6 - The Eye of the Virgin: Ike Schwartz Mystery 6

by Frederick Ramsay

  “Your future son-in-law has a low sense of humor, Ms. Saint Claire. I am in the public relations business.”

  “Oh, then you do write fiction.”

  Ike returned to his microphone. “Okay, that leaves the rest of you. Out now with your hands on your heads. And please don’t tell me you are federal agents again. I have a real one out here and he says you aren’t. The back door is covered. You will come out now or we will come in and get you. You do not want that to happen.”

  Chapter Forty-six

  Charlie spoke into his hand-held, and a second black SUV rounded the corner and pulled up next to Charlie’s car.

  “The US Calvary,” he said and motioned the occupants to step out. Two men and two women walked over and drew their weapons. Amos zip-tied the two on the ground, who kept muttering about diplomatic immunity and needing to call the embassy. The Dakises huddled behind Frank’s cruiser, his arm around her shoulder. Nothing happened in the house, but Ike could hear what he took to be an argument in progress. Finally one man exited. He held his ID wallet in his hand and dropped it on the porch. A moment later a second and third followed.

  “On the ground, please, thank you. Charlie, I take it these are yours. Maybe you can have these nice people,” he gestured vaguely in the direction of the men and women off to the side, “pat them down and cuff them. One more to go, it appears…Come out, come out, whoever you are.” Ike keyed off the mike. “Charlie, I take it this is your ultimate target. Perhaps you’d like to talk him out.”

  “In a second, Ike. He’s all alone in there. I’d like to give him a chance to do the decent thing.” Charlie waved his newly arrived group into place

  “You think he’ll shoot himself?”

  “I would, were I in his shoes. Save us all a lot of time, paperwork, and embarrassment.”

  “Cold, Charlie, very cold. Now, as for my two, I will put them into the system. Perhaps I can make a case and have them sent away, perhaps not. I certainly don’t want them to spoil my fun by checking out prematurely. By the way, where is the FBI? I would have thought…” Charlie stared straight ahead. “Oh, okay, we’ll talk later.”

  Eden Saint Claire had removed her cell phone from her purse and was busily snapping pictures. One of Charlie’s female agents—Charlie’s Angels? No, too much, Charlie might not appreciate it under the circumstances, and Ike was certain the woman would not. She approached Eden and snatched her phone from her hand.

  “Ma’am, you cannot photograph this operation.”

  “Who says I can’t? I am a very good friend of the sheriff here, my daughter is the president of this university, and I have First Amendment rights. Ike, tell this young woman who I am. She took my phone.”

  “Ms. Saint Claire,” Charlie said, “This is one of those instances you read about but would not wish to believe, where the government lays its heavy hand on you, deprives you of one or more of your constitutional rights, and doesn’t even apologize. I will have this woman, Special Agent Pushkin, delete your pictures and hold the phone until we leave. Then she will return it and perhaps even apologize for the inconvenience. I’m not too sure about that, however. Sensitivity training is not a big part of our indoctrination routine anymore. So, if she does or doesn’t will depend on her mood at the moment and whether her mother taught her any manners.” Agent Pushkin scowled at Charlie and deleted Eden’s photos and shut down the phone.

  “Mr. Garland…may I call you Charlie? Yes? Charlie, that was a most elegant speech. You must be very good at what you do, I think.”

  “Thank you. Now, for your sake, please step back. The man in the house is desperate. He may do something irrational. Perhaps induce a CAS, and that might involve some gun fire.”

  “CAS? What’s that?”

  “C.A.S., Ms. Saint Claire: cop-assisted-suicide.”

  “If I call you Charlie, you must call me Eden. Fine, a suicide assisted by police? How would that work? You assist them? How?”

  “No, we don’t. Not in the sense you mean. No, a desperate criminal with nothing to lose, might come through the door and shoot at somebody, or nobody, just shoot. All these people here are trained to return fire. One shot from the bad guy and a half-dozen people will empty their clips into him. Cop-assisted suicide. Now please step back behind the vehicle.”

  “Is that Lorraine Dakis? Lorraine, is that you? It’s me, Eden. What are you doing down here? Isn’t this exciting?”

  “Paula? Wait, you’re not Paula any more. My goodness, what have you done? You look so different.”

  “It’s the new me. New name, new body, new life. I am Eden Saint Claire, writer and traveler.”

  “Excuse me,” Ike moved toward the two women. “You know each other?”

  “Oh yes. We met in Washington many times back before…well before. I bought a few little things from Lorraine. Oh, and here is Louis. You’re here too. How nice.”

  “It’s a long story, Paula. Sorry, Eden. Some other time. I think we should do as these men tell us. The people who were in that house are dangerous. This is beyond exciting.”

  The three moved back behind the larger of the SUVs. Ike was aware of the steady buzz of conversation between them but kept his eyes on the front door.

  “Running out of time out here. You have no hostages, no back door, no chance to escape. Come on out and let’s get this over with. Your colleagues are here ready to take you back where you belong.”

  The front door banged open and a lone figure wearing a stereotypical black suit, white shirt, and red tie, stepped out onto the porch.

  “Hands up. Please.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” the man said and slouched down the steps toward the group. “I am a federal agent and these are my people. They work for me. You are within an ace of having a whole lot of bad shit handed to you.”

  Ike cocked his revolver and leveled it. “I’d hate to put down one of Uncle Sam’s brightest and best, well, not so bright and certainly not best, but I will if I must. If I’m in a heap of trouble, as you say, dropping you can’t make it any worse. But my friend here who has taken your people into custody would not be happy, I think.”

  “I’d do as he says.” Charlie added. “I have no control over this man. He has a reputation for shooting first, asking questions after. He’s a sheriff, after all.”

  “Who are you?” The man asked.

  “Don’t you recognize me, Tony? Tsk, tsk, and all this time I thought you were a professional.”

  “Garland?”

  “Bingo. On the ground, or I will shoot you myself if the sheriff doesn’t, you son of a bitch.”

  Chapter Forty-seven

  “Who is that, Charlie?”

  “You remember Tony Fugarelli?”

  “Ah, the absent Fugarelli. The agent with a head cold who couldn’t make your party on the Eastern Shore last fall, that Tony Fugarelli?”

  “It was your party more than it was mine. But yes, that Fugarelli.”

  “You’re too modest.”

  “A necessary character trait in my line of business, you could say. You do know what I do?”

  Ike did not reply, but he knew.

  “Well, we had one of those situations that required my attention, and then you had this robbery/murder thing and the job of finding out the who, you could say, seemed a little clearer. There, for a moment, I thought you were going to blow it for me, by the way.”

  “How clearer?”

  “The icon was the clue, of course. Someone was after it, and the likelihood was it would be the Arabs, but we had a man on it, so that meant the Mossad as well. Zaki was supposed to get the icon, turn it over to his contact and disappear into the woodwork. But he was intercepted by the Israelis, and things got complicated, but it did narrow the scope a bit.”

  “Okay, but why is Fugarelli here? I expected you, and frankly, I thought they, that is, he was with you. Then when you showed up with the troops, I wasn’t so sure.”

  “Yes
, well, let me put these three on an express bus to Langley, and then we’ll talk. I won’t bother with the two Bozos on the ground, I guess. I may want to interrogate them later; that is if Fugarelli doesn’t fold his cards and fess up. They belong to you. You may hear from an embassy about them, however.”

  “Not likely. I told you, Shmuel Gold said they were contract players. Volunteers almost, fanatics for the cause and all that. I promise you the embassy will not know their names, although they may supply an expensive lawyer to spring them. Now, I need to have a heart-to-heart with the Dakises about following instructions. They could have been killed.”

  “I’d let that bit slide, if I were you. They certainly should not have been there, but they saved your bad guys and your bust, Ike.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Fugarelli had too much on his plate, I guess. I am almost positive he intended to stage a fire-fight to take out your two, and he would have, except the couple popped up. Desperate as he was, four killings, maybe five, must have seemed over the top, even for him. So, he hesitated, and because he hesitated, the door closed. So you might want to thank them.”

  “You will sort all this out for me later, I hope.”

  “Are you sure you want me to?”

  “No.”

  “Of course you don’t. Where shall we have our coffee and debriefing? Your place or mine?”

  ***

  The Crossroads Diner stayed open all night. Whether this was a good thing or not was debated by the townsfolk. The plusses of having a place to eat twenty-four seven meant that insomniacs, students on their way back to Charlottesville, Lexington, or Blacksburg, swing shift workers, and those with inverted circadian rhythms had a place to grab a cup of coffee and something to eat late at night on their way in, out, or wherever. The downside was that the morning regulars were convinced they were served the old burnt coffee that had been sitting in the urn since midnight.

  Charlie and Ike shared a booth in the back and avoided the coffee in front of them.

  “Okay, I need a fill-in, Charlie. Fugarelli was one of yours. Who…who what? Stepped off the reservation? How?”

  “You were in the business long enough to know how it works. Some days the bad guys are there, some days they’re somewhere else. Today’s ally can be tomorrow’s enemy. Iran was our friend, and then the Shah went away. Now they are our enemies. Venezuela? Who knows? We spy on them; they spy on us. Some of them are good at it; some are bad.”

  “Fugarelli was a double?”

  “Not exactly. Here’s a hypothetical. You are in the business, let’s say, and a friendly nation approaches you. ‘Agent Schwartz,’ they say, ‘would you do us a favor and tell us thus-and-so about what you’re up to in our country?’ They go on to remind you that they can probably get the information by simply going through diplomatic channels but…You see?”

  “A friendly nation asks that of me?”

  “Friendly, yes. And probably offers you a small recompense for your trouble. ”

  “Fugarelli was selling intel to a friendly nation, and your boss didn’t like it.”

  “A fine line, you know. They are referred to as ‘white moles.’ Don’t ask me why white. Something to do with stereotypical hats, I guess. Okay, so, again hypothetically, if I tell the Brits some things, have I done any real harm? Probably not. But, if I sell to China or, God forbid, North Korea…well you see how it works. Where do you draw the line?”

  “You draw it right up tight. Double agents are double agents no matter whose pocket they’ve crawled into.”

  “My thoughts exactly. The problem with that is so many people, when they hear that one of ours is going away for a long time in a federal penitentiary for helping their favorite favored nation, so to speak, get all mushy about that. This is particularly true with the people who sell to Israel. Somehow, the behavior seems less treasonous when they’re involved.”

  “Ah, that’s the connection. Fugarelli was feeding the Israelis with intel, and these two guys who bumped off Zaki/Sacci were his, in a way.”

  “Only in a way, but yes. Using the Agency’s resources, he helped them locate Zaki and the probable location of the microchip. I can place him in the Dakis’ store before all this went down.”

  “Then the idiots, who now know the location, do their patriotic duty and shoot Zaki, and Fugarelli now has a murder on his hands that can be traced back to him if I catch them.”

  “We don’t think the shooting was intended, but yes. And he knows enough about you to assume you may very well succeed.”

  “You could say so. But that’s not all, I don’t think, Charlie. There has to be more.”

  “What has to be more?”

  “Tommy Wainwright is more. Did Fugarelli out Wainwright to somebody? Is that why Wainwright, as Avi Kolb, disappeared so suddenly, and then he ends up with a bullet in his head in Rock Creek Park? Fugarelli set him up?”

  “Maybe, or he was afraid Wainwright was too close. And you know this how? Oh, yes, Samantha Ryder and her magic computer. You know that will end forthwith. You must steel yourself to returning to a small-town sheriff’s office after today.”

  “How come?”

  “This afternoon my people ferreted out Ms. Ryder at her boyfriend’s apartment. Ike, did you think we couldn’t find her? She has a cell phone. You called her. We had her on the map shortly after. Anyway, our friends from the attorney general’s office gave her a choice, one she couldn’t refuse.”

  “Do I want to hear this? If you guys mess with Sam, you will have me on you like white on rice.”

  “Tut. You needn’t get excited. I know what you could do if you put your mind to it. It would go hard on you and yours in the end, but I have no doubt you’d do it. You are wonderfully loyal, Ike. I wish I could persuade you to come back in.”

  “Ask me again in November. No, forget I said that. It will never happen. So, what have you done with Sam?”

  “As I said, we made her an offer. She can fight us and be prosecuted for hacking into not only the CIA, but the FBI as well, and if her logger is correct, numerous other governmental and foreign concerns, all of which are federal offenses…or she can accept our offer to become staff at the NSA where her talents will be both legal and appreciated by a grateful nation. I had a similar situation once, and…”

  Ike waited for the end of the sentence. It did not come. “You want to tell me about it?”

  “No, I’d rather not, someday maybe. So moving on to your deputy, it will put her into closer proximity to Karl Hedrick, who, I might add, thought the deal a very good one. I take it he was concerned with the path of corruption down which you were leading the poor girl.”

  Ike sipped his coffee and made a face. “It had to happen sooner or later, I guess. I once hoped to recruit Karl here, but rural sheriffs’ departments do not have the cachet of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “Not if you are bootstrapping your way into a profession.”

  “No, I suppose not. Sooner or later, she was going to bolt. So, at least this way she moves upward and onward. Thank you for that, Charlie. I will want some notice from Sam. We need to have a party for her, at least. You say Karl is happy with this?”

  “Ecstatic, if I hear aright.”

  “So, back to Fugarelli. I know what I know, as you surmised, because of Sam and her poking into your dirty laundry. She found out that Wainwright was assigned to Mossad. She didn’t know what that meant, but I did. You guys sent him in to unearth the double. He got close to this bizarre icon caper, because that’s where the trail led him. Then, Fugarelli feels the heat and outs him to whom?…the Israelis or the Arabs—which, I wondered—but instead of coming in, Wainwright takes a stab at closing the business out and is shot. I’m guessing your boy Fugarelli realized that the two guys must have let it out that Kolb—that is, Wainwright—killed Zaki in the hopes the forces on the other side of this idiotic equation would kill him. Very Mideastern, desert justice and all t
hat. Shmuel disagreed with that, by the way.”

  “How? He thinks what? Surely he’s not willing to admit his people did it.”

  “No, his exact words were ‘The word is that it was done by Jihadists, but I am not so sure. What would be the point? They are in your country. They do not need anyone looking for them, at least not for killing one person, CIA man or not. A thousand, maybe, but not one. I don’t think.’ So, as much as I hate to contemplate it, I think Fugarelli must have panicked as did Tommy Wainwright, figuring everyone would blame the boys in the burnooses.”

  Charlie sat grim-faced, staring at his coffee. “It’s possible, you know, probable, in fact. We’ll find out when we get him back on the farm. I hate to think so, but he must have done it.”

  “Who else could it have been? The only others with a motive, a weak one at that, would be our friends in the Mossad. But they knew that we knew that they knew, etcetera. There was no real need. But Fugarelli had the only compelling motive I’m thinking. For anyone else in the field, Tommy was small potatoes. But, as you told me, he was ready to retire. If he’s caught passing secrets, no matter how benign, he swaps his pension for a prison jump suit. He’s on his way to the slammer for forever and a day.”

  “It isn’t something we like to contemplate. It happens, as you know from back when…back then.”

  “I do. They were not heady days for me, looking back. So, you have a double who may be, and in my view is, directly responsible for having one of yours killed. You will concede indirectly, certainly. You can’t have that. You have to haul him in and given the choices on the table, you’re right, it would have been better if he’d blown out his brains right then and there.”

  “It would have, indeed. Is that it? Are you done with me?”

  “Not quite. I owe you an apology for messing up your plans to get the fake information out. Any idea where it was headed?”

  “No apology necessary. As soon as we confirmed what you were up to, we moved to Plan B. We will have our own messenger deliver the chip in its revised form, of course, to the parties Zaki was engaged with. I will want that icon of yours, by the way, so we have something to deliver.”