by J. B. Turner
“You remember Richard Reid?”
Reznick nodded. “The would-be Shoe Bomber?”
“Not on anyone’s radar.”
Reznick rubbed his eyes, feeling tired.
Meyerstein looked at her watch. “In approximately fifteen minutes, I’m videoconferencing with the team back at McLean for the latest briefing. I’m sure we’re going to get a fix on who this young woman is. She might be an illegal, using a false identity.” Her cell phone rang, and again she switched it to speaker mode. “Yeah, Roy.”
Stamper cleared his throat. “Our investigation is still ongoing into this woman, but I wanted to flag something.”
“What is it?”
“The social security numbers have something in common.”
“What?”
“They’re both genuine numbers assigned to two women, neither of whom is the woman in the picture.”
“I don’t follow.”
“I just got off the phone with the Social Security Administration. It does not invalidate or destroy original social security numbers when a new social security number is assigned.”
“And?”
“Two separate women, victims of domestic violence—one in Ohio, the other Kansas. They both changed their names and were assigned new social security numbers. But their old numbers, these two separate numbers, are being used by the woman in this picture.”
Meyerstein stared at the screen and ran her hand through her hair. “So who the hell is this woman?”
“That’s the thing. We just don’t know.”
Fifteen
A tiny green light in the corner of the screen signaled that Meyerstein was hooked up to videoconference with McLean. The stern faces of Ed Froch of the State Department and Lieutenant General Black stared back at her as they hunched over a conference room table, papers in front of them.
Meyerstein sighed. “Gentlemen, you’ll have had time to see the update we’ve sent through. It’s more than a coincidence, her working in two places Ford has visited. Special Agent Stamper will draft an affidavit justifying the need for a search warrant. It may take time. But I think we need to close down this line of investigation and identify who this young woman is. It might be nothing, but we’re not exactly inundated with strong leads.”
Froch said, “I’m a State Department guy, Martha. My knowledge is foreign policy, terrorist threats. Do you mind if I play devil’s advocate for a moment?”
Meyerstein shook her head. “Go right ahead.”
“I think you’re on the wrong track with this.”
“I’m with Ed,” Black interjected. “I just don’t see where this New York angle is heading, Martha. The doctor is clean. She might just be a scam artist.”
“That’s a pretty sophisticated scam, if you don’t mind me saying, sir.”
“You want to know what the President’s national security advisor said to me before I came into this conference?”
“What?”
“He wondered if I should hand over the reins to one of your colleagues within the Bureau. Someone with a counterterrorism background. But he also questioned your judgment.”
“The national security advisor in question, sir, is an academic bed-wetter. He thinks because he teaches international security at Brown and he has the President’s ear that he can run an operation like this. Well, you know what? He’s wrong.”
Black cleared his throat. “That may be.” His voice had an edge to it. “But the national security advisor is concerned that Jon Reznick is on the team.”
Meyerstein leaned forward. “Now, listen here. With respect, sir, I’m not going to take any lessons in procedure from some academic who has never investigated anything apart from chasing down students whose dissertations are a week overdue. And Ed, until the State Department gets a grip and comes up with any rationale or explanation as to why O’Grady contacted Caroline Lieber, I respectfully ask for you guys to stop the blame game. Do not try pointing the finger at a member of my team.”
Froch shifted in his seat and his cheeks flushed red. “Look, we’re no further forward than we were when O’Grady went missing. And now we’re hearing about some young woman who served Ford in a steakhouse and might be using false ID? I mean, gimme a break.”
Meyerstein inwardly seethed at the criticism. “It’s not the fact that it’s a false ID. It’s the level of sophistication needed to obtain old social security numbers and the names of women—victims of domestic violence—who have assumed new identities. Standing alone, that information might not raise a red flag. But we need to run down this lead and see where it takes us.”
Froch said, “How about the Iranian Interests Section? Isn’t that where the focus should be?”
Meyerstein nodded. “That is where the main focus of our investigation is and will remain. We have that covered. Our teams are all reporting countersurveillance techniques being used. These are no dummies.”
Froch steepled his fingers and turned to face Black. “I don’t feel comfortable with Reznick being part of this. If this gets out, it’ll be a mess.”
Black nodded. “Martha, I expected his role to be more peripheral. Instead, reports have reached me that he was conducting a one-man surveillance operation in the Upper East Side. No backup, no plan, just him and this doctor. That needs to stop. And I say again, I don’t want him on the team.”
Meyerstein sighed. “I appreciate your concerns, and I’ll make sure in future that there will be no more one-man operations. But I would say that without his surveillance, we wouldn’t know what we know now.”
On the screen, Froch stared back at her. She felt his withering look and shifted in her seat.
Meyerstein felt exhausted. The last few days had taken their toll on her. She was being touted as a candidate to be the first female director of the FBI. But she ignored all the internal political chatter about who was up or down within the Bureau. She was more interested the investigations, in bringing the bad guys down, than in schmoozing with colleagues after work. She drove herself hard. But she knew that she was gaining a reputation for taking risks, having previously used Reznick to work outside the rules. She had to be careful.
Meyerstein looked steadily at Froch and the others. She wasn’t fazed. She didn’t scare easy.
“So, any more questions?” she asked.
Froch leaned forward. “We’re nowhere with this. I, for one, think Reznick should not be on this team. I don’t see what he brings to the table.”
Black nodded. “And you know my views on Reznick.”
“Do I have your support, General Black?”
“I’ll give you more time and support, but I want to let you know I’m reviewing your position.”
Meyerstein went quiet for a few moments before she spoke. “I don’t want distractions within my team. Everyone has to be pulling in the same direction. OK, I hear what you’re saying. If you can leave it with me, I’ll get back to you during our update meeting later today.”
The screen went black as she ended the videoconference.
Meyerstein blew out her cheeks and picked up her cell phone to call home.
“Yeah, who’s this?” The voice of her son Jacob.
“Hey, honey. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m going to make your birthday party tomorrow.”
“Oh, Mom, are you kidding me?”
“Sadly not. I want to say that I’ll make it up to you.”
“Mom, you promised!”
Meyerstein closed her eyes. She felt empty inside. “I know I did.” The phone on the desk rang. “Listen, honey, I gotta go. Love you.” She ended the call and took a few moments to compose herself before she picked up the other phone. “What’s happening?”
“Ma’am, surveillance unit say the waitress with the false name is on the move. She’s just emerged from her apartment in the East Village.”
Meyerstein put down the phone and called Reznick into the room. She told him about the conversation she’d had with Black and Froch. “They want to f
ire your ass.”
“You want me to walk?”
“Quite the opposite. I’m going to order a surveillance team to pick you up in fifteen minutes.”
“Are you saying I’m still on the team?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Sixteen
Meyerstein dialed Roy Stamper’s direct line at FBI Headquarters in Washington.
“Roy, how far are we with the search warrant?”
Stamper sighed. “Martha, we got another problem.”
Meyerstein had had her fill. “All you seem to be doing, Roy, is coming to me with problems. I need answers.”
“Are you wanting to hear this or not?”
“Fine, go ahead.”
“Look, I’m sorry. Here’s where we’re at. We drafted an affidavit justifying the need for a search warrant and sent it to the assistant attorney, who in turn drafted the search warrant. It was a real quick turnaround. But Judge Donald McCoy is refusing to sign.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Sadly not.”
“On what grounds?”
“He said there weren’t enough facts to give probable cause linking this woman to any national threat.”
“Gimme a break, will you?”
“Wondering if we shouldn’t just go warrantless. The Patriot Act allows search warrants to be issued without showing probable cause.”
Meyerstein groaned. “Damn.”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re forgetting the Mayfield case.”
It was Stamper’s turn to groan. Meyerstein was referring to an infamous warrantless FBI incident, when Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield, a Muslim convert, was mistakenly linked to the 2004 Madrid train bombings.
She remembered the case well. It was deemed that two provisions were unconstitutional. And the court ruled that evidence obtained through a Fourth Amendment violation was generally not admissible during a defendant’s criminal trial.
Meyerstein’s father had made her memorize all the amendments of the Constitution as a little girl, including the Fourth . . .
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Stamper sighed. “Damn, of course. You want me to try another judge?”
Meyerstein looked across at Malone, who was tapping away on his laptop. “Wasting our time.”
“What about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court?”
Meyerstein closed her eyes for a moment. The Court oversaw top-secret requests for surveillance on suspected foreign intelligence agents. But since 2013, when it was leaked to the media that the court had approved a warrant ordering Verizon to provide all call-detail records to be sent to the NSA, it had been very difficult to get their approval without delays or modifications to the warrant. “Not an option in this climate.”
“So I assume we just continue the surveillance on this woman?”
“Absolutely. Until we know who she is, we tail her.”
He let out a long sigh. “Sure.” He went quiet for a few moments. “You OK? You don’t sound like yourself.”
“No, I’m not OK. But thanks for asking.” A long silence opened up between them as Meyerstein mulled things over, her mind racing. “We’re missing something, Roy,” she said. “We just aren’t there.”
Meyerstein ended the call. She sat down and closed her eyes, wondering if she had lost a sense of perspective. She ran through the options. Option one: they watch and wait. Option two: send in an FBI search team, who could undertake a sweep of the woman’s apartment. Option three: send in Reznick. He could do the same as the search team, but if his cover was blown, he was just breaking into an apartment. He would give a false ID, and Stamper could get him out.
She called the head of the surveillance team, who were half a block from the woman’s apartment in the East Village.
“Ramon, it’s Assistant Director Martha Meyerstein.”
“Ma’am, you looking for an update?”
“Very quick.”
“She’s been out for twenty-seven minutes. Mobile surveillance says she’s just entered the Capital Grille.”
“What do we know about her apartment?”
“It’s in a brownstone on East 7th Street, just down the block from Tompkins Square Park. It’s a walk-up, three flights. No neighbors on the same floor, so that’s a plus. But it has video security.”
“Damn.”
“Don’t worry about that. We got an electronics guy with us who can shut that off if required.”
“Fine, do it right now. Jon Reznick will go in. I want you to be his eyes and ears. If she returns unexpectedly, that kind of thing.”
Ramon sighed. “You want Reznick to go in?”
“I’ll take the heat. Get him kitted out.”
“What’s the legal authority?”
“I’m giving you the authority. Have you got a problem with that?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Hand me over to Reznick.”
A few moments of silence before Reznick came on the line.
“Hi, how’s it going?”
“Jon, I want a clean search, just by you. Nothing disturbed. We need an ID on this woman. Ramon will give you an ultraviolet light scanner to pick up latent prints. You know how to work it?”
Reznick cleared his throat. “Not a problem.”
“Be careful. No one can know you’ve been in the apartment.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“You have fifteen minutes. Not a minute more.”
Seventeen
Reznick sat crouched in the back of a van in the East Village, half a block away from the mystery woman’s apartment.
“OK, Jon,” a voice said in his earpiece, “you’re good to go. Nice and easy.”
Reznick picked up the backpack he’d been given and stepped out of the van, carefully locking the door behind him. Then he walked the fifty yards or so up to the entrance. He punched a preset code into the building’s keypad and the door clicked open. He’d been told that the surveillance camera used inside had been deactivated remotely, giving him a clear run. He got inside, glad to be out of the sun, and walked up the three flights of stone stairs.
He knocked at the door to apartment 7 and waited. Silence. He examined the lock. It was a basic double-cylinder deadbolt, as he’d been told. He knocked again. No answer.
Reznick took out a bump key, slid it into the lock, and turned. A soft click, and it was open.
A long hallway with whitewashed walls, modern art, and dark hardwood floors. He stepped inside and shut the door. “That’s me inside,” he said.
Ramon said, “Nice and careful, Jon. We want to keep it as it is.”
“Yeah, I got that memo.”
Down the hallway and right into a loft-style lounge. Two beige sofas, and bookcases filled with books on two walls. A glass table in the center with a Madonna biography, and neat piles of art history books and issues of Vogue.
Through a door at the far end of the room was a tiny kitchenette. A stainless-steel refrigerator and freezer, small stove, and two cabinets. Dirty dishes were strewn on the white-oak worktop. He picked up a used glass, ideal for a set of prints.
Reznick opened up his backpack and pulled out the ultraviolet light, which looked like a home projector. He ran the fan before he switched on the power. The Luma Lite had a high-intensity arc tube. It detected blood, semen, fingerprints, and trace evidence.
He put on his orange-tinted glasses and began scanning the glass. Almost immediately, the blue light picked up fingerprints.
“Bingo,” he said.
He did the same on the stainless steel kettle, once again picking up numerous fingerprints. The images were then wirelessly downloaded to an iPad fo
r analysis by the Feds.
He packed the equipment away and headed through to the small bathroom, painted aqua blue, with navy and white mosaic tiling throughout and a shower in the corner. He noticed a hairbrush beside a small mirror. He tweezed a hair sample into a plastic evidence bag, and packed it in a side pocket of his backpack.
Then he went into each room, photographing the layout, the books, the artwork, the family pictures. It would all help build up a profile of the woman who lived there.
Lastly, he got to the bedroom, which doubled as a study. A Dell desktop computer on a small worktable was switched on.
Reznick hooked it up via USB cable to an external hard drive he’d brought with him. The screen came to life, and he downloaded all the files on the computer in less than two minutes. He disconnected the cable.
“How you doing, Jon?”
“One minute and I’ll be out of here,” he said, packing the hard drive and cable into the heavy bag. He searched the closet and rifled in the dresser. Nothing of note.
Reznick took one final look around the apartment before he left, relocking the door, no one any the wiser.
He checked his watch. It had taken him just eleven minutes to complete the black bag operation.
Eighteen
Meyerstein was staring at a mug shot of a haggard young woman on her laptop when Reznick returned.
“Very good work, Jon,” she said. “We got a match.”
Reznick leaned forward and studied the woman’s face. “Jeez, has she had a face transplant?”
“Funny. This is Chantelle McGovern, aged twenty-eight. A former drug addict and dealer. The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System confirms the match.”
Reznick shook his head. “What’s her story now?”
“She’s now a political science student at NYU. Five years ago, aged twenty-three, she pleaded no contest to heroin possession with intent to sell. Police found more than thirteen thousand dollars’ worth of drugs in her rented car during a traffic stop in Queens. But she’s been clean since.”
Meyerstein signaled across to one of her team. “Jimmy, where are we with the full picture on McGovern? How long has she been living in the East Village? How is she affording the tuition?”