by Carr, Jack
Stay on target.
Reece forced down a sip of coffee from the 24 oz. Yeti Rambler in the seat next to him. The mini-mart where he’d filled up hadn’t had any honey so he’d been forced to substitute with artificial sweeteners and French vanilla creamer. Reece made a mental note to dig out his Black Rifle Coffee travel kit and keep it in his vehicle.
The woman and children returned around noon.
Less than ten minutes later the first police car arrived.
Reece continued to snap pictures with his phone as a fire truck roared down the street and came to a stop in front of the target house, an ambulance and another police cruiser close behind. The paramedics entered the home with two large medical packs as two EMTs pulled a wheeled stretcher from the back of the ambulance and maneuvered it inside.
What the fuck is going on? Reece wondered.
In less than five minutes the medical team reemerged with a body strapped to the gurney. They loaded the patient into the back and sped off with sirens blaring. Moments later the woman and children rushed down the steps and into an aging Civic, taking off after the ambulance.
Reece exited his vehicle and approached a police officer who was talking to a firefighter.
“Hey, guys,” Reece said, holding up his Marshal badge. “I was just driving by. What happened?”
“Heart attack,” the officer responded.
“That’s too bad,” Reece said. “Will he make it?”
The officer looked to the firefighter, who shook his head.
“He’s gone. We still rush them to the hospital as a matter of protocol. He’d only been out for thirty minutes or so. Probably could have saved him if he’d been able to call 9-1-1.”
“Did the wife find him?” Reece asked.
“Kids found him first. Always tough.”
Reece contemplated telling the cop that he’d seen a man leave the house just minutes before the family had returned, but that would have led to additional questions. Reece had already pushed it enough.
“So rough,” Reece agreed. “You guys stay safe. Thanks for holding the line.”
“You, too, Deputy.”
Reece crossed the street and walked back toward his Cruiser.
There is no such thing as a coincidence was a popular saying in spy novels and movies. In real life, Reece knew that coincidence was a real thing; that is why it was a defined term.
Then what is this?
Who is the man who arrived just prior to Talib’s family returning?
Had he killed the first target on Reece’s list?
Though he knew it was a fruitless effort, Reece took his time getting out of town, slowly weaving his way through the surrounding streets on the off chance he might see the man in the mask.
Still perplexed by the mysterious visitor, Reece turned south onto the interstate toward the next name on his list.
CHAPTER 21
CHARLIE CRIMMINS HADN’T EXPECTED Reece to bolt out of town. They certainly had not expected him to drive from Virginia to Illinois, but the tracking device they’d attached to his Land Cruiser allowed them to stay far enough back so as not to be noticed. Reece’s sudden road trip could be the incentive Masada leadership needed to approve installing audio and visual recording devices in that reporter’s bedroom where Reece and Katie spent a lot of their time. Crimmins was looking forward to that assignment.
He switched driving duties with his partner, a former police officer from Ohio who had been removed from the force after a suspect died in his custody. He had already been on thin ice after one too many excessive force complaints. No charges were filed because the one and only witness was dead. After a stint as a bouncer at a local strip club, he’d been hired on with Masada and completed a three-month contract in Afghanistan and another in Colombia. The cocaine habit he’d picked up on guard duty in South America only fueled the delusions he had of himself as a special operations warrior, now having spent time in the ’Stan, as he liked to call it. That his experience there consisted of manually opening and closing a compound gate was not something anyone needed to know.
“Woody,” Crimmins said to the former police officer in the back of the minivan. “He still parked?”
“Huh?”
Crimmins turned around and looked into the heavily modified passenger section of the dark minivan.
“Put that bullshit gun porn down and pay attention,” Crimmins snapped.
Woody threw his Recoil Magazine to the side and refreshed the screen on the monitor.
“Still there, boss,” Woody said. “What the fuck is this guy doing here? Think he’s got some strange on the side?”
“Quit thinking about pussy. He’s got that smoker of a reporter in D.C. He’s out here for something else.”
“Is Sawyer going to have us whack him or what?”
“We are going to do as we are told.”
“Fuck, man, I hope we get to ice him. It’s been too long. I got my blaster right here,” Woody said, tapping the appendix holster. “Taran Tactical Glock. John Wick version.”
Crimmins could only listen to so much from the wannabe super soldier.
“I’m hungry,” Crimmins said. “I’ll take over for you. Why don’t you run back to that kebab place we passed a couple blocks back and pick me up a tandoori chicken?”
“Fuck that haj shit! I had enough of that in the sandbox.”
“First of all, you didn’t do shit in the sandbox. Secondly, it’s Indian food, and thirdly, you can go wherever you like but you’ll grab me a tandoori chicken.”
“Fuck! You want a drink?” Woody asked, moving his steroid-assisted bulk into the front passenger seat.
“Dr Pepper, and have them throw in some—”
His order was interrupted by a siren. Crimmins watched in the side-view mirror as a police cruiser sped past and turned onto the street where their tracking device pinpointed James Reece.
“Where’s he going?” Crimmins wondered aloud.
“Oh man, I miss that rush,” Woody said. “Probably going to smash some skulls.”
A fire truck, ambulance, and another police car passed in close succession.
“What else you want with that haj food?”
“Forget it. Get in the back. Hit the recorders.”
Woody maneuvered into the commander’s swivel chair in the back, which allowed him access to the technical surveillance equipment that lined one side of the van.
“We’re good,” he confirmed.
Glad that the equipment was almost idiot-proof, Crimmins started the engine and slowly merged onto the street. Doing a drive-by with the Maryland plates was a risk. Thankfully, he’d already requested another Masada team to assist with surveillance. A second vehicle in the rotation would help keep them from getting burned.
“Target vehicle still hasn’t moved,” Woody said.
“Roger.”
Crimmins turned onto the street and immediately identified the emergency response vehicles in front of a home just down the road from their target vehicle. He recognized Reece talking to a police officer and firefighter in front of the house and continued to drive past, collecting 360-degree video. He drove four more blocks before pulling over.
“What the fuck was that about, boss?”
“Not sure. Keep an eye on that monitor. Let me know if he moves.”
Crimmins pulled a phone from his pocket, selected a name, and brought it to his ear.
* * *
Erik Sawyer listened to the report.
“Send me the address and stay on him,” he ordered, before ending the call.
The address appeared in his messages a moment later. Sawyer forwarded it to an assistant and within minutes had a name and criminal history from a publicly available background check.
Sawyer picked up his encrypted KryptAll secure mobile phone, which was used to communicate only with people who owned the same devices, and placed a call.
Senator Thwaite answered immediately.
“What do you hav
e for me?” he asked.
“James Reece drove to Chicago. He parked outside a house owned by a man named Kareem Talib, a naturalized U.S. citizen with no criminal record.”
“And?”
“And, Kareem Talib died of a heart attack while Reece was parked outside.”
“That gives me next to nothing.”
“If I were you, Senator, I’d use your contacts at whatever government agency owes you a favor and find out all you can about Kareem Talib.”
The senator terminated the call and did just as he was told.
CHAPTER 22
Atlanta, Georgia
SOHRAB BEHZAD WAS STILL security conscious, not just because of what he had done but because of what he continued to do.
Emigrating from Morocco in the early nineties, drawn to Nevada by the low cost of living and growing Muslim population, Sohrab’s father had started his American dream as a cabdriver. He soon had to quit because of the distasteful practice the company had of “long hauling” tourists to cheat them for a higher fare. That, and dropping drunks at strip clubs, ran counter to his beliefs. A failed rental property business followed, and for a short time he drove a trailer advertising scantily clad “escorts” up and down Las Vegas Boulevard until he could no longer stomach it.
Speaking fluent French, English, and Arabic, his wife found a good-paying job at one of the upscale hotels and acted as an interpreter when the various “princes” from the Kingdom and other parts of the Middle East rented out the penthouse suites for a week of sin. Her work paid for close to two years of schooling at a local community college for her husband, who learned the art and science of stenography. When he graduated, he could transcribe more than two hundred words per minute and was hired on at the Las Vegas Municipal Court, Criminal Division. The elder Behzad was proud of the life he carved out for his family in the land of opportunity. For the teenage Behzads, the mecca of sin provided other temptations.
Sohrab had been young in the spring and summer of 2001 and had already spent time in the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center for possession with intent to sell. His older sister had been disowned by their parents, the lure of the Vegas Strip proving stronger than the teachings of Allah. It was her pimp who had introduced Sohrab to the drugs; the money and women that came with them were hard to resist. It wasn’t easy being a Muslim so near to the gambling, fornication, and gluttony of Sin City.
The Behzads lived fifteen minutes from downtown, a distance that proved not far enough. There was only a single mosque when his parents had arrived from Morocco, and they raised their children to be stringent adherents of the faith. When Sohrab’s sister had been brought before the judge as part of a prostitution sting operation, his father dutifully took notes as a court reporter. When he returned home that evening, they had boxed up all her belongings and removed them from the house, stacking them by the garage. She had picked them up a week later with a strange man who loaded them into a lowered van. Her mother watched from the window, but her father refused to even look at her. All her photographs were discarded and she was never spoken of again.
Sohrab continued to sell drugs at his high school. He was paid in sexual favors by the pimp’s prostitutes and given money that, to a seventeen-year-old kid, seemed like a fortune. All the while he continued to go to the mosque and pray with the men. He wasn’t yet ready to be kicked from the nest.
His parents did not disown him as they had his sister when he returned from the juvenile detention facility. He had found a deeper connection to Allah while incarcerated, which they saw as a blessing. His time in the state-run facility had two unintended results: he had learned to fight with improvised weapons, and he had been recruited.
It was rumored that the imam from their mosque in the Vegas suburbs had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, but he didn’t look like a battle-hardened warrior to Sohrab. When the imam called upon him one evening after prayers, he had expected a lecture on the dishonor his criminal activity had brought to his family. Instead they discussed worldwide Muslim persecution. The same country that had locked him up for a minor drug offense was actively murdering Muslims across the globe at the behest of the Jews.
The respected imam had given him a mission. Four men would be coming to Las Vegas and Sohrab would be their guide. It was important that they not attract attention. He was to provide them with a list of hotels and Internet cafes with no security cameras and he was to help them get around while they were in town. If Sohrab was successful, the imam would have further assignments, assignments that paid. In exchange, Sohrab would have to swear to Allah that he would stop selling drugs.
The four men visited Las Vegas six times over the next few months. Each time Sohrab did his duty. They were not interested in strippers, gambling, or cocaine. Instead they stayed to themselves, meeting in the dirty rooms of shitty motels in the seedier sections of the city just off the Strip. They also spent long hours in the Cyber Zone Café.
It was Sohrab’s responsibility to make sure they could get to and from their destinations in a way that wouldn’t attract attention. That, and teach them how to fight. They wanted to learn the skills Sohrab had acquired in jail. They were particularly interested in training with box cutters. Sohrab adapted what he’d learned as a ward of the state. He taught them how to use the short-bladed cardboard-cutting tools as instruments of death. He didn’t think it unusual when he saw Mohamed print off flight schedules in the cyber cafe. Nor did he think much of it when he drove them to the Hoover Dam. He did find it strange when the one called Marwan wanted to move to the St. Louis Manor. Only after the attack did Sohrab realize that the new hotel put him a block from the Stratosphere, the tallest building in Vegas.
In the days following September 11, he saw their pictures on the news: Mohamed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Samir Jarrah. Rather than disgust or guilt, he felt a power; he was a warrior of Allah. He walked with a newfound swagger. He trained harder in the ring and in the weight room, feeling a great sense of pride when the hookers commented on his physique.
Sohrab stuck to his schedule after the attacks, continuing to work out at the boxing gym, pray at the mosque, and smoke weed with prostitutes. He kept his word and never sold drugs again. Using them was another story. When the imam called him to his office, he did not mention the men who were now known the world over as the 9/11 hijackers. Instead, he offered Sohrab another job.
The mosque would recommend him for employment with the Islamic Relief Society of America. One of their objectives was to provide security to mosques in the United States and Canada. They would train him as a safety and security operations officer, even bringing in the Arab American Police Association to conduct a seminar titled “Protecting Our Places of Worship.” Violent anti-Islamic backlash was expected as part of the fallout from the attacks, and mosques needed to be prepared. Sohrab accepted. Without leaving his adopted country, he could be a warrior for the faith.
Almost two decades later, Sohrab was one of the leading experts on mosque security in the United States. His skills had improved over the years, as he added Brazilian jiujitsu and firearms training to his regimen of boxing and weight lifting. The Islamic Relief Society sent him around the country conducting mosque vulnerability and risk assessments, writing armed-carry authorization policies, providing emergency medical training, developing active threat engagement strategies, instructing de-escalation courses, and teaching incident response and crisis management. His favorite days were those training staff and volunteers for what were now called active shooter scenarios. After a day of force-on-force UTM paint cartridge training, he was ready for a night of ganja and female companionship.
The “dating” apps on his phone made it so much easier to connect to call girls in the cities he visited across the country. He liked to end his seminars with sex he paid for. He favored the transactional nature of the relationship. He could fuck them and kick them out, just like his parents had abandoned his sister.
All these years a
fter the planes had hit, Sohrab felt the same power he had when he’d first seen the four martyrs on TV. He imagined them using the box cutters to slice the throats of the pilots, some of whom had military experience and had probably bombed innocent Muslims in the Middle East. He pictured the sharp razors at the throats of the whore flight attendants. He was proud of the skills he’d taught the martyrs.
Sohrab was more energized now than he had been in years; the imam at the Atlanta mosque had passed him a message. He was to have a meeting. He was to receive a mission. That excited him. He might spend a little extra on a hooker tonight, maybe keep her for a few extra rounds before getting rid of her. The warrior in him preferred to wake up alone.
CHAPTER 23
REECE HAD TAKEN HIS time with this one. The file detailed the target’s background in security. Never underestimate your opponent. Sohrab Behzad took different routes from the extended-stay hotel to the mosque in East Atlanta. That indicated he was taking precautions. He spent each day in the mosque with a lunch break between his morning and afternoon training sessions.
Reece was staying in the same hotel, which allowed him to access camera locations, entry and exit points, and study the doors and locks. Making entry to rooms with electronic door locks was much easier than hotel chains wanted guests to realize. At the Farm, Reece had been taught how to surreptitiously enter and exit hotel rooms bypassing the electronically coded RFID key cards. That would have been the way he made entry but for the camera at the end of the hallway. Instead, the sliding glass door that opened onto an absurdly small balcony would be his way in. Reece had practiced breaking into his own room from the balcony, a fairly simple procedure that called for lifting the door from its track with his Dynamis Combat Flathead while pulling the door open with his free hand. It was possible that his target had put an obstruction in the base of the slider, and if so, Reece would regroup and continue surveillance. He wouldn’t know until he tried.