by Jay Deb
“How long has he been in there?” Doerr asked.
“Two to three minutes, I would say.”
“And how many minutes is it going to take for us to reach there?”
“I would say five to ten,” the handler replied. “But confirm with your driver.”
Doerr looked at the driver, who gave a meaningful nod of agreement – yeah, it should take about five to ten minutes.
Doerr set his eyes on the road; traffic was thin. At one p.m., the rush period was a few hours away. The cab passed two vehicles and allowed four more to pass; it could certainly use a bit more speed.
“Can’t we go faster?” Doerr said to the cabbie. The man made a hand gesture in reply, indicating that a cop might be present on the roadside, armed with a speed-checking device.
Doerr wondered if the driver was a mute. If he were, then that was perhaps a good choice on the agency’s part. A silenced cabbie would not be able to give interviews to the TV stations.
Three minutes passed. Keeping an eye on the monitor, Doerr asked the handler, “Does the shop have a back door?”
“Not sure. If it does, then it opens to another road.”
Doerr was in a quandary now. Should he head for the road in front of the shop or the back? “Do you have someone near the shop’s entrance?” Doerr asked.
“No. There is a guy standing opposite the shop. The video you’re seeing is coming through his wristwatch.”
Obviously the agency had hired someone to stand there, wearing a watch with a tiny camera pointed at the shop’s front door.
“The cab will drop you five hundred feet away from the shop,” the handler said. “There is no surveillance there, so the cab will simply drive away while you take care of business and vanish from the site on your own. Understood?”
“Understood.” It was standard procedure. Doerr didn’t need much help, the less, the better. “I want to go to the back entrance of the shop.”
“Why?” The handler sounded irritated. “I see no reason for the bird to exit via the back door.”
“I’ve got a good feeling that he’ll come through the back. These guys always take precautions. Now tell the driver to go to the back road. Looks like he takes orders from you only. We have someone at the front anyway.”
“No way. The guy at the front is an unarmed civilian. He can’t do much. Go to the front.”
Doerr knew there was no point arguing with the handler.
Seven minutes had passed since leaving the museum. Doerr made a hand gesture to the driver, asking him to go to the back. The driver shook his head forcefully. He wouldn’t listen.
A minute later, Doerr could see the flower shop and spotted the young man standing in an awkward position so that the camera on his wristwatch pointed to the shop.
The cab stopped after the ten-minute ride from the museum, and Doerr got out of the vehicle and trudged to the shop. Ten minutes were way too long. Rafan was probably out already. Within seconds, Doerr was inside the shop.
The flowers in the shop were arranged in three rows. One row had yellow tulips, the second one had red, and the third row contained all the other flowers. Regardless of color, the most expensive ones were kept in the back row. At the front, there were many boxes, one stacked on another. Doerr knew those were packaged flowers to be picked up by couriers, waiting to be shipped across the globe.
Doerr visually checked the shop and then rushed to the back – no Rafan. He knew he should have hired a private cab from the street and used that thousand euro cash he had in his back pocket. That way he would have arrived at the shop early. The agency’s driver couldn’t afford to speed up and get apprehended by a local cop, who might have decided to check out the vehicle and discover all the high-tech gizmos; that would be scandalous.
Doerr was sure that Rafan would not wait in the shop for ten minutes. Rafan would make the transaction as quickly as he could and then make a hasty exit. Doerr rushed to the shop’s back door, opened it, and stepped outside. He looked right and then left. No Rafan, no human. He saw a black cat, which fled swiftly.
An employee of the shop, a middle-aged bald man, rushed to Doerr. “Do you need any help, sir?”
“I was supposed to meet someone here,” Doerr lied. “Did you see a short stocky Middle Eastern man who came here alone?”
The employee thought for a few seconds and then asked thoughtfully, “With little bit of gray hair at the front?”
“Yes. Yes. Was he here?”
“In fact, yes.” The employee smiled. “He was here a minute ago. He ordered a bunch of flowers to be delivered.”
“Really? Can you show me the delivery address?”
“No.” The employee’s face turned serious. “We can’t give away customers’ information.”
“The thing is” – Doerr pulled out a hundred-euro bill – “my friend was probably sending a present to a common friend. Today is the friend’s birthday. But the friend has moved to a different place.” Doerr told a bunch of lies and handed the euro bill to the employee. “Can I see the delivery address?”
“Why didn’t you say it was your friend?” The smile returned to the employee’s face as he took the cash. “Come this way, please.” The man headed for the cash register. He pulled out a notebook. “Room number 436, Hotel Marina. Kattengat 12, 1019 SZ Amsterdam. Is that the right address?”
“Yes. That is the right address. Thank you.”
Doerr briskly exited the shop. After walking about a hundred feet, he pulled out his smartphone and called his handler.
“What happened?” the handler asked.
“First check this address. Hotel Marina. Kattengat 12, 1019 SZ Amsterdam.” The address had been imprinted in Doerr’s brain as soon as the shop employee had uttered it. “Tell me where it is.” Doerr waited as his heart pulsed higher. He had a thin hope that Rafan had given his address or his friend’s. Then Doerr could nail Rafan.
“I just checked. That address is nonexistent. Now tell me what happened in that flower shop.”
Doerr gave him a brief gist of it.
“I don’t know why Rafan gave a false address for the flower delivery,” said the handler.
“It’s a ploy to slow down the pursuer,” Doerr said. “I think we could get him today if I could hire my own cab.”
Doerr was frustrated because Rafan wasn’t an ordinary target. He was the man who had sucked the happiness from Doerr’s life.
Chapter 2 Rome, Italy
A year and three months ago…Max Doerr was a very happy man that day. His month-long assignment in Italy was complete, and he was waiting for his wife, Gayle, to come and join him in the historic city of Rome. He was thinking about her and could almost smell the lavender fragrance of her hair. He could visualize her hazel eyes that he never tired of gazing at. The chauffeured CIA sedan took him to Leonardo da Vinci airport.
Heading back to the hotel, inside the sedan, Gayle curled into a cocoon and rested her head against his chest. “When can we go to the Colosseum?” she asked.
“You’re tired,” Doerr said. “Let’s go there tomorrow.”
“I think you are tired, Max. I’m not,” Gayle said with her usual smile. “Today we go. Come on, life is short.”
The sedan turned right, and the hotel was barely five hundred feet away, and that was when it happened.
First an ear-piercing explosion; then the car tilted to the left. He extended his hands to protect Gayle, but his head hit the roof. He smelled smoke; the memory of what happened next was blurred. Waking up in a hospital, all he remembered was Gayle’s face.
“You’ve been in a coma for four days,” said the nurse.
He tried to look around. “Where is Gayle?”
The nurse sighed, and her chin dropped. He felt his heart collapsing and body sinking.
Plenty of sunlight was coming inside the tiny hospital room when he woke up again. Soft music was coming from somewhere, but no one was around. He knew he was alone, truly alone. A few years back, his son
had been murdered in New York, and now Gayle was gone. The last words from her mouth – life is short.
Everything felt meaningless, and Gayle’s last words echoed in his heart.
Why her. Why? Why? Why?
In the next two months, his weight dropped by fifteen pounds. At night, he couldn’t remember if he ate his lunch and didn’t want to have dinner. He stopped drinking coffee because it brought Gayle’s memory. He started smoking occasionally.
He didn’t report for duty and wouldn’t return calls left by the CIA folks.
That changed when he heard a message left by CIA Director Alison Stonewall on his cell phone, explaining who had killed Gayle – Rafan Sohail.
Chapter 3 California
That woman is crazy, Janco thought. She was driving at ninety miles an hour in a sixty-five zone.
“Perhaps there are cops,” Janco mumbled, worried that his newly attained freedom might end abruptly just because that woman drove too fast.
“Chill,” the woman said. “I got a radar.”
Sitting next to him, Taylor gave him a shut up look.
While the car raced forward, Janco looked around. The sun was rising, and a view of the horizon soothed his eyes though his heart fluttered from the uncertainty that lay ahead. The land around was barren, only a few cactus plants visible here and there.
Janco tried to savor everything he saw, but after an hour he was bored. He closed his eyes, hoping for some sleep, but the bumpy ride in the compact car was making it hard.
Later, the sun was up, scorching the land. Janco leered at the distant hills. It had been over two years since he had seen something like this. He’d spent a little over two years in the penitentiary, twenty-eight more years left to serve.
Janco had been found guilty of treason and selling secrets to a foreign government for money. In his mind, the charges had been preposterous. The information he’d given away to Iran was owned by him and couldn’t be used to make nuclear weapons. But the prosecutor had argued that his research was funded by the government and the secrets he’d passed were critical for nuclear bomb-making.
His lawyer had argued one could not make a pipe bomb with the info he had passed on to the Iranians, let alone a nuclear one. But the jury had agreed with the prosecutor and found Janco guilty as charged.
“Four to eight years is what you’re looking at,” his lawyer had assured him. “With good behavior you might be out in two.”
But when the fat, melon-headed federal judge had given the sentence, Janco was stunned – thirty years. He wanted to jump and smash that melon. But he knew that would lead to more trouble; after all, Janco was an educated man with two PhDs in his pocket. Many lawyers and journalists had opined the thirty-year sentence was overkill. There was even an op-ed in The Washington Post calling the sentence too harsh.
Janco had started to serve his sentence in a Virginia penitentiary. At first it was surreal, but within months he’d adjusted to the reality and was able to move on with his new life, befriending many inmates, who had committed serious crimes, including murder.
Three months into his criminal trial, his ex-wife had filed for divorce. He’d had to hire a family lawyer to deal with it. On top of everything, his ex-wife had his bank account frozen, putting more stress on him. He’d felt if he could have focused on his criminal trial, maybe he’d have been acquitted or at least received a lighter sentence. It had all been the fault of that whore.
After six months into his prison term, his only relation outside the jail was Mark, the elder of his two sons, who used to send occasional emails. His younger son never cared.
In the prison, Janco had met thugs, murderers, rapists, and one crime boss. Some inmates espoused their innocence, and some bragged about murders they didn’t commit.
He’d tried to be friendly with them. He thought of them as people with special skills, just like his own skill in science. He’d tolerated stale food for two years. During summer, his cell used to get so hot that many times he’d thought he was having a heart attack.
And then he had seen those two men, Taylor and Gibbs, who had introduced themselves as agents sent by Iran’s government. Gibbs was the tall man and Taylor short; both were muscled and had a thuggish appearance. They talked to Janco in a corner of the yard, no other inmate in earshot.
“We can get you outta here,” Gibbs had said, and Taylor nodded and looked around, making sure no one was paying them any attention.
“Where do I go from here?” Janco asked, covering his lips with his hand. “Feds will hound me down.”
“We’ll take you out of this country.”
Janco had thought for two seconds. “Who sent you?”
“The Iranians,” Gibbs had whispered and Taylor nodded. “Think about it. You can live in Europe or South America or wherever you want. They’ll give you the money. You have twenty-eight years left here. You will die here.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“We don’t have much time,” Gibbs said. “We need to know by tomorrow morn.”
The three men had dispersed, and that night Janco had turned left-right-left in his bed – no sleep, just like his first days on that bed.
Things can go bad. Don’t really know where they would take me. I might die on the way. But then I might die here. I’m over sixty already.
The next morning Janco had said yes.
THE COMPACT CAR rumbled along the highway, cutting through the hot, dry air. They were moving straight, stopping only for short bathroom breaks, picking up junk food. Janco wanted a cheeseburger and some fries at one rest area with a food court.
“You’ll have plenty of time to eat good food later,” Gibbs balked. “Now isn’t the time.”
Janco got the point and munched dry potato chips for lunch in the car. Out of jail, still freedom felt a light-year away. His heart quivered at the uncertainty lying ahead. Janco peered outside. Soon he should be out of America, away from the FBI’s reach, away from anybody’s grip. He didn’t know where he was going. Gibbs had said somewhere in Europe or South America. He looked at Gibbs, who was sitting in the passenger seat now. Janco wanted to ask him – where?
Neither Gibbs nor Taylor had been talking to him much since breaking out of the jail. Janco decided not to ask the question, for now. I’m free, I’m free – he told himself repeatedly.
Janco saw a Welcome to California sign. Having lived on the East Coast most of the time, he wasn’t familiar with this part of the country. Then he saw a sign – Los Angeles 190 miles.
Los Angeles Airport, the destination wasn’t too far away, and the way the woman was driving, they might reach LA in just one more hour. It was near noon, and the sun was bright. Janco thought he was on his way to the Los Angeles airport, and very soon he’d be out of the country.
But ten minutes later, Gibbs pointed to a sign with some motel names on it and said, “We get off here.”
Janco wanted to ask why, but he kept the question to himself.
The car turned off the highway onto a local road, and a few minutes later, it stopped at a nondescript motel. It had a bright neon light sign – va ancy. The C light wasn’t working. A McDonald’s restaurant could be seen from the vehicle. From the number of cars parked in the motel parking lot, Janco estimated that the motel was about twenty percent full.
Gibbs got out of the vehicle. “You guys stay here.” He slammed the door and then went into the motel office.
A few minutes later, Gibbs returned with some keys. He gave one to the woman and said to Taylor, “We all will stay in one room.”
Janco understood that Gibbs and Taylor would be staying in the same room with Janco, to keep an eye on him. Everybody got out of the vehicle.
Wondering what the plan was, Janco looked at Gibbs. Gibbs’s smiley face he’d seen in the jail was gone now, replaced by a face full of disdain.
“I have one question?” Janco asked politely, knowing that Gibbs was his protector and possibly his owner as well. If Gibbs left him now,
he’d be like a lion cub left alone in the Serengeti desert.
Gibbs said nothing and simply kept marching toward the wooden stairs covered by a green carpet.
Taking that as a yes answer, Janco asked, “When am I going to the LA airport?”
“Tomorrow,” said Gibbs as he started climbing the stairs.
So Gibbs confirmed that he’d indeed be going to Los Angeles.
Janco followed Gibbs to the second floor. “Where is my passport?”
Gibbs stopped, turned to face Janco, and rudely said, “I thought you had just one question?”
“Sorry.”
“It’s being arranged. Now keep your fucking mouth shut. Will be good for everyone.” Gibbs started walking again.
That was the first time Gibbs used the F word.
Janco followed Gibbs silently through the hallway, passing other rooms. A minute later, Janco and Taylor waited for Gibbs to unlock the door.
As soon as he entered the room, Janco smelled a musty odor inside. A king-size bed lay in the middle with a dirty sheet on it that had not been cleaned for years, apparently. As soon as he saw the bed, Janco felt an urge to lie down and sleep, and his legs weighed a ton each. It had been quite a ride from his cell that had started eight hours back.
Inside the room, Janco walked on the worn-out green carpet, went into the bathroom and turned the knob for the hot water. He held his palm out and felt the warm water that had been a rarity in the jail. He came out of the bathroom and saw only Taylor. Gibbs must have gone out for something.
“Can I take a shower?” Janco asked.
Taylor was opening a suitcase. Without looking up, he said, “Go ahead.”
Janco reentered the bathroom and swiftly locked the door as if someone would come in and stop his impending warm shower. Janco took his clothes off and entered the tub, turned the knob and let the water fall on his back. It felt like a massage.
At least fifteen minutes must have passed in the bath. Janco heard a knock on the door and then another one. He hurried, put on his clothes and came out of the bathroom.