The Senator

by Ken Fite

  “Here’s a newspaper from July eighth,” Jami said and showed me the headline from the Chicago Sun-Times—“Presidential Convention to be Held in Chicago.”

  “Bloody hell,” we heard Morgan say in our earpieces. “The gentleman living in suite 723 is Aasaal Nazir.”

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  I FELT NUMB. Aasaal Nazir was involved after all. But how? What was the connection?

  “Thank God we used that keycard. If we had just busted in, he may have heard us and ran—if he’s still there, that is,” Jami said.

  “Jami, can you make a keycard for 723? I’m worried about the residents coming outside if they hear us.”

  “Right, keep them safe without causing panic. Sure, I’ll be right back.”

  I watched Jami jog down to the elevator and I checked in with Morgan again. “Can you check power and water for 723?”

  “Give me a few,” he responded, and I walked back inside Anita Perez’s home and looked out her window. I hoped to see the FBI agents who had followed us parked on the street. But I figured they were most likely parked somewhere on the south side of the building on Pearson, outside my view.

  I rubbed my face while trying to piece the puzzle together and realized I hadn’t shaved in thirty-six hours. I felt extremely anxious, realizing how long Jami and I had been trying to find the senator and knowing that the sun would be going down soon. I didn’t have time to waste. I had to act.

  “Morgan?”

  “I’m working on it. Okay, I see activity, heavy usage. I believe someone’s in there right now.”

  “What’s the background on him? Wife? Kids?”

  “All of the above, Blake. Wife and two small kids.”

  “The guy’s not here!” Jami yelled in my earpiece as I waited in the hallway.

  “What?”

  “He’s gone. He either escaped or someone let him out. The door’s locked. I can’t get in to make a keycard.”

  I grabbed my Glock and ejected the magazine. I grabbed a new mag from inside my jacket, inserted it with my left hand and held the slide as I drove the gun forward to cock it as I walked to suite 723.

  “Blake, Mallory says they’re sending a tactical team. They’re just five minutes out.”

  I stood outside the door and I could hear the laughter of children inside the suite and a man’s voice. I was confident that the voice I was hearing was Nazir’s as he played with his kids. I put my ear up to the door and I could hear the sounds of dinner being made.

  “Wash up, boys,” I heard a woman say. My heart was pounding and my mind was racing as I tried to figure out how I was going to get inside suite 723. I needed a way to surprise Nazir.

  “Morgan, can you flip their power off for a few seconds?”

  “Yes,” he said, and after a few seconds I heard him again. “Done. May I ask why you had me do that?”

  I waited patiently outside Nazir’s door, leaning against the wall, with both hands on my gun. I counted to thirty and nothing happened. “Do it again,” I whispered.

  “Alright, done. Blake, the team is just a few minutes out, and Mallory’s sent in the two agents that followed you over there. They’ll be there any second now.”

  “Then they can catch up to me,” I said calmly into the earpiece.

  “Blake, they just ran past me. They’re heading up the elevator now. Just wait for them,” Jami said.

  I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down, knowing that every action would have to be flawless. I couldn’t wait on the FBI. We were losing daylight, and if we could take this guy alive, we might be able to find out where the senator was being held.

  I started counting and told myself if I got to ten, I’d kick the door in. But the second power flip worked. The door opened and Nazir’s wife stuck her head out into the hallway. I grabbed her, spun her around, and put my gun to her head.

  “Don’t say a word,” I whispered, and we walked inside.

  SIXTY-NINE

  WE WALKED INSIDE and slowly passed the kitchen. “Which way?” I whispered into the woman’s ear.

  “Right,” she admitted, and we moved toward one of the bedrooms. I noticed that the layout was different from Anita’s. I wasn’t expecting that.

  Before we could enter, I heard Nazir’s voice and the squeal of children coming from behind me. “Let’s eat,” the man said, and I turned us around and we started walking to the other side of the home. At that same moment, the woman who I held onto raised her right hand and brought it down quickly.

  I felt immediate pain in my abdomen. “Aasaal!” she screamed and managed to break free from my grasp. I looked down and saw a small knife sticking out of my shirt. I pulled it out and dropped it on the floor.

  “Don’t move!” I yelled at the woman, and by that time, her husband had already come into view with the kids. She ran past him and hid in a bedroom while Nazir held the youngest child, a boy around three years old, and reached into the couch and pulled out a gun hidden behind one of the cushions.

  “Drop the boy!” I yelled, not caring about alarming the other residents anymore.

  “Or what? You’ll shoot me?” Nazir asked as I aimed my Glock at the man and followed his every move.

  He was about twenty-five feet away from me. I noticed that the toddler was holding onto the end of a blue car with his right hand and squeezed it tightly. He wasn’t crying, but by the confused expression on his face as he looked at his father then back at me, I knew he was about to burst into tears at any moment.

  When the boy looked up at his father again, I lowered my gun slightly and pulled the trigger. POP!

  The blue car left the boy’s hand and flew across the room and hit one of the walls behind Nazir, who jumped, thinking I had tried to shoot him. When the car ricocheted off the wall and landed at his feet, Nazir realized what I’d done.

  “I’m better at this than you are,” I said in a gruff, confident voice. “You have two seconds to drop the boy or that’ll be your head hitting the wall next.”

  Tears welled up in the toddler’s eyes as he stared at me, and the dam broke. His cries added to the confusion of the situation. I could hear men running down the hallway. I knew it was the two FBI agents who had followed us in. They’d be here soon, which meant I needed to end the standoff now before it escalated. He was calling my bluff.

  “One,” I said, and he didn’t move. I closed an eye and cocked my head slightly. “Two!” I yelled, and Nazir dropped the boy and set the gun on the floor. The boy ran into the bedroom where Nazir’s wife still hid.

  “You’ve won the battle, but lost the war, Agent Jordan,” he said, which caught me off guard. I squinted my eyes.

  “How do you know my name?” I asked as I heard the agents’ footsteps getting louder.

  Nazir smiled.

  “How do you know my name!” I yelled and rushed the man, running into him and pushing him against the wall as I held my Glock to his neck.

  “We know everything about you,” he whispered and started to laugh as the agents ran inside.

  I wished we were alone. I would have made him talk. If there was any doubt before that this whole thing was personal, it was far gone. What did any of this have to do with me? I desperately needed answers.

  “Agent Jordan, stand down,” one of the men yelled at me. The barrel of my Glock was pressed so hard against Nazir’s throat, he was having difficulty breathing, but managed to laugh again anyway.

  “Jordan, stand down now!”

  I stepped back and noticed I’d left a trail of blood as one of the Bureau agents handled Nazir, and I told the other one that there was a woman with a knife hiding with her children in one of the back rooms.

  SEVENTY

  A FEW NEIGHBORS were standing in the hallway. Others poked their heads out, trying to understand what was happening. So much for being discreet. Jami saw my shirt was wet and asked me what happened.

  “Paring knife,” I said, and her eyes grew large.

  “Blake, that’s bad,” sh
e said just as the tactical team arrived. Five men showed up. Four of them went inside Nazir’s apartment, but one of them, a medic, hung back.

  “Are you okay?” he asked as he saw me holding onto my stomach tightly, trying to stop the bleeding.

  “He has a knife wound,” Jami said as I started walking back to Anita’s apartment.

  “Are you Agent Jordan?” he asked, and I nodded. “You need to let me take a look at that. Sir, I need you to stop walking.”

  When I went inside Anita’s apartment, Jami grabbed me. “Blake, stop—let him check you out.” The man walked me into the bedroom and asked me to rest on the bed to reduce some of the blood loss.

  “Bend your knees,” he said as he set a medical kit down on top of the bed and rummaged through it. I unbuttoned my shirt and cringed with pain as the medic looked it over.

  “It’s not that deep. You’re lucky,” he said. The medic covered the wound with a moist, sterile dressing and taped it on as I started to sit up on the bed.

  “What are you doing? You’re going to have to get to a hospital and be treated to prevent infection.”

  “I don’t think so, not yet,” I said. “There’s a little boy down the hall. Go make sure he’s okay.”

  “Agent Jordan, you really should have this checked out. You can’t leave this untreated,” he demanded.

  “I will. After we get the man we’re looking for, I will go.”

  The medic shook his head and left the room. I stayed sitting on the bed and Jami paced the room. We were all alone—for a few minutes at least.

  “I was worried about you, Blake. You could have been killed in there. What were you thinking?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said, and Jami put a hand on my shoulder. For the first time, I wondered if there might be something more going on between us. I dismissed the thought and tried to focus.

  “I didn’t get to finish looking into Nazir earlier. I wonder if Reed had anyone else chase down the possible Jihadi Coalition connection. I guess it wasn’t a red herring after all. What’s the connection?” she asked.

  “Morgan, are you still there?”

  “I’m here, Blake,” Jami and I heard him respond.

  “Why wasn’t Aasaal Nazir arrested earlier?”

  “CPD questioned him, but had nothing to go on.”

  “How would the man be able to afford living in a place like this if he’s just an imam?” Jami asked.

  “The JC, that’s how. They have billions in funding, some of it even coming from the United States.”

  Jami tucked a lock of hair behind an ear and looked at me. “Here’s what I’m thinking, Blake,” she said. “The kidnapper had his own agenda and somehow got connected to Nazir because he needed money. If Sandra heard them arguing, that tells me the kidnapper probably didn’t work for Nazir. They teamed up, and for some reason, they weren’t seeing eye-to-eye on something.”

  That made sense to me. I started buttoning my shirt back up. The dressing was secure, and I was going to have to be careful not to open the wound again, but I decided I’d be okay to get back to work. “We still need to search the office,” I said. “And check every inch of this place to try and figure out who this guy is.”

  “You sure you’re okay to keep going?” Jami asked as she sat down next to me and put a hand on my back. I turned to her and noticed a strange expression on her face. “There’s something under the mattress,” she said as she stood and helped me get to my feet. The pain was worse than I let on. We each took a side of the mattress and lifted it up to see what she’d felt when she sat on top of it.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  WE HEARD SOMEONE walking into the home, so we both let go. Even though Jami had worked for the FBI for a short time, her loyalty was now to DDC. She understood we had a very short leash, and if we were going to find Keller, we’d have to tell the Bureau only what we absolutely had to so they would stay out of our way. A few seconds later, one of the tactical team agents walked into the bedroom.

  “Landry’s having us take Nazir in. He wants to know what your next steps are.”

  “We’re going to stay here. We haven’t finished going through everything yet.”

  “What’s left to search?” the agent asked, and I saw Jami look at me, wondering how I would answer.

  “We gave each room a quick search, but the office is the only room we didn’t get to search thoroughly.”

  “Okay, a forensics team will be here shortly. We’ll leave two agents behind to keep both areas secure.” The agent called for another man, who introduced himself and said he’d stand by the front door until forensics arrived. They would send a team to turn both homes upside down to look for any evidence. As he left us, Jami turned to me.

  “Shouldn’t we be there to question Nazir?”

  “No, only intimidation is going to work with him, a threat to his own life, and the FBI won’t go there.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he’s not going to talk, and they won’t be able to make him talk.”

  “So that’s it? We just give up?”

  “On that lead, yes—it’s a dead end. We know he’s involved. If I had to guess, it’s through funding.”

  “What do you think was his motive?”

  “If he’s truly associated with the JC, then it’s political. They don’t want Keller elected. If he is, they know the money will dry up. We’ll no longer have a president that overrides Congress through executive action. Jim Keller is a smart man. I’m sure he’d put a stop to the military aid under the guise of the foreign countries the JC operates in using the money for basic freedoms and human rights.”

  When we were alone again, Jami and I lifted the mattress one more time. We found a gun, two loaded mags, and a book, The Catcher in the Rye. Jami picked it up. “From the library of an assassin,” she said.

  Morgan chimed in. “Blake, I finished analyzing that drive. There was extensive research on you and Jami.”

  “Me?” Jami asked in disbelief. “What do you mean? What did you find on there?”

  “Names, addresses. I see Ben and Gladys Jordan, Maria Jordan—lots on Maria—and also Derek Murphy—”

  “That’s my ex,” said Jami.

  “Love, the files associated with you are newer, like they looked into you after you got the assignment.”

  My first thought when Morgan said this was that there might be a mole inside DDC. Someone working with the kidnapper. “How would this guy get this kind of information? Could someone on the inside be feeding this to him?” I asked.

  “Not sure, Blake, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell you. I’m basically holding the FBI hostage right now while you try to find Keller. I’m not getting any more information from DDC, and the FBI is quiet.”

  “What do you think this means, Blake?” asked Jami.

  I didn’t know. It was obvious that this was personal. I was a target, but now so was Jami. Someone researched our background, trying to find everything they could about our pasts. But why? How would that help them with kidnapping Jim Keller?

  “Come on, let’s check out the office before forensics gets here. When they arrive, we’ll tell them about the gun under the mattress. They can dust it for prints, but I’d bet it’s clean. The guy doesn’t make mistakes.”

  I led the way and Jami followed. She accidentally dropped the novel she’d been holding onto. I was almost to the next room when I heard Jami call my name from the bedroom. I stopped and turned around and saw her pick up a picture that had fallen out that he’d used as a bookmark.

  He had made a mistake.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  JAMI HELD THE picture up to her eyes. “This must be Victor Perez,” she said. As I approached, she held her hand out and let me take the photo to take a look for myself.

  “My God,” I whispered. “Impossible…”

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I know this man. His name isn’t Victor Perez. It’s Marco Lopez. ML—the
initials scratched on the pipe.”

  “Who’s Marco Lopez?”

  I shook my head as I scanned the picture, not believing my eyes. “Marco was an agent at DDC. He was good at what he did, but wasn’t liked much by the other agents. Nobody trusted him, and because of that, he became a pariah. As the new agency grew, he expressed interest in moving into a more senior role.”

  Jami moved closer to me, and I held the picture in front of us so we could look at it together. “When DDC named you special agent in charge, I’m guessing that didn’t go over too well?” she asked.

  “No. He resigned that same day, didn’t even give notice. First thing I dealt with as the new SAIC.”

  “How does the senator know Lopez?”

  “When Keller launched his bid for the presidency, he asked if I could have DDC help with security. I was about to go out of the country, but had Chris Reed put a team together. Reed had Lopez run point.”

  “That was when Nazir got arrested by CPD? So Lopez was there that day. Somehow, he and Nazir got together. I want to know why.”

  “You and me both,” I said.

  “So how’d I get involved in all of this?”

  “I took my time finding the right person to backfill Marco’s job. You were the replacement hire.”

  “Great, so I’m on his list. You didn’t have anyone monitor this guy? Find out what happened to him?”

  “It didn’t get that far. He died a week later in a car crash. His body was burned beyond recognition.”

  Marco had his arm around a woman. I recognized her. “I went to his funeral and she was there,” I said, pointing at the woman in the photo. “His sister, Maribel. She was going to nursing school out of state and was about to graduate. She said she didn’t know how she was going to be able to finish the semester. We tried to comfort her, but couldn’t. I didn’t blame her. I would have been a mess, too.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would he do all of this?”