“I did—Mount Vernon Seminary.”
“Fascinating. I love history. Anyway, let me get down to the purpose of my visit,” Watt says, sitting forward in his chair. He looks directly at Jimmick and pounces, “You activated a Coast Guard unit at Little River, Virginia, sometime during the night.”
“We have routine operations going on all over the country, just like you folks do over at the Pentagon,” Jimmick parries.
“There was nothing routine about it. Our people down there said it looked like they were scrambled.”
“I’ll check on it if you’d like,” Jimmick offers, reaching for the phone. “Can I ask why you’re so interested in the activity of one of our Coast Guard units?”
“We think it has something to do with Howard Collyer.”
This is going to be easy, Jimmick thinks, Watt is on a major fishing expedition. “Howard Collyer?”
“You know Collyer abducted a former B-52 pilot from a VA hospital.”
“Howard Collyer?” Jimmick asks, adding a questioning tone. “Name sounds familiar. Where do I know him from?”
Watt shows his exasperation. “C’mon, Lucien. Don’t play games.”
“I beg your pardon?” Jimmick does his best to sound affronted.
“Collyer’s chasing down a lost nuke and we have reason to believe a group of terrorists are shadowing him—you’re aware of that. We know you are. And it’s in our best interests to share information so we can defuse the situation.”
Watt is practically begging for help. “Look, if that’s true, Greg—and I certainly hope it isn’t—it just goes to show how much more equipped and capable you guys are over there at the Pentagon. This is the first time I’ve heard anything about it.”
Watt frowns and looks out the window. Jimmick is playing poker. And right now he’s holding the better cards.
“Give me some more detail. Terrorists after this Collyer guy who’s chasing down a lost nuke?”
“We can’t be sure.”
“But if there is a nuke out there, it certainly can’t be a threat. I remember one briefing over at your place back when I first started. The nukes were lost—when was it? During the ’50s and early ’60s?”
Watt nods. Jimmick has him on the run.
“I distinctly remember the presenter saying that they have been degraded to the point they are harmless. That hasn’t changed, has it?”
“That is still our position, yes.”
Jimmick’s toying with Watt now. He’s never seen the slideshow, only heard about it secondhand, but that doesn’t keep him from using it. “And if I remember correctly—as I said, this was a couple years ago—in the presentation there was a slide illustrated with a bunch of sleeping dogs. A whole pack of them, it was kind of endearing. One of your artists over there must have created it. And the caption was, ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.’ The gist was that no matter if the lost weapons might be armed or dangerous, there was no point in disturbing them. Real cute picture— they were Dobermans or some breed like that. And they were all asleep in a pile. Am I remembering this correctly?” Jimmick furrows his brow, playing it for all it’s worth.
Watt’s eyes are jumping around the room, he doesn’t know whether Jimmick’s putting him on or he’s for real. He quickly sidesteps, “So you know nothing about Howard Collyer and your intelligence has told you nothing about terrorists? No noise about al Qaeda?”
Watt’s on the ropes. “Where am I supposed to get intel from, Greg, my wife’s garden club? Do I have to remind you that the Department of Homeland Security has precious little intel capability? How can we be expected to know things you guys don’t?”
Jimmick thinks of a perfect coup de grace. Walking around to stand in front of Watt, he lifts his hands in a gesture of helplessness, turns to him with a pained look on his face and says, “I mean, c’mon, Greg. This isn’t the Pentagon with the National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency plus the intelligence agencies of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. This is a former girls’ school— remember?”
In the cab returning to the Pentagon, Watt dials Hatkin’s secure line.
“What did you find out?”
“Jimmick’s in it up to his ears.”
“Did he acknowledge scrambling the Coast Guard?”
“He wouldn’t admit a damn thing, the bastard played cat and mouse but it was clear he’s involved.”
“He’ll pay. I’ve found a way to get inside that unit of his.”
“How?”
“I’ll tell you when you get back to the Building. Let me just say I found out that the commanding officer of Jimmick’s Coast Guard unit is a former Navy Seal.”
For the first time in a week, a slight smile breaks across Watt’s face. Back in Nam, Hatkin commanded a combined force of Army Rangers and Navy Seals. They went through hell together, a band of brothers if there ever was one. And Whitey Hatkin was their revered leader. In the tight circle of Navy Seals, Hatkin walks on water.
36
New Brunswick, Friday afternoon
Melanie’s pride is wounded. He had no right. Yesterday her mother showed up to take them out to lunch. Called her the day before, said she wanted to meet her boyfriend. Made a reservation at a fancy restaurant, one of the best in Philadelphia. Denny promised her he would join them. Swore he would. She bought him a new Armani outfit to meet her mother, spent five hundred bucks on it. She couldn’t wait to flaunt Denny, see the look on her mother’s face. Then he didn’t show. Worse, he disappeared. Didn’t leave a message, wouldn’t answer his cell. Her mother made the most of it. Creating a big fuss about the boyfriend who stood her up.
“Does he do this to you often, dear?” She wouldn’t let go, bringing it up again and again, goading Melanie until she was on the verge of tears.
“I was looking forward to meeting him, but if he treats you like trash, I’d suggest you reexamine your relationship,” her mother said, pausing to savor a bite of her thirty-two dollar sole Veronique and taking a long pull on her chardonnay before serving up another insult. “I’d hoped we’d given you more self-confidence. I’m surprised you let a boy walk all over you like this.”
Melanie waited up to midnight for Denny, rehearsing the tongue-lashing she was going to give him. She thinks back over the past three days. Wednesday he insisted she drive him down to Philadelphia. He returned that night. Acted strangely. Wouldn’t try on the clothes she bought for him. Wasn’t interested in sex. But he promised to meet her at the restaurant the next day.
The next morning he wouldn’t answer his cell phone. Then he didn’t show for lunch and didn’t return until early Friday morning and was off again that afternoon. Had he moved out? Left her for good? She went into his room and rummaged around looking for clues as to where he went. As furious as she was, when she went into the bathroom the sight of something in the sink made her flesh crawl. Twenty seconds later, she was calling 911, her fingers trembling so much she could barely dial the number.
“Get me the FBI, please,” Melanie Troost said in a quavering voice.
Normally Agent Fewell would have assigned one of her assistants to interview the student. But Fewell was a Rutgers grad herself and even though most terrorist tips turned out to be dead ends there were aspects of the girl’s story that merited consideration. How many times had she heard the story about the Saudi convenience store manager who is running a terrorist group out of his 7-11—wild theories about explosives concealed in the storeroom among cases of Dr. Pepper, Lays potato chips and Mars bars?
Agent Fewell listens patiently to the distraught Rutgers coed with her tale of deceit and mystery. It takes her no more than two minutes to decide her story has less to do with national security than it does with a relationship gone sour.
“So you don’t think I’m crazy?”
“I can understand your concern, Miss Troost. And we appreciate it when citizens bring foreign nationals who are acting suspiciously to our attention.”
“You don’t think there
’s any terrorist connection? The terrorists in London did the same thing, cut off their beards before they blew up those trains.”
“The fact someone shaves is hardly a cause for concern.”
“But all the swimming, and you should have seen the weird way he acted in Philly.”
Fewell turns up her palms and bunches her shoulders as if she’s a long way from being alarmed.
“So you’re not going to do anything?”
“What would you suggest?”
“Bring him in, interrogate him—something.”
“See this stack of folders?” Fewell points at the corner of her desk. Melanie nods. How could she miss it? It’s almost a foot high.
“In that pile are over a hundred and seventy-five leads I need to run down in the next week. Any one of them could take us to a terrorist.”
“So explain to me what he’s doing spending all this time in Philly.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe you should consider the possibility your boyfriend is seeing someone else? Here’s my card,” Fewell says, handing it across the desk to Melanie. “Call me if he does anything else that seems suspicious.”
Melanie goes into a slow broil. She feels her neck redden and her forehead light up. She doesn’t know what’s upsetting her more, the woman telling her Denny is cheating on her or that she refuses to believe her. She’s insulted and embarrassed.
“There’s got to be something you can do—” she stammers.
“Look, young lady, I’m not in the business of giving advice, but if this guy’s such a problem for you, why don’t you drop him?”
Melanie daubs at her eyes with a handkerchief. She jumps up and holds out her hand. “Thank you for taking the time to see me,” she says, barely able to choke out the words. Turning to head out of the office, she feels like she’s going to burst into tears if she stays a second longer.
“You have my card, Ms. Troost. You know where to reach me,” Melanie hears the woman say. She’s writing me off as a jilted lover. Melanie’s tempted to whirl around and flip her off. But that’s probably a damn crime, she thinks as she presses the DOWN button.
She’s angry, humiliated, feeling sorry for herself and scared all at the same time. But her next thought makes her heart sink into her stomach.
What if Denny found out I went to the FBI? What if he followed me and is standing out on the street? The elevator opens to the lobby. She creeps through the revolving doors and cautiously steps outside. Looks both ways, and then scurries down the block to where she left her car. Melanie decides she’s going to sleep at the sorority house tonight. Hang around with her sisters instead and pray he doesn’t come looking for her.
The sight of her Range Rover parked around the corner from the FBI office is reassuring. She pushes the button on the remote as she approaches. The Rover comes to life.
Getting in, her car door hanging open as she tosses her purse on the seat beside her, she pauses, hearing an insistent voice coming from the middle distance, unintelligible but still loud enough to attract her attention. Looking in her rearview, she sees the FBI agent dashing down the sidewalk toward her wildly waving her arms, no coat on, her black flats slapping against the sidewalk.
“Ms. Troost! Ms. Troost! Wait!”
Melanie’s first thought is she left something behind in the woman’s office. But she’s much too keyed up for that.
The agent comes rushing up to her open door. “I’m so glad I caught you,” huffing to Melanie as she tries to catch her breath. “Your boyfriend, the man you were talking to me about—”
“Yes,” says Melanie, puzzled as to why the woman who had dismissed her minutes ago is now suddenly so interested. “His name is Denny.”
“Is there any chance he works out at the Werblin Center?”
“All the time—”
Before Melanie can complete her thought, the woman blurts out, “I just put two and two together. We need to talk.”
Melanie has never flown down the Pennsylvania Turnpike before—doing ninety with a siren screaming over her head, cars in front of the speeding convoy swerving off into the breakdown lanes to get out of the way, the black Suburban’s red lights pulsing, reflecting off windows and the rain stained pavement. Agent Fewell is in the seat beside her, Melanie’s new best friend. The special agent in charge of the Newark FBI office is in the front next to the driver, everyone armed with menacing-looking guns. Melanie saw a rack of shotguns in the back of one van, heard someone mention tear gas and sniper rifles. These FBI guys are dead serious.
Turned out that Melanie wasn’t the only person at Rutgers who had noticed Mehran Zarif. A swim coach had called the FBI months ago about his activities at the Werblin Center. The agent who took the call politely informed the coach there wasn’t much the Federal Bureau of Investigation could do about a foreign student even if he had a bizarre swimming style and did odd exercises in the diving pool. Angela Fewell heard about the call over the water cooler later that day. All the agents had a good laugh—until earlier this afternoon when Melanie Troost gave Fewell a second perspective on the swimmer.
The Special Agent didn’t need more than five minutes quizzing Melanie to decide her missing boyfriend was a threat. Too many curious coincidences couldn’t be overlooked.
Racing her down to the underground parking area, the FBI agents jumped into a long line of waiting black SUVs and roared out of the basement heading for New Brunswick, the drivers slapping blinking lights on top of the cars and flicking on sirens.
Fewell leans into her and shouts over the deafening yowl, “Did you ever get a chance to see what was on his computer?” With a pad balanced on her knee, before Fewell wouldn’t give her the time of day and now she’s taking down her every word. Even the guys in the front seat are leaning back to listen in.
Melanie loves being the center of attention and gets back at Mehran for all it’s worth. “You have to understand. He always kept his room locked. Except once.”
“You checked it then?”
“Of course,” Melanie smiles, playing to the crowd.
“And?”
“What you’d expect of an engineering student, technical stuff.”
“Anything to do with bombs or explosives?”
“Never could make much of it. I’m an English major, okay?”
Agent Rathon turns his head to ask her, “Did you ever go through his email?”
Melanie nods, “Of course but I couldn’t find a thing. Whatever was so important to him on that computer must have been hidden somewhere.”
“We’ll send it to the lab as soon as we can get our hands on it.”
Melanie can’t wait to see his face when they arrest him, cuff him and push him down into a squad car. It will serve him right. All the presents I lavished on him, the money I gave him, the dinners I bought. Turning the bastard in to the FBI is such sweet revenge.
“We’re going to send one team to check the dorm, the rest will head to Werblin. Anyplace else we should look?”
“At this time of night, he’s either at the dorm studying or he’s in the pool at the rec center. Unless he’s still in Philly.”
“Where do you think we have the best chance?” Fewell asks.
“Fifty-fifty. Can I ask what are you going to do to him?”
“Take him in for questioning. There will be a lot of people who’ll be very eager to talk to him.”
“How long will that take?”
“Why? Is there something you want to say to him?”
Melanie shakes her head. “I don’t care if I never see him again.”
Fewell looks at the poor little rich girl with the bad complexion wearing a designer outfit that probably costs as much as the car they are riding in.
“That’s good,” Fewell tells her, “because chances are you won’t.”
Hatkin has his bearing back. He’s changed into a fresh uniform, the fruit salad arrayed on his chest—five rows of medals and campaign ribbons from his almost forty year
s of service—glittering in the light coming in over his shoulder. Sitting ramrod straight in his chair, he’s tapping a pencil, the beat slow and steady. Watt straightens out his coat, wishing he looked as composed, knowing the strain of the past ten days is showing.
“I remember meeting this Warren character once at a Seal reunion in San Diego,” Hatkin recalls. “Impressive, started out as a jarhead but he told me he thought the Marines were a bunch of pussies so he wrangled a transfer to the Seals. Did two tours in Afghanistan, eating bugs, rappelling out of helos and slitting Taliban throats in the middle of the night.”
“Think we can turn him?”
“I’m working on it.”
“And Jimmick thought he was being so damn smart.”
“Guy got under your skin, didn’t he?”
Watt realizes his emotions are on parade. Chalk it up to countless hours of lost sleep. “I can’t wait to bring the bastard down. Putting these civilians in positions where they have responsibility for national security—it’s like giving the inmates keys to the asylum.”
The stew on Hatkin’s desk rings. He picks it up, “This is General Hatkin.” Watt watches as Hatkin carefully takes notes on the call. Even though Hatkin is normally tightly controlled, his face is now an open book—Watt can tell the news is good.
“Excellent,” Hatkin says, swiveling in his chair to look out the window. “And thanks, Frank. I owe you one.” He hangs up and swings around to face Watt.
“We have an appointment with Commander Warren in two hours. We’ll take my bird.” Hatkin looks up at the clock. “Meet me back here at 1900 hours.”
“Where are we heading?”
“Boatyard on the upper Chesapeake. Jimmick’s got Warren running a search operation there. Radiation detection sled, magnetometer, whole nine yards. Collyer and his cast of characters are coming down tomorrow.”
“And Warren’s with us?”
“He will when we’re finished with him. Already having second thoughts, that boy is, about moving to Homeland Security.”
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