by Brad Thor
Carlton shook his head. “You keep forgetting that you’re in the private sector. The FBI doesn’t have to tell us anything.”
It was true. A decade past 9/11, the FBI and the CIA still barely shared any intelligence. To expect either of them to share with a private organization was crazy. “We’ve got two dead Egyptians, then,” said Harvath. “They both originally came into the country on the same flight fifteen years ago and both attempted to carry out terrorist attacks with explosives a few weeks apart. One succeeded and one didn’t. Does that about sum it up?”
“Almost,” said Nicholas. “They both came into the country on what is known as dual intent visas. One came in on an L-1, the other an H1-B. The exact type of visa isn’t important. What is important is that because it was a dual intent visa, they were allowed to apply for a green card while they were working here. Both requests were granted.”
“Tell me they were both sponsored by the same employer,” said Harvath.
Nicholas shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. They were sponsored by two different companies. What’s interesting, though, is that by accessing the Department of State database, we discovered that both men applied for their visas at the U.S. consular office in Cairo within weeks of each other.”
“Okay,” said Harvath, sensing there was something else.
“After accessing the Immigration and Naturalization Service database, we learned that both men, though living in different parts of the country and working for different companies, used the same law firm to process their green card applications.”
“Dual intent visas with an American sponsor would have meant a lot less scrutiny upon arriving in the United States,” said Harvath.
“It also meant that they could come and go back to their country of origin if they wanted, without raising significant attention. Essentially, they had a corporation standing behind them, vouching for their authenticity. And because of their visas, they were recognized as aliens of extraordinary ability.”
“How many dual intent visa holders were on that flight?”
“Including Shafik and Nazif?” replied Nicholas. “Eight.”
“So besides our bombers, there were six others,” said Harvath, hopeful that they might be on to something. “How many of the six ended up applying for and being granted a green card or U.S. citizenship?”
Nicholas held up his left index finger. “Only one.”
“Another Egyptian?”
Nicholas nodded. “Want to venture a guess about when and where his original visa application was made?”
“Same U.S. consular office and within the same time frame as Shafik and Nazif?”
“He also used the same law firm to apply for his green card.”
“That’s it,” said Harvath. “What do we know about the law firm? Did the same lawyer handle all three green card applications?”
“The firm is based in New York,” replied Nicholas. “Though it could be the same attorney farming out the work to associates, a different lawyer was listed on each application. We’re trying to get hold of their billing records to see if there is some similarity in how the legal fees were paid.”
“Where is our third Egyptian now?”
“Los Angeles. His name is Tariq Sarhan.”
“I want everything you can find on him,” said Harvath.
“I’ve already started,” said Nicholas as he selected one of his monitors and brought up a multicolored graph.
“What’s that?”
“A quick snapshot of utility usage at the home registered to a Mr. Tariq Hafiz Sarhan. According to TIP, he’s taken on several houseguests in the last thirty-six hours. Which means either he’s got relatives who just dropped in—”
“Or he’s planning something,” replied Harvath, who then turned to Carlton. “We need to handle this. Just us.”
“Meaning?”
“No Feds. No local law enforcement.”
“That’s not going to sit well. Especially not in the wake of what just happened. We could get our asses handed to us.”
“We already have,” said Harvath. “Two of our operations have already gone sideways.”
Carlton knew he was right. “What do you want to do?”
“Until we know what’s going on, we need to be totally off everyone’s radar. We limit everything to just you, me, and Nicholas. The operation can’t leave this room. We don’t even tell DoD if we don’t have to. We go Full Black.”
The Old Man looked at Nicholas and then back at Harvath. “Okay,” he finally said. “Tell us what you’re going to need.”
CHAPTER 47
LOS ANGELES
The home of Yaroslav Yatsko, the ex-FSB agent, sat in the Hollywood Hills above Sunset Boulevard. It was pink stucco with a small, mosaic-studded swimming pool and hot tub that spilled its warm water into the pool like a waterfall. The landscaping was lush and thick. It was early evening and no one saw Luke Ralston when he magnetized an alarm contact point, jimmied a window in the back, and let himself in.
The house was empty, yet the smell of sour Russian cigarette smoke lingered in the air. Yatsko had been here and, judging by the packed bag sitting at the foot of the bed in the master bedroom, he was planning to come back.
Ralston searched the bag. It included some clothes and a few toiletry items, but that was all. Yatsko appeared to be getting ready to go to ground. There was probably a safe or a cache of some sort in the house with money, a weapon, and maybe even a few fake IDs with matching credit cards. Ralston was going to need some extra cash and he had no problem taking it from some two-bit Russian hood.
Lavrov had made some phone calls, trying to quietly pin down Yatsko’s whereabouts. The former FSB man had been seen briefly at several of his businesses, before disappearing for the rest of the afternoon. The man probably had a bunch of loose ends to tie up before falling off the grid. Ralston was glad he had managed to get to the house before the Russian disappeared for good. Now, all he had to do was wait.
After selecting an item from Yatsko’s impressive baseball memorabilia collection, Ralston found a seat and made himself comfortable. Less than two hours later, he heard a car enter the drive and pull around to the garage at the side of the house.
As the garage door went up, Ralston made his way to the window and watched as a black BMW turned around and backed into the garage. Yatsko was alone. That he was backing into his garage made no sense unless it was a security measure of some sort. Ralston stepped into the hallway off the kitchen near the door that led into the garage and made ready to welcome the Russian home.
The BMW rolled into the garage and its ignition was turned off as the garage door descended. Moments later, Ralston heard a door slam shut, followed by footfalls and then a code being punched into an alarm panel in the garage. When the door into the house opened, Ralston waited until the Russian had stepped all the way inside before swinging the bat.
It connected squarely with the Russian’s knees, and he screamed in agony as he collapsed to the floor.
Ralston pulled out a pair of plastic restraints from his pocket and quickly zip-tied the man’s hands behind his back.
“You’re dead,” Yatsko yelled through his clenched teeth. He had a thick accent. “I don’t know who you are, but you are dead!”
“That’s right,” Ralston said. “You don’t know who I am and you’re the one who’s going to be dead if you don’t shut your fucking mouth. Where’s the safe?”
“That’s what this is?” he groaned. “A robbery?”
Ralston kicked him hard in the side. “Where’s the safe, asshole?”
“Bedroom.”
Despite the man’s size, Ralston grabbed him by the collar and dragged him across the wooden floor to a hallway on the other side of the living room.
“Which one?”
“The last one,” said Yatsko. “On the left.”
Ralston dragged him into the bedroom and let go of him. The walls of the room were lined with fabric-covered panels
. An ugly, overly large four-poster bed took up way too much space.
“Where?” demanded Ralston.
“Wherever you go, I’ll find you,” said the mobster. “I promise you.”
“The only thing I want to hear out of you,” said Ralston as he cranked the bat back and swung it hard at the man’s broken right kneecap, “is where the safe is and how to get into it.”
The Russian cried out once more and tears again poured out of his eyes and streamed down his face.
“How about the other knee? Should I hit that one again, too?”
“Behind the wardrobe,” the man stammered.
“What’s that?”
“The wardrobe,” he repeated, his voice quavering. “The safe is behind it.”
Ralston pushed the chest out of the way. All that was behind it was one of the ugly fabric panels. Gently, he pushed on it and it popped open upon a set of hidden hinges.
“What’s the combination?”
Yatsko gave it to him.
Inside, Ralston found multiple stacks of currency, passports, a portable computer drive, and some jewelry. Pulling a pillowcase off one of the pillows on the bed, he crossed back over to the safe and took everything but the jewelry.
Grabbing Yatsko by the collar again, he dragged him out of the bedroom.
“But I don’t have anything else worth stealing!” he implored.
“Shut up.”
Ralston dragged the Russian back across the house and into the hallway near the kitchen. He dropped him near the door to the garage.
“Do you want my car?” the mobster asked. “Take it. The keys are in it.”
He was trying to negotiate, to offer the intruder something, anything. He had to have sensed that the man had not come just for a robbery.
“Is there fuel in the car?” Ralston asked.
“Yes,” Yatsko replied, hopeful.
“Good,” replied Ralston as he pulled a roll of duct tape from his backpack, tore off a piece, and placed it over the Russian’s mouth. “Because we’re going to take a little ride.”
Ralston kicked open the garage door and dragged Yatsko over to the rear of the BMW. Popping the trunk, he noticed the mobster’s eyes widen. Then he figured out why. Inside was something wrapped in several garbage bags and taped up in the shape of a mummy.
Ralston looked at the Russian lying on the garage floor. “Yaroslav, you piece of shit. What did you do?”
Pulling a knife from his pocket, Ralston sliced through the tape and garbage bags. What he found was what appeared to be a homeless man around Yatsko’s height and age. Upon closer inspection, he saw that all of the man’s teeth had recently been pulled out and his fingertips had been cut off.
There were several gas cans in the trunk as well. Ralston lifted one and sloshed it around. Full.
“Yaroslav,” he said, “were you going to set your house or your car on fire with this poor guy’s body in it? With no teeth and no fingertips, no one could ever say it wasn’t you. In fact, it’d probably look like you got whacked by some competing faction, eh? You are one slippery motherfucker, aren’t you?”
Ralston bent over and wrapped the Russian’s ankles with duct tape. Pulling him to his feet, he pushed the mobster backward into the trunk, where Yatsko whacked his head against the lid and landed atop the corpse.
Ralston looked down at him and smiled. “At least you’ll have company for our ride out to the desert.”
After wiping the house clean of his fingerprints, Ralston returned to the garage, climbed into the BMW, and turned the key in the ignition. He’d have to work fast. He had only so many hours of darkness.
CHAPTER 48
The Pearblossom Highway was an old, undivided two-lane blacktop interspersed with remote homesteads and dirt roads that led out into the Mojave Desert toward Las Vegas. Ralston had worked on a small, independent film in the Mojave years ago and almost missed the turnoff.
The dusty road wasn’t marked by anything more than a twisted Joshua tree and a large rock formation that looked like the side of an Indian’s face.
The heavy BMW sedan bumped and jolted as it hit numerous potholes and washouts along the way.
Finally, Ralston pulled off the access road into a small clearing ringed by sagebrush and turned off the ignition. Stepping out of the vehicle, he stretched his arms overhead and then leaned from side to side in order to stretch out his sore back.
When he was done, he grabbed his backpack from the backseat, fished out a flashlight, and walked around to the trunk. It was a clear night and the stars in the desert sky were fairly bright, but there were several different species of things Ralston didn’t want to step on if he could avoid it.
Popping the lid of the trunk, he clicked on the flashlight and shined it in Yatsko’s face. He had a small laceration on his forehead, probably from getting bumped around in the trunk.
“We’re here,” said Ralston as he pulled the Russian out and let him drop onto the dusty ground.
Yatsko was somewhere in his late sixties or early seventies. He had a broad, flat face that looked as if it had been hit with a shovel. His greasy hair was dyed unnaturally black.
Ralston used the flashlight to get his bearings. Once he figured out where he was going, he propped the Russian against the car and then flipped him over his shoulder. He weighed a ton.
Despite the pain radiating up his spine from his hip, Ralston kept going. He didn’t have far to go. The wash was just through the brush beyond the clearing.
When he got there, he set Yatsko on the ground, propping him up in a sitting position. He could see, even through his trousers, that his knees had swollen up like basketballs. He’d thought about bringing the baseball bat along, but had decided against it. He wouldn’t need it. All he had to do was tap the guy in the knee with the toe of his shoe and the man would be sent into fits of agony.
The question was, considering the pain he was suffering, would he cooperate? He’d worked with Russians before and had watched them take amazing amounts of punishment. They could be like plow animals.
It was time to find out if Yatsko was going to play ball. Reaching down, Ralston ripped the piece of duct tape from his mouth.
He expected a string of invective to start immediately. It didn’t. The Russian was trapped. He knew it and was sizing up his captor.
“You already have the money from my house,” he eventually said. “I can get you more. Much more.”
“This isn’t about money,” replied Ralston.
Despite the pain, the former FSB man smiled. “It is always about money.”
“How many people during your career in Russia offered you money? Deep in the bowels of the Lubyanka I’ll bet there were many.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m nobody. Just someone who happened to be in the right place at the wrong time.”
Yatsko looked at him, a slow trickle of blood running down the side of his face. “Do I know you?”
“No. You don’t know me.”
“Then I must know the man who sent you.”
Ralston shook his head slowly. “No one sent me.”
“Then who are you, damn it,” he spat. “Why did you bring me here?”
“First, tell me who the man is in your trunk.”
“Who cares? It’s none of your business.”
Ralston took his flashlight and swung it at the side of the Russian’s face. It connected with a sharp crack.
Yatsko saw stars and when the pain receded and his vision returned, he looked up at Ralston and spat two teeth out at him. “Fuck you.”
Ralston hit him again, harder. “I’ve got all night and no place to be.”
He waited for the mobster to recover and then repeated his question.
“He’s a vagabond,” the Russian yelled. “Nothing. No one. Trash.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Yes, I killed him.”
“Why?” asked Ralston.
“You already know why.”
Yatsko didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
“Tell me who hired you,” demanded Ralston.
“Hired me for what?”
Ralston brought his foot down hard on the man’s left knee.
“Hired me for what, damn it,” the Russian cried out.
“You sent a team of men to kill a friend of mine.”
“I don’t do killings.”
“Bullshit.”
“I do lots of other things, but never killings,” said Yatsko.
“What the fuck do you call the dead guy in your trunk?”
“That’s different.”
“Tell me who hired you.”
The Russian looked up at him and with a straight face said, “I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
Ralston was now at the end of his rope. This guy was one of the worst liars he had ever met. It was going to take him all night to beat the truth out of him. He decided to speed things up.
“Don’t move,” he said, knowing the man couldn’t, even if he had wanted to. “I’ll be right back.”
Leaving Yatsko alone in the wash, he trudged through the sagebrush back to the car.
Moving the corpse out of the way, he removed one of the cans of gasoline and shut the lid of the trunk. Walking around the edge of the clearing, he played his light over the ground. There were empty beer cans and wine bottles, but that wasn’t what Ralston was hoping to find. Then, several feet away, he saw it.
Returning to Yatsko, he dropped the tire on the ground next to him and opened the gas can. “I wish I could tell you that I was a patient guy, Yaroslav, but I’m not.”
The mobster looked at him, trying to figure out what he was doing.
“I’ll bet you’ve done a lot of bad things in your time, haven’t you?”
Yatsko didn’t reply.
“Have you ever necklaced anybody?”
Ralston waited for the man to respond, but he remained quiet.
“It’s a terrible way to die,” he said, standing the tire up on its side and filling it with gasoline. He then rolled it forward several feet and back again in order to evenly coat the inside.