Collision (23 page)

“Ah,” I say. My watchers—I can see them now, they don’t even try to hide from me—are watching me talk to this girl. I wonder what that will mean for her. I have an urge to run.

“What are you doing here?”

I am supposed to be in Switzerland, studying finance. “Ah, well, my advisor at my school—I’m at the University of Geneva—is giving a speech at Tulane, and I came with him.” The explanation rings hollow to me, but I force a smile behind it and gesture at the window full of junky T-shirts. “You caught me in an unacademic moment.”

Roula laughs. “Well, how long are you in town?”

“I leave Sunday.”

“So do we.” And then, of course, in the manner of my people, she begins to inquire about my mother, my cousins—she knows my brothers and my father are dead and she says nothing of them.

I answer quickly, ask after her own family, then take refuge in consulting my watch. “Well, this was a lovely surprise, Roula, but I must get back to the campus. I didn’t give myself enough time to explore.” I tender an awkward grin.

She gives me a bright smile. “Well, it was nice to see you, Khaled.”

“Good to see you, too.” I turn and walk away and I don’t look back. My outing, my training run, is ruined. Two blocks further I risk a glance. There were two trackers following me, and now there is only the one. The other tracker is, of course, now shadowing Roula.

I am brought back to the house, questioned thoroughly. I explain she is a friend from home, studying architecture in America. That she is harmless.

“But you are not supposed to be here,” the masters say to me. “What if she mentions to her family, to her friends, that she saw you here?”

“I gave her a story consistent with my cover,” I said, and they laugh, not because it is funny. I keep hoping they will tell me this is a test, that Roula is part of the organization. But they give no such reassurance.

“What should I have done?” I say, miserable.

“You don’t talk to her. You walk away, you get away from her.”

“But she knew it was me. To run would increase her suspicion—”

“But she would never be sure it was you. You spoke with her. She knows too much.”

Coldness touches my heart. This is not how it is supposed to be. I have come here to learn how to do good work, how to kill those who must die, not innocents like Roula. “What will happen?” I finally say.

My masters exchange a glance. “Her family’s phones in Beirut will be tapped; their e-mail and physical mail will be monitored. We will listen and see if she mentions seeing you here. If she does not . . . fine. If she does . . . well. Then we shall see. This is on your head, though—let it be a lesson you never forget.” As though I was a prankster schoolboy, fresh from a whipping.

I am not sure I believe them. I am sick with fear they will have Roula killed tonight. I return, at their orders, to my room. I lie on my bed and study the ceiling. I feel they are watching me; this is a test, and I am failing.

The door opens. I sit up. One of the masters, the one called Mr. Night, enters and closes the door behind me.

“Are you going to kill her?” I ask in a rush.

“No,” he says. “You must think us rather impulsive. Or cruel.”

“I’m a realist about our work.”

Mr. Night nods at me. “But, if necessary, someone will speak to her. Impress upon her, forcefully, the need for silence. Your presence here must be kept secret.”

I swallow.
Forcefully
can cover many options. But if he says she will not be killed, I believe him. My life is in the hands of these people; I have to trust them. “I understand.”

“If she is unable to keep her silence . . .” He shrugs.

“She will,” I assure him. “She is a very sensible girl from a good family. Perhaps someone in her family could be recruited as well.”

“Perhaps.” He clears his throat. “I need to know if you’re truly ready for the job, Khaled.” (It is painful for me to record his words, but in fairness I must.)

“I am. I am. Please.” I have a sudden fear that I might now be expendable. But they need us . . . there are so few of us willing to do the work, to take the enormous risks. I had already risked so much in coming forward, in making it here.

He studies me for a long while, saying nothing, and I compose myself and don’t plead my case further. I have to be strong now.

“You are still one of us. Here is your assignment.”

I nearly collapse in relief, but I do not let emotion cross my face. I read the file they hand me, see what my first battle in the war will be.

I am more eager than ever to do my job. They release me from my room. I drive over to the shooting range and start putting bullets into the targets, each squeeze of the trigger a relief.

30

Dawn crept in through the heavy, yellowed curtains, as though reluctant to bring brightness to the darkened rooms. Ben awoke on the futon; he could feel the hump of the gun under his pillow and he pulled his hand back from it with a jolt. His arm ached. He’d slept far heavier than he’d thought possible.

Pilgrim was awake and brewing coffee, standing over the sink, staring into space.

“Hey,” Ben said.

No answer.

“You’re not a morning person,” Ben said.

“We should have gone after Hector last night. Sleep was the last thing . . .”

“Unclench the fist. Hector knows I am questioning his loyalty since I didn’t call him back, and I’m betting he knows about your visit to the McKeen office now. Not hearing from us is keeping him off balance.”

“I can’t just abandon Teach.”

“You abandon her if you get killed in a pointless attempt to save her.” Ben stood up from the futon. “We take the fight back to him but we act like subtle knives. Not cannons that roar and attract a lot of noise.”

“This isn’t how I roll,” Pilgrim said, “You don’t know what we’re up against . . .”

“You wouldn’t even know who your enemy is if it wasn’t for me. So maybe you can permanently shelve the talking-down-to-me crap, because it’s gotten really old.”

Pilgrim set his coffee cup down. “Fine. What do you suggest?”

“Hector’s strength and his weakness are his business. It’s what gives him power but it’s also what he’s most fearful of losing. I helped him build it up; I can tear it down.”

“You mean you can expose his dirty laundry.”

“It’s not as much dirty as it is questionable. What I can do is get in touch with every one of his contacts at the various agencies and imply that he’s going to be under investigation very soon.”

“You’re a fugitive and lacking in the credibility department,” Pilgrim said.

“I say I’m hiding from his security forces.” Ben helped himself to coffee, black and strong. “We launch a two-pronged attack. Start smearing Hector with the people in government who matter. Politicians run from a stink. We put the stink on him. Second, we contact Agent Vochek. Delia Moon gave me her number. We cut a deal with her.”

“Useless if they want us dead . . .”

“I don’t believe she wants you dead. Leashed, maybe. What will help us is that you did necessary work, ordered by the government.”

“Correction. Necessary as decided by a small and secret group.”

“And that group might be her target far more than you. Vochek might cut you a really good offer to come in. You know more dirty laundry about the government than I ever will about Hector.”

“I still say we face Hector down.”

“You’ve already hurt him badly, you’ve made him desperate. You wiped out Hector’s teams, you killed his sniper. He’ll have beefed up compound security just because he lost two men to supposed terrorists. He’ll virtually have an army on his property. No way will you get to his house. We don’t even know that’s where he has Teach.”

“Fine. I see your point.” Pilgrim said this as though it caused physical pain. “So what do we say to Vochek?”

“Don’t freak at my idea.” Ben took a deep breath. “The Cellar’s done. Adam Reynolds already found you; it’s just a matter of time before Homeland finds the other Cellar agents. You just have to decide whether you surrender peacefully and cooperate, or not. Give them details about your jobs. Your results. They’ll go easier on you.”

“I joined the Cellar to avoid jail. I can’t go back into a prison.” He parted the curtain slightly, surveyed the lot. “You understand that Strategic Initiatives’ cure for us might be a bullet in the head.”

“I don’t believe Vochek would be party to murder.”

“You’ve been fooled by Sam Hector for years, so pardon me if I question your judgment of character.”

“She wasn’t comfortable with Kidwell leaning so hard on me. Says something about her as a person.”

“She was playing the good cop role.”

“Fine. We play good cop by giving them something. We can’t fight Hector, not on his own turf. We can’t go to the police. Whatever is going down tomorrow in New Orleans, if it’s bad, if we step forward now with the information, get it to Homeland, we can cut a deal.”

“But we have no idea what’s happening.”

“Help Vochek put all the pieces together and then you’re a good guy.”

“She’ll just arrest us.”

“I know this is a different approach for you. But please, let’s try it. We give Vochek ammunition. Everything you know about the Cellar. Everything we both know about Hector, both in his business and in his days in the CIA. There’s a relationship there and if . . .”

Pilgrim shook his head. “Vochek’s group hired Hector . . . Someone in that group could smother the information.”

“Yes. It’s a risk. But we’re going to have to meet with her face-to-face, see if we can convince her. You did save her life.”

“Not on purpose.”

“Take the credit, we need it.”

“Ben. This course of action sounds sane to you. It sounds crazy to me. I just want to get a gun and kill Hector. Problem solved.”

“Doing it my way makes it a lot more likely that we survive.” Ben stepped forward, leaned on the cracked Formica bar that divided the kitchen from the tiny dining space. “Jackie Lynch was in league with the people that killed Kidwell. Homeland’s going to want Jackie’s head on a plate, and he’s driving a car that ties him to Hector. They therefore will want Hector’s head on a plate. If there’s an alliance between them, we destroy it. Isolate him.”

“You should call Vochek.”

“No.” Ben shook his head. “You will.”

“I have poor phone manners.”

“You’re the one with the information she wants. But you’re going to meet her by yourself. Because she may set a trap and she can’t catch us both. One of us has to stay free if the meeting goes bad.”

Pilgrim nodded. “She’s not catching me, don’t worry.” He rubbed his forehead. “I’ll call her.” He shook his head at Ben. “No offense, but I really am not getting used to having a partner.”

“Hopefully it’s not for much longer,” Ben said.

31

Vochek glanced at the clock—just past nine on Saturday morning—and studied the photos of the dead men. The investigators on Kidwell’s murder, operating out of the Homeland Security office in Houston, sent her the latest on the dead Arab gunmen.

The men had been identified; they were all from the southern suburbs of Beirut. Two of the men were brothers, two more were their cousins, and all were tied to a gang that ran drugs into Beirut and did muscle work when hired.

She remembered a truism she’d read about the Middle East in a book by former CIA agent Robert Baer: You don’t recruit individuals; you recruit families, tribes, clans. Here was a perfect example. But the one with dyed blond hair, the other with two piercings in his ear—these men did not strike her as typical fundamentalists.

She called one of the Homeland investigators in Houston, let him complain about working with the FBI for three minutes, then she said: “But these guys don’t seem like religious extremist types.”

“Oh, I don’t think the Murads are prayerful boys. They’ve always been hired help.” She heard a shuffle of paper on the investigator’s desk. “The Murads all flew in via Paris then Miami, staggered over five days. Tickets paid for in cash in Beirut. But they all stayed together at a hotel in Miami before they flew into Austin, the morning of the attack.” He coughed a smoker’s hack. “Here’s the sticky part. Back in the 1980s, Papa Murad, the head of the clan, was eyes and ears for the CIA.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah. When we were hunting the embassy bombers, he was an informant. Not a great one but he was willing to point a few fingers for a price. He dropped off the Agency payroll about a decade ago. One of his sons got tangled up with a Blood of Fire cell in Lebanon, did some for-hire bombing work for them, got murdered a few months back.”

“So the Murads have played both sides.”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t know it to hear the CIA. They say they don’t have a file on the Murads, which beggars belief; they’ve been part of the Beirut underworld for two generations. My sources are two retired CIA field officers. And Mrs. Murad.”

“You talked with her.”

“She’s not speaking publicly, of course. And she could be trying to defend her family’s honor, say they’re not terrorists. But frankly, it’s more dangerous for her to link her family to the CIA than to Hezbollah. She said her husband mentioned he’d gotten a call from an old friend, big money for a favor.”

“Who’s the old friend?”

“She says he was an Englishman her husband knew years ago called the Dragon. Of course the CIA denies that they know, or have known, anyone by that code name. In fact, the CIA is no longer talking to me.”

The Dragon. She said, “Of course they’re putting distance and denying they know anything. Former hirelings of theirs attacking a Homeland office on American soil? It’s a PR nightmare. They won’t touch it.”

Former CIA informants, and now a mysterious Englishman from the Murads’ CIA days. “Why does someone hire a gang from Lebanon? You could just as easily find gunmen closer to home.”

“Quit asking hard-to-answer questions.”

She tapped her finger on the table. “They attacked an office that wasn’t even open yet. Very low payback for the effort put forth. Let’s say they get caught or killed. Arab gunmen attacking a Homeland office, it creates a different image in the media. That sounds like a terrorism attack. But this wasn’t.”

“Probably not.” She heard the investigator shuffling another file.

“So what were they after? They could have taken Kidwell if they wanted a Homeland officer. And if they wanted Ben Forsberg . . . why? What does he know, why is he valuable to them?”

“I don’t know. I’ll keep digging.”

“Maybe the only
want
was wanting everyone dead.”

It still didn’t tell her why. She thanked him and hung up. She wanted to sleep—she had gotten precious little of it last night—but she couldn’t shut her mind down.

She called Margaret Pritchard. “Did you find out about Sam Hector, if he was CIA?” she asked.

“I’ve got feelers out. Don’t get your hopes up for a speedy answer.” She sounded uninterested.

“Feelers?” Impatience churned in her chest. “Pardon me, Margaret, but can’t you just call the CIA director and ask?”

“Please. If he was CIA deep cover, they aren’t going to tell me.”

“They will if you tell them he’s a suspect in a Homeland agent’s death.”

“Sam Hector is hardly a suspect.”

She told Pritchard about the Murad/CIA connection, what Mrs. Murad had said about a man called the Dragon.

“I don’t care about an idiot called the Dragon. He sounds like an extra from a Bruce Lee film. I care about Randall Choate.”

“Choate and this Dragon are both ex-CIA. Hector is allegedly ex-CIA. We need to see if they’re connected.”

“You would make me proud if you would follow a straight line, Joanna.”

It sounded like a compliment she’d wish her mother would make instead of complaining. “You hired Hector to give us logistical and security support in hunting down the off-the-book operations. But could he have his own agenda in finding these groups? He could be using us to piggyback for his own purposes.”

Pritchard made a dismissive huff. “He could hardly plan for me hiring him.”

“Maybe he didn’t plan, until you hired him.”

Tick. Tick. Tick. The clock on the wall measured the wrath of Pritchard building. Maybe she knows she made a mistake in hiring Hector and she doesn’t want to admit it. It could be fatal for her career, Vochek thought.

Pritchard said, “He would hardly risk a lucrative business screwing up a government operation.”

“A businessman will do anything if he thinks the risk is worth the payoff. Who told you we had to go after the off-the-books groups?”

“That’s classified, but my directions came from a very senior person.”

“And Hector has millions in contracts with the government. He knows every senior person.”

“You’re making a presumptive jump.”

“Then test my theory. Find out about Hector. What are you afraid of?”

“Remember we work in a hierarchy, Agent Vochek,” Pritchard said coldly. “But if it will be of help to you, I’ll tug a bit harder on my fishing lines.” Pritchard hung up.

You’re stalling,
Vochek thought. She could hear it in Pritchard’s tone. So either Pritchard knew more about Hector than she admitted, and didn’t want Vochek to know; or—far more frightening—Pritchard didn’t know about Hector’s background, and she had been played by him, and was refusing to see that she’d been played.

The phone rang. Ah, Hector hopefully. She answered her cell, frowning at the number-blocked readout on the screen.

“This is Vochek.”

“I hope you didn’t have a headache.”

Shock raced through her like steam through a pipe. She knew the voice instantly. The man at the hotel who had knocked her out, locked her in the closet.

“Yes. Hello.”

“I hope the headache’s past.”

“Nearly. I’d like to talk to you, Randall.” Her own voice sounded thin to her in the stillness of the room.

“Randall Choate is still dead. At least until you and I come to an agreement.”

“What are your terms?”

“Sam Hector goes down.”

Silence for ten long seconds. “Excuse me?”

“Hector hired the gunmen that killed your partner. One of his people killed Delia Moon and tried to kill Ben yesterday. We stole the guy’s car from him and it’s registered to a shadow company that’s connected to Hector.”

“I need details.”

“You’ll get them. When we meet. You come alone. Anyone else is there, I run, I don’t look back. Homeland gets nothing and you’re still hooked at the hip to a killer like Sam Hector.”

“I’m not sure I feel comfortable coming alone. You hit me in the head.”

“You tried to break my neck with a baton. Let’s forgive and forget.” She could almost hear the smile in his voice. “If I wanted you dead, you’d’ve been dead in Austin. I’m still waiting for the thank-you for saving your life by sticking you in that closet.”

She swallowed. “Thank you, Randall.”

“Soccer fields off Plano Parkway. Noon. Come alone. If I get a sense that you’ve brought company, I’m smoke.”

“Ben Forsberg. Is he all right?”

“Ben is okay.” Then she heard regret tinge Pilgrim’s words. “So you know—Ben is entirely innocent. He did not hire Nicky Lynch. I used his identity without his knowledge. But Hector’s tried to kill Ben multiple times in the past two days, so Ben’s shy right now. One more thing for you.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t have details, but if you’ve got any hot leads about a threat in New Orleans, take it seriously. That’s my Boy Scout moment.”

“New Orleans.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Randall?”

“Yes?”

“I want to help you come in. I don’t want you or Ben hurt.”

“Words are cheap. See you at noon.” He hung up.

Well. Pilgrim’s offer could be genuine or it could be a trap. Protocol demanded that she inform her superior.

She hesitated. She was not by nature a rule-bender. But . . . she knew Pritchard. Pritchard would demand backup for Vochek and the immediate capture of Pilgrim. They would have an actual rogue CIA agent—tied to an actual dirty dog group—in their custody. Of course she might talk him into surrendering, but capture would guarantee he would be in their grasp.

And New Orleans—what did that mean? She had no idea if a threat had been identified against the city. It was a lead she couldn’t keep to herself, it would be grossly irresponsible. Decision made. She called Pritchard and explained the conversation.

“I’ll contact the New Orleans office, see if they have a hot situation working,” Pritchard said. “Of course it will be a bit difficult to attribute this warning to a man who’s been presumed dead for a decade. Are you willing to meet with him alone?” Pritchard asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m not willing to risk it. If he won’t surrender to you, then I want him followed.”

“He’ll spot a tail.”

“Not our people. I’m calling Secret Service in Dallas.”

“Not their jurisdiction.”

“Ah. But he said he stole Ben Forsberg’s good name. Identity theft and financial fraud are under Secret Service’s purview.”

“Please. Let me handle this. Alone.”

“We already lost Kidwell. We have no idea of what this man is capable of.”

“And the things he said about Sam Hector?”

The long silence returned. “I want to see the evidence that he has.”

“Should we put working with Hector on hold?”

“On this man’s word? Please.” On the phone, Vochek could hear the tap of Pritchard’s nail against the desk. “Evidence, Joanna. Let’s find the meat on the bone first.”