Zehra slammed the drawer on her chocolate cupcakes. “What? You think this guy’s legit?”
“Seems to be. The details check out so far.”
“This’s gotta be tight. You know that.”
“Check.”
“Why didn’t he go to the cops?”
“Scared. Plus, they didn’t have the connection I got. They didn’t know about him.”
Zehra leaned back in her chair and ran both hands through her thick hair. For the first time, she felt a familiar tightening in her lower body. Maybe … just maybe, the camel jockey was innocent. In spite of her contempt for him, her competitive instincts as a lawyer rose. And Zehra’s sense of justice, sharpened in her own struggles as a Muslim woman, caused her to look at the case in a different light.
“Damn, we got ourselves an alibi.” Zehra had to act.
Ten
Frustrated to the point he couldn’t sit still, Paul left the office for a long walk. He frequented a Caribou coffee shop on Washington Avenue, across the street from the MacPhail Center for Music. He liked the type of people who hung out there. He knew that Conway’s threat was real. What could he do now?
Although the temperatures had spiked unusually high throughout the month, this morning opened crisp and cool. Paul walked the few blocks, drawing in the pungent aroma of damp air. It refreshed him.
He took a small dark roast coffee and sat in the corner where he could look out at the traffic on Washington Avenue, both cars and humans.
Conway was a good man but burned out. At the beginning of the crisis, when the young men started disappearing, Conway worked his best-providing leadership and organization. He’d mastered the complexities in the political jungle of over-lapping law enforcement people. Navigating the multiplicity of egos and ambitions caused more trouble than actually solving the crimes.
The cases forced federal agents and terrorism experts to rethink their assumptions about the vulnerability of Muslim immigrants in the United States to terrorist recruiting. Even the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, had told the press this may be the most significant domestic terrorism investigation since 9/11. That unleashed all the pressure on Paul’s office to produce an answer.
Paul respected Conway for his management. But once the case was “solved” with the discovery of the terrorists in Somali who’d left the Twin Cities, everyone agreed the disappearances were simply recruiters, working to fill the ranks of the militia, Shabaab.
The case had taken months. The pressure to solve it, intense. The human pain and sorrow, incalculable. When an “answer” was provided, naturally everyone breathed a sigh of relief, happy to take a break from the case. That relief rippled up the line to the Director in Washington and fanned out to other concerned people in Congress and the agencies.
It wasn’t that Paul disagreed.
He worried the answer was too simple. Why did the Ahmed boy return to Minneapolis? If he had volunteered to be a freedom fighter in Somalia, why would he be killed for that? The teacher who’d called the FBI tip line a few years ago predated the reason for the recruiting-the invasion of Somalia by the Ethiopians that gave rise to the Shabaab militia. What were they doing in the high schools that long ago? Was it even connected to the murder? Were they still in the high schools?
The murder case had given Conway another reason to bow out. Now it was a local police matter, not FBI, although the turf wars still went on. The killer had been charged and awaited trial. Let them take care of the case from now on was Conway’s attitude. Luckily, Zehra Hassan had been appointed to represent El-Amin. Paul could use his friendship with her to follow the case and help open the door to more information.
Was the murder connected to anything that threatened national security? He wondered.
He thought back to all the federal agencies in touch with Conway. Homeland Security covered so many different threats. Customs and Border Protection, Coast Guard, Army Medical Research, Immigration, and Customs Enforcement … He made a note to check on the medical research agency. What the hell did they do?
He had a friend in ICE, in the investigation arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, named Joan Cortez. They met while attending cross-training on security in Washington. He remembered Conway’s order prohibiting cooperation with ICE, but if Joan could help him trace the background of El-Amin, it might be worth the risk. ICE may have far reaching information, unavailable to the other law enforcement. Paul waited for Joan to return his call.
He pictured her in his mind. Fun, attractive, tough and extremely ambitious. It’d be hard to get much help from her.
The soft whir of the coffee grinders and rich aromas lulled him to relax. Outside, people walked by with renewed vigor. Spring in Minnesota always brought out crazy behavior. After so many months of frigid gloom and gray, the arrival of warm weather released the manic side of everyone.
Paul had worn a sport coat earlier. As the morning heated up, he took it off. Outside the window, he saw a young man in a hooded gold sweatshirt with maroon lettering that said University of Minnesota on the front. He wore a baggy pair of shorts and running shoes.
At the thought of his boss, Paul jerked back to his problems. If Conway discovered Paul’s continuing investigation, he would be fired.
All the years he’d worked to get into the Bureau, all the sacrifices he’d made, and the effort to make up for the case that almost ruined his career years ago, would be lost. That case still haunted him. Paul had to admit the bitter memory drove him now as much as his fear for the safety of his family and friends. The government always talked about “national security” but to Paul, that concept was too amorphous. He had to think of the people close to him to make sense of all the hard work he did.
Reluctantly, Paul stood, dropped his cup in the waste receptacle, and left the peace of the coffee shop.
He took his time strolling back to the office. A spring breeze blew up the street between high-rise office buildings. Women, free of heavy winter coats, walked by in short skirts and tight blouses. In response to the hot weather, trees had budded earlier than usual, sporting light green dots.
Paul rode the elevator up to his office. Apparently, no one had told the computer running the heating system it was spring. Hot, stale air punched him in the chest as he turned into the office suite.
Looking out the window, he sat at his desk. Paul was scared and confused. Maybe he should just drop his crazy ideas. The rest of his colleagues might be right. What if he got himself into another mess like before, and was fired? What would his family think? What would he do?
His cell phone rang.
Paul didn’t recognize the number but decided to answer anyway. “Paul Schmidt, special agent, FBI.”
“Sounds impressive,” Joan Cortez chuckled. “Special … huh?”
“Aw … doesn’t mean much. The government gives titles instead of more money.”
“And you fell for it?”
“Yup.”
“Listen, I got some … well, I guess you could say it’s good news.”
Paul sat up straight in his chair. “Yeah?”
“Good for you, not so good for the local guys.”
“About El-Amin?”
“Right. We can’t find any criminal background on him in the U.S. Not even a parking ticket. But if we go international, well, you get a little more.”
“What?”
“He’s dirty.” Joan cleared her throat. “He’s well funded and linked into an international criminal net.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“You must know of these criminal organizations, networks, which operate in all kinds of shit that’s illegal? One day it’s drugs, the next day financial thefts, a little terrorism and weapon smuggling thrown in.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, in addition to these disappearing young men, we-ICE-think there’s a lot more going on. We don’t know what, but a guy like El-Amin is intriguing.”
“Where can I find out more?”
“Can you meet me tomorrow, in private?”
“Sure, but what’s the problem?”
Joan waited to respond. “I’ve got to be careful. This is much bigger than my pay grade allows me to tell you. And the shit’ll hit the fan if anyone knows I’m cooperating with you.” She paused. “You’ve gotta keep this between us.”
“Joan, I’m in the same predicament. I suspected there was more to these disappearances than simply recruiting for Shabaab.”
“Meet me at Mears Park in St. Paul tomorrow. One o’clock?”