Kill The President's Women (Joe The Magic Man Series Book 2)

by Allan J. Lewis

  Alice only had to wait a minute in front of the hotel before Campbell’s car came screeching to a stop. She was in the car before either of them had a chance to tell her to get in.

  “What kept you?” Alice asked sarcastically.

  The comment brought a smile to Burrows’ face and she immediately filled Alice in. It was a half hour ride to the precinct and as Campbell took the street corners sharply, he and Burrows weighed their options. Alice’s mind went to John; not quite ten minutes ago, she had been thinking of calling him to tell him that she would be home by the time he got back from work. Now she was off looking for a Pakistani boy.

  At the precinct, Sergeant Pitt was already waiting for them. They all shook hands with him and Pitt went over his story again. When he was done, he gave them the address of the garage. They were back in the car in no time and Campbell drove crazily to the garage and pulled into the forecourt. It was a tiny garage that looked like it could be fully staffed and operated by just one man.

  “This may be a wild goose chase,” Campbell said, looking the place over, “I can’t see a back exit, so I think I’ll go in alone. You keep your eyes peeled in case I spook him into doing a runner.”

  Campbell alighted from the car but he had only taken two steps before a man, the owner presumably, walked out lazily. He was wiping his hands on an oily rag and smiling generously.

  “What’s the trouble?” he asked as he looked at the car behind Campbell.

  Campbell flashed his badge. “I’m Special Agent Campbell. I’m following a lead and I’m here to ask if you know this boy.” – He showed him the sketch – “I was told he works here washing cars.”

  “Kahn, you mean? The artist who did this is crazy,” the man said with a chuckle.

  Campbell’s heart skipped a beat. “Is this Kahn?”

  The owner looked at the sketch. “Could be, but his hair is flatter than that. Is he in some form of trouble?”

  “Is Khan here now?” Campbell asked, disregarding the man’s question.

  “No, he only comes in if a customer needs their car cleaned. What’s this about anyway?”

  “We just need to ask him a few questions. Have you got an address for him?”

  “No, but I’ve got his phone number.”

  Campbell’s heart skipped another beat as he tried to stay calm. “That would be very helpful.”

  He followed the garage owner into his office and waited impatiently as the man scribbled some digits on a tiny piece of old newspaper.

  “There you go.”

  “Thank you, sir. I do appreciate it.”

  As Campbell walked to the car, he dialed head office. He identified himself, gave his badge number when prompted and then called out Khan’s phone number. “I need the address associated with this number and I want the phone location traced. All the calls that he made or received in the last week should be sent to me ASAP.”

  Campbell heard the garage owner speak up from behind him. “I could have told you his full name – if you had asked me. It’s Mohamed Kahn but he likes to be simply called Kahn.”

  “Well thank you, you’ve been most helpful,” Campbell said to the man as he hurried to get away, hoping they’d be able to trace the phone in no time

  “I think I know where Kahn is right now,” the owner said, as Campbell got to the car door.

  Campbell stopped and stared at the man in disbelief. He walked back towards the man, asking, “You do?”

  “Yeah, all the spare time he has, he spends at Tommy’s Bar and Pool room. He’s the best pool player around here, if you listen to him.”

  “And where is this Tommy’s bar?”

  “It’s about 200 yards down the road.” – He pointed – “It’s in the middle of the next block, you can’t miss it.”

  “Thank you sir, you’ve been most helpful. Can I rely on you not to call him to tell him we’re looking for him, because if you do we’ll know it was you...”

  “Hell no, I got too much work to be calling him.”

  “Thank you again, sir.”

  As Campbell got back in the car, he saw the excited looks on their faces; apparently they had heard every word.

  “Is this our lucky day?” Burrows asked.

  “If only everyone was as helpful as that guy...” Campbell sighed as he strapped on his seatbelt.

  Campbell drove slowly this time and a short distance away from Tommy’s Bar, he stopped the car and parked on the curb. “I think we had better phone this in,” he said.

  Burrows agreed. “We don’t know if this is our guy yet but we have to assume he is.” She turned to Alice. “We could send for backup and take him in for questioning, but the way Homeland sometimes works, they like to keep them under surveillance for a while; that way they can find out more.”

  Campbell got out of the car and as he walked in the opposite direction of Tommy’s Bar, he reached for his phone and called it in.

  Alice gave a puzzled frown. “Does the FBI usually work with Homeland?”

  “On the odd occasion, but the Pentagon is taking this threat seriously after the Boston bombers so all departments are working jointly on it. Including us, as a part of our newly-formed task force.”

  Alice felt a little pride in her voice as she asked. “If the boy is in there, do you want me to talk to him so that Joe can get into his dreams tonight?”

  “We’ll have to see how Homeland wants to handle it, they might want us to back off and they’ll take it from here.”

  “That’s not fair,” Alice said innocently, “it’s your collar; you’ve done all the leg work.”

  Burrows smiled at Alice’s attempt to talk cop talk. “That’s how it works sometimes, we do all the work finding the guy then someone else gets all the glory.”

  Campbell got back in the car. “Okay, they’ve put a trace on his phone and it’s in this vicinity, so this is how they want it done...”

  “When you say “they”, do you mean Frank Brubaker?” The question had left Alice’s lips before she had had the chance to think about it. “Sorry, go on.”

  “We are helping Homeland on this case, so Frank Brubaker knows everything that’s going on.” He turned back to Burrows and went on. “They want us to go in there as soon as they’ve got a team covering all exits.” He looked back at Alice. “They do not want us to arrest him, so we are not going to show that we recognize him, we are just going to hopefully spook him into making phone calls and if he leaves the building, he’ll be followed.” He paused for Alice to digest the information, and then went on. “They hope to find out where they’ve taken the two suspects by tracing his phone calls. But they also want you to try and work your thing with that badge, and have Joe to get into his dreams tonight. All we gotta do now is wait until everyone is in place.”

  They waited an agonizingly long thirty minutes before they received the go-ahead. Alice was nervous; she had hoped Joe would have contacted her by now.

  “Here we go,” Campbell said, as he started the car up and drove it about twenty yards down the road, parking across the road from Tommy’s Bar. “Now remember, if he does a runner, let him go. We just want to scare him and let him know that the FBI is looking for him.”

  They all got out of the car and Campbell hoped Alice wouldn’t bungle the whole operation; she looked really shaken.

  “Mrs. Timberlake,” he said to her, “just try to relax. Be you and you’ll be fine. Here’s the sketch so you can try to make contact with the boy.”

  He showed her the picture and Alice stared at it carefully, then nodded. “I’ve got it.”

  “Right, here we go.”

  Campbell led the way with Alice right behind him and Burrows bringing up the rear. There was a great, long bar inside with stools lined up along the front. There was only one guy sitting on a stool talking to the bartender. There were two other men playing chess at a table near the front window; they both looked up at the three of them briefly and went back
to their game. At the far end of the room, there were two pool tables with six youngsters noisily playing pool.

  The bartender walked up to the three of them and said rather rudely, “Can I help you, officer?”

  Alice was surprised that he had sniffed them out as Law enforcement. Campbell and Burrows didn’t seem surprised and Campbell flashed his badge. “FBI, Special Agent Campbell.”

  He said it loud enough for everyone to hear and without introducing Burrows or Alice, he put his badge away and showed the bartender the sketch. “Have you seen this boy around here?”

  The bartender hardly took a glance at the photo. “No, never seen the lad before.”

  “Have any of you gentlemen seen this boy hanging around here?” Campbell asked, raising the sketch and walking over to the two men playing chess. They both said “No”.

  Burrows, who had been studying the pool table at the far end, suddenly whispered in Alice’s ear. “That looks like our boy playing pool over there. I’ll cover here while you go back there with Agent Campbell.”

  Alice pulled the old army badge out of her pocket and started to roll it through her fingers as she made her way towards the bar. She heard Campbell asking the man sitting on the bar stool if he knew the boy in the photo and thanking him when he said he had never seen him before.

  There were four boys sitting down watching the two boys playing pool; three of the watchers were Pakistani, as was one of the players. Campbell showed the sketch to the boys sitting down while Alice leaned over the pool table, trying not to show that she had recognized the boy opposite her as Kahn. She accidently let the badge drop on the table and as it spun towards one of the pool balls, Kahn caught it, preventing the collision.

  “The boy we’re looking for is Asian,” Alice said to the other boy, “possibly from Pakistan; he’s in his early twenties and is about 6 feet tall.” Alice could see that Kahn was about 5 feet 8 inches, and as expected, he relaxed a little.

  Campbell came over and casually placed the sketch on the table without looking at Kahn. “If you see this guy around, let us know.”

  He tossed his card on the table and picked up the sketch, saying, “Sorry to have spoiled your game.”

  Alice was holding her hand out for Kahn to pass her badge back, when Joe popped into her mind. Joe asked her what was going on, and before Alice could tell him telepathically. Joe said excitedly, “That’s him, that’s the boy I saw in Mr. Woo’s dream.”

  Alice was frozen for a moment and she felt a cold shiver pass through her body. Steeling herself, she asked Kahn, “Could you pass my lucky charm back to me please?”

  He quickly picked it up and handed it to her. “Thank you, you boys stay out of trouble okay?”

  Some of the boys murmured some replies and as Alice turned and walked away, her legs were shaking. She tried communicating with Joe but he wasn’t replying, so she knew from experience that he had jumped into Kahn’s mind. She was dying to tell Burrows and Campbell that Joe had recognized the boy from Mr. Woo’s dream, but she couldn’t. As far as anyone knew, Joe could only communicate with Alice through her dreams.

  “I think that went okay,” Campbell said as they got back in the car, “I’m not 100% positive he’s our guy but if he is, then let’s hope we’ve spooked him into making a phone call.”

  Campbell looked down the block and suggested. “Let’s go over to that coffee shop just in case he’s watching us. We’ll let him think we’re doing a door to door.”

  “I could do with a cup of coffee to calm my nerves.” Alice said, as she flopped down in the back of the car.

  “You did great in there, Mrs. Timberlake.” Campbell said, smiling.

  “Oh please, stop calling me Mrs. Timberlake. Just call me Alice.”

  Campbell considered it briefly and said, “Fair enough, I’ll call you Alice when it’s just us, but in the office or in the presence of any other agent, I’ll stick to protocol and call you Mrs. Timberlake.”

  Burrows rolled her eyes; Agent Campbell was probably the stiffest of them all.

  Back at the bar, Joe silently remained in Kahn’s mind as he tried to convince his friends that the sketch couldn’t be him. The sketched person could be any Pakistani, he argued, besides, he was too short to be the one they were looking for.

  Joe whispered manipulatively in Kahn’s thoughts, “You better phone your other friends to let them know the FBI is looking for you.”

  Kahn said goodbye to his pool friends, telling them he had something to attend to. His exit through the front door gave him a glimpse of the Feds as they leisurely walked into the coffee shop. He walked the other way and after putting a reasonable distance between himself and the coffee shop, he took his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number.

  It took quite a while for the owner of the phone to pick up and when he did, Kahn said hurriedly, “Look Ricky, I think the Feds are looking for me.”

  Joe could hear a man with an American accent reply to him, telling him to stay calm and asking for details. Kahn told him about what had happened at the bar.

  “Okay, this is what you’re gonna do, for a start don’t use any names over the phone anymore, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “You remember the place where my friend paid you last time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, go there and find him. You tell him what happened; he’ll make sure you’re not being followed and give you help, got it?”

  “Yeah, got it.”

  “I’ll tell him to meet you there. Now I want you to smash that phone to pieces and throw it away, do it now and go.” He hung up.

  Kahn looked at the phone, then reluctantly let it fall to the ground. He stomped on it twice then picked it up and dropped it in a nearby waste bin.

  Joe stayed in his thoughts as he hurried to his meeting. Joe asked questions to uncover exactly what role Kahn had in the whole operation and Kahn answered freely, thinking his subconscious was speaking to him.

  “Why are the Feds after you?”

  “I don’t know,” Kahn thought, “it must be about those two men I had to pick up. Shit, I hope they don’t think I’m helping them.”

  “Where are the men now?

  “I don’t know and I won’t do any more work for Ricky. If he wants to get mixed up in this kind of shit, then he can go ahead without me.”

  Kahn was relieved to see that he was very close to his rendezvous point with Ricky’s friend. Crossing the back alley that led to the building, he heard someone behind him call his name. He turned quickly to take a look and what he saw was a frightening image – a man holding a pistol, steadily training it at his chest. Through Kahn’s eyes, Joe saw the man pull the trigger once. The gun roared and the bullet slammed furiously into Kahn’s chest. Kahn fell to the floor and put his hands weakly to his chest. In a second, the assailant was standing over Kahn. He pulled the trigger again and as the bullet entered Kahn’s head, Joe exited his mind immediately.

  “Holy shit!”

  Joe was at work, at a building site and he made an excuse to his Boss that he needed to go fetch something from his car. Sitting in his car in L.A. with his eyes closed, he recalled with horror what he had just witnessed in San Francisco. It had been especially frightening because when the bullets had entered Kahn, he had felt the blinding pain for a split second. Joe concentrated hard and tried to contact Kahn again. He detected a little whiff of consciousness in Kahn’s body and he zoomed into his mind.

  “Who was that man? Who shot you?!”

  There was no reply.

  “Who shot you?”

  Listening closely, he realized Kahn’s body was empty. There was no life in him.

  “No, no, no!” Joe screamed, punching the steering wheel and crying in frustration because he was unable to do anything. His first thoughts were to tell Alice to go help him but he knew Kahn was beyond helping and Alice would then have to reveal to the Feds how she knew that Kahn had just been shot.r />
  The eventual revelation that Alice and Joe communicated telepathically was also something that would be hard to explain away especially since the Feds would ask how long the telepathy had been going on. Hopefully, he didn’t have to deal with that now; Kahn was a dead man.

  *

  Alice was enjoying her coffee and listening to Burrows and Campbell banter. They both seemed to think that Kahn was the exact person they were looking for, and that he’d do something stupid. She was in an excited mood as they waited for a phone call. Campbell thought the next call he’d receive was to say they had the boy under surveillance and that they could to return to the office.

  Joe popped into Alice’s mind and seeing that she was enjoying her coffee with Burrows and Campbell, he whispered,

  “Alice, could you go to the rest room, we’ve got to talk.”

  Alice could feel the tension in Joe’s words. “Guys, I think this coffee has gone right through me,” she said, pretending to blush. “I need to do a quick number 1. I’ll be right back.”

  Alice stood up awkwardly and both agents smiled at her polite way of saying she was heading to the toilet.

  “I got bad news for you,” Joe said sadly before Alice reached the toilet.

  “What, how?” Alice blurted out loud as she opened the door; luckily no one was in earshot.

  “Kahn has just been murdered. Shot!”

  “Oh my God, no!” Alice felt crushed.

  “I was in his head when it happened and I saw and felt everything, it was like being actually shot.”

  There was an overwhelming fear in Joe’s thoughts, he was close to being hysterical and Joe stammered as he recited his trailing of Kahn from when he had made the phone call to when two bullets had ripped through his fragile body.

  He ended his account with, “He was shot. Really shot.”

  Alice was horrified by what she had heard but her fear was even more intense when she realized that Joe, Joe the freaking Magic Man was frightened. It came to her in that moment that Joe wasn’t bulletproof; he sure as hell wasn’t invincible.

  “That’s right, Alice,” Joe said, hopping on her recent train of thought. “I’m no Terminator.”