Enemy Among Us-A Jordan Wright Thriller (18 page)

“Thanks, Belle. Oh, and one more thing. This installation is a surprise from his nieces and nephews so, if you could keep it quiet. They are going to come over with a new TV for him.”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

“Okay, Belle. I need to get in there and make sure my boys are getting the work done. It was a pleasure to talk with you.”

“Honey, the pleasure was all Belle’s.” She turned and headed down the street.

The agent turned and headed up to the house. As he entered, the entire team stopped what they were doing and smiled at him.

“Did you get yourself a date for Saturday?” Jordan shot out to the agent.

Kate couldn’t hold back. “If she’s busy, I think my mother is available.”

“Funny, funny — I just saved us from the neighborhood gossip and all I get is grief. Don’t we have work we should all be doing?”

The team refocused and, for the next five hours, they scoured the house. The house was a small, two bedrooms, built in the early fifties; and, it looked like it hadn’t been updated. It was spartan with little furniture and any personal items that typically make a house a home. For the most part, the walls were bare with no pictures or artwork.

Half of the team went through every room, searching for any evidence that would identify the rest of the bad guys, the mission, and who the ultimate leaders were. The other half installed a series of audio and video devices, as well as planting bugs on the phones. The van in the alley contained a high speed-copying machine, so documents could be quickly duplicated and returned to their proper place.

By the time they left, they had duplicated over seven hundred and fifty pages, as well as mirrored the hard drive of the computer they found. They wrapped things up and did a final inspection of the house. Initially, as they entered they took a series of digital photographs, which they carefully reviewed in order to ensure they had placed everything back in its original position.

Once completed, the teams retreated from the house and replaced the tells in the doors and headed to the vans. The dogs were regaining consciousness, but still groggy and did not pose any threat to the team’s exit.

“Good job, everyone.” Jordan announced over the radio. “Base, we’re returning; the house is secure.”

Chapter Thirty-One

When they reached the command post, Max and William had arrived with Akmed. A decision had still not been made on whether or not Akmed would return to the apartment that afternoon. Jordan wanted to delay the decision as long as possible, to give the team the opportunity to sift through all of the material they had found at Mustafa’s apartment.

Kate had asked Frank, Max and Jordan to join her in the backroom, to share some intel her team had developed. They all headed down the hall, when Kate was finished. Jordan felt it would be a good time to come to a consensus on whether Akmed should return today. At present, Akmed was in the other bedroom, waiting for them. While he hadn’t provided additional information in the last forty-eight hours, everything he’d told them had been validated.

Kate closed the door. “My team has been processing the forensic data from Akmed’s apartment and Mustafa’s house. We don’t seem to be picking up any residue or signature data that would point to storage or manufacturer of weapons taking place at either location.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” Max walked over to look out the window.

“If we think the attack in imminent, we have yet to find any stash of weapons and supplies. No bomb making supplies, nothing to restrain hostages, no communication systems. All of the standard things we have seen in the past. Jordan, remember the whole lab the Libyans had in New York?”

Jordan nodded.

“But, we haven’t been in all of their locations. It could be stored at the other families, right?” Frank added.

“Could be, but, I just think if they’re getting ready to move, we should have found evidence of something at Mustafa’s. We’ve come up with nothing.” Kate’s frustration was beginning to show, while Jordan continued to just stare out the window.

“So let’s go through the scenarios. We got a lot of brainpower in this room. Let’s get in the heads of Mustafa and the families and figure it out.” Max had now moved into position in the center of the room.

Frank jumped in. “Well, maybe our assumption they are getting ready to go isn’t right. Maybe we can bring them down before anything happens.”

“Okay. That could be one,” Max agreed.

“We’ve missed a location. They could have a warehouse or another location where they are assembling everything.” William contributed. William, Kate and Frank had created an informal circle around Max. Jordan remained off to the side, staring out the window.

“Possibly, Mustafa has access to something at the cleaning company which allows him to either store or make what they need. Maybe they aren’t as far along and nothing has been brought in yet?” Kate contributed.

“Okay, guys. Enough chit chat. The answer is staring us in the face.” Jordan said without turning around. “If I were planning an attack on a target in the United States and I needed to get my hands on chemicals, electronics, radios, guns and anything else I would need, you know what the best thing for me to have would be?”

“Yeah.” Kate rolled her eyes at Frank and Max. “If you would have been listening to our conversation, we’ve gone over the list. A warehouse, possibly using the cleaning company, or if nothing else you’ve got it spread amongst all of these families or other…”

“Or…” Jordan cut her off. “You buy one of the fathers a hardware store. We’re looking right at the supply depot. Think about it. The local hardware store can have everything a terrorist would need and no one would ask any questions why they were getting a certain shipment. The vendors would only care about getting paid. The trucking company just brings whatever they’re supposed to bring.

“A hundred pounds of fertilizer being delivered to a house in a subdivision raises alarms. Being sent to a hardware store? Nobody would even question it. When the surveillance equipment was placed in the store, did anyone look in the back store room?”

Frank sighed. “We didn’t have time. We got in as soon as we could, but we didn’t know how long we would have. So, we just hung the equipment and got out.”

“I get it. We need to get back in there as soon as possible. We need to focus on the storeroom and Akmed’s office. Let’s get Akmed in here. Max, I don’t think he ever talked about what he might have ordered?” Jordan said.

“Nope — and we didn’t ask. I’ll go get him. Let’s see if he still comes through or if this is what he has been hiding.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Akmed sat in the chair with the five people surrounding him. He knew William the best as they had spent time together at the house and shared personal interests. Max had been kind to him, but had asked a lot of questions. The third one, whom he knew as Jordan, was nice, but intense, and seemed intelligent and would be a considerable adversary for Mustafa.

Akmed was happy the USA had someone who thought the way he knew Mustafa and his leaders thought. The other two, he did not know. The woman was attractive and seemed to be competitive with Max, but not about work. Somehow, he felt it had to do with Jordan. The other man seemed to be a peer of Jordan’s.

“Akmed, I know we have asked you a lot of questions and we appreciate all of your help. We wanted to focus now on your business, the hardware store. How long have you owned it?” Jordan wanted to hurry through the preliminaries, so he could get to the heart of what really was going on across the street. But, he didn’t want to panic Akmed and have him shut down.

“Almost five years. It has been a good business. I have enjoyed running the store. If this ever gets over with, I would like to have another one some day. “I’m sure you are good at running the store. How did you get the money?”

“I had saved money from my other jobs and my wife and I both had received an inheritance”

Jordan shook his head. “I know that’s what you are supposed to say, but you can tell us where the money really came from.”

“Mustafa came to see me. He told me he was impressed with how well I was doing and thought it might be possible for me to have my own business. I got excited. He took me to the store and said he was thinking about having me buy it. I said to him that I didn’t have that much money. He laughed and said not to worry about the money. He wanted to know if I thought I could run it. I told him I could and about eight weeks later he came by and told me the store was mine.

He took me to an attorney’s office the next day and we signed the papers. He took me to the bank and gave me cashier’s checks to deposit into my account, covering the cost of the store. He had documents from Iran, stating that Mahasin and I had inherited money.”

“Then what happened?” Jordan was trying not to be impatient.

“I owned the store. I re-opened it. I bought one of those ‘Under New Management’ signs and hung it in the window. We were successful from the beginning. I remodeled the apartment upstairs and moved Mahasin and Aziz. I read many business books. Jack Welch, Michael Porter, Ram Charan. I learned how Americans did business and learned about listening to my customers and stocking the things they needed. By the end of the first year, we were doing well.”

“What happened to the money? Who got it?” William had taken over the questioning. He’d picked up on where Jordan was headed and thought he could help, so it wouldn’t come across like an interrogation.

“The money went to Mustafa.”

“All of it?”

“Well, yes”

“Akmed, you can tell us. Did all of the money go to him?”

“No. He told me he couldn’t believe how much money we were making; so, as the store made more, I started to keep some back. I figured out how to adjust the books so Mustafa or the other father, Jarill, who was an accountant and would audit the books, couldn’t tell. I still have most of it, if I must give it to you.”

“We don’t want the money. You know what would have happened if Mustafa would have found out?” William suggested.

“Yes. He would have killed me. But, it was my success. I built it to what it was. We couldn’t really use the money. We would go out to a nice dinner every so often. It’s all in a brokerage account at Schwab.”

“How did you pull that off?” Jordan asked, smiling.

“I saw Mr. Schwab on TV. He seemed honest. There was a branch in Center City I could get to and Mustafa did not understand these types of things. He would call around to banks, to ensure we didn’t have separate accounts, but he would never have called a brokerage firm.”

Frank was intrigued. “Did you invest?”

“Yes, mostly index funds and, I would also watch CNBC. I had some gold and muni bonds for diversification.”

Jordan and William started laughing, eliciting a stern look from Max.

“Well, maybe when this is all done, you can give us some advice. By the way, how much is your account worth?” Jordan inquired.

“It’s a little over six hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.” No one said a thing. Eyes met eyes around the room. Frank let out a whistle.

“Congratulations, Akmed! You’re living the American dream. So, how involved was Mustafa in the store?” William asked.

“He rarely came in. He didn’t care, as long as the money went to him.”

“He never asked you to order anything or store anything?” Jordan inquired.

Akmed’s expression changed. “Only recently, he would come in and walk around and then we would go to the back storeroom so Benny couldn’t hear. He would ask me to order certain quantities of certain items. Sometimes, he would tell me to start carrying a product which I didn’t have.”

“For example?” Max asked.

“Ammonia nitrate. I have a small section for lawn and garden supplies and tools. As you can see, there aren’t a lot of gardens and lush lawns around here. Most of it was for houseplants and there are a couple of community gardens in some of the vacant lots.

“But no one ever needed ammonia nitrate,” Akmed lamented. “I ordered it and it sat there for a year. A month ago, he told me to order more. Now I’ve got close to two hundred pounds of that stuff and haven’t sold any of it.”