Power Play (An FBI Thriller)

by Catherine Coulter

  “I put in a call to Natalie,” Sherlock said. “She’ll be taking a break from her interviews to visit Hooley in about an hour. We’ll head over there when you’ve finished your lunch. Perry, eat your grilled cheese before it hardens up on you.”

  Washington Memorial Hospital

  Sunday afternoon

  Hooley was awake and in pain, but so stoic Natalie wanted to smack him. She walked to the nursing station with her newly assigned Diplomatic Security agent in tow to throw her weight around. A nurse told Natalie they’d been asked to try to switch him to oral meds, and maybe it was too fast too soon. She appeared in under a minute to inject morphine into his IV.

  Natalie lightly tapped his arm. “Next time, don’t be a brainless macho. Pain isn’t fun, even for tough guys like you. Promise me you’ll ask when you need more pain meds.”

  “Yeah, okay, I promise,” Hooley said, then added, “Hey, I’m feeling better already.”

  Connie was standing at the foot of his bed, her arms crossed over her chest. “I’ll make sure he keeps that promise.”

  The FBI arrived, Perry in their wake. Savich said, “That’s good, Connie, keep an eagle eye on him because you know very well Hooley would rather hang it up than complain. It’s not in his genes.”

  Hooley smiled at that.

  Davis said, “A man’s brains don’t always connect to his genes, right, Beef?”

  “What would a pretty boy like you know about it?”

  Davis grinned down at him. “Take the meds; otherwise, I’ll feel guilty busting your chops.”

  Connie didn’t say anything more about Hooley sucking in the pain. She knew pride when she saw it wearing size twelves. Instead, she said, “Since the DSS agents joined us, Mrs. Black’s house is pretty much in lockdown. So I have more time to spend here with Mark. Luis is still doing the driving, though.”

  Savich said, “Good. Everything sounds under control. Now, if you and Hooley would excuse Natalie for a moment,” and Natalie followed Savich and Sherlock out of the room.

  A nurse directed them to an empty room down the hall. The DSS agent remained by the door. Savich said, “Natalie, this is about your fiancé’s eldest son and heir, William Charles McCallum. You said you’d never met him, that George never said much about him?”

  “No. William—Billy—wasn’t in England by the time George and I met. Of course, we talked about him, after that picture of him in Syria surfaced in the press. Since I was going to be his wife, I had to understand more about what had happened.”

  Savich said, “Did he tell you the last time he met his son, spoke with him?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  Sherlock said, “Did he ever mention any sort of accident Billy was in before he left for Oxford?”

  “No, but I suppose if it had been a minor accident of some sort, George wouldn’t have seen any reason to mention it to me.” Natalie looked back and forth between them. “What’s this all about?”

  Savich lightly laid his hand on her arm. “We’re almost certain now that the man who attacked you Friday night was William Charles McCallum, George’s son. Billy.”

  Natalie stared at them, slowly shook her head back and forth. “But that makes no sense. I’ve never even met him, as I told you. George’s son has turned into some kind of terrorist assassin trying to murder an ambassador?”

  Sherlock said, “Since there have been no calls to kill you, Natalie, even from the most radical imam in London, we think this is personal.”

  “Then did he kill his father as well? Or does he think I did? Does he think I was responsible for driving George to kill himself? He wants revenge? By killing me?”

  “Think back, Natalie,” Davis said. “Think back to when you were talking to George about his son. Did he look devastated? Did he look like he hated his son? What?”

  Natalie’s world had turned upside down. She dashed her fingers through her hair, trying to come to grips with the thought that George’s son had tried to kill her. She drew in a deep breath. “All right. Not hated, no, but sure, I saw the disappointment on his face, the devastation. I mean, there had to be, hadn’t there? George felt he’d failed his son, failed to realize he needed help, and then he left, became something his father couldn’t begin to understand.”

  Savich set MAX on the table beside the hospital bed, lifted the lid, typed a few strokes. “Hamish Penderley of Scotland Yard uncovered a number of cellular communications between George McCallum and his son over the last two years.” He typed a bit more. “Come look.”

  Savich said, “Calls between George McCallum and William’s cell phone in Hamburg stopped only for a few months. George flew to Hamburg two years ago and William started accepting his father’s calls again. They talked about once a week, for about ten minutes, on average. I imagine George tried to convince his son to return home, or at least accept his help. William had a new wife in Hamburg by then, with a family of refugees from Lebanon. I don’t know why George failed to tell his family or you about William’s marriage, but perhaps William insisted. I doubt his new family and community knew who he was, that is, heir to an English title. It’s very probable William didn’t want anyone to know.

  “About eight months ago, George started making calls to a satellite phone registered to his own name, first in Turkey, and then in Syria. The dates match William’s movements. Then, six weeks ago, after William’s picture surfaced in the press, the calls were more frequent.”

  Perry walked to her mother, who looked shell-shocked as she stared down at MAX’s screen at the steady flow of calls from a man she’d believed she knew to her soul. Perry pulled her mother against her. “Did George show you photos of Billy?”

  Natalie pulled back, shook her head. She said, “I visited Lockenby Manor maybe two dozen times and I remember seeing some pictures of Billy as a child. Of course, I saw the picture of him the papers were showing.”

  Davis held up a photo. “Here he is at eighteen, Natalie, and this is the more recent photo you saw in the press. It’s magnified and a bit blurry, but he looks more or less like this now. He’s thirty, hardened and seasoned by eight months of combat in Syria. Why does he want to kill you? I’d say he believed the rumors that you were responsible. He isn’t likely to give up, so we’ve got to find him before he comes back at you. They say he goes by the name Khalid now.”

  Natalie looked down at the photo of a handsome, fresh-faced eighteen-year-old, happy and excited, starting out a life filled with promise. Odd, he didn’t look a thing like his father. Then she looked closely at the photo of the grown man. He was no longer fresh-faced; he looked gaunt, resolute, his skin etched by the sun, his eyes opaque, hardened, she thought, by the savagery and death around him. She handed the photo back to Davis.

  Savich said, “He took a big risk coming into the country. His passport was flagged, both here and in England, and there’s no record of him coming through customs. Homeland Security is all over that now, as you can imagine. We’re scouring the area for where William—Billy—Khalid—could be holed up, probably in an out-of-the-way motel somewhere locally.

  “According to the surgeon who took care of his bullet wound, he’ll be down for only a couple of days, if he’s lucky.”

  Perry still held her mother. She said, “If he took such a risk coming here, he must not have a single doubt in his mind that Mom caused his father’s death.”

  Natalie said, “George’s son believed the tabloids? Why didn’t Billy simply call me, ask me what happened? He’s not a boy, he’s an adult. Why?”

  “He’s a disturbed man, Natalie,” Savich said. “George knew that very well. He called his son three times the week before he died, probably trying to convince Billy to come home. Once that picture came out, it became dangerous for Billy in Syria. I’m thinking it was easier for Billy to blame you rather than himself.”

  Natalie said, “I wonder if he could be convinced his father was murdered rather than driven to suicide by me.”

  Davis said, “I wo
uldn’t count on it.”

  “No, let’s not,” Perry said. “Mom, you and I are going to fly to Hawaii, under assumed names, or maybe Bali or Australia. What do you think?”

  Incredibly, Natalie laughed. “A fine idea, but do you know what I’m doing in about three hours? More interviews with the major news networks, and then with the BBC. I have a live speech at the UN tomorrow morning, so I don’t see Bali or Australia in my immediate future.” She paused. “No, I’m not going to disappoint the president. I’ve got top-notch security, and an important job to do. William or no William, I’m going to be on my way to the United Nations tomorrow morning.”

  Marilyn’s B&B

  Bowie, Maryland

  Sunday, early evening

  He wasn’t in nearly as much pain as he had been that October evening last year when a trainee, a sixteen-year-old boy from Beirut, had accidently set off a bomb too close to him and he’d been thrown a good six feet against a pile of rocks and felt like his guts had been punched in. He’d broken his leg then, and it hadn’t set right.

  He lifted off the bandage and lightly laid his fingertips over the neat row of stitches on his side. Only slight swelling, only a bit of heat. The small blood collection that showed purple beneath the wound was expected and would fade. But there was no sign of infection. The antibiotics were working fine. He scratched around the stitches. It felt good because it itched already, and it didn’t feel particularly tender. He smeared more antibiotic ointment over the wound, then flattened down a new bandage. He took two pain pills and laid back down on his bed, closed his eyes.

  The doctor had done an excellent job since he hadn’t wanted to die. He’d seemed to be a good man who didn’t deserve to die because he’d had the bad luck to be home and alone.

  He wondered if the doctor had helped them identify him as William Charles McCallum. He knew they would, sooner or later. It made no difference. If he was digging his own grave as well as Mrs. Black’s, so be it.

  He shouldn’t have gone out so soon, nor should he have performed the postures of the salat, the ritual prayer. It wasn’t required of an injured man. He would rest now, a day more, maybe two; that was all he needed.

  He heard a knock on his door, grabbed the Beretta 418 from beneath his pillow, bought off a hood in Baltimore the week before. He felt the stitches pull and moved slowly.

  “Mr. Garber? It’s Marilyn. Would you care for some dinner?”

  He wasn’t hungry, but he knew he had to eat. He tucked the gun back beneath his pillow. “Yes, thank you, Ms. Marilyn.” She was a big woman, angular and nosy. He’d bet if she could, she’d sneak into his room, see what she could find. He’d left a sign on the door saying he was sleeping and wasn’t to be disturbed, and hoped that would keep her outside. “Would you please put a tray right outside the door? I’d appreciate it.”

  He tried to speak in an American accent hinting of a childhood in the South. He thought he sounded down-home, but he couldn’t be sure. Still, no reason to announce himself as British. He was glad Marilyn hadn’t seemed to notice.

  “Not a problem, Mr. Garber. I’ll bring it right up for you. I hope you feel better. Do you have the flu? Would you like me to contact a physician for you?”

  “No, thank you, Ms. Marilyn. I need rest and your delicious cooking. Thank you.”

  He heard her heavy footsteps retreating away from the door, past the two other bedrooms, down the single flight of stairs, and back to her kitchen.

  There were two other couples staying at the B&B, both older, both out all day, sightseeing, he supposed. He’d heard one couple arguing through the walls.

  His stomach rumbled. When he heard her call out again that she had his tray, he thanked her once more, asked her to leave it, and waited to hear her hulking steps back down the stairs. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and gingerly rose. He stretched carefully, only a little, not too much, and walked to the door. He listened, heard nothing. He opened the door to see the tray covered with a large sheet of aluminum foil. He smelled spaghetti and garlic bread. Good, he needed the calories.

  He watched TV while he ate, scanned the news stations for any stories about Mrs. Black or her attacker. He was happy to see no leads were mentioned, that he had not been identified, at least publicly. He saw Natalie Black being interviewed on three channels, by the usual talking heads. Not a single one of them seemed to doubt any part of the story she was telling, the credulous fools. The showed a clip of her meeting with the British prime minister, all big smiles. They didn’t ask her why she was gracing them with an interview, tried instead to outdo one another with the warmth of their reception of the damsel in distress. She was good, yes, he’d give her that, very good indeed, smooth and believable.

  Only he knew the whole truth, only he had heard his father’s breaking voice when he told him on his sat phone that he simply didn’t see how he could marry Natalie now, that he knew it would ruin her career and he simply couldn’t do that to her, not after his photo had been published. He heard the pain and soul-deep anguish in his father’s voice. And what could he say? That what he was doing was righteous? That he had nothing to be sorry for, that he was fighting in a just war against a tyrant and a murderer of his own people as well as his own wife’s family, a war he’d volunteered to join because his conscience demanded it? He’d told his father this many times, and then the photograph of him in the tabloid—if he hadn’t known the truth, he would believe he was looking at a terrorist, just as the British people now believed. What was amazing was that his father didn’t blame him. His father wanted him home, out of harm’s way, but he didn’t blame him. And that was how they’d left it at the end of that last call—his father trying to come to grips with what he was going to do and assuring his son, as he always did, that he loved him.

  Then Natalie Black’s email had appeared in the British tabloid and his father was dead. There was no doubt in his mind that she was responsible for his father’s killing himself, that she’d driven him to it. His father had loved her, would have willingly given his life for her, but she’d broken their engagement to protect herself in an email! And then she’d leaked it to the press. It was unconscionable. He hated her more than the U.S. government, whose operatives he was sure had been taking photographs of him and his closest friends in Syria. Why they’d leaked his picture to the tabloids he didn’t know, and he didn’t really care. He didn’t care about their unending petty intrigues and machinations on the sidelines of this bloody war, that they should be fighting, didn’t really care his life would be in danger if he was ever able to return to Syria because his former friends knew now he was a peer of the English realm, and he was anathema to them. He barely cared that the relationship with his wife and family in Hamburg was strained to the breaking point because they had found out who he really was on the television. He cared only that his father was dead and that bitch who’d supposedly loved him had driven him to kill himself. An email! A soulless, dismissive email that bitch had sent him. He’d failed before, but he wouldn’t fail again.

  When Khalid Al-Jabiri—William McCallum—finished chewing on the last meatball, he knew exactly what he was going to do.

  Perry Black’s condo

  Sunday evening

  Perry was looking at photos of Colin Kaepernick taken with fans at the game in London with the Jaguars this past October, and she smiled. The English loved him—understandable, since he was cute, well, downright sexy, and he looked different enough to fascinate. And all those tattoos—they fascinated the English as well. Perry wondered what Colin would think of his tats in twenty-five years or so, say, when his own son graduated from high school.

  She laughed at herself. Who cared about twenty-five years from now? He was young and that was wonderful, even with all its stupidities. And talk about stupidities, look at her. She had this guy sleeping on her sofa she hadn’t known existed a week ago and yet here he was, protecting her and giving her grief. She had to admit he appealed to her right down to her toe
s.

  She realized she wasn’t concentrating, looked at her watch, turned off her notebook, and flicked on the TV. It was time.

  The man himself came out of the kitchen, wearing jeans, boots, and a white shirt rolled up to his elbows, his Glock on a clip at his waist, a cup of tea in each hand. The whole package was as potent as a guy in a sparkling white navy dress uniform. She frowned at him. “I see I’m starting to train you pretty well. Shut up, sit down, and watch with me.”

  He merely grinned at her, handed her a cup of tea, and slouched beside her on the sofa, his feet plopped up atop a pile of magazines on her coffee table. In another minute, Edward Rose of Fox News was welcoming her mother in the studio here in Washington. Her mom looked great, in charge as usual, Perry thought, dressed in a navy-blue suit and a white blouse with a multicolored scarf that showed off her vivid hair. Perry sipped her tea and sat forward.

  Rose said, “Ambassador Black, thank you for being here tonight. And I must say we all as a nation are happy to see you are looking well. There have been news reports of an assassination attempt on you at your home as recently as this past Friday. Can you verify this and tell us what is being done to find the person or people responsible for these continuing attacks on you?”

  So there would be no more questions about her lying, Natalie thought, no more hints she was making anything up. After Friday night, she would be treated as a brave victim, a heroine. She remembered Hooley’s blood on her pajamas, the gut-wrenching fear and anger. She looked at Edward Rose’s carefully made-up handsome face with the touch of gray at his temples, and into his sincere blue eyes. She smiled. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the details of an ongoing investigation, but I will say, though, that the president and I both have confidence the FBI will find the person or people behind these attacks.”