A Touch of Deceit nb-1

by Gary Ponzo

  Nick knew he was right, of course. He wondered if he would find the world so pressing if he were a bank teller or a teacher, like Julie. Her concerns must seem just as disturbing to her, yet she rarely showed it. Apparently it wasn’t the profession so much as the professional. He looked over at Matt, who was leaning back in his seat, eyes closed. The picture of serenity. He respected Matt’s composure. He was cool, placid, skillfully poised.

  As if Matt felt the weight of Nick’s stare, he said, “I know what they’re doing.”

  “Who?”

  “The Kurds,” Matt said, head back, hands folded on his lap.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Obviously they’re planning a bombing. That’s why it’s so important for them to spring Rashid. He’s the best bomb expert they have. Probably the best in the world. They’re inundating us with enough riff-raff so we can’t cover them all. My guess is, most of them are decoys. Spread us thin so we can’t possibly give them the attention they deserve. A good tactic.”

  Nick raised his eyebrows. “And all this time I thought you were focusing on your next trip to the shooting range.”

  “Hey, I’m not just another pretty face.”

  Nick considered the theory. “Then why take my brother? You think Jackson’s right? You think it’s personal?”

  “I don’t know. That part bothers me. There are too many other options that make more sense.”

  Nick continued studying files until he became weary. He lay back and rested his eyes. It seemed like only a moment had passed before he awoke abruptly to the bouncing of clear air turbulence and the whining of landing gear deployment. When he looked out the window he saw the lights from the Vegas strip disrupting the Nevada sky like a neon bonfire.

  Nick placed the documents into his portfolio and tucked it under his arm. He noticed Matt tapping his heel as he edged forward in his seat.

  “Showtime,” Matt said.

  It was a smooth landing and as the aircraft taxied to the gate, it stopped momentarily to allow another plane to pass. As he sat there on the tarmac, Nick saw people moving inside the terminal. The gate had a bay window that jutted out toward the runway. He fixed his stare at a familiar face in the crowd. His eyes narrowed to a slit. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone waiting for them. Anxiously, he shuffled through photos from the files he’d been reviewing. He pulled one from a file marked “classified” and examined it closely. When he peered back into the gate crowd, the man was gone.

  Matt saw the grim expression on his partner’s face. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Probably nothing,” Nick said.

  * * *

  Abdullah Amin Shah waited impatiently for the plane to arrive. He had purchased a ticket for a departing flight to have access to the gate. The flinty plastic knife, razor sharp, jabbed him from under his coat, reminding him just how lethal his assignment was. He leaned against the wall where the passengers deplaned. He only needed a moment to recognize the FBI agent. His face was burned into his memory, Kemel Kharrazi had made certain of that. He would surprise the FBI agent from behind and slit his throat to the bone. After that, it didn’t matter if he were caught. He would have accomplished his mission.

  The agent, Nick Bracco, posed a problem for Kharrazi. It was not good to have an American law officer with strong convictions in Kharrazi’s path. Especially an extremely clever one. Especially now.

  Kharrazi spoke of revenge, eye for an eye. He claimed that Bracco had to pay for what he did to Rashid, but Abdullah knew better. For the first time in all the years he’d known Kharrazi, he sensed fear. Something about the American bothered Kharrazi. That’s why Abdullah was at the airport with an undetectable knife waiting to slit Bracco’s throat.

  Abdullah saw the first passengers exit the jetway. He blended into the wall so well, they never saw him. Their eyes focused forward, searching for a sign pointing them toward the baggage claim.

  Abdullah knew there were seventy-five passengers aboard the direct flight. Eighty, including the crew. There would be no mistakes. No mishaps. Abdullah began counting heads: nine, ten, eleven. A man similar, but no, too short. Thirty-seven, thirty-eight. A businessman in a dark suit-too heavy. Fifty-nine, sixty, sixty-one. His hand trembled as he clenched the knife firmly under his coat. Sixty-nine, seventy. Where was he? It was confirmed, he boarded the plane in Baltimore. Seventy-three, seventy-four. One more passenger. He nearly jumped at the next man who walked through the ramp, but it was a pilot. The man wore sunglasses and he strode almost to the corridor before he turned, sat down, and began tying his shoelaces. Strange, Abdullah thought, why would he be wearing sunglasses at night? He had no time to ponder the American psyche.

  Abdullah stood motionless, as if his stillness could lull everyone into believing he was harmless. There was one passenger left and it could be only one person. Escape was impossible. His eyes roamed the terminal casually. See Americans, I am just like you. Just another citizen waiting to board the next plane. He sensed the pilot watching him from across the room. Abdullah quickly looked away, but when his eyes returned, the pilot was smiling at him, curiously moving his fingers into a friendly gesture, as if he was waving. Why was the pilot acting so peculiar? While Abdullah tried to make sense of things, a man passed by briskly. It was Bracco!

  Nick Bracco was getting away. Abdullah ran up behind him, swung the knife from his coat and with one great lunge he made his move. Abdullah was in mid step when he heard the thunderous clap and instantly dropped to the floor. What happened? He felt a sharp pain run up his right leg. When he looked down he could see a hole in his pants just above his knee, with a dark brown stain spreading across his pant leg. He poked a finger into the warm hole up to his knuckle. When he retracted the finger, it was covered with blood.

  Abdullah looked up to see the pilot holding a gun. How could the pilot of the airplane shoot him? He was disoriented and becoming lightheaded. As he lay his head down he began to pant. His eyes stared straight up in disbelief and saw a figure kneel over him. It was the pilot and he was talking to Abdullah, yelling at him. What did the pilot want from him? Someone was pushing on his leg, but he couldn’t tell whom? The room was getting dark. The pain began to fade.

  Matt applied pressure to the wounded limb as he shouted down at Abdullah. “Don’t you dare bleed out on me, you son of a bitch.”

  Nick unfastened his tie and quickly wrapped it around the terrorist’s leg, high up on the thigh, above the wound. He stretched the silk into a tight knot, trying to stop the flow of blood. He slapped Abdullah’s face, which was losing color rapidly. “Where’s my brother?” he demanded.

  Abdullah was unresponsive. A growing pool of blood gathered under his leg.

  Matt pressed down hard on the wound site. “I hit the damn femoral. Of all the rotten luck. If he weren’t jumping so fast-“

  “Cut it out,” Nick said. “You did exactly what you had to do. Anyone else would have gone for the torso.” He trusted Matt with his life and Matt hadn’t let him down. Nick groped for better words, but settled on a simple, “Thanks.”

  Matt ignored the comment. He was busy keeping Abdullah alive.

  Nick looked at his watch, then at Abdullah; his chance of gleaning information was draining from the man’s body in dark red streaks.

  Matt looked down at the terrorist who had tried to take his partner’s life. “I’m not finished with you, Abdullah.”

  Chapter 7

  “You don’t look so good,” Matt said.

  The two men sat on the bright, geometrically patterned carpet, between a row of slot machines inside the Vegas airport. It was nearly midnight and they had just finished a futile attempt to extract information from the Kurdish assassin while he drifted in and out of consciousness. Finally, they let the paramedics take him away with a police escort.

  “Ask me what kind of day I’m having?” Nick said.

  Matt ignored the rhetorical question.

  “Go ahead,” Nick urged. “Ask me what kind of day I�
��m having.”

  “Okay,” Matt said. “What kind of day are you having?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  Matt shoved him, toppling him over. Nick lay there staring up at the ceiling, welcoming the respite. He wouldn’t tell Matt about his headaches, or the anxiety attack he was about to have. He thought about what Dr. Morgan told him about the effect stress could have on him. His breathing became quick and short. His head throbbed with an unfamiliar condition that probably only existed in some esoteric textbook with a picture of a German psychologist on the cover. His miserable descent into the abyss was interrupted by an authoritative voice.

  “You two wouldn’t be Bracco and McColm, would you?”

  Nick remained supine and rubbed his temples. He let Matt do the introductions while he regained what little composure he had left. He heard a man suggest that they’d had an eventful trip to the desert. Matt sounded casual until Nick heard a second man say, “Looks like your partner here might need a little help. You want us to make a call?”

  Matt said, “No, no, he’s fine. He just needed a little rest, that’s all.”

  Nick felt Matt tugging his arm upward. He got to his feet and shook hands with four men wearing blue FBI windbreakers. They looked at him carefully, like they were in the produce aisle inspecting fruit for damages.

  They looked relieved when Nick said, “We’re working on East coast time, so it’s practically time for breakfast.”

  The six men exited the airport in a heavily tinted van. Nick and Matt sat in the middle bench seat of the van with two Vegas agents in front of them, two in back. The driver, Jim Evans, held the seniority of the group. “I got a call a couple of hours ago from that informant of yours,” Evans gave Nick a quick glance. “He gave us the license plate of the limo that took your brother. Turns out the limo was supposed to go home with the driver last night, only the driver lent it to a friend. A friend that the driver doesn’t know all that well, but he gets an envelope with twenty hundred dollar bills inside, so he hands over the keys. I mean the regular driver’s only a kid, maybe twenty-one tops. So we paid him a visit.”

  An agent in the back seat said, “You should have seen the look on the kid’s face when we show up waving FBI badges. He nearly vomited on us.”

  “Yeah, well he’s still living with his mother,” Evans continued. “So we sit down and the kid told us everything.”

  “Except maybe which side of the mattress he hides his Playboy Magazines,” the voice from the back seat again.

  Nick leaned toward Evans, “What did you find out?”

  “That’s some informant you’ve got there back in Baltimore,” Evans said. “With extremely long-range connections. Who is he?”

  “He’s an old informant from my days with the Baltimore P.D.”

  “What about the kid?” Matt shifted the conversation back into focus.

  “Long story short, we found the limo,” Evans said.

  Matt slapped his knee, “Finally, something goes right.”

  “It’s parked in front of a house in a residential area,” Evans said.

  “It’s in front of a house?” Matt said.

  “We’ve got a SWAT team and a couple of sharpshooters already in position.”

  A new voice behind Nick said, “Do you really believe that Kemel Kharrazi is, uh. .”

  Nick turned to see a young man, clean-cut, no more than twenty-three, with wide, inquisitive eyes.

  “What’s your name?” Nick asked.

  “Jake Henson.”

  “How long you been with the bureau, Jake?”

  “Six months,” Jake answered, sitting painfully upright.

  “What do you know about Kemel Kharrazi?”

  There was a pause, then Jake said, “Well, I know that he’s forty-two and received a journalism degree from Georgetown. His father owns the largest construction company in Turkey. He has two teenage sons, Isal and Shaquir. He’s had his hand in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Jordan and American Airlines flight 650, to mention just a couple. And there’s a twenty million dollar reward for any information leading to his arrest.”

  Nick was impressed until he saw the blue-green glow across Jake’s face and realized he was holding a small hand-held computer.

  Matt twisted in his seat, stuck a piece of gum in his mouth, and pointed at the young man. “That’s pretty good. Can you get that Dr. Skin website on there? You know the one with all of the naked celebrities.”

  Jake’s face became grave. “This is official FBI merchandise. I can’t use it for personal use.”

  Matt looked at the older agent sitting next to Jake. “Is he for real?”

  “Are you kidding me?” the agent said. “He thinks watching a woman eat a banana is considered cheating on your wife.”

  “Jake,” Matt said, “you ever meet a fugitive on the List?”

  “No, sir, this would be my first.”

  Evans pointed his thumb over his shoulder at Jake and said, “The kid’s done a good job. He digs into that tiny machine and finds out that there’s only been one house sold in the nearby vicinity in the past six months. Guess which house?”

  Jake beamed.

  “That’s right,” Evans said. “The very house that limo sits in front of was sold to a businessman just four months ago. His name is Kalil Reed.”

  Nick and Matt exchanged glances.

  “Anyway, Jake runs the name into the computer and comes up with an alias for Mr. Reed. Anyone care to guess whose name comes up?”

  Evans looked into his rear view mirror at the two agents anxious for one of them to respond.

  Jake couldn’t hold it. “Abdullah Amin Shah!” he exclaimed. “He owns the house.”

  Nick could see Matt about to get sarcastic, so he grabbed Matt’s arm and gave him a look.

  “Come on,” Jake said. “Surely you know who Abdullah Amin Shah is? He works for Kemel Kharrazi.”

  “We know,” Matt said. “I think you’ll find some of his blood on my pant leg.”

  Nick turned to Jake. “Without the mechanical cheat sheet, how much do you really know about Kharrazi?”

  Jake shrugged, “I’ve heard all the stories. You know, the CIA agent’s head sent to his home, the story about him slaughtering children in the streets of Ankara because they didn’t know his name. He killed his own mother for betraying him. After a while you wonder whether they’re just urban legends.”

  Nick rubbed the stubble growing on the side of his face. “I used to wonder the same thing myself.”

  “But you know it’s all real don’t you, Agent Bracco?”

  Nick sighed. “You don’t have to worry. You won’t be setting eyes on Kemel Kharrazi tonight.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Nick took a breath. He was tired, he needed a shave, he was hungry, and most of all, he wished he could turn off his brain. Just long enough to relax and make believe it was going to be all right. His brother was alive, he had to hang on to that thought.

  “Sir?” Jake said. “Why won’t we see him?”

  “Because,” Nick said, “when you’re dealing with terrorists, coincidences are dangerous.”

  Nick could tell by the silence that his message had fallen short of its target. He added, “When you find a square peg on the ground and a few feet away you find a perfectly square hole to put it in, it’s time to look over your shoulder. Nothing is ever that easy, especially when you’re dealing with someone like Kharrazi.”

  Jim Evans peered through the rear view mirror and said, “You think this is a wild goose chase?”

  Nick could sense a schism developing between the two branches. Vegas dealt mostly with racketeering and organized crime. The majority of their criminals engaged in murder, extortion, bribery-spontaneous acts that lacked the planning required to escape detection. An evidence collector’s dream world, Las Vegas. But Nick and Matt’s world revolved around one thing-terrorists. A type of criminal who planned attacks eons before they were enacted. There were many cases w
here a terrorist would spend years infiltrating a community. They’d teach in schools, run grocery stores, repair cars. Then one day the word comes and it’s time to act. Few could prepare for that kind of operative. Nick knew he needed everyone on the same page if he was going to find Phil.

  Nick said, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”

  This brought more silence. He could hear Matt sigh.

  “Napoleon,” Matt said.

  “Exactly,” Nick said. “Let’s hope this limo thing is their mistake.”

  It was nearly 2 AM when the van rolled to a stop behind a second nondescript van. The agents exited into the cool night air and followed Evans to the forward van. The door slid open and exposed a man and a woman wearing headphones. The woman held an index finger to her lips. “They’re on the phone,” she whispered. “My Kurdish is a little rusty.”

  Nick asked Evans where the house was. Evans pointed down the narrow street. “It’s around the corner. They can’t see us from here, but we own the perimeter.” He tapped the radio clipped to his shirt. “We’re in contact with Hostage Rescue. Twenty of them. When the time comes, we’ll be ready.”

  The woman lowered her headphones. “I keep hearing the same casual conversation.”

  A faint ringing sound caused Nick to walk away from the van and push a button on his secure phone. “Bracco,” he answered.

  “I just got word about the airport incident,” Walt Jackson said in a half-yawn. “I caught a nap here in the office, but the coffee’s flowing now. You two okay?”

  “We’re fine. We found the limo in a residential area and we’re intercepting phone messages from the house. The conversations are in Kurdish. The deed is under the name of Kalil Reed.” Nick looked back at the two vans. Even in the dark, Matt stuck out among the Vegas agents. And not just because of his height. “I don’t like it, Walt.”

  “Too much good luck, huh?”

  “Exactly.”

  “All right, Kharrazi’s giving us until 9 AM Eastern Time to release Rashid, which gives you about four hours. We’re pretty sure they’re still in Nevada. We’re able to trace the calls to somewhere in the state, that’s all.” Jackson paused, as if searching for the proper words. “Nick, I spoke with Phil. He sounded worn down. In exchange for the conversation, I’m having Rashid moved to a less secure site for the time being. You know we can’t release him, but the minute Kharrazi knows, Phil will be expendable. I’m buying as much time as I can.”