The Command (35 page)

He did, unwillingly. “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“It looks to be one of the ones was missing.”

She sat back. His eyes flicked to her chest before he disciplined his gaze back to the tabletop.

“Know where I found this pistol?”

“No.”

“I'm going to ask you to think about that answer again, Brother Jaleel. Because things are not looking too good for you right now. The navy's plan from here ends up with you behind bars for a long time. Have you heard of Fort Leavenworth?”

He mumbled something. “Excuse me?” she said. “I didn't hear that.”

“Said, I heard of it.”

“It's the federal penitentiary for service members convicted of major crimes of violence and theft. Leavenworth, Kansas. A long way from Detroit, Michigan.” He nodded, swallowed. “Do you want me to keep going?” she asked again. Thinking, maybe this isn't so hard after all. Feeling some guilt, too, about using Islam to gain his confidence. But she was telling the truth: The only way he was going to save himself was by cooperating.

“All right, Brother. I'll tell you what they have. And what we have to do. It took a couple of days, but the senior agent got permission for a room search over in the BEQ. Not on your room. We figured it wouldn't be there. So we searched the rooms of some of the guys you hang with. And guess what. Palmer—you hang with Palmer?”

He murmured unwillingly, “I know Palmer. Yeah.”

“Well, guess what he had under his mattress. A nine-millimeter Beretta 92F Are you with me so far?”

Childers stared at the gun.

“Okay, we could send this weapon by air to Norfolk. To a forensic lab with certified fingerprint examiners. But we don't need your fingerprints on it. Because Seaman Palmer has given you up. Confronted with federal charges, he decided to help us solve the case. Two hundred dollars. That's what he paid you for it. Do you think that was enough?”

He didn't answer and she made a mistake; let her voice go.
“Was it enough?”

He was shaking his head, she knew the tone was wrong even before the words were out of her mouth. The big Hershey-slab arms came up again and locked. “I ain't saying nothing. I ain't giving you nothing. I want a lawyer.”

This was the worst possible moment for an interruption, so of course that was when Diehl chose to lean in. “Doing okay in here?” he said, glancing at the enlisted man. “Need a hand?”

She frowned at him. “We're doing just fine. Brother Jaleel's going to help us out.”

“That's good,” Diehl said, but his voice was saying, Is he really? Doesn't look like it. But he closed the door anyway. Aisha breathed out.

“All right,” she told him. “You don't have to say anything. Just let me talk.”

Over the next hour, as the room grew hotter, she showed Childers there was no way he could avoid being convicted of multiple charges of theft of explosives and small arms. The violation was UCMJ Article 108: Military property, property of the United States, sale, loss, damage, destruction, or wrongful disposition. He could also be charged under Article 121, larceny of property. The recommended sentences were dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for ten years.

But it might be possible to overlook what he'd done. In fact, she had a paper with her that guaranteed that he would not go to prison. In black and white, signed by the base commander. The reason for their being willing to forego prosecution was that the navy wanted to recover the other pistols, the grenades, and most of all, the explosives, more than it wanted to fry Petty Officer Lyman S. Childers. He'd be discharged under “other than honorable” conditions. But he wouldn't have to stand trial or forfeit his pay. He'd go back to the States and be discharged there, a free man.

All he had to do was tell them where he'd disposed of the other materials, and who had them now.

She leaned back feeling sick, sweat trickling under her armpits. Now or never.

But Childers sat there without responding.

“What's the matter?” she asked at last. He still didn't say anything. But he was sweating now, too, beads prickling out on his forehead.

He cleared his throat, began to speak.

A tap at the door. The beefy red face of a white man who'd spent too much time in the sun. “Getting late. Read him his rights and let's get him over to the brig.”

“Just one more minute, Bob.” She was furious. Was he trying to be the bad cop, keeping the pressure on? Whatever he intended, it just made this guy upset, and when he got upset, he stopped cooperating. She said, “Will you excuse me a minute?”

“Huh? Oh, sure.”

“Want anything? A soda or anything?” Childers-Jaleel didn't answer and she said, “I'll get you a Coke while I'm up,” and let herself out into the corridor and closed the door.

Diehl stood there grinning. “Will you
go away
and
stop interrupting,
” she hissed.

“Just wanted to let you know, it's quitting time. I think you're right. If any of them know anything, he's the one. But he's not gonna give it up.”

“I had him ready to sign twice.”

“What happened?”

“You. Both times.”

“Uh-huh. Well, you're on your own, then. I'm going back to the Da-hab.” That was the name of the apartment building where they both lived, where most of the Americans who didn't live in the bachelor quarters on base lived. It was outside the base, in Juffair, a new quarter being built on reclaimed land.

“You go on. I'm going to keep on a little longer.”

He shrugged and went on down the corridor, rolling with that elephant-like gait he had, the combination of a seaman's walk and the lurch of a too-heavy old man whose joints were starting to give him trouble. Looking after him, she felt compassion. Still mixed, though, with her annoyance at his interference, at his jokes, his cigars, his sour looks when she wore hijab, his bad breath when he leaned close and explained in intimate and patronizing detail something she already knew.

When she went back in to Childers, he was standing by the window. Looking at the barbed wire outside.

“Brother Jaleel.” She stepped up next to him. His eyes shifted away. “I'm worried you're going to really hurt yourself here. And not just you. Those grenades could end up getting thrown at your shipmates. Or some innocent tourist family. I know what you think, we're all one big family, it doesn't matter where we're from or what color we are. That's the way it's supposed to be, but not all Muslims think that way. There's enough C-4 and grenades missing from your inventory to kill a lot of people.”

She waited, then went on when he didn't respond. “I don't know what these people told you. Maybe they said they were going to use it somewhere else. But where could they take it from here? We need to know who has it. You're the only one who can tell us.”

She figured this for her last shot, she'd done everything she could think of, but he still sat unresponding. So she said, even quieter, “I know you must not feel good about how this is turning out. Do you know what
tauba
means?”

“No.” He barely moved his lips.

“Tauba is sincere repentance. Do you want to know what I think? If you are really seeking God?” He shook his head, not looking at her.

“Brother Jaleel, al-Islam's not about stealing or lying. None of that has any place in our lives. I think you need to make sincere repentance and ask forgiveness for what you've done. You fell into error. But God has given you a great favor: a second chance, to do the right thing this time. Don't deny His blessing.” She nodded to the paper.
“That's
the right thing. I didn't have an easy time getting them to give us that. If you won't help us, then it's a court-martial and prison.”

He kept looking out the window. Not saying anything. And she'd pretty well accepted she'd lost, was turning away, when he grunted, “An honorable.”

“What?”

“I put in six good years. I ought to get an honorable discharge.”

She smiled. “Thank you, Brother Jaleel. I'll see what I can do.”

THE chief opened the locker and pulled out a wadded set of oil-smeared coveralls. Underneath them was a rusty toolbox. Aisha slid it out into the light. It was locked.

This presented a problem. Her search specified lockers, but not locked toolboxes. She couldn't open it without going back and getting another warrant. She shared her problem with the chief. Who said that was a bullshit rule, and he had a pry bar back in the shop.

It was nestled under the lift-out upper tray, wrapped in a rag. The olive-drab tangerine-sized sphere of an M67 fragmentation grenade.

Aisha straightened slowly from unwrapping it, suddenly tense, realizing she should have had the explosive ordnance disposal guys in on this search. Bob would have thought of that. But Bob wasn't here. Probably hunched over a martini recovering from his stressful day. Pete Garfield, the other agent, was coming in, though. But all this Shawki would have had to do was wire the lid to pull the pin when she opened it, and he'd have gotten both her and the chief in charge of the fuel pier.

But then, a lot had happened in the couple of hours since she'd left the armory. From a dead stop the case, as cases often did, had assumed velocity. When that happened there were a few golden hours where you were the only one who knew what was going on. You could take people by surprise. Then it turned from nine-to-five into twenty-four-seven. She had to keep pushing, before word got out and everyone on the other side clammed up or went underground. If she could
get her hands on the guns and grenades and explosives, she could close the case. And maybe save some people from getting killed.

Childers, or Jaleel, had finally come out with it. Though not before seeing a lawyer. The office sent Palzkill over, the lieutenant she'd run into on the pier. He confirmed the revised letter of agreement would do everything Aisha said it would. Childers was free and clear, he'd get an honorable discharge and be exempt from prosecution.

Then, and only then, he'd started talking. As soon as he did, she'd called Pete in to help her.

Jaleel said he'd stolen the grenades and explosive at the urging of a Bahraini named Shawki. Shawki worked on base, in the fuel facility. Why did Shawki want this stuff, she'd asked him. Childers said he didn't know. He just wanted grenades and explosive and had asked him to help him get them. (This she didn't believe, but as long as he was naming names, she wasn't going to quiz him about his motivation.) He'd taken the pistols to make money on the side, there were always guys on base or the ships who'd pay for a Beretta. He gave her the names of those he'd sold the others to, and told her where to look, in a rented locker at the base swimming pool, for the one he'd kept himself.

She'd called over immediately to Base Security and the fuel pier to have Shawki held, but they reported back he wasn't there. Shawki al-Dhoura had gone night shift the week before and was probably home in bed.

So she'd come right over and now, looking at the grenade, she told the chief, “I'll need to tag this as evidence. You're my witness. Is there anywhere else here he could have hidden things? Shawki?”

“This is the only locker that's personally his. I guess he could've hidden stuff anyplace, though. Want us to look around?”

“Let's hold off on that until I can make some calls. And another thing. Don't tell anybody I was here, or what I found. There might be others here who are in on what's going on. We're going to try to pick him up before he realizes he's under suspicion.”

“What
is
going on?” the chief wanted to know.

“I can't tell you that. The investigation's in progress. Later. First we've got to find this Shawki. I'm going to send over an explosives team and I want you to let them do a search.”

The chief said he would, but if there was a bomb, they had too damn much fuel around not to tell him about it. She agreed they'd keep him informed and looked at the box again. Remembering the grenade, how easily the man who left it there could have killed her.

She took a deep breath, and asked the chief where they could find Shawki on his off hours.

SHE pulled the Chevy over just past the National Museum, just before the causeway. Looking for Major Yousif. In the passenger seat, a semi-snockered Diehl was blowing lint out of the barrel of his .357. Unhol-stering your weapon was a violation of NCIS policy, but she wasn't about to call an agent with twenty-two years of service on it. Garfield was in the backseat, also armed. She and Pete were wearing the new issue Kevlar vests. Diehl couldn't get into his; it was still in the trunk.

“There he is,” Garfield said.

Yousif asked them to leave the Chevy, and climb into the back of an anonymous-looking light green panel truck. The address the chief had given them for Shawki al-Dhoura was in Muharraq, the island the airport was built on.

It had taken a couple of hours to pull this together. She couldn't just drive out and slap the cuffs on al-Dhoura. The Bahrainis had to make the arrest. No American held any police powers off base. She wasn't clear on the mechanics of a search warrant here, or if they needed one under Bahraini law. But Yousif had pulled it together pretty quickly. What was important now was getting their hands on this Shawki before he got wind his friend had dropped the dime on him.

“I'd like to go in first, alone,” she told Yousif. Who elevated his eyebrows, looking back at the squad of armed assault cops on the benches in the back of the truck.

“You?”

“Me.”

“Alone?”

“They don't know me. They won't suspect a woman. And I'll be armed. Block the back, like you planned. In case he bails out. I'll leave my cell phone on, under my coat. You can hear everything and be ready to come in.”