Killer Reads: A Collection of the Best in Inspirational Suspense

by Luana Ehrlich

  As we watched the rest of the video, knowing we were about to see Wassermann shot, I felt the tension in the room rise. The poor video quality made it less difficult that I’d anticipated, though, and, when it actually happened, it appeared as if Wassermann had simply crumpled to the ground.

  The video taken from the outside portico of the hotel showed the van leaving the parking lot within two minutes of Wassermann’s being hit. The van turned east on a feeder road and quickly disappeared from view.

  After the video had ended, Carlton excused himself to make a phone call, while Katherine carried on an extended conversation with one of her analysts back at Langley. I retrieved a bottle of water from the refrigerator and sat back down at the dining room table, plotting how I might go about finding Simon Wassermann’s killer and—the most difficult task of all—convincing Carlton to authorize it.

  When Carlton returned, Katherine said, “They found the van abandoned in Waco. It’s registered to a Venezuelan student at the University of Texas in Austin.”

  “Stolen?” Carlton asked.

  “They’re not sure. It hasn’t been reported stolen, but neither have they been able to locate the owner.”

  I shook my head. “It wasn’t a Venezuelan student who shot Simon. It was Ahmed.”

  “They’re enhancing the video from the hotel parking lot, so maybe we’ll get a look inside the van,” Katherine said. “I’m not very hopeful, though, not with those weather conditions and the poor lighting.”

  “He’s probably headed back to Mexico,” I said.

  “My people are working with NSA to identify any overseas communication coming out of Texas,” Katherine said. “If Ahmed really thinks he killed you, he’ll be letting Tehran know. We’re sure of that.”

  “Do we have any information on those Hezbollah cells already set up here in the States?” I asked Carlton. “They could be helping Ahmed escape the country right now. Danny Jarrar is working with the Feds on this. He told me they were—”

  Carlton quickly cut me off. “We don’t know for certain it was Ahmed who shot Simon.”

  “I’m positive it was.”

  He gave me a long look. “Okay, I’ll give Danny Jarrar a call, but we have to let Homeland Security handle this, Titus.”

  However, he turned to Katherine and said, “Do a complete workup on Ahmed Al-Amin—biography, photos, locations, associates, anything you can find.”

  While Katherine talked to Langley, Carlton began to break down the video equipment he’d used to record my account of Wassermann’s murder.

  I asked him, “Could I fix you a cup of coffee? Something to eat?”

  “Nothing for me. We’re heading back to Langley,” he looked at his watch, “in about two hours.”

  “You’re not staying over?”

  “We need to get back. I have a meeting scheduled with Deputy Ira, plus Katherine needs to coordinate with her team.”

  While Carlton was reloading his video case, making sure everything fit together perfectly, I paced around the room, trying to decide how to approach him about what I wanted.

  Finally, I gave up figuring out how to be subtle and just blurted it out. “I need to be in on this.”

  Carlton stopped what he was doing. “You know that’s not possible.”

  “If it’s because of Simon’s relationship to Mossad, I had no idea he—”

  “That’s not it and you know it.” He took me by the arm and steered me away from Katherine. “The FBI and Homeland Security will be handling this, Titus. And besides, Deputy Ira would never allow you to become involved. You’re on medical leave, remember?”

  “What if Ahmed makes it out of the country? He’s killed an American intelligence officer on American soil. Surely, the Agency will be authorized to go after him, bring him to justice, send him to Gitmo, put him on trial, one of the above, something.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I still need verification it was Ahmed who killed Wassermann.”

  “At least consider me for the mission if it gets authorized.”

  He looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds. “If we get the go ahead to go after him . . . I might consider thinking about it.”

  At least he didn’t nix the idea entirely.

  After Carlton stepped into the living room to call Danny Jarrar, I asked Katherine if I could fix her a sandwich or bring her a cup of coffee. She agreed to both.

  When I set the plate in front of her, I said, “I hope you like meatloaf sandwiches.”

  She looked surprised. “Is this homemade meatloaf? Did you make this yourself?”

  I laughed at the look on her face. “You didn’t know I could cook? What kind of analyst are you?”

  She smiled as she carefully cut the sandwich into quarters. “Look, Titus, I wanted to explain why I never called you back a few weeks ago.”

  I assured her, “It wasn’t a big deal.”

  After she took a delicate bite from one of the quarters, she wiped her mouth with her napkin and said, “I thought about calling you back, but I’m seeing someone, and I think it’s pretty serious.”

  “I completely understand.”

  She nodded. “Good.”

  “Is he someone I know? Someone at the Agency? Another intelligence officer?”

  I suddenly realized I was asking way too many questions.

  “Are you kidding? No.”

  She seemed genuinely shocked at my implication she was dating someone from work.

  “Forgive me for asking,” I said, “but why is dating someone from the Agency so surprising?”

  “Because it’s impossible to sustain a relationship with schedules like ours. Look at me. It’s Saturday afternoon, and I’m sitting here in Oklahoma analyzing data when I should be on a golf date back in Virginia right now. I can’t have a relationship with someone who works a schedule like mine. We’d never see each other. It’s hard enough as it is.”

  “No, you’re right. It wouldn’t work.”

  We sat there in silence for a few moments.

  Obviously trying to change the subject, she said, “I noticed you’re not using your cane anymore. Is your leg better?”

  “Much better.”

  She pushed her plate aside and leaned across the table toward me. “I know with all that’s happened to you, it may seem strange to say this, but you seem better too.”

  “Really? In what way?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” she said, pausing to consider my question. “Are you happier? More at peace maybe?”

  In response to her question, I decided to take the opportunity to tell her about my experience of faith in Tehran. As I did so, she listened with an intensity I found a little disconcerting. However, the more I talked, the more I became convinced she was drawn to what I was saying.

  When I finished, she replied, “I’ve tried to read the Bible before, but it’s never made any sense to me.”

  “I used to feel that way too. Now, though, there are moments when the words seem to reach up and grab me.”

  She looked thoughtful, as if she were analyzing some critical data. “Perhaps you need to have this experience of faith before you can really understand the words.”

  Carlton returned to the dining room. “Katherine, please excuse us. Titus and I need to talk.” He turned to me and gestured down the hallway. “Shall we go out to your sunroom?”

  Since the sunroom was located away from the main part of the house, I couldn’t imagine how he knew Ortega’s place had a sunroom. However, when he went down the hall ahead of me, I decided Legends must have supplied him with the floor plans to the house—one of those details he was so fond of having.

  As soon as we entered the room, he asked, “Is that your old telescope?”

  “Yeah. I got it out of storage.”

  “That's good. “ He sat down in a white wicker chair and looked around. “This is all working for you, isn't it?”

  “I'm adjusting.”

  “Are you meeting peo
ple? Danny told me you were attending church. Is that right?”

  I gave him my schedule for the past three weeks, and while I was telling him about working with the ESL class at the church, I was debating with myself whether I should mention my concerns about Paul Franklin or not. I kept going back and forth because I had so few details about what Franklin was doing, and it occurred to me I might be making way too much of the bitterness and ravings of an old man.

  In the end, he made the decision for me.

  “And what about Paul Franklin? Have you met him yet?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “You didn’t get along?”

  “It was more than that. The book we’re supposed to be writing together is a piece of anti-Semitic garbage. He believes all Jews should be kicked out of Israel, and if they get annihilated when they’re leaving, all the better.”

  “I had no idea. How could I have missed that?”

  He looked genuinely perplexed, and, for some strange reason, I felt a small measure of pleasure in knowing something he didn’t know.

  “I’m certain Franklin’s views weren’t examined when Legends set me up with him at CIS, and who knows if anyone at the think tank really investigated him. I mean, why should they? He’s been a member of the diplomatic corps.”

  “In what capacity?”

  “He was the cultural affairs officer at our embassy in Beirut in 1980. He was there during the Sabra massacre, and his wife happened to be in the refugee camp that day. She was murdered along with the Palestinians.”

  Carlton nodded his head several times as if remembering the circumstances. “So he blames the Jews for his wife’s death?”

  “Yes, and I believe the Arabic students on campus aren’t shy about knocking on his door. He’s definitely not hiding his affinity for Islam either.”

  Carlton remained thoughtful for several seconds, and then he shook his head. “I don’t like this. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “I’ve looked at Franklin from several different angles, and I can’t see how he could be an actual threat to me. He thinks I was a researcher at CIS before I was promoted to Senior Fellow. He treats me as inconsequential. My cover is good with him.”

  “I’m going to have Katherine run some background on him, see who he’s been emailing, what political blogs he’s been reading, that sort of thing.”

  He got up from the chair and walked over to the windows. He appeared to be taking a closer look at the lake, but I knew his restlessness was simply an indicator he was assessing all the dots and trying to connect them.

  “You need to be extremely careful, Titus. Ahmed is still out there.”

  “He thinks he killed me.”

  “If that’s true, let’s hope nothing happens to change his mind.”

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 20

  As I drove to the ESL class on Tuesday morning, I continued to monitor my environment for any kind of surveillance. Earlier in the day, Carlton had informed me there was no indication Ahmed had contacted his home base in Iran and reported the assassination of the American spy. He also said the FBI could find no trace of Ahmed or the Venezuelan student who owned the van.

  I figured Ahmed had gone to ground and hadn’t left the States yet.

  That alone was enough to keep me alert.

  When I pulled into the church’s parking lot, I surveyed the area for any suspicious vehicles. Although there were a few I’d never seen before, most of the cars looked familiar to me. However, I did take note of a late model black Nissan sedan parked at the far end of the lot close to the church’s back entrance. It drew my attention because most vehicles in the parking lot were located closer to the church’s front entrance. However, the windows of the Nissan weren’t tinted, and I could see there was no one inside.

  When I arrived in the ESL classroom, Susan stopped me just as I was about to go into the break room to make coffee. “Would you mind leading the conversation portion during the second session?” she asked. “Patty has a dental appointment and won’t be here today.”

  “Uh . . . I’m not sure I’m qualified to do that.”

  She laughed at my hesitancy. “Of course you are. I’ve seen you in the small groups, and you’re an excellent facilitator. Just pick out some discussion topics from this booklet and moderate the group as they try to talk with each other.”

  I had watched Patty conduct the discussion exercise before, and I couldn’t recall her doing much more than giving an occasional grammar correction, so I took the booklet Susan offered me. While Tucker led the group in repeating the alphabet, I sat down at a desk in a corner of the room and picked out the topics I wanted to use.

  When Tucker turned the class over to Susan a few minutes later, I glanced up and noticed Farah Karimi was absent from the group. Although she was usually late to class, I’d never known her to miss any of the sessions.

  However, I forgot all about Farah when I suddenly realized the next break was scheduled in less than fifteen minutes, and I’d been so intent on studying the discussion booklet, I hadn’t made coffee for the students. I rushed over to the break room and started filling the large coffee urn with water. When I opened a drawer and saw there weren’t any more coffee packets, I stopped by the classroom and told Susan I was going downstairs to get some more coffee from the church’s kitchen.

  Instead of taking the slow elevator, though, I tried to save time by using the back stairs at the far end of the hallway,

  That’s when I discovered Farah Karimi.

  She was lying in a pool of blood on the tiled floor of the stairs’ half landing.

  Instinctively, I drew my gun and cautiously descended the steps.

  The stairwell consisted of two sets of stairs joined at a landing. Farah had ascended the first set of stairs, and then, evidently, she had turned at the landing to ascend the second set of stairs.

  However, she’d never made it past the first step.

  As I moved toward the landing, I looked over the railing to see if the area was clear.

  It was.

  Her assailant was gone.

  I hurried to her side and checked for a pulse.

  She had none.

  Her head lay on the floor at an odd angle, and when I examined it, I realized her throat had been slashed. All the blood around her was from a knife wound, not a gunshot wound as I’d initially thought when I’d first seen her from the top of the stairs.

  I had to make a quick decision.

  Should I leave the scene and try to find the killer? Should I call 911 and wait for the police to arrive?

  What would Titus Ray, Senior Fellow at a prestigious think tank, most likely do?

  I called 911.

  However, I also skirted around Farah’s body, descended the steps to the first floor, and carefully opened the door to the hallway.

  It was empty.

  A door to my left led outside. A door to my right led to the kitchen.

  I went through the door to my left and surveyed the parking lot. Twenty to thirty cars were parked in the lot, and I could see no movement in any of them, nor were there any cars leaving the area. The scene looked exactly the way I’d seen it earlier that morning.

  I turned to go back inside.

  Then, I remembered the Nissan.

  I looked again.

  It was gone.

  I hurried back up the stairs to the second floor, trying to maintain my focus as I passed Farah’s body once again. When I entered the hallway leading to the ESL classroom, I holstered my gun. Just before opening the door, I breathed a quick prayer.

  The students were still seated, and Susan was pointing to a poster depicting a produce arrangement at a grocery store and asking her pupils to name the different vegetables. Tucker was standing off to the side watching them.

  I motioned to Tucker, and he walked over to me as I stood beside the door. By this time, I could hear police sirens faintly in the distance.

  “Tucker,” I whispered, “Farah
’s had a horrible accident on the back stairwell. I’ve called 911, so the police and an ambulance will be here any minute. You need to keep everyone inside. I’m going downstairs to show the police where she’s located.”

  His face registered shock. “Oh, no, no, no,” he said, “I can’t believe it.” He looked around frantically, as if he should be doing something.

  I was afraid he might be getting hysterical.

  “I have to go now.”

  “Sure, sure,” he replied, still sounding anxious. “I’ll take care of things here.”

  The Norman Police Department sent three squad cars.

  After showing them where I’d found Farah, an officer named Freeman explained that, since I had been the first person to discover Farah’s body, departmental regulations required him to keep me isolated until their investigator arrived.

  “Sure, I understand,” I responded, wondering if regulations also required Officer Freeman to check me for a weapon.

  That would be awkward.

  “This may take awhile,” he said. “A city councilman and his wife were murdered last night, and most of our detectives are tied up on the west side of town right now.”

  I assured him I didn’t mind waiting.

  After he put me in a church staff member’s office, he asked me not to use my cell phone or leave the room. To help me remember these “requests,” he stationed another officer outside the door.

  However, he did not check me for a weapon.

  As soon as the police officer shut the door, I paced the small office and mentally processed the murder scene.

  The moment I’d seen Farah’s body on the stairs, I’d experienced a flashback to Wassermann’s murder on Friday night and thought Ahmed had shot her as well. Now, even though I knew her throat had been slashed, I still questioned whether Ahmed could be the person responsible for her death.