A Long December

by Donald Harstad

  “Skripkin refers to this Vladimir Nadsyev as his boss. Can we believe him on that?”

  “I don’t believe I can verify that either way,” replied the Metropolitan Police detective. “I can check for you.”

  “Please,” said George. “We’d really appreciate being able to verify some of what he tells us.”

  That produced a chuckle in London. “Would you be so good as to send a photo of him telling the truth? We’d very much like to see that one.”

  “It looks like everybody agrees Skripkin’s a liar, then,” said Hester, when George hung up the phone. “So, just what do we believe?”

  That was the real problem. We had a major step about to be taken by several federal agencies, because Volont believed he had seen through the lies. Thus far, we had confirmed that he was a liar. We had no specific information as to just where the lies actually crept in. We really needed to talk to Linda Moynihan.

  CHAPTER 19

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2001 19:27

  SINCE WE COULDN’T TALK TO LINDA, we did the next best thing. We talked to Skripkin again. This time, things were a little different.

  As soon as he saw Hester, he smiled and said, “Hello, lady agent. I dream about you.”

  “It’s the jail food,” said Hester. “Trust me.”

  “Deputy,” he said, acknowledging me. “And who is…?”

  George said, “Special Agent Pollard, FBI Counterintelligence.”

  Just a tiny flicker of surprise showed on Skripkin’s face. “How do you do.” He was definitely more alert.

  “Just fine,” said George. “You know you have the right to an attorney…”

  After the second Miranda, George just leaned back in his chair and said, “You’re a very interesting fellow.”

  “Thank you.”

  “As soon as I heard that you were wanted in Russia, I thought I’d like to talk with you sometime.”

  “I am glad.”

  “Then, when I found out you were really wanted in the U.K., I thought I’d better talk to you right away.”

  “What is this U.K.?” The tension was back.

  “You lie too much to be of any real use to us,” said George. “Maybe the English will want you back. I’ve talked to someone who knew you when you lived in ‘a tatty little flat in Lambeth.’ With your friends the Kalashnikovs.”

  “I do not think I want to talk any more with you,” said Skripkin.

  George began rummaging through his file folder. That was my prearranged signal to ask a wild-card question.

  “When did they start to call you ‘Cheeto’? Way back then? Or is it more recent? “We’d decided that was to be tossed into the line of questioning because I remembered that Hector had referred to one of Rudy’s acquaintances by that nickname. It was a question that could serve two purposes. First, if Cheeto wasn’t Skripkin, it might be just enough to distract him and cause a little worry about what false information we had about him that he hadn’t supplied. A liar always wants to be in control of the lies. Second, if he was Cheeto, then he could worry about what truth we knew about him, and just where we obtained it. For us, there wasn’t a downside.

  “Who told you that? “It was an indefinite response.

  I put on my reading glasses, took a paper out of my folder, which happened to contain a bunch of throwaway teletypes regarding God knew what that I’d pulled off the dispatch desk, and pretended to read. Keeping my head slightly down, I looked up at him over the top of my glasses. “Three days ago, when you came up during an interview,” I said.

  I had a feeling that he was a lot less accustomed to getting evasive answers than he was to giving them.

  “Three days ago? “asked Skripkin.

  “The day Rudy was shot,” I said. “That was three days ago, wasn’t it?”

  He didn’t answer.

  I gave as genuine a chuckle as I was able, all things considered. “I’ll bet that all along, you thought it was Linda we were looking for, didn’t you? “I mean, it was Linda, of course. I never said it wasn’t. But he sure as hell didn’t know that.

  Like they say, silence is golden.

  I figured I was on the right track. “Well, you’re sure right about one thing. You really don’t know much about women. I’ll bet you also thought Rudy was the only one she told about the two of you.”

  “You are such a smart person…who else did she tell, then? “I had to give him credit, he didn’t give in easily.

  We’d talked about this beforehand and had decided that the second, and last, wild card we had to hit him with was the name of Mustafa Abdullah Odeh. We’d agreed to make it an indirect reference, to be used by any of the three of us, at our discretion.

  “I can’t give you the name of the other person she told,” I said. Dangle the worm.

  He leaned back, beginning to smile.

  “But I can tell you that the other person subsequently told one…one”—and I looked at my bogus folder again—”told one Mustafa Abdullah Odeh.” I looked up and was able to watch the blood drain from his face. When you’re on a roll, you might as well go as far as you can. “And I guess he’s pissed,” I said. “From what I’m told. You happen to know him?”

  The question produced a first, as far as my history of interviews went. Skripkin got a funny look on his face and just said, “I must use rest room. Hurry, please.”

  He was serious. Hester hit the buzzer on the desk, and a jailer stuck his head in the room.

  “He’s gotta go,” she said. “Rest room.”

  Skripkin was on his feet and halfway to the door before she finished speaking.

  As our suspect disappeared down the short jail hallway, Hester said dryly, “Think he might know him?”

  “Nice job, Carl,” said George. “Volont’s going to be sorry he missed this.”

  It was fifteen minutes later that Skripkin finally reentered the interview room. He didn’t look too good. We went at him gently at first, with Hester taking the lead. He told her that Mustafa Abdullah Odeh was a very bad man. As if we didn’t know that. He also told her that Mustafa Abdullah Odeh was the boss. Just that simple. As far as Skripkin knew, Odeh was the source of the plan to spray the meat at the Battenberg plant. He was also the source of anything that Juan Miguel Alvarez, aka Hassan Ahmed Hassan, had needed or had thought necessary to complete the mission.

  “Like what?” asked Hester. “Money?”

  “Money. Yes. The spray cans, too. Weapons. For security of the operations.”

  “Is that where the shotgun came from?” she asked. “The one that was used to kill Rudy?”

  “No. That one was purchased by Hassan at a store. For hunting, he said.”

  “Okay. Do you know which store?”

  “The tools and things store in Battenberg.”

  “You mean the hardware store? “she asked.

  “Yes. That is the one.”

  Hester made a note. “Hassan didn’t happen to get the spray cans filled there, too, did he?”

  “No, no. Those came UPS to sweet little liar Linda. She brought them to us. That way,” Skripkin said, “they go to U.S.A. citizen. No questions.”

  This was turning out to be a really productive day.

  About that time, Skripkin began having second thoughts. I suspect the picture of himself locked up in either a state or federal prison and being stalked therein by one of Odeh’s associates was beginning to loom large. Or maybe he was just tired of urgent bowel movements. Either way, he suddenly decided he needed to talk with an attorney. From that point on, we could not question him without his attorney present.

  Finding him an attorney presented a problem. As soon as the local attorneys found out there were going to be Iowa felonies, federal felonies, and the possibility of extradition to the U.K., they all refused to represent him. They said it was “outside their expertise.” We had to go to a judge, and she had to order one to talk with him. It was a lot of fuss for nothing, as the appointed attorney just told Skripkin to shut up until he
was able to talk to a good Federal Practice attorney, and then submitted his bill. But it had to be done.

  We were happy, though. We had a good start at getting Linda Moynihan charged with a federal felony for aiding and abetting foreign terrorists. That was a good. All we had to do was check with UPS, see when the package was delivered to her address, see where it had come from, and tell her the bad news as we handed her a federal warrant. No wonder she’d wanted guarantees of both immunity and protection.

  Harry put it rather succinctly when he said, “Your girl Linda probably don’t know enough to save her ass, just enough to get herself killed.”

  “I wonder,” said George, “if she knew what was in the package?”

  “I’ll bet she had an idea,” said Hester. “Maybe not exactly, but close enough to count. The picture I’m getting of her, she tends to find those things out.”

  CHAPTER 20

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2001 23:03

  IT HAD BEEN A LONG DAY. HESTER, GEORGE, and I got back to Iowa at about 9:15 P.M., and had been at the Nation County Sheriff’s Department, mostly wrapping up the reporting for the day.

  George had held a briefing for the swarming media, along with Iowa and federal health officials who provided the technical details of what was becoming known on the networks as the “Kosher Killings” case.

  Hester, Sally, and I had watched George’s briefing live from the safety of the dispatch center. We all groaned when the “Kosher Killings” headline was flashed on the screen. George, on camera, had no idea about the label until we told him afterward. We played the tape back for him. He’d been speechless.

  We were still talking about that when Judy Mercer, KNUG’s bureau chief from Iowa City, buzzed the outside door and asked for admittance to the sheriff’s department. We could see her on the exterior camera. She was alone. That in itself was unusual. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her without a camera operator in tow.

  When the duty dispatcher asked her the purpose of her visit, over the mike at the door, Judy replied, “I’d like to speak with the officers who’re working the meat poisoning case.” I think the fact that she hadn’t referred to “Kosher Killings” was the deciding factor in letting her in.

  George, Hester, and I ushered her into the jail kitchen. I put on a pot of coffee, and we listened to what she had to say. To her offer, actually.

  “I really want to be up front with all of you,” she said. “Let me start with the fact that this case could be the break I need to go to the network. Just so you know why I’m here.”

  “Sure,” said George. “We understand that.”

  “Good. Look, I’d like to be on air with something just a half hour ahead of the big boys out there. Something good that they’d die to get. All right?”

  “We know what you want from us,” said Hester. “What do you have for us in exchange?”

  “Okay, look. I don’t know just what this means, but I think it could be important.”

  We waited.

  “Okay, so you know where Coralville is?”

  We all did. It was a town that shared a border with Iowa City.

  “I’ve got a girlfriend who lives in an apartment in Coralville. She says that there’s been an Arabic student in the apartment next to hers, who comes and goes at odd hours and who has Hispanic and Caucasian men visit him on a regular basis.”

  “Okay, and…? “said George. “I mean, in Iowa City, there must be thousands of foreign exchange students.”

  “I know. But my friend called me about an hour ago and said that an Hispanic man had pounded on her door and asked to speak to a Mr. O’Day. She spoke to him through the closed door, but he was very insistent. She said that she was just about to call the cops when the door next to hers opened, and the Arabic man stuck his head out, and the Hispanic said, ‘Mr. O’Day!’ and they both went into his apartment. She thinks it’s strange that an Arab is using an Irish name.”

  “Go on,” said George.

  “Well, what she said was the really weird part is that the Hispanic man was the same man she saw on one of the interviews I did down at the plant today. She swears it.” Judy Mercer looked at each of us in turn. “I mean,” she said, “she tapes every segment I’m on. So she replayed tonight’s and double-checked. She says she’s certain. Now, I don’t pretend to know just what’s happening here, but it seems to me that that’s the sort of thing you might want to know.”

  “Could be,” said George.

  “Okay, she also says that, in the daytime, she can look out her bedroom window down to the parking lot, and this Arab’s car, when she can see it, has lots of maps in the seat. Regular ones, like you can get in gas stations.”

  The three of us didn’t say a word.

  “Well? I think you should check that out.”

  “You might be right,” said George. “Who is this friend of yours, and where does she live?”

  “Now,” said Judy Mercer, “we negotiate.” She had a dazzling smile. “Don’t you think?”

  Within an hour, Coralville PD had gone to the apartment, interviewed Mercer’s friend, and staked out the apartment unit next door. The suspect was not at home. His vehicle, which they said was a red Dodge van with Michigan plates, was also gone. We talked to Barry Goodman, the Coralville chief and longtime LEIN member. He assured us that he would keep the place under very tight surveillance until we advised it was no longer necessary. He’d also see what he could find out about Mr. Odeh from other sources.

  In exchange, we promised Judy Mercer that she would be the first told of an impending arrest. She bargained us up to include an exclusive interview with the first suspect we took into custody. Just in case, as she said, the impending arrest turned out to be made in Florida or California.

  We got the best of that deal.

  I finally got home at 01:30.1 let myself in as quietly as I could and found a note on the refrigerator. “Lasagna in white container. Tastes good! Watched TV and now I’m really worried. Wake me when you come up to bed, so I don’t worry. On the bright side, the weather report says we might get a white Christmas yet. Love, Sue.”

  The lasagna was really good. I sat in the living room, eating it and watching our segment every fifteen minutes on Headline News. They changed the background footage twice, so I stayed up for another thirty minutes waiting to see if they’d change it again. They didn’t. Between times, I surfed through other news channels and got to hear some fascinating commentary about what was happening in New York City and Nation County, Iowa. Nobody seemed to have either the delivery method or the targeting anywhere near right. I learned a lot about ricin, and even got a five-minute segment regarding the “legitimate uses of castor oil.” This case was getting to be a real education.

  So far, nobody had managed to link the poisoning to any specific terrorist network. Speculation was rife, though. Some poor bastard from the Israeli Embassy had been cornered, and was badgered about who he thought had done it, and if he thought it was an anti-Semitic hate crime, if he thought it would lead to a U.S. strike in the Middle East, and if he thought Israeli citizens felt safe in Tel Aviv. He did a very credible job of avoiding saying anything, and spent most of his time trying to reassure the reporter that “the U.S. authorities, I am sure, are handling this case with great expertise.” I thought that was nice of him. I also think he deserved a little credit for not calling the reporter an idiot.

  I woke Sue and told her I was home. It must have been reassuring, because she was asleep again in two minutes. I think she only beat me by a minute or two.

  CHAPTER 21

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2001 08:44

  SUE AND I WERE AWAKENED BY the telephone at the head of the bed. I remember wondering for the umpteenth time why I’d ever thought I needed to buy an alarm clock, and then I picked it up.

  “Houseman.”

  “Did I get you up?” It was Volont.

  “Uh, yeah. Yeah, you did.”

  “Well, rise and shine. We got one!”

 
I sat upright. “What?”

  “We got some of Odeh’s people, that’s who. One sad bastard was driving the vehicle that Odeh was using in Coralville. It was observed at about three this morning in Michigan. The troopers notified us, and we all just followed the idiot to an apartment building. We just walked in with him and watched where he went. We hit the place as they opened the door. It was great! Odeh wasn’t anywhere around, and we’re sure nobody got out of the apartment unless they were with us. One of ‘em started talking. He says that there are two plants—one in Michigan, one in Nebraska—which they’ve targeted. He says something’s supposed to happen tonight, about four A.M. He’s given us some names of some of the workers.”

  “No shit!”

  “No shit, old buddy. Hawse says to tell you guys down there that you’ve done a terrific job. I couldn’t agree more. Just keep the lid on for another day or two, and we should have these people in the bag.”

  “No problem. Hell, just the report-writing ought to keep us out of trouble for a month.”

  “You got that right!”

  I didn’t say it, but I also thought it would be nice to get back to finishing the work on the Rudy Cueva murder case.

  After I hung up, Sue said, “What?”

  “Oh, good news. About the big case. Can’t tell you what, but I’m going to be spending the next few days behind a keyboard, writing endless reports.”

  “Oh, that’s great!”

  It was, in a way.

  “This means that you’ll be home for Christmas,” she said.

  “You bet.” It was just about certain, in fact.

  Today was Saturday, and Christmas was Tuesday. I thought I just might coast right into the holidays. We had Skripkin, we had a warrant for Hassan also known as Alvarez, we had a strong potential witness in Linda, and we had a motive. We needed to find this Chato, get an ID, and charge him with conspiracy to commit murder. That wouldn’t take long. The warrant for him at least. I suspected he was wherever Hassan/Alvarez had gotten himself to, and if he was, I figured he could well be dead by now. No great loss, and it would lay a second murder charge on Hassan/Alvarez. Him we needed. It would take time, but somebody, somewhere would snag him.