The Assassin

by Andrew Britton

  Five minutes later she was approached by a man with dark, wavy hair; broad shoulders; and square, chiseled features. He was handsome enough, with one exception: his nose had been badly broken at some point in the past. It was pinched at the bridge and shaped like an hourglass. Naomi made an effort not to stare at it as she stood up and accepted the proffered hand.

  “Ms. Kharmai? Or is it Agent Kharmai?” The man grinned. “Sorry, but I still haven’t figured that out. As you can probably imagine, I don’t have a lot of interaction with you people.”

  She tried to return the smile, but it wasn’t easy, given her recent epiphany. It felt like the weight of the world was resting on her shoulders. “You can call me Naomi.”

  “I’m Special Agent Foster, but call me Matt. Sorry you had to wait.”

  “That’s fine,” she said. “I got here only a minute ago.”

  They started toward the elevator. Matt Foster. Something about the name seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Where had she heard it before? She was still thinking about it as the elevator stopped on the twenty-third floor and the doors slid open. They stepped into a reception area. There was a desk near the far wall, the FBI seal displayed prominently behind the secretary’s blond head. Trailing behind, Naomi couldn’t see Foster’s face as they passed the desk, but he must have done something, because the secretary blushed and looked away. For some reason, the harmless flirting annoyed her deeply. She no longer felt like wasting a second; all she wanted was to find and stop Will Vanderveen, and that meant getting the truth out of Hakim Rudaki.

  The bullpen was incredibly noisy, the open space filled with agents talking on phones and working on computers. Crossing the room, they came to a glass-enclosed office. The door was open, so Foster tapped on the frame and was told to enter. Aware that she was probably about to have a very unpleasant conversation, Naomi tried to adopt her most stoic expression. She wanted to appear unflappable, which was a lot to aspire to, given the situation. She took a deep breath and felt some of the fear and apprehension slip away. Then she stepped through the door.

  CHAPTER 49

  NEW YORK CITY

  Vyse Avenue, between East 173rd and East 176th Street, was symptomatic of the cheap, surface-deep changes that greedy developers had forced upon the South Bronx community in recent years. During the seventies, the city, in a disastrous policy move, opted to relocate a large number of welfare households to the area between 152nd and the Cross-Bronx Expressway. The results were predictable: crime shot up, working-class families moved out, and the neighborhood was left worse off than it had been to start with. In truth, not much had changed since then, despite successive mayoral claims of extensive urban renewal. According to statistics compiled in the 2000 census, the South Bronx belonged to one of the poorest congressional districts in the nation.

  In short, it was just about the last place one would expect to find an FBI safe house. As Ryan Kealey moved down the irregular sidewalk on foot, his attention was not focused on the redbrick housing units wedged tightly against the road, but on the few cars lined up at the curb. He’d rented a Honda Accord at the airport, and he’d used it to check the length of Vyse Avenue before proceeding on foot. While he was slightly impressed with the Bureau’s decision to keep this safe house in such an unlikely area, he didn’t think the New York ADIC would go so far as to purchase vehicles that blended into the neighborhood. That kind of thing just wasn’t in the budget. Government vehicles were typically easy to spot, and he’d already come up with a likely candidate. Now he wanted to see it close up, which explained why he was moving on foot.

  The car was a dark blue Crown Victoria, a typical Bureau vehicle. He checked the license plate first. They weren’t government tags, but that wasn’t surprising; even the FBI — one of the government’s more arrogant agencies — knew how to keep a low profile when circumstances dictated. Next, he looked in through the window. The interior was abnormally clean, at least, abnormally clean for this neighborhood. He checked the front. He didn’t see any type of radio, but again, that wasn’t really surprising. The Bureau didn’t use vehiclemounted radios to the same extent that local law enforcement did. There wasn’t a light bar in the back window, either. He still couldn’t be sure — it could be an NYPD detective’s unmarked car — but if Harper’s contact at the Bureau was right about the location of the safe house, this was probably his best bet.

  Kealey turned away from the car and checked his surroundings. The street was strangely empty. He’d parked the Accord a few blocks away, and during the brief walk, he’d only passed a few kids playing baseball in the middle of the road. The housing units on either side of Vyse Avenue were three-story duplexes: redbrick façades on the first floor, cheap vinyl siding above that. The buildings looked innocuous enough, but a closer inspection revealed bars on the firststory windows, and the short driveways were blocked off by black-iron fences that rose to chest height. There was very little vegetation, a scrap of grass here and there, a few scraggly trees rising out of the sidewalk. A few empty lots were filled with nothing but bare soil, rubble, litter, and milkweed.

  He turned and walked back the way he had come, thinking about it. Even if he was right about the car, the problem was obvious: he had no way of knowing which unit was being used by the Bureau. More to the point, he had no way of getting inside. If Samantha Crane was in one of these buildings with Rudaki, she would probably have at least one other agent with her. If Kealey tried to force his way inside, he would quickly find himself at a disadvantage.

  He was still thinking about it when he reached the Accord a minute later. A few Latino teenagers in baggy clothes were standing nearby. One was drinking from a bottle wrapped in a paper sack; another was sitting on the hood of the rental car. Kealey thought he knew why; aside from the Crown Vic, the Accord was easily the nicest vehicle in a four-block radius. They were probably just looking for someone to fuck with. As Kealey approached, one of the youths standing said something to the one sitting on the car. The teenager grinned and waited; he seemed to be relishing the upcoming confrontation.

  Kealey stopped and studied them each in turn. Finally, the kid perched on the hood said, “This yours, man?”

  Kealey nodded. “Yeah.”

  “It’s nice. Wouldn’t mind a ride like this myself. Could use some twenties, though.” The kid bounced up and down once, testing the shocks. Then he kicked his heels against the front fender, leaving a mark. “Maybe some new paint. White people always go for the same old shit.”

  The others snickered; clearly, they were waiting for him to react. Instead of protesting, Kealey walked a few steps closer, stopping about 5 feet away from the nearest youth. He looked them over quickly. He didn’t think they had anything larger than a knife between them, but he had to be sure.

  The guy on the car looked to be the oldest and, therefore, the de facto leader, but the teenagers standing nearby were the greater threat. Turning to the one who had both hands free, Kealey said, “I’m going to show you something, and I don’t want you to panic, okay?”

  They laughed again, but it was slightly forced, and he knew he had their attention. Dropping his gaze to their hands, he lifted the right side of his long-sleeve T-shirt, revealing the Beretta 92FS holstered on his right hip. He didn’t look up, but he could tell that seeing the gun had sobered them up. The youth on the car slid off and backed up immediately, muttering something in Spanish. Kealey assumed they thought he was a cop or something similar, since he wasn’t brandishing the weapon like a maniac.

  Still watching their hands, he said, “I want you all to do something for me. Lift your shirts slowly. Come on, you too.”

  They did as he asked. Just as he’d expected, they didn’t appear to be carrying. “Turn around,” he ordered. “Keep your shirts up.”

  Still nothing. Relaxing slightly, Kealey said, “Okay, drop ’em and face me.” When they turned back around, he finally looked at their faces. He could see that the two younger men were nervous, but the l
eader appeared unfazed. Kealey knew he had guessed right from the start. These young men were far from hardened criminals, but they weren’t exactly Boy Scouts, either. In short, they were exactly what he was looking for.

  He lowered his shirt back over the butt of the Beretta. Then he smiled and showed them his open hands.

  “You guys feel like making some money?”

  Terry Best, the assistant director in charge of the New York field office, was fifty-three years old, a large man with ruddy features, heavy jowls, and a fringe of coppery hair. When Naomi followed Matt Foster into the room, Best half-stood and shook her hand perfunctorily, then waved her into a seat. She looked around the office quickly, unimpressed with what she saw. For a man in charge of the largest FO in the country, Best didn’t seem to have a great deal of space to himself. Then again, she reflected, that might be intentional. It was rare, but sometimes men in Best’s position actually preferred to play down their authority. Normally, Naomi would have considered Jonathan Harper such a man and meant it as a compliment, but she still wasn’t feeling very charitable toward him, given the current situation.

  The ADIC looked to Foster and said, “Thanks, Matt. That’ll be all for now. How are we doing on those carriers?”

  “We just got the list back from customs, sir. Apparently, use of the Pre-Arrival Processing System became mandatory for land-based carriers back in 2002. In order to qualify, a U.S. carrier needs a Standard Carrier Alpha Code.”

  Best gestured for the younger man to explain.

  “It’s a two-to-four letter code that customs uses to identify individual carriers. We’re cross-checking all the carriers in the state against the information Langley sent us this morning.”

  “Good. Keep me up to date,” Best said. Foster shot Naomi a little grin and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  “As you can see,” Best continued, “we’re taking the information you people sent us very seriously. Even though you don’t seem to have any hard evidence that this… What do you call it?”

  “A BLU-82, sir.” She was annoyed by his show of ignorance; she knew he’d spent half the morning on the phone with Harper, who would have sent pictures and specifications. “Also known as a daisy cutter.”

  “Yes. Despite the fact that you can’t prove this ‘daisy cutter’ is even in the country.”

  Naomi straightened in her seat. “Sir, the evidence may be sketchy, but it’s there.”

  “By which you mean this storage facility in Canada, right?”

  “That’s right, sir. The unit was leased by Thomas Rühmann. He was in Al Qaqaa when the explosives went missing in 2003. He was killed two nights ago in Berlin, almost certainly by William Vanderveen. I’m sure you’re familiar with the name.”

  Best nodded to show that he was. He picked up a ballpoint pen and began to twirl it clumsily in his fingers. “Is there any proof that BLU-82s were being stored at Al Qaqaa? That Rühmann would even have access to one?”

  “Actually, there is. This morning we managed to get in touch with a man named Paul Owen, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. He was involved with the unit responsible for investigating the theft. Colonel Owen told us that in addition to three hundred and eighty tons of convention explosives, four BLU-82s were taken from the facility at Al Qaqaa. That fact was never admitted by the U.S. government.”

  “Four? I thought we were looking for one.”

  “Two of the bombs were located at a warehouse outside Karbala a month after they were taken, and the third was picked up a month after that. It was discovered in the back of a dump truck at the Iranian border. The fourth was never recovered.”

  Best leaned back in his seat, dropped the pen, and studied her plaintively. “So again the Iranians come into it. The information you’ve given us so far is shot full of holes, Ms. Kharmai, but Vanderveen’s part in this seems to be the biggest leap of all. I don’t appreciate your trying to confuse the issue by bringing his name into it.”

  “Sir, we know that he was involved with Rühmann, and we know he took part in the bombing of the Babylon Hotel in Baghdad.”

  “But you can’t prove he was in Berlin, and you can’t prove he’s here in New York.”

  Naomi lifted her hands in exasperation, then instantly regretted the gesture. This man was just a couple steps below the FBI director himself, and he wouldn’t appreciate a show of insubordination. “Sir… okay, I’ll give you that. But even if we assume that he doesn’t have a part in this, it doesn’t change the fact that this bomb is almost certainly here in the U.S., as evidenced by the documentation found in Rühmann’s car and the statement given by the owner of the storage facility in Montreal. Given everything that’s happened in Iraq over the past few weeks, and the fact that half the Iraqi Parliament is scheduled to be at the UN this afternoon, I think we have ample cause for concern.”

  “‘Half the Iraqi Parliament’ is quite an exaggeration,” Best pointed out. “But security couldn’t be tighter, and frankly, I don’t know what else we can do. Fifty of my agents are there, along with the entire Manhattan Traffic Task Force and a good part of the Manhattan South Patrol Borough. Everything east of Second Avenue is completely closed off to traffic, along with the through streets between Forty-first and Fifty-first. It’s easy to stop vehicles, though. The pedestrians are where it gets tricky.”

  Naomi nodded. She’d caught part of the news that morning, and she knew that a massive antiwar demonstration was scheduled to take place at the corner of Fifty-first and First. The protesters had requested a permit to march past the UN complex. Predictably, the request was denied by city officials, but that hadn’t deterred the organizers of the event. By the time she and Kealey had left for Dulles, 20,000 people had already arrived at the police barricades on Fifty-first Street, the crowd stretching up to Fifty-fourth. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning. More than 100,000 people were expected to show up by the time the General Assembly convened, and Naomi knew that the NYPD would have its hands full with crowd control. Nearly every street surrounding the UN enclave would be completely packed by day’s end.

  She hadn’t considered it before, but now she realized that the huge crowds would be just as good a target as the UN itself. The thought brought on a fresh wave of nausea, but she managed to push it down before Best noticed anything wrong.

  “So,” he said, jolting her out of her reverie. “How exactly do you think Hakim Rudaki fits into this, ah, rather cryptic scenario?”

  “Sir, we haven’t been able to link Rudaki to any of this, but the fact remains that there is a huge discrepancy between what he’s been telling you and what we’ve dug up on our own. Most of what we have is pointing toward an Iraqi mastermind, probably someone associated with the insurgency. Rudaki, however, has insisted all along that the Iranians were behind the bombing of the Babylon Hotel and the assassination of Nasir Tabrizi.”

  Best nodded slowly, but instead of addressing her point, he made one of his own. “As far as I’m concerned, Ms. Kharmai, the question is not the veracity of what Rudaki’s been telling us, but how you even know who he is. His identity was tightly held within this office.”

  Naomi knew that this was not a time to step back. “Sir, this is a big place, and people talk. To be honest, I’m not privy to that information, but either way, it doesn’t really matter how we know. What matters is whether or not he’s telling the truth.”

  “Why would he lie?”

  “That’s exactly what I plan to ask him.” They looked at each steadily, neither giving an inch.

  Finally, Best leaned forward in his seat and rested his arms on top of his desk. “Ms. Kharmai, do you know why you’re here?”

  The question caught her off-guard. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re here because the director of Central Intelligence called my boss in Washington and asked for a favor. To be honest, we don’t want anything to do with you people after what happened with Anthony Mason in Alexandria, but the director does not want to bring the pre
sident into another interagency spat. We’re taking this information seriously — we can’t afford not to — but we don’t appreciate your interference, particularly when it comes to our confidential informants.”

  Naomi couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Sir, this isn’t about credit or some stupid rivalry. This is about stopping a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil.”

  Best clenched his jaw, his face turning purple. “I’m aware of that, Ms. Kharmai, and I don’t appreciate being lectured in my own office. I don’t know how they do things at the Agency, but—”

  His tirade was cut short by a firm knock at the door. Easing back into his chair, Best shot her a menacing glare and spoke in a loud voice aimed at the door. “What is it?”

  Matt Foster poked his head in. “Sir, Crane just called in. She’s held up at the minute, but she said she’ll be back by two.”

  Best looked annoyed. “What’s the holdup? She’s with Rudaki, right?”

  Foster shot a curious look at Naomi, obviously wondering why Best would use the informant’s name in her presence. “That’s right, sir. By the way, I’m out of here.”