by Don Bentley
“Because he was good at telling stories, and I’m not sure I can keep it together long enough to do this one justice.”
* * *
—
Her name is Nazya,” Virginia said, “and she’s a Yazidi.”
The girl’s story began in Iraq. As I’d suspected, she’d been sex trafficked. But that was where my suspicions and her story diverged.
Yazidis are religious minorities in Iraq and, as such, uniquely vulnerable. While ISIS was in power, the council of men who passed for the jihadi group’s theologians had decided that Yazidis were a special brand of apostates. As such, the Koran sanctioned exterminating the men and selling the women into slavery. Entire villages were destroyed in the ensuing genocide. After ISIS was beaten back, other criminal organizations moved in to fill the void, no longer relying on grotesque theology to justify what had turned into a very profitable endeavor.
In other words, sex sells.
Nazya’s father and most of her brothers were killed during the ISIS occupation, and the rest of her male relatives scattered. Her small village tried to reestablish itself once the black-flag-waving crazies had been driven back west into Syria. Unfortunately, with most of the men dead or missing, the women and children who remained were easy targets. Nazya had been kidnapped in broad daylight while walking home from the market. That had been almost six weeks ago. What she’d endured since was almost unspeakable.
Virginia’s telling didn’t so much end as run out of momentum. One moment she was talking, relaying in clinical detail the abuse Nazya had suffered. The next, her words simply sputtered to a stop. I didn’t realize until that moment how much she’d been struggling to maintain her composure. Virginia’s breath hitched in her chest, and tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Goddamn it,” Virginia said, wiping away the tears with the back of her hand. “I hate it when women cry.”
“I don’t,” Frodo said, refilling her now-empty tumbler. “Besides, if that story doesn’t make you cry, you’re not human.”
I understood what Frodo meant, but Nazya’s story didn’t make me want to cry. It made me want to kill. To exterminate every person who’d had a hand in what happened to the girl. But that wasn’t possible. Instead, I pulled out my phone and scrolled through pictures until I found Sayid’s son.
“Sorry to do this,” I said, sliding the phone to Virginia, “but can you show her this? I need to know if she recognizes him.”
Virginia made no move to pick up the phone. Instead, she put the tumbler to her lips and drained the whiskey in a single long swallow.
“Damn that burns,” Virginia said, slamming down the glass. “I don’t know how Daddy drank it.”
Grabbing the phone, she headed toward the bedroom. I thought about following, but didn’t want to risk the bond she’d formed with Nazya. Instead, I tracked her progress via sound—the bedroom door squeaking open, the low murmur of Virginia’s voice, and the woman’s answering words. I pictured Virginia showing the woman my phone and wondered if I should try to eavesdrop.
I needn’t have bothered. The screams were answer enough.
TWENTY
I picked up the surveillance about a block from the safe house. To be fair, my tail wasn’t trying to be subtle. I’d started a surveillance-detection run more out of habit than because I was worried, but practicing tradecraft was a little like wearing a motorcycle helmet—it was better to be safe than dead.
Case in point—a green Pontiac Grand Am had followed me through the last three turns.
Usually bad guys weren’t something I thought about on American soil. I operated overseas as a ghost, using a series of backstopped identities that had no connection to my true name, let alone my actual address. The technological revolution that had begun with World War II and continued through the Cold War and now the War on Terror had produced a plethora of tools and gadgets. Capabilities my shadowy forefathers would have called science fiction. Even so, a spy’s best weapon was still anonymity. No one could track the Gray Man because he didn’t exist. In theory, I had nothing to worry about once I crossed back to my side of the ocean.
In theory.
But theories had a way of breaking down when confronted by reality. The shootout on South Congress was a perfect example. While a Pontiac tailing me through the bustling streets of Arlington wasn’t normally a cause for concern, normality had ended two days ago.
I eased my Glock from its concealed holster, wedging the pistol between my leg and the seat cushion. If this nonsense kept up, I would have to switch to a shoulder rig and a sport coat. Drawing from an in-the-belt holster was a bitch while seated.
With my Glock where I could reach it, I thought through the next phase of this engagement. The phase where bullets started flying. South Congress could have gone down completely differently were it not for luck. I’d been lucky to spot the assassin before entering the kill zone, where his shooters had been presumably waiting, but Lady Luck was a fickle mistress.
If the jack wagon tailing me was intent on mixing it up, I couldn’t change his mind. But I could select the time and place of the engagement. I was in the middle of trying to find terrain that would favor me rather than my opponent when the Pontiac driver flashed his high beams twice.
Then he activated his right turn signal.
Glancing to my right, I saw a local bookstore’s inviting parking lot. Wrenching the wheel around, I eased over and then backed into a space. The Pontiac followed, taking the spot next to mine. I unbuckled my seat belt and moved the Glock to my lap, waiting. A second later, the Pontiac’s door opened, and my favorite special agent emerged.
Hunching his shoulders against the cold drizzle, Rawlings opened my car’s passenger door and climbed inside.
“Jumpy?” Rawlings said as he eyed the Glock.
“It’s been that kind of a week,” I said. “You’re a long way from Austin.”
“Tell me about it. Other than the mandatory eighteen-month TDY, good people stay as far from DC as possible. This place attracts two types of agents: lazy ones who’d rather push paper than chase bad guys and those vying for a spot in upper management.”
“Which are you?” I said, clearing the rain droplets from the windshield with a touch of a knob. Just because Rawlings wasn’t out to get me didn’t mean that someone else wasn’t. General Pershing said that there were only two types of soldiers—the quick and the dead. If you replaced quick with paranoid the same was true of spies.
“Neither. I’m a naive case agent from Austin who was stupid enough to run a joint operation with a fellow member of the intelligence community. Now I’ve been summoned to the ivory tower known as FBI Headquarters to atone for my sins.”
“Cut the woe-is-me crap,” I said. “Last I checked, you haven’t been the one dodging bullets. What do you want?”
“Information. Everything you’ve been holding back and then some. Headquarters has convened an emergency strategy session. They’ve pulled in everyone working the CI investigation, including yours truly. I’ve somehow forgotten to mention my involvement with you, but that’s not going to fly much longer. Please, tell me you’ve got something more than just dead bodies. How about we start with the phone I illegally traced? Who’s it belong to?”
“Who’s the target of the investigation?” I said.
Rawlings reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and came out with his ever-present pack of cigarettes.
“No smoking,” I said, pointing to the admonishment sticker on the rental car’s windshield.
“FBI,” Rawlings said, baring the gold badge clipped to his belt. Lighting a cigarette, he took a deep drag before exhaling a blue cloud toward the ceiling.
I rolled down his window, and fat raindrops began to splatter against his suit.
“Here’s the thing,” Rawlings said, ignoring his rapidly dampening sleeve. “My ass is already hanging way o
ut on this. The way I see it, it’s your turn to put some skin in the game. Give me something I can use. Now.”
I thumbed the windshield wiper again, buying time. I’d be asking the same thing if I were him, but I wasn’t. I was me. I liked the FBI agent, but this operation had ceased being business as usual the second time bad guys had tried to use me for target practice. I was now in survival mode. So rather than answer his question, I did what any good spy would do. I applied a bit of misdirection.
“The girl I found is a Yazidi. She’s been sex-trafficked from Iraq.”
“Jesus,” Rawlings said, ashing his cigarette into a cup holder dangerously close to my fingers. “That’s horrible. But what’s she got to do with my case?”
“I showed her a picture of the shooter I bagged in Austin.”
“She recognized him?”
“You could say that. She took one look and started screaming. Needed the better part of fifteen minutes to calm down. The shooter was one of the men who helped break her in.”
“That’s horrible. What’s her story?”
“Her kidnappers seemed more crime syndicate than terrorists. She was part of a group of Iraqi girls smuggled to the US. I think they were all dropped off at strip clubs and massage parlors.”
“How old is she?”
“Eighteen.”
“Fucking animals. Look, I can’t imagine what she’s been through, but are you sure this is legit? I mean, what are the odds that a girl in a Bethesda strip club is somehow tied to Iraqi commandos in Austin?”
“Better than you think,” I said, sending rain droplets scattering again. The windows were beginning to fog, and I didn’t like the idea of not being able to keep an eye on our surroundings. I’d have to start up the car if this conversation went too much longer.
“The Austin shooters were well equipped,” I said. “Body armor, suppressed MP5s, the works. Not the kind of hardware you pick up at a local gun store, even in Texas. Your boys make any progress on the weapons?”
Rawlings shook his head. “No. The serial numbers are gone. Not filed away. Gone. As if they were never there in the first place. These aren’t the rust-bucket pieces ATF confiscates from gangbangers or cartel muscle. The HKs were pristine. Like they’d rolled straight off the factory line.”
“Probably had. From what the Yazidi said, I think the weapons and girls arrived in-country on the same container boat. Before she was trafficked to DC, a group of men visited the warehouse where she was being held. The shooter was with them. He raped her while the men with him loaded boxes into waiting trucks.”
“When?”
“About two weeks ago,” I said.
“Any idea where?”
I shook my head. “She was kept in windowless rooms. She didn’t even know she was in DC.”
“What was she doing at the strip club?”
“Turning tricks with about ten other girls who were dropped off last week. The strip club owner must be part of the trafficking organization.”
“Not anymore,” Rawlings said, pulling out his phone. He scrolled through several mug shots until he found the one that he wanted. “You whack this guy too?”
I looked at the picture and mentally compared it to the two men with the shotguns along with the commando whose neck I’d broken and the man I’d found abusing Nazya. None of them matched.
“No,” I said.
“You sure?”
“Positive. I’m a spy. Recognizing faces isn’t a party trick for me. It’s survival. I’ve never seen this guy before.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Rawlings said, squirreling the phone back into his pocket. “He and three of his buddies were found in the club’s back office with 9mm holes in their foreheads.”
“Somebody’s tying up loose ends,” I said, keying the wipers again.
Rawlings lit another cigarette. I unrolled his window farther. The rain was coming down harder, pinging off the hood and roof.
“Couldn’t you at least smoke manly cigarettes?” I said, as he exhaled another gray cloud. “That smells like old-lady perfume.”
“I smoke when I’m nervous, which is damn near all the time around you. Okay, so we’ve got a traumatized girl who probably wouldn’t hold up for shit on the witness stand, a dead assassin who’s also a rapist, and three equally dead members of a sex-trafficking ring. Wonderful. Did I miss anything?”
“Yeah,” I said, dreading what was about to come next. “I need to tell you about the cell phone’s owner.”
“The supposed terrorist I illegally tracked to the strip club you turned into a slaughterhouse? I assumed he was part of the body count.”
“You know what happens when you assume,” I said. “The cell phone owner isn’t dead. He also isn’t a terrorist.”
“And the hits just keep on coming. Not only did I run an illegal trace, but my so-called source lied to me. Fantastic. Please, tell me the phone’s owner isn’t a senator or congressman.”
“Nope,” I said. “His name is Charles Sinclair Robinson the Fourth. In spite of that impressive-sounding name, he’s not a politician. But he may be the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
“Are you insane?” Rawlings said, choking on clove-laced smoke. “You had me ping a federal officer? Oh Jesus. And to think I was only worried about losing my pension. At this point, I’ll be lucky to stay out of prison.”
“You said you wanted to know everything. This is everything.”
“I didn’t want to know that part of everything. Unlike you Agency cowboys, I have to take a polygraph every five years. This is shaping up to be a shit storm of biblical proportions.”
“That’s why I want to know the CI investigation’s target,” I said. “The Arab shooter I bagged in Austin was the son of an asset Charles ran in Syria. Now, I’m not an FBI-trained investigator, but I doubt that’s a coincidence.”
“So you rattled Charles’s cage and then had me trace his phone so you could see where he went next?” Rawlings shook his head. “You don’t do anything by half, do you?”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “So, what now?”
“Do you have anything that will stand up in court? Anything at all? Because an illegal phone trace sure as hell won’t.”
“I’m a spy, not a cop,” I said. “My people don’t do court.”
“Which is why my instructors at Quantico told us to never run a joint op with your people. How about the Yazidi girl? Do I get a crack at her?”
I thought for a moment and then slowly nodded. “Yes. Maybe you can recover some of the other girls she was trafficked with. But my colleague Virginia stays present for the questioning.”
“Deal.”
“So we’re good?” I said.
“Hell no, we’re not good. I’m still seriously exposed. I’m opening you as a confidential human source to cover my ass. Consider yourself so admonished.”
“I can’t be your source.”
“You sure as shit can. You’re my get-out-of-jail-free card. I’m feeding everything you gave me into a source report. It’s still not enough to predicate a phone trace, but I’m getting closer.”
“Then at least tell me if Charles is the CI investigation’s target,” I said.
Rawlings shook his head. “First, give me evidence I can use. Then we’ll talk. Otherwise you are an admonished confidential human source working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There’s a bunch of things I’m supposed to tell you that go along with that statement, but we both know I’d be wasting my breath. Here’s what I will do—I’ll type this up, but I won’t enter it into the database unless headquarters forces my hand. You’ve still got time to make something happen. But not much.”
Without waiting for a reply, Rawlings opened the passenger door and dashed to his car. The cloud of smoke trailing behind him dissipated in the driving
rain, just like my thoughts on what to do next.
TWENTY-ONE
There was a time when you two caused mayhem on the other side of the ocean,” James said, working a small X-Acto knife around the mug shot situated on his desk. “Don’t get me wrong. I like body counts as much as the next guy. But when you boys kill shit bags here, it causes me no small amount of ass pain.”
“Chief, can we dispense with the you boys?” Frodo said. “Matty’s done all the killing.”
“Oh, no,” James said, rotating the picture as he slid the knife around the edges, “you two are a package. I can never tell where one of you ends and the other begins. You’re like a pair of hemorrhoids.”
“Can we stop with the ass imagery?” I said. “I just ate lunch.”
James laughed, and that was a mistake. When James laughed, his whole body got into the act. Normally, it was kind of funny watching a steely-eyed killer give a belly laugh reminiscent of Santa Claus. Today, his mirth came with a price. James clapped his hands together, inadvertently plunging the X-Acto knife into his index finger.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” James said as blood streamed down his swollen knuckle in thick crimson rivulets. “Ann—get in here. And bring the med kit.”
A second later Ann burst through the door, a tactical-trauma kit clutched between her manicured fingers. Unlike her boss, Ann wore her age well. Her shoulder-length brown hair was still gracefully transitioning to silver, and her forehead’s lines had yet to deepen into true wrinkles. Once upon a time, I might have wondered why a secretary in the Defense Intelligence Agency would keep a level-one med kit in her desk drawer, but that was before I’d met Ann Beaumont.
“I told you to let the photography folks take care of that,” Ann said, sounding more like a scolding mother than a concerned employee. “You’re bleeding all over the rug.”
“I wouldn’t be if you’d hand me the ever-loving med kit,” James said. “Besides, the imagery people always crop the pictures wrong. If you can’t see their faces, it ruins the effect.”