by Tom Haase
He glanced in admiration at the two beautiful Petro Aivazovsky paintings on the wall of his office, and the idyllic maritime scenes brought solace to his weary soul. “The Snowstorm” and “The Sixth Wave” lifted his heart on seeing such beauty and grace, captured in an instant of time and made immortal by the artist’s hand. He grinned for a second. He thought of himself as an artist too, and decided that his brush would, in due course, paint Robocop off the face of the earth.
14
Schultz at Home
Schultz sipped his Dalmore scotch while he watched the radiant sunset over Central Park. This view always held his interest, ever since the first day he’d witnessed the spectacle subsequent to purchasing his penthouse. He enjoyed the peacefulness of the moment, even relished it, as he stood on his balcony overlooking the park facing west. At least his daughter was now in a safe place. His security men reported every two hours and would continue to do so until midnight, and then only if something changed before six in the morning.
His thoughtful serenity dissipated when the cell phone buzzed. He walked over to the ringing instrument. He saw the number of the interrogation team displayed.
“Yes?” he said and waited.
“Mr. Schultz, the man has given us an email address. He says it’s the only way he ever communicated with the person who hired him for the hit. I believe our persuasion has loosened his tongue a bit, but we’re no experts at this.”
Shultz pondered this for a moment before he answered, “Good work. Send me the information he gave you and continue. I want everything out of him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Schultz hung up the receiver and took a moment to collect his thoughts. He now possessed something he could use. He called Scott to give him the information.
“Please concentrate on that email address now that you have that computer. I hope you can trace it.”
Shultz had some doubts that Scott could do anything, but he supposed he must let him try because Gertrude thought him to be a computer nerd.
“Give me a few hours, and I’ll get back to you,” Scott said.
* * *
Scott sat in his Alexandria, Virginia, apartment and booted up the computer he had received from Schultz. His little office area had a view that looked out on the Potomac River. The place didn’t have any luxury items, but he had outfitted it with furniture from Ikea, and since renting it, he had spent very little time here.
Backtracking an email was usually considered child’s play to him. Once he located the address on the computer, it shouldn’t be too difficult to trace it. Having the exact address, he believed, would materially reduce the time it would require.
The laptop lacked a password for him to have to crack— a very stupid omission, Scott knew. He found there were two thousand emails in the inbox. The guy, a certifiable packrat, must have never cleaned it out. Focusing on the target address, he went to work. He noticed there were only three with the specific address that he searched for in the files, and he carefully read each one.
The first laid out a contract to hit him, Matt and Bridget. The sum of one million dollars would be paid for the hits to be carried out concurrently. The second contained a blistering reprimand for not executing all the targets simultaneously, and a condemnation of the man’s efforts. The email concluded with a threat to kill the man if the contract remained incomplete by the time of the funeral. The third, received just two days ago, requested information on the completion of the kills.
Backtracking where the messages had been sent from took more time than Scott had originally estimated. They had been routed through numerous servers in various locations around the world. The sender had taken extreme precautions to ensure no one could easily find his location. Backtracking to the original IP address would be more difficult than he’d initially imagined—perhaps even impossible.
Never mind, I’ll get you, thought Scott, and he dove into the project to prove to Mr. Schultz that he could do it. After three hours, he took a break and examined his findings. He’d been able to narrow it down to a vague point of origin, but the date he’d extracted was insufficient; he realized he’d need more sophisticated software to pinpoint an exact location. The layers of protection used to hide the sender’s identity were far more complex than the average person would have access to, but he felt pretty sure of his initial findings on the sender’s general location.
He sent the recovered emails to Schultz and then made a call.
* * *
In a small farmhouse east of Staunton, Virginia, Karim Pahlavi sat watching television in his bedroom. The windows were barred, and the single door into his room remained locked from the outside. Beyond that door, Karim knew two FBI special agents stood guard. On more than one occasion, he had observed another agent outside, walking around the grounds of the house.
They usually deprived him of sleep, played loud music, gave him short rations, and anything else the sadistic guard named Ken could think of to torment him.
“We’re going to send you to Gitmo, or better yet, to some dark site in Saudi, where you’ll talk.” This agent had a horrible personality. They didn’t realize that he didn’t know anything to tell them. He’d pretended that he knew some hidden secrets that he wouldn’t reveal, but in reality, he had little to give them—just some bits of info that would be old by now. At some point in time, they would realize it and send him off to some prison, or worse, where the conditions would be far less pleasant than this farmhouse. At least here, he felt safe, if isolated.
On a normal night, he would be in front of some interrogator attempting to extract information on the arms-dealing network that supplied homegrown terrorists in the States. They sometimes denied him any television for days, but today they somehow were generous. He relished getting some news about the world.
On the screen, a reporter commented on the brutal murder of a female in Alexandria, Virginia. They showed a picture of the victim. Karim’s heart jumped. The bitch had received her just reward. He couldn’t believe it, Bridget Donavan dead. Matt Higgins, the FBI agent who worked with her, was not mentioned, but they covered the fact that Bridget Donavan’s brother had suffered an attempt on his life the same night. The FBI now searched for the mastermind behind these attacks. They were appealing to the public to provide any information on the cases.
Karim remembered his effort to kill Higgins, and the aftermath, when he had fallen captive to the man. He hadn’t completed his mission because of an unfortunate turn of events. That misadventure had become his undoing in the arms trade for which he had received specialized training in Iran. There he had learned how to work with arms dealers and also developed the ability to conduct that type of business by himself. He now sat in silence, contemplating what he might be able to do with this delightful new information. There must be a way to employ it, to get him freed from his confinement by the FBI. He started developing the incipient concept of a plan. He realized that to capitalize on it, he needed to act, and do it now, while this news was fresh.
He now believed this serendipitous newscast presented a unique opportunity to gain his freedom. The FBI used the threat of labeling him an enemy combatant so they could hold him forever. He hadn’t told them anything yet, but this news might contain the chip he could employ in the strategy he started to concoct in his mind.
As a starting point in his new scheme, he could offer up his contacts in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard operating in the States. In addition, he could provide limited information on his association with the Russian arms dealers. Now the time to play that chip had arrived.
He went over to the door and knocked.
“What do you want?” came the voice of the FBI guard.
“I’m ready to talk, but only to FBI Special Agent Matt Higgins.”
15
Email Traced to Russia
Matt Higgins answered his cell on the first ring.
“What have you got, Scott?”
“I think I’ve found the point of
origin for the email to the man Schultz has. I believe it’s somewhere in Russia. I know you don’t want to use FBI assets on this unless absolutely necessary.”
“No, I don’t. I want to keep this off-book as much as possible like the director ordered,” Matt said. After a few seconds he added, “So it’s not Iran? I remember you told me about the Iranians you saw in the wine bar before the explosion. Have you relayed anything about this to Schultz?”
“I did send him the emails I found on the computer. I also copied you. I thought you might like to know this ASAP. I’ll tell him about Russia. I don’t want him going off half-cocked because I can’t swear on a stack of Bibles that I absolutely know the location. You hear me, I don’t know for sure. So don’t you get too excited. I didn’t obtain a specific IP address of a computer or any definite physical place at this time. I’m still working on it, but that’s my initial best estimate. It’ll take me more time to confirm it.”
Matt thanked him and hung up. Russia? At least not Iran and those radical jihadist nuts. In a flash, he came up with the germ of an idea. A far-fetched one, but he didn’t have anything else. Sitting around and thinking about Bridget would eventually eat him up. He decided not to go down that road, but to get payback instead. Do something, he told himself. Even if it ends up being wrong, get out there and try.
* * *
Matt took a call from Liz Garcia. She wanted to arrange a meeting between him and a man well known to him, Karim. This came as a total surprise. Matt knew one person with a working knowledge of a possible suspect in Russia and maybe even Iran—Karim. What a coincidence to receive a call from Liz about the man. Karim might be useful if Russia turned out to be the focal point of interest. At least Matt would be doing something. Liz told him when and where to be for the meeting.
On arrival at the FBI safe house, Matt observed Karim as he sat with his hands shackled to a table in a room like any detention cell, with a mirror and a video camera. The man wore a blue denim shirt and pants. His unkempt beard hid most of his face, but couldn’t hide his prominent nose. Meanwhile, his black eyes radiated intelligence and also conveyed a high degree of hatred toward anyone who might sit across from him.
The terrorist, Karim, was currently being held in this FBI safe house for a “debriefing” after the shoot-out with Matt and Bridget in Savannah. The original director’s idea concerning Karim entailed breaking this man down to get the information they needed to destroy other homegrown terrorist cells operating on American soil. So far they had produced no results after an extended time.
This man had previously enjoyed contact with many different units operating in the States before he had taken over the cell that Matt and Bridget had decimated at the Port of Savannah. In that city, Karim had attempted without success to steal a container of weapons from a Russian arms dealer named Michael Alexandrovitch.
Matt presented a plan to the FBI director on his way to see Karim. The head of the FBI didn’t like the idea. He thought it might involve too much freedom for Karim. Matt assured him that Karim would be under constant surveillance if the director allowed him to implement his idea. The director reluctantly agreed and conceded that it might be a somewhat viable option, if it worked. He left it up to Matt to decide if he wanted to implement the course of action as outlined.
Matt stared at Karim through a two-way mirror. Two new intelligence agents from the CIA and the DIA stood at his side. It was their first visit to see Karim, and both were interested in any information the man could provide concerning ongoing operations against any target in the homeland or abroad. So far they had come up empty, as Karim continued to be uncooperative.
“What do you know about this asshole?” CIA asked. “We read his file, but you have firsthand experience with him.”
“To sum it up for you,” Matt said, “he was born in Iran twenty-nine years ago. That’s years after the great revolution under the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. His grandparents were arrested and executed by the revolutionary guards of Khomeini because of their wealth, and also because of their Western education and contacts. His parents survived by going underground. In secret, they taught him the ways of the West. On his tenth birthday, his mother and his father were caught by the authorities, not because of any action on their part, but because this scumbag turned them in for antirevolutionary writings.”
“Did that get his mother and father killed?” DIA interjected. “None of this is in the file.”
“No, it’s not. I haven’t had time to do a full debrief since Savannah. That’s why I’m doing this recap. Yes, his parents suffered the same fate. Karim went to a religious school to study the Koran and become a good Muslim. The days of the brutality of the revolution were past, and he appeared as no threat after turning his own parents in.” Matt took a pause in the narrative.
“He’s a real piece of work. How did he get involved in the training of terrorists?” CIA asked. “We’ll need to put this information in his file.”
“He became an asset for them because he spoke good English, since his parents had taught him from birth in that language, and because he exhibited an aptitude for spy craft. Are you guys going to try and use him?” Matt asked.
“No. We’re here to obtain background on him from you, if possible. We understand you arrested him for operations on U.S. soil, and we realize that’s the FBI’s business. Thanks for the briefing. So you know, we obtained his picture and prints. We’ll fill in his jacket with the detailed info you’ve provided,” said the CIA agent.
They shook hands, and the agents departed.
Matt continued to observe Karim. He couldn’t put all the pieces of any future plan together just yet.
Matt understood that his primary mission focused on finding out who had targeted them. Bridget’s death still plagued him every waking moment. Someone would pay for that. In a discussion with Gerti and Scott, the possibilities seemed centered on the Russians, the Iranians, and even the Catholic Church.
Bridget had shot the nephew of a Russian mobster in Savannah, and now she was dead. Matt thought that the Russian might be the most obvious culprit. He could guess, but he had nothing solid to go on. But on the other hand, she had killed a few Iranian terrorists in her hunt for the Crown of Thorns. So this scheme he had conjured up might provide some answers—but he would need Karim, the lying, conniving bastard, to be involved.
Matt’s idea was that, if Russia was the source of their troubles, Karim might have criminal contacts in Russia. He had met with the nephew of Alexandrovitch before his death, but it would be premature to involve Karim at this stage of his operation. The burning question remained: what scheme fomented in Karim’s mind? He had asked for this meeting. He must want something—his freedom, obviously, but that wasn’t Matt’s to give.
On viewing the man through the mirror, he felt like bashing his face in. He knew he could never trust Karim, but he thought he might be able to employ him in the future in his yet-to-be-fully-developed plan of action. At their last encounter, Karim had deceived Matt into thinking Karim had become an asset for the FBI, and then he’d turned against him, almost killing him. So when the director had raised the question of security concerning Karim, Matt had quickly responded, “Sir, if he agrees to work with us and then blinks, or tries to change the agreement, I’ll personally kill him.”
His anger rose in his chest on the thought that this dirt bag might be of some use in finding Bridget’s murderer, but he might as well take advantage of the opportunity to face the man. He needed to confirm that Karim held some of the essential elements of his yet incomplete concept. He moved toward the entrance and flung the door open.
“Hello, Karim,” he said as he entered the room. “I’m going to kill you.”
* * *
Karim flipped his head back as Matt’s fist swished by his face, missing it by an inch.
He is really angry, Karim realized. There has to be more to his presence than that, though, and maybe I can use it to my advantage. Stick to the plan, he
reminded himself.
“They told me you wanted to see me. To what do I owe this honor?” Matt said in a controlled voice.
Karim would not let Matt see the fear he had in his gut displayed on his face.
“First off, I want to say that I regret that you made it out of Savannah alive,” Matt said. He took a seat in the chair opposite and seemed to be watching for Karim’s reaction. Karim decided to change tactics a bit and show a little fear, so he moved back in the seat and scrunched his shoulders as he lowered his eyes.
“But I have always liked you. I didn’t kill you when I was ordered to,” Karim offered.
“That’s because I stopped you and captured you,” Matt said. “So, I assume you’re here to get something from me, or to persuade me to do something for you.”
Karim looked into Matt’s eyes without blinking. He decided to wait for some type of answer.
Matt didn’t speak for a whole minute, and then he said, “Are you aware that Bridget Donavan is dead?”
“I’m in custody, not seclusion. Yes, I know that,” Karim answered for the first time. He almost smiled, but caught himself. He needed to play this cool, even to be subservient if required to get the man to ask him for something that would allow an obligation to be incurred.