Capitol murder

by Philip Margolin

  “Someone else may have done that, and Senator Carson might know who it is.”

  “It will be difficult to get to a United States senator,” Mustapha said.

  “Are you telling me you can’t do it?” Afridi challenged.

  “I’m saying it will be difficult, but I will find a way if it becomes necessary. Who is your last possibility?”

  “Steve Reynolds. It has always seemed convenient that he was in that alley when the imam’s student was attacked. He could have been in deep cover and the attack could have been a setup to get him in contact with the imam. Also, Reynolds found the man who sold the dynamite and detonators.”

  “I can question him,” Mustapha suggested.

  “Question him, then kill him.”

  “What if he isn’t the traitor?” Mustapha asked.

  “Kill him anyway. Reynolds has outlived his usefulness.”

  T he house where Reynolds was staying was a forty-five-minute ride from the motel. They were several blocks from the rental when Mustapha told the driver to slow down so he could scout the surrounding area. As they drew closer, Mustapha tensed.

  “Keep going,” he said. “Something is wrong.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Without warning, Mother Nature threw a switch, and fall turned to winter. Keith Evans and Maggie Sparks were a block away from a small, two-story Cape Cod in an unmarked car. The wind-chill factor had pushed the temperature into the thirties, but Keith had cranked up the car’s heater, and he was sweating under his Kevlar vest.

  A low chain-link fence surrounded the Cape Cod’s unmowed, weed-infested lawn, and the paint on the front of the house was peeling. The rental agreement was made out to Stephen Reynolds, the name on the registration for the 2008 Volvo station wagon with the license plate number Ali Bashar had given up during his interrogation.

  Keith had been sitting in front of his television eating a TV dinner and watching a college football game when Harold Johnson called him back to the office. Johnson gave Keith an arrest warrant for Reynolds, told him the suspect was armed and dangerous, and informed him that he’d have a SWAT team for backup.

  A little after midnight, a pickup truck pulled into the driveway and a man fitting Reynolds’s description got out, accompanied by a woman. Lights went on in the house. A half hour later, the house went dark. Keith gave the couple an hour to get to sleep before radioing the commander of the SWAT team to tell him that they were going in.

  The moon was a cold sliver hiding behind thick clouds, and the only light came from the streetlights. A stiff wind smacked Keith in the face as soon as he got out of the car, and he ducked his head as he raced across the street. Even with SWAT to back him up, his nerves were getting to him. They always did before a raid, but he knew he’d be okay once the action started.

  Keith and Maggie followed six members of the SWAT team up the driveway. More men were covering the back and sides of the house. The SWAT team and Maggie vaulted the low fence easily. Keith struggled and vowed to definitely put in some time at the gym.

  Keith positioned himself on one side of the front door while Maggie ducked low and peeked through a gap between the windowsill and the curtain that draped the front window. She could see a sagging sofa, a television, and a cheap coffee table in the living room. A counter separated the living room from a small kitchen. There were doorways on either side of the living room, but it was too dark to see into the rooms. The team had procured a blueprint for the house when they were planning the raid, and the rental agent had identified the two darkened rooms as bedrooms.

  Maggie relayed her information to the commander of the SWAT team, and he signaled two men who were holding a battering ram. Just as the ram swung back, a light came on in one of the bedrooms, and Steve Reynolds walked toward the kitchen. The ram smashed into the door before Maggie could warn anyone, and the team rushed in shouting “FBI” with Maggie and Keith following.

  Keith saw a skinny woman dressed in a T-shirt and panties step into the darkened doorway to his left, but he also saw a man speeding toward the other bedroom. Keith turned toward the man just as a body crashed into him, sending him to the floor. Before he could react, a shotgun blast whistled over his head, hitting the man in front of him. The officer pitched forward as several guns fired behind him. The weight on Keith’s back eased as Maggie rolled onto the floor.

  Keith pushed up and turned. The woman was sprawled on the floor, her body riddled with bullets, a shotgun inches from her hand. A SWAT team member kicked the gun out of reach. Another checked to make sure the woman was dead. Then some of the officers went to their downed comrade while others spread out to search the rest of the house.

  “Holy shit,” Keith whispered when he realized how close he’d come to being dead. Maggie stood unsteadily, adrenaline still coursing through her.

  “Thanks,” Keith said.

  “Don’t mention it,” Maggie gasped as she bent forward and rested her hands on her knees.

  Keith heard raised voices in Reynolds’s bedroom, and he and Maggie walked in. A blond man clad in boxer shorts and a T-shirt was lying facedown on the floor with his hands cuffed behind him.

  Keith had his boss on speed dial, and Johnson picked up after the first ring. Keith was still shaken from his close encounter with death, and he had to fight to keep his voice steady.

  “We got him, Harold. There was a woman with Reynolds. She killed an officer and was killed by return fire. There are no other casualties.”

  “Where is Reynolds?”

  “They’re just taking him out.”

  “Stop them. I want him brought to the Department of Justice and not booked into any jail. Drive him into the basement garage.”

  “Okay. Hold on.”

  Keith was a little surprised by the change of plans, but he was sure Johnson had a good reason for having Reynolds transported to the DOJ. He pulled the SWAT team commander aside and relayed Johnson’s instructions.

  “Someone will be there to take custody of the prisoner. Maggie and I will wait for the morgue wagon and the team from the crime lab. And I’m sorry about your man.”

  While they were talking, a hood was slapped over the prisoner’s head, and he was hustled out of the house. When the members of the SWAT team were gone, Keith and Maggie stepped outside into the cold night air. They stood without speaking for a while. Then Keith turned to Maggie.

  “I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.”

  “I didn’t even see the broad,” Maggie joked to ease the tension. “I just thought this was a great opportunity to knock you on your butt.”

  Keith smiled. “You did that, all right.”

  Maggie returned the smile. “Think of this as payback for Webster’s Corner.”

  During the Farrington affair, Keith had saved Maggie’s life during a shoot-out at a West Virginia motel.

  The couple’s banter was interrupted by the arrival of the forensic experts. Keith briefed them, then he and Maggie headed downtown.

  “D o you want to come in for a drink?” Maggie asked when Keith parked in front of her duplex three hours later.

  Keith hesitated. The thought of being alone with Maggie made him nervous.

  “Come on, Keith,” Maggie insisted. “I’m too wound up to sleep and I can use the company.”

  “Sure. Thanks. I don’t think I’d get much sleep, either.”

  Keith followed Maggie upstairs, his heart beating almost as wildly as it had just before he had rushed into Steve Reynolds’s house. Maggie turned on the lights. It dawned on Keith that this was the first time he had been in Maggie’s place.

  Keith’s apartment looked as though it belonged to someone who had just moved in, even though he had lived there for years. Maggie’s looked like a home. It was neat and clean, with none of the pizza boxes and carry-out cartons that were scattered around Keith’s living room and kitchen. The walls of Maggie’s living room were decorated with abstract art. Some were lithographs, but Keith spotted two oils. The furniture
was modern, and a few large pillows lay in front of a fireplace.

  “This is nice,” Keith said.

  “It’s convenient for work, and there’s a park, a movie theater, and a lot of shopping nearby. What’s your poison?”

  “Scotch, neat,” Keith said.

  Maggie walked into the kitchen and Keith realized that he was terrified. He was drawn to Maggie, but they worked together, and no good could come from a relationship with a partner.

  Maggie returned with Keith’s drink. She stopped in front of him, but she didn’t hold out the glass. They looked at each other. There were only inches between them. Maggie put down the glass and leaned in to kiss Keith. He put his hands on her shoulders to hold her back.

  “Have you thought this through? We work together, I’m eight years older.”

  Maggie looked Keith in the eye. “Let’s get this on the table. I want you. Unless I’m a piss-poor detective, I’m sure you want me, too. If you’re not interested, tell me. There’ll be no hard feelings. So do you want to talk about the Redskins or politics, or do you want to make love?”

  Keith only hesitated a second before taking Maggie in his arms. Years of built-up tension evaporated after one long and fantastic kiss. Then they were staggering into Maggie’s bedroom, shedding clothes along the way.

  K eith had fantasized about making love to Maggie, but the real deal was better than anything he’d imagined. When they finally lay next to each other, all the ugliness of the night was forgotten. Keith found Maggie’s hand and squeezed.

  “Not bad for an old man,” Maggie said softly.

  Keith wished he could think of a witty comeback, but all he did was smile.

  Part V

  Prosecutorial Misconduct

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Deputy Assistant Attorney General Terrence Crawford’s square jaw looked as though it had been created by a cartoonist who illustrated superhero comics. His adversaries likened his piercing blue eyes to laser beams, and his shaved head resembled the battering-ram noggins of professional wrestlers. When he wasn’t prosecuting terrorists and the heads of drug cartels, Crawford was training for marathons or in the weight room in the basement of the Department of Justice working on the body he’d been building since junior high.

  After being educated at the finest prep schools, graduating with honors from Princeton, and making the Yale Law Review, Terrence Crawford had scandalized his parents by choosing government work over an associate position in Wall Street’s most prestigious law firm, where his father was a senior partner. Since his teens, Crawford had secretly fantasized about being a crime fighter like the superheroes he resembled, and he lived for the opportunity to send bad guys to prison.

  When Jorge Marquez knocked on his doorjamb, Crawford was seated behind his desk, reading preliminary reports about the raid. Marquez was wearing a mismatched sports jacket and slacks he’d thrown on twenty-four hours ago, and he had not been home since to change. Marquez was a trial attorney in his fourth year at the DOJ. He’d worked his way up from a barrio in Los Angeles using scholarships to finance degrees from UCLA and its law school. Crawford used Marquez when he could because he respected his diligence and high IQ.

  “What have you got for me?” Crawford asked.

  “Scary shit, Terry. I ran Reynolds’s prints. His real name is Ron Tolliver, he’s originally from Ohio, and he’s dead.”

  Crawford waited for Marquez’s explanation.

  “Tolliver was in the Special Forces and was listed as MIA after an operation in Afghanistan. He’s been officially dead for several years. We have no idea where he’s been since he went AWOL. Best guess is Pakistan, because two of the detainees say he’s fluent in Urdu and the FedEx plot probably originated there.”

  “What’s he say?”

  “Nothing. He hasn’t said a single word since we arrested him. He’s totally mute, not even a yes or a no. If it wasn’t for fingerprints and the stuff we got out of the FedEx bombers, we’d have no idea who we’re dealing with.”

  “Do we have a line on his parents, people who know him?”

  “His folks live in Upton, Ohio. We have an agent on the way to interview them. From what I can tell, they’re well off. Dad served in Vietnam. He’s a dentist. The wife comes from money. We also discovered that Tolliver has been in trouble with the law.”

  After Marquez told him about the rape allegations in Ohio, Crawford stood up and straightened his tie in a small mirror that hung next to the commendations and diplomas that covered his wall.

  “Let’s see if I can loosen this traitor’s tongue,” he told Marquez before striding out of his office with the fierce countenance worn by vicious linebackers just before an all-out blitz.

  C rawford opened the door to the interrogation room without knocking and studied Tolliver from the doorway. He was no longer wearing a hood, but his legs were manacled to the floor and his hands were cuffed. Crawford walked past Tolliver without a glance and sat down. He didn’t begin the interrogation right away but chose to stare across the table for a while, smiling when his prisoner broke eye contact.

  The interview room was small and very hot. The only furniture was the uncomfortable metal chair in which Tolliver was seated, a comfortable upholstered chair Crawford was using, and a government-issue gunmetal desk that stood between the chairs. There was no two-way mirror, but closed-circuit cameras fastened to the wall just beneath the ceiling filmed everything that went on in the room, and hidden microphones recorded every word.

  “Hello, Ron,” Crawford said, pausing to see if Tolliver would react. When he didn’t, Crawford smiled.

  “Pretty good self-control. Then again, dead men don’t have physical reactions, and, according to our records, you’ve been dead for almost six years. We’re notifying your parents about your miraculous resurrection.”

  When there was still no reaction, Crawford continued. “This will be one of those good news, bad news situations. Your folks will be happy to learn you’re not dead, but I’m guessing that they’ll puke when they learn that the fruit of their loins is a traitor who tried to top the body count of 9/11. I wonder how that will go over at the country club.”

  Crawford leaned forward and let his eyes bore into Tolliver’s. “If you were my kid, you’d make me sick. You may think you’re a grade-A martyr, but to me you’re just another spoiled, self-centered rich kid. You didn’t even have the guts to try to commit suicide like those poor deluded morons you talked into killing themselves in the name of Allah.

  “And we know about the rape. You must be quite a man to have to brutalize a girl before you can get laid. Well, you’ll soon experience the other side of that scenario. Some of the prison gangs are very patriotic, and they love traitors-and I mean that literally. So, realistically, your possible future scenarios are death row or a life of being cornholed. Personally, I hope you don’t get a death sentence.”

  Crawford leaned back and watched Tolliver. Not a muscle in his face had twitched. Tolliver was definitely a tough guy.

  “There is one way out of this mess, Ron-cooperation. The people who run you didn’t take any risks, did they? They’re safe and sound while you’re chained to the floor, facing a life in hell. There are no female virgins where you’re going, but I bet your handlers are getting laid as we speak. You’re a joke to them, Ron, a dumb-ass American wannabe super-Muslim. They’re probably pissed at you for failing, but I bet you made their day way back when you wandered into their psycho world. I bet they couldn’t believe their luck when they stumbled on an all-American boy deluded enough to buy the bullshit they were dealing out. You think…”

  Suddenly, the door opened and an FBI agent walked in. He looked embarrassed.

  “What the fuck is this, Leveque?” Crawford barked angrily.

  “He has a court order,” the agent apologized.

  “Who has a court order?” Crawford demanded.

  The agent stepped aside, and a thickset man who was tall enough to look Crawford in the eye strode
in.

  “Bobby Schatz at your service, Terry,” he said.

  “Fuck me,” Crawford replied.

  Schatz was dressed in a hand-tailored navy blue pinstripe suit. A blue bow tie with white polka dots graced the collar of his white silk shirt, and the top of a folded red silk handkerchief extended upward from a pocket situated beneath the left lapel of his jacket. Schatz had straight, slicked-back hair so black that Crawford suspected that it was dyed and so heavy with gel that his hairdo resembled a lacquered cap.

  “That’s no way to greet a fellow member of the bar,” Schatz said as he flashed a self-satisfied smile.

  “You can take your ass out of here right now, Bobby, or I can have you thrown out.”

  “Temper, temper.” Schatz held out a rolled-up document. “This is the court order to which Agent Leveque referred, and it says I get access to my client and you don’t.”

  Crawford grabbed the papers. The more he read, the redder his face got. Crawford looked ready to explode by the time he finished.

  “Satisfied?” Schatz asked.

  “No, Bobby. This piece of shit tried to blow up a stadium full of decent citizens, and you’re here to help him get out so he can kill more Americans.”

  Schatz was unfazed by Crawford’s tirade. “What happened to the presumption of innocence? Were you absent the day they discussed that silly concept in your Intro to Crim Law class?”

  Crawford ignored the jibe. “How did you know where to find this scumbag?” he demanded.

  “Now, now, Terry, you’re asking me to violate a confidence.” Schatz handed Crawford a letter. “I am informing you by this letter, which I have filed with the court, that there is to be no further questioning of my client unless I am present.”

  Schatz surveyed the room and spotted the camera.

  “I want that turned off, along with the mikes.”

  For a second it looked as though Crawford might assault Schatz. Then he rolled up the letter and the court order and muttered, “We’ll see about this,” as he stormed out of the room.