The Assassin's Trail (14 page)

St. Louis, MO

Thursday

Kruger’s drive to St. Louis started early. With Stephanie out of town, he’d slept poorly and was on the road by 4:30 a.m. Clark’s plane arrived at Lambert International Airport a little after 9 a.m. and by 10:30, their surveillance had started.

Centering their search on the busy Westport Plaza area of St. Louis, they were watching two coffee shops. Both identified by JR as frequent Wi-Fi access points for the Traveler. Clark’s location was a Starbucks and Kruger’s a St. Louis Bread Company location several blocks away. Clark sat at a table by the main entrance, which permitted an unobstructed view of the remaining tables. Kruger had chosen a similar spot at his location.

Paul Stumpf had arranged for Clark to be sworn in as a US Marshall on Tuesday. This provided jurisdiction in St. Louis, should they need to arrest the Traveler. Plus it permitted Clark to carry his service weapon on an airline flight.

“Exactly who are we looking for?” said Clark during the drive from the airport.

“We don’t know exactly,” said Kruger, “This may be a fool’s errand, but it’s a starting point. We gave him a code name, Traveler. The evidence we have so far points to him as the leader of a group responsible for the Washington and Kansas City murders. If he isn't, he might lead us to the individual who is responsible. I think it's important we find him.”

Clark nodded. “Makes sense. Tell me about the picture files you sent. Are they all suspects?”

Kruger shook his head. “No, they're individuals Thomas Cooper served with while in the military. We eliminated the ones currently overseas or ones we determined weren’t involved. Which left ten men, and we suspect the Traveler is one of those ten.”

Clark was silent for a minute. “I brought the communication gear you requested, it's in my backpack. Cool stuff, tiny ear buds, tiny mikes and the wireless receivers can be hidden anywhere. Not items you’d find at Best Buy, are they?”

Kruger chuckled, “Nope, I don't suppose they are. Hopefully we can use the gear to communicate discretely.”

“Alan Seltzer mentioned we had help. Who is it?”

“A very bright and talented forensic technician from the Bureau is assisting an old friend of mine. The friend is very handy with a computer.”

“Seltzer warned me about asking too many questions concerning your friend.”

“You can ask,” Kruger grinned, “I just won't answer.”

“Okay, I get it. I won’t ask.”

Kruger glanced over at his friend. Clark was concentrating on the road more intently than a driver. His jaw muscles clenched and his brow furrowed. Kruger said, “Don’t be nervous, Ryan.”

Clark shook his head. “I’m not. I just don’t want to screw up.”

“You won’t.”

Thinking back on the first time he’d met Ryan Clark, Kruger remembered a young detective with drive and determination. The Beltway Sniper was terrorizing the Washington, D.C., area during the fall of 2002. Clark had just been promoted to detective, and Kruger was one of several FBI profilers working the case. Clark was married, but the relationship was stressed due to the hours he spent away from home.

One evening, while they were on a dinner break together, Clark said, “How do you deal with being away from your wife?”

“I’m not married. Divorced, actually.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It happened a long time ago.”

Clark was quiet. They both ate in silence for several minutes. Finally Kruger said, “It hurts at first. It makes you feel like a failure. But once a little time goes by, you realize it wasn’t completely your fault. There was another person involved. They also had some responsibility in the marriage collapsing.”

Clark nodded. “I just can’t put my finger on when things started going downhill.”

“Don’t try to figure it out, it will drive you nuts. It happens. I saw the warning signs in my marriage didn’t acknowledge them until it was over. While I was married, I blissfully ignored them.”

“I’m wondering if I even want to save the marriage.”

Taking a sip of coffee, Kruger smiled grimly. “You probably don’t. Motivations are a tricky part of the human psyche. Our true motivations are sometimes masked by contrary behavior.”

Clark looked at Kruger with a frown. “How so?”

Shrugging, Kruger took another sip of his coffee. “Various ways. What have you done to save the marriage?”

“Counseling.”

Kruger nodded. “But you haven’t stopped working long hours.”

Clark stared at him for a long time. “You know how the job works.”

Remaining quiet, Kruger sat and looked at his new friend. Clark’s shoulders slumped and he looked down at the table. His only response was to shake his head.

“Ryan, it takes two people working together to keep a marriage alive. If you’re not willing to put the effort in, let it go.”

A decade later, Clark was still single and sitting in the passenger seat of Kruger’s Mustang. He said, “What’s our first step, Sean?”

“After we get in position, our friends will monitor the Traveler’s computer. If he accesses the internet, we’ll be notified. If one of us is in the correct location, you’ll receive a simple text message, ‘Your Location.’ If it’s where you are, use your radio and call me immediately. I’ll come to you. Same process if I’m in the right spot.”

“Okay, what if he accesses the internet from a completely different location?”

“Our friend will send the GPS location in a text message to my cell phone. We’ll move as quickly as possible.”

Clark was quiet. Finally he said, “Sean, do you honestly think this will work?”

Kruger shrugged. “If he's still in St. Louis, it might. He's been offline for two days, so he might have moved. But my friend doesn’t think so.”

Time pasted slowly. Kruger ordered a sandwich around noon to blend into the now crowded restaurant. By 2 p.m., he was thinking about suspending the operation when he got a text message giving a GPS location and the words, 2 blocks west. He activated his radio and said quietly, “Get to the car, they found him.”

Ten minutes later, they were ready to enter the Bean Counter Coffee Shop. It was large by coffee shop standards and fairly crowded for midafternoon. Kruger entered first and found an empty table in the middle of the room against a wall. With the ten pictures of suspects on his cell phone, he was just another patron staring at a phone. Clark entered several minutes later and found an empty table near the shop’s front entrance. He too consulted the pictures on his phone and surveyed the room.

Kruger received a text message,
Accessing net now
, so he nonchalantly scanned the room as if looking for someone to take his order. There were several men typing away on their computers, but only one of them matched a picture on his cell phone.

The picture identified the man on the computer as Norman Ortega. He was a former sergeant of Cooper’s. He was older than the picture, wore glasses, shaved head, and had grown a mustache and goatee. But the eyes were the same, cold and unemotional. It was him.

He replied to JR's text with Ortega's name and the words
need more data
Clark was copied on the text. Standing to go to the bar for coffee, he casually surveyed the room. After paying for the coffee, Clark headed back to his seat, looked at Kruger and slightly nodded. He had a visual on Ortega.

Now the tricky part. Kruger sent Clark a text message:
Going to car will wait for T to exit.
You follow. I’ll back up.
If Ortega became suspicious, Kruger was sure the man would disappear.

While sitting in the car waiting, Kruger called JR. Surprisingly, he answered, “Yeah?”

Kruger said, “Get me all you can on Ortega.”

“We’re on it. Traveler made contact with the computer in the Baltimore area. Their target is out of town until June. They’re now trading messages about contingency plans.”

“Interesting. Was the target identified?”

“Not yet.”

“As soon as you can, check to see if he’s in a hotel around here under his real name.”

The call ended just as Ortega exited the coffee shop. The man walked toward the parking lot, paused, lit a cigarette, looked around, and then headed toward an area packed with cars. Clark appeared at the door of the shop, trying to keep his eye on Ortega. Kruger couldn’t tell if Clark had a visual on the suspect, so he opened the car door and stood. Quickly scanning the parking lot, he saw no one. The man had disappeared.

***

At first he didn't think there was a problem, but Norman Ortega watched as a man entered the Starbucks around 10:30 a.m. There was nothing suspicious about the guy, other than that neon sign above his head flashing
COP
. Ortega shut his computer off and studied the new arrival. The man was about five-feet-ten, clean shaven, with a slender build and short brown hair. Not military short, but close. He wore Nike running shoes, blue jeans, a light blue polo shirt, and a black Nike windbreaker. A slight bulge in the windbreaker on his right hip gave him away—a holstered weapon.

He watched as the cop ordered a coffee from one of the baristas. So far it was innocent, just an off-duty cop getting a coffee. After sitting down at a table, the guy pulled a smart phone out, glanced at the screen, and then surveyed the room. When the cop did this for the third time, Ortega had seen enough. He packed his computer into his backpack and looked for a way to leave without getting too close to the man. An opportunity presented itself as a large group finished their meeting and started to leave. He joined the crowd, kept his head down and managed to exit the building without drawing any attention. Returning to his car, he drove to another coffee shop he liked. No point in taking any chances. He doubted it was anything other than an off duty cop getting a coffee. But why be careless.

After several hours of writing, he had enough messages prepared to access the internet and start the tedious communications process. Finally, Billy was back online. The first message from Billy reported the target was not scheduled to return to Washington, D.C., until June. Two more weeks. A delay of that duration was too long for their timetable. It had to be sooner. After an internet search, Ortega discovered the target’s mother-in-law had passed away. His return to Washington was being delayed by family matters in his home district.

Glancing up from the computer, his heart almost stopped. The cop from Starbucks was sitting at the front of the coffee shop. He was following the same procedure from the morning, glancing at his phone and surveying the room. This was not a coincidence. Somehow, he was being tracked. He watched as the cop stood and walked to the coffee bar. As he returned to his table, Ortega noticed his head turned slightly and barely nodded at another man sitting in the middle of the room.

Ortega thought the new guy looked familiar, but he couldn't place him. Finally, remembering, he opened a video file on the computer and checked several news clips made during the media coverage at Cooper’s farm. The video he was searching for was a long-range camera shot of two men standing next to the barn where Cooper had stored the C4.

Ortega remembered the clip, having viewed it dozens of times. It was the moment he realized all the C4 had been found. The news announcer had identified one of the men as the local county sheriff and the other as an FBI agent. Pausing the video, Ortega stared at the profile of the FBI agent and then at the guy sitting in the middle of the coffee shop. It was hard to make an exact match, considering the distance of the camera shot, but there was a strong resemblance. This was no coincidence. They'd found him.

It was time to leave. Ortega started considering his options for the best way to exit the shop. After ten more minutes, the FBI man got up and left, leaving the other cop sitting next to the front door. There were no other exits visible except the front door. He got up and walked to the restroom in the back. The rear exit door was for emergencies only and an alarm would sound if opened. Leaving this way would draw too much attention. The front door was his only option.

Returning to his table, he closed the laptop, placed it in his backpack, threw a $5 bill on the table, and casually walked through the shop toward the front door. Turning his head as he approached the door, his face was away from the cop as he reached for a pack of cigarettes in the backpack. Outside the shop, he paused to light a cigarette and quickly scanned the area. Not seeing the FBI agent anywhere, he started walking toward the parking lot. Once among the cars in the tightly packed parking spaces, he bent over below the roof lines and hurried toward his car. Once there, he carefully opened the door, slid behind the wheel, hunched down in the seat, and waited.

***

Kruger sat back down in the car while Clark hurriedly walked to the Mustang and got in. He said, “Damn, he must have made me. Sorry, Sean, I think I blew it.”

Shaking his head, Kruger said, “No, I should have realized, a lot of video was being shot by the news media at Cooper’s farm. I'm positive the cameras were trained on the barn when the Hummers showed up. I was outside with the sheriff during that time. I guarantee you I’m in those shots, and Ortega probably scrutinized them very carefully. More than likely he recognized me, not you.”