by Lisa Harris
Before he could make a move toward joining the party at the top of the hill, I shouted at him, “Drop your weapon.”
He whirled around and leveled his pistol at me, squeezing off a shot that pinged off the tree just inches above my head.
As he attempted a second shot, I took my first.
The bullet hit him square in the chest, knocking him backward, causing his body to bounce against the helicopter. As he slumped to the ground, he let go of the pistol.
I walked over and pushed it out of his reach.
There was no need to worry about Hasan Nazim trying to grab it.
He was dead.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I left Nazim’s body lying on the ground by the helicopter and rushed up the hill. Before I got there, I could already tell the situation was under control.
That didn’t mean the scene wasn’t still chaotic—bodies were lying around, kids were screaming, guests were whimpering—but at least no one was pointing a gun at anyone.
All three of the terrorists were dead.
I had no idea by whose hand.
I was just grateful to see the Imam was alive and well.
Before I had a chance to question Ben or Jennifer, the place was overrun with Frank’s SWAT team members, who began herding the people inside the house away from the dead bodies.
It was only when people started moving toward the patio that I realized Miray Hanim wasn’t by her husband’s side.
When I looked around for her, I saw her standing over by a flowering rose bush. She appeared to be comforting Kamila, whose red dress was now splattered with splotches of dark crimson blood.
Ben motioned at them. “Let’s go talk to Kamila.”
Although I didn’t think that was such a good idea, I didn’t argue with him. I figured he needed some kind of closure with the woman.
As soon as Miray saw us coming, she stepped in front of her daughter, as if Kamila might be in danger.
“What do you want?” Miray said.
“I want to speak to Kamila,” Ben said.
Miray shook her head. “You should just leave. Our family’s been through a tragedy here.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I get some answers.”
Miray threw her hands in the air. “You want answers? What about us? I’d like to know why you brought a gun to my house.”
Kamila turned to her mother and spoke to her in Turkish.
From the tone of her voice, I had the feeling she was telling Miray she could handle things herself.
As her mother walked away, Kamila gestured toward her retreating figure. “I’m sorry, my mother’s been through a terrible ordeal. Please forgive her.”
“I’m sure this has been an ordeal for you too,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, looking down at her hands, “I’m still shaking.”
“I don’t suppose you expected to see a bunch of dead people on your lawn tonight, did you?” Ben said.
“No, of course not. Why would I even consider such a thing?”
“Perhaps you should have considered it when you agreed to help Barat Mustafa return your father to Turkey,” I said.
Kamila stared at me for a few seconds before she looked over at Ben. “What’s Titus talking about?”
“You know what he’s talking about. Are you denying you’ve been in contact with President Evren’s chief of staff? Are you denying what happened here tonight is partly your responsibility?”
Kamila put her hand over her heart as if Ben’s accusation genuinely shocked her. “What? You can’t seriously believe I knew what these men were planning when I hired them to put on a fireworks display for us tonight, can you?”
“What do you think they were planning?” I asked. “Why were they trying to grab the Imam?”
“Well . . . uh . . . I guess they were . . . uh . . . going to kill him.”
“If that’s true, then why did they bother to fly a helicopter in here?”
“You seem to know so much, Titus. Why don’t you tell me?”
“I believe you wanted the Imam to go back to Turkey so much, you were willing to conspire with Turkish intelligence agents to have him kidnapped and taken there against his will. I also—”
“Are you suggesting I—”
“—I also assume one of them came up with the plan to shoot off the fireworks, so these men,” I pointed at the bodies of the three terrorists, “could get inside the compound without arousing suspicion, grab the Imam, and fly him out of here on the helicopter.”
“It’s true. I did want my father to go back to Turkey. I told you that earlier.” She appealed to Ben. “But, Ben, you know I don’t believe in violence.”
He said, “I’m sure you didn’t want anyone to get hurt tonight, Kamila. Unfortunately, when you’re dealing with the NTI, there’s no guarantee of that.”
She looked across the lawn at her brother. “It’s all Omer’s fault. No shots would have been fired if he hadn’t tried to be a hero.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” Ben said. “We weren’t about to let the Imam be kidnapped tonight.”
Kamila glanced over at Jennifer, who was still standing by the Imam. Then, she turned her attention back to us. “There’s something strange going on here. Why did all of you decide to bring a weapon to my mother’s birthday tonight?”
Ben and I didn’t say a word.
Kamila looked directly at Ben. “You’ve been lying to me, haven’t you, Ben? All that talk about being in love with me was a complete sham. It was all a farce, wasn’t it?”
“It’s obvious I wasn’t the only one lying.”
Kamila jabbed her finger in Ben’s chest. “You don’t work for the Consortium, do you? Which one of the alphabet agencies do you work for?” She gestured at one of the SWAT team members. “Is it the FBI?”
As if on cue, I saw Frank step out the backdoor and onto the patio.
I wasn’t surprised he decided to show up in person at Camp Tamal, not after Noah Armstrong told us the President was ordering us to keep the Imam safe.
I figured Frank was anticipating reporting the successful outcome of the operation directly to the President himself.
To do that, Frank would want details—facts, figures, a first-hand account—anything to add color and authenticity to his report. Never mind he had probably watched it all play out in living color in the den at the safe house on Old Post Road.
That wouldn’t be enough for Frank.
He needed to see the scene for himself, talk to the witnesses, examine the bodies.
I suppose if I’d been in his shoes, I would have felt the same way.
As soon as he walked out on the patio, I gave him a wave, hoping he would take Kamila off our hands so I could go have a talk with Ben in private and find out how the three terrorists were killed.
But, when Frank walked up, accompanied by two other FBI agents, he ordered the two agents to stay with Kamila, and he asked Ben and me to come with him.
“Could I have a word with you? It shouldn’t take too long.”
As we walked past Jennifer, Frank stopped and asked her to come with us, and a few minutes later, we were sitting in the Imam’s living room once again.
This time, a couple of Frank’s SWAT team members were stationed at the door to make sure we wouldn’t be disturbed.
“Okay, here’s the bottom line,” Frank said, as he sat down. “I’ve got good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?”
Everyone wanted to hear the good news first, although I didn’t think there could be much better news than the Imam’s kidnapping had been thwarted.
“Okay,” Frank said, “here’s the good news. We’ve been able to squelch any media coverage of the attempted kidnapping of the Imam at Camp Tamal tonight. As soon as we learned about the fireworks, the Bureau—in the guise of the Imam’s PR person—informed both the local police and the news agencies there would be a fireworks display at Camp Tamal for Miray Hanim’s birthday celebration tonig
ht. If the neighbors reported hearing gunshots or other strange noises, I don’t expect the police or the media will come and investigate it.”
“I doubt if the media will be that interested in a helicopter landing on the property either,” I said.
“No,” Frank said, “I doubt if they would. Helicopters fly around this area all the time.”
“Jennifer and I want to hear what happened with the helicopter, Titus,” Ben said. “Was Hasan Nazim the pilot?”
Although I could tell Frank was all primed to give us his bad news, I went ahead and answered Ben’s question, describing how Nazim shot at me as he got out of the helicopter, and how I took him out a few seconds after that.
“So you didn’t see what happened when Yusef Kaynar and the other men rushed up the hill and tried to grab the Imam?” Jennifer asked.
“No, I was otherwise occupied.”
Ben said, “It all went down pretty fast. We were looking up at the sky watching the fireworks go off when these guys appeared out of nowhere, waving their guns around and telling people not to move. It stunned everyone for a moment, but when Kaynar stuck a gun in the Imam’s face, Omer jumped out of his seat and wrestled him to the ground.”
“Yeah, I saw Omer go for the guy,” I said, “but that’s when Nazim got out of the helicopter and started shooting at me.”
“When the other two guys tried to help Kaynar, Jennifer and I both drew our weapons, but when they realized we had guns, we became their targets, and you saw how that turned out.”
“What about Omer and Kaynar?” I asked.
“I couldn’t tell exactly what happened between them,” Ben said. “I was too busy taking care of my guy.”
Jennifer said, “I saw everything. Omer was able to grab Kaynar’s gun away from him, and when he got ahold of it, he shot the guy.”
Frank nodded. “That’s what happened. We got it all on video.”
“None of this sounds like bad news, Frank,” I said. “The Imam didn’t get kidnapped; there won’t be any media coverage of the Turkish government’s attempt to carry out an operation on American soil, and Kamila practically confessed to us she was trying to help the members of the NTI cell take her father back to Turkey. What’s the bad news?”
“The bad news is that there’s no way Kamila will be charged with a crime. She’s definitely not going to jail for what she did here.”
Ben asked, “But what about the recordings of her phone conversations with Mustafa?”
“She’s an American citizen, Ben. Those intercepts can’t be used as evidence against her. As for her meeting with Nazim in the restaurant, there’s no audio of what was said. A defense attorney could make the case the two of them were old friends, and they were just meeting for coffee.”
“And besides that,” I said, “I’m guessing the President doesn’t want the Justice Department to prosecute her. Otherwise, he might have to answer questions about Nazim’s operation, and whether it received the backing of the Turkish government.”
“You’re right, Titus,” Frank said. “I spoke with Noah Armstrong on the way over here, and while he wanted me to convey his gratitude to each of you for preventing the kidnapping of the Imam, he reiterated what he said to us at the briefing this afternoon about making sure what happened here didn’t make our relations with Turkey worse than they already are.”
Jennifer said, “I guess that means Kamila will get off scot free and be able to go on with her life. To me, it doesn’t seem fair nothing will change for her after what happened here.”
Ben looked over at Jennifer and smiled. “Oh, something will change for her all right; she won’t ever see my face again.”
Jennifer smiled back. “Well then, there’s justice after all.”
At that moment, one of Frank’s agents came in the living room and asked to speak to him, so he told us we were free to go.
After shaking hands with Ben and Jennifer, he walked up to me.
“It was good working with you again, Titus,” he said, offering me his hand, “and I want you to know what we talked about yesterday is something I’m definitely thinking about. You know me; I need to give things a lot of thought.”
“It’s something worth thinking about, Frank. When Nazim took a shot at me tonight, I was an inch away from facing eternity, but I can tell you if he had been a better shot, I was ready.”
“Oh, wow. Yeah, I guess so.”
He gave me a brief wave. “See you around.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
We arrived back at Ben’s townhouse around eleven o’clock, and after I gathered up the clothes I’d left in his guest room, I told Ben and Jennifer I was headed out to The Meadows.
Jennifer, who was in her own car, accepted Ben’s invitation to stick around and have a cup of coffee with him, which didn’t surprise me.
I figured they had a lot to talk about—like maybe their future.
Once I got on I-66 outside the Beltway, I called Nikki.
It was an hour earlier in Oklahoma, so I knew she hadn’t gone to bed yet. I was right. When she answered, she sounded wide-awake.
“I’ve been expecting your call.”
“Did I say I was going to call tonight?”
“No, but I knew you would.”
“Is that right? With that sixth sense of yours, I’d say you’d make a pretty good detective, Detective.”
She laughed.
I loved the sound of her laughter.
“Please tell me you’re coming home tomorrow.”
“I’m coming home tomorrow. I don’t have a flight yet, but as soon as I do, I’ll let you know. It may be late, though.”
“I don’t care what time it is. Eleanor and I will be glad to see you.”
“Believe me. The feeling’s mutual. I’ve missed seeing both of you.”
“Did you get Ben’s problem with his girlfriend taken care of?”
“I got the problem with one of his girlfriends taken care of, but it’s up to him to take care of the problems he has with the other one.”
“If part of his other problem was having two girlfriends, then I can understand why you had to stick around another day.”
“Well, it was a little more complicated than that, but at least only the bad guys got injured tonight.”
“There were bad guys involved?”
“Oh, yeah, but hopefully, you won’t be hearing anything about it on the news. Frank said he was making sure of that.”
“You ran into Frank while you were at Langley? Don’t tell me the FBI was also helping Ben with his problem.”
“Ben wouldn’t have had a problem in the first place if the FBI had stayed out of his love life. In the end, though, it all worked out for the best. Frank made a good call on that one.”
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay? I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you say a nice word about Frank.”
“Since I’ll be seeing you tomorrow, I’m feeling great, but yeah, I’d say Frank and I are in a different place these days.”
“Shall I tell Eleanor you’ll cook us that steak dinner you promised us before you flew off to Washington?”
“Oh, you bet. I haven’t had a good meal since I left Oklahoma.”
When I arrived at The Meadows, I was surprised to see Carlton’s Lincoln Town Car parked in the circle drive.
I knew he couldn’t have been at the house very long, and when I walked in the front door, Arkady said, “Douglas just got here, and he said when you arrived, I should let you know he’d like to see you in the study.”
“Thanks, Arkady. I’m on my way.”
Carlton was sitting behind his desk when I walked in the room, and after we greeted each other, he motioned for me to have a seat in one of the guest chairs in front of his desk.
For a moment, I wondered if something was wrong, and I was about to receive some sort of reprimand, but then he said, “I know you’re anxious to get back home to your family, so I thought we’d discuss things now instead of having y
ou come by Langley tomorrow.”
While I felt sure Carlton was trying to help me out, I also knew he preferred to have all the loose ends of an operation tied up within twenty-four hours, and since Crescent Moon was a joint operation and there wouldn’t be a formal debriefing at Langley, I figured his showing up at The Meadows was as much for his benefit as it was for mine.
“I appreciate that,” I said. “Frank came by Camp Tamal after his SWAT team cleared the area, so we’ve already talked to him. He told us our WAV devices gave you a good idea of what happened when Nazim and his men tried to kidnap the Imam.”
“Yes, they certainly did.” He picked up his Cross pen and made a notation at the top of his legal pad. “Give me your synopsis of what happened tonight, and then I might ask you a few questions.”
I spent a few minutes outlining the events in chronological order, including the conversation Ben and I had with Kamila and her mother once everything was over.
When I finished, he asked, “So what’s your opinion? Do you think Miray Hanim was aware her daughter was in contact with Barat Mustafa?”
“Yes, I do. Miray has a close relationship with her daughter, and I’d be surprised if she hasn’t continued communicating with her friends back in Turkey. In my opinion, she’s the person who put Kamila in contact with Mustafa in the first place.”
“And what was your impression of the Imam?”
I looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “It was hard to get a read on him. At times, he appeared to be a gentle soul. Other times, he seemed angry. There was even a moment or two when I wondered if he might be aware of Kamila’s treachery. One thing’s for sure, he and his wife aren’t always on the same page.”
Carlton nodded, wrote down a few words, and then put his pen down. “I just have one last question for you. How do you think Ben conducted himself? Did he keep his emotions in check? Was he focused on the mission’s objective?”
I certainly wasn’t about to snitch on Ben and Jennifer and tell Carlton about their blossoming romance. If anything, I thought having Jennifer involved in the operation probably helped Ben focus in on his assignment of convincing Kamila he was in love with her.