Heart Strike

by David Bishop

  “Please, don’t kill me. I’ve got a lot of money. Don’t kill me.”

  “Money’s good. There ain’t no evil in money, only in what people do with it. Be patient, we’ll get to your money. It could save your life, but not save you from answering my questions. Oh, drats, I just don’t think you’re ready. We’ll use the fleshy parts of your legs next. I’ll give you this, you got a lot of parts I can plug you in without hitting anything real critical.”

  Testler started back to his perch among the seats.

  “No. No. Don’t shoot me anymore. Ask me what you want to know.”

  “Not yet. I don’t think you’re really ready. Maybe after another three or four shots. Not yet. You’ll start stammering and fibbing and I don’t wanna have to stop and wash your mouth out with soap for telling lies. Be patient.”

  Testler went back one more row of seats.

  “Please. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.” His head sagged down, his multiple chins touching his chest.

  “Well, maybe. I mean you’re not exactly the hardened, fierce jihadist warrior sleeping in a cave at night to fight by day.”

  “That’s right. I’ve never fired a gun at a person. I do other things.”

  “Like bribe and threaten and destroy and ruin people’s lives? Why should I give a shit about what you don’t want me to do?”

  Khouri raised his head, squinted and looked out toward Testler. “Because I have the answers you want. Just ask me. Don’t kill me.”

  “I’ll decide that after judging the quality of your answers.”

  Khouri’s eyes went big.

  “Question one. Now let’s get off on a good foot. Don’t mess this one up. Who is Faraj Arafa?”

  “He’s a young Egyptian. A student at Georgetown University.”

  “That’s not an answer, that’s his identity.” Testler came out from the row of seats, turned and walked into the next row farther back. He turned and raised his gun.

  “The boy’s the shooter. He’ll act alone.”

  Testler went back to face Khouri, close up. “Damn. If you’d have just delayed another few second I coulda shot you again.”

  “Why? I told you.”

  “Not before trying to avoid doing so with that silly little reference to Faraj being a student. I confess to sometimes getting lazy. If I shot you in the leg it would’ve been harder to get you back on your feet. New rule: next lie, I’ll plug you in the arm. Okay, next question: Who’s the target Faraj will try to kill?”

  Khouri’s face tightened. He clenched his teeth and drew in his lips. His eyes narrowed.

  “Last chance, Mr. Outlaw. Who do you want shot?” Testler paused between each of his words: “I want the identity of Faraj’s target?”

  Khouri stood quiet, his eyes closed.

  “Your choice. Let’s see how accurate I am from all the way back in the tenth row. I think it’s ten, isn’t it, Nine or ten.” Testler turned and walked away.

  “The president. … Robert Wellington. The president’s the target.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow when Marine One brings him back from Camp David.”

  “How?”

  “You said it, a MANPAD.”

  “From where?”

  “A hotel near the White House.”

  “Which one?”

  “I don’t know.” Khouri’s head seemed in freefall. It stopped against his chest. “I don’t know. All I know is it faces the South Lawn at the White House. I know Faraj and the weapon are there in the room now.”

  “Faraj Arafa hasn’t been trained, at least not in some years, on such weapons. The launch point has gotta be close.”

  “It is.”

  “No. No. You must know. Which hotel? What’s the room number?”

  Khouri sagged against the wall. His entire fat body a massive shrug.

  “You’re the coordinator. You set it up. You know.”

  “To insulate myself I had someone else set up the room and deliver the MANPAD. After the delivery, that man was eliminated because he could identify both me and Faraj. At this point, no one knows the hotel and room except Faraj.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Prove it.”

  “I’ll give you the name who set up the hotel room. Earlier tonight, he was killed in a downtown motel.”

  After Khouri told him, Testler called Dillinger. After that call, Testler went back to Khouri. “Now, you were saying something about offering me money. Are we talking about enough to persuade me to change my plans?”

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  “If I am, you don’t need the money. If I do, I’ll find the money after you’re dead. So, your best chance is to tell me and hope I don’t kill you anyway.”

  Khouri wrinkled his forehead and licked his lips. “The safe is behind that movie poster,” he pointed. “The one for The Professionals.”

  “That was a great picture. Where else? That can’t be your only stash.”

  “That’s it. I got a quarter of a million in there. It’s yours. Just don’t … kill me.”

  “Okay. Deal.”

  “The combination is—”

  “I have the combination and the money. Leaving your combination on a sticky at the bottom of a drawer in your dresser was not smart. Rather arrogant, actually, but that’s you.”

  “What now?”

  “We wait. If the agents don’t find that guy dead in that motel, we’ll go back to twenty questions and this time I won’t be so nice.”

  Twenty minutes later, Testler got a return call from Billy Dillinger. He’d dispatched a local beat cop who reported finding a man dead in the seedy motel room. The deceased driver’s license showed the name Khouri gave Testler.

  The scuzzy fat guy hunched his shoulders and twisted his head from side to side, wiping his forehead. “What happens now?”

  “When you get all wimpy and whiney, I can’t be sure what you’re saying. If you’re asking what happens now, you keep answering questions. When this current threat is dealt with, depending on how you cooperated, we’ll decide what happens to you. My preference would be to put the first bullet in your balls, and second in your cranium. But reason tells me to leave you be, with one minor change.”

  The founder of the Arab-American Loyalty Council licked his lips. “What change?”

  “You become our whore. If you do, you keep your undeserved life by giving us every scrap you learn about money, manpower, and plans. Fail to deliver and we go back to my preferred conclusion.”

  “I know nothing else.”

  “You will and we want it when you do.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “When you exhaust our patience, like I said, the first goes in your ball bag, the second in your head.”

  Khouri shut his eyes and leaned back until his shoulder found the soundproofed wall. He nodded. The man wanted to continue his lavish lifestyle. His kind always did. The lifestyle he couldn’t otherwise afford was his whole reason for selling out God, country, and the less fortunate.

  “What do your spies tell you about when the president will return to the south lawn?”

  “All we have is sometime late morning or early afternoon, tomorrow. Faraj will be watching for the helicopter and be ready when Marine One approaches the White House.”

  “We both know presidential security includes multiple matching helicopters. How many will be used on his flight back from Camp David and which one will house the president?”

  “I was told two, maybe three. The source explained the Secret Service decides this at the last minute. When several are used, I was told Wellington tends to be in the one near the center of the group. Faraj will target whichever one comes close enough for a landing on the south lawn.”

  “I need your source for that inside information.”

  “Henrietta Sullivan.”

  “Did Sullivan know why you wanted this information?”

  “No.
I got her talking during lunch. The woman loves to talk and show off what she knows. She also loves money.”

  “As do we all. I thank you for your quarter of a million. You are to forget I have it. I’m leaving.”

  Khouri looked at Testler with an expression of bewilderment. You’re leaving? What happens to me, now?”

  “First off, I’m sure you have contacts that can dress your flesh wounds, if you feel that’s necessary. Then again, doctors are required to report gunshot wounds, so, if you’d rather keep quiet about our little chat, I left instructions in on your desk showing how you can treat the flesh wounds yourself. As to a deeper meaning, get on with your life. Either way, we’ll be in touch. Oh, you should know I filmed and recorded our little chat. So, you have a choice of being a hero to the terrorist by warning them, and being arrested for collaborating with the terrorists, or keeping your mouth shut, continuing your life as you know it, and sharing everything you know and learn with the CIA.”

  Ryan walked out of Khouri’s home, his mind occupied with knowing when Marine One returned the first family to the White House, Linda Darby would also be aboard.

  Chapter 49

  An hour later, Ryan Testler was at CIA headquarters in a special room off the side of CIA Director Templeton’s office. The third person in the room was United States Secret Service Director, Rick Crabtree, known, in a small circle, as Crabby.

  Testler laid out the threat and the support for its authenticity. Templeton, already familiar with much of what Testler was doing, didn’t need the degree of explanation required by Director Crabtree. When Crabby was up to speed, the three men turned their focus on how to proceed.

  The first and easiest decision was that President Wellington, the first lady, and Linda Darby would not return to the White House on Marine One. The part of the decision that didn’t come so easily was whether or not the impression would be maintained that everything was normal and the president was expected to arrive just that way. To simply call it off and let the media know would tell the terrorists to pack their bags and disappear. Thus leaving the sleeper, now openly referred to by his name, Faraj Arafa, and the MANPAD, loose in the nation’s capital city.

  They discussed using all five of the identical Marine One helicopters, but decided that might suggest they knew something was up since all of the choppers were rarely used. Two was common, three not unusual. They decided on three, all empty except for minimal flying crew. One chopper would come in almost close enough to land, then pull back. A second would do the same if, they had not yet captured Faraj Arafa.

  This strategy was designed to slow the terrorist taking the shot, while encouraging him to cut the hole in the window on the approach of the first helicopter, before it pulled back, or the second on its approach to the south lawn.

  Secret Service Director Crabtree would quarterback that part of the plan. He would call the president and the lead agent on the president’s Secret Service contingent at Camp David. Testler, together with CIA Director Templeton, and Secret Service Director Crabtree, would review the information on the area immediate to the White House.

  “Remember, directors,” Testler said, “Khouri told us the MANPAD was to be used from the hotel window when Marine One slowed and was close to landing. If the missile missed Marine One, it would strike the White House itself.”

  “We’re aware.” Director Crabtree kept nodding his head while obviously in thought. “We have a tremendous amount of data on all the nearby hotels, including line of sight points from each to the White House. We’ll immediately winnow the list of hotels to those facing the south lawn.”

  Templeton turned to Testler. “What will you be doing, Ryan?”

  “Your staff is most familiar with the details on the hotels. I know the most about Faraj Arafa. The only person who knows more about him is Dorothy Mitchum, the local woman who befriended him. While you’re working up a game plan for the hotels, I’ll head over to see her. I doubt she’s heard from him. If she had, I think she would’ve contacted me. Still, I want to make sure. When we’ve got it down to one hotel, I’ll head there and take the lead.”

  Chapter 50

  Ryan knocked on Dorothy Mitchum’s door and waited. When the elderly woman opened it, Ryan hardly recognized her. She had no lipstick and no barrette keeping her hair under control. A terry cloth robe sagged from her shoulders. Her hair was limp around her head, stopped only by its own length.

  She smiled thinly and pulled her door open farther. “Tell me. Did you find Faraj? Is he alive?”

  Ryan looked each direction down the hall from Dorothy’s door, then at her. His eyebrows raised.

  Dorothy stepped back in her fuzzy slippers, her heel coming out of one. Ryan went in. She closed the door.

  “He’s alive. Time is running out. We need to find him fast. Have you heard from him?”

  “No. I doubt I will.”

  “Frankly, so do I, but I had to be sure. This is an odd question, but a very important one. Did Faraj ever talk with you about a particular local hotel? Perhaps take you to a hotel restaurant for lunch?”

  “No. Why is that important?”

  “I can’t really say right now. Sorry. We’ve just got to find him. But, let me ask, how are you doing? Is there anything you need? I can get—”

  “No. I apologize for my frightful appearance. I haven’t gone outside since your last visit. I just sit in front of the news channel waiting for a news alert. … I made a pot of his hibiscus tea—would you like a cup?”

  “Some other time. You were saying?”

  “Oh, just that I spent the morning drinking the tea and staring at his picture. Remembering, you know.”

  “You have a picture? I asked last time. You said no.”

  “I’d forgotten. It was one I sneaked in without him knowing. We were at the park watching the kids play. He went over to push one of them on the swing.”

  “May I see it?”

  “Of course. It’s out here on my table near the window.” Dorothy led Ryan into her kitchen. She picked up the nondescript frame. “This is Faraj.” She handed it to Ryan.

  He studied the face of his opponent, the terrorist. “Dorothy, I have to take this picture. It’ll help us recognize him. Hopefully, allow us to get to him before he does the horrible thing he’s been ordered to do. Maybe capture him without having to harm him.”

  She took the picture back, held it, and looked at his face. Then nodded, turned it over, repositioned the little hinges, removed the picture, and handed it to Ryan. “Take it. Stop him. Save him. He is not a bad man. Despite what seems to be true, Faraj is a gentle soul caught up in . . .” Her unspoken words trailed off.

  “I have to go. I promise to come back and tell you what happened. The truth of it.”

  Dorothy squeezed Ryan’s arm, and led him back to her door. She opened it and pushed him in the back. “Go. Do whatever you must to stop this.”

  In the car, Ryan used his cellphone to take a picture of the photograph of Faraj Arafa. He attached it to a text to CIA Director Templeton, asking him to forward it to Director Crabtree of the Secret Service with a request they each immediately forward it to the agents leading up their respective squads.

  Chapter 51

  For the next several hours, Testler drifted from the CIA to the Secret Service headquarters monitoring their progress. The Secret Service had amazing details on local hotels and quickly narrowed the hotel down to three possibilities. They entered the databases of those three and looked at guest registrations and check-ins over the past three days, deliveries made to those hotels of any packages of a size sufficient to hold a MANPAD, or any wooden crate similar to the one described by the officer from the container ship. They checked the ages and nationalities suggested by the names of all guests who took up temporary residence during those days. A separate list of all registrations for guests made by third parties was developed. Notations were made with respect to how payment was tendered for each room and those money trails were followed, mo
stly to some credit card.

  During these hours, Testler kept up on the news reports. Scattered references were made to the president soon leaving Camp David. He was expected back at the White House within the hour, typical reports of anticipations to fill the hunger of round-the-clock news.

  All the processing by the combined energies of the CIA and the Secret Service reduced the task to about three dozen hotel guests. Along the way, the FBI was brought up to speed and added its substantial resources and manpower. The CIA, through its National Resources division, aided by regular case officers and FBI field agents, undertook chasing down each of the nearly forty guests.

  The Secret Service was left to focus on White House security in preparation for the president’s arrival. The Secret Service worked on developing a plan for quietly evacuating White House personnel from the portions of the building closest to the south lawn. The impediment to this was the outside media people who hover in and near the White House on a seemingly constant basis. They have numerous contacts at all levels of everything that went on in the White House. The plan was not to actually move personnel, just to draw up contingencies for quickly moving them to the other side of the building, should that necessity arise.

  Meanwhile, a combination of field officers and analysts searched for answers to details: 1) confirming whether these guests were citizens or foreign nationals, 2) ascertaining employment for each of the guests, 3) determining each guest’s reason for being in the nation’s capital, 4) developing profile data for each guest, including credit card information for the majority who paid in this manner, 5) whether or not the guests ordered room service or dined in the hotel restaurant, and if the hotel concierge arranged transportation for them, 6) locating pictures or searching hotel security film footage to put a face to each of these guests. Along the way, approximate ages, heights, weights, and hair colors were determined or guessed at when neither drivers’ licenses nor passports were copied at the front desk. To all this was added anything that came from the recollections of hotel personnel or the activities of the guests themselves.