The Lion's Game (77 page)

It seemed that everyone knew I was ex-NYPD, so I guess they’d been warned, if that’s the right word, or perhaps they just figured it out.

It was one of those times when things seem calm and normal, but everyone knows that a ringing telephone could stop the show and make your blood run cold. I’ve been there, and so had everyone else in that house. I guess I must thrive on this stuff because I wasn’t thinking about my nice, safe classroom at John Jay. I was thinking of Asad Khalil, and I could almost taste the murdering bastard. In fact, I thought of Colonel Hambrecht being chopped to death with an ax, and the schoolkids in Brussels.

An hour went by, and the five agents took turns alternating guard posts. Kate and I volunteered to relieve them, but they seemed to want us in the kitchen.

Scott was at the table now and wanted to know about New York City. I tried to convince him that people surfed in the East River and everyone chuckled. I was tempted to tell my Attorney General joke, but it might be taken wrong.

Anyway, I was being modest about my contributions to the case, hardly mentioning that I’d figured out what Asad Khalil was up to, and glossing over my blinding brilliance regarding identifying the pilots who were marked for death.

On this subject, everyone was sort of glum, realizing that a lot of good guys, who had served their country, were now dead, murdered by a foreign agent. This was not supposed to happen.

It was close to 9:00 P.M. when a phone rang somewhere, and the talk stopped.

Tom came into the kitchen within seconds and said, “There’s a blue delivery van cruising the neighborhood, single male occupant driving. The guys with the night vision say he fits the description of the suspect. Everyone take their posts.”

Everyone was already up and moving, and Tom said to Kate and me, “Go into the TV room.” He quickly left the kitchen as Kim Rhee went into the garage where Roger Fleming was now pulling duty. She left the door open, and I could see Roger crouched behind the cardboard boxes with his gun drawn. Kim pulled her piece and went to the garage door and stood to the side next to the lighted electric door opener.

Juan was at the back kitchen door, gun drawn, standing off to the side.

Kate and I went into the living room where Tom and Edie stood, guns drawn, on both sides of the front door. Scott was standing in front of the door, peering through the peephole. I couldn’t help noticing that Scott had all his clothes off, except for a pair of baggy bathing trunks, in the back of which protruded the butt of a Glock. I guess this was the California version of undercover. In any case, I gave the guy credit for not wearing a bulletproof vest.

Tom saw us and again strongly suggested we retreat into the TV room, but he figured out quickly that we hadn’t come three thousand miles to watch TV while the bust went down. He said, “Take cover, over here.”

Kate moved beside Tom, who was to the left of the door, and drew her piece. I moved beside Edie, who was wedged against a small space between the door and the right-hand wall of the living room. The door would open toward us, and we would be behind it as it opened. There were enough guns drawn, so I didn’t draw my Glock. I looked at Kate, who looked back at me, smiled and winked. My heart was pounding, but not, I’m afraid, for Kate Mayfield.

Tom had the cell phone to his ear, and he was listening. He said to us, “The van is slowing down a few doors away ...”

Scott, at the peephole, said, “I see it. He’s stopping in front of the house.”

You could hear the breathing in the room, and despite all the backup and all the high-tech stuff and the bulletproof vests, there’s still nothing quite like the moment when you’re about to come face-to-face with an armed killer.

Scott, pretty cool, I thought, said, “A guy is getting out of the van ... street side, can’t see him ... he’s going to the rear ... opening the doors ... he’s got a package ... coming this way ... fits the description ... tall, Mideastern type ... wearing jeans and a dark-collared shirt, carrying a small package in one hand ... looking up and down the block ...”

Tom was saying something into the cell phone, then put it in his pocket. He said to us, softly, “You all know what to do.”

Actually, I missed that rehearsal.

Tom said, “Keep in mind, it could be an innocent delivery man ... don’t get too physical, but get him down and get the cuffs on him.”

I wondered what happened to the goo-gun. I felt my face getting a little sweaty.

The doorbell rang. Scott waited about five seconds, then reached for the knob and opened the door. Before the door blocked my view, I saw Scott smiling as he said, “Something for me?”

“Mr. Wiggins?” said a voice with an accent.

“No,” replied Scott, “I’m just housesitting. You want me to sign for that?”

“When will Mr. Wiggins be home?”

“Thursday. Maybe Friday. I can sign. It’s okay.”

“Okay. Please sign here.”

I heard Scott say, “This pen doesn’t write. Come on in.”

Scott backed away from the door, and I couldn’t help but think that if Scott were really a housesitter, he’d soon be dead and stinking in the back room while Asad Khalil waited for Mr. Wiggins to return home.

The tall, swarthy gentleman stepped a few feet into the living room, just clearing the door, which Edie kicked shut. Even without being briefed, I knew what was going to happen next. Before you could say abracadabra, Scott grabbed the guy’s shirt and yanked him into the waiting crowd.

Within about four seconds, our visitor was pinned face down with me on his legs, Edie’s foot on his neck, and Tom and Scott putting the cuffs on him.

Kate opened the door and signaled with a thumbs-up to whoever was watching through binoculars, then she ran down the walkway to the van, and I followed her.

We checked out the van, but there was no one in it. A few packages lay scattered on the floor, and Kate found a cell phone on the front seat, which she took.

Cars started appearing out of nowhere, screeching to a halt on the street in front of the house as agents jumped out, just like in the movies, although I don’t see the need for the screeching. Kate said to them, “He’s cuffed.”

The garage door had opened, I noticed, and Roger and Kim were on the lawn now. Still no neighbors around. I had the unkind thought that if this were a movie being made, the crowds would be uncontrollable, as people shouted out offers to be an extra.

Anyway, as per SOP, the stakeout people all got back in their vehicles and began leaving to resume their watch of the house so as not to scare off any accomplice that might show up, not to mention upsetting Mr. Wiggins, if he came home—or his neighbors, who might eventually notice.

Kate and I ran back into the house where the prisoner was now lying on his back, being closely searched by Edie and Scott, as Tom stood over the guy.

I looked at the man and was not overly surprised to discover that it wasn’t Asad Khalil.

Kate and I looked at each other, then at everyone around us. No one looked real happy.

Edie said, “He’s clean.”

The man was sort of blubbering, tears streaming down his face. If anyone had any doubts that this was not Asad Khalil, the blubbering clinched it.

Roger and Kim were in the living room now, and Kim said she was going to radio the stakeout units and tell them that the delivery guy wasn’t our man, and to stay alert.

Scott had the guy’s wallet and was rummaging through it. He asked the guy, “What’s your name?”

The man tried to get himself under control and sobbed out something that sounded like a mixture of phlegm and snot.

Scott, holding the guy’s driver’s license with his photo said again, “Tell me your name.”

“Azim Rahman.”

“Where do you live?”

The man gave a Los Angeles address.

“What’s your birth date?”

And so on. The guy got all the driver’s license questions correct, which led him to believe he was about to be sent on his way. Wrong.

Tom started asking him questions that weren’t on the driver’s license, such as, “What are you doing here?”

“Please, sir, I have come to deliver a package.”

Roger was examining the small package, but didn’t open it, of course, in case it contained a little bomb. “What’s in here?” Roger demanded.

“I do not know, sir.”

Roger said to everyone, “There’s no return address on this.” He added, “I’ll put this out back and call for a bomb disposal truck,” and off he went, which made everyone a little happier.

Juan entered the living room, and by this time Azim Rahman was probably wondering why all these guys with FBI windbreakers were hanging around Mr. Wiggins’ house. But maybe he knew why.

I looked at Tom’s face and saw that he was worried. Knocking around a citizen, native-born or naturalized, was not good for the old career, not to mention the FBI image. Even knocking around an illegal alien could get you into hot water these days. I mean, we’re all citizens of the world. Right?

On that thought, Tom asked Mr. Rahman, “You a citizen?”

“Yes, sir. I have taken the oath.”

“Good for you,” said Tom.

Tom asked Rahman a bunch of questions about his neighborhood in West Hollywood, which Rahman seemed able to answer, then he asked him a lot of other questions, sort of Civics 101 stuff, which Rahman answered not too badly. He even knew who the Governor of California was, which made me suspicious that he was a spy. But then he didn’t know who his Congressman was, and I concluded he was a citizen.

Again, I looked at Kate, and she shook her head. I was feeling pretty low at that moment, and so was everyone else. Why don’t things go as planned? Whose side was God on, anyway?

Edie had dialed the home phone number that Mr. Rahman had given her, and she confirmed that an answering machine answered “Rahman residence,” and the voice sounded like the guy on the floor, despite the man’s present emotional state.

Edie did say, however, that the phone number on the Rapid Delivery Service van was a non-working number. I suggested that the paint on the van looked new. Everyone stared at Azim Rahman.

He knew he was on the spot again, and explained, “I just start this business. It is new to me, maybe four weeks ...”

Edie said, “So you painted a number on your van and hoped that the phone company would give you that number? Do we look stupid to you?”

I couldn’t imagine how we looked to Mr. Rahman from his perspective on the floor. Position determines perspective, and when you’re on the floor in cuffs with armed people standing over you, your perspective is different from that of the people standing around with the guns. Be that as it may, Mr. Rahman stuck to his story, most of which seemed plausible, except the business phone number bullshit.

So, by most appearances, what we had here was an honest immigrant pursuing the American Dream, and we had the poor bastard on the floor with a red bump on his forehead, for no other reason than the fact that he was of Mideastern descent. Shame, shame.

Mr. Rahman was getting himself under control and he said, “Please, I would like to call my lawyer.”

Uh-oh. The magic words. It’s axiomatic that if a suspect doesn’t talk within the first five or ten minutes, when he’s in shock, so to speak, he may never talk. My colleagues didn’t pull it off in time.

I said, “Everyone here except me is a lawyer. Talk to these people.”

“I wish to call my own lawyer.”

I ignored him and asked, “Where you from?”

“West Hollywood.”

I smiled and advised him, “Don’t fuck with me, Azim. Where you
from?”

He cleared his throat and said, “Libya.”

No one said anything, but we glanced at one another, and Azim noticed our renewed interest in him.

I asked him, “Where did you pick up the package you were delivering?”

He exercised his right to remain silent.

Juan had gone out to the van, and he was back now and announced, “Those packages look like bullshit. All wrapped in the same brown paper, same tape, even the same fucking handwriting.” He looked at Azim Rahman and said, “What kind of shit are you trying to pull?”

“Sir?”

Everyone started to browbeat poor Mr. Rahman again, threatening him with life in prison, followed by deportation, and Juan even offered him a kick in the nuts, which he refused.

At this point, with Mr. Rahman giving conflicting answers, we probably had enough to make a formal arrest, and I could see that Tom was leaning in that direction. Arrest meant the reading of rights, lawyers, and so forth, and the time had come to do the legal thing—it had actually passed a few minutes ago.

John Corey, however, being not quite so concerned with Federal guidelines or career, could take a few liberties. The bottom line was that if this guy was connected to Asad Khalil, it would be really good if we knew about it. Now.

So, having heard enough of Mr. Rahman’s bullshit, I assisted him from the sitting to the supine position and sat astride him to be sure I had his attention. He turned his face away from mine, and I said, “Look at me. Look at me.”

He turned his face back to me, and our eyes met.

I asked him, “Who sent you here?”

He didn’t reply.

“If you tell us who sent you here, and where he is now, you will go free. If you don’t tell us quickly, I will pour gasoline all over you and set you on fire.” This, of course, was not a physical threat, but only an idiomatic expression that shouldn’t be taken literally. “Who sent you here?”

Mr. Rahman remained silent.

I re-phrased my question in the form of a suggestion to Mr. Rahman and said, “I think you should tell me who sent you, and where he is.” I should mention that I had my Glock out now and, for some reason, Mr. Rahman had put the muzzle in his mouth.