mizell—who looked like a bear—waved Sami inside.
Harry and boyish FBI agent Ted escorted Sami through the beehive of cubicles where men and women monitored computers and whispered into phones.
They sat Sami at a conference table in a windowless room. Video cameras clung to the walls. Sami imagined the scene transmitting to the aging H-shaped CIA headquarters, to Homeland Security’s new complex in a powerful congressman’s district, to the FBI. Maybe even to the White House.
Sami wondered if the private contractor Argus, whose ID dangled from Harry’s neck, got a direct feed.
As COOK—Case Officer/Operation Control—Harry debriefed. Ted, who wore the FBI ID Harry had forsaken, sat mute at the table.
Sami told Harry, Ted, and the cameras about the murders. About when. Put the pickpocketed envelope on the table. Told Harry, Ted, and the cameras what they had to do now, right now.
Harry said, “When you texted ‘Crash Exfilt Base Soonest,’ we cocked to rock. Now …Now you sit tight. Relax.”
Harry left the room. Left the FBI agent in charge of their spy. The glass eye of a video camera captured Sami’s slump.
“A soft drink?”
The FBI agent nodded yes.
“No, Ted. I don’t want a soft drink.”
Hmmm. The room’s CTSU—Covert Transmission Suppression Unit.
“Sami,” said Ted, “I pray for you every day.”
“You don’t know how much that means to me.”
The FBI agent nodded. “God’s work.”
“So they tell me.”
Ted let Sami go to the bathroom alone. The fluorescent retreat smelled of ammonia and angst. Sami washed his hands, face. Stared into the sink’s mirror. Was there a camera behind that glass?
An hour later, Harry returned. “Bottom line, our op is still running.”
“What?” Sami whirled to the video cameras. “We’ve got them right now on triple murder charges! Scoop them up!”
“Bosses say we need to find who’s behind the cell, Al-Qaeda or—”
“There is no mastermind link! No organizational chart like we’ve got. That’s mirror reasoning. These guys are homegrown! Self-contained.”
“So you say, and I’m inclined to agree, but…” Harry got up from the table, disconnected the visible cameras. ” Ted, leave us alone.”
“I’m the FBI liaison and thus the official presence for—”
“Ted, Homeland Security outsourced Argus Inc. to run this op. I’m Argus’s archangel. Go write a cover-your-ass e-mail about how I kicked you out.”
The door closed on Ted’s exit.
“Realize what we’ve got here,” said Harry.
“You were CIA special ops in JAWBREAKER hunting Al-Qaeda in A-stan. CIA used your real Beirut life, snuck you in with captured Taliban guys our Paki allies freed. For years you’ve worked your terrorist bona fides all over the globe.
“Just like your buddy Zlatko. After Bosnia, he pops up looking for phony papers in Rose’s outlaw gig. She’s righteous enough to call her ex-FBI buddy, moi. My clout jerks you from CIA to Homeland Security. We put you next to Zlatko at Rose’s. He brings you to Ivan, a Chechen physician who found Zlatko at the night school English class where Ivan teaches and fishes. Ivan had already hooked that goofy suburban kid who showed up at a mosque before they shoved Ivan out as a false Muslim.
“And presto,” said Harry, “we’ve penetrated a terrorist cell. A cell that’s going to attack in three days. And with ninety-three Is lamic terrorist groups on our radar, our bosses are convinced this cell has got to be somebody’s baby. Those sponsors are who we want.”
“Three people got murdered tonight. That’s enough!”
“Those thugs don’t count right now.”
“So we won’t tell the local cops? What about those men’s families? Hell, if they are MS-13, those murders could spark a street war!”
“Terrorists are America’s number-one priority. Ivan compartmentalizes. He might have other soldiers. Something even the hard boys can’t sweat out of him.”
“They’re going to hit on Christmas Eve!”
“Is it coordinated? What’s their target? Their method?”
“Take them down, Harry. Get me out.”
“We all want out. But we are where we are. This op—”
“No, not this op. Everything. I want all the way out. Now.”
“Oh.” Harry leaned back. “I can’t make you spy. But bottom line, our gov bosses are going to let the cell run to get what they want whether it’s there or not. Without you on the bricks, without me as COOK, will guys like Ted do it right?”
“Not my problem.”
“My company and I get paid big bucks however this breaks. But I want to nail this job. I’m no walk-away guy. What kinda guy are you?”
That image sat at the conference table like a giant question mark.
Sami blinked. “Three days—and before they pull a trigger.”
“Damn straight. So what are you going to do?”
Sami stood to leave, took the pickpocketed cash. Told Harry, “I’m going to fuck with them.”
The next morning Sami worked his cab between Capitol Hill and glistening downtown. Such fares made him remember his high school senior class trip to “our nation’s capi tal,” how “the Hill” had been open driveways looping past the vanilla ice cream Capitol. White-shirted congressional cops looked like marshmallow men.
That post-9/11 routine December morning, concrete barricades blocked all vehicle approaches to the white marble heart of Congress. Steel barriers funneled pedestrians past barbell-muscled, black-jumpsuited, mirror-sunglassed sentinels with M-4 assault rifles or shotguns strapped across their armored chests.
But it’s not Beirut, he thought. Not yet. I can stop that clock.
At 10:07 he flipped down the ON call visor sign. Drove to an Asian fusion restaurant where lunch for one cost enough to feed a shantytown Malaysian family. Parked in the alley so he faced the restaurant’s service door.
10:11: Two cooks walked past his cab and into the restaurant. 10:13: A sixtyish Vietnamese man in busboy’s black shirt and pants took a Saigon second to scan the vehicle crouched near his destination. 10:14: Zlatko strolled into the alley carrying a dishwasher’s white apron and a flat expression. Used the restaurant’s back door. 10:21: Zlatko appeared in the cab’s mirrors, arms by his side, coming toward the blue taxi on a circular route justified, Sami guessed, by the bummed cigarette tucked above nonsmoker Zlatko’s right ear.
Zlatko got in the back of the cab.
Right behind me! Can’t see his hands!
Sami said, “As-salaam alaykum.”
“Why are you here?” Zlatko’s eyes burned in the rearview mirror.
“On the subway, you said you are troubled. We are brothers. I came to help.”
“And that is all? No confession?”
“What do either of us have to confess?”
Zlatko shrank in the backseat.
“On the train, I was worried our Ameer has confusion about what is righteous and halal. What is haram and not permitted. How the Koran forbids killing innocents, women, and children, so the planes that hit the towers, the one crashed in that green field, they must be haram. The Pentagon plane, against soldiers, yes, halal, and civilians there who served the soldiers, unavoidable. Loose ends or contingency casualties. But instead of worrying about our Ameer, I should have paid attention to my own duties.”
Zlatko shook his head. “Last night I lost our money envelope.”
“Wait—you thought I stole it?”
“Ours is a wicked world. I saw the bodies of my wife, two daughters, son. Saw what my neighbors had done to us Muslims in our Bosnian town while I was out riding my bicycle thinking about the Olympics … Forgive me: I feared this kuffar world around us had swallowed your soul. But it is I who lost the money. Have endangered our mission.”
“You are not to blame for accidents.” Sami let his mercy sink in, then threw out a hook. “Have you told our Ameer?”
“Not yet.”
“How much money do you need?”
“All of my end should cost around nine hundred and fifty dollars. I’ve spent about six hundred. All the rest plus the extra from last night was in the lost envelope.”
“I have a hundred and forty-seven dollars. If I hustle now, my taxi can make the rest.”
“You are a true brother! I will be waiting down the block in that grocery store parking lot at two-oh-five.”
As Zlatko left the cab, out of his sleeve popped a restaurant butcher knife.
That’s why he sat behind me.
He let Zlatko sweat until 2:19, raced the taxi into the grocery store lot. Zlatko told him: “Radio Shack on Georgia Avenue.”
There Zlatko made Sami wait in the parked taxi. Sami kept a window open to hear the street. An instrumental “Jingle Bells” from a store competed with a man ringing a handheld bell by a red bucket.
Cari Jones defied her dark hair with blond highlights, wore a black leather trench coat, marched past the taxi telling her cell phone,
“Soon as I get there, Mom’ll say it’s great I have a career, but my baby clock…”
Zlatko put packages in the taxi’s back seat. Climbed in front with one Radio Shack sack, told Sami to drop him off on a corner different from any the Homeland Security/FBI/outsourced street dogs had trailed him to before they broke off surveillance to avoid spooking the streetwise warrior.
Zlatko pulled two prepaid cell phones from the sack, fished out the manual, saying, “Yes, call waiting, call conferencing, call blocking…”
He looked at Sami. “In Baghdad, we learned you don’t want to be holding the right cell phone when someone dials a wrong number.”
After he left Zlatko, Sami drove eleven blocks to find a pay phone. Twenty minutes later, as he cruised up North Capital Street, Sami drove past a waving ebony-skinned lawyer in an Italian suit to pick up a white man who looked like a rumpled bear.
“I wish your Ameer let you guys carry cell phones,” said Harry as he settled in the back of Sami’s taxi.
“No cell phones. Coded messages on Facebook from computers at libraries, Staples, and Internet cafés.”
“But Zlatko just bought two phones. ‘Course, it’s in the rule book that every black ops honcho, spy runner, and Ameer lies to his button boys.”
“Every case officer lies? Even you?”
“I play by my rules.” Harry winked. “We’ve got our geniuses reverse-engineering Zlatko’s latest buys from that Radio Shack.”
The rearview mirror showed Sami a tan sedan.
“It’s Ted,” said Harry. “Don’t shake him, okay? He’s learning. He’s got to. FBI, CIA, Uncle Sam’s top street shooters are turning in their papers, going private, getting outsource-contracted back to do the same job at twice their government paychecks.”
“Private armies fight for private profit. Government is about citizens carrying their public weight.”
“When did Sami start caring about how Uncle Sam works?”
“I’m almost straight, remember? After your geniuses report, you’ll have the who, when, and how. You can take down the cell. I can fly free.”
Sami fed the taxi into traffic up Constitution Avenue past Smithsonian museums.