Call to Treason

FIVE

When is a postal carrier not a postal carrier? That was what Ed March had asked his old friend Darrell McCaskey to help him find out.

The two men had been college roommates at the University of Miami. While McCaskey was recruited by the FBI, March was asked to become a police officer with the U.S. Postal Service. For over ten years, March’s beat had been child pornography. Then the Internet virtually ended that use of the mails. He was shifted to Homeland Security activities where most of his time was spent doing the ABCs — alien background checks — of individuals who regularly sent packages to nations that sponsored terrorism. March was currently involved in a stakeout involving a postal carrier who was suspected of helping a certain individual bypass the ABC system by collecting packages from a specific drop box and bringing them directly to the overseas pouches. These were believed to contain materials that could not be sent via E-mail attachments: stolen documents, currency, and possibly computer components.

Right now, March did not want the mailer. He wanted the carrier so he could confiscate the truck before the package could be off-loaded. If the address on the parcel inside was the same that had been found in a terrorist hut in Gunong Tahan, the carrier would be persuaded to turn future packages over to the CIA before they were sent overseas.

March had backup a block away in an unmarked car, but he needed McCaskey to tell him whether he was being watched while he watched the mailbox and carrier. March had been in this location for several days, waiting for another drop-off. It was not uncommon for spies and terrorists to work in partnership with observers. These persons kept a careful eye on nationals in their employ. As often as not, nationals turned out to be double agents. Especially when they had been found out.

Posing as a flag vendor with a small white cart, March was standing on the corner of Constitution Avenue. Mailboxes were potential receptacles for bombs, and this was one of the few locations the USPS had left operational. The postal service police believed that the mailer came over the Potomac from Arlington and dropped it off on his way to work at the Embassy of Malaysia on Massachusetts Avenue. That was ascertained by following the staff members home and seeing who passed this way. There were two potential targets.

One of them had mailed a package at the box forty minutes earlier.

McCaskey was sitting cross-legged on a small bench closer to the Lincoln Memorial. Early-morning tourists and joggers moved by in all directions. McCaskey noticed them all to see if any came by again. That could mean they were watching the mailbox, looking for enemy recon. McCaskey also watched for the glint of binoculars or anyone who had a good eye line with the box.

In McCaskey’s hand was one of the greatest surveillance props ever invented: the cell phone. A user had to concentrate in order to hear, so passers-by assumed the caller did not see them. Pickpockets loved cell phones for that reason. McCaskey missed nothing, even as he pretended to talk to his wife, Maria. In fact, former Interpol agent Maria Corneja-McCaskey was sitting beside him on the bench. That irony was not lost on either of them. McCaskey had always feared that Maria was too wedded to intelligence work to have time for a marriage. That was the problem with McCaskey’s first marriage. He had married a fellow FBI agent, Bonnie Edwards, and had three kids with her. Bonnie quit to be a full-time mother, and McCaskey took a promotion to unit chief in Dallas to pick up the financial slack. A subsequent promotion took him to D.C., which was good for McCaskey but not for the family. In the end, after eight years of marriage, the McCaskeys agreed to a divorce. The children visited their father during school vacations, and McCaskey went to see them whenever he could get away. They lived outside of Dallas, where Bonnie had married an oil executive with three kids. She seemed to like her very Brady life.

The dueling careers had come between McCaskey and Maria once, when they first met in her native Spain. They had reconnected when McCaskey was on a mission in Madrid. Maria had agreed to give it up and move to Washington.

Now his beautiful, dark-haired wife was helping him with a stakeout. She woke up smirking. Though Maria was in character now, pretending to be an artist sketching the Memorial in pastel, the bemused look was still there.

“Honey, I am so incredibly bad at having these fake conversations,” he said into the deactivated phone. “Pausing and pretending to listen to someone.” He paused and pretended to listen. “Then laughing disarmingly.” He chuckled. “I’d rather be in a firefight.”

“You may have an opportunity,” Maria said from the side of her mouth. “Three o’clock, nanny with a stroller.”

McCaskey glanced over as the young woman passed. She had Asian features. She was dressed in a Georgetown University sweatshirt and jeans and was absently rocking a charcoal-colored Maclaren stroller with a hood.

“I don’t think so,” McCaskey said.

“Darrell, there’s no baby in the stroller,” Maria said. She put the ivory-colored chalk back in the wooden carrying case.

“I know,” he replied, still pretending to talk in the phone. “There’s a shopping bag in the stroller. It’s probably got everything she owns. Look at the laces of her Adidas. Broken and knotted, hole on one side. The foam handle of the stroller is torn. It was probably discarded. She’s homeless.”

“Or pretending to be,” Maria said as she selected a navy blue stick to lay in shadows.

“It’s possible,” McCaskey agreed. He looked toward the lawn beyond the path. “I’m more concerned about the guy sitting on the grass with the laptop.”

“The man in the windbreaker?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Maria asked. “His back is to the mailbox.”

“But the web cam is not,” McCaskey said. “He could be teleconferencing, or he could be watching the mailbox.”

Just then the mail carrier pulled up in his small local-haul truck. A lanky, blond-haired young man emerged carrying a white plastic bin and stepped over to the mailbox. McCaskey continued to talk on the phone as March moved his cart so he was closer to the mail truck. The carrier did not seem to notice. He knelt, opened the front panel with a key from the ring on his belt, and slowly scooped the contents into the container. He appeared to be looking for something. When he found it, he swept the rest of the mail in quickly and shut the box. Evidently, that was all March needed. He stepped from his cart and intercepted the mail carrier. McCaskey saw March show the carrier his badge, but he could not hear what was being said. The carrier made a disbelieving, then angry face and shook his head. March was insistent as he got on his cell phone and made a call. He was summoning his backup.

The mail carrier moved toward the truck, still holding the bin. March grabbed his arm and said something.

“Hey, will someone call a cop!” the carrier shouted.

The man with the laptop turned. So did the homeless woman. The two of them started to rise.

“Are both of them in on this?” Maria said.

“I don’t know,” her husband said. “Stay here.” He got up and walked toward them. He was still holding the phone to his ear.

The man with the laptop had folded it away, slipped it into a shoulder bag, and also walked toward the mail truck. The woman was quickly pushing her stroller toward March. Other people stopped and watched from a distance.

The carrier attempted to pull his arm free. He yanked harder than March’s grip required, upending both the carrier and the bin. The woman with the stroller started running to where mail had been strewn across the street. McCaskey also rushed over. He got there first and, crouching, began pulling mail toward him. Most of it was picture postcards along with a handful of letters. He was looking for an oversized envelope or small parcel with a South Pacific or Far Eastern address. He found one, a fat manila envelope with a Kuala Lumpur address. McCaskey pulled over other letters so this one did not seem to be all that interested him. Maria, sitting close by, was watching the homeless woman.

The mail carrier hurried over. “Thank you, sir. I’ll take those,” he said, reaching for the letters.

“And I’ll take those,” March said as he leaned over the mail carrier and wrapped a thick hand around his key ring. He flipped the small metal latch and pulled it free. The ignition key to the truck was on the ring.

McCaskey released the mail. He stood and watched as the carrier put them back in the bin. Then the young man went to collect the rest of the mail. The homeless woman was on her hands and knees, also gathering pieces. The carrier went to take them from her and, with a snarl, she slapped over the bin and its contents. The package bound for Malaysia went spinning back onto the street. The woman scrambled after it. The mail carrier did not go after her.

McCaskey did.

“Hold on!” McCaskey yelled after her.

The man with the laptop was closer. He intercepted the woman as she tried to get away. March did not see him. He was busy waving over a blue sedan. There was a brief struggle, but the man with the laptop got the mail. The woman sped away as McCaskey arrived.

The large envelope was in the man’s hand, folded in half. “I’ve got it all,” he said to the mail carrier.

“Thanks. I’ll take it,” March said, walking over.

“Glad I could help,” the man with the laptop said. Then he turned and walked away.

McCaskey had an uneasy sense about this. He waited anxiously while March flipped through the few pieces of mail. He reached the envelope addressed to Malaysia. He held it so McCaskey could see. It had been torn open.

“Shit,” McCaskey said.

The carrier was no longer a problem. One of the plain-clothes officers had him in custody and was taking him to their car. They had to stop the man with the laptop and the homeless woman.

McCaskey and March exchanged looks. March set out after the man with the laptop. The other plainclothesman followed when the carrier was secure in the sedan. McCaskey turned toward the field that stretched to the Lincoln Memorial. The homeless woman was at the edge of the lawn, digging around in her stroller. If she were stowing the contents of the envelope, they would have a problem. They had no right to search her belongings. If she had a weapon, they could have an even bigger problem. There were hundreds of potential hostages out here.

The former FBI agent walked quickly toward the woman. He still had his cell phone. He pretended to be deep in conversation and walked into the woman. Her stroller was upended, and the contents spilled onto the grass.

“I’m so sorry!” McCaskey said, tucking the cell phone in his pocket as he bent to help retrieve her belongings. Among the clothes and a water bottle were passports from different nations.

“Stay away!” the woman shouted, pushing him back.

McCaskey did not have to yield. Not anymore. He moved to confiscate the evidence of either theft or passport forgery.

With a cry of rage, the woman drew a double-bladed knife from a sheath on her forearm. The leather hilt was in the center with a serrated blade on either side. McCaskey backed away, and she approached him, her legs wide as she slashed left and right. They were not the wild moves of a homeless woman but the centered attack of a trained fighter.

The former FBI agent did not carry a handgun. Only Op-Center field agents were issued firearms, and the shotgun he kept at home for intruders would not be appropriate in a situation like this. He watched as she cut from left to right and back in a dead-horizontal line waist-high. He had to get close to the hand with the knife and do a forearm break. That meant cupping her elbow in the palm of one hand and pushing up and placing another hand on the inside of her wrist and pushing down. The wrist strike would numb her forearm and cause her to drop the knife. The trick was not to get stabbed in the process.

McCaskey kept his hands level with the slashing blade. He did not blink. That had been part of his training. He had to wait for her to do so, then he would—

The homeless woman suddenly flew to her left as a wooden case of pastels smacked into the side of her head. The knife dropped as the woman fell to her knees. Maria was still holding the handle of the box tightly. She brought it back for a second blow, driving the brass hinges into the back of the homeless woman’s head. She fell forward on the lawn and landed on her face.

“I have always felt that aikido works better in the dojo than in the field,” Maria said.

“Not everyone carries a combat-ready art box,” McCaskey said.

The homeless woman’s eyes were shut. McCaskey put an index finger under her nose to make sure she was still breathing. Then he retrieved the knife and passports and motioned for the tourists to move away. Security officers from the Lincoln Memorial were running over.

Maria picked up her art kit. “I knew she was bad when she picked up the letters,” she said.

“Why?”

“Homeless women don’t use apricot-scented shampoo. That’s why I watched you instead of Ed.”

“I appreciate that, hon,” McCaskey said. He looked back toward the street. The plainclothesman was escorting the man with the laptop toward the sedan. The man was complaining loudly. March was walking toward the lawn. When he arrived, McCaskey handed him the passports and knife. March called his dispatcher and asked for emergency medical technicians to care for the woman.

“These are impressive,” the postal officer said. “Thanks. Both of you.”

“Glad we could help. What have you got on him?” McCaskey asked, nodding toward the man with the laptop.

“He didn’t stop when we asked him to,” March said.

“Is that a crime?” Maria asked.

“No. I’ve got a feeling he’s hiding something,” March said. “I want to have a look at the computer.”

“You are permitted to look at his computer files because of a feeling?” Maria asked.

“No,” March said. “We are permitted access to his computer under Section 217 of the USA Patriot Act. Suspected computer transgression, possible web cam surveillance of federal officers near a national monument is a crime. No court order required to investigate.”

“He may not have known you people were federal officers,” McCaskey pointed out.

“Perhaps,” March said. “But we have reasonable cause for suspicion. He handled the parcel from the embassy, and he did not stop when we asked him to, repeatedly. If he’s innocent, it’s a minor inconvenience, and we’ll apologize. If he’s guilty, we may save lives.”

McCaskey made a face as the security officers from the Memorial arrived. March showed them his badge, then asked them to watch the woman. He said an ambulance would be arriving in just a few minutes.

“Look, I’ve got to put this baby to bed,” March said. He offered his hand to McCaskey and Maria in turn. “I can’t thank you enough. If you ever need anything, just shout.”

“I will,” McCaskey said.

Op-Center’s top cop felt as though he should say something more on the man’s behalf but decided against it. Ed March had a point. He also had the law on his side. McCaskey himself had thought the man might be involved in this. That, too, had been a feeling. Sometimes, lawmen had to act on that.

McCaskey had parked on C Street. He walked back with Maria. His wife was scowling and complained that this was what Spain was like under Franco.

“If everyone El Caudillo arrested had actually been guilty of crimes, Spain would have been a nation of felons,” she said.

“The situations are not the same,” McCaskey said. “Franco was a tyrant. Ed is a good officer trying to protect American lives.”

“This is how good officers become tyrants,” she replied.

“Not always,” he said with more hope than conviction.

The American system was not perfect, but as they drove to Op-Center, McCaskey took comfort in a slogan that had been written on the blackboard of a Community Outreach Theory class he once took at the FBI Academy in Quantico. It was a reassuring quote from Jefferson: “The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.”