by Jay Deb
“Where did you meet him?”
“Virginia.”
“Where in Virginia?”
Faizan gave the Virginia address.
Doerr turned to the FBI and CIA men who were standing behind him, who had been just spectators so far. “I gotta go,” Doerr said.
“Come on, Max,” one of the FBI men said. “We still have a lot of work to do.”
“We need you, Max,” one CIA man said. “You have all the background info. Don’t leave now.”
“I’m leaving the work to able colleagues like you.” Doerr hurried to the door. “Shamil is here. He’s a great man to work with. You guys will do just fine. You have my number, anyway.”
Doerr did not wait for a reply. He thought he had enough to go after the mysterious man who could turn out to be Samuel.
After looking around in the facility for a few minutes, Doerr located the young man who had driven him in the morning. The young man was in one of the rooms upstairs. The room was full of security monitors. Along with three other men, the young driver was watching one of the monitors and was talking to someone on the phone in an agitated manner.
“Buddy,” Doerr said to him, “I need to borrow the car, just for ten, fifteen minutes.”
The man put his hand in his pocket, took out a car key and handed it to Doerr without looking at him. Doerr took the key and rushed outside.
He drove to the nearest rental company. On the way, he thought of talking to Lazarus and telling him that he was headed for a house in Virginia, to look for Samuel. Then he decided not to. What if Lazarus decides to send someone else to Virginia and tells me to go back to interrogating Faizan? Doerr could not risk that.
He rented a Chevy sedan and headed immediately for the address Faizan had given him. It was five p.m., and the lazy winter sun had already gone down. Doerr was racing down the highway where traffic was getting thicker; hard-working people were hitting the road to get back home after work.
It took one hour to reach Interstate 95 South. By the time Doerr arrived at the house in Emporia, Virginia, it was nine p.m. It was dark outside and inside. Doerr parked his car in the driveway, seeing no other vehicle there.
Doerr watched from his sedan. It was a large house for the area, perhaps four or five bedrooms. Many rich people in Washington, who lived in tiny houses or condos, liked to have a large house in a more rural area. Maybe the owner lived in Washington and visited over weekends. Maybe the owner was Samuel. Maybe.
Keeping the car headlights on, Doerr got out of his vehicle. He held a Glock in his hand. An abundance of weeds in front of the house indicated the owner did not care much about maintenance.
Doerr stood at the door and peered inside. With the dim light, the only thing he could make out was that the carpeted floor was fairly clean.
Doerr kicked open the door. Glass shattered, and a piece of wood broke off. Doerr got into the house and closed the door immediately. He moved his hand over the wall, looking for a switch. He found it, turned it on, and light flooded the hallway.
It seemed like an average-looking house. First, he looked for any hanging frames with photographs. There were none. Then he scavenged the house for any receipts, letters, or magazines – anything that would identify the owner. It appeared the owner took good care of eliminating traces. There was no landline phone either.
At last, he called his contact at the agency. “I am trying to identify the owner of an address.”
“What is the address, sir?”
Doerr gave the address.
After a minute the man at the other end said, “We don’t have the address in our database.”
“Can’t you identify who owns the deed?”
“Yes, but we can do that tomorrow only. Our computers are down for maintenance tonight.”
Doerr glanced at his watch. It was almost eleven p.m. “No, it can’t wait for tomorrow,” Doerr said. “There is a killer on the loose. If we are going to catch him, this has to be done tonight.”
“Don’t get upset, sir. I am only doing my job. Tell you what, let me wake up some people and see what I can find. I will call you back in about an hour.”
“Thank you…sorry, I forgot your name.”
“Thomas, most people call me Tommy.”
“Thanks, Tommy. I will be waiting for your call.”
Doerr hung up, made coffee, and then he went out to get a pack of cigarettes. He drove around looking for a gas station in the area, but they were all closed; it was a small town. He drove to Interstate 95. At a rest area, he found what he was looking for.
He bought a pack, lit a cigarette, and went back to the car.
Soon, he was back in the empty house. It was thirty minutes past midnight, and he was still waiting for Tommy’s call. He looked around the house, hoping to find a clue that he had missed, maybe a document. He looked under the mattress, in kitchen cupboards, bathroom cabinets – nothing.
He called Tommy.
“I was just about to call you, sir,” Tommy said. “Here is what I’ve found. The house is owned by a man named John Clark. He is an insurance agent and lives in Miami, Florida. He bought the house three years back, for two hundred sixty-eight thousand dollars.”
“You have a contact number?”
“Yes, I have a home number. Please, note it down – 305…” Tommy gave the rest of the number.
Doerr wrote it down and hung up.
He dialed the Miami number immediately – it went to voicemail, just as he had expected. He hung up, and then he redialed and left a polite message, asking the owner to call him back. He was sure the man would not call until the next day.
Doerr dialed the FBI’s Terrorism Task Force department’s number. A man picked up.
After introducing himself, Doerr said, “We need to question a man in Florida who is possibly…not possibly, surely connected to the bombing in Washington. We need to bring him in and show some tough love.”
“It’s one in the morning,” the FBI man said. “We can go and talk to him. But if he refuses to help, we cannot arrest him. We would need a judge to sign an arrest warrant. That will easily take a couple of hours in the morning. So the best scenario is we could arrest him by noon.”
“That might be too late,” Doerr said but did not explain the suspected connection between that man and Samuel, the ex-CIA operative. “Do the best you can.”
“Will do, and we’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, send me all the evidence and documents you have against the Miami man.”
Doerr paused and thought for a few seconds. “Okay, I will have it sent in a couple of hours.”
Doerr hung up. He was not sure what document he could send.
After turning all the lights off, he sat down on the reclining chair in the living room, enveloped in the darkness that helped him think better. He rocked back and forth. He was positive that a Miami insurance agent had not provided Faizan with explosives. Samuel had somehow got the house. He must have either coerced someone to let him use the house for some time or maybe he had simply broken into the house, just like Doerr himself had done.
Doerr had no doubt that Samuel would try to flee the Washington area. He would perhaps leave the country, or worse, he might have left the country already. Doerr felt a shiver run down his legs.
Samuel had surely received a hefty sum from Halim and was perhaps headed to the Carribean or his favorite vacation place – Paris or some other exotic place. Alerting the airlines was useless too, as Samuel would definitely use an alias and a false passport. But then, maybe Faizan’s helper was someone other than Samuel. But in Doerr’s mind, there was enough evidence to support his theory about Samuel.
It was two a.m. Feeling flustered, Doerr decided to catch a few hours of sleep before deciding his next course of action. He lay down on the sofa and closed his eyes, but he was unable to sleep. Samuel’s face haunted his mind, as if mocking him.
He lifted the sofa cushion, to see if something was hidden there, and then swiped his hand underne
ath – nothing.
He tried to sleep again. But then he knew it was useless to even try. So he got up and started pacing in the living room. He went to one of the bedrooms; he had already scanned the room twice. In the corner, under the table, he saw a box. He wiggled it, and the top fell off – it was a shredder.
He poured the shredded contents on the floor and started the near-impossible puzzle of matching the pieces. It was hard work. By six a.m. all he had was a Home Depot receipt with a date, time and the last four digits of a credit card number.
He called Tommy again. Doerr gave him the Home Depot address and other details. “We need to look up the recent activities on that card, immediately.”
Tommy sighed. “They aren’t likely to give customer data without a court order. Moreover, everybody is sleeping right now.”
“You contact the NSA and get that info. I need results,” Doerr barked, “and not excuses.”
“Let me see what I can do. I will call you back in an hour.”
“It’s six ten right now. If I don’t get a call by seven ten, I will be calling your manager. Understand?”
“I understand, sir.”
Doerr hung up.
The waiting game began. The sun was about to sneak over the horizon and put an end to the darkness.
Doerr made some coffee and smoked two more cigarettes. He called the FBI. As expected, the Florida man was completely uncooperative, and the FBI was seeking an arrest warrant.
It was six forty a.m. when his phone rang.
Doerr drained the dregs of his coffee and picked up the phone after two rings. “Hello. You found something?” He expected the call to be from Tommy.
But the call was from Lazarus. “You should have been talking to Faizan or resting in the hospital,” Lazarus said angrily. “What are you doing in Virginia?”
“Lazarus, thanks for calling,” Doerr said. “I was going to call you soon. I need some authorization for some lookups. I am sure Samuel was in this house, and I’m ninety percent sure he is about to leave the country.”
“Max, listen. You are injured, and your wife needs you. You have done enough already. You have stopped mayhem in Washington, and the country is grateful to you. I say you take some time off. Go to New York and take some rest. Okay?”
“No, Lazarus. I have to find Samuel. He killed my only son and…” Doerr was about to tell him the dark truth, that he was the one who killed the DEA administrator. But he held back; he would tell Lazarus the truth someday, but he knew today was not the day. “Lazarus, I have to get him. If I go back to New York, I won’t be able to rest anyway.”
Ten minutes later, the conversation ended. Doerr wondered why Lazarus kept saying he should go back to New York. It was almost like he did not want Doerr to find Samuel.
Was it possible that Lazarus didn’t want him to be successful? Did Lazarus really think the work was complete?
Doerr brushed aside that thought. It was more than an hour and half since he had talked to Tommy. It would be a waste of time to talk to him again.
He called the eighteen technicians he knew at CIA’s Science and Technology department. It was tiring and time-consuming. But he knew it was his only chance of getting what he needed.
By noon, he received confirmation that the card belonged to Samuel and a United Airlines ticket had been booked with that card. The ticket was for a flight from Dulles Airport to San Jose, Costa Rica, at 10:50 p.m. that same day.
Chapter 25
Doerr watched the human traffic thin out as he waited near the kiosks of United Airlines at Terminal D in Dulles Airport. He had been waiting there for three hours, his Starbucks coffee finished long ago. He was thirsty and hungry, but he could not leave the area, not even for a minute.
It was close to ten p.m., and he was almost ready to give up. He doubted if Samuel would turn up at all. Doerr had been keeping a close eye on the people joining the lines that ended at the United Air check-in counters.
He saw a family of three – Mom, Dad, and a small girl. The father held the passports and boarding passes, and the family headed for the security checkpoint. Two men, one young and the other old, approached the lady at the counter. The young man pulled a huge black suitcase, and the old man had a small carry-on bag.
Doerr looked at the far end, at the empty Lufthansa counters, and his eyes zeroed in back to the line to the United Air counter. And there was Samuel, wearing a blue shirt, almost hidden behind an overweight black man, looking at the display screen above. Doerr had to confront Samuel; he felt the blood boiling in his head, his hands becoming sweaty, and he rushed toward his enemy.
Doerr saw Samuel turn his head toward him and then turn away. Perhaps he had seen Doerr. Doerr was about fifty feet away from Samuel, and that was when it happened. Two black-uniformed security guards moved in, cutting off his path to Samuel.
What the hell! Doerr had to slow down and then halt right before the two guards, who now stood in front of him. Doerr froze as he saw Lazarus show up and stand between the two guards, displaying a hostile pose.
“There is Samuel,” Doerr said to Lazarus. “Right behind you. We have to get him.”
“Let him go, Max,” Lazarus said as one of the two guards placed his hand on his holstered gun. “Let him go. We don’t go after our own people.”
“What do you mean?” Doerr was flabbergasted. “Maybe Samuel used to work for us. But not anymore. Now he works for the terrorists. For Halim.”
“He’s our guy, Max.” Lazarus crossed his arms at his chest. “He works for the CIA.”
“Are you mad, Lazarus? Everyone told me he doesn’t work for the CIA anymore.” Doerr saw Samuel hand over his passport to the lady at the counter. “Is this a sick joke? Did he come back to the CIA?” Two more guards now joined and formed a barricade around Doerr.
“No.” Lazarus chuckled. “Actually, he never left us. He has been working for the CIA all along.”
“What do you mean? You told me he was suspended and then kicked out of the agency.” Doerr saw the lady at the counter hand Samuel’s passport back to him, and Samuel walked away from the counter. Doerr stepped forward, but the security guards and Lazarus stopped and held him. A scuffle followed, and Doerr ended up on the floor, restrained by the security men. He could no longer see the enemy of his life, the man who took the joy out of his life – Samuel. Now he was not sure if Lazarus was a bigger foe.
He saw two new guards move in, who were telling the curious onlookers to move on and mind their own business.
With a strong jerk, Doerr freed himself from the hands of Lazarus and the guards. When he stood up, Samuel was already gone. “See what you did?” he said to Lazarus. “He killed my son and…”
“And what?” Lazarus closed in and hushed so other than Doerr, no one else would hear him. “Tell me.”
Doerr knew this was certainly not the time to tell Lazarus about the shot he took at New York Central Park.
“And what, Max?” Lazarus taunted him and stood still for five or six seconds and then said, “And Samuel made you kill the DEA administrator?”
Doerr’s jaw dropped. “You knew?” He could not believe it. “You knew all along?”
“Yes, I knew. I knew every step you made after Samuel called you, months back, and you guys met at that bar. You were being watched. You were being followed, Max. We kept close tabs on you. After all, you are the best sniper we ever had. You are the assassin.”
“What about those people at the office on Thirty-Third Street? What about the receptionist at Langley? They all told me Samuel does not work for the agency anymore.”
“We set all that up. We were watching you via satellite. We were watching you from the street; we even watched you in your apartment; we watched you from everywhere.”
“Why the charade? If you had asked me nicely to come and work for you, go after Halim, I would have done that.”
“We already asked you to come back, a few years ago. Remember?” Lazarus said. “And you didn’t wan
t to work for us anymore.”
“What about the killings? My son,” Doerr said angrily. “The two people who died at the Metro Center. Samuel works with the terrorists. Faizan said Samuel was working for Halim, believe me.”
“Enough!” Lazarus shouted. “Max, go back to New York, and give me a call later so we can sort everything out. There is no need to make a scene in front of everyone here.” Lazarus pointed his hand at the airline counter, where six people were standing. “Now, if you will excuse me.” Lazarus started walking away.
“Stop,” Doerr said and took two steps toward Lazarus, who kept walking, and the four guards stepped in front of Doerr and blocked his path.
“I warn you, sir,” one of the guards said. “Please, don’t follow the deputy director.”
Doerr looked at the guard and sprang at him. He hit the guard’s face with a swing of his elbow and kicked the groin of the second guard. Doerr threw a strong fist at the face of the third guard and a kick into the belly of the fourth, and then he ran toward Lazarus, who was far away now. Doerr followed him.
Minutes later, Doerr caught up with Lazarus in the parking lot. Except for the four or five people going in and out of the lot, it was empty.
“Lazarus, stop,” Doerr thundered.
Lazarus turned to Doerr with a surprised face. “Oh, you again.”
“Yes, me again,” Doerr said. “We can’t let Samuel get away. Believe me, he is with the terrorists.”
“I trust you.” Lazarus laughed. The parking lot had just enough light for Doerr to see Lazarus’s gleeful face. Lazarus kept walking and talking. “Samuel penetrated Halim’s network. He works from inside. We knew Faizan was coming. We knew he was staying with that professor. Think about this – the terrorists thought they had infiltrated our country, but it was the other way around. We busted them inside out. Now that Halim has been unsuccessful, his helpers will dwindle, and his cash supply will dry up – a true end to a terrorist. Just imagine, if we’d had a mole sitting among those hijackers on 9/11 planes, do you think the result would have been the same?”
Doerr followed Lazarus, and they were now at the middle of the line H of the parking lot where there was no one else around. Light was scant, and Lazarus’s face looked like the devil’s to Doerr.