His stomach growled. He realized he hadn’t eaten after that late-night sandwich from room service and a bottle of wine, his favorite, which always made him sleep like a baby. He looked down at his watch. Nearly noon. He’d eat after he met with Salila.
He started whistling an old Algerian song, as he added up all the money he’d put aside into the several accounts he knew no one would ever find, buried under a tangle of intertwined corporations. It reminded him yet again that he had more than enough to relocate to Sorrento, Italy, when all of this was done, to the villa he’d bought there four years ago. It sat right on a cliff overlooking the sea, and he would put up his feet on the exquisite railing, sip his wine, and settle his soul. Only then would the Strategist slowly return to his business. It would be more difficult with the imam in prison, but his reputation as the Strategist would be enough. Their followers would fear and respect him still. Blowing apart the FBI agent who had helped send the imam to prison, along with her family, would help convince them.
He knew she alone wasn’t responsible for his lost career as one of the greatest assassins of all time, his lost jet, his lost penthouse, but killing her was a start. He hummed, picturing the bitch blown to hell.
CRIMINAL APPREHENSION UNIT
HOOVER BUILDING
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Tuesday afternoon
Savich sat in his office in the CAU, waiting for his cell to ring as the half-dozen agents outside, ready with their assault gear and their Kevlar jackets, waited for his word. The wireless carrier wouldn’t locate the phones the FBI was looking for without a warrant. So he’d thrown a Hail Mary and called his friend Clint Matthews at the District Court U.S. Marshals office. The Marshals Service owned a Cessna they flew over the District when they needed to find a fugitive by tracking his cell phone. The plane carried its own imitation cell tower they called a dirtbox, which could trick cell phones below it into giving up their unique identification codes. Matthews has bragged he could find any powered-up cell phone in the area to within three feet.
Savich’s phone rang seventeen minutes after his call, and Clint was on the line, nearly hyperventilating. “We found the phone, the one that was called here in Washington. It’s in Georgetown, Savich, not a mile from where you live, in that new condo complex, the Gilmore. We got the address on Nyland Drive Northwest, even the unit number—338. You want some of our guys with you or do you have to settle for your FBI wussies?”
Savich laughed. “I owe you, Clint. Big-time.”
“Nah, if this helps net the lowlife terrorist who tried to blow up Saint Pat’s, this’ll be a huge win for all of us.”
Savich was out of his office before he’d punched off his cell.
THE GILMORE
1188 NYLAND DRIVE NW
GEORGETOWN
Tuesday afternoon
Everyone called the three side-by-side identical buildings on Nyland Drive the new Gilmore condos, though they were, in fact, built in 2003. Each was three stories high and done in mellow red brick, with parklike, beautifully landscaped grounds to attract the upwardly mobile young professionals who had bought up most of them.
There were single residences across the street, with no space between them for parking. Their owners’ cars usually lined the street, but now in the middle of the day when nearly everyone was at work, the street was mostly empty and quiet, with very little foot traffic. Savich assigned four agents to the grounds near the building and across the street, asked them to stay out of sight or blend in, though he knew it would be difficult for them to remain unnoticed for very long. He walked up three flights of Berber-carpeted stairs with Ollie and Ruth and down a long hallway to the end unit, 338. Savich hadn’t called the manager to try to bludgeon him into giving up information about who’d rented unit 338. He’d decided it was too risky. He couldn’t spare an agent to stay with the manager to make sure he didn’t call his wife or his girlfriend, or anyone else who might surprise them by showing up. They’d know soon enough who was waiting for Samir Basara.
They met no one on the stairs or hallways, heard nothing from the condos they passed, everyone was at work. Still, they walked as quietly as possible when they neared the door. Savich pressed his Glock to his side, smiled into the peephole, and knocked on the door. “Pizza delivery.”
A deep voice with a light Arabic accent mixed with pure Brooklyn called out, “You have the wrong address. I did not order pizza. Go away.”
Savich nodded to Ruth and Ollie, stepped back, and sent his foot into the doorknob. The door flew open as Ruth yelled, “FBI, don’t you move!”
They saw a dark-skinned man dive for cover behind the sofa in the living room to their right. He fired three quick shots toward the door, but they’d pulled back behind the wall in the doorway entrance. They heard movement down the apartment hallway in front of them. Someone else was there.
Savich called out, “Both of you, including you in the bedroom, come out now. There’s no way out of here. You’re surrounded.”
They heard a window open and the metallic clang of someone jumping onto the fire escape.
Ollie said into his comm, “Dane, a perp is headed your way down the fire escape.”
The man in the living room poked his head out again around the other end of the sofa and emptied his magazine in their direction. They heard him slam in another magazine. That was too bad, no choice. Savich nodded to Ollie, who pulled a flashbang from his jacket, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the living room. The three of them pulled back into the hallway and pressed their palms over their ears against the shattering blast to come. The explosion of sound and light was horrific in the small space.
They heard the man wheezing and coughing. He rolled on the floor, his hands covering his face, his gun on the floor beside him, forgotten.
Ruth ran into the living room, flipped him onto his stomach, and cuffed him.
He was gasping, tears streaming from his eyes. “I’m dying, I’m dying.”
Ruth swatted his head. “No, you’re not. It was only a flashbang, no shrapnel, so stop your whining.” She dragged him to his feet and shoved him onto a chair. As Savich and Ollie checked the back of the condo, she PlastiCuffed him to the chair. He was still wheezing, tears running down his face. She imagined he hadn’t heard a word she’d said, his ears still ringing from the flashbang. She walked to the living room window and saw Dane hauling a man out front toward Griffin. He was very young, not much older than her stepson Rafe. She turned back and stared down at the man in the chair. He had something of the look of the young man downstairs, wide-set eyes, a strong chin, hair black as ink. “You want to give me your name?”
He tried to spit at her.
“That was rude,” Ruth said. She gave him a wide berth and came up behind him, stuck her hand into his back pocket. She pulled out his alligator-grain wallet.
Savich and Ollie searched the condo together, a room at a time. The first bedroom had a king-size bed and clothes strewn around on the floor. It looked like both men had slept in there. The bathroom was a jumble of dirty towels and smelled of toothpaste and musty aftershave lotion. The second bedroom was neat as a pin, except for the open window that gave onto the fire escape.
Was this bedroom waiting for Basara? While Ollie checked the fire escape, Savich opened the closet door and found a stash of handguns, six of them, all of them Glocks. He knelt down and picked up several packets of what looked to be C-4, the same explosive that had blown the TGV off the tracks and that they’d used at St. Patrick’s and St. Paul’s. He stilled, felt rage surge. So you bastards were going to bomb us? Our house?
He and Ollie met Dane coming through the front door with the young man he’d jerked from the fire escape, cursing nonstop. Savich pointed to the sofa. “Ollie, cuff him. Dane, those shots and the flashbang are going to pull police and fire here any minute. Call nine-one-one, cancel the calls. Tell D.C. Met
ro to keep their squad cars well away from here. Find the manager, have him help you clear the street of any onlookers. Basara could be close now.”
Savich looked at the freshly shaved young man and smelled the same aftershave lotion in the bathroom. He was still cursing softly, repeating himself now. Savich stepped up to him and said, “Shut your mouth.”
The young man was so startled, he shut his mouth, looked up at Savich. “What are you going to do, hit me? American policemen can’t do that.”
Savich said, “I can do anything I want to you. What’s your name?”
The young man shut his mouth.
“Let’s see what your dad has to say about bringing his son into this.”
“I’m not his son, I’m his nephew.”
“Good to know.” Ruth handed Savich a well-worn alligator wallet. Inside was a New York driver’s license, three credit cards, five hundred dollars in cash, and a photo of a woman with three children surrounding her. “So, Mr. Salila,” Savich said, looking at him, “you’re Samir Basara’s advance man. I don’t see this young man in the photo, so I guess he didn’t lie, you are his uncle. What is his name?”
Salila didn’t say anything.
Ollie shook his head. “No wallet on him. Ruth, keep an eye on him. I’ll check the drawers in that pigsty of a bedroom.”
“You will not call us pigs. We are men,” Salila said, and spat at Ollie.
“It won’t help you if you continue to be rude,” Ruth said, and punched him in the arm. “You’re already in very big trouble.”
“You are nothing but a stupid woman, you mean nothing. Look at you, dressed in your trousers, playing at being a man.”
She smiled, patted his blackened face. “You need to rethink that, Mr. Salila. I’m the one who has you handcuffed to a chair.”
Salila stared at each of them, at his nephew sitting on the sofa opposite him. “I demand you let us go. We have done nothing wrong.”
Savich raised his eyebrow. “Would you like to explain the six Glocks in the bedroom closet, or care to tell us what you’re doing with all that highly illegal C-4?”
Salila shook his head.
His nephew said, “We know nothing about firearms. Perhaps the last person who stayed here left them.”
Ollie came back into the living room, holding a wallet. “I found this under a dirty shirt. We’ve been talking to Mr. Asad Salila. So your uncle here, Husam Salila, has a brother. Is your father in the terrorist business, too?”
Salila said nothing. He frowned at his nephew when he started to speak, and Asad lowered his head.
“When is Basara to arrive?” Savich asked him.
Salila started, then grew very still. “I do not know any Basara.”
“Is that a fact? I see you live in New York. Did you help him with trying to bomb Saint Patrick’s? You were the handler for those three who tried to kill Agent Sherlock?”
He stayed silent, but his breath quickened.
“They sure mucked that up, didn’t they, Mr. Salila? Did Basara have no one else left to help him after he flew into Baltimore?”
Salila looked at Savich. “It is all impossible what you say. How do you know all this?”
“I also know Basara called you from the Four Seasons hotel at midnight last night.”
Salila’s mouth fell open. “That is impossible. You are lying to me.”
Savich reached his hand into Salila’s shirt pocket and pulled out his cell. He waved it in Salila’s face. “Your cell phone came to me and whispered all its secrets. Now let’s see what you’ve been up to since you arrived in Washington.”
Savich scrolled through the call list. There were only three. One from Basara and two to a number in New York. His family?
“Tell me, when Basara arrived here, were you planning to plant the C-4 around Agent Sherlock’s house and blow her up? You see, it’s also my house, and that of our five-year-old son.”
Savich saw the pulse pounding wildly in Salila’s neck. Savich knew he was afraid, he knew failure was staring him in the face, but he managed to hold himself together. “If that is so, what happens to your house is her own doing. Your fate is in Allah’s hands.”
“Whatever that means,” Ollie said.
“We are all in Allah’s hands,” Salila said. “And those who commit evil, Allah will see that they pay for their sins.”
Ruth said, “I can’t imagine Allah encourages you to murder innocent people, like the hundreds of people at that funeral in Saint Patrick’s in New York. So will Allah make you pay, Salila? Will Basara pay? Basara will come and we’ll catch him, you know.”
Savich knew he couldn’t ask Salila to call Basara, even if Basara was expecting him to call. Salila would warn him if given the chance, no matter how Savich threatened him. He also realized he could make as many threats as he could think of and Salila would never give him up. What had Basara done to earn such loyalty?
Salila closed his eyes and his lips moved in a prayer. Asad stared at his uncle, fear bleaching his newly shaved face bone white.
Salila’s cell phone rang. And rang.
SIXTEENTH STREET NW
Cal turned off the siren and flashers and seamed back into traffic as he turned right off Sixteenth onto U Street. “We’re close, maybe five minutes to Nyland.”
Sherlock’s cell sang out “Born to Be Wild” and she put it on speakerphone. “Dillon, we’re five minutes out. What’s happening?”
“Salila’s cell rang with a call from Basara, probably to confirm their meeting, so he could be close. I didn’t risk letting Salila answer it. Keep a low profile as you approach. We still don’t know what kind of car he’s driving. Hurry, guys.”
“Turn left here on Pritchert, Cal,” Sherlock said, after Savich punched off. “It’s the locals’ way to Nyland and the Gilmore.”
When Cal turned right onto Nyland, Sherlock said from the backseat, “The condos are two blocks up, on the left. There’s Griffin now, trimming bushes. He looks good. Basara wouldn’t spot him for a Fed.”
Kelly sucked in her breath, not wanting to believe it. “There he is! Ten o’clock, Cal, a Toyota Camry. He’s driving slow, studying the street. Let’s get him!”
Cal hit the gas only to see an ancient Chevy Impala pulling out of a driveway directly in front of him. He slammed on the brakes, barely missing the driver’s door. At first he thought there was no one driving the Impala, then a curly gray head and a terrified white face appeared above the steering wheel.
Basara looked back at the sound of screeching brakes and spotted them. He threw his cell phone out the window and hit the gas, barely avoiding an elderly man with a walker who’d stepped out onto the street. Griffin dropped his cutter and took out his cell as the Toyota two-wheeled around a corner and headed south, toward 29.
Kelly yelled, “I don’t know Washington, where’s he going?”
“Don’t know yet,” Sherlock said. She unfastened her seat belt and sat forward between the front seats, her Glock in her hand. “No, wait, he could take 29 east into D.C. or try to cross the Key Bridge into Arlington.”
Cal turned on his siren and flashers again as he swerved past a dozen cars and a Silverado flatbed stacked with tires, to the sound of blasting horns and shouted curses. He was only three cars behind when the Camry swerved around a Cadillac onto the Key Bridge. “He’s not a bad driver,” Cal said, “but he’s at a big disadvantage because he doesn’t know Washington.”
Kelly said, “What’s this way?”
“Arlington National Cemetery, if he keeps heading south,” Cal said. “He’ll see the sign soon enough and realize he doesn’t want to get caught in that maze. Hang on!” He swerved around a black limo with government plates, two startled faces staring at them as they whipped past. Cal slipped back into his lane with feet to spare to the horrified face of the Mustang driver headed dire
ctly at him. “No,” Cal said, “Basara’s not going to the cemetery, he’s headed onto 66 and that’ll take him back across the Roosevelt Bridge into D.C. I wonder if he knows that. Hey, isn’t that Dillon’s red Porsche behind us?”
Sherlock looked back. “It sure is. Ruth’s with him.” She looked back to the thick traffic ahead of them. “Basara has no idea what he’s getting into once he gets to the other side, Cal. If he exits out of this traffic, he could be dumped onto the traffic circle at the Lincoln Memorial. He won’t get through there without stopping, not with all the cars circling, not to mention all the tourists around it.” She started to tell him to be careful, but she didn’t. Cal was in Dillon’s class. She turned to see Dillon’s red Porsche on their bumper, Ruth leaning out the passenger window, her Glock in her hand. Dillon was letting them take the lead.
This is madness, Kelly thought, as she shot a look down at the Potomac flowing fast beneath them, to what the sign had informed her was Theodore Roosevelt Island on her left. She looked over at Cal, saw his eyes were focused and calm, his hands relaxed on the steering wheel. He knew what he was doing. She felt her heart pounding loud and fast, not in fear, but in exhilaration, and saw herself at seven years old, skiing down a black diamond, her mother screaming at her from behind. She stared again at Basara, weaving in and out of bridge traffic six cars ahead of them.
Cal followed the Camry off onto Constitution Avenue, watched it veer right again toward the river at the first access road. Sherlock was right, he had no idea he was headed straight for the Lincoln Memorial and its traffic circle right up ahead. Cal roared up behind the Camry, barely missing an oncoming car, sitting on his horn in the circle. There was a construction site up ahead, cut off from traffic with big concrete blocks. He forced his way past two cars on the inside of the circle, calculated the speed he needed, and struck the Camry’s left rear panel. The Camry careened sideways into the concrete blocks and went airborne into the construction equipment. A couple workers nearby dove for cover. The Camry struck a backhoe, rolled once, and once again, spraying mud and splintering a construction horse.