A Long December

CHAPTER 19

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2001 19:27

Sincewe couldn’t talk to Linda, we did the next best thing. We talked to Skripkin again. This time, things were a little different.

As soon as he saw Hester, he smiled and said, “Hello, lady agent. I dream about you.”

“It’s the jail food,” said Hester. “Trust me.”

“Deputy,” he said, acknowledging me. “And who is…?”

George said, “Special Agent Pollard, FBI Counterintelligence.”

Just a tiny flicker of surprise showed on Skripkin’s face. “How do you do.” He was definitely more alert.

“Just fine,” said George. “You know you have the right to an attorney…”

After the second Miranda, George just leaned back in his chair and said, “You’re a very interesting fellow.”

“Thank you.”

“As soon as I heard that you were wanted in Russia, I thought I’d like to talk with you sometime.”

“I am glad.”

“Then, when I found out you were really wanted in the U.K., I thought I’d better talk to you right away.”

“What is this U.K.?” The tension was back.

“You lie too much to be of any real use to us,” said George. “Maybe the English will want you back. I’ve talked to someone who knew you when you lived in ‘a tatty little flat in Lambeth.’ With your friends the Kalashnikovs.”

“I do not think I want to talk any more with you,” said Skripkin.

George began rummaging through his file folder. That was my prearranged signal to ask a wild-card question.

“When did they start to call you ‘Cheeto’? Way back then? Or is it more recent? “We’d decided that was to be tossed into the line of questioning because I remembered that Hector had referred to one of Rudy’s acquaintances by that nickname. It was a question that could serve two purposes. First, if Cheeto wasn’t Skripkin, it might be just enough to distract him and cause a little worry about what false information we had about him that he hadn’t supplied. A liar always wants to be in control of the lies. Second, if he was Cheeto, then he could worry about what truth we knew about him, and just where we obtained it. For us, there wasn’t a downside.

“Who told you that? “It was an indefinite response.

I put on my reading glasses, took a paper out of my folder, which happened to contain a bunch of throwaway teletypes regarding God knew what that I’d pulled off the dispatch desk, and pretended to read. Keeping my head slightly down, I looked up at him over the top of my glasses. “Three days ago, when you came up during an interview,” I said.

I had a feeling that he was a lot less accustomed to getting evasive answers than he was to giving them.

“Three days ago? “asked Skripkin.

“The day Rudy was shot,” I said. “That was three days ago, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t answer.

I gave as genuine a chuckle as I was able, all things considered. “I’ll bet that all along, you thought it was Linda we were looking for, didn’t you? “I mean, it was Linda, of course. I never said it wasn’t. But he sure as hell didn’t know that.

Like they say, silence is golden.

I figured I was on the right track. “Well, you’re sure right about one thing. You really don’t know much about women. I’ll bet you also thought Rudy was the only one she told about the two of you.”

“You are such a smart person…who else did she tell, then? “I had to give him credit, he didn’t give in easily.

We’d talked about this beforehand and had decided that the second, and last, wild card we had to hit him with was the name of Mustafa Abdullah Odeh. We’d agreed to make it an indirect reference, to be used by any of the three of us, at our discretion.

“I can’t give you the name of the other person she told,” I said. Dangle the worm.

He leaned back, beginning to smile.

“But I can tell you that the other person subsequently told one…one”-and I looked at my bogus folder again-”told one Mustafa Abdullah Odeh.” I looked up and was able to watch the blood drain from his face. When you’re on a roll, you might as well go as far as you can. “And I guess he’s pissed,” I said. “From what I’m told. You happen to know him?”

The question produced a first, as far as my history of interviews went. Skripkin got a funny look on his face and just said, “I must use rest room. Hurry, please.”

He was serious. Hester hit the buzzer on the desk, and a jailer stuck his head in the room.

“He’s gotta go,” she said. “Rest room.”

Skripkin was on his feet and halfway to the door before she finished speaking.

As our suspect disappeared down the short jail hallway, Hester said dryly, “Think he might know him?”

“Nice job, Carl,” said George. “Volont’s going to be sorry he missed this.”

It was fifteen minutes later that Skripkin finally reentered the interview room. He didn’t look too good. We went at him gently at first, with Hester taking the lead. He told her that Mustafa Abdullah Odeh was a very bad man. As if we didn’t know that. He also told her that Mustafa Abdullah Odeh was the boss. Just that simple. As far as Skripkin knew, Odeh was the source of the plan to spray the meat at the Battenberg plant. He was also the source of anything that Juan Miguel Alvarez, aka Hassan Ahmed Hassan, had needed or had thought necessary to complete the mission.

“Like what?” asked Hester. “Money?”

“Money. Yes. The spray cans, too. Weapons. For security of the operations.”

“Is that where the shotgun came from?” she asked. “The one that was used to kill Rudy?”

“No. That one was purchased by Hassan at a store. For hunting, he said.”

“Okay. Do you know which store?”

“The tools and things store in Battenberg.”

“You mean the hardware store? “she asked.

“Yes. That is the one.”

Hester made a note. “Hassan didn’t happen to get the spray cans filled there, too, did he?”

“No, no. Those came UPS to sweet little liar Linda. She brought them to us. That way,” Skripkin said, “they go to U.S.A. citizen. No questions.”

This was turning out to be a really productive day.

About that time, Skripkin began having second thoughts. I suspect the picture of himself locked up in either a state or federal prison and being stalked therein by one of Odeh’s associates was beginning to loom large. Or maybe he was just tired of urgent bowel movements. Either way, he suddenly decided he needed to talk with an attorney. From that point on, we could not question him without his attorney present.

Finding him an attorney presented a problem. As soon as the local attorneys found out there were going to be Iowa felonies, federal felonies, and the possibility of extradition to the U.K., they all refused to represent him. They said it was “outside their expertise.” We had to go to a judge, and she had to order one to talk with him. It was a lot of fuss for nothing, as the appointed attorney just told Skripkin to shut up until he was able to talk to a good Federal Practice attorney, and then submitted his bill. But it had to be done.

We were happy, though. We had a good start at getting Linda Moynihan charged with a federal felony for aiding and abetting foreign terrorists. That was a good. All we had to do was check with UPS, see when the package was delivered to her address, see where it had come from, and tell her the bad news as we handed her a federal warrant. No wonder she’d wanted guarantees of both immunity and protection.

Harry put it rather succinctly when he said, “Your girl Linda probably don’t know enough to save her ass, just enough to get herself killed.”

“I wonder,” said George, “if she knew what was in the package?”

“I’ll bet she had an idea,” said Hester. “Maybe not exactly, but close enough to count. The picture I’m getting of her, she tends to find those things out.”