Killer Reads: A Collection of the Best in Inspirational Suspense

by Luana Ehrlich

  It was a simple exchange of information about the time the woman wanted to be picked up, and the man assured her—adding a common Farsi word of romantic endearment—he’d be there to pick her up on time.

  If I’d been in Tehran, I wouldn’t have given the incident a second thought. However, I wasn’t in Tehran, and hearing the Persian language again caused my synapses to fire.

  As the man drove off, I watched the woman go through an unmarked door at the far end of the building. I entered the church through the lobby at the opposite end and quickly located the Connections desk, where an elderly woman gave me directions to the ESL classroom. Then I took an incredibly slow elevator up to the second floor.

  When I arrived in the ESL classroom, the Farsi-speaking woman was already seated in a circle of about twenty men and women from various countries. They were practicing English vowel sounds. This was an exercise directed by a short, stocky, gray-haired man, who swung his arms up and down—much like a conductor leading an orchestra—while the students shouted out the sounds. The effect was comical, but they all seemed to be enjoying themselves.

  A tall woman with straight blond hair and sharp, narrow features detached herself from the group.

  “Are you Titus?” she asked.

  “Yes. You must be Susan.”

  “I am. We’re really glad you’re here. Let me introduce you to everyone.”

  She stopped the exercise and introduced her husband, Tucker, who had been leading the vowel musical. Then, after she pulled a chair into the circle for me, she went around the room and instructed each student to give me their name, the country they were from, what language they spoke, and whether they were married or single.

  It didn’t take me long to figure out she was using my presence to conduct a quick English learning exercise for the group. However, by listening to their responses, I was able to determine there were two Japanese, three Koreans, five South Americans, two Mexicans, one Nigerian, and one Iraqi in the ESL class.

  There were no Iranians in the group.

  The woman in the Honda Civic, who had been speaking Farsi, said her name was Farah Karimi. After introducing herself, she said she was from Iraq, spoke Arabic, and was married.

  I was mystified by her apparent deception, but after analyzing all the circumstances surrounding my spontaneously joining the ESL group, I quickly determined her presence in the class had to be a coincidence. I couldn’t find any reason to believe she posed a danger to me.

  However, I remained wary.

  After about forty-five minutes, Susan announced it was time for a break, so the students scattered to the restrooms and to a room adjacent to the classroom, where there were several round tables, a coffee machine, and a couple of vending machines. Not surprisingly, some of the men and women separated into their different language groups, while others tried to carry on conversations with each other in broken English.

  I grabbed a cup of coffee and positioned myself near a table where Farah Karimi was speaking to a group of women. As she spoke her slow, basic English, I thought I detected a definite Farsi accent to her English sentences. I learned nothing more about her, however.

  Wanting to familiarize myself with the church’s floor plan, I also took a quick tour of the rest of the building. My surveillance probably wasn’t necessary, but I did it anyway. Except for the church offices, I found most of the building deserted.

  When the students returned for the second session, they were split into several small groups, and I was put in charge of one of the groups. My responsibility consisted of listening to their grammar as they spoke to each other in English. If they made mistakes, I corrected them.

  Before the class was dismissed, the other volunteer, Patty, asked how many in the group had smart phones. Nearly every hand was raised. She went on to suggest they download some word game applications and use them to help build their vocabulary.

  My ears perked up when she concluded her announcement by saying, “I want to thank Farah Karimi for this helpful suggestion.”

  Using this as an excuse, I approached Farah the moment the class ended. Holding up my iPhone, I asked, “Could you show me the games you like to play?”

  At first, she appeared puzzled by my question. Then, the words seemed to register with her, and she eagerly took my phone and started searching for the games.

  As she concentrated on finding the games, I studied her features. She was a classic Persian beauty with high cheekbones and an oval-shaped face dominated by large, heavily made-up eyes. Her thick, black hair cascaded down her shoulders. Earlier, I’d seen her twirling a strand of curls nervously around her finger whenever she’d been required to speak to the class.

  “This one,” she said, turning my phone around and pointing to a Words with Friends application.

  I nodded at her.

  She also found another game called The Whirly Word.

  “This one good too,” she said.

  I took back my phone.

  “I’m sure you’d beat me in both of those games,” I said with a smile.

  “I no good but try hard.”

  Farah had obviously not learned all the rules of English grammar yet. However, she had just taught me something.

  While reaching for my iPhone, the cuff of her long-sleeved blouse had pulled away from her arm to reveal a tattoo on the inside of her right wrist. The design was a small cross, and it was very similar to one I’d seen on Darya’s wrist at the safe house in Tehran.

  When I’d asked Darya about the tattoo, she said Iranian Christian women wore these cross tattoos to show their solidarity with other persecuted Christian women around the world.

  My schedule for the next two weeks didn’t fluctuate much. I went to church on Sunday, did my rehab on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and helped with the ESL classes on Tuesday and Thursday. In between those times, Stormy and I explored Ortega’s property.

  Strangely enough, I felt content, and for the first time in many years, the Agency was only a very small blip on my radar—if it showed up at all.

  However, all that changed on Friday night.

  After two weeks of volunteering in the ESL class, I was invited to a potluck dinner for the students and their spouses in the church’s fellowship hall. When Susan told me about the event, she mentioned the dinner would be a wonderful time to meet the spouses of the students I was helping.

  All I really cared about was meeting one spouse—Farah’s husband.

  The fact that I hadn’t been able to discover why Farah was hiding her Iranian roots made me eager to make the acquaintance of her husband. If the opportunity presented itself, I would ask him a few probing questions. If not, I would make the opportunity happen.

  On Friday night, I made a big pot of chili and brought it to the dinner. After placing it on a long table filled with a smorgasbord of dishes from around the world, Tucker grabbed me by the arm and began introducing me to the guests.

  As we went from group to group, he mentioned several of their students were running late. It didn’t surprise me when I learned Farah was one of them.

  She was seldom on time for class either.

  Farah’s lack of punctuality was something I’d observed on the first day when I’d seen her using a different door than the one used by most ESL students. Later, I found out she wasn’t using the lobby entrance so she could avoid taking the church’s slow elevator. In order to save time, she was taking a short cut—going up the back stairs at the opposite end of the building from the lobby.

  Twenty minutes after Tucker asked a blessing on the potluck meal, Farah and her husband finally arrived at the dinner. After Farah added her dish to the others, she and her husband sat down at a round table with some of the Asian couples.

  I watched Farah, who exhibited an extrovert’s personality, immediately begin engaging her seatmates in conversation. However, Farah’s husband appeared detached, even withdrawn, from the chatter going on around him.

  The meal was beginning to wind d
own before I made my way over to the table where they were seated. When Farah saw me, she tried practicing her rules of social introduction.

  “Titus, this is my husband, Bashir,” she said slowly. “Bashir, this is my friend, Titus.”

  In spite of his solemn countenance, Bashir Karimi was a strikingly handsome man with a well-groomed beard and dark, thick eyebrows. He immediately rose from his chair and shook hands with me. Then he gestured toward an empty chair and invited me to sit down with them.

  After a few minutes of conversation with Farah about the ESL class, I asked Bashir, “Are you a student at OU?”

  “Yes, I’m working on a degree in electrical engineering.”

  “Where did you learn to speak such good English?”

  “In Iraq.”

  “I served in Iraq during the second Gulf war.”

  Bashir glanced over at his wife. “My wife said you were a writer.”

  His tone implied one of us had lied to him about my profession. I tried to assure him his wife wasn’t the liar.

  “She’s correct. I’m out of the military now and writing a book on the Middle East. Since you’re from that area, it would be interesting to have your input on the issues in that part of the world.”

  “Of course,” he said. Then in a dismissive tone he added, “But I don’t really follow the politics in my country anymore.”

  “Did you serve in the military in Iraq?”

  “No, I was never in the military,” he answered quickly.

  Bashir’s phone was resting on the table between us, and as I started to ask him another question, it beeped a couple of times and a message flashed across the screen.

  “Excuse me,” he said, snatching the phone from the table, “I must take care of this call.”

  He nodded at Farah and hurriedly made his way out of the room.

  If Bashir hadn’t just told me he was never in the military, the way he carried himself when he walked away from the table would have made me think otherwise. In fact, I would have guessed he had undergone extensive military training simply because of his authoritative tone and brusque manner.

  Since the dinner was winding down by the time Bashir returned to the table, I didn’t have a chance to resume my conversation with him. However, on my way home, I started thinking about his phone call, the one he had taken which cut short our brief time together.

  In reality, Bashir had not received a phone call. The message flashing across his phone’s screen had been a game notification from Words with Friends, the word game Farah had shown me the first day I’d attended the ESL class.

  So why would Bashir pretend the game notification was a phone call? Was he simply using the game as an excuse to leave the table? Were my questions making him uncomfortable?

  I also thought about the apparent inconsistencies in their background stories. Why was Bashir hiding his military service? Why were they both denying their Persian roots?

  Maybe there was a simple explanation for their actions, but I still continued to feel uneasy about Bashir and Farah Karimi, and yet again, I wondered if their presence in Norman had anything to do with me.

  However, once I entered my house and checked my email, I didn’t give either one of them another thought—at least for the next forty-eight hours.

  CHAPTER 16

  As soon as I got home, I opened my email and saw a red box flashing. I immediately clicked on it.

  It was from Simon Wassermann, another Middle Eastern operative. The two of us had been through a difficult patch many years ago, and we’d come out on the other side as pretty good friends. However, it was unusual for me to have an encrypted operative-to-operative email from him unless a joint operation was in progress.

  The message was brief: “In Chicago. Urgent we meet. Where are you? Grandma sends her love.”

  Even though the email had been written more than an hour ago, I didn't respond to it immediately.

  But, I had no doubt it was from Wassermann.

  Once, during an arms deal, we had posed as brothers, and we’d used the “Grandma” phrase as one of our codes. However, I hadn't survived in this business without using extreme caution, so I took a few minutes to work out what I wanted to do.

  In case he’d been compromised in some way, I decided not to tell him where I was living. Instead, I chose to tell him I was a couple of hours away.

  I wrote back: “In Dallas. Airport Hilton. Any time after midnight. Figure on it. Grandma loves me more.”

  He responded within a couple of minutes: “See you in Big D.”

  For a few brief moments, I considered contacting Carlton, but I decided if Wassermann had wanted to bring our Operations Officer into the “urgent we meet” scene, he would have done so already.

  I immediately put food and water out for Stormy, grabbed a couple of guns and some extra ammo, and headed for the garage. However, before driving away, I went back inside for my “go” bag. It contained everything I would need—clothes, passport, cash, and credit cards—in case I had to get out of the country quickly.

  However, I was optimistic, and, when I left the house, I told Stormy I'd see him in a few hours. Then, I hit the interstate and headed south to Dallas and Simon Wassermann.

  Wassermann and I had worked together several times during my career. The first time had been during my early years with the Agency when our assignment had been the surveillance of a suspected Russian agent in Mexico City.

  During those endless hours of keeping the Russian under surveillance, Wassermann had maintained a steady stream of stories about how his grandparents had suffered under the Soviet’s authoritarian regime before making their escape to America.

  After watching the Russian for a week, I noticed the man was really getting under Wassermann’s skin. To make matters worse, I was beginning to have a bad feeling about the entire operation. However, because I didn’t have enough experience to pay attention to my instincts back then, I brushed aside my sense of foreboding and continued the surveillance.

  One night, about three weeks into the operation, we observed the Russian bringing a young girl into his apartment. A few minutes later, he began punching her in the stomach with his fists, and, after she fell to the floor, kicking her in the face repeatedly with his boots.

  Suddenly, before I had a chance to stop him, Simon pulled out his gun and raced out of our apartment and across the street. I immediately ran after him. However, by the time I arrived at the Russian’s apartment, Wassermann had already burst through the door and shot him.

  Although I expressed disapproval for his rash behavior, at the same time, I assured Wassermann I had his back with the Agency. Thus, by the time the two of us were called back to Langley to give an account of the Russian’s demise, we had come up with a credible tale for our debriefers.

  Our story involved squabbling generals in the Russian embassy.

  We spun it flawlessly.

  Since then, Wassermann and I had worked together several other times, but neither of us had ever mentioned the Russian again.

  Wassermann was about my age and build, and we resembled one another closely enough to have passed ourselves off as brothers—Raul and Ramon Figueroa—when we were sent into Syria to flush out a very rich and troublesome arms dealer about ten years ago. Everything went wrong on that mission, and to top it off, the Syrian was killed—though not by our hand.

  I’d always suspected Mossad had done the deed, but I had no real proof of that.

  Simon Wassermann was Jewish, and, at times, I’d heard some Agency people question whether his loyalties were with the U.S. or with Israel. I'd never done so. To me, he had always demonstrated an unshakable allegiance to America.

  However, I knew he had access—through a back channel—into Mossad. I wasn’t bothered by that. In fact, in Syria, his connections had gotten us out of a perilous situation.

  Now, Wassermann wanted an urgent off-the-books meet with me.

  Maybe it was just to pay back the money he owed me on
a bet we’d made during our last assignment together, but, if so, why all the secrecy?

  Since Wassermann had been running assets in Syria for the past year or so, I wondered if our meeting had anything to do with the Hezbollah hit man VEVAK had sent to kill me. But if that was the case, then why not bring Carlton into the picture?

  I had reached the outskirts of Dallas, so I’d know soon enough.

  While monitoring the cars behind me, I got off I-35 and headed for a large mall in Grapevine, Texas near the Airport Hilton. Then, I employed one last counter surveillance tactic by using the mall’s outer access roads. Finally, I decided I wasn’t being followed and pulled into the hotel’s parking lot.

  I scanned the area carefully, because if Wassermann had been compromised, it was possible the opposition had already set up watchers at the Airport Hilton. Seeing nothing suspicious, I breathed a sigh of relief and got out of the Range Rover.

  The wind was blowing at a steady clip as I crossed the parking lot, and I found myself hoping the thunderstorms—promised by the weatherman sometime after midnight—weren’t going to affect Wassermann’s flight.

  As I approached the registration desk, I could hear a jazz tune and the sound of laughter drifting out from the bar and restaurant around the corner from the hotel lobby. However, the reception area itself appeared deserted. The attractive Hispanic desk clerk at the counter found the reservation I’d made online under the name of Raul Figueroa.

  I knew Wassermann wouldn’t have any trouble deciphering my “figure it out” sentence in the reply I’d sent back to him, and he would check in under our old operational name—Figueroa.

  I told the young woman. “My brother will be arriving soon. Would you mind calling me when he’s on his way up? We’re big practical jokers, and I have something special planned for him when he walks in the door.”