Word of honor, p.23
Word of Honor, page 23
Lynda pursed her lips, thinking fast. “But one of them is not military. Emma Peña. She’s a contractor and has worked for us before.” She turned to Dan. “Could you wire the room so they could see every angle?”
He shrugged. “Absolutely. No one would even know I’d done it.”
Refocusing on her boss, she said, “They could just observe in a different room. And share their observations with Emma.”
Perry’s eyes crossed over the board before he looked at her again. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks.” She turned back to the board. “Why is Damien Cisco here?”
“Do you think he’s planning something in DC?”
“He’s either planning something or he’s following me. But why would he be following me?”
She glanced his way, saw the darkened expression on his face. “I’m not crazy about that idea.”
“Nor am I,” she said. “But if he knows I spoke to Debra, then he was either watching her or following me.”
Perry crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against a table. “Or he has someone else doing that. I have a couple of techs pulling traffic cam footage around the area where you were yesterday. We’ll get them to analyze whether someone was following you.”
“That would be great to know. Good idea.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “How did your call with the FAA go?”
“Good. They’re testing fuel nationally, and airports have heightened security. Beyond that, there isn’t much more they can do.”
“I’m just thankful no more planes went down.”
“We all are. We need to look at what we’ve accomplished here and recognize that we’ve done a remarkable job.”
“You’re right,” she said. If only they could stop Damien Cisco. “We have a team meeting at eleven. Are you running it or do you want me to?”
“I’ll do it. I’ll go get my notes and see you in there.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
DECEMBER 16
Usually when he returned to the States after a deployment, Bill slept for about sixteen hours, then went to a restaurant for the biggest, thickest burger he could find. This time, he changed into civilian clothes while on the plane. Once they landed in Maryland, he and Rick rented a car and followed Peña, Selah, and Agent Lewis to DC. Despite the fact that the uniformed services never served as law enforcement officers or had any authority with civilians on domestic soil, the FBI had requested that Bill’s team work with the domestic agents while they tactically debriefed the prisoners.
Once they checked into the FBI headquarters building, they walked through a maze of hallways and into a room filled with screens and speakers. Three of the screens showed an interview room from different angles. A man with tan skin, straight black hair, and glasses sat at a console wearing headphones. He glanced in their direction when they came in but didn’t speak.
Bill leaned toward Peña. “I’m not too comfortable with this, brother. What do you think?”
Peña had his arms crossed and lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Emma’s a contractor. She has all the freedom to do what needs to be done. We’re just observing.”
“Haynes knows the law.”
“That’s why he won’t see us.”
The door opened, and Bill’s heart skipped a beat when Lynda walked in. She saw him and grinned broadly, then hugged Selah.
“We’re bringing Jack in now,” she said. “My director wants everything we can get on the Russians. Jack’s admitted to very little. He’s hard to break because he knows how we work.”
“As soon as our plane took off, he quit acting like he wanted to cooperate. I think he was just playing us to get him out of the country.” Bill slipped his hands into his pockets and wiggled his feet inside his hiking boots. It felt good to be out of his uniform.
“I guess we just need him to want to help us more than any other alternative,” Lynda said.
“Why do you want us here?” Rick asked.
“Because you’ve had him this whole time. You’ve got a feel of his rhythm and moods. We need to find Cisco. And we’d really love to, you know, break down that whole Russian cell.”
“Just the easy stuff,” Bill said with a wink.
Her cheeks reddened. “Exactly.” She opened a small cardboard box and handed out earpieces. “I want you all in Emma’s ear. We have cameras at every angle. You’ll even be able to see his feet or lap. Agent Dan Tanaka here”—she pointed to the man at the computer console—“wired the entire room. Jack is going to be cocky and arrogant, especially now that handing him over to the Middle Eastern countries is apparently off the table, but there has to be a way to make him break.”
Selah looked at her husband. “Jorge is a better interrogator than me. You really should put him in there.”
“That would break several laws, and Jack knows the law.” Lynda set the empty box on a desk. “Ready?”
Selah took a deep breath and inserted the earpiece.
Lynda gestured to Agent Tanaka again. “Dan is going to be your tech support. Just ask him for angles, sounds, whatever you need. He’s the master.”
She and Selah left the room. Bill walked over to the screen and asked, “I can see his lap?”
Tanaka slipped one headphone off. “Yeah. There’s a camera under the table.”
“Give me that angle and one of his left side.”
“Roger.”
Bill stood back and observed Haynes’s demeanor when they brought him into the room. He sneered at Lynda, licked his lips. She didn’t even flinch. Bill’s fists ached to teach him a lesson.
He observed Haynes’s body language as he sat down. A moment later, Selah began talking to him in Russian. That seemed to throw Haynes for a loop and knocked the arrogance down about 5 percent. His hands clenched and unclenched even though his face stayed neutral. A couple of times, he gripped his pants leg and even pinched himself as he answered.
Bill ran his hand down his beard a few times before he spoke. “Selah, whatever you just said, he pinched himself to keep his face straight.”
Rick walked over and looked at his angle. “Thoughts?”
Peña shrugged. “He’s terrified. I mean, he’s a cop, a terrorist, and part of the Russian mafia. He’s not going to live a week in prison.”
“Selah, he did it again,” Bill said. “Stay on that track.”
“He doesn’t know we can see his hands, does he?” Rick asked Tanaka.
“No reason he would,” the agent replied. “I mean, what weirdo puts cameras on the underside of an interview table?”
Peña chuckled. “I’m guessing you?”
“You betcha. The other option was a glass table, but it was disallowed. Some silliness about safety.”
Bill grinned. He liked Dan Tanaka. “There. Again, Selah.” Haynes’s face remained calm, charming. He occasionally smiled in such a way that Bill assumed he practiced. “Agent Tanaka, you deserve a prize, brother.”
On the screen, Selah said something in Russian, and Haynes pushed away from the table. The agent guarding the door stepped forward. Haynes jerked the guard’s hand away from his shoulder and started to sit down, then lunged at Lynda. She and Selah stood so fast that their chairs flew out behind them.
Peña started toward the door. Rick stepped in front of him. “Stay in your lane, Lieutenant.”
The guard wrestled Haynes to the ground and secured his wrists. For ten more minutes, Haynes and Selah talked. Bill watched the man’s face, but his expression gave nothing away.
“It would be nice to still have his hands,” Bill said.
“Not necessary,” Selah replied. She looked at one of the cameras. “We got it.”
A few minutes later, the door opened and Selah walked in. “We have his agreement to turn state’s witness against the mafia in exchange for protective custody.”
“Fantastic,” Bill said with a grin. “Did we get Cisco too?”
“No, but Haynes confirmed his identity through the photos.”
Selah never ceased to surprise him in an interview. Often, when he was present, she spoke a foreign language. So even though he never understood what she said, he could see the results as men twice her size buckled in front of her.
This time, though, he wanted to know. “What did you say to him?”
She smiled. “I promised him that we’d accidentally put him into the general population in Sing Sing after we had federal indictments handed down with his name listed as a main witness.”
He chuckled. “You don’t have the power to do that. And you have a boatload of morals that would keep you from sending him to the dogs that way.”
“Well, I know it and you know it. But Jack there, speaking in Russian and already trying to reckon how he’s going to survive prison under protection, didn’t know that.”
He shook his head. “Never let me be on the opposite side of the table from you.”
Peña slapped him on the back. “I say that to her regularly.”
Selah slipped the earpiece out and put it in the cardboard box. Everyone else followed suit.
“Where’d Lynda go?” Bill asked.
“Went to call her boss and get protection going.”
Peña put his arm around her shoulders. Bill rarely saw public displays of affection from either one of them. “Well done.”
“You know, when you learn from the best . . .” She grinned at him and jerked her head toward the door. “Ready to go? You have all of my attention for the next two weeks, then I have to go to Syria.” She held up her badge. “My pass doesn’t require an agent to escort us around the building, so we don’t need to wait.”
Peña looked at Rick. “Sir?”
“You’re officially on leave. Enjoy your holidays. Merry Christmas. See you in Kentucky in two weeks.” Rick turned to Bill. “What about you?”
“I think I’m going to stay in town for a couple of days.”
“Fair enough.” He looked at his watch. “I have to go to my in-laws’ for dinner. I think I’ll walk with Selah and let her be my escort out of the building. I’ll see you later.”
Just when Bill tried to decide if he should wait or leave with the group, Lynda came through the door. A glow of happiness seemed to light her up from the inside. “You all are a fantastic team. Thank you for your help.”
“Our pleasure.” He looked at his watch. His body ached with fatigue. “I need to go sleep off some of this jet lag. Could we meet tomorrow? Maybe midmorning?”
She hesitated only slightly before she grinned up at him. “Yes. I think I can swing taking tomorrow off. It’s Saturday, after all.”
They walked out of the office and down the hall. “Good job, Agent Clever. I remain impressed at your ways.”
“I couldn’t have done anything without your team. Seriously.”
“I’ll let the captain know.”
In the elevator, she put a hand on his arm, and he looked into her eyes. “I’m really happy you’re here right now. I’m glad Captain Norton put you on this detail.”
His blood roared in his ears, and he gently brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. “Me too, Lynda.”
★ ★ ★
While guards processed Jack for transport, Lynda leaned against her desk and observed. For the last two hours, she and Perry had worked with Jack to craft a very long and detailed statement about the mafia cell for whom he worked and his relationship with Green War. She had that statement tucked under her arm.
Once the guards went through the explanation of what would happen next, they cuffed Jack’s wrists and ankles. When he turned and saw her, he glared for a moment, then grinned. “Well, my dear, looks like you got me now.”
She gave a closed-lip smile. “Looks like.”
“Do you have nothing to ask me? Did I ever really love you, that kind of thing?”
She walked up to him. “Jack, I am many things. A simpering fool is not one of them. There are a lot of emotions I’ve had to deal with in the last several months. But make no mistake, I’ve dealt with them.” She glanced at the US marshal to his right and asked, “All set?”
“Yes. Just sign here.” He held out his phone. She skimmed the open document and signed with her finger.
Lynda followed the marshals while they walked Jack to the parking garage and loaded him into the back of an SUV. They started to drive away as she swiped herself back into the building.
While she waited for the elevator, an explosion knocked her to her knees. The metal garage door crashed into the wall next to her, and she covered her ears and ducked. As soon as she could catch her breath and get to her feet, she rushed through the door.
Her steps faltered as a rush of emotion surged through her chest, momentarily freezing her in place. Flames engulfed the SUV. It took a moment for her brain to kick in and realize that a car bomb had just gone off. In the parking garage of the FBI building! How could this have happened?
When the heat of the fire reached her, she lifted an arm to shield her face. Acrid smoke burned her eyes and nostrils. Alarms went off, and the sprinkler system engaged. She held her arm to her nose and tried to get to the burning vehicle to see if anyone was still inside, but it was too hot. She looked around, looking for any other witnesses, but saw no one.
★ ★ ★
Lynda took a sip of coffee. Her throat still burned from the fumes she’d inhaled, but the doctor at the scene had cleared her. An agent had gone to her hotel room and retrieved dry clothes for her.
She was still trying to process everything that had just happened. If she had been a second later in turning around, she would have been caught in the blast and likely killed.
She thought of the two US marshals who had treated her kindly and with respect. They had done their jobs with precision and professionalism. One of them had worn a wedding ring. She wondered about their families, possible children, and her heart clenched. To lose a parent would be so hard. To lose a parent the week before Christmas seemed like an extra dose of pain.
Her mind walked through Jack getting into the vehicle and his last words to her. So many things she could have said to him, so many ways she could have put him in his proper place, and now she’d never have a chance. Had she gotten over the vile words he’d said to her in Kuwait, the ways he’d used her? She hoped so. And she hoped the finality of his time on earth would help her in the healing process.
He’d used her, but it didn’t have anything to do with her. She was just a pawn in his larger scheme. Understanding that would go a long way in helping her heal.
Now she sat in Perry’s temporary office with his senior director next to her on the couch. “Did the bomb come from the mob or Green War?” Director Evans asked.
“How would they know we were transferring him today?” Lynda asked, rubbing the tense muscles on the back of her neck.
Director Evans tossed his empty coffee cup into the trash can. It hit the rim and slid in. “They always know.”
An agent appeared in the doorway. “Bomb had Volkov’s signature, sir.” He held up a file. “Do you want details?”
Perry nodded and held out his hand. As soon as the agent gave him the file, he looked at Lynda. “Do you want in on this?”
More than anything. “Yes, sir.”
He held out the file. “Compare and contrast.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want to know how closely embedded the two organizations are.”
“Understood.”
He was giving her a new puzzle so she could get her mind off the explosion, and she appreciated it. She stood, and Director Evans looked up at her.
“All the resources you need, Agent,” he said. “Just say the word.”
“Thank you, sir.”
She went back to the situation room, grabbed a new whiteboard, and lined it up with the other two she’d set up. Methodically, she read the file on the bomb and added notes, images, and details to the whiteboard. She pinned Jack’s picture to the board and used red string to connect him to both the Green War terrorists and the mafia.
Next, she analyzed the bomb. She had only preliminary reports from that afternoon, so she dug into the reports about the bombs used on the pipelines and in the attacks by the mafia.
At some point, Dan handed her a hamburger. She sat in a chair, her legs propped up on the table. While looking at the pictures and lab reports and technical specifications, she slowly ate the burger. She tried to pull everything together into a single, cohesive story.
When she realized she had emptied her water bottle, she straightened and glanced at the clock, not surprised that it was almost nine at night. She grabbed another bottle of water and found Perry in his office. He looked up expectantly when she knocked on his doorframe.
“Well?”
“The last three bombings that we could attribute definitively to Russian mafia influence used the same signature. This is different from what Green War was using on the pipelines, but I don’t think that’s significant because you’d use a different bomb on a pipeline than a car. I’m feeling confident that it was the ecoterrorist organization trying to look like the mafia.”
Perry pursed his lips and sat back in his chair, tapping his mouth with his finger. “They’ve been in bed together. Do you think this was a joint thing?”
She shrugged. “I don’t have enough information to analyze that.”
“Agent, there are times hypotheses are acceptable and even expected.”
She sighed. “I’m wondering the same thing. We know someone is here, right? Maybe it’s Cisco, maybe it’s a soldier. But Debra Lucas was killed and directly tied to Green War. I think it’s probably safe to say that Jack knew too much about both organizations, and that made him dangerous. It would make sense.”
“Very good.” Perry checked his watch. “The director still wants us to leave tomorrow. Take all of this back to Anchorage with you, Tanaka, and me.”
“Even with the murders that happened today?”
He pressed a button on his phone to silence an incoming call. “Local homicide is working the murder and feeding information to us. The bombing is being handled by an entirely different department that is feeding information to us. Despite it all being part of a bigger picture, we can do what we need to do from our home base. We will be more efficient in our own homes than in hotels away from our families.”
