THIS WAS IT, then. Their mission had begun. Something involving the president’s missing children? That could very well be.
It was odd that they would be as much in the dark as everyone else in Washington. Odd, but also brilliant, wasn’t it? The Family gave them only as much information as they would need to fulfill their obligations — no more, no less.
At nine thirty, the Al Dossaris left their hotel and walked the glass and concrete canyon of Twelfth Street all the way down to the National Mall. They passed through the high-columned entrance of the Museum of Natural History just minutes after it opened, blending easily into the crowd of international tourists and school groups already clogging the galleries.
This was it.
But it wasn’t.
For the next two hours, they wandered in a perpetual state of anxiety and frustration. Hala passed by glass cases of preserved sea creatures, and fossilized remains, and African artifacts, never quite seeing any of it. She focused on the faces of the people instead, scanning for anything that might tell them why they were here. The waiting, the suspense, was becoming excruciating, almost impossible to bear.
It wasn’t until their fifth or sixth pass through the museum’s central rotunda that something finally happened.
A dark-eyed young woman with an ornate neck tattoo caught Hala’s gaze from across the room. She held it for several seconds and then looked away, ostensibly taking in the enormous bull elephant that dominated the space between them.
Hala stopped to regard the display, then looked back. Again, the girl was staring. Was she from The Family? Or was this just Hala’s imagination working too hard?
“Tariq?” she said.
“I see her,” he said. “Go. I think she wants to talk.”
He kept his position while his wife worked her way slowly around the room, never losing sight of the stranger. She was Saudi, presumably, but dressed like an American college student. Ripped jeans, a peasant blouse, scuffed clogs. On her shoulder she carried a brightly colored Guatemalan bag. It appeared to be full. With books? Or maybe a bomb? For here? For now?
As Hala reached the back of the gallery, the girl came over and spoke to her.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Do you know where the reptile hall is?”
Her perfect American accent was a surprise. Had this one been recruited stateside? Or, Hala suddenly wondered, was this maybe not what she’d thought? Was this girl with the police?
“I’m sorry,” she answered. “I don’t know. I’m not from here.”
“Maybe I could take a look at your map?”
When the girl pointed at the brochure Hala had carried from the hotel, any last doubts left her. “Of course,” she said, and handed it over.
The girl unfolded it on top of her bag and studied it for several seconds while a stream of waist-high children in school uniforms ran past, squealing out ridiculous laughter having something to do with the elephant’s tusks.
“Here it is,” she said finally. “Reptiles. This is what I want to know more about.”
When she refolded the map and handed it back, something flat and hard was inside that hadn’t been there before. Hala looked down to see the silver edge of a disk tucked into the folds of laminated paper. It sent a quickening sensation up her spine.
“Thanksalot,” the girl said in a familiar American singsong style. She smiled vacantly, then turned and walked away without once looking back.
“No,” Hala said, too quietly to be heard by anyone but herself. “Thank you. And thank Allah.”
POLICE WORK ISN’T usually about surprises. It’s more about routines. This was completely different. Something incredibly strange was going on, not all bad, necessarily, but strange. It was like no case I had ever worked before, or come across.
One of the special agents in Ned Mahoney’s unit at the Bureau called me on Monday morning and said he wanted to send over some files.
“Files?” I said. “Like, just any files?”
“Some reinterviews from the Coyle investigation we’d like to get your take on,” he said.
After days of being totally shut out, this request felt random, even disorganized on the part of the Bureau.
I tried calling Ned Mahoney several more times that morning, but all I got was his voice mail. It didn’t make sense. Why would he pull me in and avoid me at the same time? Or was I just being paranoid?
When the courier came, I expected at least one of those files to be about Ray Pinkney, the van driver I’d already interviewed. Instead, what I got was a thick stack of second-and third-tier leads, which I guess made me the Bureau’s newest second-or third-tier gofer. What the hell was that all about?
“They just want to keep an eye on you, sugar,” Sampson said in the car on the way to the first interview. “This is the Bureau’s version of a short leash. You’re officially on it now. I guess I am too.”
He was probably right. John’s always good for a dose of perspective, and common sense, which is why I wanted him along. I hadn’t asked anyone’s permission to bring a partner, but as we say in the business, Fuck that.
“I’ve seen this woman on TV,” Sampson said. He was looking over the files on his lap while I drove. “Don’t think it was BET.”
“Probably not,” I said. “More likely MSNBC, or maybe Meet the Press.”
Isabelle Morris had been the scheduled speaker at the Branaff School on the morning of the kidnapping. Her field was U.S.–Middle East policy, and she was a regular fixture on the Sunday-morning talk circuit. Obviously, some part of that equation was enough for the Bureau to keep her on their radar. And now she was on mine.
When we pulled up to her red stone town house on Calvert Street, a Grand Marquis was parked out front with a suit behind the wheel and a big Starbucks cup on the dash.
I didn’t recognize the agent, but he gave us a nod as we started up the front steps. “Good luck,” he called out.
“Why? Am I going to need it?” I asked, but he just grinned, shook his head, and went back to slurping his coffee.
“DO YOU BELIEVE that fricking guy drinking fricking lattes down there? I mean, twenty-four hours a day he’s parked in front of my house — him or one of his moron cronies. Really? Really? All the criminal possibilities in the world. This is how you people want to spend your resources. Is that supposed to impress me somehow? Or maybe just keep me from slipping out of the country?”
Those were Isabelle Morris’s first words to us, delivered rapid-fire, starting more or less the second she’d opened the door. She was shorter than I expected, maybe five one, or less. On TV, she was always just a talking head — which I guess was still the case here.
“Ms. Morris, I’m Detective Cross. We spoke briefly on the phone,” I said. “This is Detective Sampson. Can we talk inside? Out of the glare of the FBI? I think that might be better. Please?”
She stared at me a little but then stepped back to let us in. We followed her through the house to a kitchen and family room at the back, with a glass-walled breakfast nook looking out to a brambly garden. A teenaged boy on the couch was playing Mortal something or other with headphones on, and he never even looked over at us.
Ms. Morris went straight to the stove, turned down the flame under a steaming double boiler, and then started chopping a pile of red peppers on the butcher-block counter. When I realized she was playing ball’s-in-your-court with me, I jumped in.
“Ms. Morris —”
“Isabelle,” she said.
“I know you don’t want us here right now, can’t blame you, but you can at least understand why the Bureau and the police might be interested in you?”
She stopped chopping and looked up at the ceiling.
“Hmm, let’s see here. Because I’m on MSNBC more than Fox? Because I worked for the Fulani campaign in the nineties? Or maybe because I dared to criticize the Coyle administration for egregious mistakes they themselves have admitted making in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Is that the kind of thing you mean??
??
“Yes, actually,” I said. “All of which is irrelevant to why I’m here. I need to get a statement from you about the night before, morning of, and afternoon following Zoe and Ethan’s disappearance.”
“So you can look for inconsistencies,” she said.
“Not me,” I said. “But someone, yes. That’s the general idea.”
“Unbelievable,” she said. “The FBI and the DC police have no clue where those poor kids are, so they keep up the witch-hunt with people like me, just to be able to say they’re doing something. And you’re comfortable with this?”
“I didn’t say that,” I told her. “I think you satisfy certain criteria as a person of interest, and I think that’s as far as anybody’s gone in an analysis of you. The Bureau has an amazing machine over there, but emphasis is definitely on the ‘machine.’ Sometimes, anyway. Meanwhile, two kids are missing. Can we please focus on that?”
She was squinting at me now, almost like I’d gone out of focus. I don’t think she expected any of that to come out of a cop’s mouth.
“Haven’t I seen you on the news before?” she said then. “I think I have.”
“Probably,” Sampson told her. “He’s about half famous.”
Isabelle Morris smiled, sort of. “Just like me,” she said, then went back to chopping vegetables.
“So where should I start? You want to hear about what I had for dinner Thursday night? What book I’m reading? A Life of Montaigne, okay? Because I’m sure that’ll bring those kids home faster.”
THERE WASN’T A single note about Isabelle Morris’s earlier interviews in the thin unclassified file I had gotten from the Bureau, so I couldn’t compare her stories with what I was hearing now. She told us she’d been home the evening before the kidnapping, left the house around seven thirty the next morning for the Branaff campus, and then went right back home again after she’d been released. None of it ruled out a connection to the case, but I thought we were probably wasting our time with her as much as she did.
On the way back in, Sampson and I stopped at an empanada place he likes on Sixteenth. We ate our turnovers in the car with a couple of Yoo-hoos. God save our digestive systems. Mine anyway. Sampson eats like he’s part goat. It’s been that way since we were ten years old.
“So what are you thinking?” Sampson said. “Those kids still alive? Any chance at all?”
I stared over at him. “If no one’s made any demands yet, that’s a terrible sign. On the other hand, the FBI or Secret Service could be sitting on something. Let’s face it, Ethan and Zoe Coyle are two of the highest-value targets in the world.”
John demolished half an empanada in a single bite. “You thinking this could be international?” Sampson said. “Terrorism?”
I shrugged. “For the moment, I’m throwing darts, John. But I’ll tell you one thing. I keep coming back to the Gary Soneji case.” Prior to this, the Soneji mess had been the biggest kidnap investigation — and in some ways, the biggest debacle — I’d ever been attached to.
“Soneji worked at the school he took those kids from,” Sampson said. “I remember they had to drag you kicking and screaming onto that case. And now here you are, kicking and screaming to get onto this one.”
“Yeah.” I looked down at the pile of busywork files on the seat between us. “I just hope those kids are alive. John, I still remember the day we found Michael Goldberg in that grave. I don’t want to relive it. I don’t want to find another dead child.”
“BE READY TO die at any time. Be ready to sacrifice everything. Your life, your family.” That had never been more true than right now.
At eight o’clock Monday night, the Al Dossaris arrived at the Harmony Suites Business Hotel on Twenty-second Street. Neither of them carried anything with them — no weapons, no ID.
They took the rear stairs to the third floor where they knocked twice at the door of Room 345. It was all exactly as specified on the disk they’d received at the Natural History Museum.
A smiling, round-bellied Saudi promptly answered the door. He was clean shaven, with a Washington Nationals ball cap perched on his head. A Family member. Finally.
“Come in, come in,” he said, smiling as he closed the door. “Everything is ready for you. Welcome, brother. Sister.”
He nodded deferentially as he shook Hala’s hand, even as his small eyes lingered over her breasts.
“Please take off that silly hat,” she said to him. He immediately did as he was told.
The man’s much younger wife was inside, spreading clear plastic sheets over both of the queen-size beds. She smiled, too, but didn’t speak, not even to offer any sort of refreshment. Hala noticed that she had very large breasts. Augmented? she wondered. Disgraceful if that was the case. A ridiculous Western custom, dangerous as well.
In the corner, several unmarked cardboard boxes were stacked against the wall. This was the poison, wasn’t it? A great deal of it. Two large empty canvas duffels and a plain black briefcase sat on the dresser. Once the perfunctory greetings had been made, they got to work on the death hit. Tariq and the other man began unpacking cartons while the young woman went to the briefcase and flipped it open for Hala to inspect.
“Weapons,” the young wife said shyly, nervously.
“Yes, weapons. We’re at war with America. Oh, hadn’t you heard?”
Nested in the case’s foam liner were a bowie knife in a leather sheath, a tightly coiled garrote with small wooden handles, a Taser, a Sig Sauer combat model pistol. The kit also included six fifteen-round magazines and a suppressor.
Hala picked up the Sig, keeping her eyes raised, as she’d been trained to do. Her hand found one of the magazines, slapped it into place, then twisted the suppressor onto the threaded muzzle.
Tariq caught her eye and smiled. He liked her with a gun. Liked the ease with which she fondled the weapons. She was the soldier, not him. She was the trained assassin as well.
“This will do,” Hala said, mostly for his benefit, and set the Sig back down.
“Here.” Tariq handed each of the women a pair of latex gloves and a blue filtration mask. “We should get started on the rest of our task.”
“Be careful. Very careful,” Hala warned the other couple. “Do not touch your skin or eyes once we begin. I’m serious about that.”
For the next several hours, they were all extremely careful. The two women cut dozens of squares from a roll of fine-mesh cloth and laid them out in rows on the bed. Tariq instructed the male, as the two of them painstakingly measured out white crystalline powder from large plastic canisters, mounding the substance in the center of each cloth square. The cloth was then tied at the corners into tight bundles and secured to one of several lengths of clear nylon line.
Every string of ten bundles was placed into its own plastic bag.
The bags were then tucked into duffels.
They finished their task at just past midnight. Tariq opened a window and lifted his mask to indicate it was safe for the others.
Their host was grinning as he took off his own mask. He clapped a hand onto Tariq’s shoulder.
“Brother, I know I’m not supposed to ask where you’re taking these, but I can’t wait to find out. We’re all very excited about this.”
Tariq only stared at the man’s hand until he took it away.
Hala answered for them. She picked up the loaded Sig from the dresser and pointed it at their hosts.
“Sit down, both of you,” she said. “We’re not quite done here. I said, Sit down.”
“I SAID, SIT.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” the fat man asked, even as he sat obediently on the bed. Hala kept her gun trained between his eyes, the same ones that had been undressing her all night.
“We watched two of our own die at the airport last week,” she said. “I thought they had done something stupid to get themselves pulled out of line, but apparently not. Someone’s talking to the Americans. There’s been a leak. The Family is sure of i
t.”
“And they think it’s us?” the man asked incredulously. “That isn’t possible. It’s ridiculous.”
“It’s all been spelled out,” Hala told them, referring to the disk they’d been given. “Not just our instructions, but everything you two have been doing since you came here.”
“Sister, I swear — we’re with you!” the wife blurted. “We are Family, too.”
“No,” Hala said, waving her pistol at the woman’s ridiculous chest. “You’re whores to the American cause. Traitors.”
“It’s not true,” the man insisted. “No … no.”
The two were so intent on their denials, they didn’t even seem to notice what else was happening in the room.
Tariq had taken a plastic canister to the sink and begun mixing a small amount of the white powder into two glasses of water. Now he was using someone’s pink toothbrush to stir each one into a cloudy mixture.
He carried the glasses over to the couple on the bed.
“Don’t make a fuss,” he said. “Just drink this down. Have some dignity.”
There was fear, but also anger in the fat man’s eyes. “Or what? You’ll shoot us?”
Hala said, “It’s preferable that you do this quietly, but if you need encouragement, I’m supposed to remind you of your family back home.”
“But this is a horrible mistake!” the wife babbled on. “We haven’t done what you said. We are loyal to the cause.”
“That’s very touching,” Hala said. “But it doesn’t matter to me or to The Family. Not anymore. Now I’m going to count to five.”
“Please —”
“One.”
“I’m begging you! Sister?”
“Two.”
The man snatched both glasses from Tariq. He pressed one into his wife’s hand. “We have no choice, Sanaa. Think of Gabir. Think of Siti.”
“Think of three,” Hala said as she continued the countdown. She had no pity for these people. They were disloyal, and they were weak. This mission was too important to risk a mistake. “Four.”