The Operative (33 page)

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Authors: Andrew Britton

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Christ, she seemed sincere, Bishop thought. Was it possible she really didn’t know anything?
Bishop was about to give her a story about a Hezbollah sharpshooter attacking Jewish centers of activity when Muloni’s eyes suddenly went very wide. Her back arched, thrusting her chest forward, and her chest spewed blood and organs in a column. Some of it struck Bishop in the chin and throat.
An instant later he heard the delayed crack of a single gunshot. It rolled over him, echoing down the narrow street. As the woman fell to the pavement, Bishop could see what her body had been blocking. He saw the people freeze and look ahead, to the west. At the head of the mob was Assistant Director Hunt.
The prick,
Bishop thought. He didn’t come the way Muloni had been expecting. He had come up behind her. Bad luck on her part—or because I would have been in the way? he wondered.
As Hunt jogged forward, Kealey emerged from the mob right behind him. He charged forward, shoulders hunched, obviously not certain whether the AD was finished shooting. Bishop believed he was. Hunt was holding his weapon pointed down in his right hand while he drew his credentials with his left.
“Are you all right?” Hunt yelled ahead. “I saw her draw a weapon.”
Bishop didn’t answer. He heard footsteps behind him, raised his hands to show he wasn’t holding a weapon, turned as a quartet of NYPD officers converged on the spot.
“FBI business!” Hunt shouted, keeping the gun down but raising his ID. “She was in league with the sniper!”
Hunt was a bad apple, all right. Shouting that second part broke every rule there was. The identity of any suspect was need to know. Either he was trying to get the police to stand down ASAP or he was trying to put that information out there.
Why, you bastard?
”
Just as important, what was Muloni doing here? Even if the Bureau put two agents on Veil without letting the other know—because of the leak—how did she get here when the notice went out only hours before?
Hunt arrived, breathing heavily. His eyes were on Muloni. He nudged her weapon aside with his foot, checked her pulse.
“She isn’t getting up,” Bishop said.
“No,” Hunt agreed. He picked up the gun with a handkerchief, put it in the inside pocket of his blazer. The cops arrived at the same time as Kealey. The AD showed his badge around without looking up. He put it away, patted the body down.
One of the officers called in the shooting. He described it as “an FBI action against an armed terror suspect.”
“You okay?” Kealey asked, circling around Hunt and Muloni.
“Yeah.” There was disgust in Bishop’s voice and in Kealey’s expression.
“Who are you two?” one of the cops asked.
Bishop held up his hand to show he was going to reach for something. He drew out his own ID. Kealey did the same.
“This card is expired, sir,” one of the cops said to Kealey.
“Call President Brenneman,” he said. “He’ll vouch for me.”
Kealey was looking at Hunt when he said that. The AD’s eyes rolled up. He knew the name had been dropped for his benefit. Hunt rose. Bishop had watched as he’d confiscated Muloni’s phone. He’d palmed it carefully, but not carefully enough. Bishop knew what it was. Bishop removed his jacket, knelt, and laid it on top of Muloni.
“These men are fine,” Hunt said.
The policemen exchanged looks. Kealey’s ID was returned. The cop who had spoken to Kealey, Officer Ratner, still seemed unconvinced.
Hunt faced him impatiently. “Don’t you have
traffic
to clear so we can get a meat wagon to pick up this individual?”
“Don’t get belligerent, sir,” the young officer replied.
“Christ Jesus, we’ve got a sniper running around
with
accomplices, and you don’t think I should be
yelling
at you?”
“What I think,” the cop said stubbornly, “is that you just shot a woman in the back, and I’m supposed to take your word about who, what, and why.”
“Did you see the gun?”
The cop didn’t answer.
“Was it pointed at this individual?”
Officer Ratner remained silent.
“Let’s go,” one of the other officers said. “We’ll check in with the FBI field office, see if he’s kosher.”
“Tell them it’s Assistant Director Hunt you’re asking about,” he snapped. “Do you need me to spell any of that for you?”
“No, we’ve got it,” the other officer replied.
The others started to go. Ratner remained where he was; one of the others reached back and drew him away by the arm.
The scene was incongruous to Bishop. Two men alpha dogging over a dead woman and a growing puddle of blood. He glanced at Kealey, who handed him a handkerchief, indicated the blood on his chin. Bishop wiped it away.
Hunt calmed slowly. He was perspiring, possibly from having run over in the heat, possibly from something else.
Kealey was watching the AD carefully. “How about putting the gun away?”
The remark drew a sharp reaction from Hunt. “Are you challenging me, too?”
“Not at all. I’m trying to get you back to center,” Kealey replied. “You just killed someone.”
“In the execution of my duties—”
“Yes, and now the shooting is over—”
“I saved your partner!”
“Thank you,” Bishop said evenly, hoping he didn’t sound overly solicitous. He was with Kealey on this: he didn’t like the way Hunt was looking at them. “Mr. Hunt, you know as well as I do, the rule book says if you discharge your weapon, you have to surrender it. We’re not going there. All Mr. Kealey asked is that you holster the firearm. Otherwise, I
do
have the authority to confiscate it.”
Hunt considered this, then shoved the weapon in its holster. He looked at the IA officer. “Sorry, but you walked into a situation that has been ongoing.”
“What do you mean?” Bishop asked.
“We’ve been watching this agent for several months. We believe she is—was—a sympathizer with radical Muslim causes.”
“Was she?” Bishop asked, staring at him. “I watched her rough up a Muslim assassin in Quebec. She didn’t seem very sympathetic.”
“Veil was bait,” Hunt said. “We believe Muloni engineered Veil’s escape.”
“Speaking of Veil,” Kealey said, “do you mind if we forgo the trip to the lab right now? Maybe nose around and see what we can find out?”
Hunt relaxed noticeably. “Not at all. In fact, I’d appreciate the assist.”
“Great. Tell us what to do,” Kealey said.
“They’ve found the body of a UPS driver about a half mile up South Street,” he said. “Why don’t you head over there, see if you can figure out where she went or what surveillance cameras might have seen her?”
“Sure thing,” Kealey said.
Leaving the corpse behind—she would have to wait her turn to be picked up—the men separated, Hunt going east while Kealey and Bishop headed north. The two men made their way up Centre Street, past the bridge, then cut over to the east.
“There’s a guy on the edge,” Kealey said.
“He’s also full of it,” Bishop said when they set out.
“Which part?” Kealey asked.
“About Muloni being a sympathizer.”
“Was she going to shoot you? She looked like it from where I was standing.”
“Very possibly,” Bishop said. “That’s the thing. She was tailing us. She was convinced that
we’re
in league with Veil. And I don’t think she was kidding.”
“Well, that’s a dead end now. The bigger problem is I don’t think Veil is done. These feel like sideshows.”
“Killing dozens of people, shutting down a major city—that’s a sideshow?”
“It’s a short-term hit,” Kealey said. “People will be back in a few days. A couple of businesses will decentralize, like they did after September eleven. That doesn’t generate fundamental change. It isn’t reason enough for someone to have gone through the trouble of springing this particular assassin.”
“Why not? She’s evading capture while—”
Even as he was saying it, Bishop realized that Kealey was right.
“While she’s dragging the NYPD and the FBI all across Manhattan,” Kealey said, finishing the thought for him. “Midtown west, now Lower Manhattan.”
“Right,” Bishop said. “A distraction. But why don’t you think she’s finished?”
“There’s one more meaty target,” Kealey said. “People are evacuating fast, en masse, so she’ll probably hit Grand Central Terminal or the Port Authority Bus Terminal before she or her sponsors move on to the next step.”
“Yeah, the more I think about this, the more I don’t think she’s acting solo,” Bishop said. “I was there when Muloni mentioned her daughter. That registered big-time. If Veil engineered an escape, she would have gone to Pakistan to get her into hiding. It is more likely someone wanted her here. Maybe someone else who had access to the kid.”
“There’s something else,” Kealey said. “Did you happen to see the phone Hunt took from Muloni?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a Minotaur,” Kealey said. “The latest high-security uplink. Someone at her pay grade wouldn’t need one.”
“She was sent here,” Bishop said. “And not to watch for Veil. Jesus, Ryan. Who the hell is setting us up?”
“I don’t know,” Kealey admitted. “The Minotaur is not standard issue to anyone in government service. It costs about a half million per unit. The CIA wouldn’t be giving one out to an undercover agent. It’s conceivable, though, that the manufacturer would.”
“Who’s that?”
Kealey answered, “Trask Industries.”
Bishop considered this. “We need a double-dog op.”
“Hunt?”
“Got no one else,” Bishop said. “He took the phone. He’s the closest to ‘suspicious’ we’ve got.”
“All right,” Kealey said. “I’ll take point on this. You stay with him. I’ll go to Grand Central. After that, I’ll hit One West.”
“Gotcha,” Bishop said.
“Get something to eat, too,” Kealey told him. “Fast. These vendors look like they’re selling out down here.”
Bishop offered a halfhearted grin. “Capitalism. Gotta love it.”
CHAPTER 25
NEW BOSTON, TEXAS
J
ohn Scroggins was dozing in his seat after his dawn-to-ten shift at the wheel. Absalom Bell had made the White Sands run before, but Scroggins was primarily a Florida-to-Maine man for Trask Industries. The flatness of the land, the will-sapping heat just outside the door, the whitewash bluntness of the sun—none of these were for him.
“You might as well be driving through hell,” he had told Bell when he turned over the wheel a few minutes before.
The sameness of the world around him included the sounds—the whoosh of air moving past at 80 mph, the tuning-fork sound of the hybrid engine, the hollow whisper of the tires on the road. Save for a vintage hot rod that passed them, there was nothing new.
Until there wasn’t.
Scroggins felt the dull drumming before he heard it.
“Is the engine okay?” he asked without opening his eyes.
“That ain’t us,” Bell said. “It’s them.”
“Eh?” Scroggins cracked an eye. It took a moment before he could see through the white glare of the windshield. The pale blue of the sky formed beyond it, and in that sky he saw three silver-white bugs. They were low on the horizon, just above the dashboard, and getting larger—and finally louder—by the moment. He felt as if he were sitting in a vibrating chair in a furniture showroom.
“Definitely not a traffic copter eye in the sky,” Bell said, sipping coffee.
“Must be some kind of maneuvers,” Scroggins said.
“How-to-fly-in-a-triangle training,” Bell joked and chuckled.
The Bell-Boeing V-22 Ospreys continued in a straight, sinister line along the interstate. They grew larger as they approached, their tilt-rotor pylons rippling like snakes in the heat rising from the asphalt.
Scroggins shifted uneasily, glanced in the side-view mirror, sat up, drummed anxiously on his knees. “Maybe you ought to pull over,” he suggested.
“What for? They ain’t the damn highway patrol.”
“No, but they are,” Scroggins said.
Bell looked in his mirror. Just coming over the horizon was a line of Ford Police Interceptors, their dark chassis blending with the asphalt in a way that made their white tops and red and blue lights seem to float forward.
“You running guns?” Scroggins asked.
“No. Heroin,” Bell replied.
“Don’t joke,” Scroggins said. “They may have some kind of listening shit.”
“Well, what kinda dumb question is that?”
“The kind that makes me wonder why we’ve got the law and the air force converging on our asses.”
“Maybe they’re after each other,” Bell said. “Some kinda drill. And they’re navy, not air force.”
“Excuse me all to hell,” Scroggins said.
The driver slowed and pulled off the road. The men watched as the THP vehicles neared—there were four of them—and the choppers formed a line in front of them, straddling the interstate. Their six main rotors were literally shaking their insides from waist to throat now, the propellers churning dirt from the plains below them. The brush struck Scroggins as ancient peoples waving and swaying before their gods. He wished he felt more like a god and less like a cactus.
The VTOL aircraft on the right descended. It set down ahead of them, beside the road, while the other two hovered at around 200 feet. The THP vehicles arrived almost simultaneously, spinning off the road, two on either side. Men with rifles got out and stood behind the open doors.
“Holy shit,” Scroggins said. “It
is
us.”
“Man, I swear I don’t know what’s goin’ on.”
“Don’t tell it to
me,
” Scroggins said.
“Yeah? How do I know this
ain’t
about you?”
“I confess, brother. I’m a mule.”
“I’m serious—”
“And I ain’t, man,” Scroggins said. “Maybe you should call HQ.”
Bell nodded. The Minotaur was at his side, and he picked it up.
“Put your hands on the dashboard!” a mechanical-sounding voice blared from behind him. “Both of you,
now!
”
Scroggins put his hands ahead of him slowly. Bell raised his, then rotated them down to the padded vinyl. The men didn’t know whether to look ahead or into the mirror. Armed men were emerging from the Osprey. They were covered head to foot, crouched behind raised weapons as they approached. It looked to Scroggins as if some of the automatic rifles were aimed beyond them.
“Lower your weapons!” shouted an amped voice from the Osprey.
“This definitely ain’t no drill,” Bell said.
“Just thinkin’ that myself,” Scroggins replied. “I’m sure hopin’ they’re mad at each other and we just got caught in—”
“Persons in the Trask vehicle,” said the voice from the Osprey. “Open both doors and emerge slowly.”
“I’m guessin’ that means we have to take our hands
off
the dashboard,” Scroggins said. “On three?”
“Huh?” Bell said.
“We gettin’ out?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Shit, I just can’t figure this.”
“I think we’re way past trying figuring anything,” Scroggins said. “One ... two ...”
On three, both men reached out and pushed open the doors.
“Nobody go shootin’ us!” Scroggins yelled as he swiveled in his seat and leaned his head out. His hands were raised as he stepped from the cab. “You guys hear me? Which way do we face?”
The Osprey decided that for them. The rotor wash from the transport was pelting them with dead foliage, sand, and pebbles. Both men turned their backs to the air force detachment. Scroggins didn’t like what he saw ahead of them. It reminded him of pictures he had seen at the Atlanta History Center from the turn-of-the-century South: early police cars and armed officers ready to face bootleggers, bank robbers, and black men. Though his brain told him he’d done nothing wrong, he started to pray.
“What do you want with these individuals?” someone in front of him said through a bullhorn.
“That is classified,” replied a voice from behind. “Stand down.”
“Stand down? Hell, we just got here,” the bullhorn replied.
“We repeat. Stand down!”
Lord Jesus,
Scroggins thought.
You don’t talk to Texas lawmen like that.
The military unit continued to advance. Scroggins saw the men behind the doors growing restless.
“Gentlemen, I’m just going to step from the line of fire,” Scroggins said.
“You stay where you are!” the Texan bullhorn shouted back.
“You will
step backward
and surrender, or we will seize you with whatever force is required!” the airman insisted.
“I’m going to do what
that
guy says!” Scroggins pointed both thumbs backward after considering the two commands. The one from the air force definitely had a colder sound. He glanced at Bell, who nodded.
The two men started walking back. Several airmen moved around them, toward the van. They were dressed in what had to be miserably hot long-sleeve camouflage uniforms with bulletproof vests, helmets, munitions belts, high boots, and goggles. There were four men in all. While two kept their weapons trained on the THP vehicles, the others opened the back of the van and went inside. They came out less than ten seconds later. One of them stepped wide, faced the mission leader, and ran his hand sideways across his throat. Scroggins guessed that meant what he could have told them if they’d asked: the cargo bay was empty. The four men rejoined the others.
Scroggins continued moving backward. He was watching the Texans closely, his heart a solid mass in his throat. He saw one man—the man with the bullhorn—lean toward the man beside him. They seemed to be conferring.
“Oh, man, tell me they ain’t gonna rush us,” Bell said to Scroggins as they cleared the front of the van.
“If they do, dive for the fender and hug that baby.”
Suddenly, a pair of Texans shouldered their weapons—one from behind each of the two nearest police vehicles. They rose from behind the doors with their hands raised shoulder high and started walking forward.
“Now what the hell do they want?” Scroggins asked.
He never found out. He heard boots clomp on the ground behind him, felt hands grab the fabric of his shirt at the shoulders and arms and remain there. He was turned around and found himself facing a pair of fliers with M4 carbines pointed past them—ugly little mosquito-looking black guns with barrels that made his knees turn to liquid. He was glad the hands were propping him up.
The guns jerked in little sweeping motions. “Move!” one of the men behind him said.
Bell and Scroggins half walked, half stumbled forward on liquid legs. Scroggins squinted into the hurricane winds caused by the rotors, tucked his chin into his chest, and pursed his lips tightly as he felt the dust and pieces of twig bite his face. He was helped up a step into the helicopter, still not looking, only feeling the darkness enfold him. The prickling pain stopped, and the noise changed from something harsh to something deep and throaty. Even as he was thrust into a seat and felt himself rising and tilting, he thought of something his grandmother had once told him after a tornado hit her Arkansas community: “Something ain’t so bad if you live to get a good story out of it.”
He was praying again, hard, that this was something that would impress his grandkids one day.
 
Lt. Samuel Calvin of the Texas Highway Patrol Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division lowered his hands as the choppers took off. Behind his dark aviator glasses his blue eyes remained fixed on the Ospreys, with a look that was somewhere between contempt and amusement.
“Everyone stand down!” he said, half turning and shouting over his shoulders. “Except you, Munson.”
“Yes, sir, Chief.”
The men got to their feet, stretching cramped legs. They lowered their weapons, reached for bottled water, and stood at ease. Only Letty Munson remained where she was. She was still crouched, watching the retreating Ospreys through her binoculars, shielding them with one hand so the lenses wouldn’t catch and reflect the sun.
“Doesn’t look like they’re taking any action,” she reported. “Those boys are headed home.”
Calvin nodded. Low on his to-do list was hanging around—let alone walking over to the van—as the choppers cut loose with incendiary ordnance of some kind.
“You were right, Lieutenant,” said the other man.
“Appears so.”
The two officers were standing behind the Trask Industries vehicle, one man on either side, their crisp light brown uniforms stained with perspiration under the armpits and around the collar.
“They follow orders like they were written by the finger of God Himself,” the thirty-one-year-old said. “Sent for two individuals. They go back with two individuals.” The blue eyes lowered as he turned his sun-leathered face toward the van. “Check the cargo back, would you, Patrolman?”
“Yes, sir.”
Calvin was on the driver’s side and walked around it.
People don’t always have the information you want, or else they lie,
he thought with satisfaction as he approached the open door.
Evidence does not
.
From the moment the THP came within visual contact of the van—and the Ospreys—Calvin knew what he wanted. The van had Georgia plates. The men had been on the road awhile. Whatever they had done, whatever the navy wanted them for, it had most likely taken place during that drive. That meant the van would bear the fingerprints of whatever was at issue here. The military didn’t confiscate it because, Calvin—a veteran of four years in army intelligence—knew, HUMINT was prized above all. Get prisoners to talk. And they clearly didn’t want a showdown with the THP. Whoever was in charge of the operation snared the targets and got out.
Calvin bent and looked into the driver’s side. He saw what he expected to see: soda cans, candy wrappers, coffee cups, two newspapers, and an iPod. The GPS was still on. He checked their route. Atlanta to New York to White Sands.
They were headed there, anyway, Calvin thought.
Why the rush? To keep them out of our hands,
he decided.
“The bay is clean except for muddy footprints,” the officer reported.
“That’s why they were so shiny.”
“Sir?”
“The Ospreys,” he said. “They were cleaning them. Got the order to deploy real sudden.”
He grinned.
High school kids at a car wash
. “Thank you, Carter. Go back to the vehicle. I’ll be there in a minute.”
The patrolman left and Calvin climbed in. He took the keys; never knew what else they might open. He checked the glove compartment. No one used it for maps anymore. There was a flashlight and a small tool kit. A first-aid kit was attached to the underside of the dashboard.

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