“Yes,” the younger man said. “With one exception.”
Rashid al-Umari turned restlessly in a bare room on the second floor. He had not been able to sleep, despite his exhaustion. The skies had opened just after midnight, and though the window was shut and the curtains drawn, the room was filled with the sound of rushing water and the occasional peal of distant thunder.
A sudden noise drew his gaze to the door. He saw a black silhouette against the light in the hall. Rashid blinked the sleep from his eyes and sat up on the foldout cot. He was not alarmed in the least. In this place, he was on safe ground; he was amongst brothers. “What is it? Kohl…?”
He saw the gun come up, but it wasn’t real. He recognized the extended barrel of a suppressed weapon, but it couldn’t be real, not after what he had done for them. Mired in disbelief, he didn’t react, but it wouldn’t have mattered.
The muzzle flashed twice, and Rashid al-Umari tumbled back into permanent night.
CHAPTER 12
WASHINGTON, D.C. • VIRGINIA
A premature winter wind whipped over the tarmac at Dulles International Airport as a Dassault Falcon executive jet taxied in on the 12/30 runway, the same plane having landed less than a minute earlier. Jonathan Harper, leaning against the rear fender of a black GMC Suburban—the only vehicle parked on the apron—brushed a few drops of rain from the sleeves of his Burberry overcoat and watched as the sleek jet rolled to a stop, the twin Pratt & Whitney engines winding down to a gradual halt. The cabin door swung out to the left a few moments later, the stairs came down, and the Falcon’s only passenger appeared in the doorway.
Harper instantly saw that Ryan Kealey was in rough shape. The lower half of his face was still covered in the thick, matted beard, and lank hair hung past the line of his jaw, further obscuring his features. His lean frame was covered by a pair of tattered khakis and a gray Nike sweatshirt, his rugged Columbia hiking boots still bearing clumps of red brown Iraqi mud. A large military rucksack was thrown over his right shoulder. He didn’t seem to be straining under the load, but there was something about the empty expression on his face that worried the DDO; it was a look that spoke of more than physical exhaustion.
As Kealey started across the windblown tarmac, Harper considered the events of the previous day. He had personally brought Kealey up to speed when the younger man finally called in, but it had been difficult to gauge his reaction over the static-filled line. If appearances were any indication, though, Kealey was having trouble with the revelation that Vanderveen had finally resurfaced, after almost a year of not knowing whether the man was dead or alive.
Crossing the last few feet of cement, Kealey shook Harper’s extended hand and offered something approaching a smile.
“Good to see you, John. I didn’t expect to be met by a man of your stature.”
“A lot’s been happening. I thought I would fill you in on the ride.”
Kealey nodded to the vehicle. “I guess your driver is cleared for it.”
“He’s cleared as high as you are.”
“Sounds good.” Kealey opened the rear doors and tossed his pack into the cargo area, then made his way to the backseat. Harper went to the passenger side and climbed in front, as was his habit. Once both doors were shut, the driver put the truck into gear.
Harper handed Kealey a carryout cup of steaming black coffee over the back of the seat. “I thought you could use this,” he said.
“Thanks. I didn’t get any sleep on the plane.”
“I can tell. You look like shit.”
“I’m aware of that,” was the wry response. “I need a shower.”
“And a haircut,” Harper noted. “You’ll get all of that soon enough. I’ve got you set up at the Hotel Washington.”
Kealey raised an eyebrow, and Harper caught the gesture. “Yeah, I know. Admittedly, it’s much nicer than what you’d usually get, but I pulled some strings for you. After six months in the desert, I thought you could use some dependable air-conditioning and a comfortable bed. Oh, and Kharmai’s there as well. She’s already checked in.”
“Naomi,” Kealey said in a flat voice. “What’s she doing here?”
“We brought her back to work on al-Umari’s finances, among other things. It’s been less than twenty-four hours, but she’s already managed to dig up some interesting information. I’ll let her brief you herself.”
“Is that where we’re going? The hotel?”
Harper nodded without turning around, then changed tack. “Anyway, here’s where we stand. As soon as you called in, we started running the names you got from Kassem. Two of them, unfortunately, belong to the recently deceased. Interestingly enough, both men were killed during the same raid on the Syrian border.”
A skeptical expression came over the younger man’s face. “I suppose that came from—”
“No.” The DDO had anticipated the response. “That came from the Pentagon, not the Iraqis. It’s been confirmed.”
Kealey leaned back in his seat and rubbed a hand over his eyes. He couldn’t believe he’d wasted all that time for nothing, but Harper had only accounted for two…. “What about the third?”
“Well, that’s the thing. The third man on your list, Anthony Mason, is located here.”
“Here as in the U.S.?”
“Here as in Washington.”
Kealey leaned forward in his seat, suddenly interested. “Well, that’s great. Have we picked him up?”
“No. As soon as the name went into the system, bells started ringing in Landrieu’s office at the NCTC.”
Kealey grimaced involuntarily. He harbored a strong dislike for Patrick Landrieu, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, and the feeling was decidedly mutual. They’d had a run-in the previous year, but for Kealey, a petty disagreement was not the issue. He was far more concerned by the fact that the other man had managed to keep his job after a series of major terrorist attacks in the nation’s capital.
“The problem,” Harper continued, “is that we’re not the only ones with an interest in Mason. For the last three months, he’s been the subject of a joint investigation being run by the Bureau and the ATF. That’s how we knew his location.”
“You’re kidding me.” Kealey thought back to what Kassem had told him. “They want him for arms trafficking?”
“Something to that effect. I didn’t get the full picture, but here’s the interesting part. The Bureau’s stepped up their surveillance over the past week, and they already have a warrant.”
“When are they going in?”
“Today.”
Kealey stared at the other man in disbelief. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
Harper shook his head grimly. “I’m afraid not.”
“They’re doing it today? That’s not interesting, John. That’s…disastrous.” And also far too coincidental, he didn’t say. “If they’re forced to shoot him, we’ll be shit out of luck.”
“I realize that, but it’s out of our hands. When the senior FBI rep at Tyson’s Corner heard we were sniffing around, he told Landrieu in no uncertain terms that this was a very large, very expensive Bureau op, and that any interference would not be tolerated. So Landrieu, of course, made the call to Langley. Andrews nearly handed me my ass when he heard…We’re already in hot water for that little stunt you pulled in Fallujah. The heat isn’t just coming down from the White House, either. The Pentagon was distinctly unhappy with the way you misled Owen. According to the director, the last thing we can afford to do is interfere with a DOJ investigation on domestic soil. That’s a direct quote, by the way.”
“That fucker Landrieu.” Kealey couldn’t restrain his anger. “The guy spent twenty years in the Agency, and he still stabs us in the back every chance he gets.”
“I hear you, but like I said, it’s out of our hands. We just have to hope that the Bureau brings Mason in alive, and that, at some point, we get an opportunity to talk to him.”
Kealey sat back in his seat and si
pped the coffee, thinking about it. Of the three names Kassem had given him, Mason was the one he really wanted to talk to. The men who’d been killed on the Syrian border were Iraqi nationals, but Mason held American citizenship. Setting up secure lines of communication between Iraq and the United States would have been extremely difficult, which made it a good bet that Mason was involved at a much higher level.
And that brought him to something else. It was something that he’d tried to push out of his mind for the last twenty-four hours, but with this development, he could no longer ignore Will Vanderveen’s return to the ranks of the living. Vanderveen had joined the U.S. Army under false pretenses and had posed successfully as an American for years. Both Mason and Vanderveen had ties to Iraq, the latter man through Rashid al-Umari. Kealey knew it was entirely possible that the two men were connected by more than just circumstance.
He made a decision. “John, forget the hotel. I want to go out to the site.”
“Why?”
“I want to talk to whoever’s running things. At the very least, they’ll be able to tell us more about Mason than we can get on paper. Moreover, we might be able to convey how important it is that they take him alive. I mean, you said Brenneman wanted answers. You’d be surprised at what happens when you drop the president’s name.”
Harper considered the request at length. “Okay,” he finally said. “As it happens, I talked to one of the lead investigators in McLean this morning.”
This made sense to the younger man; McLean was just another reference to the NCTC, which was staffed by members of fourteen different government agencies, including the FBI and the CIA. It was one of the very few places where information was collated and disseminated within the U.S. intelligence community, though Kealey had never bought into the rhetoric. Based on what he had seen, the NCTC was no more effective than its predecessor, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, at minimizing interagency competition while maximizing output.
“She seemed willing to talk,” Harper continued, “so we might have an in. Just don’t push too hard, Ryan. Remember, this is their operation and their turf. They don’t have to cooperate.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
CHAPTER 13
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
They arrived at the staging area thirty minutes after leaving the runway at Dulles. Harper had spent half the trip on the phone, trying to get the location of the command post, as the Bureau rep at the NCTC just hadn’t seen the benefit in giving the CIA access to one of its ongoing operations. In the end, though, it was the use of the president’s name—as Kealey had anticipated—that settled the argument.
They were passed through following a brief examination of their credentials. The Suburban bounced over a concrete lip and into the parking area, where the driver pulled in next to a fleet of Bureau Crown Vics. Several agents in blue FBI windbreakers were standing around the vehicles, smoking and sipping from steaming Styrofoam cups, engaged in low conversation. Kealey got out and went to the rear cargo doors, where he opened his ruck sack and replaced his sweatshirt with a corduroy barn jacket. Then he tucked his Beretta into the waistband of his khakis, where the grip of the weapon was neatly concealed by the wrinkled folds of his coat. A few of the Bureau agents were shooting him curious looks.
Harper waved him over. “Remember what I said, Ryan. They didn’t have to let us in.”
The younger man caught the drift immediately: keep your mouth shut and your eyes open. He’d heard the words often enough that they weren’t really necessary; by now, the accompanying look was enough.
The command post itself was based on the second floor of a two-story walk-up. The room was overheated, despite the fact that someone was coming in or out every few seconds, and filled with agents and communication equipment. Clear plastic draped over the unused gear served as protection against the leaky ceiling, but nothing could be done about the sagging floors, which looked ready to give. A series of monitors on one wall provided numerous angles of the target building, which was located a block to the east. It was almost impossible to tell who was in charge, but Harper was already cutting a confident path through the crowd. Kealey trailed at a distance, swearing under his breath when he tripped over one of the numerous extension cords snaking across the scuffed wooden floor.
Harper stopped at a functional steel desk in the back of the room. Standing behind it was a young woman—mid twenties, Kealey guessed—dressed in a pale purple pullover and faded jeans. A black DeSantis holster containing a 10mm pistol was clipped to her belt, the shirt pulled behind the grip to allow easy access to the weapon. Her soft blond hair was not her own—a trace of light brown could be seen at the roots—but it was done well, and the color suited her brown eyes and lightly tanned skin. Her ears were adorned with small diamond studs, and she wore a thin silver chain at her neck, the bottom half of which slipped under her shirt. Kealey couldn’t help but notice how bright she was in the otherwise somber, dark-suited crowd. She clutched a manila folder in both hands but seemed to be more interested in the phone that was pinched between her right shoulder and cheek.
“Yes, I told you that, Tom,” she was saying, her voice carrying over the din. “I did call HQ, but they wouldn’t put me through to Judd, and he has to approve it. As it stands, we just don’t have enough bodies….”
Harper leaned in to explain. “They were supposed to go in with the D.C. SWAT team and an ATF contingent. It sounds like she’s trying to beef up the numbers.”
“Who’s Judd?”
“Harry Judd, the deputy executive director. He’s the only one who can authorize the use of the HRT.”
Kealey nodded. He knew that the Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team—frequently without any hostages to save—often served as an elite SWAT unit and was renowned for its low subject fatality rate. For this reason alone, he hoped the team would get the nod, but judging by the agent’s obvious frustration, it didn’t look good.
The woman finally tossed aside the file she was holding to more efficiently slam down the receiver. She clearly wasn’t in the mood for conversation, but Harper pressed forward. “Agent Crane, this is Ryan Kealey. Ryan, Special Agent Samantha Crane.”
Crane was nearly as tall as he was. She sized him up with a sweeping glance and offered a small, disapproving frown. Kealey couldn’t really blame her; he knew how he looked. Finally, she stuck out her hand and said, “Nice to meet you.”
Her grip was surprisingly strong, her voice hinting at a regional accent he couldn’t quite place. He was still trying to figure it out when she turned her attention back to Jonathan Harper. “No offense, Mr. Harper, but I have no idea how you were even cleared to this site. This is a domestic operation, a Bureau operation, and I’ve been working this case for three months. So unless you have something to contribute, I’m—”
“Agent Crane, I understand how you feel, and I’m sorry for the intrusion,” Harper said, moving fast to appease her. “Trust me when I say that we’re not here to interfere. That said, we would like to talk to Mason once you have him in custody.”
She frowned again. “That might be arranged, but not through me. He’ll have to be arraigned first, and—”
“What are you charging him with?”
Crane turned back to Kealey, clearly annoyed by the interruption. “The U.S. attorney files charges, Mr. Kealey, not the FBI.”
“So how did you get the warrant?” Kealey shot back.
She sighed impatiently. “Anthony Mason was served up to us by a cooperating witness three months ago. Based on his testimony and supporting documents, we can link Mason to the distribution of more than two hundred thousand dollars in various Class III weapons over the past two years. We know he’s responsible for much more, but that’s what we can prove. Everything’s in the affidavits we filed with the D.C. Superior Court.” She pointed to the folder on the desk and said, “That’s Mason’s file, by the way. You can check it out for yourself.”
“Where’s your witness now?” Harper
asked.
“Federal custody.”
“Why don’t you use him?” Kealey asked. “You could send him in with undercover agents to make a buy. That would save the need for all of”—he waved his arms around the crowded room—“this.”
“Because Mason knows we’re holding him,” she replied. “They picked him up on a high-profile bust, a joint DEAATF operation. As usual, they held a press conference and started celebrating before they knew what they had, so Mason was tipped off before his buddy had the chance to give him up. Obviously, the trail went cold until this week.” She paused as though thinking it through. “Besides, the witness was kind of shaky to begin with.”
“So let me get this straight,” Kealey said. “Mason’s been at the top of your list for months, during which time you had shit. Now, by some miracle, you’ve suddenly managed to stumble onto him. Is that right?”
A cold look settled over her face at the tone of the question.
“How did it happen?” he asked.
“We received some unexpected information, an anonymous tip. I’m not going to tell you anything more than that.”
Kealey gave her a hard stare. Anonymous tip? That was clearly bullshit. “Can’t you at least wait to get him outside the building? If he sees you coming, he’ll barricade himself inside. Besides, who knows how many—”
“Mr. Kealey, I don’t have to explain myself to you.” She set her feet and folded her arms. “But I will say this: It really isn’t up to me. I have my orders as well, and at the Bureau, we always follow orders.”
She didn’t expand on this last statement, but Kealey caught her meaning instantly: things didn’t work the same at the CIA. It wasn’t a compliment.
“Now is that it?” she asked sarcastically. “Or do you have any more questions?”
“Just one. If your witness is that shaky, how can you trust what he’s been telling you?”
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