Killer Reads: A Collection of the Best in Inspirational Suspense

by Luana Ehrlich

  “I hope I received a substantial raise along with my promotion,” I said.

  April laughed at my attempt at humor, but Kellerman just rolled on with his presentation, barely missing a beat.

  “Paul Franklin has worked as a consultant for the think tank before, so he’s agreed to have you as a collaborator for his book. Of course, he believes your only employment is with CIS as a Middle East expert.”

  “Of, course,” I replied. “What’s his background?”

  “Previously, he was in the diplomatic corps, but he’s been in academia for several years now. He no longer has any security clearance, but that shouldn’t be a problem for you with your present status.”

  While I cringed at Kellerman’s observation, it was nevertheless true. Franklin’s security clearance would not be a problem for me because I would not be dealing with sensitive intelligence for the next year.

  “Our next topic is Medical,” Kellerman said, giving the helm back over to April.

  “Because you’re on medical leave,” April said, “you’re expected to fulfill certain requirements.” She flashed a list on the screen. “As soon as you arrive in Norman, you should choose one of these facilities, where you can continue your physical therapy. This list, along with a medical insurance card, is included in your Kit.”

  Kellerman ended the presentation by projecting the word Lifestyle on the screen. This section described what kind of activities would be appropriate for me while living in Norman.

  “You're in Norman to collaborate with Paul Franklin on a book, so you’ll need to meet with him several times during the year. His contact information is in your Kit, along with an Agency encrypted laptop computer. We’ve downloaded the first draft of his book onto your computer. Someone from our division will be writing the sections of the book for which you will be responsible, or, if you like, you can do the writing yourself.”

  Well, that wasn't going to happen. I hated writing.

  “In addition, of course, you’ll be spending some time each week in rehab. As for the rest of your time, try pursuing activities which reflect a scholarly lifestyle—visiting libraries, museums, those sorts of things.”

  “The shooting range?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Is it okay if I go to the shooting range?” I asked. “Does a scholarly Senior Fellow do that?”

  My question brought a smile to his face. “Uh . . . probably not,” he said, “but we’ve got you covered on that too. One of the reasons we chose this location was because Mr. Carlton mentioned you might want a practice range.” He returned to the slide of my new residence. “Ortega’s place is not in the city limits of Norman, so it’s perfectly legal for you to set up a range right here on the property.”

  He gestured toward the screen. “Speaking of the property, part of your lifestyle will be maintaining Professor Ortega’s land. This was included in the real estate agreement. There’s a tractor for mowing, equipment for tree trimming, and everything else you might need to keep up this amount of acreage. The machinery is located in the barn you see here.” Using a laser beam on the remote mouse, he circled a large red barn.

  Well, that wasn’t going to happen. I hated mowing.

  “So, Titus, this concludes The Outline.” He turned off the projector and closed the lid on his computer. “Any questions?”

  “You’ve covered everything, Josh. Another excellent presentation.”

  His face broke into a big smile at my compliment, and then he moved over to the credenza at the far end of the room and retrieved my Kit.

  After placing all the items making up my Kit in front of me, Kellerman proceeded to go over each of them again, as if I hadn’t been listening to anything he’d said. Since I was anxious to get on the road, I just nodded my head and kept my mouth shut.

  Finally, he got to the end.

  “The last two items are gifts from Mr. Carlton,” he said, handing me the latest Thuraya encrypted satellite phone. “As I’m sure you already know, the encryption technology on this phone will prevent any of your calls from being intercepted, and you should always use it when connecting with any personnel at the Agency.”

  Then, placing an aluminum rifle case on the table, he said, “Mr. Carlton also wanted you to have these.”

  He snapped opened the latches, and I looked inside. Two rifles were nestled snugly into internal dividers, one alongside the other.

  I smiled.

  Now, along with the guns I’d retrieved from my personal storage unit, I felt totally prepared to write a scholarly book on the Middle East.

  After packing up my few remaining items, I spent a few minutes saying goodbye to the staff, complimenting Martha on her cooking and sharing a few laughs with Greg. Finally, I went out to the garage and tossed my luggage in the back of the Range Rover. However, seconds after saying goodbye, Greg appeared at the garage door.

  “This just arrived for you.” he said, handing me a messenger envelope with Agency markings on it.

  “Who sent it?”

  “I don’t know. The guy just delivered it to the door as if you were expecting it.”

  “I wasn’t expecting anything,” I said, turning the thin envelope over in my hand, “and I never open anonymous packages.”

  There was an anxious note in his voice. “Perhaps we should let Jim take a look at it.”

  “First, tell me about the messenger.”

  “Uh . . .” He chewed on a fingernail as he thought for a moment. “He wasn’t the usual messenger from the DDO’s office. I know that for sure.”

  “Has he ever delivered anything here before?”

  Greg’s reaction was immediate. “Yes, I remember him now. He’s from Tony Fowler’s division, Nuclear Security.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  I threw the envelope in the front seat and said goodbye to Greg for the second time.

  Then I drove away from the mansion on a hill.

  When I pulled into an Exxon station to gas up the SUV before hitting the interstate, I opened the envelope.

  Nothing exploded.

  However, the contents inside the envelope definitely made my heart beat faster.

  Tony Fowler had put together some raw intelligence from an asset being run by one of his operatives inside of Iran. The asset was a member of Hezbollah, the militant extremist organization responsible for Iranian terrorist operations outside their country.

  The asset reported a conversation he had overhead between two of Hezbollah’s top leaders regarding an American spy who had managed to escape the hands of VEVAK. According to the asset, one Hezbollah militant had told the other this American spy had recently returned to the States.

  In the silence of the car’s interior, I translated the last line of the Arabic conversation out loud.

  “But don’t worry. Ahmed will discover his location in America and kill him.”

  My voice sounded deafening.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 10

  After entering the address for the Ortega rental property in my dashboard GPS, I left the gas station and merged onto I-495.

  When I had mapped out my route earlier in the day, I had decided to travel north first and then turn south toward Oklahoma. Although the northern route was slightly longer than the southern one, I told myself it might be nice to see some of America’s flyover states at ground level for the first time.

  Or maybe—on an unconscious level—I had decided to take the longer route because I wasn’t in a hurry to arrive in Norman.

  Once I was cruising along the interstate, I thought about Fowler and the intel he’d sent me. By allowing me to have access to a raw field report, it seemed obvious he was trying to make up for all the trouble he’d caused me with Amir Madani.

  After being reprimanded by the DDO, I was pretty sure Fowler was going to enter the new data into the system immediately, but I had to assume he’d sent the intel over to me first because he knew by the time the asset’s produc
t was processed and analyzed by Katherine’s office, the Hezbollah hit man might have already found me.

  Regrettably, this had actually happened to an experienced operative who had just returned from Bulgaria. He’d been killed outside his apartment in Bethesda, Maryland, even though there had been enough information available to prevent it from happening. The Agency had streamlined its data processing since that incident, but still, the wheels on the mammoth machine tended to move slowly.

  After tuning in some country and western music on my satellite radio—putting myself in the mood for where I was headed—I checked my rearview mirror.

  I spotted the red van immediately. I’d noticed it earlier at the gas station and now it was two cars behind me. I slowed down and changed lanes.

  The van did the same.

  Perhaps I should have been worried, but I wasn’t. For one thing, a veteran operative would know that using a red vehicle to follow someone was a sure way to get noticed. Secondly, the van was following me too closely, just two cars behind. So if Ahmed the Assassin was driving the red van, he had sloppy tradecraft. That meant he was probably sloppy in other areas too.

  About thirty miles later, I merged onto I-70 for the trip across West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana. My objective was to reach Indianapolis by midnight.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what the van’s objective might be.

  Three hours went by, and I needed to take a break, get something to eat, and make a decision.

  Not surprisingly, when I pulled into a truck stop, Mr. Red Van followed me. However, when I parked near the restaurant, he went to the other side of the parking lot near the fuel pumps.

  Sloppy. A target should never be out of the surveillance vehicle’s sightline, especially in a parking lot.

  That error made my decision for me.

  I got out of the SUV, went through the lobby of the restaurant, and exited out a side door. Then I quickly walked over to the red van and knocked on the window.

  It took a second, but the glass was finally lowered.

  I stared into the astonished faces of two young Caucasian guys.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “We’re . . . ah . . .”

  I was already opening the van’s door when I spotted an identification lanyard inside the cup holder between the two front seats. I grabbed it, and my suspicions were fully confirmed.

  “Which one of you is John?”

  “That’s . . . me,” the driver admitted.

  “Well, John, give me your keys. Then you and your buddy go inside and get a table for us at the back. I’ll be right in.”

  They headed for the restaurant without question.

  I hollered after them, “Order me a large lemonade and a burger.”

  I leaned against the side of the van and punched in some numbers on my new Agency satphone.

  As soon as it was answered, I asked. “Did you really believe I wasn’t going to spot them?

  “How did you get my private cell number?” Carlton asked, but he didn’t sound too surprised to hear from me.

  I ignored the question.

  “They’re fresh off the farm, aren’t they? I mean The Farm.” I said, emphasizing the last words so he would know I meant the Agency’s training facility.

  He sighed. “Yeah, they’re some of Ted Cornell’s new recruits at Camp Peary. He agreed to loan them out for a surveillance exercise. They were bad, huh?”

  “Totally incompetent.”

  “I wanted someone to watch your back as you left the area,” he said, “but I couldn’t get my request through the proper channels before you left town, so I called Ted.”

  “Make sure he fails these two guys on surveillance tactics. Better yet, have him send them over to Interrogation. The instructors over there had a way of making me refocus.”

  “He’ll get them straightened out.”

  “What made you think I needed an escort? Did you get access to some new intel?”

  “Yes. This morning NSA reported the chatter coming out of Iran indicated VEVAK has hired a jihadist assassin. It’s obvious they’re fully determined to eliminate you for murdering two of their own.”

  “Did they identify this person?”

  “Only that he’s affiliated with Hezbollah.”

  “No name?”

  “Nothing of that nature.”

  I decided not to mention Tony Fowler’s raw field report about Ahmed, mainly because I didn’t want to get Fowler in more hot water with the DDO, and also because I knew Carlton would be getting Fowler’s information soon enough.

  “Well, Douglas, I’m almost to Ohio, and as far as I can tell, except for a couple of greenhorns tailing me, I’m squeaky clean.”

  “Now that you’ve left this area, I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  He didn’t sound very confident.

  Then, he added, “I’ll plan to stay in touch and keep you informed as events warrant.”

  “Is that allowed?”

  A full medical leave usually meant limited contact with the Agency, especially Clandestine Operations.

  “Your security protocol covers these circumstances,” he said. “Just because I don’t plan to see you for awhile, doesn’t mean we can’t communicate with each other.”

  That was good news to me, but I didn’t want him to know that.

  “Tell Ted to be on the lookout for his boys. I’m sending them home now.”

  “Don’t be too hard on them.”

  After I finished the call, I went back inside the restaurant and found the two trainees. They seemed thoroughly humiliated at first, but when I shared with them my own abysmal failures in training, I thought they warmed up to me. Maybe not, but at least they enthusiastically waved goodbye when I drove off.

  I pulled into Indianapolis around midnight.

  The next morning, after enjoying the complimentary breakfast at the hotel, I took a walk around the hotel’s parking lot. I did this for a couple of reasons. First, I needed to work out the kinks in my injured leg after the previous day’s long drive, and, secondly, I wanted to check out the vehicles in the parking lot.

  There were three obvious rental vehicles, and I memorized their make and model in case I saw them on the road later in the day; however, all the rest appeared to be business or family cars. The last thing I did was run my security check on the Range Rover.

  I did it twice.

  Finally, I threw my stuff in the rear and heading south on I-70 toward Oklahoma.

  It was a beautiful spring day in late April, and as I drove along, I found myself starting to relax. Of course, Carlton was right; I needed this medical leave. I was looking forward to doing some reading, studying the stars through my old telescope—I had grabbed it out of my storage unit—and even honing my cooking skills.

  I switched the radio on and listened to the news. There were several reports on the President’s latest political upheavals, and Israel’s prime minister was warning the world about Iran’s nuclear ambitions—again.

  The only news coming out of Iran was good news, and, for a brief moment, I wished I were in Tehran to share it with Javad and Darya. Fox News was reporting that after three years in prison, Youcef, their pastor, had finally been released from confinement.

  Pastor Youcef had been imprisoned and tortured on numerous occasions because he had adamantly refused to recant his Christian beliefs. According to Javad, Pastor Youcef had told the authorities he would willingly give his life for his faith.

  Would I give my life for my new faith?

  I turned off the radio and thought about that question.

  I knew I would give my life for my country. That was a given. In my career, I’d often found myself in perilous situations where dying was a real possibility. However, during those times, my motivation for pressing on had been the security of America and the upholding of my own patriotic ideals.

  Now, I wondered if I was as committed to Christianity as I was to my country. Would I really choose to die rather than disavo
w my beliefs?

  It was hard for me to admit it, but I just didn’t know the answer to that question. For one thing, I didn’t fully understand what being a believer meant.

  I had no doubt Javad could have defined it for me, but it wasn’t as if I could pick up the phone and have that conversation. However, I knew what Javad would do if we were able to have such a conversation. He would open up his Bible and explain his answers from the words he read there.

  I thought about that as I entered the outskirts of St. Louis.

  Right then, while maneuvering through heavy traffic, I decided I needed to start reading the Bible for myself. It might be the only means of knowing God and the way to know if I had the kind of faith exhibited by Youcef, a faith I would not recant, even in the face of death.

  I decided to tell God about my decision. “I don’t know if you’re interested in vows, God,” I said out loud, “but Javad said I should start reading what you said to me. So right now, I’m making a vow to you,” I paused in my prayer and gazed off at the Gateway Arch on my right. “As this arch is my witness, every day I will read something from the Bible.”

  I never regretted making that vow. Not even once.

  CHAPTER 11

  I arrived in Oklahoma City around eight o’clock in the evening. However, I decided it was too late in the day to pick up the key to the Ortega property from the realtor who was in Norman, thirty minutes away, so I drove to the south side of the city and looked around for a motel. After spotting a Comfort Inn, I got off the expressway and spent the night there, saving my arrival in Norman for the following day.

  Before drifting off to sleep, though, I remembered my Gateway Arch Vow and looked around the room for a Bible.

  I knew most motels provided Bibles for their guests because I had slipped into a hotel in Miami once and replaced one room’s Bible with a different version of the Scriptures. Although the Bible I had placed in the nightstand looked exactly like the hotel’s Bible on the outside, the Agency’s tech division had equipped the new one with a special camera, enabling my asset—who was to occupy the room later in the evening—to take miniaturized photographs of some highly classified documents when he returned to his own country.