Brothers In Arms

by Marcus Wynne

  Williams grabbed the radio microphone and said, “All stations, this is OP, we have a possible, dark-skinned male approximately five feet ten inches, baggy blue jeans and beige T-shirt, straw hat and a black satchel slung across his back. Subject is moving south away from the mailbox. Looked like he was trying to make a mark on the mailbox.”

  The two closest streetwalker units went into action. Each car let out one man who hurried to the mailbox. One of them went to the corner and looked after the bus pulling away; one stopped beside the mailbox and saw the chalk mark on the concrete planter and a shard of broken chalk on the ground. He picked up the chalk and said into his lapel mounted microphone, “Zero, this is Gun-One. There’s chalk here. Somebody tried to make a mark on the planter next to the mailbox.”

  “Gun-One, Zero. Where is he?”

  “He’s not on the street, I think he got on the bus that just pulled out of here.”

  “All street stations, on the bus.” Payne’s voice was clipped.

  The streetwalker on the corner saw the bus two blocks ahead pulling away from another stop. He whispered into his coat lapel, ignoring the curious looks of the passing pedestrians, then stepped into the street and waved down his partner in the car.

  Sanders ran a program to enhance the image captured by the camera. “It’s not perfect, but it’s seventy-six percent. The hat and the shadows broke up the face.”

  “The guy made a chalk mark there. That’s the tradecraft we’re looking for,” Williams said. “What are we calling it?”

  Sanders said, “I call it as the target.”

  Williams picked up the handset and said, “Zero, this is OP, we call it as Target-One, say again, Target-One.”

  “Roger OP, this is Zero, we confirm Target-One. All stations, all stations, Target-One is in the area.”

  After the confirmation, Charley got up out of his chair so quickly it spun like a top. With Ray in his wake, he hurried down the hallway to the express elevator that took them down to the basement garage. The two men climbed into the back of a black Chevy Suburban with blacked-out windows. On the bench behind them two leather-jacket-clad shooters checked their MP-5 submachine guns.

  “How fast can we get there?” Charley asked the driver.

  “The traffic now? Half hour, forty minutes.”

  “Can you run the light bar?”

  “That’s not going to get the cars off the road.”

  “We’ve got people on it,” Ray said. “You’re just going to have to trust them to do the right thing.”

  “I should have been down there,” Charley said.

  “Let them do their job,” Ray said. He turned up the volume on the radio crackling with traffic from the streetwalkers. “Let’s go.”

  In the back of the panel truck that served as the observation post, Sanders and Williams looked at each other, then exchanged high-fives.

  “Now it’s down to the streetwalkers and the gunfighters,” Williams said.

  “I’d like to be out there,” Sanders said. He wiped his hands on his pants and picked up his bottle of water. “Wouldn’t you?”

  Williams adjusted his fan slightly. “I did my time running and gunning. I like this just fine. Let the young men run.”

  Sanders snorted and wiped a lank lock of hair off his forehead. “You’re letting your age dictate what you do.”

  “See what you think when you’re in your forties, young blood.”

  The monitor chimed and both men looked over at it. The image of a young woman in a denim sundress, a wide straw hat, and large sunglasses she had just taken off to wipe with a bandanna plucked from her shoulder bag filled the screen along with the message: POSITIVE MATCH. Another image, of the same woman straddling a moped, with a machine pistol in her hand, popped up within the larger image.

  “Jesus Christ, it’s Target-Two,” Williams said. He picked up the microphone and said, “Zero, all stations, Target-Two is at Location Alpha, positive identification of Target-Two at Location Alpha.”

  Sanders zoomed the camera in on the woman. “It’s her,” he said. “Isabelle.”

  In the back of the Chevy Suburban, Charley picked up his radio handset and said, “Gun-Actual, this is Zero.”

  The cool, laconic voice of the gunfighter leader on the ground said, “Go ahead, Zero.”

  “Move on Target-Two. Pick her up.”

  “Let me be clear on this, Zero. I’ll have to pull units from Target-One.”

  Charley hunched over the radio, thinking it through. If he pulled a team off the One, he might lose him; on the other hand, Isabelle obviously had a line on the One and the information she carried might bring the operation to a close that much faster.

  “Do it,” he said, ignoring the look he got from Ray. “Take her.”

  “Roger, Zero. Understand and will comply. Gun-Actual out.”

  Isabelle stood before a wrought-iron fence surrounding a particularly handsomely restored row house. She’d seen Youssef do his clumsy marking, and watched the sudden appearance of two men, obviously watchers of some kind. Taking her time, she took off her sunglasses and wiped them carefully with a scarf she plucked from her bag. She turned casually, looking in all directions for the surveillance vehicles that would be there. A black Chevy Suburban turned the corner sharply, its wheels squealing, the truck shifting ponderously on its springs. Isabelle tucked her scarf back into her bag and replaced her sunglasses, then lowered her hands, careful to keep them in plain sight.

  The Suburban screeched to a halt. The rear doors flung open and three men burst out, all of them holding MP-5 submachine guns.

  “Don’t move!” one shouted as they ran at her.

  Isabelle stood calmly and waited.

  Gun-One and Gun-Two were the team to get behind the bus first. They were in a tan four-door Ford Taurus five blocks behind the bus. Gun-One pulled a pair of binoculars from the gear bag at his feet and tried to focus on the bus ahead. His view was blocked by the gentle curve of the road and long lines of traffic.

  “I can’t see,” he said. “I can’t tell if he’s gotten off or not.”

  His partner called in the location of the bus and alerted the other responding vehicles that the One might be on foot again.

  “Can you see?” he said.

  “Just hurry. Get another team in front of the bus.”

  Youssef remained sideways in his seat and kept a cautious eye to his rear. The traffic was so heavy that the bus inched along, and then burst into a sudden rush when there was a gap between cars. The driver bullied his way to the curb, forcing cars out of the way, and so made good time from stop to stop. Passengers crowded on, leaving standing-room only and forcing Youssef to face front. An obese black woman in a pink taffeta dress squeezed onto the bench seat beside him.

  “Oh my,” she said. “It’s so hot.”

  Youssef nodded and turned away to avoid conversation. The big woman sensed that and settled into her seat, her hands folded primly in her lap, quiet as a child. Youssef took a deep breath to calm himself, and the thick scent of the woman beside him filled his nostrils.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “I have to get out.”

  She shifted over so he could stand. He pushed his way forward to the exit door. After five stops, he saw a sign for a Metro stop. He took his hat off and held it to his chest, and got off behind several other passengers and blended into the stream of people going down the escalator into the depths of the subway station. It was cool in the station, a welcome respite from the heat above. He replaced his hat and went to the fare machine, where he inserted a five-dollar bill for an all-day excursion card. Then he went through the electronic gates and down to the platform.

  The morning rush hour was almost over, so there was a longer interval between trains. Youssef stood away from the other passengers waiting on the platform. There were ventilation ducts on the walls at the end of the platform, beside the dark and gaping maw of the tunnel the train ran through. He walked slowly toward them, then looked up and saw the
video cameras covering the track and platform. Careful to appear as though he was ignoring the cameras, he walked to the edge of the platform and spit out onto the track, then went back, working his way into the crowd of passengers waiting. It would be difficult to plant a dispersion device here with the cameras. He felt a sudden rush of air coming through the tunnel, pushed ahead by the oncoming train. The air brushed hard against his face, and he turned away, as did the man beside him.

  “Feels like it would blow you away, doesn’t it?” said the man, dressed in the tourist uniform of shorts, T-shirt, hat, and camera.

  Youssef nodded and thought of how far the contents of a single spray from his atomizer would carry if he stood on the upwind side of the track.

  That would work.

  The white train eased into the station and stopped. The doors hissed open and a handful of passengers got out, the passengers on the platform patiently waiting to one side till the doors were clear, then boarding. Youssef got on and sat near the door beside a window. Mounted on the bulkhead beside the door was a map of the Metro system. He was only two stops from the Smithsonian. The train lurched into motion, and the train operator announced over the loudspeaker the next station. It took only moments before he reached the Smithsonian stop. He got off the train and let the flow of people carry him up the stairs and through the turnstile to the escalator that rose up out of the underground station. For a moment, as he rose smoothly into the light, he was reminded of the nightmare he’d had in Britta’s bed.

  In the bright heat of the day, he put thoughts of Britta out of his mind. He was sure no one had followed him. He looked over at the green expanse of the National Mall. A sudden lassitude came over him, and he longed for the comfort of her bed. His bed, he corrected himself, a sour look on his face. He turned away from the Mall to the busy street, and flagged down a passing taxi.

  “Youth hostel, please,” he said to the driver.

  He had time to rest. All the time in the world. Or at least till tomorrow.

  GOVERNMENT SAFE HOUSE, GEORGETOWN,

  WASHINGTON, DC

  Isabelle sat in a wooden chair with no armrests, her hands held together by a plastic flexi-cuff in her lap, her long legs crossed and relaxed. Her gaze was cool and faintly challenging as she looked at Charley. They were in a secure room in a Georgetown safe house where the command and control group had relocated, at Charley’s insistence, after the morning’s fiasco. Surveillance and apprehension teams prowled and crisscrossed the streets around the Egyptian embassy, sniffing at the sign the One had left behind. They traced him as far as the Metro, where an examination of the video-surveillance tapes showed him on the platform and boarding a train. A small army of federal agents fanned out to Metro stations to look at videotape of passengers leaving the station, but it was as if the One had disappeared into thin air.

  Charley waved the two gunfighters who stood guard away.

  “Want us to leave the door cracked, boss?” said the senior gun-fighter, a thin man with wispy blond hair receding from his gleaming forehead, who shifted his MP-5 to his other hand as he went to leave the room.

  “I’m good, Daryl,” Charley said. “Isabelle and I know each other.”

  Isabelle turned her head and smiled up at Daryl. “I promise not to hurt him.”

  Daryl stopped, his submachine gun dangling from his hand. “Okay,” he said. “And I promise not to kill you . . . for now.” He stood there for a moment, then went out the door, shutting it quietly behind him.

  “Oh,” Isabelle said, facing Charley again. “Did I say something to upset him?”

  “We don’t share your sense of humor, Isabelle,” Charley said. He reached back and adjusted the butt of his Glock in its holster, then leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Where is he, Isabelle?”

  “Where is who?” Isabelle said. “You have me at a disadvantage. I don’t know your name.” She held up her cuffed hands. “Are these necessary?”

  Charley reached for his belt and took his Leatherman tool out of its sheath. He opened the pliers, then got out of his seat and used the wire cutters in the pliers to snip neatly through the plastic flexi-cuffs around each of Isabelle’s thin, muscular wrists. He stood over her for a moment while she rubbed the red impressions the cuffs had left.

  “How’s that?” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “My name is Charley.”

  “Charley. Short for Charles, yes?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where is who, Charley?”

  Charley snapped the Leatherman tool shut, replaced it in its sheath, and sat back down. He took his time answering.

  “You and I both know who we’re talking about. Let’s cut to the chase. We want Youssef bin Hassan. You followed him here from Amsterdam. You know where he is or where he’s staying. We want that. We don’t have the time to play with you.”

  Isabelle’s seeming calm irritated Charley. She seemed so unruffled and unconcerned, her breathing slow and regular, her gaze level and direct.

  “We want him,” he said.

  “This I can see,” Isabelle said. “For what do you want him?”

  “That doesn’t concern you.”

  “What concerns me is what you intend for me and my family.”

  Charley tilted his head in confusion. “You and your family?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about you and your family?”

  Isabelle laughed, but there was no humor in her face. “You Americans. You think everyone else is so dense. You think I don’t know what you plan for Marie and me?”

  “We made a deal, Isabelle. You took the cash and you walked away. And you handed over the two Arabs. We got what we wanted, you got what you wanted.”

  “As though you would leave it like that! I am not a fool.”

  Charley chewed his upper lip, then leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Listen to me, Isabelle. There was no further action planned against you. We got what we needed and we left you alone. We held up our end of the deal. But you? You’re here, right now. Why?”

  “I want certain guarantees,” Isabelle said. “For my family. And me.”

  “This isn’t the time for bargaining.”

  “Then find him yourself.”

  “We will, eventually.”

  “Why are we talking?”

  “Do you know what he’s here to do, Isabelle? Do you? I don’t think so. You’re a mother. You have a beautiful child. What he’s here to do endangers your child.”

  “We are very far from Amsterdam.”

  Charley leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms on his chest. It would create new problems to tell Isabelle the particulars of the case. But the pressing problem was locating the One before he could act on his plan, and Isabelle was the key to that.

  “Do you know where he is?” he said.

  “Probably. I know where he’s been staying.”

  “What do you want?”

  “A guarantee that you will leave me and my family alone. A guarantee that there will be no comeback from either Amsterdam or here.”

  “Isabelle, what kind of guarantee can we give you that we haven’t already? We let you go in Amsterdam, we paid you what you wanted. Wasn’t that guarantee enough?”

  She was silent, and even with her stone-faced expression, Charley’s intuition told him that she hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  “No matter what you think, we don’t make war on families,” Charley said. “Your daughter was never in any danger from us.”

  “What do you want with the boy?” she said. “He’s not much.”

  “He’s more than he appears.”

  “If he is so important, then it is easy for you to make an agreement.”

  The door opened and they both looked up. Ray Dalton leaned into the room and signaled to Charley. “I need to speak to you.”

  Charley watched fear and curiosity play across the woman’s face.

  “We don’t have mu
ch time,” he said to her. “And it’s running out.”

  He got up and followed Ray into the hallway.

  “Offer her whatever she wants,” Ray said with no preamble. “We’ll sort it out later. If she insists on stalling, then we’re going to rip it out of her head with drugs. I’ve got a medical interrogation team on its way right now.”

  “She doesn’t even know what she wants,” Charley said. “What kind of guarantee can you offer a paranoid?”

  Ray seemed struck by the question. “What do you think?”

  “I think we tell her the truth about the One. She’s smart enough to see the risk to her family if bioengineered smallpox starts spreading across the country. It’s only a short jump to the Continent. I say just tell her and get her to work with us. That’s proof enough that we’re not going to job her and be done with it. Then send her on her way with money and a promise.”

  “Will that work?”

  “We don’t have time for anything else.”

  “Then do it.”

  Charley nodded, then went back into the room. Isabelle looked over her shoulder at him, crossed and recrossed her legs, and watched him till he sat down across from her again.

  “Well?” she said.

  There was a slight tic in the corner of her left eye, the only indication that she felt any nervousness at all. Charley admired her self-control; for a fleeting moment, he fantasized about what he might do if they had met as man and woman someplace. But then, men weren’t really her thing, were they? He smiled, and she smiled back, a cold and controlled smile, one that showed long practice.

  “Isabelle, what do you know about smallpox?”

  A flurry of emotions flickered beneath the smooth mask of her face: surprise, curiosity, puzzlement, and then a carefully concealed comprehension.

  “Yes,” she said. “That would command your attention, would it not?”

  “You understand why, now.”

  “Is he infected?”