Moonlight Warriors: A Tale of Two Hit Men

by Joseph Rogers

“Truth is truth.”

  “Veritas. Quid est veritas?” Sam asked.

  Charlie went to the front window and looked outside. “So it might be a while until he gets home?”

  “It’s hard to say.”

  “While we’re waiting, I’m going to take a quick look around the apartment,” Charlie said.

  “I’ll join you in a few minutes,” Jenny said, wanting to ask the woman some additional questions.

  “Okay.” Charlie went into the small kitchen and looked in the drawer and cabinets. Not finding anything of interest, he went into the one bedroom.

  Charlie walked over to the computer on a small desk by the window. He considered turning it on, but he decided to wait until later because a thorough examination of the files could take a long time. He was especially interested in reading the man’s e-mail.

  Charlie searched the closet and found nothing unusual. He began going through a chest of drawers. Beneath a stack of tee-shirts, he found a knife.

  “Jenny, could you come here a moment?”

  She came into the room. “What do you have?”

  He pointed at the knife, careful not to touch it. “Those look like bloodstains to me.”

  “I think you’re correct.” A tiny flashlight appeared in her hand, and she trained the beam on the blade of the knife.

  “You have more gizmos than James Bond,” Charlie said admiringly.

  “A girl needs to be prepared,” she said.

  They heard the sounds of commotion coming from the living room. A woman was shouting.

  Jenny and Charlie ran into the room to see the front door open. David was holding back Jackie, who was attempting to get to the door.

  “Ali Aziz is out front!” David told the detectives, causing them to dash outside.

  Sam was rapidly approaching the man. Ali Aziz shouted at him in Arabic, then pulled a handgun from his backpack and started to aim it at Sam.

  With speed and efficiency, Sam drew his own weapon from his shoulder holster and shot Ali in the chest before the man could open fire.

  Jenny was instantly on her cell phone calling for medical help. Having seen the shooting through the front window of her apartment, Jackie could no longer be restrained. She broke free from David’s grip and ran outside down to the sidewalk, all the while screaming hysterically.

  Her boyfriend was clearly dead. Charlie bent down and scooped up Ali’s handgun so that Jackie could not do anything foolish. She knelt down and hugged Ali’s body.

  “Why? Why?” Her plaintive wail sounded up and down the street as neighbors emerged from apartments and houses.

  Charlie said a silent prayer as he watched the woman cradling the body of her loved one in her lap. He had seen similar scenes through the years, and every time it reminded him of the Pieta, Michelangelo’s great sculpture depicting Mary holding the body of Christ.

  Chapter 13

  Curiouser and Curiouser

  Two hours later, Jenny and Charlie sat in a booth at the front window of a coffee shop in Webster Groves.

  “It was a justifiable shooting.” Jenny said. “We both saw what happened. I feel very sorry for Jackie, but Sam was defending himself.”

  “I don’t like the way that entire incident transpired.” Charlie took another sip of his cappuccino. “That man should not have died this afternoon.”

  “What do you mean?” Jenny asked.

  “Both of us have gone to the homes of hundreds of suspects and arrested them without having to shoot them.”

  “But if Ali was the assassin, he was more dangerous than anyone that either of us has arrested.”

  “I doubt that he is the assassin. Did you see how he handled that gun? He was slow and clumsy. That guy at the counter who sold us these cappuccinos could probably have wielded that gun more efficiently.”

  “Very true,” Jenny agreed.

  For about a minute, they sat in companionable silence, enjoying their cappuccinos. It occurred to Jenny how comfortable she was in the presence of this man, her longtime partner and friend.

  Charlie and my father are the two persons in this world with whom I am most comfortable, Jenny reflected. Does Charlie know how important he is to me? I can’t imagine my life without him.

  Then, out of the blue, she had a crystal clear vision of herself in a dazzling white wedding dress with Charlie at her side in a tuxedo. He had never looked more handsome.

  Charlie looked at her intently. “Is something wrong?”

  “Huh, oh, no, everything is fine.” His question jolted her back to the present moment. “In fact, everything is perfect here.”

  “Everything is perfect here.” Charlie looked at her warmly. “However, something is wrong with this case. Something is very wrong.”

  “Why do you say that?” Jenny asked.

  “A minute ago I had an epiphany.”

  “Were you wearing a tuxedo?” she asked before she could stop herself.

  “A tuxedo? What?” He looked bewildered.

  “Never mind.” Her face turned slightly red. “What was your epiphany?”

  Charlie noticed her blush, but he decided to make no comment about it.

  “How did those terrorists know that Fatima was at your father’s house? We checked the cars; there was no electronic tracking device.”

  “Well, the only persons who knew where she was staying were David Hummel, Sam Troutman, you, me, my father, and our Chief of Detectives, Captain Perkins. One of those persons could be an Al Qaeda operative. Who do you think it is?”

  “I’m betting it’s you,” Charlie said dryly.

  “Charlie!” Jenny laughed in mock outrage.

  “Okay, then your father must be the Al Qaeda agent. Oh, wait, there was that whole gun battle thing. Al Qaeda shooting at Al Qaeda. That wouldn’t work. As the biblical saying goes, ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I guess that clears Walter.”

  “Charlie, be serious.”

  “If I must, I will. Actually, I think there are more suspects available to us. Our two FBI associates might have told their own supervisor or some other FBI agent that Fatima was at your father’s house. Or the terrorists might have intercepted one of our cell phone calls.”

  “We’ll need to check with David and Sam about whether they told anyone.”

  “Let’s just ask David first.”

  Jenny looked at him intently. “Why?”

  “Even before he killed Ali Aziz, I had a bad feeling about Sam Troutman. There is something about that guy I don’t like. This shooting just adds to my negative impression of him.”

  “Charlie, Sam Troutman is an FBI agent. Do you actually think that he could be helping Islamic terrorists? What would be his motive?”

  “There are lots of possibilities,” Charlie said. “Perhaps he is being forced to help them. Islamic extremists might be blackmailing him. Or terrorists might be holding one of his relatives hostage, either in this country or overseas.”

  “Or it could be pure, simple greed,” Jenny added. “The terrorists might be paying him for information.”

  “Right. Besides, it is not unheard of for an FBI agent to go bad. Back in the 1990s, there was an FBI agent who was selling top-secret information to the Russians.”

  “Okay, let’s contact David.” Jenny took out her cell phone. “I have his number in my list of contacts.” She made the call, then waited for several seconds. Just when she thought that she was going to have to leave a message on voice mail, he answered.

  “Hello, Lieutenant Halloran.”

  “Hello, Agent Hummel. What’s new?”

  “Not much. I’m troubled about that shooting earlier today.”

  “Actually my partner and I have been discussing the shooting, and we have some concerns that we’d like to discuss with you,” Jenny said.

  “Do you want me to bring Sam with me?” David asked.

  “No. We’d like to speak with you alone. In fact, it would be better if you didn’t even tell Sam that you are meeting with
us.”

  “I understand. Where would you like to meet?”

  “Charlie and I can come to your location. Where are you?”

  “When you called, I was just pulling into the parking lot of a Steak and Shake on South Lindbergh Boulevard. I was planning to go inside, but I can eat later.”

  “No, go ahead and get something to eat there. I know exactly where that Steak and Shake is. There’s a Walgreens next door. Charlie and I are just a few miles from where you are. We can be there in about ten minutes.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you then.”

  “Bye.” Jenny hung up. “He just arrived at the Steak and Shake on Lindbergh Boulevard near Tesson Ferry Road.”

  Charlie stood up. “Good, let’s go.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” she said as they walked toward their car. “That Alice was a smart young lady. Life is filled with curious things.”

  “What?” Charlie looked at her.

  “I was quoting from Alice in Wonderland,” Jenny said. “The complete sentence is ‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised that, for the moment, she quite forgot how to speak good English).’ ”

  “What?”

  “We seem to be saying ‘what’ a lot lately,” Jenny remarked.

  “What are we saying a lot lately?”

  “What.”

  “What are we saying a lot lately?” Charlie repeated.

  “The word ‘what!’ ” she declared.

  “Who’s on first?” he said with a grin.

  “Charlie, you’re going to get it!” Jenny realized that he had understood all along; he had merely been playing a variation of an old comedy routine.

  “Getting back to the subject at hand, you mentioned that you found something to be curious. What was curious?”

  “David did not ask why we wanted to meet with him without Sam and not tell Sam about the meeting.”

  “David probably assumes that we are more comfortable discussing the shooting without Sam being present,” Charlie said as they got into his blue Chevy.

  “I suppose so.” Jenny got into the car, and they drove away.

  About ten minutes later they pulled into the parking lot of the Steak and Shake restaurant.

  When they entered the restaurant, they immediately spotted David, who was seated comfortably in a booth in the far corner.

  “I always like to sit with my back against the wall,” he told them jokingly as they slid into the booth with him. “It makes it impossible for my enemies to sneak up behind me.”

  “This is your first visit to St. Louis,” Charlie said with a smile. “You can’t have made too many enemies here.”

  “You might be surprised.”

  “Jenny and I have been cops for years. We have a whole busload of enemies here. We are the ones who need the corner seats.”

  “I have your back. Don‘t worry.”

  A waitress approached their table and gave menus to Charlie and Jenny.

  “This lovely young lady is Ana,” David introduced her. “She was also my waitress yesterday, and we had a nice conversation. Ana mentioned that she is a vegetarian, so I told her that I would be an honorary vegetarian for the day. I’m having a grilled cheese sandwich.”

  “Actually a grilled cheese sandwich sounds good to me,” Charlie said. “I’ll also be a vegetarian for the day. I would also like a vanilla shake.”

  “A vegetarian waitress at Steak and Shake,” Jenny remarked. “That’s rather ironic.” She glanced at the waitress’s name tag. “And you spell ‘Ana’ with one ‘n.’ I don’t think that I have seen that previously.”

  Ana laughed. “Well, my actual name is spelled ‘Anna,’ but I prefer to spell it with one ‘n.’ I suppose that I like to be unique.”

  After Ana departed to get their food, the two police detectives and the FBI agent lowered their voices.

  “While we were speaking on the phone a little while ago, I had the impression that you share some of our concerns about Sam,” Jenny said.

  “I have always considered the guy to be very overrated. He is supposed to be one of our best experts on the jihadist movement, yet almost every operation with which he has been involved has failed. When he was stationed in Europe, he participated in several raids against terrorist groups, but something always went wrong, and someone besides Sam got the blame for the failure. A few months ago his team raided a pub in Berlin, but they were ambushed and several German intelligence officers were killed by the terrorists, who then escaped. In five major raids led by Sam, only a few low-level operatives were arrested or killed.”

  “Sacrificial lambs,” Charlie said, deep in thought.

  “Sam also unsuccessfully led the FBI’s pursuit of an assassin named Saud Tariq. Tariq murdered numerous moderate Islamic leaders in Arab countries and in Europe.”

  “Why was the FBI involved?”

  “Saud Tariq killed a CIA agent in London. The CIA agent had infiltrated an extremist group, but somehow his cover was blown. He was stabbed to death when he entered his apartment in the Soho district in London.”

  “That sounds familiar,” Jenny said. “That computer programmer, Rebecca Wright, was stabbed to death when she entered her apartment.”

  “It’s possible that Saud Tariq killed her,” David said. “We think that he assassinated Douglas Neldt and arranged for his company to be bombed.”

  “Why are we just hearing about Saud Tariq now?” Charlie asked.

  “Sam did not want me to mention him to you. We weren’t sure that Saud Tariq was involved, and Sam said that he didn’t want to tell you about him until we had more facts. He is big on the concept of need to know. He said that he doesn’t believe Saud Tariq is in St. Louis, so there is no need for St. Louis police to know about him. We aren’t even sure that Saud Tariq is in the United States.”

  “But you think that he is here?” Jenny inquired.

  “I would bet a year’s salary that he is. You two are lucky to have each other as partners. Working with Sam is a pain in the neck. To tell you the truth, Sam doesn’t have much respect for the police. He can be a snob sometimes. Sam hasn’t said anything negative about either of you, though.” He grinned slightly. “In fact, you’re the first police detectives that he hasn’t made snide remarks about to me. So, in a way, that’s kind of an indirect compliment to you.”

  “Be still my heart,” Jenny said with a sardonic grin.

  Ana arrived with the shakes and plates of food.

  “Just before you arrived, Ana was telling me about her high school graduation,” David said. “She went barefoot beneath her gown.”

  “Yes,” Ana said with a smile. “I didn’t think anyone noticed that I was barefoot, but my grandmother asked me about it after the ceremony. Apparently when I came down the steps from the stage, she noticed my feet.”

  “The barefoot graduate,” Jenny laughed. “That is hilarious, Ana!”

  “Where are you going to college, Ana?” David asked.

  “I’m going to Loyola University in New Orleans. Last year I went with my sister, Linden, to visit both Loyola University of Chicago and Loyola University in New Orleans. Both schools looked good, but I like the nice warm weather down south.”

  “Oh, that should be great, Ana,” Jenny said. “New Orleans is a fascinating place.”

  “And it is warm enough for you to go barefoot there,” Charlie grinned.

  “Exactly,” Ana chucked. “I can’t wait to start school there. But I will be back working here during Christmas break and summer vacation.”

  “Good,” Charlie said. “We will stop by here at Christmastime to hear about how college is going for you.”

  Ana spotted some new customers entering the restaurant, so she excused herself and went to greet them.

  Jenny glanced over at Charlie, who was looking out the window at the parking lot, apparently lost in thought. “Earth to Charlie. Come in, Charlie.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Yes, but are you li
stening to us or to some inner voice telling you to kill the bad people at the table with you?”

  Charlie laughed. “Fortunately for you and David, I’m ignoring that inner voice.”

  She looked over his shoulder. “So what are you thinking?”

  “I was thinking about Ana going barefoot beneath her gown at graduation,” Charlie said.

  “Are you considering going barefoot, too, Charlie?” Jenny kidded him. “I think our Chief of Detectives would frown upon that. He is not even real thrilled about you wearing those cowboy boots all the time.”

  “No, I won’t be going barefoot; I like my boots,” Charlie said. “However, the point is that human beings are curious creatures who do surprising things.”

  “So?”

  “So I’ll bet that Sam Troutman has done a lot of surprising things.”

  “Why?” David asked.

  “Because we have been worried about how the terrorists found out that Fatima was staying with Jenny’s father. Only the police and FBI knew where she was staying, and we know that our side was secure. Did you mention her safe-house location to your supervisor or to any other FBI agent?”

  “No. I didn’t tell anyone. And Sam wouldn’t have had any good reason to tell anyone.”

  “His reasons might not have been good,” Charlie said. “This security breach, the unnecessary shooting death earlier today, and what you have told us about Sam’s record in other countries makes me very suspicious of him.”

  David nodded. “I agree.”

  “A short while ago, Jenny and I were discussing the possibility that Sam is being paid by Al Qaeda to give them information. Or he might be being blackmailed by Al Qaeda or threatened by Al Qaeda. They could be threatening his family or holding someone hostage to get him to cooperate.”

  David shook his head. “I doubt it. I have known the guy for over a year. He acts the same now as he did a year ago. He seems just as relaxed as usual.” He paused. “Even killing that guy earlier today did not seem to bother him. That seemed strange to me. Less than an hour after the shooting, he was looking for a good restaurant in which to eat lunch.”

  Charlie looked at him intently. “I just had an idea. It might be kind of crazy, but it is worth investigating. Could you have the FBI send a list of Sam’s assignments in Europe and the Middle East? I would also like the FBI to send a list of the places and dates of all the known hits by Saud Tariq in Europe and the Middle East.”