Zlatko stepped onto the platform.
The train slid away.
Sami rode to a neighborhood known for vegetarians, peace lawn signs, and citizens who thought the 1960s meant something holy. A bus took him to twin high-rises on a smog-soaked hill.
A high-rise elevator clunked him to its ninth floor. He entered his one-room apartment and closed the door with a thunk for any eavesdropper. Fought for breath. You’re clear! Clear! He eased back into the hall. Glided down the stairwell like a shadow.
In the basement, Sami dialed open the combination lock on an electric breaker box. Left the Glock pistol on the box shelf. Turned on the shelf’s cell phone, texted a four-word message. Grabbed keys for a stashed car, drove toward the white dome center of town, and parked by a brick building with a peeling sign for Belfield Casket Company. The coffin factory’s door flew open.
Harry Mizell-who looked like a bear-waved Sami inside.
Harry and boyish FBI agent Ted escorted Sami through the beehive of cubicles where men and women monitored computers and whispered into phones.
They sat Sami at a conference table in a windowless room. Video cameras clung to the walls. Sami imagined the scene transmitting to the aging H-shaped CIA headquarters, to Homeland Security’s new complex in a powerful congressman’s district, to the FBI. Maybe even to the White House.
Sami wondered if the private contractor Argus, whose ID dangled from Harry’s neck, got a direct feed.
As COOK-Case Officer/Operation Control-Harry debriefed. Ted, who wore the FBI ID Harry had forsaken, sat mute at the table.
Sami told Harry, Ted, and the cameras about the murders. About when. Put the pick-pocketed envelope on the table. Told Harry, Ted, and the cameras what they had to do now, right now.
Harry said, “When you texted ‘Crash Exfilt Base Soonest,’ we cocked to rock. Now… now you sit tight. Relax.”
Harry left the room. Left the FBI agent in charge of their spy. The glass eye of a video camera captured Sami’s slump.
Ted cleared his throat. “Do you want a soft drink?”
“A soft drink?”
The FBI agent nodded yes.
“No, Ted. I don’t want a soft drink.”
Hmmm. The room’s CTSU-Covert Transmission Suppression Unit.
“Sami,” said Ted, “I pray for you every day.”
“You don’t know how much that means to me.”
The FBI agent nodded. “God’s work.”
“So they tell me.”
Ted let Sami go to the bathroom alone. The fluorescent retreat smelled of ammonia and angst. Sami washed his hands, face. Stared into the sink’s mirror. Was there a camera behind that glass?
An hour later, Harry returned. “Bottom line, our op is still running.”
“What?” Sami whirled to the video cameras. “We’ve got them right now on triple murder charges! Scoop them up!”
“Bosses say we need to find who’s behind the cell, al Qaeda or-”
“There is no mastermind link! No organizational chart like we’ve got. That’s mirror reasoning. These guys are homegrown! Self-contained.”
“So you say, and I’m inclined to agree, but…” Harry got up from the table, disconnected the visible cameras. “Ted, leave us alone.”
“I’m the FBI liaison and thus the official presence for-”
“Ted, Homeland Security outsourced Argus Inc. to run this op. I’m Argus’s archangel. Go write a cover-your-ass e-mail about how I kicked you out.”
The door closed on Ted’s exit.
“Realize what we’ve got here,” said Harry.
“You were CIA special ops in JAWBREAKER hunting al Qaeda in A-stan. CIA used your real Beirut life, snuck you in with captured Taliban guys our Paki allies freed. For years, you’ve worked your terrorist bona fides all over the globe.
“Just like your buddy Zlatko. After Bosnia, he pops up looking for phony papers in Rose’s outlaw gig. She’s righteous enough to call her ex-FBI buddy, moi. My clout jerks you from CIA to Homeland Security. We put you next to Zlatko at Rose’s. He brings you to Ivan, a Chechen physician who found Zlatko at the night school English class where Ivan teaches and fishes. Ivan had already hooked that goofy suburban kid who showed up at a mosque before they shoved Ivan out as a false Muslim.
“And presto,” said Harry “we’ve penetrated a terrorist cell. A cell that’s going to attack in three days. And with ninety-three Islamic terrorist groups on our radar, our bosses are convinced this cell has got to be somebody’s baby. Those sponsors are who we want.”
“Three people got murdered tonight. That’s enough!”
“Those thugs don’t count right now.”
“So we won’t tell the local cops? What about those men’s families? Hell, if they are MS-13, those murders could spark a street war!”
“Terrorists are America ’s number-one priority. Ivan compartmentalizes. He might have other soldiers. Something even the hard boys can’t sweat out of him.”
“They’re going to hit on Christmas Eve!”
“Is it coordinated? What’s their target? Their method?”
“Take them down, Harry. Get me out.”
“We all want out. But we are where we are. This op-”
“No, not this op. Everything. I want all the way out. Now.”
“Oh.” Harry leaned back. “I can’t make you spy. But bottom line, our gov bosses are going to let the cell run to get what they want whether it’s there or not. Without you on the bricks, without me as COOK, will guys like Ted do it right?”
“Not my problem.”
“My company and I get paid big bucks however this breaks. But I want to nail this job. I’m no walk-away guy. What kinda guy are you?”
That image sat at the conference table like a giant question mark.
Sami blinked. “Three days-and before they pull a trigger.”
“Damn straight. So what are you going to do?”
Sami stood to leave, took the pick-pocketed cash. Told Harry, “I’m going to fuck with them.”
The next morning Sami worked his cab between Capitol Hill and glistening downtown. Such fares made him remember his high school senior class trip to “our nation’s capital,” how “the Hill” had been open driveways looping past the vanilla ice-cream Capitol. White-shirted congressional cops looked like marsh-mallow men.
That post-9/11 routine December morning, concrete barricades blocked all vehicle approaches to the white marble heart of Congress. Steel barriers funneled pedestrians past barbell-muscled, black jumpsuited, mirror-sunglassed sentinels with M4 assault rifles or shotguns strapped across their armored chests.
But it’s not Beirut, he thought. Not yet. I can stop that clock.
At 10:07, he flipped down the on call visor sign. Drove to an Asian fusion restaurant where lunch for one cost enough to feed a shantytown Malaysian family. Parked in the alley so he faced the restaurant’s service door.
10:11: Two cooks walked past his cab and into the restaurant. 10:13: A sixtyish Vietnamese man in a busboy’s black shirt and pants took a Saigon second to scan the vehicle crouched near his destination. 10:14: Zlatko strolled into the alley carrying a dishwasher’s white apron and a flat expression. Used the restaurant’s back door. 10:21: Zlatko appeared in the cab’s mirrors, arms by his side, coming toward the blue taxi on a circular route justified, Sami guessed, by the bummed cigarette tucked above non-smoker Zlatko’s right ear.
Zlatko got in the back of the cab.
Right behind me! Can’t see his hands!
Sami said, “As-salaam alaykum.”
“Why are you here?” Zlatko’s eyes burned in the rearview mirror.