Stolen Identity

by Michael W. Sherer

  Amir’s pulse rose, and he felt adrenaline sharpen his senses. Things had suddenly gotten interesting. A clean-cut man with short dark, hair got out of the sedan, strolled up to the house he’d parked in front of, and let himself in. But no one got out of the van. Casually, Amir readjusted himself on the pole and stole a glance up the cross street. No one had emerged from the black SUV, either.

  Blood thrummed in his veins like electricity in the wires overhead. They were watchers, like him. And his presence would not go unnoticed for long. He would have to play this very carefully. Eventually, he would have to move before they became too suspicious. First, he had to find out who and how many they were. Leaning back against his harness, Amir took a cable-stripping tool from his belt and settled in.

  9

  Roberts trained field glasses through one of the van’s darkly tinted windows at the house across the street, noting the barest movement of the curtains framing the living room window. She couldn’t see inside, but she knew that Hunt sat somewhere just behind those curtains, his own binoculars focused on another house up the block. After a few moments, she felt someone else’s eyes on her, and lowered her glasses in time to see one of the techs—Davis—drop his gaze to the sound equipment in front of him.

  Okay, so she was watching Hunt and not the suspect. Big deal. When she thought of the hoops Hunt had jumped through to get the team in place with even a modicum of backup, her gut roiled. Even now, she wished Scanlon’s self-assurance had been enough to convince Hunt this stakeout was a bad idea. The Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Detroit office, Scanlon had pushed back against everything Hunt asked for.

  “You don’t know this is your guy,” Scanlon had said.

  “I’ve been tracking this asshole for years,” Hunt replied. “I know it’s him.”

  “Where’s your proof? No one has ever seen al-Qadir. Not even the jihadis who’ve worked with him. All we have is a crappy still off a video from a tourist’s camera in Nairobi back in ’98, and we don’t even know if that’s him.”

  Hunt shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. We know how he operates. Look, we know that money was funneled into and out of accounts belonging to ‘Zane Keator.’ And we know that some of these funds went to so-called charitable organizations that provide arms and support to all the al Qaeda branches and terrorist missions that we suspect al-Qadir is behind. It can’t be coincidence that ‘Zane Keator’ just happens to be an Americanized version of Zayn al-Qadir.”

  Hunt had stared Scanlon down, but he and Machowski were far outnumbered in a conference room that was way too small to contain all that testosterone. Roberts wasn’t about to weigh in one way or the other.

  Scanlon wasn’t buying it. “All circumstantial. We ran a quick background on this guy. He checks out. Solid, stand-up citizen.”

  “You don’t think al-Qadir is smart enough to set up an unshakeable cover in order to get over the border?”

  “If he’s so damn smart, why didn’t he know not to donate so much money at one time to those causes? He might as well have sent up a smoke signal. Waved a red flag in your face. You’re sniffing up the wrong skirt, Agent Hunt.” Scanlon had glanced at Roberts and pinked slightly. “No offense, Roberts.”

  Roberts stiffened involuntarily but said with an easy smile, “None taken, sir. It’s just an expression.”

  Scanlon’s comment had pissed her off, but she had her big girl panties on. She took the crap the old-boy network dished out. Didn’t like it, but she sucked it up. A lesson learned long ago growing up.

  “It’s your yard, sir, and we could argue about this all day, but a federal judge in D.C. says I can bust this man’s door down and take him into custody. I’d appreciate a little help. As far as I’m concerned, you can even take credit for the collar.”

  Roberts blinked in surprise, and saw Machowski stare at Hunt open-mouthed. Hunt didn’t give up turf easily. Blatantly appealing to Scanlon’s ego seemed a touch desperate on hunt’s part, and she wondered if Scanlon would take the bait. The poor bastard could use a little good PR. Detroit was still the most dangerous city in America for what? Five, six years running now? Hell, everywhere else in the country, bank robbery was the FBI’s most solvable crime. They couldn’t find their dicks in a dark closet in Detroit let alone robbers, rapists, stone killers, terrorists…

  Scanlon sighed. “What do you need?”

  In the end, Hunt had gotten the team about a quarter of what they really needed. Scanlon’s people had rustled up a battered communications vehicle painted to look like a plumber’s van. Some Internet searching had turned up a house down the street from the suspect’s with good sightlines that was for rent. And as Jameson had indicated, half the men on the assault team were on loan from Detroit PD. Hunt had personally handled the call to the Ypsilanti PD, figuring the call was better coming from someone like him—a D.C. outsider—than from Scanlon or someone in Detroit. Roberts had agreed: they’d never have seen the end of that pissing contest.

  The house down the street had been dark and quiet ever since they’d taken their positions. Davis and Brown, the other tactical intelligence analyst, hovered over the eavesdropping equipment arrayed against the house down the block, headphones on. They wouldn’t be worth much in a firefight, but at least they had small-arms training. Roberts hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She used the lull to open her laptop and start in on some research.

  Hunt had gotten an arrest warrant for al-Qadir/Keator—relatively easy since he was on the agency’s top-ten most wanted list. But they were still waiting on warrants to search the property and delve into Keator’s “personal” life—financials, phone records, and so forth. Because they’d been watching the accounts of the “charities” that funneled money to terrorist groups, they’d been able to follow money to and from Keator’s account, but couldn’t get into the accounts themselves. Roberts used another way around the problem. First, she ran a search for “Zane Keator.” Online “white pages” found two in South Carolina and one listed at the address of the house down the street. Not a common name, but like Scanlon had said, Keator looked to be legit.

  She pulled up a county plat viewer and narrowed it down until she found the lot listed at Keator’s address. She frowned when the property value and owner’s name popped up in the search box. For the next half hour she searched as many public records as she could think of to get a better picture.

  She wondered why al-Qadir had chosen the Detroit area. Dearborn, maybe, since it had a huge Middle Eastern and Muslim population. Al-Qadir would fit in, disappear among so many others. But Ypsilanti? Despite its proximity to downtown Detroit, it was a relatively sleepy bedroom community. Strangers, unusual activity, would be noticed more easily here. Then again, maybe not. She wagged her head as she thought it through. With two large universities nearby, a lot of these houses could be rentals like the one Hunt was in down the street, with people moving in and out all the time. The more she learned from her search, the less she liked the position they were in. She closed out of her browser, sat back in the small space and reviewed her options.

  Davis squirmed in his seat. The waiting got under everyone’s skin. Roberts didn’t know what to expect when the team finally swung into action. Except for Machowski and Hunt, she didn’t know these men. In all, Scanlon and Detroit PD had committed eight additional men to the team. Machowski had joined two special agents in a beat-up sedan around the corner, one of whom looked fresh out of the shower he was so wet behind the ears. Definitely a rookie, but at least he wasn’t a “clagent”—a wannabe who’d worked his way up from clerk. Two blocks away, three members of Detroit PD’s SWAT division waited in an armored SUV, with an FBI ninja riding herd on them. Hunt had set up in the house across the street from the suspect’s place, the better to direct them all.

  Roberts thought the size of his team almost seemed like overkill to arrest one man. At least Hunt had given the SWAT team specific instructions not to move in unless he gave the command. She checked her watch. Time t
o radio in their status. Reaching past Brown’s elbow, she scooped up the walkie-talkie and reported in—all quiet. One by one, the others did the same. As she put the radio back, Davis stiffened and flipped a switch. A phone’s ring filled the van.

  “Third ring,” Davis said.

  The phone rang once more, followed by a loud click, then a man’s voice.

  “Dad? It’s Doug. Just wanted to say thanks for picking Preston up from school. I, uh, well… No need to call me back. Talk to you later.”

  Another click and a beep followed the caller’s message, then silence.

  Davis turned to look at Roberts.

  “That’s from the house?” she said.

  He threw her a scornful look.

  She twisted around, pulled her windbreaker from the back of the seat and shrugged into it. Both techs stared at her.

  “I’m going to see Hunt,” she said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  As quietly as she could, she slipped out the rear of the van, checked the street up the block and slipped into the darkness the opposite direction. As soon as she was sure she couldn’t be seen from the suspect’s house, she crossed the street and walked back the way she’d come. When she was directly across from the van, she cut into the back yard of the closest house and cut through the neighboring yard until she reached the back of the house they’d rented. She tried the knob on the back door. Hunt had left it unlocked. She opened it quietly and eased into the kitchen. She stood a moment to get her bearings, then crossed the floor to the hallway.

  Halfway to the front room, she called out softly, “It’s me, skipper.”

  She kept her hands away from her body as she stepped into the living room. Hunt sat in a chair near the window, his torso twisted toward her. He relaxed and holstered his pistol as Roberts entered. She eyed the weapon without comment before turning her gaze to his face.

  “What are you doing here?” he said quietly.

  “The soundmen can do without a babysitter for a few minutes. I need to talk to you.”

  “What’s up?”

  She stepped farther into the room. Hunt watched her without expression, his gaze taking a Sunday drive from the top of her brunette head to the tips of her sensible crepe-soled shoes. Once, she might have felt his footsteps up and down her body, felt sullied by the mud they left in their tracks. But she knew that Hunt was professional enough not to act on the thoughts that might be running through his head. She gave a fleeting thought as to why men were so patently transparent, then grimaced and rolled her shoulders.

  “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  Hunt groaned. “Jesus, not you, too. Bad enough the SAC gave me shit. Our intel’s good.”

  “I’m not saying it isn’t,” she said quickly. “I just don’t think it’s enough.”

  He waited her out. He knew her well enough not to dismiss her instincts.

  “The soundmen just picked up something from inside the house. An incoming call. Answering machine picked it up.”

  They hadn’t yet gotten a warrant for a tap on the phone in Keator’s house. But the parabolic microphones the soundmen had aimed at its front windows were quite sensitive.

  Hunt raised an eyebrow. “And?”

  “The caller—a guy named Doug—left a message for ‘Dad.’ Does that sound like a call that al-Qadir would be waiting for?”

  Hunt shrugged. “Could be code. Hell, it could be a wrong number for all we know.”

  Roberts shook her head. “That’s not all, skipper. We’re still trying to follow the money, and get a better picture of this guy’s accounts. Until we get warrants, though, I’ve been going through public records. The house isn’t owned under the same name. Owner’s name is Susan Alquist.”

  Hunt snapped, “Another fake name. Just what I’d do if I were al-Qadir.”

  “It’s a real name. Problem is, Susan Alquist has been dead for almost a decade. I’ll try to track the deed through county records tomorrow to see why it’s still in her name. Too late tonight.”

  Hunt raised a hand to wave her off, but thought better of it when he saw her serious expression. “It doesn’t change anything,” he said. “We’ve been after this asshole for too long. We grab him up first, and apologize later if it’s not the right guy.”

  She wasn’t convinced, but gave a short nod. “Your call.”

  “It’ll work out. Wait and see.”

  Roberts shrugged and turned back the way she’d come, feeling Hunt’s eyes on her all the way down the hall. She’d never seen him this stubborn, and wondered how badly his judgment had been clouded by years of searching for one man.

  10

  The toy and novelty store in downtown Ypsilanti was closing up shop for the night by the time I got there, but the tall, rangy guy behind the counter told me to go ahead and browse if I wanted, and stuck his nose into a large textbook. He looked too old to be a student, but could have been in one of the graduate degree programs at Eastern Michigan.

  Finding a present for an almost six-year-old took longer than I thought. The gags and novelties seemed aimed at adults not kids, and most of the age-appropriate games and toys targeted kids three-and-under or ten and older. The store stocked a couple of old-fashioned board games like Monopoly and Parcheesi. A three-dimensional puzzle in the form of a robot looked interesting, too. I finally settled on the puzzle and a board game and took them to the register. The clerk stuck a bookmark between the pages of his textbook and sidled over to see what I’d found. He gave a little nod of approval as he rang up my selections.

  “That will be twenty-seven fifty,” he said.

  I pulled a credit card out of my wallet and handed it to him. He swiped it, waited, and frowned. He swiped it again. After a moment he looked up ruefully.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not going through. Maybe try another card.”

  “Are you sure?” I felt my face get hot. “I paid the bill, like, a week ago. And I don’t carry a balance on that card.”

  He looked embarrassed. “Maybe the bank is having a problem.” He handed the card back. “Would you like…?”

  “Oh, for chrissakes,” I grumbled, digging into my pocket. “I’ve got enough cash to pay for a damn present for my grandson.”

  I counted out two tens, a five and three singles and laid them on the counter. The purchase left me with six bucks and change. The kid rang up the sale, and handed me two quarters and a receipt. He slid the boxes into a bag and handed that across the counter, keeping his gaze averted.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Not your fault, kid.”

  He looked up finally and nodded. I gave him a wan smile despite the irritation that chafed beneath the surface and turned to walk out.

  I stopped outside on the sidewalk to search my memory, wondering if I’d forgotten to pay the credit card bill. But when I worked through the mental filing cabinet, I found the folder time-stamped the previous week and marked paid. I speculated on the possible causes for the snafu as I went up the street to a bank with an ATM.

  When the ATM refused to issue even a small amount of cash to replace what I’d spent, a little voice told me this might not be just a little fuck-up with my credit card. Susan and I had always been careful about how we handled both our money and our accounts, both of us old-fashioned when it came to technology. We never gave people our Social Security numbers or other personal information over the phone. She’d shunned the Internet at school, teaching the kids how to use the dictionary instead of a spell checker and reference books instead of search engines. Even when smart phones took over everyone’s life, I preferred to write checks and send them through the US Postal Service than pay bills online.

  My hackles rose. The bank wouldn’t open until morning. I peered at the 800-number on the back of the card and dug my cell phone out of a pocket. The automated answering system informed me that one of my options was to cancel a stolen card. I followed the prompts, and when finished, I tried connecting with customer service. Like I thought, customer
service wasn’t available until the bank opened in the morning. I got out the credit card that had been denied and called its customer service line, with even less success. The automated system didn’t recognize the card number I keyed in. After two fruitless tries, I got a service rep named Jeanette on the line. I explained what had happened.

  “I’d be happy to look into that for you,” she said. “If you’ll give me just a moment, I’ll get right back to you.”

  I stood on the street watching passing cars, feeling foolish.

  “Mr. Keator?” The rep sounded puzzled. “I looked at your account, and it seems you already closed it earlier today.”

  “Closed it? Today?” A buzzing sound filled my ears. Had I gone crazy? “That’s not possible. I was at the VA hospital all morning, and at the park with my grandson all afternoon.”

  “Well, that’s what it shows here. You made some charges that brought the balance close to its limit and then closed the account.”

  “Charges? What charges?”

  “Donations, looks like. To several charitable organizations.”

  The buzzing in my ears grew louder. “Someone must have gotten the card number,” I mumbled. “Stolen it and used it to make those charges.”

  “It is a lot of unusual activity,” she said. “You say you think the card was stolen?”

  “I have the card here with me,” I said. “They must have gotten my account number somehow. I definitely didn’t make any charges like that recently. Or ever.”

  “Well, the account is closed now, so no one can make further charges. And if someone used the number in an unauthorized fashion, you can dispute the charges and probably get them reversed off your bill.”