by Mark Gilleo
“Everyone stop what you are doing.”
Karim stood from his battle with the dried bird crap on the floor. Abu and Syed dropped their rags. James emerged from the bathroom on the back left.
“I wanted everyone to gather so we can go over some ground rules.”
“I hope it doesn’t include a weekly cleaning list,” Syed said, rubbing his left triceps.
“It does. But hopefully we won’t be here too long,” Ariana paused for a moment, waiting for James to get closer to the office door, and then continued. “Welcome to our home away from home. As you can probably tell by the hydraulic lifts in the floor and the other interior design features, this warehouse was once an automotive garage. It has a long-term lease, paid through an untraceable party, and it is as safe a haven as we are going to find. There are no neighbors, but we are in an urban area. You will have to take my word for this. If I catch anyone stepping outside the confines of these walls, I will kill them.”
She didn’t wait for a reaction.
“I chose this location for a variety of reasons, so if anyone has any complaints, look no further for a target for your ire. I have been here off and on for the last year or so. Checking on the place, making sure the electricity and water still function. I also cleaned from time to time, believe it or not.”
“There are six rooms in total. We have the main warehouse floor, where we are standing. There are two bays with twenty-foot doors. Large enough for any operation we may need. Behind me is the office. It has a working landline phone that none of us will use. I will make some acquisitions for the office in an attempt to modernize the atmosphere. But by and large the office is to maintain appearances only. None of you will go into the office unless accompanied by me.”
Abu and Syed rolled their eyes.
“To your left, my right, there are three doors on the wall. As you have discovered, the room at the back of the warehouse is a bathroom. There is a shower stall, a toilet and a single sink. I expect everyone to keep this room clean. As well as yourselves. I cannot have my men smelling like they haven’t bathed in a month. It would draw unneeded attention when the time comes to execute our plan.
“The door next to the bathroom is your sleeping quarters. There is a window. I have affixed a mihrab on the wall so that you will know which direction to pray. I will also get a space-heater, some beds, and other items so that you will feel comfortable. There should be no personal effects from anyone outside of the sleeping quarters. I will be sleeping in the office.
“The oversized third door on the left side is locked and is to remained locked. Its contents are of no consequence to any of you. Ditto goes for the truck. The door is locked and I have the only key.”
Done with the left side of the warehouse and the office, Ariana walked towards a set of double doors on the right side of the former automotive floor.
Ariana explained as she went through the motions. “Beyond these double doors is a smaller room that was owned and operated by a printing company.” The doors swung open and the men stepped forward to look down the length of the room. “There is a door at the front of the shop, but it has been sealed shut. It cannot be opened by normal means. Don’t waste your time trying. There is a bathroom in the back, also with its own shower. I had these double doors installed when the lease for the property was executed.”
“Why do these places have showers?” Syed asked.
“Hygiene and safety precautions. A lot of facilities that work with chemicals have showers for emergencies. Which probably explains the print shop. In any case, we have two bathrooms at our disposal. For now, we only use one.”
Syed shrugged as if the answer were sufficient.
Abu interjected the obvious. “But if we have two…”
“We use one,” Ariana said without negotiation.
“Any questions so far?”
The men fumed and said nothing.
“Good. Until we are operational, when I am out of the warehouse, I expect all of you to remain in the sleeping quarters. Consider it home. If you must use the bathroom, please do so one at a time, and be brief. Also, feel free to use the bathroom for wadu. We will all need our faith. And keep the talking to a minimum. Discuss the weather. Nothing personal. Nothing revealing.”
The men looked at each other suspiciously.
“Understood?” Ariana asked.
The men nodded.
“Ok. Let’s not lose sight of why we are here. I will also speak with each of you individually. Later this evening I will be running some errands and picking up a few things. If there is something that you absolutely must have, let me know and I will consider it. Now, get back to work.”
The group grumbled as it broke and returned towards their work. Ariana stepped forward and grabbed Karim by the arm. “Not you. We need to have a word.” Karim followed Ariana into the office and Abu and Syed paused long enough to peek back over their shoulders.
“Please have a seat,” Ariana said as she shut the door to the office.
Karim did as he was told and forced his backside onto an uncomfortable wooden chair.
Ariana sat down and opened her purse. She slowly slid a pre-paid cell phone across the desk in the direction of Karim. “If anything happens while I am out, you will be responsible for calling me.”
“Of course,” Karim answered. He looked over his shoulder at the warehouse and could feel Abu and Syed’s eyes straining to see through the open Venetians as they resumed wiping the walls. Ariana shook her head slightly, and Karim understood her warning to be careful.
“Unless you have to contact me, I want you to keep that phone powered off and out of sight.”
Karim looked at the phone and opened the cover. “Untraceable?”
“Completely. Especially if we use them only once.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I’ve tested them from time to time. Not only are they untraceable, but if you call someone, the display shows only ‘incoming call.’ The laws are changing quickly though. In another year it will be impossible to get a pre-paid phone. If you plan on using a legitimate ID anyway.”
“How are the other preparations?”
“Fine. I still have things to do, and will need some time to make some meaningful purchases.”
“You look worried.”
“There is a small complication.”
“How small?”
“I’m concerned that someone will start to notice a family has gone missing. I need to call a neighbor.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
Ariana thought for a moment before concluding. “We have no choice.”
Karim noticed the use of the word “we” and he smiled.
Ariana continued. “A family doesn’t just get up and leave their house unattended. Neighbors will start to worry. People will start to ask questions and get suspicious. Someone will call the police.”
“I see your point.”
“And with a child missing, well, you are talking about fodder for national news.”
Karim rubbed his beard and stared out the window of the office. “Sounds like you could have been better prepared.”
“I had no warning. My family was one part of the equation that was fluid.”
“I understand. Make the call to your neighbor, but be brief, Ariana. We have come too far. We have waited too long.”
Ariana nodded, though it was not in deference. “If the others ask what we were talking about, tell them we were discussing special skills you have or training you have received. I will ask each of them in turn so that no one is overly suspicious. Once I am done with their debriefing, I will need to run out for supplies.”
Karim got up from his chair and slipped the cell phone into his pocket. As he headed for the door, Ariana added, “Tell James to hurry up with the bathroom and tell Abu he is next for his debriefing.”
Ariana hung the CVS bag on the hook on the wall. The narrow bathroom with the single shower stall was designed for mechanics
to clean up after work. If the walls could speak they would attest to having never seen what was unfolding before their grout-laden eyes. She dug through two hundred dollars worth of self-improvement and then loosely separated them into different piles on the freshly cleaned floor.
She placed a bag of clothes on the top of the closed toilet lid. She removed the outer layer of her black headscarf, revealing most of her cheeks, her ears, and the side of her neck. She pulled the inner tube of her hijab from the back of her head and her dark brown hair fell to her shoulders and radiated in the light from the bulb above the sink.
Her bushy eyebrows were the first to go. It was the one thing she couldn’t change with Nazim as her husband. Clothes could be changed. Hair could be curled. Glasses could be removed. But semi-permanent change was something she couldn’t allow herself until now.
She plucked her eyebrows, one hair at a time. The first pluck made her eyes water. As she continued, the small pricks of pain became therapeutic. When she was done plucking the meat of the brows, she shaved the edges with an eyebrow razor. She splashed water on her face and admired the high arching brows that had taken the place of her previous untamed, near uni-brow, pair.
Next she picked up a box with a high-priced fashion model on the side. She opened the tab on the box and pulled out a plastic cap and tied it over her hair, the strings on the cap tying under her chin. With the same pair of tweezers she had used to assault her brows, she spent half an hour pulling strands of her hair through the holes in the tight-fitting shower-cap like covering. When she finished, she read the instructions on the back of the box for a second time. She pulled out a small bag, prepared the concoction as prescribed, and pasted a mix with the consistency of honey onto the strands of hair she had pulled to the outside of the rubber cap.
Forty minutes later, Ariana admired herself in the mirror.
Her knee-length skirt was the most revealing thing she had worn outside of the bedroom in decades, before she knew better. Her low-cut black sweater with the swooping neckline showed off a very perky set of C-cup proportions, the strap of a new black bra peeking over the edge of her shoulder. Her make-up had been a labor of love. It had taken a few tries to get the combination just right: eyeliner, eye shadow, blush, and red lipstick. Too much make-up and she would look like a hooker. Too little, and it would defeat her efforts to look like anything but a conservative Muslim woman. She jettisoned her glasses for her contacts. She put a cubic zirconia on her neck and the sparkling diamond look-alike fell nicely between her breasts. Just another attention grabber to get the male population staring at her cleavage. Clairol Auburn dye #7 had flavored her hair just enough. She was no longer a Middle Eastern housewife. She was an Americanized woman of unknown ethnic background.
And she was a knockout.
Chapter 12
FBI Agent Chris Rosson was sitting in a small room with a glass wall. A new hire to the Bureau fidgeted slightly in his chair across the table.
Agent Rosson’s perfectly combed gray hair told the new recruit nothing about his age. The agent’s first gray had appeared at the widow’s peak on the left side of his head at the age of fifteen. He plucked it out after the novelty had worn off, but another gray, joined by a battalion of identical invaders, soon took its place. In high school, his friends would pull them out in algebra class, during recess, in detention. All to no avail. By the time he was twenty, Agent Rosson had more grays than his grandfather. His Aunt Millie told him that he wasn’t the first. There was a great uncle in Atlanta who was gray and dead by his mid-twenties. At fifty-two, Rosson had at least avoided the latter.
The new hire was a recent graduate of the Academy and, in the Bureau’s expanding effort to match skills and interest with position, the wet-behind-the-ears bureaucrat was making the rounds and asking questions to personnel from different sections. As the new recruit fired off various inquiries from the FBI-approved hiring manual list, Agent Rosson thought about interrogations, his mind transforming the clear glass interior wall into a two-way mirror.
“What was the most interesting case you ever worked on?”
There were few things Agent Rosson did better than reminisce about the good old days in the Bank Robbery Division. “The Cowboy Bandit.”
“The Cowboy Bandit?” the new hire with tightly cropped dark-blonde hair repeated.
“That’s right. The Cowboy Bandit. This guy robbed dozens of banks, year after year, in full view of the camera, and we never even got close.”
“He was never caught?”
“Never caught, but later identified,” Agent Rosson clarified, taking a sip of coffee from the white Styrofoam cup on the table. His jacket was back in his cubicle; his shirt wrinkled, obviously the second day it had been worn since its last trip to the dry cleaners. Single, he wasn’t opposed to wearing his shirts for three or four days, if the weather was right and the pits didn’t get too sweaty. He had ironed his own shirts once and vowed never to do it again. Not when the Korean dry cleaners down the street was charging eighty-nine cents a pop.
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“The Cowboy Bandit left a notarized letter for the good people of the Bureau in his will documents.”
The young new hire, a conservative white kid in a suit that had been on a store rack the day before, looked surprised. “How many criminals inform the Bureau of their deeds after they die?”
“It happens. But this was the only time I was personally involved in a case that did.”
Agent Rosson sized up the new agent. “Sure would make it easier for us to solve the crimes if everyone took that approach.”
“Yes, sir. I guess it would.”
“You don’t have to call me ‘sir.’”
“Yes, sir.”
Agent Rosson shut his eyes briefly and shook his head. Then he continued. “The interesting part was that the Cowboy Bandit was actually a woman. She dressed like a man, wore a fake beard, big sunglasses, even looked like she had a chew of tobacco in her cheek, though she never spit. Not that it would have mattered. This was long before DNA testing was used for law enforcement purposes.”
“No one ever theorized that she might be a woman?”
“You would have thought. But then again, she would have been the Cowgirl Bandit. All I know is I spent a thousand hours watching bank security films. Looked at hundreds of still shots. Saw her from the front, the side, the back. She was good. She missed her calling as a male impersonator in Vegas. Probably could have made as much money as she stole.”
“How much did she get away with?”
“Forty-one banks in eleven years. I think the total take was just under $600,000.”
“That comes out to about sixty grand a year.”
“Give or take. All the banks were in Texas. Started in San Antonio, moved to Dallas, went back down to Austin, and then hit sporadically all over from El Paso to Houston.”
“They mentioned in the Academy that half of all bank robberies go unsolved.”
“True. The number was even higher in the eighties. I think the success rate peaked at a seventy four percent in 1989. Hell, there were times back in the day when I thought about robbing them myself.”
“Why so high?”
“Lots of reasons. At the top of the list was the similarity between the M.O. of most bank robbers and customer behavior. The average bank robber writes, or has something written on a piece of paper, approaches the teller, and waits for the teller to process the transaction. Every customer in a bank does essentially the same thing. There is no suspicious behavior. Bank employees are told not to resist and to hand over the money. So for all intent and purposes, the transactions look normal. Banks are also typically located in high traffic areas. No one wants a bank in the middle of nowhere because a bank needs to be where the customers are. Banks are in the parking lots of shopping centers, on major roads, in the center of town. They are transient in nature. The average bank customer parks his car in the parking lot, walks in, does a transaction, and i
s gone in two minutes. Ditto for the average bank robber. The guys who get caught are usually the ones who go in with guns blazing.”
“What about the silent alarms and dye packs. The academy says they’re standard in all banks.”
“The silent alarms are good, if you can get to them unnoticed. They are usually located far under the counter, or in a drawer, or under a cover, so the teller doesn’t trip them accidentally. You can’t have them right under the lip of the counter or too close to the teller’s feet. Banks did for a while, and the cops were forever chasing false alarms from tellers with big feet and fat thighs. If a bank robber lets the teller know that he is watching for any movement towards the silent alarm, the teller usually won’t hit the button until the robber is out the door.”
“And the dye packs?”
“Even a bad thief can spot one pretty easily. They feel different. If you hold a stack of bills with and without a dye pack, you would be hard pressed to find anyone over the age of eight who couldn’t tell the difference.”
“So why did you give up on bank robbery? Why the Anti-Terrorism Task Force?”
“The Executive Director for Counterterrorism came into the room during a monthly Bank Robbery Division briefing and asked if anyone was interested in two of the FBI’s newer divisions: Anti-Terrorism and Cybercrime. There was a lot of talk about refocusing the FBI towards bigger and badder criminals. Me and a couple of buddies raised our hands.”
“That was it?”
“That was it. Rubbing a magic lantern and having a genie pop out wouldn’t have been any faster.”
“And the training?”
“We had a few classes on the structure of terrorist organizations, sources of funding, myths about religious fanatics. The simple truth is that we are in new territory. There are no rules and sure as hell no rulebook.”
“What do you do, day-to-day?”
“Read the news, follow leads, most of which are dead ends, write reports. Enter data into the tracking database.”
“Sounds exciting,” the young man said taking a sip of water.