The Assassin

by Andrew Britton

  In this case, however, it looked like the man was well prepared. The words “No Exam” came up on the monitor, indicating that the truck was allowed to pass. Like 82 percent of the commercial vehicles that came through daily, this one would proceed unhindered into the United States.

  “Looks like you’re good to go,” Logan said, handing the driver his paperwork. He glanced at the manifest one last time before releasing the document. “That’s a heavy load.”

  The driver grinned. “We got a deal on the boiler from one of our clients in Montreal. It’s actually for us… The old one gave out in our terminal in Ithaca a week ago.”

  Logan laughed. “I feel sorry for the poor bastards working in that building. Ain’t it hard to believe it’s only September? The guys on the night shift must be freezing their asses off.”

  “Well, if I wasn’t here, I’d be one of them. This is one of the few times I’m glad to be on the road.”

  Logan grunted his amusement. “Well, drive safe, and welcome to the United States.”

  Will Vanderveen dropped the truck into gear and smiled out the window. “Thanks. It’s good to be back.”

  CHAPTER 46

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  In the second-floor bedroom on Q Street, Kealey woke with a start and sat up, his eyes moving to the bedside clock. It was just after 5:30 in the morning. He looked to his left, expecting to see Naomi’s sleeping form, but he was surprised to find the other side of the bed empty. His gaze moved to the adjacent bathroom. There was no light under the door, so he assumed she must have gone back to her room while he had been sleeping. He couldn’t help but wonder what that meant. Did she regret what had happened? Or was she just uneasy sharing his bed in this particular setting?

  Kealey stood and moved to the window. It was still dark, the street shining beneath the sidewalk lamps, sodden leaves piled up at the curbs. As he stared out at the calm, silent scene, he found that he couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was strange, but he felt more at peace than he had in months, and he thought he knew why: after months and months of black despair, the shadow caused by Katie’s death was finally starting to lift. He knew that no one would ever replace her, but for the first time since that terrible night in Maine, he thought there might be room in his life for somebody else.

  He knew that the guilt would never entirely fade, just as he knew that his memories would haunt him forever. Still, now he thought he saw a way to build some new memories. Some good ones. He shook his head, realizing his thoughts might be a little presumptuous, or at least premature. He and Naomi obviously still had a lot to talk about, but that conversation would just have to wait. Hopefully, she wanted the same thing he did, to build on what they had started.

  He turned away from the window and went into the bathroom, flipping on the light. He shaved and brushed his teeth, then turned on the shower. Twenty minutes later he was dressed for the day in jeans, a black, long-sleeve layering T-shirt, and Columbia hiking boots.

  He left the room and started down to the other end of the hall. Before he hit the stairs, he heard Harper talking on the other side of the office door, as well as the sound of a television set at low volume. He tapped lightly and heard the other man call him in.

  When Kealey stepped in the room, he was slightly shocked at the DDO’s appearance. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair unkempt, and he was still dressed in the same clothes. Obviously, he had stayed up all night, giving orders and chasing down additional information. From the look on his face, it was clear that he had news to impart.

  “All hell has broken loose in Iraq,” he said, gesturing to the television.

  “What happened?”

  “Mortar attack on the Green Zone from across the river,” Harper replied wearily. “Just after midnight. Six people were killed outright, another dozen injured, most of them critically. Two hours later, a Huey carrying the 25th Infantry Division’s deputy commander was shot down near Kirkuk. The crew was killed in the crash, along with the ADC’s aide, a full colonel. The general is still missing, presumed dead.”

  “Jesus.” Kealey knew that this was big. To date, the highest ranking officer killed in Iraq since 2003 was a colonel in the National Guard. “How did they—”

  “Looks like a portable missile launcher. Stinger, maybe. We’re looking into it.” Harper shook it off and held up a handful of paper. “This just came in. You might want to read it.”

  Kealey accepted the paperwork and sank into one of the leather club chairs. “What is it?”

  “A list of people involved with the investigation at Al Qaqaa, following the theft of the explosives in March of 2003. The investigation involved the multinational force and the Iraq Survey Group. I assume you know what I’m talking about.”

  Kealey did. From the start of the war until January 2005, the ISG had been tasked with finding Saddam Hussein’s phantom WMDs. The group consisted of more than 1,000 nuclear, chemical, and biological experts, as well as private security contractors and military officers. Although the ISG never completed its main objective, it was one of the war’s most cohesive, efficient units, losing only a handful of people to accidents and enemy fire over a two-year period. At the same time, it managed to dispose of hundreds of tons of conventional munitions.

  “The ISG was divided into three Sector Control Points: North, Baghdad, and South,” Harper continued. “The Baghdad SCP was responsible for Al Qaqaa, so I narrowed the search to that group of people. What you have there is the name of everybody who, at some point or another, was involved with the investigation.”

  Kealey scanned the list quickly, but nothing jumped out. He forced himself to reread it carefully. There were nearly three hundred names on five sheets of paper. He was halfway through the fourth page when he stopped and said, “Jesus, I don’t believe it.”

  Harper had been watching the television, which was tuned to CNN. “What do you have?”

  “I know this guy, John. Owen… Paul Owen. He’s a lieutenant colonel with Delta. He used to be my CO at Bragg.”

  “Hold on, wasn’t he—”

  “Yeah,” Kealey cut in, anticipating the question. “He and his boys were with me in Fallujah when I went after Arshad Kassem.”

  “So he can either prove or disprove that BLU-82s were being stored at Al Qaqaa,” Harper said. A shadow crossed his face. “As I recall, he wasn’t too happy with you after what happened with Kassem.”

  “That’s true, but the brotherhood is a strange thing, John. You never served, so you don’t really know, but what happened in Fallujah is over and done with. I’ll explain the situation, and he’ll tell us what we need to know. I guarantee it.”

  Harper didn’t reply for a long moment, sizing up the younger man’s statement. Finally, he seemed to take it at face value. “You can call him on the way to the airport.”

  “It might not be easy to track him down,” Kealey pointed out. “Last I heard, he was at Camp Fallujah, but that might have changed by now. Guys like Owen never stay in one place for long.”

  “I’ll get you a telephone number before we leave. In the meantime, there’s something else you need to know about. I called my guy in Los Angeles and asked him to lean on that agent in New York. You know, the one who wasn’t buying into Rudaki’s story.”

  “This is how we got Rudaki’s name in the first place, right?”

  “Exactly. Anyway, as it turns out, he’s been meeting with Samantha Crane at a Bureau safe house. Apparently he didn’t want to show his face at the field office, which isn’t really surprising, considering the sensitive nature of what he was passing on. Lies or no lies, he wouldn’t want to be seen schmoozing with agents in a federal building. Supposedly, the safe house is in the Bronx. The agent thinks it might be on Vyse Avenue — the street popped up once in conversation — but he doesn’t know the address, and he’s not in a position to ask for it.”

  The younger man thought it through. “That’s interesting,” he finally said. “If something is going down today, Rudaki will
want to be sure he’s free and clear of any involvement. A Bureau safe house would be a good place to be, especially if he’s surrounded by agents and nowhere near the UN. You couldn’t ask for a better alibi.”

  “That’s makes sense, but without the address, the information isn’t much good.”

  “Maybe. I’ll have to think about it, but this meeting at the field office isn’t much good, either. Even Naomi knows there’s no way Rudaki will tell her the truth. She doesn’t have any leverage. We have to get Rudaki alone, and I have to do it myself.”

  Harper hesitated. “What if he’s telling the truth, Ryan? What if the Iranians really are behind the Babylon Hotel and Tabrizi’s death in Paris?”

  “We both know that’s not the case, John. The Iranians have more to lose by interfering in Iraq than they have to gain. Ahmadinejad is a crazy bastard, but not that crazy. He won’t risk sharing Saddam’s fate by killing that many people on U.S. soil. Vanderveen may be the man on the ground, but ultimately, someone else is behind this, and it’s not the regime in Tehran. Hakim Rudaki is feeding the Bureau lies, and so is Samantha Crane.”

  “So what will you do?”

  Kealey thought for a moment. “I’m going to see if I can find out where this safe house is. Naomi can go to the FO and sit in on the interview as planned. If Rudaki doesn’t want to be seen in a federal building, he won’t want to dawdle. Maybe I’ll catch him coming in or out.”

  The DDO shook his head. “Do you have any idea how that sounds? You’re basically hoping for a miracle.”

  “Well, that’s what we’re left with, isn’t it?”

  Kealey made his way downstairs a few minutes later. Despite the early hour, he found Naomi in the kitchen. She was sitting at the table, still in her bedclothes, eating a bowl of cereal. Her jet-black hair was mussed, her green eyes shining with some inner light. She smiled when she saw him, but there was some hesitation behind it. Kealey didn’t understand why at first, but then it hit him. She was probably having the same thoughts he was, namely, wondering if he wanted more than what they had shared the previous night.

  Julie Harper was busying herself with coffee at the counter. She turned when he entered and smiled. “Good morning, Ryan. Did you sleep well?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Naomi’s face turn red. She suddenly became much more interested in her cereal, pausing to shovel a huge spoonful of Cheerios into her mouth.

  “Great, thanks,” he said, responding to Julie’s question. “It definitely beats a cot in Kabul. Or a tent in the Bekaa, for that matter.”

  She laughed and turned back to the coffee. Kealey waited until Naomi had swallowed her cereal, then took the opportunity to lean down and kiss her. When he pulled away, her smile was so radiant that he couldn’t help but grin himself. He immediately realized that his fears were completely unfounded: judging by the happy look on her face, she didn’t regret what had happened at all. He took a seat at the table as Julie walked over with a mug of coffee, which he accepted gratefully.

  “Well, you look better, anyway. Much better, in fact.” She shot a suspicious but not unfriendly look at Naomi, who managed to look reasonably innocent. “What time are you heading out?”

  “Less than an hour. Our plane leaves at nine.”

  “Well, we had you for one night, at least. You won’t leave it so long next time, will you? I don’t want to wait a year to hear from you again.”

  “Not a chance. You’ll be sick of me before you know it.”

  “Not a chance,” she said, smiling to show she’d intentionally borrowed his words.

  Harper walked in from the living room a few minutes later. He accepted a cup from his wife and glanced at his watch, taking in Naomi’s disheveled appearance. “Kharmai, you’d better get moving, or that plane will be leaving without you.”

  She nodded and pushed back from her chair, shooting Kealey one last look before she left the room. Harper pushed a scrap of paper across the table.

  “According to Special Forces Command, Colonel Owen is currently based at Camp Diamondback at Mosul Airport. He’s been running search-and-destroy missions out of the garrison with a select group of men from ‘B’ Squadron. They’ve been tracking a mortar team that’s attacked the airport on four separate occasions since June. They think it’s the same team that hit the Green Zone this morning. That number will put you in touch with him.”

  “Good.”

  “If you get hold of him before you hit the airport, give him my name and tell him to expect my call,” Harper continued. “If he can affirm that Rühmann got the BLU-82 from Al Qaqaa, it’ll go a long way in convincing the president to bulk up security around the UN. It’s already tight, of course, but I won’t be happy until all the surrounding roads are blocked off.”

  “What time does the meeting begin?”

  “The General Assembly convenes at five PM. They’re holding it off as some of the Iraqi delegates won’t arrive until later this afternoon.”

  “So if Vanderveen wants to get them all in the same place, we have until five.”

  “That seems to be a reasonable assumption.”

  Julie Harper had gone upstairs while they were talking. Kealey stood and went to the counter, where he poured himself a second cup of coffee. As he returned to the table, he said, “I’ve been thinking about something you said last night, John. If Vanderveen already has the daisy cutter here in the States — and I think we have to assume he does — how did he get it over the border?”

  “A truck.”

  “Right, but that’s risky. What if he got stopped? He couldn’t risk a customs inspection.”

  “If the weapon was disguised he could.”

  “It’s kind of hard to disguise a fifteen-thousand-pound bomb.”

  “But not impossible,” Harper pointed out. “Besides, there are other ways to circumvent customs. Like I said before, just having the right paperwork makes a huge difference.”

  “Exactly,” Kealey agreed. “But how do you get the right paperwork?”

  The older man frowned. “I don’t know as much about this as I probably should. I know there are systems in place to facilitate companies that do a lot of cross-border trade.”

  “I think that’s where we need to look. A company based in the New York area that spends a lot of time going in and out of Canada.”

  “That’s a lot of companies.”

  “Yeah, but who files the paperwork with U.S. Customs? The owner, right?” Kealey fell silent for a moment, thinking it through. “The question is, who would risk everything to help Vanderveen with this, and why? What’s the motivation?”

  “Money.”

  “Money is one possibility,” Kealey said absently. “Let’s get this to the New York FO, John. Ask them to start looking at businesses in the five boroughs listed with the CBP. Have them focus on companies owned by people of Middle Eastern descent.”

  “That’s the worst kind of racial profiling, Ryan.”

  “I’m aware of that,” the younger man said, unable to hide his irritation, “but we’re not asking them to break down any doors, are we? If they check discreetly, no one will be the wiser. We have to look at all the angles, and I don’t care if we hurt a few feelings along the way. We don’t have time to fuck around anymore.”

  By 6:45 they were ready to leave. They had opted to leave their luggage behind, so they were traveling light. Naomi had changed into a snug cashmere sweater, along with a pair of stretch chinos and suede flats. She was unarmed, owing to the fact that she would be spending most of the trip at the Bureau’s FO, but Kealey had his Beretta, which he’d left with Harper before departing for Berlin. He planned to check the weapon at the airport, knowing that whatever happened in New York, he would almost certainly need it. If, by some miracle, he did manage to get his hands on Hakim Rudaki, the man would not be quick to volunteer the truth.

  Julie Harper walked them to the door. She hugged Ryan briefly and urged him to come back soon. As Jonathan pulled him aside to deliver
some last-minute instructions, Kharmai found herself alone with the other woman. To her surprise, she found herself being drawn in for a warm embrace.

  “Take care of him, Naomi,” Julie murmured. “He deserves to be happy again.”

  Naomi nodded when the other woman released her, touched by the gesture. She was also a little embarrassed; she wasn’t aware they had made it so obvious. “I’ll do my best. It was great meeting you.”

  “You too, dear. Take care.”

  The Suburban was already waiting at the curb. Naomi walked down the stairs, followed by Kealey and Harper. She got in first. Kealey moved to follow, but Harper pulled him back for a second. There were equal amounts of hesitation and steadfast determination on the older man’s face.

  “Ryan, I asked my driver to bring along a couple of cell phones. I have the numbers, and you have mine. If there’s anything I can do from here, don’t hesitate to let me know.”

  Kealey nodded. “Thanks, John. I’ll remember that.”

  “And good luck,” the older man said. He looked up at the overcast sky and frowned, as if the weather could foretell the day’s events. “I think you’re going to need it.”

  CHAPTER 47

  NEW YORK CITY

  In the parking area outside the warehouse on West Thirty-seventh Street in Midtown Manhattan, Will Vanderveen lifted the rolling door of an Isuzu truck, placed his hands on the cold metal floor at the back, and stared in at the contents. Thomas Rühmann’s men had done their work well; to look inside, one would never guess that, concealed beneath the thin metal walls of a Parker commercial boiler, was an elaborate, delicate wooden framework, and beneath that, a device capable of unleashing incredible destruction, a device capable of destroying the heart of the Iraqi Parliament, the United Iraqi Alliance. As he gazed upon the sight, he was aware of Raseen at his side. He looked at her and saw she was equally rapt, her dark eyes shining. Behind her, standing off to the side, was Amir Nazeri. He looked calm and assured, his glasses reflecting the pale morning sun, but there was an undercurrent of tension there that had not escaped the other two. Vanderveen, in particular, was still trying to figure out how steadfast Nazeri was. It was the last — but most important — thing he had to consider. Nearly everything else was done.