by Marcus Wynne
“No. But he has the agent with him.”
Now it was worry that furrowed her brow, her composure slipping away. “Has he been spreading it? In Amsterdam?”
“No, Isabelle,” Charley said patiently. “Ilse and Marie are safe, for now. It’s here that he’s to spread the agent. But Amsterdam doesn’t seem so far now, does it?”
“They wouldn’t dare,” she said. “They know what you Americans would do to anyone who did.”
“They’re doing it as we speak. They being your old paymasters at Al-Bashir. Now we’ve talked enough, Isabelle. That’s why we want him. And we’re willing to pay you, provide you with whatever assurances you need, whatever you want. But you will tell us where he is.”
Isabelle licked delicately at her lips. For the first time, Charley noticed how her lips were chapped, and the lower lip looked as though she’d chewed on it. How had he missed that?
“May I have water?” she said.
Charley went to the door, and one of the technicians who was monitoring the room from the communications center brought him a bottle of spring water.
“Thanks,” Charley said.
He went back in and sat down, the seat hard against his back, and handed the bottle to Isabelle.
“Thank you,” she said. She cracked the seal on the bottle, tipped it up, and drank off half its contents in one long swallow.
“That’s better,” she said. She toyed with the cap in one hand, flipping it between her fingers like a magician working a coin. “I should have killed him in Amsterdam.”
“Did you mean to?”
“I knew you wanted the elder. I thought of killing them both, but I didn’t know what you wanted. I regret being involved with them . . . it is not like us to be used this way.”
“This is your chance for payback. And a bigger payday than you got the first time around.”
“Yes,” she said. “I will want that. Do you want me to kill him for you?”
“We want him alive, if possible. With his product. And we mean to see to that ourselves.”
“Of course. I will tell you what I know. He is staying at the International Youth Hostel in downtown Washington, under the name Youssef Ameer. He is in a single room on the third floor, beside the fire-exit stairwell. Today he left very early and went to a cyber café near where you took me. Then he made his signal near the mailbox. And got away. Yesterday he went to the National Mall and sat on the steps of the National Art Gallery, then took a taxi somewhere. I lost him there. He stays by himself for the most part, alone in his room, only coming down for meals and to use the computers at the hostel.”
Charley looked at the door, then back at Isabelle. “What else?”
“That’s it. I planned to follow him, to see what he was doing, and then either kidnap or kill him. Whichever would get me the guarantees from your people.”
“You have our guarantees. And as of now, you’re working for us.”
Isabelle laughed. “Such is the way of our world, is it not, Charley?”
INTERNATIONAL YOUTH HOSTEL, WASHINGTON, DC
Things happened. Federal agents and DC police set up vehicle surveillance posts on the streets around the hostel. Armed men in plain-clothes loitered near the hostel exits. TWO DOMINANCE RAIN operators and a DC vice officer, all in plainclothes, went to the front desk and asked about their friend Youssef Ameer. A blond girl with dreadlocks was on duty.
“He’s in his room,” she said. “Room three-fourteen, on the third floor. He came in a couple of hours ago, said he was tired and was going back to bed. I told him he shouldn’t be out too late.”
“Thanks,” said the vice cop, a blade-thin black man dressed in a leather car-coat too heavy for the heat, and black dungarees. “He was probably out partying. I’ll go look him up.”
“If he’s not there, check the computer room. He spends a lot of time on-line.”
“I’ll do that.”
The two special operators signaled for the vice cop to wait. They went down the hallway where the computer room was and walked slowly by, looking in. There was one heavy Germanic-looking youngster, his ears elaborately pierced, and a black woman in her thirties typing busily at the terminals. No sign of the One.
“What do you want to do?” said the vice cop, whose name was Earl Long. “We can go up, knock on his door, eyeball him, make sure he’s there before the team comes to get him.”
“No,” said the senior operator, a muscular Filipino man with graying hair. “We’re not going to approach him. We’ll recon the floor, check the room and the stairwell, but we don’t want to wake him if he’s sleeping. We’ll leave the wake-up call to the team.”
“If this guy some kind of bad-ass terrorist, why he staying in a youth hostel?” Long said.
“Who’s going to look for him here?” the Filipino operator said.
“Word,” Long said. “Let’s get it done, then.”
They split up, the junior operator going up the fire-exit stairwell to the third floor, the vice cop and the quiet Filipino taking the elevator. The elevator went slowly, and the floor numbers ticked off on a LED screen greasy with fingerprints. On the third floor they got out, squeezing by two long-haired travelers dressed almost identically in baggy hooded sweatshirts and cargo pants drooping off their thin hips. Then they were alone in the curving hallway lined with doors. There was a constant hum of sound: voices in discussion, a television from a communal room tuned to a talk show, the distinctive voice of Dave Mathews playing on a stereo turned up loud, the rattle of air conditioners at their highest setting.
Earl Long pursed his lips in a soundless whistle and tapped his fingers against the body mike he wore beneath his heavy jacket. He wiped sweat off his brow with one forefinger and said, “I wonder where my room be?”
The Filipino operator, whose name was Eddie Aledo, brushed his fingers along the open front of his photographer’s vest, which served to conceal his holstered pistol. He looked both ways down the curving hall, then inclined his head to the right. “This way.”
He walked down the center of the corridor, his hands loose and ready by his side, Earl Long following behind him, occasionally glancing over his shoulder. Room 314 was at the end of the hallway on the right-hand side as they came directly beside the fire-exit door that led to the stairwell. Aledo’s partner stood there waiting for them.
Aledo gestured for silence and he walked up to the door and listened for a moment. Any noise from the room was drowned out by the sound of the air conditioner going full blast. Then he checked the fire-exit door, trying the handle on the stairway side. Even though it turned freely, he took a small roll of duct tape from his vest and plastered a piece across the bolt, so that the door couldn’t be locked. He leaned close to his partner’s ear and whispered, “Anything?”
The younger man shook his head no. Aledo nodded, then touched Long on the shoulder and indicated that he should stand on the landing behind the fire door. There was a small vertical glass-insert in the door that enabled the man standing on the landing to see down the hallway and the door to room 314. Long nodded, dabbed at his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand, and took a position where he could see the door through the glass.
“We’ll be back,” Aledo whispered in Long’s ear.
“Damn right,” Long hissed. “Better hurry your ass up.”
The two DOMINANCE RAIN operators went quickly down the stairs and through the hall on the lobby floor to a side exit, where they were met by two plainclothes FBI agents, who nodded at them as they passed. There was a large panel delivery truck with the logo of a plumbing company parked in the no-parking zone beside the side exit. The two operators went to the cab and Aledo leaned in the window and spoke to the man in the plumber’s overalls sitting there.
“We’ve got a live eye on the door and stairwell,” Aledo said. “It all looks like the diagram. Are you all set?”
The relaxed man in the overalls nodded. “Got the CDC back there. They’re not used to shooters. Fo
ur of them and my six. Ready to go on the word.”
“Then let’s do this now.”
The man in the cab picked up a radio and said into the handset, “All stations, all stations, stand by, stand by, stand by.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Entry, go, go, go.”
The sliding door at the back of the van slid up and six men jumped nimbly from the back. They were clad in black overalls with heavy body armor covering their chests and backs and padded protectors on their knees and elbows. Black helmets covered their heads, and throat mikes and earpieces wrapped around their necks. They all carried silenced MP5SD submachine guns. A strange note was the dark surgical masks they wore across their mouths and noses. Behind them came four men clad in white overalls wearing respirators.
They formed a line as they jogged to the side door that the two federal agents held open, and they slipped quickly into the building, brushing past an astonished hostel resident, who gawked at them as one might gawk at aliens landing on the street. Once through the door, they turned sharply and went up the exit stairwell, taking each turn quickly up to the third floor, where Earl Long stood beside the blocked door.
“Anything?” the assault-team leader, first in the stack, whispered.
Long shook his head no. The four-man containment unit from the CDC stood on the landing beside Long, who was visibly nervous at their sight.
“What the fuck you got them suits on for?” he said.
The assault team eased into the hallway and lined up along the wall beside the door. One man came forward with a fiber-optic camera equipped with a flexible lens that would fit under the door, but the team leader shook his head no. The team leader waved forward the third man in the stack, who came up and quietly set into place a small explosive charge, a lock cutter, between the door handle and the jamb. He took his place in line and waited while the team leader counted off 1, 2, 3 with his fingers. On the count of three the charge went off, and the team leader aided the acceleration of the door with a violent kick that sent it flying back into the room. The assault team rushed forward into the tiny room, two men in with one standing back by the door, the other three covering the hallway.
In the room, the rumpled bed was empty. As was the bathroom.
“Where the fuck did he go?” the team leader snarled.
In a Suburban parked on the side street, Charley Payne threw his radio to the floor and smacked his fist into the seat.
A rapid search of the hostel turned up only bewildered and in some cases defiant hostelers. The curious were told that they were looking for a drug dealer, and the CDC crew was kept hidden away from view in the back of the panel plumbing truck.
Ray and Charley stood on the street, to the casual eye just two men watching the police activity in and around the hostel.
“What now?” Ray said.
“We wait,” Charley said. “He’s got to make his meet tomorrow, and we’ll have everything in the world set up on him.”
“Do you think he made the surveillance crew?”
“Maybe,” Charley said. “Or maybe he’s just changing where he sleeps.”
Isabelle joined them, her dress spotted with perspiration across the back.
“What’s the word?” she said.
Charley said, “Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”
“None,” she said. “None at all.”
BETHESDA, MARYLAND
On the fourth floor of the Residence Inn in Bethesda, Maryland, Youssef bin Hassan lay on his king-size bed, his hands interlaced behind his head, and stared up at the ceiling fan which slowly stirred the air crisp with air conditioning. He glanced over at the clock radio on the nightstand beside the bed and saw that it was after five o’clock in the afternoon. He’d slept most of the day away after he had returned to the hostel to pick up his few belongings and slip out the side door. He’d walked to the Metro and taken the Red Line to Bethesda, and after exiting the station crossed the street to the Residence Inn. He wondered if he would attract too much attention, checking in with only an overstuffed courier bag for luggage, but his story of waiting for his lost bags to catch up with him elicited sympathy rather than suspicion from the desk clerk.
“The airlines these days, it’s a wonder more people don’t lose their bags,” said the plump white woman, tucked into a red-and-white dress a size too small.
“Thank you,” Youssef said as he took his room key. “Would you call me as soon as the bags get here?”
“I’ll do that, but don’t hold your breath. They may be a while.”
“Thank you for your kindness.”
“Oh, it’s nothing, dear. You go on and get some rest, you must be tired after your flight.”
The slow revolutions of the fan lulled him, and he lingered in that dreamy state between slumber and waking. His mind, for once, was clear of conflicted thoughts and images. The good rest had done wonders for his thinking. He remembered an instructor at the camp telling them that they should always eat and sleep whenever they could, because both those things would be in short supply once they went into action. He’d learned that was true.
He ran the details of the meeting through his mind once more. Between twelve and twelve thirty, he would be on the designated bench with the day’s copy of the Washington Post opened to the style section. The smallpox agent would be in a plain brown paper lunch bag. His contact would come and sit beside him and ask him about the lead article in the style pages. Youssef would hand him the newspaper and tell him he was free to keep it. The contact would also have a plain brown paper lunch bag containing the new agent. Youssef would switch the bags and walk away. Simple and foolproof.
He crossed his feet at the ankles. The whirring blur of the fan above him was hypnotic. He closed his eyes and let his thoughts wander. Britta’s face rose in his mind, and instead of forcing it down, he toyed with it. Would she still be in Amsterdam when he left America? He’d first go to Syria, for his debriefing at a hidden camp there, but afterward he imagined he might be free. He would be the One who had struck the Americans a mighty blow, and there would be rewards for him.
Perhaps he could see Britta again.
Just outside his door, he heard women’s voices.
“Where do you want to go eat?” one said.
“There’s a cute little sandwich shop, Booeymonger’s, just around the corner.”
“What kind of name is Booeymonger?”
“I don’t know. They have good salads and sandwiches, though.”
The sound of their voices dwindled as they went down the hall toward the elevators. The mention of food brought a rumbling to his stomach, a reminder that he hadn’t eaten since morning. He sat up on the side of the bed, then reached beneath the bed for his courier bag and pulled it out. He removed the small Pelican hard case. He opened it up and studied the small glass vials with the liquid agent inside. He took one vial and held it up to the room light, then replaced it carefully with the other vials and shut the Pelican case. The hard case went into his courier bag and then back beneath the bed. He put his shoes on, then picked up the remote control and turned the television set on with the sound up high. He went to the door and opened it and looked out into the hallway, then set the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the outside handle as he went out the door, shutting it behind him, and trying the door once to ensure it was locked. In the elevator, he hummed a tune as the floors ticked off on the indicator. He went directly to the front desk where the woman clerk smiled at him.
“Did you get some rest?” she said.
“Yes, thank you, I did. I’m hungry now. There is a place called Booeymonger’s?”
She laughed. “Isn’t that the funniest name for a sandwich shop? It’s out the door and to your right, right on the corner. You can’t miss it. They have excellent soups.”
“Out the door and to the right. Thank you.”
“Oh, you’re welcome.”
Youssef stood outside the hotel entrance for a moment and watched the rush of traffic. It was
still hot and humid, maybe even more so than when he’d checked in. There was a steady flow of commuters coming up the escalators from the Metro station across the street, and the traffic seemed as congested as ever. He wondered if there was ever a time when the traffic slowed. It always seemed the same, no matter what time of day.
He wondered how it would look once the disease began to spread. Would there be as many people on the streets? As many cars? He doubted it.
He went to the corner and saw the sign for the sandwich shop. There were a few people sitting at the metal latticework tables outside, and a few more inside. There was no one else in line when he ordered a tuna-salad sandwich, a fruit cup, and a glass of orange juice from the teenaged boy behind the counter. He took his tray with his meal to a window table inside and sat down where he could watch people going by. The sandwich was good, heaped high with tuna speckled with green onions on chewy wheat bread. There was a television set mounted on the wall tuned to a news station with the sound off; Youssef ignored it while he ate his meal. When he was finished, he took his tray to the trash bin and emptied it into the bin, then placed his tray on the rack atop the bin. He glanced up at the television set as he went to the door and stopped. The screen showed the International Youth Hostel ringed by police cars. Youssef’s stomach churned suddenly, and he felt nausea rise like a wave in him. The image changed to an Asian newswoman soundlessly mouthing commentary. Youssef hurried out the door and stood in the steamy air to catch his breath.
He calmed himself with the disciplined breathing he’d been taught, a deep breath in, hold, release, repeat. There had been no picture of him, and it may have been that there was some other reason for the police to have been at the youth hostel. He hurried back to the hotel, rushing past the smiling desk clerk who looked curiously after him as he entered the elevator, mashing the third-floor button with his thumb. In his room, he sat on the bed facing the television set and flipped through the local channels with the remote. He caught a station with the same image and the newscaster’s voice saying, “Police and federal authorities raided the International Youth Hostel today in search of a major drug dealer reported to be staying at the downtown Washington, DC facility . . .”
