by David Gordon
In the aftermath, the two sides blamed each other and the incident was never resolved, but Adrian couldn’t care less. He blamed both. And then, as he grew up in foster care and went on to excel in school, in sports, in hunting, in everything an all-American boy should excel in, he began to blame his new homeland. As he learned more about history, he saw how the United States continually interfered in the Middle East, at best blundering stupidly, at worst pursuing its own immediate interests with no regard whatsoever for the lives of anyone else: arming and training Afghani fighters against the USSR, the same fighters who became the Taliban, and, via the CIA, helping connect them to the opium and hash trade; supporting the shah’s brutal dictatorship, thereby helping the Iranian revolution and the rule of Khomeini, leading to the hostage crisis and the Iran-Iraq War, during which the United States of course supported Saddam Hussein; and backing hard-line Israelis and West Bank settlers because that won votes at home. And the whole time patting itself on the back for being so good. And so innocent. That was the most shocking thing about the September 11 attacks: the shock itself, the disbelieving amazement that anyone in the world could want to hurt such great folks.
So Adrian trained himself, mind and body, winning a scholarship to military school, then studying history in college, where he competed in track and martial arts. Then he went overseas. He found his way into the world of the terrorists, joined their camps, underwent their training, proved himself by eventually finding the Mossad operative who had been leading the Israeli patrol that night his parents died, now retired and running a café in Tel Aviv, and slitting his throat. Not that he had anything against the Israelis in particular; at least they stood for their beliefs openly and did not pretend to be good or bad. And yes, though he went on to carry out numerous missions for the jihadists and the Palestinian freedom fighters, he also, when he learned enough to figure out who had been leading the faction of Hezbollah that co-killed his parents, tracked that man down and killed him, too.
Then he returned to America, with his American wife, who had never really fitted in among the believers, and trimmed his beard and put on his well-made designer clothes again. And he started planning his own personal war.
35
Joe woke up when the sun through the window hit his eyes. Naked, he went to the bathroom and back. Yelena was curled in a ball, her face small and childlike as it poked from the bundle of covers. He ordered coffee from room service, and then he dialed for an outside line and called the 212 number that the bartender had given him. A number that old had to be a landline, if it was even still good. It was. Voice mail picked up, but the voice was right: “Hello, this is Clarence Deyer of Deyer Contracting. Please leave a message.”
As he hung up he saw Yelena open her eyes. He smiled and squeezed her hand.
“Good morning.”
She smiled back. “Good morning to you.”
“I ordered coffee,” he said. “And I got a last name for Clarence.”
She sat up immediately. “Good,” she said as she moved naked toward the bathroom. “Let’s go.”
Joe put on his suit and tie and Yelena her new black-and-silver leggings under a very thin, very expensive black T-shirt over a black-and-ivory lace bra. They took the train to the apartment building they hoped was Clarence’s and looked over the buzzers. There it was, DEYER, 3C. Joe buzzed, just for the hell of it, but there was no response. Next they walked to a place on the corner, a small pretentious bistro. They chose a table by the window and ordered food. Neither of them spoke, except to the waitress, unless it related to the matter at hand. They were working. They ate, had coffee, took turns visiting the restroom, and saw no sign of Clarence or anyone else watching the place. They could not be sure about the other people who entered or left the building, but they doubted there was any connection: an old lady walking her poodle, a young woman with a stroller, the mailman. So they paid and went back. This time Joe easily loided the front door lock with his Irish credit card, and when they found 3C, in the back on the right, Yelena took out her picks and went through the deadbolt about as fast as most people would use a key. Guns out, they entered, Joe checking the small kitchen and bathroom, while she went through to the bedroom in back. No one. The place was empty and seemed as if it had been for some time. There was nothing in the refrigerator but condiments, and a bunch of takeout menus and coupons had been shoved under the door. The profile fit: indifferently but comfortably furnished with a saggy couch, a La-Z-Boy, a coffee table heaped with mostly sports sections and TV listings, a nice big wall-mounted flat-screen, a table in the dining area with a carousel full of poker chips in the center. It looked like the bachelor pad/gambling den of a midlevel criminal.
They started searching for anything that might lead them to Clarence or tell them who the client for the heist had been. There wasn’t much. Joe did find some crumpled correspondence related to Deyer Contracting, showing an address in Lodi, New Jersey, but there was a good chance that this was nothing, too, a mail drop or an empty room. Yelena came out of the bedroom complaining about the dust and the crappy porn collection under the bed—“old DVDs of girls with each other in terrible, cheap underwear”—and when she went to the kitchen to wash her hands, the water from the faucet was brown with rust. But while she was waiting for it to clear, she happened to look through a layer of junk magnetted to the fridge. She came out smiling and handed Joe a card:
DJ Juno
SPINNING • SCRATCHING • PRODUCING • RAPPING
BEATS BUILT TO SUIT
It had a phone number, e-mail, and mailing address in Brooklyn.
“Great. Let’s go,” Joe said, pocketing the card. They left, quietly shutting the door behind them, and were just heading downstairs when they saw the law coming up.
36
It was tedious as hell, but Donna had to admit it was a change. Sunday had been chaos and an alphabet soup of federal, local, and state agencies stumbling all over one another at the hush-hush Westchester crime scene until the five-way pissing contest ended with the NSA and Homeland Security kicking everyone else out. Meanwhile the suspects, whoever they were and whatever they took, had gotten away clean. By Monday she was back at the office, but in another section, flipping through endless mug shots and video grabs, looking for the guy she’d briefly arrested during the arms heist. They’d narrowed the search, based on the detailed description she’d provided and the sketch their artist had produced, but the facial recognition software still showed her hundreds of men. Then, just after she’d finished a tuna salad and iced coffee, she found him. He’d done time, so he was in the system with all the trimmings: Clarence Deyer, with a last known address in Murray Hill.
She picked up the phone and called her bosses, then geared up, and by the time she got down to the garage to head out, the spooks were there. It was going to be a joint FBI and CIA operation, with the CIA just observing, since of course they’d never operate on US soil. And the main observer? Her ex-husband, Agent Powell.
“So tell me, why does the CIA suddenly give a shit about this?” she asked as they got in the car.
“You know I can’t tell you.”
Donna was driving. She’d insisted, since it was US soil, and Powell was beside her, and perhaps sensing the vibe, no one else had wanted to ride with them; they all preferred to load into the van and another car.
“And you know that you’ll tell me, sooner or later,” she told him. “And that I can always tell when you’re lying.”
“Okay, just watch that truck, sheesh …” He winced. “We found a burned-out van in the Bronx.”
“Is that news? Have you ever been to the Bronx? Was there evidence?”
“Not much, which is part of what made us curious. These guys were thorough and whoever blew it up used plastic explosives. Not the kind of thing you do after holding up a liquor store.”
“Pros.”
“For sure, maybe mercenaries or ex-military.”
Donna thought of Joe. “And?” she asked. “S
o?”
“So we had our own forensics team go through it inch by inch. Or millimeter by millimeter. And what they found was a tiny charred bit of coated metal, probably from a drone.”
“A drone?”
“Whatever, the point is this coated metal is used in hightech military hardware, top-shelf stuff, just like one of the stolen items taken in your gun show fiasco.”
“I get it,” Donna said.
“That would also help explain how they got past the security at the lab,” Mike added. “Very sophisticated business. And your pal Deyer is our first real lead.”
When Donna reached the block where Clarence Deyer lived, she found the street already sealed off by an FBI car. The team was filing out of the van, in vests and FBI jackets. She pulled hers on, checked her gun, and tossed a ball cap marked FBI to Powell. “Here, put this on so you don’t get shot.”
“How thoughtful,” he said.
“I’m only thinking of our daughter.”
Since this was considered to be a personal beef for Donna, she was first through the door. She was moving quickly up the staircase, rounding floor two and heading for three, when she glanced up and saw Joe, of all people, looking over the banister at her, with some blond chick beside him.
“Hold it—FBI,” she yelled, aiming her gun, but they had vanished. She called for help over her earpiece, while rushing to the door of 3C and kicking it in as Mike covered her. They cleared and secured the place, as they were trained to do—it was a real dump—but as soon as she saw the open window, Donna knew they were gone.
“Suspects have fled via the fire escape,” she called. “Cover the fire escape.” Then she climbed out after them.
However, Joe and Yelena did not go down the fire escape; they went up, which is why, when Donna climbed out, she just missed seeing them as they scrambled onto the roof. As she climbed down, they crossed onto the neighboring rooftops, covering as many as they could before an alleyway stopped them. Then they went down that fire escape, hoping that they’d gone far enough to outflank the FBI.
Yelena dropped first—she was the gymnast, after all—sliding the ladder down with her, and she covered the alley while Joe climbed down. They peeked out carefully. Then, concealing their guns, they began walking arm in arm, pretending to chat and chuckle mildly, like a well-dressed couple strolling down the block and minding their own business.
They could see one FBI car parked at the corner, with a lone agent, a young black guy in a blue suit with a wire in his ear, standing guard, but watching the other way, for cars that might be coming down the street. Joe turned his head casually to the other side as they passed him, and Yelena chattered away, and they had pretty much made it, and were just waiting for a white BMW to go by so that they could cross the street, when they heard the agent yelling behind them.
“Stop! FBI! Hands in the air!”
Joe was just trying to decide what to do, moving his hands up and thinking about running, when someone in the white BMW opened fire.
Agent Newton was annoyed. As an openly gay African American agent (did he have a choice, married to Ari?), he was praised and coddled, then shunted off to secondary tasks, like guarding the corner while everyone else stormed the building. Donna Zamora was one of his main commiseration pals, though this time she was leading the charge, and he felt even more left out. Maybe he should quit and go to law school, like Ari and his mom and Ari’s mom all said.
Anyway, that’s what he was thinking about when he heard Donna’s voice, fast over the radio: “Suspects in flight. Repeat, in pursuit. One Caucasian male, black suit, dark hair, blue eyes. One Caucasian female, also in dark clothes, blond hair.” And as he heard the chatter, he realized that the well-dressed couple who had just passed by matched the description. He spun around, drawing his weapon, and there they were, the man in a suit and the woman in chic leggings and a top, waiting calmly arm in arm to cross the street. He took his stance and yelled, “Stop! FBI! Hands in the air!” And just then some Asian kid in the back of a white BMW started shooting.
When the kid opened fire, Joe and Yelena reacted, diving to the ground, Joe yelling, “Take cover!” over his shoulder at the Fed. The agent ducked behind his car. Bullets streaked its side. The agent shot back, getting off a couple of rounds as the car pulled away, while Joe and Yelena rolled out of range and ran. Turning the corner, they saw a lady climbing from the back of a cab and Yelena hopped inside.
“Where to?” the cabbie asked her.
“Just drive,” Joe said climbing into the front beside him and pointing the gun at his head, while Yelena kept watch out the back.
“Holy shit, holy shit, don’t kill me,” the driver said, but he did as he was told and proceeded across the avenue and along the next block.
“Don’t worry,” Joe said calmly. “Turn downtown.” In fact he had his safety on to guard against an accidental discharge. “Now pull over here,” he told him.
“Are you getting out?” the driver asked hopefully.
“No,” Joe said, “you are,” and hit him on the head with the gun. Then he got out and quickly, but gently, pulled the driver into the street. He got behind the wheel and pulled away, shaking off his jacket and putting on a Mets cap that the driver had left on the seat, while Yelena stayed in the back. Now they looked like a woman taking a taxi, not a couple on the run. Yelena kept her gun in her lap as Joe cruised downtown and then across Fourteenth Street.
“Who the hell was that anyway, shooting at us?” she asked.
“I think it was the Chinese Triad shooting at me, actually,” Joe said. “Sorry.”
Yelena shrugged. “It all worked out for the best.”
37
Later, during the debriefing, when they were making out their incident reports, Andrew Newton told Donna a funny detail.
“Just as that kid was starting to shoot—looked like an Uzi—but anyway, the male suspect, dark hair and suit …”
“Right,” she said. “I know the one,” thinking that was Joe, but who was the girl?
“As he went down, he yelled, ‘Take cover!’ I could swear he was trying to warn me. Isn’t that weird? Why would an armed suspect on the run care if I got shot?”
“You’re right,” Donna said. “That is weird.”
“So, what do you think?” Andy asked her. “Should I put that in my report?”
“Probably not,” she told him.
They needed to change their clothing, and didn’t want to go back to the hotel, so Yelena directed them to SoHo. Joe left the cab next to a hydrant and tucked a hundred-dollar bill into the Mets cap, which he left on the seat. Once again they shopped, this time ditching their Irish identities, which they had to assume were burned, and using their other fake IDs, pretending to be a couple from L.A. Joe bought a dark blue suit, two identical white button-downs, black jeans, T-shirts, boxers, socks. Yelena bought several complete outfits and some thigh-high boots, and was trying out fragrances when he rejoined her.
“This is fun,” she said, as he signed his new fake name to the charge slip.
“Remind me not to marry you for real,” he told her, carrying their bags away.
“You wish,” she said.
This time they hailed a taxi without hi-jacking it, and took it to a big hotel in the West Forties, a busy tourist area, trading a view for a quiet rear room.
“I hope you enjoy your stay, Mr. MacCracken,” the receptionist told Joe as he charged the card.
“Please,” Joe said. “Call me Phil.”
While the FBI handled the crime scene forensics, Agent Powell checked the phone. He called in and had his office search the number, and sure enough, though the old, dust-covered landline had barely been used in months, it had that very morning received one call, which had gone to voice mail. The caller had left no message.
“Let’s go,” he said to his ex-wife when he got downstairs. “You can drive.”
“Where?”
“A hotel downtown. Someone called Deyer from a room th
is morning.”
They got in and Donna joined the sluggish flow of crosstown traffic. “Any luck ID’ing these two suspects?” Powell asked her.
“Not so far.” She glanced over at him. “What? No way am I wasting another day with the sketch artist and mug shots. I barely got a glimpse. Do you think I should take Broadway?”
“Run the siren. I would if we had them.”
She did, just popping it on and off to clear the lane and to keep him quiet. Why hadn’t she told him about Joe? Was she instinctively protecting Joe or opposing Mike? Or was she just FBI instinctively opposing CIA? There were just too many factors she needed to understand before she risked turning this case over to the spooks, who she knew very well would never give it back. Like why, if Joe and this blond chick were Deyer’s accomplices, had they picked the lock on the door, as her team had found from magnifying the tiny scratches? And what did this have to do with the lab robbery? And last, and most naggingly, she had no doubt whatsoever that if she’d caught Joe she’d have busted him, but knowing that he had almost certainly spared her and Agent Newton, too, could she have shot him down?
They got to the hotel. The girl at the front desk seemed a little rattled by the badges and by Mike looming over her, but she remembered the couple in that room.
“They’re here on their honeymoon from Ireland. Isn’t that sweet?”
“Ireland?” Mike asked with a frown. Were the Irish going to be mixed up in this, too? A lot of ex-IRA had gone freelance in recent years. “Can we see the record?”
“Sure.” She clicked her nails across the keys. “Here it is.” She turned the screen toward Donna and Mike, who peered into it. “He said it’s Gaelic,” she explained. “The g is silent!”