Unmanned (9780385351263)

by Fesperman, Dan

  “We could check their dumpster, look for old paperwork. It’s probably out back.”

  “Like from your Infowar training? I guess. But isn’t that kind of risky?”

  “How much worse can it get? We’re already on camera. And I doubt he’ll be looking for us out back.”

  Steve thought about it.

  “Why not? Won’t be the first time I’ve gone through somebody’s garbage.”

  They got out of the car, checked their flanks, and doubled back to O’Donnell Square, giving the storefront a wide berth before heading up a side street to an alley running behind Taco Rojo. It was dimly lit and lined with small green dumpsters. Cole heard the skitter of rats, assembling for their own dinnertime rush. One panicked at their approach, nearly running over his feet.

  Each dumpster was marked with the name of its owner. Steve had just thrown open the lid for Taco Rojo’s when Cole spotted a pair of blue recycling bins—one for glass, the other for paper—just down the way. These seemed to be shared by the whole block.

  “Let’s try those first.” Steve, already recoiling from the stench of the dumpster, nodded and let the lid slam shut.

  The paper bin was about a quarter full. Cole leaned inside until his feet left the ground and grabbed an empty cardboard box. He handed it to Steve, then pulled out a second.

  “Hold these,” he said. “I’ll grab the loose papers and pile them in.”

  It was mostly unopened junk mail, empty cups, old newspapers. But there were also torn envelopes and loose papers, some stacked, some crumpled. He took it all, eventually filling both boxes and then a third while Steve kept watch over the alley. No cops, thank goodness, although they’d both spotted a camera mounted at the end of the alley. Their only live audience was a young couple who passed up the side street, a man and woman in black leather who paused at the mouth of the alley just long enough to shake their heads in either pity or disgust.

  They carried the boxes to Steve’s Honda.

  “Back to the house?” Cole asked.

  “Somewhere closer. Where we can ditch this stuff once we’re through with it. Some parking lot, where we won’t stand out as much.”

  They drove northeast a few miles, crossing beneath the Beltway before pulling into the vast lot of a Walmart. Steve switched on the dome light and starting sorting through items from the first box. Cole climbed into the backseat and started in on the second one. They proceeded carefully, tossing loose newspapers aside to focus on mail and crumpled papers. Most of it was bills, receipts, or sales pitches from vendors of restaurant equipment. There was an unintentionally hilarious letter from a customer, complaining that a take-out meal had poisoned her pet hamster. Form letters from the block’s landlord warned three different tenants about overdue rent.

  Twenty minutes into their search, Cole struck gold—a stack of printouts from Taco Rojo payroll records for September and October. Eleven employees were on the report for September, ten for October. The extra name in September was Mansur Amir Khan. His last day on the job was September 6, probably about the time the FBI came looking for him. The Social Security number was probably bogus, but Steve wrote it down. There was no phone number, but there was a Baltimore address on Gough Street, in care of a Consuelo Reyes.

  “Whaddya think?” Steve asked. “Strike while the iron is hot?”

  “Sure. But maybe this time we should try a different approach.”

  “Keep that sheet handy, with his name and address. I’ve got an idea.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  STEVE WENT INTO the Walmart and bought a business envelope with a plastic window. He folded the payroll report inside it so that Mansur’s name and address showed through the window. Then they headed for Gough Street.

  No gentrification there. There were more boarded-up windows than Christmas lights. So many houses were empty that there was plenty of on-street parking. To be on the safe side Steve pulled into a space around the corner. He rubbed his hands together in the cold, then held aloft the envelope as if it was their ticket to the Promised Land.

  “This time I’ll do the talking. You watch our backs.”

  The sky was clearing, the temperature dropping. Fallen sleet filled sidewalk cracks in glowing white seams. At the address on Gough Street the outside door was unlocked. A mailbox in the foyer showed a Reyes on the second floor. The door to the stairwell was ajar, so they went on up. Reyes was the middle apartment. A television blared from the place on the left, shouts and laughter from the one on the right. Steve’s knock was answered by the bark of a dog—it sounded big—followed by shuffling footsteps. A deadbolt shot back and the door opened to the limit of a security chain, spilling a yellow band of light onto the landing. A middle-aged woman in a bathrobe eyed him suspiciously. A cigarette smoldered in her right hand.

  “Qué?”

  Steve showed her the envelope just long enough for her to read the name and address.

  “I have a check for Mansur Amir Khan. Does he still live here?”

  A thin arm darted through the opening like a striking cobra. Steve barely kept her from snatching the envelope.

  “The check is mine!” she said. She unleashed an agitated burst of Spanish.

  “Does Mansur still live here?” Steve asked again.

  “Who are you?” she asked in English. Same question as at Taco Rojo. Same narrowed eyes and tilted head.

  “Unless I see Mansur, I can’t leave this.”

  She switched back to Spanish and pulled a cell phone from the pocket of her robe. Another trip wire, another alarm.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Cole whispered. Steve nodded, and they took the stairs two at a time, pursued by shouts all the way to the ground floor, where an arriving tenant stood by an open mailbox.

  “She’s nuts,” he said, circling a finger by his ear.

  “You got that right.” They brushed past him toward the door.

  “Did I hear you say you were looking for Mansur?”

  Steve turned in the open doorway. The guy was mid-twenties, T-shirt and jeans, a white hard hat tucked under his right arm.

  “We’ve got a check for him,” Cole said. Steve showed the envelope. “She wanted us to leave it with her, but, well, like you said. Nuts.”

  “Never knew why he put up with her. Screaming, taking his money. I saw him over on Broadway a few days ago.” He shook his head. “Clueless as ever.”

  “Mansur?” Steve said. “Where?”

  “One of those Latino bodegas, buying a candy bar. Almost jumped out of his skin when I called his name. Like somebody was after him. Of course, maybe somebody was.” He nodded upstairs, where the woman was still muttering on the landing. Then he paused, as if he’d already said too much, and eyed them with renewed scrutiny.

  “Maybe you could find a way to get this check to him?” Cole said, hoping to establish some trust. The man’s expression softened.

  “No need. He’s living on Pickard now, not far from here. Being Mansur, he didn’t remember the address—you know how he is, and his English still sucks. But he said you couldn’t miss it. Called it the tall house, whatever that means.”

  “Pickard?”

  “Right off Fayette.”

  “Thanks,” Steve said. “The tall house?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  The woman upstairs was still making noise, speaking into her phone now. Her enforcers might be only minutes from arrival. Steve and Cole shoved through the door and ran toward the Honda.

  Pickard was less than a mile away, and even drearier than Gough. It ended at Fayette, which made hunting for Mansur’s house easier. It was immediately apparent what he must have meant by “the tall house.” Just down the block was a three-story row house that towered over its two-story neighbors.

  Steve parked at a metered spot on Fayette that offered a view of the front door around the corner. It was almost ten. He got on his cell phone. Cole heard Barb pick up.

  “We’re outside what we think is Mansur’s ne
w address. We’ve already raised alarms at two other locations, so we’ll probably sit tight awhile.” He looked questioningly at Cole, who nodded in approval. “Anyhow, this could take some time, so don’t wait up for us.”

  “We’ll leave a light on,” Barb said. “Call if you need reinforcements. Where are you, exactly?”

  “Pickard Street, at East Fayette.”

  “Quaint digs in a salubrious location. If you’re not back by sundown I’ll alert the desk sergeant for the Eastern district. Don’t step on any needles.”

  They decided to stake out the house until midnight. If no one came or went by then, they’d return in the morning. They were both a little puzzled by the tenant’s description of Mansur. Cole had expected to find a rough-and-ready tribal type, not easily intimidated. He instead sounded like an object of pity. Bickell had implied Mansur wasn’t exactly a bright light. So had this guy. Maybe here he was at an even greater disadvantage. But hadn’t he brought his family with him? That’s certainly what Bickell had implied.

  Steve and Cole had little to keep them busy, and almost no one was out on the sidewalks in the bitter cold. By ten thirty they were stamping their feet to stay warm and wishing they had coffee.

  “You do a lot of this kind of stuff?” Cole asked.

  “Stakeouts? Almost never. Last time was years ago, down in Arnold, waiting to see if a governor would show up at his mistress’s apartment. Which, come to think of it, was also the last time I went through anybody’s garbage.”

  “Find anything?”

  “The gov was a no-show. But there were some pretty good credit card receipts. That was the story that was supposed to get me a foreign bureau. Barb got it instead.”

  “Hard feelings?”

  He shook his head.

  “I was slated for the next opening. Then they closed all the bureaus, hers included. All those jobs are gone now. Newspapers. Equal opportunity unemployers.”

  “So that would’ve been you instead of her with those two kids, getting brains all over your shoes?”

  “Yeah, there’s that, too. Barb doesn’t always sleep so well.”

  “Firsthand knowledge?”

  Steve smiled and shook his head.

  “Our lives are already too complicated. But you’ve seen the house. Not much happens that the other two don’t know about. Barb can get pretty restless late at night, moving around in the dark. Her and the cat. So what about you? No stakeouts in your Infowar training?”

  “Not much call for that in a fighter wing.”

  “I never did ask what your fake name was. The one on your ID?”

  “Oh.” He smiled. “Floyd Rayford.”

  “Wasn’t he—?”

  “Orioles third baseman, back in the eighties. Four errors in one game, but I liked him. Sugar Bear. Had some pop in his bat.”

  “The Wally Pipp of the Orioles. Ripken replaced him at third in game two of a doubleheader. That’s when the Ironman streak started.”

  “You’re shittin’ me. How did I not know that?”

  “How’d I not know you’re an O’s fan?”

  “Listened to ’em on the radio when I was a kid. Virginia Eastern Shore is O’s country. Or used to be. So when I was thinking up a name I figured why not?”

  “Hey, what’s this?”

  A black SUV was pulling up in front of the house, brake lights shining. It was shortly after eleven. Two men in dark warm-ups hopped out from either side and scanned the block in both directions while Cole and Steve slid down in their seats. The man on the right opened a rear passenger door and hauled out a much shorter fellow in light clothing. Cole was reminded of Bickell’s description of Mansur as a “little shit Pashtun.”

  “Think it’s him?” he asked.

  “If so, not exactly a happy homecoming.”

  The two big fellows escorted the smaller one toward the house. If this was an FBI operation, activated by the alarms they’d tripped, Cole doubted they’d be delivering Mansur back so soon, if at all. These men were acting more like jailers than protectors, with hands clamped on either arm. Hardly the sort of arrangement you’d have expected Mansur to cook up for himself.

  “He must have some freedom of movement if he’s got his own apartment,” Steve said. “I mean, if he’s hanging out at some bodega when that other guy saw him. Maybe they just keep him on a short leash.”

  “Well, they’re yanking it tight now.”

  The three men disappeared into the house while the SUV idled out front. Ten minutes later the big guys returned, doors slamming. The SUV made a U-turn back toward Fayette, Steve and Cole sinking below the dashboard as the headlights swept the Honda. They popped up just in time to see it flash past them toward downtown. A GMC Yukon Denali, Maryland tags. Steve wrote down the numbers and phoned Barb.

  “Got a tag for you to run with your guy at DMV.” He read her the number. “We may be a while longer, but I’m shutting down the phone for now. We’re gonna do some poking around.”

  “Be careful.”

  “You bet.” He switched off the phone and turned to Cole. “Let’s go see Mansur. Only this time, not through the front door.”

  They walked up the alley behind Pickard toward the back of the house, where a fire escape stairway was bolted to the bricks. To foil burglars, the iron ladder hanging from the bottom was folded up just out of reach, held in place by a counterweight on a steel cable. Steve and Cole jumped for the lower rung but came up short. Steve got an aluminum garbage can from next door and rolled it into position beneath the ladder. He climbed shakily atop it and steadied for a leap. A dog began barking from a fenced lot across the alley. If Steve missed, the racket would be even worse. Cole readied himself to act as spotter.

  Steve’s first try was awkward, and if not for Cole he would have landed in a heap. The barking dog was in a frenzy now.

  “Christ, what am I thinking,” Steve said. “You’re the fucking pole vaulter, right?”

  “In high school, but yeah.”

  They traded places. Cole crouched carefully and pushed off, achieving just enough lift to grab the lowest rung with both hands. It was rough with rust, and for a moment he dangled like a trapeze artist while the can rattled back into place. The dog was still going nuts, and a light flashed on in one of the opposite windows just as the ladder began easing lower from the weight of his body. As soon as his feet touched the ground he started climbing. Steve followed him up, and they quickly reached the latticed platform outside the second-floor windows.

  No lights were on. They paused to wait for the dog to quiet down, which took another five minutes. By then the light had gone back out in the window of the house across the alley. There were no curtains in either second-floor window of Mansur’s house, and both were dark. A streetlamp at the end of the alley offered just enough light for them to see that the rooms were empty and unfurnished. They crept slowly up to the top floor, where a window spilled light between the crumpled slats of an aluminum blind. They heard a voice from inside, a woman speaking Spanish. Cole moved close enough to peek through a slit and saw her facing into a dingy room from an open doorway. Like Consuelo Reyes, she, too, was shouting angrily, gesturing emphatically with her right hand. Crouching lower, Cole now saw that she was speaking to a man seated on a narrow bed against the far wall. He was short and sallow, with a scanty beard and the weathered, old-before-his-time look of a tribal Pashtun, although instead of a billowy shalwar kameez he wore baggy jeans and a white T-shirt. It had to be Mansur. He looked cowed, submissive, and when he opened his mouth, his voice was so meek and muffled that Cole couldn’t even make out what language he was speaking.

  The woman left, shutting the door behind her. A lock snapped with a click. Mansur rose to turn out the light. His footsteps approached the darkened window, so Cole shrank out of sight, bumping into Steve, who steadied them on the landing. Then, in a stroke of luck, Mansur shoved aside the blinds and unlocked the window. The lower sash groaned as it rose an inch or two. He slid a shoe into the op
ening to keep the window from shutting, its scuffed leather toe poking into the frigid night. The old blinds settled back into place with a noise like a Slinky, and they heard Mansur’s receding footsteps. There was a creak of bedsprings, then silence.

  Steve checked his watch: 11:24. They whispered in consultation, and decided to wait another twenty minutes to give Mansur time to fall asleep. They settled their rumps onto the cold steel slats, hoping no one was looking out from the back of any houses across the alley. Even in the darkness they probably showed up like a pair of giant spiders.

  When the twenty minutes were up, Cole stood quietly and tugged at the sash. It was stiff and swollen from years of repainting, so he pulled harder, knees bent. When the window finally came free it shrieked loudly.

  They paused to listen for any signs they’d awakened Mansur. His breathing was slow, regular, so Cole pulled aside the blinds and slid feetfirst into the room while holding back the blinds for Steve, who also dropped quietly to the floor. No wonder Mansur had opened it. An old steam radiator hissed in a corner, and the heat was stifling.

  As Cole lowered the blinds back into place they came free from their wobbly brackets and clattered loudly to the floor. Mansur sat up in alarm as Steve crossed the room in two big steps to clamp a hand on the small man’s mouth just as he was about to shout. Mansur thrashed and squirmed as Cole grabbed him from the other side. The little man felt brittle, his bones like sticks you could snap with your hands, and his eyes were wild with fear. Cole whispered into his ear.

  “We are here to help you, Mansur.” Then he took a gamble. “We are here about your family.”

  Mansur relaxed only slightly, but Cole was heartened enough to ease his grip. When Mansur didn’t try to break free he took it as a sign of progress and nodded to Steve, who gently let go.

  Cole whispered again. “I am going to take my hand off your mouth, but do not cry out. Do not call for anyone. Do you understand?”

  Mansur nodded, his eyes still wide.

  Cole let go. Mansur sagged in apparent relief. When he finally spoke, his voice was a soft rasp.