by David Lender
“Daniel?”
“Yes. I may have an idea. Do you know how to contact her friend, Nafta?”
“Of course. I have her number at the clinic in Paris.”
“She might know something. It was something Sasha said.”
CHAPTER 49
SEPTEMBER, THIS YEAR. A SAFE House One Hundred Kilometers Outside Khartoum, Sudan. Habib sat cross-legged on the floor of a nondescript house in a nondescript village. About a dozen of Sheik bin Abdur’s followers were seated as well, listening to the great man speak.
“An Islamic brother who murders his own Islamic brother is an infidel, who must perish!” Bin Abdur’s voice was venomous.
Habib looked at the concrete walls. Not much better accommodations than in Buraida. Now that I know where he is I figure the price of getting him out of here should be double or triple what he paid me to get him out of there. This should be a good payday, too. Habib sat patiently for another half hour while Sheik bin Abdur finished his sermon.
“And we will continue our jihad. We will drive out the infidels! There is no God but Allah!”
“La ilaha ilallah!” the others in the room repeated.
“Now, my brothers, please you must leave me,” bin Abdur said. “I must speak with our friend, the man we call Habib.”
Finally, Habib thought. “You want me to move you?” he asked when they were alone.
The Sheik glared at him. “No. I want you to take care of the girl.”
The girl again. Always the girl.
“This whore Sasha. She was responsible for the first acts of murder against our brethren. She, with her Western influence, seduced our young friend Ibrahim, then betrayed him. And many more over the years. Now this. Over fifty of our people murdered. I expect you to take care of it personally. Make certain you don’t miss this time. This girl must die.”
Oh, man. Trying to take someone out with all this heat? “This will be expensive. Two million dollars.”
“Outrageous.”
“Accept it. For once, just accept it. Every intelligence agency in the world is at full alert.”
“While I would never allow my followers to learn of my disappointment at the failure of our ambitious plans for the commencement of our jihad,” the Sheik said, his eyes boring into Habib, “and while I am delighted with the spectacular statement we made with the inferno of the Challenger oil rig, do you honestly believe the services the Believers received from you were fair in comparison to the compensation paid to you?”
“Just getting in and out of the U.S. with all the security now…This won’t be easy. Two million.”
“Mr. Farooq Abdullah who calls himself Habib, I think not. I think you will do it for us as a courtesy.”
And so it was agreed.
September, This Year. Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Six senior members of the New Patriot Association, a right-wing militia group, sat in the basement meeting room of its founder, Mark Green. The FBI rated it as benign among the 441 armed groups in fifty states it kept track of, though its 25 members occasionally conducted weekend war games in the woodlands around Wilkes-Barre.
Habib stood behind the semicircle of chairs. Close to twenty thousand, he thought, reflecting on the number of miles he’d flown in the last seventy-two hours.
He didn’t mind. When the work was there he got paid. When things went cold they went stone cold. And right now things were as hot as he’d ever seen them.
The DVD was playing The Day of the Jackal, the scene in which the Jackal sights-in his custom-made rifle. He fires three rounds of conventional bullets, successively adjusting the crosshairs on his scope until he’s certain the sight’s aim is perfect. Then he loads a custom-made mercury bullet. He fires again and a melon shatters into a million pieces with the impact of the slug, leaving no trace but a moist pool on the ground.
“I see what you mean,” Green said. “How many have you got?”
Habib thought he had seen all kinds, but never anything like Mark Green. He was six feet four inches tall, skinny as a broomstick. “Live Free or Die” was tattooed across the top of his forehead. His brown eyes had the spark of a mischievous child.
“Six. They’re relatively hard to come by, so don’t waste them. You should only need one anyhow,” Habib said. Two of the group members stood behind Green, listening. Habib judged he wouldn’t trust them with much of anything important. At least Habib was sure Green could get the job done. At a minimum this one’s got good teeth, Habib thought.
“And you say this bitch is the one who put the Feds on to the Nationalist Front in New York?” Green asked.
I’ll say whatever it takes to get you to do the job. “We’re certain. And two other true patriot groups in the New York area that were hit by the CIA as well. All blamed for ties to this Islamic terrorist group, led to them by this woman.”
“Well I’d say that makes her a murderer, then. Six good Americans died at the hands of the Feds because of this bitch.”
“Twelve, if you count the members of the other two groups,” Habib said. “And if you take the others around the country she was indirectly responsible for, the total would be over fifty.”
Green clenched a fist. “Well then you’ve come to the right men. We can do the job.”
Habib dropped the six mercury bullets into Green’s hand, then handed over a photograph and an envelope with $10,000. “I trust you can find Milford. The name is Lydia Fauchert. The address 521 Broad Street. Straight black hair, black eyes, about five feet four. Don’t miss.”
CHAPTER 50
SEPTEMBER, THIS YEAR. NEW YORK City. Dressed in slacks and open-necked shirts, Tom and Daniel got off the elevator at One American Plaza, FBI headquarters.
Tom led him through the office until they reached a glass-walled conference room. “We call this the goldfish bowl,” Tom said. The glass was a half-inch thick, so when the door closed behind them the sound of the outer office completely disappeared. Fifteen people were in the room, the men with their suit jackets off, a few women dressed in blouses and skirts. A credenza against the glass wall had two urns of coffee, scattered boxes of donuts, bagels and Danish.
Daniel still hadn’t heard from Sasha. He’d checked the answering machines in his apartment and in the Milford House every few hours. Nothing. And no more calls on the new cell phone Tom had provided. Tom kept him current on the status of their efforts to find her, despite whatever else he seemed to have on his mind. But all they knew was where she wasn’t.
“This is the situation room,” Tom said. “And you know Special Agent Stone, our computer wizard.”
“Hi, Tom—hi, Daniel,” she said in her husky voice.
Tom introduced Daniel to three or four others, including Walter Baxter, the FBI Regional Director.
“I’m getting heat on somebody with good covert tactical skills continuing to light up these white supremacist and paramilitary groups,” Baxter told Tom.
Tom shrugged. “Somebody’s doing the world a favor.”
“Yeah, but you need to be a little more discreet. And at some point it’s not going to be open season on these guys.” Baxter gave Tom a severe glance. “At least I answer to the Justice Department.”
Christ. Daniel was itching to get on with it. He didn’t need this intramural squabble.
“Hey, Goddard, you might want to hear this,” an agent said. “Extension 6241. The agent’s name is Stevens.”
Tom hit the speakerphone. “Yes, Stevens.”
“Unidentified subject matching Sasha’s description has been seen driving a blue Toyota Camry around Milford, Pennsylvania.”
Daniel’s muscles tensed. Is it her?
Tom turned to him. “You think she’d wait this long to meet you up there?”
“Yes.” Daniel was desperate to get moving. Why the hell were they all just sitting around?
Tom spoke back into the speakerphone. “You sure it’s a woman driving?
“Would it match Sasha’s description if it was a guy? You want us t
o bring the subject in?”
“No, observation only, no contact and avoid detection.”
“It must be Sasha,” Daniel said. He wanted to scream it in Tom’s face.
Tom turned to him. “Don’t know. Could be a decoy. For her or for you.” Tom spoke back into the speakerphone. “Give me your number, Stevens. Where are you now?”
“Parked at the Grand Union.”
“We’ll be there as fast as we can.” Tom grabbed Baxter by the arm. “I’m gonna need a couple of your agents and a chopper. It’s either Sasha or somebody’s trying to set her up.”
Three agents jumped up from their seats.
“Thirty-fourth Street on the West Side. We’ll phone ahead for the chopper,” Baxter said. He turned and went to dial the phone. Daniel felt a sense of rightness, justness. They were going to make it, Sasha and he.
September, This Year. Milford, Pennsylvania. Two days of this! Sasha felt like a jungle cat with no prey, pacing the grounds of the bed and breakfast, thinking, rethinking. Emotions twisted in her heart. Images attacked her brain. She longed for sleep, a drug, a lobotomy, anything to keep her mind from devouring itself.
Where was Daniel? His phones were both still tapped. And nobody at the Milford house after multiple drive-bys. Maybe he and Tom were working together. Tom. His Midwestern values as straight as his hair. He’d help Daniel get to her.
What would Tom do now? Nothing came to her. Maybe she should go to him. No. She needed to think for both Daniel and herself now; she couldn’t allow the luxury of taking chances. She remembered the passports, including Daniel’s. The money, their travel plans, the Mercedes. All they needed to do was get to Canada, then a flight to Switzerland. Then lost forever, or for as long as it took to lose these al-Mujari fanatics.
Time to move. Make sure her cover was still good. Her instinct pumped in her veins, then her longing for Daniel. Two days and he still wasn’t here. When was he coming?
She paid her bill, then went up to her room, took out her laptop. She accessed the communications port, entered her account codes, then dialed out through her circuitous route of various phony accounts and international networks. She glanced at her watch, checking the online time elapsed.
An encrypted email message was waiting for her. She de-encrypted it. The words flashed on her screen:
REPEAT MESSAGE. GET OUT NOW. THEY ARE TARGETING YOU. MAKE CONTACT FOR EXTRACTION.
Not just yet. You sent me in here to think for myself and that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m not going anyplace without Daniel.
She was going back to the City. So what if she was heading right back into the middle of danger? She was convinced Daniel was there. He’s all right. She knew it. He had to be.
A vision of Daniel’s face came to her. She stood in the center of the room, her heart focused on him, swearing to herself this was the last moment she’d spend in anguish like this. She opened a window and looked to see that no one was watching, then dropped her overnight bag to the ground. Once downstairs she strode off the porch as if she were going for another walk. She picked up speed, turned the corner of the building, fetched her bag and walked behind the inn to the parking lot, breathing evenly to keep herself from hurrying too much. She drove away, looking into the rearview mirror.
The Toyota Camry seemed to turn back toward Milford by itself. As if yielding to the insistence of the car, she drove once more down Sawkill Avenue and around the curve past the Milford house on Broad Street. The driveway was empty and the house was dark. She headed back out through town, thinking of how she’d contact Daniel in the City. Or go directly to Tom?
Wait. She saw the maroon Mercedes SLS AMG parked at the Grand Union. A shot of adrenaline filled her, then a gush of joy. She drove past the Grand Union and out of town, then pulled off onto a side road. Now she allowed herself to revel in unrestrained relief. She laughed out loud, tears of happiness streaming down her cheeks. She let out one last, long cathartic sigh. Then she dried her eyes and blew her nose, steeling herself again. All right, this is it. Get focused. You go in, get him, and the two of you get the hell out of here and get very, very lost. No more running. No more life without someone to love.
She drove back into town, pulled into the Grand Union parking lot knowing how risky this was. She knew it would be safer to wait in the parking lot up the hill, from which she could clearly see Daniel when he got into his car.
What if he’s being tailed? They’ll see me follow him. Then they’ll get both of us. She turned the engine off. No, her best chance was to try to get into the store without being seen and meet him inside.
She took a deep breath, murmured some words in Sanskrit, opened the door, and walked briskly into the Grand Union. She strode down the first aisle, forcing away the terror that threatened to steal her composure. Anybody could be waiting in one of these aisles.
She walked headlong into a bearded man wearing Ray-Bans and a New York Yankees cap pulled down over his forehead. Yassar! She inhaled a huge gulp of air in her shock.
“Hello, Sasha,” he said.
“She just went into the store!” Tom yelled to Daniel over the chopper’s noise, pulling his cell phone away from his ear.
“Is she okay?”
Tom shook his head, “I don’t know. Two of the FBI agents just went in after her, and—”
“We’re almost there!” Daniel yelled. They were about a mile out at only a few thousand feet and he could see the Delaware River, then the town of Milford looming up in front of them. Just hang on, Sasha, Daniel thought.
“See if you can put us down in the parking lot!” Tom yelled into the intercom. Five seconds later it seemed like they were skimming the treetops. Daniel guessed they were at about two hundred feet and he could see people in the Milford streets standing and pointing up at the chopper as it thundered over their heads.
The pilot banked hard right as they crossed Broad Street directly over the stoplight in town, and righted it in a smooth motion that squeezed Daniel into his seat.
In another five seconds he had touched it down in the Grand Union back parking lot.
Yassar felt the throbbing of the chopper’s rotors at about the same moment he heard them. Allah, don’t let this go wrong. The two men who had accompanied Yassar swooped Sasha up in their arms. He felt a crushing guilt and utter disgust at himself at the sight. They started running up the aisle toward the front of the store, holding her, past stunned neighbors who stood frozen. Yassar pushed emotion away. It must be done.
Sasha tried to scream. Her eyes locked for a half second on Yassar’s, feeling confusion, then terror, the sense of hopelessness at the worst betrayal imaginable. The two men started running, carrying her toward the front of the store. She tried to punch the man who held her under the armpits and clamped his hand over her mouth, then scratched his hand, but he wouldn’t let go. She tried to force her mouth open to bite his fingers, but his grasp was too strong. Outside, she saw a Ford Aerostar waiting with its side door open and in an instant the two men had her inside. Yassar jumped in and the door slid shut. The van sped away.
Daniel ran through the side entrance, feeling terror and anger and purpose. Where were the agents who were supposed to be in the store?
“Daniel! Out there, out there!” The townspeople, his neighbors, were pointing at the front entrance. “She’s outside! They took her outside!”
Daniel ran out the front door just in time to see the van race across the parking lot. He turned back, seeing Tom ten feet behind him, and three FBI agents, semiautomatics in their hands. He felt a chill run through him, as if the cold steel of the guns had been thrust to his flesh.
“The car! Get in the car!” Daniel yelled, pointing toward the Mercedes. He took out his keychain, chirped the automatic lock and was inside. The V-8 engine roared. Tom jumped into the passenger seat and Daniel screeched the SLS AMG across the parking lot after the van. He saw the FBI agents run to another car.
Yassar! Sasha flailed and punched and scratched bu
t the men wouldn’t let go of her. Yassar!
Sasha felt two wheels lift off the road and then come crashing back as the van came out of a turn and accelerated off on the straightway. As it righted itself, a figure in the back spilled off the seat, her head smacking the floor a foot from Sasha’s face. Nafta!
Their eyes met. Sasha felt her chest convulse. Nafta. Sasha closed her eyes and began to pray.
“He’s heading for town!” Daniel rounded the curve behind the van and headed up Harford Street toward the light. He followed the van around the turn at the light, saw its brake lights, the smoke from the tires as it skidded to a stop just before his house, in front of a police car that had sped up Broad Street to block it. Then the door of the van was open and she was out of the van, her black hair streaming out behind her. A man emerged from the van and ran after her. Daniel almost collapsed as he got out of the car. Scrambling, he saw Tom a few feet in front of him running behind the man. Daniel called out Sasha’s name, but she didn’t turn to him as she stopped in front of the door and fumbled with her keys, and then he heard the screech of tires and the sirens behind him and realized the FBI men were there too. He heard a crack that he only identified afterward as a rifle shot someplace off to his left. And then he saw a huge red ball like a halo surrounding her head and her body falling to the floor of the porch beneath a three-foot circle of red on the white door of the house that he knew in his mind must be from blood but his heart couldn’t comprehend. And the man whose face Daniel would never forget, the Arabic face with the scratches on it, the scratches of her last struggle for life, the man turned back and ran to the van and he heard the van’s tires squeal and he saw it speed off. Tom turned from the sight and grabbed him and pushed him away and stopped him from looking at what Daniel couldn’t bring himself to look at anyhow.