Targets of Deception (18 page)

One was an American, tall and trim with straight, dark hair and pointed features. The second was an Englishman, who stood a bit shorter than his companion, with reddish hair, a wide nose and pale, inert eyes. They were each neatly attired in suits and ties, ready to pose as corporate types who would soon be en route to the United States.

Traiman was in attendance as Rahmad provided the details of the information he had gathered on McHugh, Andrioli and the events of the past two days in New York.

The two assassins listened without speaking, their taciturn manner nettling Rahmad.

“McHugh did not know Andrioli’s location,” Rahmad told them. “McHugh’s sister was their go-between.” He looked from the American to the Englishman, but neither reacted. While Rahmad shared what he knew, he also wanted information from them. That was his business, after all. Information.

He had no way of knowing that these men were under strict orders from Traiman to reveal nothing. Neither was even authorized to disclose their ultimate destination.

Rahmad proceeded with his monologue, going over things twice at Traiman’s prompting.

Then Traiman stood and announced the interview was at an end.

He and Rahmad bid the men good fortune, then had them escorted to a car for the ride to the airport. There, they would board a flight to Paris, the first leg on their journey to Miami International and then Fort Lauderdale.

At first light , Bill Sternlich got out of bed without waking his wife, pulled on his old, white terrycloth bathrobe and shuffled his way into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. His laptop was on the table, and he connected to the internet. As he waited for the water to boil, the screen on his computer came to life, and he checked his e-mails to see whether any leads on Jordan’s requests for information had come through. Sandor had told him to drop the search, but curiosity was a professional hazard. There were several messages, none related to his requests on James McHugh. He scrolled down, stopping at an e-mail from an unfamiliar source. The transmission was marked “Urgent!”

He opened it and stared at the screen. The note read:

The girl was a warning to those who interfere.

You have been warned.

Sandor awoke in the unfamiliar surroundings of their room at the LaGuardia motel. He quietly slid out from under the sheets, canceled the wake-up call and grabbed his clothes from the chair. He showered and dressed before Christine was up.

He had his leather bag in the bathroom, and carefully removed the S & W .45 and the Walther PPK with their extra clips. He wrapped each gun in a hand towel, stuffed them back in the satchel and opened the door.

She was still asleep. He stood over the bed, watching her for a moment. He was a professional. She was a liability. He would take her to Florida and try to find Anthony Andrioli. After that, he would have to cut her loose.

“Come on,” he said, gently shaking her by the shoulder, rousing her into consciousness.

Christine looked around, confused for a moment, then smiled at him as she raised her arms and stretched. “I was having the strangest dream.”

“Tell me about it on the plane. It’s time to get ready.” Jordan pulled on his jacket and picked up his bag. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve got to take care of something.”

She looked worried.

“I’ll come right back,” he repeated. “Bolt the door behind me.”

Sandor walked the five long blocks to the FedEx drop box he had called for the night before. The box stood in front of one of the better hotels near the airport. He opened the top slot holding supplies, pulling out one of the large Tyvek envelopes and a mailing label. He wrote out the address of the drop-box center in Fort Lauderdale he had looked up, using the name from his second passport as the recipient. He also used a false name and address for the sender and checked off the box that read “Bill Recipient.” Then he pasted the label to the envelope.

Jordan stopped and had a look around. People were already coming and going at this hour, but no one was paying any attention to him. He pulled the two towels from his satchel, placed them in the envelope, sealed it with the adhesive strip and dropped the package with a thud into the metal deposit box.

Sandor knew there was no chance to get his weapons past security at the airport, even if he checked the leather bag through. The high-resolution screeners would have their sirens blaring in an instant. It had been too late last night to get them out for delivery this morning, and he would not have been happy about giving up the protection anyway, just in case he had been followed to the motel. Sending them ahead was his only chance to get them down South, although he would not be able to retrieve them until tomorrow, assuming they would not be intercepted in transit. He might have other options for securing a weapon once he was in Florida, but he couldn’t be sure.

Jordan’s immediate problem was that he was unarmed now with so far to travel and so much ahead of him. He felt naked.

He hurried back to the motel through the chilly morning, mulling over what still remained in his leather case.

He had his real passport; the second passport in the name of Scott Kerr; two clean credit cards in the name of his alias; a dummy passport form that could be made up with a photo and name, as the need arose; almost ten thousand dollars in cash, which he had already been using, a hundred dollars at a time; both cell phones, which may or may not be compromised at this point—he had to assume they were—and a small address book with names, phone numbers and a series of codes that might yet come in handy.

He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, his breath forming a small cloud in the cold air before him as he walked briskly along, wondering if he was already being followed.

Prescott and Covington sat down for an early breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Their meeting a few hours before, after losing Sandor’s trail, had not satisfied the FBI man, and he demanded a full briefing.

“I’ve been authorized by the Agency to advise you of certain facts,” Covington began. There was neither explanation nor apology for the deception he had employed up to that moment. “McHugh was wanted by our CTC group for questioning. Sandor is one of our former operatives who became involved, strictly by happenstance.”

“Bullshit,” Prescott said.

“Excuse me?”

“I said bullshit. And I mean it on at least two counts. First of all, you spooks don’t have any former operatives. The CIA doesn’t have a retirement plan for field agents. And his being there was no coincidence. I also made my phone call, and Homeland Security wants you to give me the full background on everything you’ve got. This is a domestic issue, Covington, and CIA has no jurisdiction.”

“That’s your story,” Covington said and picked up the menu.

Prescott reached across the table and pushed the menu aside. “It’s a little late to be throwing your weight around. We lost this guy because of you. Your men interfered with our containment detail, and I need to know how you want me to fill out my report. Should I say that you wanted him gone or that you’re just an idiot?”

Covington blinked. He was smaller and more narrowly built than Prescott. He was not a man comfortable with physical anger. He placed the menu on the table. “Sandor is on the move because he stumbled onto something, and we’re using that to assist us. He and Miss Frank may have a lead on someone we need to find. An associate of McHugh’s. Whether you choose to believe me or not, Sandor is no longer working for us.”

As far as Covington was concerned, this was an accurate statement. At the moment, there was only one man in the CIA who knew otherwise. “The fact is, he and the girl are in grave danger, but we are willing to take that risk, given the serious matters at stake.”

“
You’re
willing to take the risk? You guys kill me. Did anyone ask Christine Frank if she’s willing to take the risk?”

Covington stared back at Prescott.

“So that’s it?” Prescott demanded. “That’s the full level of cooperation we get?”

“That’s all that I’m permitted to divulge at this time.”

“I see. And are we supposed to be looking for them?”

“Yes. You are. As you said, this is CONUS jurisdiction, right?”

Prescott grunted. “So you gave them a lead, they spit the bit and now it’s my problem. Is that the way this is going down?”

Covington gave no answer.

“And where do we think they’re ultimately headed? Paris?”

Covington’s narrow eyes widened slightly.

“That’s right. You’re not the only one with intelligence sources. We know all about McHugh’s plane ticket to France.”

“Have you alerted the international airports?”

“I’ve made the necessary communications, yes.”

“JFK, Newark?”

“Logan and DC as well.”

“What about domestic flights?”

“We’re working on that. A little tougher, of course, but doable.”

Covington hesitated.

“What is it?” Prescott demanded.

“Is the Bureau ordering them captured or just followed?”

“You tell me, since this seems to be your show.”

Covington looked away from him. “We want them out there,” he admitted, then picked up his menu again.

If a manhunt had been mounted to find them, Jordan saw no evidence of it when they got out of their cab at LaGuardia.

He correctly guessed that Covington would thwart any attempts to apprehend them, at least for the time being. Sandor was not worried about benign surveillance. His concern was enemy action. Amidst the busy, early morning pedestrian traffic inside the terminal, he was alert to any indication they were being watched. He glanced at the faces of strangers, particularly those who were standing still rather than moving. He eyed guards and airline personnel as they walked past or looked in their direction. But he spotted nothing unusual as they made their way through the terminal to the automated ticket machine.

He felt particularly vulnerable without a weapon, exposed in the wide-open, pre-security check-in area, where anyone could be armed. He retrieved their tickets from the machine, using one of the credit cards in the name of Scott Kerr. For now, Christine would have to use her real name and identification. They would rectify that, however, once they got to Florida. For now, he could only hope that his name was the one they would be tracking and that he would make it through.

They joined the long, slow line for screening. If they were going to be stopped, Jordan expected it to happen here or at the boarding gate. A TSA agent stood at the beginning of the queue where Sandor displayed their first class electronic tickets. Christine showed the man her driver’s license. Jordan held up his passport, opened to the first page.

They moved ahead to join the line, waiting silently as the procession crept along. When it was her turn, Christine went through the metal detector without incident. Jordan placed his bag on the conveyor belt, removed his silver M-clip from his pocket and the steel-banded Rolex Daytona from his wrist and placed it in the gray plastic tray. He stepped through the frame of the machine. It made no sound. He picked up his money and watch, then waited for his bag to slide through on the conveyor belt.

“Could you step over here please,” a small, Hispanic woman in a dark blue uniform said to him as he picked up the leather overnight case.

Jordan turned and followed her off to the side, where she instructed him to place the bag on a Formica-topped table.

“Is there a problem?” he asked with a polite smile.

He received no smile in response. “Please sit down and remove your shoes.”

Christine was standing twenty or so feet beyond the checkpoint. Jordan gave her a reassuring look, nodding across the wide corridor at a man who was being put through the same drill. He sat down, removed his shoes and watched as the woman passed them through the scanner again.

She brought back his loafers and asked him to unzip the bag.

Sandor was pleased he had taken the time to secrete his additional passports in the false pocket along the inside of the case. The scanner would have picked them up as a bunch papers, but if the guard pulled them out and saw multiple identification documents it would cause a problem.

The woman gave the contents a cursory inspection, then told him he could go.

Jordan slipped on his shoes, picked up the bag and joined Christine.

He took her by the arm and they proceeded through the terminal.

“Routine,” he assured her. “I’ll probably get stopped at the gate too. Don’t worry. Just a random check. Sometimes your number comes up, that’s all.”

They purchased magazines and coffee, then found seats near their gate. “This is the first time that I’ve felt safe since we got here,” Christine said.

Jordan nodded, not admitting that he would not relax until takeoff. All the same, it was mildly reassuring to know that no one other than airport personnel would be armed on his side of the electronic gates.

When boarding began, Jordan was pulled aside again for a quick search. He chatted amiably with the security guard, all the while scanning the surrounding areas for unfriendly faces.

Once the cursory examination of his bag was completed, he and Christine joined the other first class passengers, settled into their comfortable leather seats, then waited anxiously until the plane filled up and the door was closed.

When the jet made its way to the runway and began its rapid acceleration along the tarmac, Jordan felt his body relax for the first time that morning. He knew they would be in danger again when they landed, but for the next couple of hours he could rest.

He wondered again how much of a risk his traveling companion might be. Then he let the thought go.

He was asleep before the plane completed its ascent.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Fort Lauderdale was warm and humid, but Jordan was not slowed by the change to a tropical climate. They had disembarked without incident, and as they stepped out into the Florida sun, Sandor felt refreshed, his reserves of energy restored.

He removed his sport coat and took Christine’s jacket, folding them into his bag which he enlarged by unsnapping the sides. They took a cab and headed for the marina.