Foreign Influence_A Thriller

by Brad Thor

  The woman coughed repeatedly before answering. “Because I didn’t need him anymore.”

  “But he was your cover.”

  “It didn’t matter. That cover became useless when Lars was killed.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” said Harvath.

  “I knew that someday, someone might come looking for me. That was why I had created the whole Tsui persona. It was a layer of protection. I set it up so that everything traced back to Lars and from him to Michael. But when Lars was killed, my backstop was gone.”

  “Who killed him?”

  “I don’t know. The police say he died in a car accident.”

  “You don’t believe that. I can tell by looking at your face.”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” she said. “Could what happened to Lars have been an accident? Possibly. But I’m not certain. That’s why I was waiting to see what happened to Michael.”

  “You mean you were waiting to see if he would be killed as well?” asked Nicholas.

  Lee shouted at the woman again from behind the duct tape covering his mouth. He pulled against his restraints and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind, including Sterk’s, that if he managed to break free, he would kill her.

  “That’s why you gave him up to me,” replied Harvath. “You wanted to see if I had been sent to finish off Tony Tsui.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then, when I thought it was safe, I would have started over under a new persona.”

  The woman was absolutely mercenary, but as far as Harvath could tell, she was telling the truth. “So who killed Jagland?” he asked.

  Sterk looked down at the floor and refused to answer.

  “I want to make something perfectly clear,” said Harvath. “Right now, the only person in this entire world you should fear is me. If I even suspect you’re holding out on me, I’m going to light you on fire. I will let you burn and then I will put the fire out before it kills you. The pain will be worse than anything you have ever experienced. The heat will sear your lungs and you’re going to suffer from smoke inhalation. It’s going to be severe.

  “I’ll repeat this process until you’re dead or you give me what I want. Which will it be?”

  “My life’s worth nothing if I survive. They’ll find me and they’ll kill me just like they did Lars, and I’m certain it’ll be in a manner much worse than anything you can possibly devise.”

  “Who are they?”

  Sterk didn’t respond.

  Harvath turned to Nicholas, “See if there are any matches in the van. If there aren’t, heat the cigarette lighter.”

  The Troll nodded and headed for the van.

  Sterk looked at him. Both sides of her face were beginning to swell. “Just kill me and get it over with.”

  “You don’t have to die.”

  “I’m dead anyway.”

  “We can protect you.”

  “You don’t even know what you’d be protecting me against. These people have resources beyond your imagination.”

  “So do I,” he replied.

  The woman laughed and shook her head.

  “What if we gave them Tony Tsui?”

  From the other support column, Lee’s eyes bulged.

  “How would you do that?”

  “Never mind,” said Harvath. “What if we can give them Tsui, or at least make it look like Tsui isn’t someone for them to worry about anymore?”

  “These are not stupid people. They can’t be easily fooled.”

  “I wouldn’t expect them to be.”

  Nicholas returned with the van’s cigarette lighter and held it out to Harvath. “Let’s burn the witch.”

  Harvath took it and looked at Sterk. “It’s your call, Adda.”

  The woman studied the faces of her two captors and thought about her options. After several moments she said, “I’ll cooperate, but on one condition.”

  “You’re trying to negotiate? You’ve got to be kidding me,” stammered the Troll.

  “What do you want?” Harvath demanded.

  Sterk focused her gaze on him and replied, “A little added insurance.”

  CHAPTER 35

  CHICAGO

  John Vaughan sat in a plush leather captain’s chair inside the most comfortable surveillance vehicle he had ever seen and wondered what Paul Davidson’s problem was.

  Josh Levy, the owner of Surety Private Investigations, Ltd., and Davidson’s boss when he was moonlighting as a PI, couldn’t have been more personable, polite, or professional if he had tried. He was a handsome, well-dressed man in his late fifties and very experienced in private investigative work. There was no question in Vaughan’s mind that Levy had easily spent over a hundred thousand dollars on his surveillance van. It really was decked out like a limo inside and the electronic equipment rivaled anything the CPD or the FBI owned. Unless this guy had a DVD carousel loaded with animal porn, Vaughan couldn’t find anything even remotely questionable about him. It was beyond him why Davidson so disliked doing surveillance with his boss.

  “Is the temperature okay for you?” asked Levy. “There’s plenty of juice left in the batteries to run the air exchangers.”

  As the man bent down to flip a switch, Davidson looked at Vaughan and rolled his eyes.

  “The air’s real good, Josh. Thank you,” said Vaughan, ignoring Davidson.

  Levy righted himself, leaned over, flipped open a mini-fridge and pulled out a cup of yogurt. Davidson tapped Vaughan on the shoulder with the back of his hand.

  “Anybody want one?” asked Levy.

  “No thanks, Josh,” responded Davidson. “We’re all good.”

  Vaughan watched as Levy peeled back the lid and licked the yogurt from the top. When he was done, he placed the lid on the narrow counter beneath the surveillance equipment and went to work folding it into eighths, before dropping it into a Ziplocked garbage bag hanging from the wall.

  While he was fishing a spoon from a drawer near the fridge, Davidson tapped Vaughan again and rolled his eyes. The Organized Crime cop looked back at him and shrugged. He had no idea what Davidson’s problem was.

  Levy took a bite of his yogurt and then picked up the copy of Mohammed Nasiri’s picture. “So this is our guy, but we don’t know if he’s inside the mosque. Correct?”

  “That’s right,” said Vaughan. “Based on the calls we’ve made, he hasn’t gotten on any airplanes out of town.”

  “But he could have hopped on a bus, a train, or borrowed a car and left.”

  “That’s correct.”

  Levy took another bite of yogurt. This time, he licked both sides of the spoon afterward. “Why do you think he’s inside?”

  Vaughan could feel Davidson’s glance, begging him to notice how Levy was licking the spoon, and he tried to ignore it. “We saw a lot of this stuff in Iraq. They know we won’t come into a mosque unless we’ve got a mountain of overwhelming evidence. Especially in the U.S., it’s political suicide. The mosque is a sanctuary for these guys. We’d never in a million years think of doing in a church or a synagogue what they do in their mosques.”

  “Nor would any priest or rabbi put up with it,” added Davidson. “I can’t imagine what my priest would say if I told him, ‘Father, we’re going to go shoot up a girls’ school, plant a few roadside bombs, and be back for lunch. Don’t let anyone into the room downstairs where we keep all of the rifles and grenade launchers, okay?’ ”

  Levy chuckled, though they all appreciated the fact that the reality of it wasn’t that funny. “I guess that’s one of the many differences between Islam and the rest of the world.”

  “You can say that again.”

  Vaughan looked at the monitor feed for one of the infrared cameras mounted in the van’s side-view mirrors. “In Iraq, we’d know guys we wanted were inside a particular mosque, sometimes we’d chase them right up the front steps, but then we couldn’t do anything. We’d have to wait until Iraqi soldiers got on site.”r />
  “Iraqi Muslim soldiers,” added Davidson for clarification.

  “Exactly. We infidels couldn’t go inside. At least we couldn’t lead the charge.”

  “Why the hell not?” asked Levy, as he took another bite of yogurt.

  “Because nobody wanted it to look like we were waging a crusade against Islam.”

  Levy licked both sides of his spoon once more and said, “That’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard.”

  Vaughan nodded. “I agree.”

  “So they think we’ll treat their mosques here in the U.S. the same way we do in Iraq?”

  “Up to now, that’s exactly how we’ve treated them. It’s not just hands off, it’s hands way off.”

  Levy shook his head. “Political correctness is going to be the death of Western civilization.”

  “I hope you’re wrong, but there’s no question that our enemies are using political correctness against us.”

  “You can say that again,” replied Davidson. “Muslim ‘honor’ killings are becoming an epidemic in the U.S., but do you think it gets reported by the media? No. Wife and child beatings are through the roof, but the media ignore those as well. Point out what’s wrong with Muslim culture and you’re automatically labeled a racist. It’s like shunning the guy on the Titanic who says he sees water in the forward bulkhead.”

  Levy finished his yogurt and placed the empty cup in the bag and zipped the top shut again.

  Vaughan checked his watch. “The evening Ishaa prayers will be over soon.”

  “Think Nasiri will stick his head out?” asked Davidson.

  “You never know. Terrorists make a lot of stupid mistakes.”

  “Not this guy,” said Levy.

  Vaughan and Davidson both looked at him. “How would you know?” asked Davidson.

  “If he’s up to what you think he is, you have to assume he didn’t get his job by being stupid. And if he felt the heat was so intense that he had to flee to the mosque, even a storefront mosque, then you have to give him enough credit that he won’t pop his head out until he thinks he can get away with it.”

  Vaughan nodded in agreement.

  “Which means,” continued Levy, “that eventually we’re going to have to do more than just sit outside here watching the front door.”

  He was right, and neither of the other two men in the surveillance van could argue with him.

  “What are you thinking?” asked Vaughan.

  Levy tapped two black Storm cases with the toe of his boot and said, “I think we’re going to have to get more aggressive with our surveillance.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Levy opened the cases and showed his guests what he had brought. Vaughan reached down and plucked out a wireless camera embedded within a hard, black baseball-sized shell. “What’s this?”

  “Brilliant Israeli military technology.”

  Davidson looked at it. “Then how come it says Remington on the side?”

  “Because they licensed it for the U.S., but couldn’t get it off the ground. I bought this sample kit from the rep.”

  “How does it work?” asked Vaughan. “You just drop these where you want them?”

  “Better than that. You can actually throw them. When they stop rolling, they right themselves on those little stubby feet on the bottom. You can toss them on a roof, over a wall, anywhere.”

  “And those are fiber-optic cameras in the other box?”

  Levy nodded. “If you’ve got balls big enough to get close to the door or drill down from the ceiling, then we’ll really get a good view inside.”

  “What are the baby wipes for?”

  “You should see how dirty this stuff gets,” he said as he pulled another one of the camera balls out of its case.

  As he did, Davidson jabbed Vaughan in the ribs and raised his eyebrows as if to say, See?

  Vaughan waved him off. All he saw was a guy who was particular about how he ate his yogurt and who liked to keep his gear clean. Big deal. In fact, he’d take Josh Levy over most of the sloppy cops he’d been forced to sit through stakeouts with.

  “If we can drop a couple of those in the alley behind the building, will you be able to pick up the signal out here?”

  “I should.”

  “Will they work okay in low light?”

  “They’ve got an IR illuminator, but it puts an extra drain on the batteries. We won’t be able to run them all night.”

  “Hopefully, we won’t have to.”

  Davidson used the cameras mounted outside the van to check for foot traffic along the street. They were in a small honor-system parking lot where you placed your money in a slot on a big board beneath the number that corresponded to what stall you were in. Levy had picked the lot himself, preferring it to being parked out on the street. The view wasn’t as good, but it was acceptable. It was his opinion that a windowless van parked too near the mosque might draw undue attention to itself. Vaughan had agreed.

  “How do you want to do this?” asked Davidson.

  “We’ve got your Bronco parked around the corner,” replied Vaughan. “From this distance, I don’t think anyone is going to notice us getting out of the van.

  “I’ll stay here and monitor the feeds while you take Josh with you. He’ll ride shotgun and can drop three balls. One at the beginning of the alley, one near the back door of the target building, and one before you turn back out onto the street.”

  Levy shook his head. “I don’t leave the van.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t.”

  Vaughan looked at Davidson for some sort of explanation but the Public Vehicles officer just looked back at him and smiled as if to say, I told you so.

  He turned back to Levy. “How are we going to know if we got the balls placed correctly?”

  The PI pulled a radio from a charger rack and handed it to Vaughan. “It’s not rocket science. You roll down the window and drop them out. I’ll radio you and let you know how the picture looks.”

  “What if I screw it up and one of them rolls underneath a Dumpster?”

  “Don’t screw it up.”

  Satisfied that the argument was settled, Levy unzipped the gym bag hanging from the arm of his chair and removed a small hand towel. Unrolling it across his lap, he fished his key ring from his pocket.

  “That’s good enough for me,” said Davidson, taking the radio from Vaughan, suddenly anxious to leave. “Let’s get going.”

  Hanging from Levy’s key ring was a gold nail clipper. The PI pivoted open the handle and studied his nails.

  “The street’s as quiet as it’s going to get,” said Davidson as Vaughan watched Levy. “Let’s get this done before evening prayers are over with.” He poked the Organized Crime cop with the radio’s antenna, breaking the spell and getting his attention.

  “Make sure to do a radio check when you get to your truck,” stated Levy as the two men parted the heavy blackout curtain and exited the van through its back door.

  Cutting through the alley behind the parking lot, Vaughan said, “I’ve never known anybody who carries a nail clipper on their key ring. Is it solid gold?”

  “Probably,” said Davidson with a shudder. “I can’t watch him clip his nails. It creeps me out.”

  “If that’s the worst of his behavior, then you’ve got it pretty good.”

  “That’s the thing. It isn’t just one quirky thing with him. It’s a million. And they all add up.”

  “And that’s why you don’t like doing surveillance with him?”

  “Damn straight,” replied Davidson. “The guy’s an investigative genius, but there’s something just not right about him. It’s like if Magnum PI and Rain Man had a baby. You saw how he wouldn’t leave the van.”

  “So?”

  “So Judge Wapner probably comes on in ten minutes.”

  Vaughan shook his head. “The guy’s a little eccentric. So what? You need to lighten up.”

  Davidson smiled. “Give it another hour. You’ll
want to beat the guy to death with the heel of your shoe.”

  He doubted it and they walked in silence the rest of the way to the Bronco and climbed in.

  While Davidson did a radio check, Vaughan received an e-mail from one of the forensics specialists going over Nasiri’s taxi. The piece of plastic that had been recovered at the scene of the hit-and-run was indeed from a radiator header, and the radiator header in Nasiri’s cab was new. Everything they were telling him jibed with what the Pakistani mechanic from the Crescent Garage had told them.

  The bad news was that there was no blood, hair, or tissue anywhere on the outside of the vehicle. Worse still was what the tech told him next.

  Skirting the poisonous tree issue had not been easy. The only thing Vaughan could do was to ask his forensic pal to search the interior of the cab, as well as the trunk, for traces of any chemicals. He said he was looking for any sign that Nasiri had washed down his cab with solvents in an attempt to hide evidence of the hit-and-run. His real hope was that they would come back with hits for TATP or the precursors for the compound. The bad news from forensics was that the cab contained no traces of chemicals whatsoever.

  Vaughan shared the bad news with Davidson as they pulled away from the curb and headed toward the alley.

  “I’m not surprised,” replied Davidson. “If that stuff is as volatile as you say it is, they’re not going to want to move it until they absolutely have to. If Nasiri was transporting anything, it was bottles of peroxide and cans of drain cleaner; all nice and sealed.”

  Vaughan didn’t like it, but he had to agree. “So we’ve still got nothing.”

  “What do you mean nothing? You’ve got Josh Levy’s balls in the palm of your hand.”

  He held up one of the cameras and looked at it.

  “Now, Josh may think his balls are made of brass,” said Davidson, “but I still think you should drop them out the window delicately. Nobody likes to have their balls busted.”

  “Are you done?” asked Vaughan as he rolled down his window.

  “Since you asked, you have to admit that even though he wanted to stay in the van, Josh really does have big balls.”