by J. B. Turner
“A parallel operation?”
“Give me the tools to see what I can do, if releasing him goes south.”
“You seem to be forgetting about legal oversight.”
“Do you think Martha Meyerstein is worrying about legal oversight? She’s wanting us to find her.”
O’Donoghue fixed his gaze on Reznick. “This is not what I’m about. Maybe twenty or thirty years ago we might’ve turned a blind eye to such things.”
“Sir, your call. No one need know a thing. I’ve got a plan in place. I know this sort of stuff.”
O’Donoghue went quiet for a few moments, as if he were trying to determine the character of the man in front of him.
“What I can say is that this operation will be under the radar. No one need know. But we need to get this fucker released or Martha Meyerstein will die real quick.”
“In the circumstances, I agree. OK, leave it with me.”
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“I need tools at my disposal for this parallel operation.”
“What do you need?”
“I need a million dollars set aside.”
“Where am I going to get a million dollars without attracting any attention?”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out, sir.”
“What do you need the money for?”
“I want to hire some operatives I know. But they need to be paid.”
“What else?”
“I believe Martha is being held in or around New York City. So I need a facility within twenty miles of Manhattan that the FBI can use in emergencies, but which isn’t used day-to-day.”
“We have that.”
“Sir, make this happen. That’s all I ask.”
“And there are no guarantees?”
Reznick stared at him. “Guarantees are on electrical products. In this line of work, we don’t do guarantees.”
“Do what you have to do.”
Thirty
Martha Meyerstein was floating on a dark lake. She thought she heard her father whispering in the distance. Suddenly she saw her father again. He was standing on the far shore. She could see he was waving. And smiling.
She felt herself drifting toward him. She felt the wind brush through her hair. The smell of pine forests in the air. The aroma of moss and damp grass. She heard a voice like a dark whisper. Her father’s voice. Hang in there, honey.
She let his words sink in. She took strength from his comforting, familiar voice. Its gruffness only conveyed his certainty and solidity. He was there. He was with her. She stared across the water at the far shore again and glimpsed him once more. He was waving his arms as if to attract her attention. Not long now, honey. Just dig in.
That’s what he seemed to be saying. She could see him mouthing the words.
She tried to shout, but she couldn’t. She was paralyzed. She wanted to shout. To scream. Her father stopped waving his arms. He was looking at her, his eyes filled with tears.
She wanted to shout, “Daddy, don’t go!” But all she heard was the sound of the water lapping by her face. She could see him standing there, watching her floating on the water.
Meyerstein felt a sharp slap across her face and she snapped back into the present.
“Look at me!” a harsh Russian voice shouted.
Meyerstein opened her eyes and saw a bug-eyed man staring down at her.
“How does it feel being confined? You feel like a criminal, huh?”
She stared straight at him.
“We will break you. If it’s the last thing that we do, we will break you.”
Meyerstein smiled through her tears. “Good luck with that.”
Thirty-One
Bill O’Donoghue was pacing his New York office, reflecting on the sequence of events, checking his watch. He’d made the call to the Attorney General, requesting the release of Dimitri Merkov. It was well within the deadline. But still no confirmation that Dimitri Merkov’s release was going to go through. He’d been told it could be a few hours. Maybe more.
They were running out of time. His ulcer burned as he thought of Martha awaiting her fate. He had never known a case where so little progress had been made. The stakes couldn’t have been higher.
He began to envisage scenarios where things went wrong. Where she wasn’t handed over. Then he began to imagine what the press would make of it all, if Martha was killed. The flip side would be the outcry if they learned that the FBI had released a convicted murderer into the community. It would be a political nightmare, and one that O’Donoghue was unlikely to make it through unscathed.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Shit.”
The truth was he had taken the safe route at first. The bureaucrat’s route. The covering-my-ass route. He had made the right call, in a truly legal sense, not to release Dimitri Merkov. But the bold call had also been the right call. Despite the risk of a hostage exchange and the unknown quantity that was Reznick’s parallel operation, he was glad he’d made the bold call in the end.
His phone rang. He picked up after the third ring. “O’Donoghue.”
“Sir, it’s Stamper. I have Martha’s ex-husband, Professor James Meyerstein, on the line. I think you should talk to him.”
“I’m busy, Roy.”
“Sir, I think he needs to talk to you. He’s cut up pretty bad about this. He’s talking about going to the media.”
O’Donoghue checked his watch. He had to prepare for a videoconference in half an hour with the National Security Council. They would want to hear progress. “Put him through.”
“Very good, sir.”
“FBI Director O’Donoghue speaking. How are you holding up, James?”
“I’m not, if you must know. I keep hoping to get a call saying she’s safe and well. But nothing. Days have gone by. I feel like I’m dying.”
O’Donoghue took a moment to get his thoughts straight. He didn’t think it was a good idea to tell the professor about the footage of his ex-wife. But, then again, what if Merkov leaked the videos to the media?
“James, listen to me. We are doing everything in our power, and then some, to get Martha back. I can’t go into details. But please trust me on this.” O’Donoghue paused. “James, Roy mentioned you’re thinking of going to the press. Is this true?”
“I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t even know if she’s alive. Is she alive?”
Then there was silence on the other end of the line, and in that silence O’Donoghue heard a faint sobbing.
“We believe so.”
“Thank God.”
O’Donoghue closed his eyes for a moment as his throat tightened. Then he did what he had to do. “James . . . You must speak to no one about this. Because if this gets out, and I’m talking about the media, then we’ll lose her. Do you understand?”
Thirty-Two
The next morning, Reznick was in an SUV alongside Joint Terrorism Task Force operative Curt White, headed in the direction of uptown Manhattan. He felt distracted, thinking about the telephone conversation with Lauren. His flesh and blood, his beautiful, smart daughter—out there in the big bad world—and now she had a boyfriend. Fuck.
He began to focus his thoughts back on Meyerstein. A smart, talented, and tough woman who was fighting for her life, every minute closer to death. He remembered she had faced calls for Reznick to be relieved of his involvement with the FBI. She hadn’t meekly bowed down to requests from those in the intelligence community who had objected to Reznick. She had fought her corner. And won. He’d seen the steely determination in her cold blue eyes. His mind flashed back to hearing her strong voice coming out of the radio, as the rescuers battled to revive him in a Mexican tunnel.
Reznick knew, at this moment, she would be fighting to survive. He imagined her clenching her teeth, resisting to the end.
“Do you mind explaining what your plan is?” White said. “I mean, where the hell do we begin? Effectively you’re trying to lure Catherine
Jacobs into our custody, right?”
“That’s the plan.”
“You mind telling me how you’re going to do that?”
“You’re Agency, right? Figure it out.”
“Back off, Jon, I’m just trying to get a handle of where you are with this.”
“We’re in the early stages. We begin by getting a team together. And that’s what we’re doing.”
“And O’Donoghue sanctioned this?”
“I’ll get someone else if you don’t want to be part of it.”
“I want to be part of it, all right. So this team you’re putting together . . . handpicked?”
“That’s the idea.”
“New York-based?”
“Yeah.”
“How many?”
“I’m waiting on a couple callbacks.”
Reznick switched on the iPad he had been given. He scrolled through the limited information they had on Catherine Jacobs. She had slipped under the radar. Most of what they knew about her was from Facebook. She’d posted photos of herself working out at an upscale gym. However, they also had her online calendar, which had been accessed by the NSA. It showed that today she would be going for a lunchtime jog with a friend from her office. Reznick’s mind began to formulate a plan.
“OK, I’m thinking out loud, so just bear with me. She’s running with a colleague. Central Park. A female.”
White nodded but didn’t speak for a few moments, as if figuring out the best options. “We could grab both, but that’s highly risky.”
“We need to peel her away from her coworker.”
“Yeah, but how?”
Reznick flicked through Facebook posts of Catherine Jacobs and her fiancé, a square-jawed realtor. Slowly, a germ of an idea began to form. Ideally he would have liked several hours, or days, to plan. But that was a luxury they didn’t have.
He pulled out his cell phone and found the number of another CIA guy from the FBI task force who had been assigned to work with him. “Dave, you at the facility?”
“Just arrived. Jon, it’s perfect. One-way mirror. Isolated. Couldn’t be better. Our tech guy is hooking up the equipment—computers and phones and the rest. We should be up and running within the hour.”
“Listen, I need something. I need you to requisition a cop car and two medium-sized uniforms. One for a guy, one for a woman.”
“Might be tricky, Jon.”
“I’m not interested in knowing if it’s tricky or not. Just get them. And don’t take no for an answer. I want this stuff to be picked up by one of your guys. And then delivered to the facility, where my two guys should be rolling up any minute. We clear?”
“Yeah, got it.”
“Speak soon. We’re in traffic. You need to get a move on.”
“I got this, Jon. Take care.”
Reznick ended the call as they headed onto a tree-lined street on the Upper East Side. “Hang a right and then head up to the bank from there. We can keep an eye on her when she leaves the building.”
White braked hard as a dump truck stopped suddenly up ahead. “Goddamn, you fucking asshole.”
Reznick peered further down the street. “Take it easy. Four blocks and we’re good.”
White sighed as they stopped and started in the heavy traffic, which was nearly gridlocked. A few minutes later, they pulled up with a line of sight to the Russian bank’s HQ, which was housed in a modernist building. “I’m gonna take a walk around the block, see if there’s any better spots than this, OK?” the CIA operative said.
Reznick checked his watch. “Don’t be long. She could leave at any time.”
Thirty-Three
Brent Schofield was making a mental checklist of everything he had to do as he rode the elevator down to the parking garage. In his hands were briefing papers on terror targets across New York.
“What took you so long, Brent?” the Police Commissioner asked, standing waiting with some flunkies.
Schofield shook his head. “Don’t ask.”
They were escorted to a black SUV and driven away to a meeting with the Mayor about the latest security threats to the city, in particular Manhattan. His thoughts should have been focused on the various threats from jihadist sympathizers in shitholes in Brooklyn or Staten Island or wherever. But the specter of Max Charles was what concerned him.
He’d known Charles for years during their tenure at the CIA. Charles had been working for the Agency way back when it got its ass kicked by the Church Committee. Charles was among a tight-knit group of extreme patriots who would stop at nothing to further the interests of America, no matter the cost—financially or in terms of lives. Schofield remembered enjoying a nightcap with him at a bar in London, and hearing him talk ominously about “permanent vigilance.” Even back then, Charles saw the influence of the Russians everywhere. He viewed communists, communism, socialism, liberals, and social activists as doing the bidding of Moscow.
Max Charles being back in his orbit, albeit as a consultant to the Agency, was a warning sign. Something was afoot. And it was clear that even the kidnapping of an FBI assistant director could be tolerated, if there was a result at the end of it.
Schofield felt uncomfortable if that was the case. He was no bed-wetting liberal, scared of his own shadow. He was a red-blooded American patriot. But the methods the CIA might have been quick to resort to forty years ago should be reserved for regime change in the Middle East only. He had been trained at the Farm, and knew all about assassinations, espionage, and the other methods intelligence agencies the world over deployed. But nothing could justify being privy to the kidnapping of an FBI assistant director. That said, he was loyal to the Agency, as well as to his country. Sometimes, there was method to the CIA’s madness.
Schofield recalled the meeting with Curt White and what he’d said about Reznick. The irony was that Reznick was using the same clandestine methods as the CIA to help the FBI get back the esteemed Martha Meyerstein. He reflected on the situation. He understood why there had been a media blackout, and he hadn’t even raised it formally within the NYPD. He understood better than anyone what would happen if word got out. He could envisage the headlines in the New York Daily News.
It would strike fear into people. Millions would wonder how such a person could be kidnapped and for what purpose. If a senior FBI executive could be abducted and was at risk, the message it would send to America’s enemies would be profound. So their hush-hush approach was absolutely justified and smart. But what he couldn’t get his head around was their calling in Jon Reznick to join the team. He’d heard about some of Reznick’s exploits in the past. A bioterrorism plot on the New York subway that he had single-handedly intercepted. A false flag CIA operation to kill the President that he’d helped avert. Then, two years ago, an Iranian hit squad brought down by Reznick with the help of the FBI.
Some said the guy had a problem with authority. Others that it would cause a scandal if the involvement of a trained American assassin was ever revealed.
The Feds had to know the risks that would entail.
The more he thought of Reznick and the rest of his crew getting entangled with the Russian mob in New York, the more concerned he felt about the asset the CIA had to protect at all costs.
There was a jolt as the SUV went over a pothole, snapping Schofield out of his thoughts.
“So . . .” he said. “Sir, do you want a final run-through of the emerging threats to the city?”
The Police Commissioner shook his head. “I’m good. Tell me, Brent, you really think it’s just a matter of time until one of these fuckers gets lucky?”
Schofield checked some papers on his lap. “Absolutely. We don’t know when. But we do know one of them will get lucky. We can’t have our eyes and ears everywhere. We can do what we’ve been doing since 9/11, getting in their faces, getting in their communities, getting into their communications, but eventually, sadly, all it’ll take is one new convert, a lone wolf, someone that’s not on our radar, to get through.
And it might not be spectacular, but it doesn’t have to be. Shooting up a mall, setting off a bomb on the subway, mass shootings in a nightclub like in Orlando, rudimentary pipe bombs in Chelsea and New Jersey . . . You see what I’m saying. The psychological impact to the city would be immense. They know that. And that’s why they’ll continue to target us.”
The Police Commissioner stared out at the streets of Midtown Manhattan. “The problem is the Mayor’s people are talking more about inclusion these days.”
“We gotta just roll with it. Try and placate those interests, but at the same time, do the work at street level. Use the rakers. Build new eyes and ears on the ground. It’s the only way.” Schofield’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. “Goddamn, what is it now?”
The Police Commissioner gave a rueful smile as Schofield took out his phone.
“Brent, you OK to talk?” It was Curt White. His heart began to race.
“Not exactly. Make it brief.”
“Gotcha.” The sound of heavy traffic in the background. “Reznick has his eye on a worker at the Kommerce Bank in uptown Manhattan.”
Schofield’s stomach knotted. “You’re kidding me.”
“Sadly, no. She goes by the name Catherine Jacobs. One of those involved in the dead drop.”
Schofield knew she wasn’t the asset. “If anything changes, I need to know.”
He ended the call.
“Who was that?” the Police Commissioner asked. “Anything I should know about?”
Schofield conjured up a lie in a split second. “Just a Langley source giving me a heads-up about a Pakistani jihadist who’s surfaced in Brooklyn.”
“Goddamn.”
Schofield nodded, but his thoughts were already fixated on Reznick.
Thirty-Four
Reznick was sitting in the passenger seat of the SUV, still waiting for the woman known as Catherine Jacobs to leave her office on the Upper East Side.
A burst of static in his earpiece. “Hey, Jon, how’s things shaping up at your end?” The voice of Dave, back at the facility.
