Threat Level

by William Christie

  “Good, I’m glad you listened. If we grab this guy nice and quiet, lock him up, then show up at his house to serve the warrant, we might just get something more from the wife than if we kicked in her door in and scared her kid. Speed up now. I want a visual on him before he turns off.”

  The black Trans Am they were driving had been confiscated from a drug dealer. It had the full police package, but you couldn’t tell even by looking through the window. The radios were in the glove compartment, the antenna was a cell phone antenna. Even the blue lights were hidden. Moody took it up well over the speed limit, and soon the white Taurus came into sight.

  Beth radioed her intentions to the sedan full of agents, all from the Detroit field office, who were following them. Then her cell phone began to vibrate. “Beth Royale. Mom, I can’t talk right now—I’ll call you back later. What? Is he all right? God. Yes, I know, Mom. Frank’s there? Okay, I promise I’ll call you later. I know, Mom, I know. Love you, too.”

  “Everything okay?” said Moody.

  “My brother arranged for someone to clean the leaves out of the gutters of my parents’ house. So my dad wouldn’t be going up the ladder. But of course he went up the ladder anyway, to make sure the guy did a good job. And he slipped.”

  “Jesus, is he all right?”

  “My mom came home from shopping, and the first thing she sees is her husband hanging from the chimney by his fingertips. X-rays are negative, but he’ll be taking muscle relaxers and antiinflammatants for the next year or so.”

  Though he knew he really didn’t want to, Moody started laughing.

  “Yeah, I know,” said Beth. “If it wasn’t my dad I’d be laughing my ass off. Tell me, Paul. Why do men go insane when they retire?”

  “My dad always says that what we do is what we are. I don’t know. I had dinner with my wife and kids ten times last month. And that includes the weekends.”

  Didn’t keep you from volunteering for a career-enhancing assignment like counterterrorism, Beth thought. “I know what you mean. I had to find a new home for my cat. I was boarding him so much he was getting neurotic.”

  “Yeah, it’s practically the same thing.”

  “I really loved Mr. Puss,” said Beth.

  “Since we’re chatting,” said Moody, “we’re lucky we’re not back at the office, the way you pissed Timmins off.”

  Beth glanced over at him. “That really bugs you, doesn’t it, Paul?”

  “You told me if I ever had something on my mind not to hold it in. So I’m not holding it in.”

  “I’m glad. You know why we’re arresting these five guys? So the attorney general and the director can hold a press conference and do some showboating. And that’s probably going to screw up our criminal case, if we even manage to bring these guys to trial. Just to show we’re doing something post–nine-eleven. These guys are a terrorist cell. They’re organized that way so no one has knowledge of any other cells, so we can’t bust one and roll up their whole network. Their controller knows about the other cells, and probably only one guy among the five we’re going to bust today knows who their controller is. If we followed every one of them around long enough, eventually we’d get the controller. But we’re going to arrest them so we can hold a press conference.”

  “But that’s going to happen whether or not you make an issue of it with Timmins. So why do it and piss him off?”

  Beth smiled. “Paul, I don’t do these things just to work out my personal issues, or because I can’t keep my mouth shut. I did it so Timmins would give me what I want, just to get me out of his hair.” She pointed a finger at the windshield. “And what I wanted was our guy here. I looked them all over, and I’m betting he’s the cell leader. And if he is, he knows who the controller is. Or at least how to contact him.”

  “If I did what you do I’d be spending my whole career on suspension.”

  “Well, there’s another lesson for you, Paul. If you make your bosses look really good, you’d be amazed by how much they put up with. You’ve also got to know just how far you can take it with each one of them.”

  “No, thanks, not for me.”

  Beth didn’t reveal her disappointment. “The way I look at it, you’ve got three choices. You can be bitter about working in a dysfunctional system. You can resign yourself to working in it. Or you can find ways around it.”

  “Why do I feel like I’m getting dragged along on number three, whether I want to or not?”

  “Don’t worry, Paul. I won’t get you fired.” They were approaching a stoplight. “Okay, here we go.”

  Beth was holding a plastic box that looked very much like a television remote control. She aimed it through the windshield and pressed a button.

  Up ahead, the white Taurus’s engine shut off.

  Beth tapped the mouse button on her notebook, and Arabic cursing could be heard coming through the speakers.

  The light turned green, and Beth pushed another button on her remote control. The driver finally got the ignition to turn over, and lurched the Taurus through the intersection.

  Beth activated the remote again at the next light, and the Taurus died once more. She waited long enough into the green for the horns to begin before repeating the process, giggling the whole time.

  “You’re a very sick human being,” Moody said.

  “Well, if you’re going to spike a listening device and a tracker in someone’s car,” said Beth, pronouncing it the New England way with a long a and an r that only dogs could hear, “it only takes a couple of extra minutes to wire a kill switch into the ignition. This job is fun, Paul. If you don’t have fun, you’ll get like these old gumshoe special agents who drop dead of a heart attack at fifty.”

  The Taurus pulled into a shopping center parking lot. Beth activated the remote for the final time, and the car glided to a stop.

  The hood was already raised when they pulled in behind.

  “I assume you’re going to take him,” said Moody.

  “Yes, but only because it’ll pay off in the interrogation later.”

  “Sure, Beth. Whatever you say.”

  Moody got out and walked up to the front of the Taurus. “Having some trouble?”

  An Arab man in his late twenties was leaning over the exposed engine. His hair was cut short, and he was clean shaven. “Yes,” he said in good but accented English. “It will not start.”

  “You need a jump?” Moody inquired pleasantly, keeping one eye on Beth approaching around the other side of the vehicle.

  “I do not think it is the battery,” the man replied. “Perhaps the ignition.”

  “Maybe you’ve just got a loose wire,” Moody suggested, bending down beside him and directing his attention deeper into the engine.

  Thus distracted, the man didn’t notice Beth on his blind side.

  Eyeing the hand bracing him on the frame as he leaned over the engine, Beth grabbed the wrist and his collar, applying one foot to the back of his knee. With all the leverage she needed, she twisted him around and threw him face-first on the asphalt, the wrist locked behind his back.

  All that came out of him was a long, high-pitched, “Ai, ai, ai, ai, ai.”

  “FBI,” Beth told him. She snapped one handcuff on the locked wrist, then ordered, “Put your hand behind your back.”

  There was no response to this, so she yanked the wrist higher up. More howling, and over this Beth calmly repeating, “Put your right hand behind your back.”

  The hand shot over, and Beth snapped on the second cuff. She and Moody each took an arm and pulled the suspect to his feet.

  Beth flicked her credentials case open in front of his face. “Jabir al-Banri, you’re under arrest for violation of Title Eighteen, Section 2342 of the U.S. Code. Receiving contraband cigarettes.”

  Beth noted with satisfaction the look of relief that swept across his face. He seemed pretty happy to have that as the reason for his arrest.

  The backup agents were out of their sedan now, and Beth turned the
prisoner over to them. She pulled one agent aside. “Remember, not one word about terrorism in front of this guy. From anyone.”

  The agent nodded.

  Beth said, “Is someone going to stay with the car?” The chain of custody had to be maintained until it was searched.

  “Until the tow truck gets here. It’s on the way.”

  “Thanks.” She called out louder, “Thanks, guys. Great job.”

  “Nice takedown,” the agent said quietly.

  “The problem with these guys is a lack of a strong female influence,” Beth replied. “We’re going to see about changing that.”

  Al-Banri’s home was in south Detroit. A neighborhood of Arab immigrants, working class. The local stores all had their signs in both English and Arabic.

  Beth and Moody parked on the street, along with crime scene teams in two SUVs.

  A woman with very pale olive skin answered the door. She was in her early twenties, and wearing a headscarf.

  “Mrs. al-Banri, I’m Special Agent Beth Royale of the FBI. May we come in?”

  Even frightened nearly out of her wits, she gripped the door firmly and didn’t give way. “My husband. Not home.” Her English was very poor.

  “We know,” Beth said gently. “We have a warrant to search your property.” She handed over the document, took the woman’s arm, and led her into the house while the female contract interpreter began explaining things in Arabic.

  There was a frantic rush of almost hysterical Arabic in reply.

  Soothingly, Beth said, “Why don’t we sit down and talk about this?”

  The woman froze in midmovement and twirled all the way around, looking at her living room as if she’d never seen it before. Then seemed to snap back into the moment, leading them into the kitchen and pulling out chairs at the table.

  Beth fell back and whispered to the first technician, “Pay close attention to the living room—she doesn’t want us in there.”

  He nodded.

  And there was probably nothing in the kitchen, Beth thought. She took a seat next to the wife, and across from the interpreter. The kitchen was spotless.

  “What is your name?” Beth asked.

  “Rubina.” Said very shyly.

  Tea was made. Even under such circumstances, the rules of hospitality were sacrosanct.

  A little boy, not quite five, kept straying out into the living room and being called back, fascinated by all the big men with guns and flashlights and bags and rubber gloves.

  Making tea had calmed Rubina al-Banri down and brought up her defenses. Her eyes kept darting back and forth between Beth and the interpreter, a recent graduate of the University of Michigan named Jane.

  “Mrs. al-Banri,” Beth said, in the same tone she’d used since entering the house, “we have reason to believe that your husband and his friends have been dealing in contraband cigarettes.”

  “This is not true,” she said quickly. “What friends?”

  “Khalid, Feisal, Isam, and Hamid,” said Beth. She didn’t mention the two cousins in Virginia.

  She took it hard, the information forestalling another denial.

  Beth was using the questions to determine the extent of her knowledge. The answers weren’t important—the body language was. “Your husband is in a great deal of trouble,” she said. “He could spend years in prison for each shipment of cigarettes. And we know he has accepted many, many shipments. If he doesn’t cooperate with us, he could be in prison for a very long time.”

  Her face told Beth that not only was she terrified about what might happen to herself and her son, but she didn’t expect her husband to cooperate.

  Rubina suddenly sprang out of her chair.

  Beth almost moved to grab her before realizing it was exasperation with her straying son. She did follow, though.

  Rubina plucked up her boy, who protested in Arabic. The interpreter translated the exchange in Beth’s ear.

  But Beth was watching Rubina’s eyes dart around the room. She remained behind when Rubina and the interpreter went back into the kitchen. The little boy was still wailing his displeasure, carrying the latex glove one of the agents had blown up and tied off for him.

  One of the technicians approached Beth. “Big ten-pack box of Zip disks next to the computer, but only one disk in the box and none anywhere else.”

  Beth’s eyes were locked on the wall separating the kitchen from the living room. “Did anyone find a magnet? Maybe with some string tied to it?”

  The technician eyed her skeptically.

  “Ask them,” said Beth.

  He polled his colleagues, Beth watching as his eyebrows went up. “They did. In the end table drawer.”

  “Bring it over,” said Beth, walking toward the object of her gaze, a double light switch on the wall.

  She was examining it under her flashlight when he returned. “The paint’s stripped off the screws,” she said. “How often do you take the plate off a light switch?”

  Now he was looking at her the same way men probably had looked at suspected witches four hundred years ago.

  “Always watch where their eyes go,” she said. “Let’s open it up.”

  He dropped an article into her palm, then went to work with a screwdriver.

  Beth unwrapped the white household twine that was tied to the U-shaped magnet. Extended, the twine was about four feet long.

  The technician had the plate off and was probing in the switch well. “The box isn’t attached to a stud. It’s not attached to anything, just held in place by the electrical cable.” He pushed the box with his finger. It slid into the space between the wall, then slid back when he released it.

  “Take a look in there with the endoscope,” said Beth. She pointed. “Particularly look down.”

  He passed the lighted end of the flexible cable into the space and twisted it around and down while looking through the bulkier scope. “There’s something down at the bottom of the space. Looks like a metal plate.”

  Another technician with a video camera had come over, and was now taping them.

  “Pull the scope out,” said Beth.

  When the way was clear, she dropped the magnet into the space, letting it down slowly with the twine. When it hit bottom the line twitched as if a fish had taken it, and there was an audible snap of a magnet attaching itself to metal.

  Beth pulled her catch up slowly. The first to appear was a thin metal plate, a couple of inches square. She grabbed it and pulled it through the hole. The plate was attached to a shorter piece of twine, and the twine to a plastic bag containing four Zip computer storage disks.

  “Here we go,” said Beth. “As soon as I show these to the wife, you’ll have to send someone to run these back to the office right now. We’ll need to at least skim this material before we go into interrogation with the guy.”

  “You got it,” said the technician. He held the bag in his gloved hand as if weighing it. “I’ll remember to watch the eyes. I guess women are more sensitive to that stuff.”

  “That’s a myth,” Beth informed him.

  “You mean women aren’t more sensitive than men?”

  “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” she said. “They are, but most of the time they’re only more sensitive to their own stuff, not anyone else’s.”

  Frozen by political correctness, he only managed a goofy smile, as if afraid to say anything in response.

  Beth was already back to business. “Check all the switches and electric plugs. The tops of the doors: you can drill out a cavity to hide something, put a strip of wood over it, and no one ever looks. Inside the poles in the clothes closets, and the shower curtain rod. The stairs don’t have carpet on them. See if any look like they’ve been pried up recently.”

  Now she had his full attention.

  “If the enemy’s going to be thoughtful enough to produce training manuals,” said Beth, “the least we can do is read them. Just like us, they have people who do nothing but follow the book.”

 
; The technician was smiling now. Respectfully.

  Holding it by the string, Beth carried the bag into the kitchen. Rubina turned even paler at the sight of it. Once she’d gotten a good look, Beth handed the bag back to the technician who’d been trailing behind her.

  Sitting back down, Beth focused on Rubina, who avoided her gaze.

  “I think there is more than contraband cigarettes on these disks,” Beth told her, then waited for the translation. “I think your husband and his friends were involved in more than cigarette smuggling.” Another pause. “If they were, they will never be leaving prison.” Then she put in the shot. “You knew about those disks, and where they were hidden. This makes you an accessory to whatever crimes your husband has committed.” A very long pause, and Beth reached over to put her hand on Rubina’s arm, with a pointed glance toward the little boy playing with a plastic truck on the kitchen floor. “Who will raise your son if you are in prison?”

  Rubina burst into tears. Jane the interpreter was staring at Beth across the table.

  Beth opened a pack of tissues and passed them over to Rubina, counting on the fact that everyone felt the same way about their in-laws. “If you answer my questions truthfully, I give you my promise that you will raise your son.”

  8

  Gagging on all the cigarette smoke inside the van, Ed Storey wondered idly how hard it would be to sell Pakistanis on chewing tobacco. To pass the time he even started assembling a lesson plan in his head, before abandoning the idea. A van filled with smoke was unpleasant, but nothing compared to novice chewers swallowing their dip by accident and puking all over the place.

  Storey thought about how many times and in how many places he’d sat in the predawn darkness, waiting for something to happen. Too many times, and too much time to think. He was only along for the ride on this one, so he didn’t have the usual premission preparations to occupy himself with.

  The Pakistanis in the black jumpsuits were an assault team from the Army Special Services Group, the special forces regiment. In particular Musa Company, which was the antiterrorist/hostage rescue force. Musa, or Moses, was also an Islamic prophet. Running the operation was the Special Investigation Group of the Federal Investigative Agency, roughly equivalent to the FBI. The Special Investigation Group was carefully screened, meaning polygraphed, and American trained. Pakistan’s president acknowledged that he couldn’t fully trust his military Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate to hunt Al Qaeda with complete enthusiasm. So the intelligence support was provided by both the United States and the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau, a civilian agency that usually kept an eye on politicians and political activists.