Razing Beijing

by Sidney Elston

  Stuart considered her suggestion. “I think we need to be in a position to share our story with some credibility attached to it. That probably means having Jim Cole and Thanatech counsel involved.” Stuart looked at his watch. “I guess we might as well go.”

  “NOT THE MOVING OUTFIT, but I do think I remember him.” The elderly property manager responded to Stuart with a grimace. “Devinn...Devinn—sure. He broke his lease.”

  Stuart’s first reaction was that this was too easy. Devinn would have covered his tracks better than simply pulling up stakes and breaking his lease. Emily’s expression conveyed a similar assessment.

  “No—that’s wrong,” the manager corrected himself. “He’s dead.” The man studied his visitors’ faces.

  Stuart said, “Mr. Devinn wasn’t scheduled to return just yet. I don’t believe his obituary has been published, so I’m curious as to how it is that you know.”

  “A lawyer contacted me with the bad news. Like I said, I never knew who the movers were. I just swung by his unit in the morning and unlocked the door like they’d asked me to do. Why don’t you ask them?”

  “Who?”

  “The law firm.”

  Stuart recalled Joanne Lewis had mentioned that estate lawyers, presuming any were actually representing Devinn, hold inherent conflicts of interest with the estate liquidators hired by credit and government agencies. “They probably won’t want to tell me a lot,” he said, adhering to his script. “You remember the name of the firm?”

  The man looked as though this was something that Stuart should know. “Give me a minute.” The man disappeared to the back of the office. Stuart hated doing this sort of thing; he had no confidence as a liar. The man strolled back after a few minutes and, to Stuart’s surprise, handed over a slip of paper with the firm’s name and address scribbled on it. Stuart thanked him for his time.

  Outside the property management office, perturbed with his performance, Stuart said to Emily, “These lawyers aren’t going to tell us jack. I guess that’s that. I’ll check into hiring a detective.”

  On their way to Stuart’s rental car, Emily tugged him gently by the arm. “I have another idea.”

  Their drive from the rental office to the upscale urban neighborhood took fifteen minutes. Approaching the neighbor’s door adjacent to Paul Devinn’s empty townhouse, Stuart remained unenthusiastic. “Do you want to do the talking?” he asked Emily.

  “That’s okay.”

  “I did the last one.”

  On their third round of knocking, a middle-aged woman answered the door. Her jaw dropped upon being greeted by whom she was told was an old college friend looking to surprise Paul Devinn.

  “We’d heard he moved, but we’re not certain of Paul’s new address,” Stuart explained somewhat truthfully. “Would you happen to know?”

  “I’m sorry,” she gasped. The woman slapped a hand over her mouth in pity. She then described how Paul had always been so kind, having even offered her all of his perishable foodstuff before taking off on his abominable trip—and drowning. “Movers took away the remainder of his belongings. That was a few days ago.”

  Apparently overcome by emotion, Stuart turned and stood morosely overlooking the building’s manicured courtyard. Emily removed her hands from her mouth and suggested to Paul Devinn’s neighbor that perhaps the moving company could tell them how to contact his family.

  “If the property manager doesn’t know,” the woman said, tears welling, “I’d try Marks Brothers.”

  In the litter-infested parking lot of Marks Brothers Moving & Storage, Stuart pulled the rental car to a stop beside a semi-tractor trailer with its hood propped open. An oil-stained and grimy pair of trousers extended out from underneath the engine.

  Stuart lowered his window and shouted, “Hey, is anybody in the office today?”

  “Yeah, just ask for the runt,” followed the muffled response and sadistic laugh.

  This time Emily waited in the car. Stuart emerged less than two minutes later. He clambered behind the wheel wearing a grin. “I guess they see repo and liquidator types all the time in there.” Stuart gunned the engine to life.

  Emily noted the spark of enthusiasm. “You’ve become a very good liar.”

  Stuart eyed the exit to the lot. “Your fraudulent business card did the trick.”

  “So, where are we headed?”

  “Locker fifty-three, U-Store It. He said they made the delivery there three days ago.”

  Twenty minutes later—their return flight to Richmond now looming—they stood waiting as a man, who Stuart thought appeared gaunt to the point of emaciation, perused customer account records on a computer screen.

  “No. Not here,” the immigrant said in some unfamiliar accent.

  Stuart narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “I am quite sure.” The man who’d introduced himself as Bhushan shook his head. “D-I-V-I-N-E. Not in fifty-three.”

  “I’m sorry, I must have mispronounced the name. That was Devinn. D-E-V-I-N-N.”

  “Oh...” He tapped out the name on the keyboard. “But again it is no.”

  Stuart swore under his breath; he’d been sure they were onto something. He turned toward Emily. She shrugged and shook her head.

  Stuart asked, “What name is under fifty-three?”

  Bhushan’s eyes flickered away from the computer screen. “Who did you say you were with?”

  Stuart removed the business card from the breast pocket of his shirt and dropped it confidently onto the counter. “We’re estate liquidators representing the State of Ohio. This man is deceased and left no heirs.” Sober recognition steadied the man’s eyes upon hearing the word ‘state.’

  “I show a C. Bloch in unit fifty-three.”

  “Bloch. Huh. Must be some mistake. Would you happen to know what this Bloch looks like?”

  Bhushan leaned back in his chair. “Heavens, so many faces.” He pointed at the screen. “But this account was handled by mail. Bloch might never have set foot here in the office. Customers do not have to check in to go to their locker.”

  “Does Bloch have an address?”

  “Yes.” The man cast a glance between he and Emily.

  Stuart pulled from his shirt pocket the slip of paper given him by Devinn’s property manager. “Is this by any chance the address?”

  Bhushan leaned forward to read the note Stuart held out for him, then looked at the screen. “Hanover Street, New York...yes, that is the address.”

  Stuart exchanged a look with Emily Chang. What now? He slipped the paper back into his pocket. Bhushan reached for the business card as Stuart plucked it up. “My last one,” Stuart smiled crookedly as it disappeared into his pocket. “This is going to take some time to unravel. Thanks for your trouble, Mr. Bhushan.”

  Stuart reached to open the door for Emily, but stopped and turned. “I don’t suppose you’d mind telling us when the lease was taken out on that locker?” he asked the U-Store It proprietor.

  Bhushan glanced at the screen and pursed his lips. “When did you say this man died?”

  “I actually didn’t, but authorities believe it was a week or so ago.”

  “My records show it was leased just about two months ago. I hope your information is mistaken. I hate to lose a tenant that way.”

  * * *

  PAUL DEVINN COLLAPSED blissfully onto the comfortable king-size bed, his muscles aching, as well they should following his punishing work-out. Devinn gazed contentedly out over the Manhattan cityscape, the evening light draining away from an overcast sky. He was undecided whether to invite to dinner the woman with whom he’d shared the gymnasium, and who had indicated the number of her suite with appropriate subtlety. She had looked to be about his age, perhaps not in the very best of shape but pretty and interesting enough.

  He had greeted the news of OPEC’s decision to tighten their noose with a certain sense of grandeur; history was in the making; the Titanic was preparing to sink and he was the guy who’d spi
ked all the lifeboats. It was a tribute to the tenacity and vision of those who sponsored his work that the fruits of his efforts had begun to coalesce with current events. In retrospect, the trend was easy to spot. That his handler would staunchly deny any such connection—should Devinn be reckless enough to assert one—didn’t alter the fact that such a connection existed. This great festering wound between a greedy America and her Middle East antagonists had been carefully nurtured—a thing to be lanced, perhaps, at just the right moment? Too bad his sponsors had panicked over the unexpected loss of life associated with Thanatech’s doomed test flight—too bad they had ordered him to abandon the idea, his idea, of planting the engine blueprints inside Ahmadi’s apartment. The subsequent indictment of Iranian oil barons, as originally planned, had been denied its chance to further increase the hysteria.

  Devinn retrieved the remote from the bed stand and began perusing channels on the wide-screen television, when he thought he heard something—he muted the voice of the CNN anchor. He rose from the bed and walked to the armoire where he’d left his satellite pager. He glanced at the originating telephone.

  “What is it?” Devinn said into the phone a few moments later.

  “You may have a problem,” was the woman’s response. Devinn listened for several minutes with rising agitation as Christina Bloch relayed events of the previous hours. “For the record,” she finished by saying, “I advised you to store your belongings further away.”

  “Did you get their description?”

  “I did, but bear in mind this is all second hand.” Her disclaimer thus attached, the lawyer went on to describe to a tee both the man and the woman. “Apparently the manager was sufficiently concerned about his next check being sent that he called to confirm I wasn’t dead.”

  Devinn remained silent.

  “Any idea who it was?”

  “Probably just who they claimed to be,” Devinn lied. “You’re paid a small fortune. You should have prepared a story to ward off this sort of scrutiny.”

  “That’s bullshit. You know as well as I do how slowly those wheels turn. I don’t think Columbus had anything to do with it, not this quickly. These two were acting for somebody else. Is there anything you’d like me to do?”

  “Just tell me if you hear anything else.” Devinn swore as he hung up the phone.

  59

  WHAT JACOB BEN YEZZI might lack in tact he more than made up for in graciousness. The Israeli embassy in London had set aside a secure office for him and the CIA officer, but some last minute schedule change had McBurney’s embarrassed host scurrying to find them another room. For five minutes Ben Yezzi raced around dishing out orders, finally dragging two large cushioned chairs into an empty office himself. Then he disappeared and returned with a steward in tow carrying a tray of tea and Kippered herring.

  Ben Yezzi sat opposite McBurney and got directly to business. “What more can you tell me of the circumstances surrounding this murder of Mohammad Ahmadi?”

  His question reminded McBurney how both men shared disdain for anyone remotely related to Hezbollah; Ahmadi was suspected to have been among the original Pasdaran advisors, sent by Tehran to organize the early guerilla resistance against the Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon. McBurney was then a young case officer trying to recruit his first agents. By virtue of an administrative quirk, he’d been spared having his life snuffed out like so many of his colleagues by the truck bomb that rocked the United States embassy in Beirut. For Ben Yezzi it was more personal yet. In the spring of 1999, he had lost a brother in the Army during Israel’s hastily conducted withdrawal. Facts surrounding both incidents implicated the Party of God. Word of Ahmadi’s murder inside his Rivergate apartment had created something of a stir in Tel Aviv for the loss of a rare opportunity.

  “Look, Jacob. The whole investigation is tied up in a political knot because of the latest senate scandal.”

  “We know.”

  “Then you know the FBI is refusing to release their full record of Ahmadi’s surveillance.”

  “So I have been told.”

  McBurney set down his mug of tea. They had previously gone over most everything he knew leading up to the Rivergate murders. “Most people I talk to construe the discovery of certain articles in the apartment as their preparation for escalating the wave of terrorist attacks. Perhaps you ought to be talking to Bob Fitz.”

  “Fitz cannot find his ass with both hands.” As Near East chief, Fitz was for Mossad the Agency point man. “Our concern is based on our belief that Ahmadi may have had inside knowledge of an agreement between Tehran and Islamabad on a light-weight nuclear device.”

  McBurney probed his memory. “I can’t say that we found a reason to link him to their nuclear program. On the other hand, to the extent he was conducting espionage in the States, you could probably make the case.”

  “We have confirmed he was acting on behalf of the Intelligence Ministry while deputy charge d’affaires in Washington,” Ben Yezzi revealed to no surprise. “Now the interesting part. There is no evidence to suggest that his superiors had, or have, any knowledge of his negotiating asylum with the United States before his death. None.” The Israeli paused to allow McBurney time to absorb the revelation. “In light of the circumstances surrounding his murder, we found this difficult to accept, but it appears to be so. These protests they have lodged with your State Department appear to reflect genuine outrage with the FBI for failing to provide a satisfactory accounting of his death. For once, we find ourselves in agreement with the Iranians.”

  McBurney and others assumed that Tehran had made the discovery and ordered the diplomat killed—a risk that faced any man turning traitor. “That could mean almost anything. He might have been a provocateur, or maybe they got rid of him for something totally unrelated. It does raise the question of—”

  “His network of agents? Assuming he recruited any.”

  “Safe bet.” McBurney had also shared that particular evidence with Mossad.

  “There would have been some sort of transfer of control, otherwise the network would simply fall apart. It is true that their spy craft has improved dramatically in recent years, not quite SAVAK grade but good, presumably under the tutelage of our ex-Soviet friends. Consider our own difficulty achieving a foothold inside their nuclear program.”

  Ben Yezzi arched his eyebrows. “I’m not involved in the operational side. One picks up bits and pieces, you know. But it is apparent that Tehran can now compartmentalize their covert activities with great discipline.” Jacob Ben Yezzi closed his eyes briefly and sighed. “If they’ve not yet done so, Tehran will attempt to reinstate Ahmadi’s network with a new handler, no doubt another Washington diplomat. Your State Department should never have agreed to their opening shop there. Be that as it may, we don’t yet know their D.C. mission’s specific agenda. Maybe your terrorist theorists are correct. Or maybe it is to steal more of your nuclear secrets with which to threaten Israel. Which is why I have been authorized to bring it to your attention.”

  It had occurred to McBurney as something out of the ordinary for Mossad to volunteer information gathered covertly, by an Iranian agent with what sounded like deep penetration. Somebody somewhere had to be under tremendous pressure for them to risk blowing that sort of an asset. “To say nothing of a nuke going off in the States,” McBurney added.

  “Of such ugly matters, we believe Tehran possessed advance knowledge of the Holocaust Memorial bombing. We are trying to learn what active role they might have had.”

  “Tehran denies any role in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline attack.”

  “That little job is more difficult to assess. Perhaps this will help.” He removed a folder from inside his briefcase and handed it to McBurney. “Those dossiers identify two Iranian nationals who boarded flights leaving Anchorage on the eve of your pipeline incident. The surveillance we obtained in Seoul. We have been looking for these terrorists for several years.”

  McBurney flipped through the pages.

/>   “Do you recall the Norberg Cruiseliner incident?”

  “St. Thomas.”

  “The cruise company thought it might be expedient to approach my government for help. At least one of the men was observed boarding the ship shortly before the explosion. They may be associated with an Islamic splinter group.”

  “Free Palestine?” suggested McBurney.

  “If only it was so tidy.” Ben Yezzi smiled. “The group who claimed responsibility calls itself Black Jihad, the extremist faction of Hezbollah. Unfortunately, nobody inside the Institute has confirmed even the existence of this Free Palestine of yours, let alone who subsidizes their activities.”

  McBurney waved the files. “Mind if I pass these on to the Task Force?”

  “By all means. We have forwarded them already to the Hoover Building.”

  Which prompted McBurney to wonder why Ben Yezzi had wanted to meet in the first place. “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome, my friend.”

  “I’m curious about something, Jacob. You seemed distinctly uncomfortable with my suggestion to meet in the American embassy.”

  “Did I?”

  “I’d like you to level with me. Who do you think had Ahmadi killed?”

  Ben Yezzi was not a man to inadvertently reveal his thoughts—he folded his arms. “It gravely concerns us that it was not, apparently, who we would normally suspect.”

  60

  EMILY RESISTED the temptation of attaching significance to Stuart’s pick-up truck being the only other vehicle in his driveway today. He had sounded tense on the phone, and declined to explain why. She assumed the visit would be anything but social.

  Still, as she rang the doorbell her pulse continued to race. The light silence of leaves and branches hanging in breathless air was broken by the barking of Ashley’s dog, and Stuart shouting as toenails clawed on hardwood for traction toward the unknown visitor.

  “She wouldn’t harm a flea,” Stuart assured Emily, clutching the tail-wagging beast by the collar as it licked the palm of her hand. “English Setters are wimps, plus this one’s pampered to ruin by Ashley.”