Counterplay

3

Roger “Butch” Karp heard fulton grousing the minute he got off the elevator on the fourth floor at Beth Israel Hospital and was glad it gave him something to smile about. Butch hated visiting hospitals, even a nice, modern facility like BI. Above all, he hated the smell of hospitals-the cleaning fluids that couldn’t disguise the stench of urine and blood and the cloying presence of death and disease.

Ever since high school, he’d associated these smells with the pain his mother had been put through as she battled cancer. It didn’t matter that she’d died at home, there’d been too many trips to the hospital for tests and surgeries, too much watching her suffer as the doctors poked, prodded, and shook their heads with long mournful faces. Nothing can be done…. We’ll try to make her as comfortable as possible. Sorry, son.

Nor did it matter that atop the list of Karp’s happiest moments had been his presence at the births of his three children: Lucy, the eldest, and the twins, Isaac and Giancarlo. He still hated hospitals.

Yet he had to laugh as he drew closer to Fulton’s room from which there came the sound of objects crashing to the floor and the detective bellowing at the top of his lungs. “I don’t need nobody’s help to take a piss, young lady. Now, if you’ll just stand aside and hand me the walker, I’ll manage to drain the tank just fine on my own.”

A young female voice argued back. “Now, Mr. Fulton, you aren’t supposed to get out of bed without two nurses here to assist you,” she said. “I’m not big enough to support you by myself if you fell. But if you’ll just wait a moment, I’ll call for another nurse. Or you can use the bottle we’ve provided next to your bed.”

“Ah, for Christ’s sake, I just want to take a whiz in a toilet without a couple of women watching…”

Karp entered the room and saw Fulton perched on the edge of the hospital bed, waving his outstretched arms at a pretty little blond nurse who stood between him and an aluminum walker. Fulton looked up at the intruder with a scowl, but his expression changed when he saw it was Karp.

“Butch! Just the man I wanted to see,” Fulton said. “Now, nurse, my friend Butch here will do just fine with piss duty. As you can see, he’s a big strapping fellow; he’ll save me if I fall in and begin to drown. Now, hand me the walker.”

The nurse-Nancy Hull, if her name tag was accurate-looked at Karp dubiously. But she had to admit that the visitor was a big man-six foot five or so, she guessed-and looked like he worked out. She liked the way he was smiling at her with his curiously almond-shaped eyes which, she noted, were gray and flecked with gold. Nurse Nancy turned and handed the walker to Fulton, who practically jumped out of bed.

Karp quickly realized that the nurse’s concerns were not without merit. His friend nearly toppled over to the side and would have fallen except that Karp reached out to steady him.

“Thanks,” Fulton said, grimacing in pain from having tweaked a knee catching himself. “I’ve got it from here, if you’d kindly get the bathroom door.”

Karp reached for the handle and held the door open. Fulton half walked and half dragged himself into the bathroom with Nurse Nancy positioned on the other side, looking as if she was prepared to dive under the big man to break his fall if necessary.

“Out,” Fulton demanded as he reached the toilet.

“But-” Nurse Nancy began to complain.

“Out. Nonnegotiable. Vamoose! Butch can stay if it makes you feel any better, but you have to scram…. Please.”

The nurse stood back with a sniff and shut the door. Satisfied that his privacy was not going to be invaded, Fulton positioned the walker so that he could relieve himself. “They’re saying I can go home in the next day or two,” he grumbled back at Karp. “But I have to stay off my legs for a few weeks, then gradually rehab back into shape. I can’t wait. The worst thing about this place is all these people treating me like a child. A big, helpless child. I just want to get back to work and hopefully someday run into the mo’fo who did this.”

Karp listened patiently to the rant, which he’d heard since shortly after that terrible day. A farmer in upstate New York, out trying to discover what all the black smoke over by the highway was about, discovered the massacre. Fulton had been found lying with his head on the body of a murdered child, passed out due to loss of blood and shock. His survival had been touch and go for a bit, and there’d been concern about brain damage from the blood loss. But he’d pulled through with his wife, Helen, at his side, and there appeared to be nothing physically wrong with him other than the damage done to his knees.

The surgeons had been able to repair one knee with the expectation that it would fully recover with physical therapy. You were lucky, the surgeon told him. The bullet damaged a ligament and nicked a pretty major blood vessel, but it didn’t hit the bone. However, the joint in the second knee had been destroyed, requiring a total knee replacement and the honest assessment, You may never walk quite normally again. There was damage to the perineal nerve that affects how you raise and lower your foot-a condition known as “drop foot” may result, as well as a general loss of strength.

“I was going to have to have my knees done someday anyway because of football,” Fulton said as he finished his business and washed his hands. “This was just a little earlier than I’d hoped.” He paused and looked down at the floor. “It’s probably going to get me on the department’s physically-unable-to-perform list…mandatory retirement.”

Fulton’s voice had gone froggy at the statement, and Karp pretended not to notice him swiping at the tears on his face. He assured Fulton that if the police department forced him to retire, he’d still have the job as head of the DAO’s investigations unit. “That won’t change,” Karp said reassuringly.

“Thanks, I appreciate it…but it’s not the same,” Fulton replied. “I’ve been part of the NYPD for most of my life. That’s who I am…a cop with the finest police department in the world…. I wouldn’t be part of the thin blue line anymore.” Fulton seemed to realize the effect he was having on his friend and quickly added, “But that’s okay. You and I can still put the bad guys in the can. I’ll just do it as a civilian with the DAO, right?”

“Yeah, right, Clay,” Karp agreed. He hesitated. “I’m sorry. Sorry I asked you to oversee this one. We should have had the feds handle the whole thing.”

Fulton scowled. “To hell with that,” he said yanking paper towels from the dispenser. “We’ve been over this before. The traitor was a fed, Michael Grover. That’s how we got ambushed.”

Karp nodded. “Yes, I know, I just-”

Before he could finish the thought, Fulton had dismissed it. “I’m the only one who’ll have to answer for this fuckup. I knew something wasn’t right…I could feel it…. I should have just stuck with my own guys like I wanted; guys I’ve known practically their whole adult lives. But I didn’t follow my instincts and now all those kids and those men are dead.”

The last sentence came out as a sob. Fulton’s massive shoulders shook as he cried. Not knowing what else to do, Karp put a hand on his back. “We’ll get them all, Clay,” he gently enunciated, feeling less than adequate at coming up with the right words. “We’ll get the bastards who did it.”

Fulton nodded and straightened up. He pulled another paper towel from the rack, wet it, and wiped his face. Karp noted the dark circles under his friend’s eyes.

In all, six children, ages seven to twelve, had been on the rural school bus commandeered by the terrorists. Six dead children, one dead bus driver, plus nine dead police officers and federal agents. Ten if Grover was counted, but no one was shedding any tears for him.

“So anything new on Kane?” Fulton asked to break the ice as Karp opened the bathroom door.

The public had not been told much about Kane’s escape except that apparent Islamic terrorists had murdered children and law enforcement officers and that authorities believed these terrorists had freed Kane, who was now referred to in the press as “the criminal mastermind Andrew Kane” because of his suspected ties to arms dealers. One of the terrorists had died, and one New York police detective had been wounded and survived, but no identities were being released “at this time.”

In the meantime, the nation had been put on Red Alert as the largest manhunt in U.S. history was launched. But Kane and his accomplices had disappeared.

Meanwhile, the press was going bonkers, clamoring for more, filing Freedom of Information Act demands for whatever public records might exist, but none did-or they were deemed part of the “ongoing investigation” and therefore exempt. The media camped out on the lawns of the families grieving for their children and spoke in stage whispers for the cameras at the funerals of the murdered officers. It was a bonanza for retired generals and terrorism experts, who were trotted out by the television networks as being the final authorities on the latest casualties in the War on Terrorism.

“Maybe, I can help answer that.”

Karp and Fulton looked over at the doorway as S. P. Jaxon, the FBI’s man in charge of the New York office and an old friend of Karp’s, walked into the room followed by another man. It was the second man who’d spoken.

“Roger Karp, Clay Fulton, I’d like you to meet Jon Ellis, the assistant director of special operations with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,” Jaxon said. “Jon, this is Mr. Roger Karp, Butch to his friends, the district attorney of New York County. And you know all about Mr. Fulton, one of New York’s finest.”

Ellis stepped forward and shook hands with Karp and Fulton. “Of course, no introductions needed,” he said. “I’m a big fan, Mr. Karp-Butch, if I may-and Mr. Fulton’s reputation with the NYPD is legendary.”

“Hi, Espey,” Karp said, shaking the FBI agent’s hand before turning to shake Ellis’s. “Special ops?” The man smiled, but Karp noticed that his eyes did not crease with any humor. Botox or that’s just the way he is, a cold fish? he wondered.

“Nothing like military special ops, Butch,” Ellis replied. “More of a catchall for all the shit-pardon my French, sir-but the shit nobody else knows what to do with. Mostly odds and ends.”

Yeah, like I believe that, Karp thought. Something tells me this guy is no odds-and-ends man.

Jon Ellis wasn’t particularly large; in fact, he was a shade under five foot ten, but from the way he moved, Karp knew there was a trained, muscular body beneath his conservative Brooks Brothers suit. Ellis’s face was tanned and his eyes gray as rain clouds; Karp knew they were assessing him and filing the information into some internal computer.

“Jon will be handling the Kane case, at least the federal side of it,” Jaxon said. “The FBI will mostly be assisting. I’ve been temporarily appointed to be the agency’s liaison with Homeland Security.”

Karp noticed the tightness in Jaxon’s voice and attributed it to the interagency power struggles the feds were known for. Silver haired, lean, and lithe as a cat, Jaxon, known to his friends simply as Espey, was no slouch himself but exuded none of the other man’s cockiness.

“We’ll do our best to cooperate,” Karp said. “Now, you were going to answer Mr. Fulton’s question about the latest on Kane?”

Ellis went over to the doorway and looked up and down the hallway before closing the door. He then picked up the television remote control from the bed stand and turned up the volume.

A bit melodramatic, Karp thought. But maybe that goes with the spook business.

“This goes no further,” Ellis warned. “I shouldn’t really be telling you, but Mr. Jaxon assures me you can be trusted absolutely and need to be in the loop. As to your question, we don’t know where Kane is at the moment, although we have reason to believe that he remains in the United States.” Ellis looked at Fulton. “However, you were right about the terrorists speaking Russian. We’ve identified the dead guy as Akhmed Kadyrov, a Chechen terrorist with ties to al Qaeda.”

“Chechen?” Fulton asked.

“Yeah, from Chechnya or, as they call it, Ichkeria, in southern Russia. He was one of these so-called Chechen nationalists who want to establish an independent state…full of patriotic anti-Russian rhetoric, but really just a collection of thugs, gangsters, and Islamic extremists. The Russians think he was behind several bombings last year in Moscow that killed a lot of civilians. He may also have been involved in the Nord-Ost musical theater takeover in Moscow, 129 people killed, as well as the school massacre in Beslan last September. They killed 341 people in that one, 172 of them children. Obviously, the world’s a better place without him. The Russian ambassador will be appearing at the White House tomorrow with the president to use this attack to blast Chechen terrorists as a worldwide threat and renew his country’s commitment to the ‘War on Terrorism,’ whatever that means.”

“What have these guys got to do with Kane?” Karp asked.

“Good question. But as you know,” Ellis pointed out, “we suspect that one of Kane’s ‘extracurricular’ businesses, while maintaining the public persona, was arms dealing-much of it supplying terrorist organizations and various insurgencies with everything from rifles to shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. Your guy, Newbury…who, by the way, is very, very good, we’d like to steal him away-”

“He’s spoken for,” Karp said with an equally false smile while thinking, This guy certainly likes to work the crowd.

“Ah, the jealous boyfriend.” Ellis laughed. “But I’ll leave it for the moment. Anyway, your guy Newbury has also uncovered some paper trails indicating Kane was sort of a one-stop supermarket for terrorists…weapons, maybe even working on acquiring WMD…and banking. He apparently had connections and accounts at a number of U.S. and offshore banks and was transferring, laundering, and funneling large amounts of cash from a variety of sources including, get this, the Little Sisters of Islam Home for War Orphans…. Hey, who says these guys have no sense of humor?”

“With Newbury’s help, we’ve frozen a lot of Kane’s assets,” Jaxon added. “I doubt we have them all, but it had to hurt.”

“There are other arms dealers and crooked bankers,” Karp said. “Why go through all the trouble-including murdering kids, which they knew was going to bring the heat in spades-for this one guy?”

Ellis shrugged. “What can I say? He’s got something they want. We do know that they sent one of their top field operatives to get him.”

“Don’t tell me,” Fulton said. “The girl.”

Ellis snorted in disgust. “Some girl. She goes by Samira Azzam, though we don’t think that’s her real name. More of a political statement-the ‘real’ Samira Azzam was a Palestinian poet who was vehemently anti-Israeli way back when it all started in the forties.”

“What happened to her?” Fulton asked.

“She died of a heart attack during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War when she heard that the Jews had captured Jerusalem. The current Samira Azzam is made of sterner stuff…. She does appear to be Palestinian, although there are no known photographs of her. She first surfaced as a militant with Hamas, but switched allegiances to al Qaeda in the late nineties. She’s a born killer, ruthless, pitiless…as you saw with the children. In fact, while we suspect Kadyrov of being involved with the Beslan school massacre, we know Azzam was from reports by survivors and the one terrorist who was captured alive. She apparently supervised the setting of explosives in the gymnasium where most of the victims died, as well as the execution of twenty teachers early on in the siege to let the Russians know she was serious. How she got out of there when everyone else died is the million-dollar question.”

“But she’s Palestinian,” Fulton noted. “These Chechens are Russian, right?”

It was Karp who shook his head and answered. “Ethnically different from Russians. More Asian than Slav, and mostly Muslim. They also speak their own language but will use Russian as a common language.” When the others looked at him with raised eyebrows, he added, “My people are from the Galicia area of Poland. I know a little about the region that’s down south in the Caucasus Mountains.”

“Exactly,” Ellis said. “But the question’s still valid. What’s a Palestinian terrorist, an Arab, doing mounting attacks in Russia, working with Chechen nationalists and local Islamic hard-liners? The unfortunate answer is that these groups are networking far more than ever before, merging into one big happy homicidal family. The bigger question is, what is Samira Azzam doing in the United States helping Kane escape?”

“So do you know the answer?” Karp asked when the agent hesitated.

Ellis looked at him as if trying to decide whether he could be trusted. Karp got the feeling that Ellis was putting on an act, attempting to indicate that they were “in this together.” Karp had used this same technique plenty of times himself to lull recalcitrant witnesses and defendants into admitting more than they wanted.

Ellis looked at Jaxon, who nodded. “We’re not sure, but we do know that the Chechen nationalists feel that the United States has joined the Russian government in siding against them. They’re also Muslim, an alliance with al Qaeda seems likely. So our best bet is something that will strike a blow at both countries…or maybe cause a rift between them.”

“Any idea what that might be?”

“Nothing for sure, yet.”

“What about the Pope’s visit?” Fulton asked. It had just been announced that the pontiff would be coming to Manhattan in September for the installment of the new archbishop of New York.

“We’ve considered it,” Jaxon said, “but there are a couple of problems with the theory. One is that security around the Pope is almost heavier than the president of the United States. He’s surrounded by his own security people, and the church keeps everything very close to the vest. The ceremony’s going to be at St. Patrick’s, invitation only inside, and the crowds will be searched and scanned and, along with unauthorized vehicles, be kept at a safe distance. It’d be a tough nut for anyone to crack.”

“The bigger problem with the theory,” Ellis interrupted, “is that Kane escaped before the Vatican announced the visit. Since the escape was obviously planned for months, and these things take time and money to implement, it’s pretty obvious that Kane and the terrorists have something else in mind. We’re getting a lot of conflicting information and rumors, but with Kane, the problem is knowing who to trust, even the cops.”

Fulton stiffened at the implied criticism, which Jaxon noted. “Sorry, Clay,” the FBI agent said, taking over for Ellis. “We all know that ninety-eight percent of the department is clean. But between Newbury’s Gang and what help we’ve been able to lend, we’ve uncovered a pretty extensive network of cops with ties to Kane. As you know, the DAO has been bringing charges against those we can prove committed crimes. But it would be a mistake to believe that we’ve found them all…any more than we should assume that there are no more traitors within my agency.”

Karp silently congratulated Jaxon for taking some of the sting out of Ellis’s comment by accepting that they all had better look within before blaming other agencies. He knew that Jaxon had taken the defection of Agent Grover personally. They’d gone through the academy at Quantico together, Class of ’76, and he’d considered him as trustworthy as they came, which was how Grover got the nod when he volunteered to be part of the escort detail.

Jaxon had told Karp about the conversation when Grover asked for the job. Maybe I can get him to chat a bit. He’d probably prefer to spend his time in a federal pen than Attica. So there’s a chance he’ll want to make a deal.

Ellis walked over to the window and looked out, peering both ways as if on the lookout for suspicious cars on the streets outside. “We do have a couple of assets going in,” he said. “The first is that we have a man on the inside. He’s the one who identified Azzam. He’s still trying to work out an introduction to Kane.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Karp said.

Ellis smiled. “It is. But this guy’s good. The…um, people, he worked for before signing on with Homeland Security planted him with an antigovernment white supremacist group years ago, mostly to feed us information on their plans. We kept him there but were careful not to overuse him or act on everything he told us. We occasionally even took a pretty good hit in order not to blow his cover. Then just before this little debacle with Kane, he learned that Azzam was in the country looking to buy plastic explosives and automatic weapons.”

“From white supremacists?” Fulton asked, his forehead furrowed like a freshly plowed field. “Now I’m really getting confused.”

“Lots of people are,” Ellis said. “But there’s an old Arab proverb, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ These Islamic terrorists have one thing in common with our homegrown antigovernment types, like the late Mr. Timothy McVeigh. They all hate the United States enough to put aside their differences long enough to bring us down, then they’ll squabble like vultures over the pieces…. In this case, ‘strange bedfellows’ works well for us;we’ve managed to get our guy set up with plastic explosives and some pretty sophisticated ordnance that Azzam was looking for…”

Fulton looked like he was going to jump off the bed and strangle Ellis. “You fucking telling me that the ordnance used on those kids and officers was supplied by a U.S. agent-”

Ellis held up his hand and shook his head. “No. Sorry should have explained that up front,” he said. “Nothing’s exchanged hands between our guy and the terrorists. That’s a deal he’s trying to set up. Azzam got the grenade launchers and automatic rifles from someone else…maybe Kane’s connections.”

“Why not get the plastic explosives and other stuff from Kane, too?” Karp asked.

“Don’t know,” Ellis replied. “Maybe he couldn’t get it on time, or they wanted to shop around so as not to raise red flags with someone who might get curious about all that sudden influx of money for guns and explosives. The important thing here is that if our guy can get close, we may be able to catch Kane and nip this plan in the bud.

“However,” Ellis continued, “we don’t want our guy pressing too hard so that they get nervous. If they get wind that we’re on to them, they’ll just move on to some other target. If you want to trap tigers like Kane and Azzam, you have to stake a live goat to the ground and let them come to you.”

“What goat?” Fulton asked.

“Me,” Karp said. “I’m their other ‘asset.’ Me and my family and friends, we’re your goats.”

Ellis nodded. “As you know, Kane seems to have an ulterior motive besides whatever the terrorists are up to and that’s to kill Butch and his family. That’s the bad news. The good news is it means he’s letting emotions-hate and vengeance-cloud his thinking, and it could be what trips him up. This is personal to him, and our shrinks believe that may be what draws him out of hiding first.”

Jaxon pointed out, “There’s also the possibility that all of this is about you and has nothing to do with the Chechen issue. You and your gang managed to mess up their plans to blow up Times Square on New Year’s. In fact, you’ve been a thorn in their sides for a while now. They might have wanted Kane freed for other purposes, but Azzam may also be targeting the district attorney of New York before he screws it up for her side again.”

“Which is why,” Ellis added, “with your permission-and no disrespect to you, Mr. Fulton, I know your guys are providing security for the Karp family-but I’d like to have some of my guys watching, too. As good as I’m sure Clay’s guys are, my teams are trained to spot these people and their techniques before they can succeed.”

Seeing the look on Fulton’s face, Karp started to say that he felt safe with the NYPD providing security-not to mention his wife’s former life as a security expert-but Fulton spoke first. “I agree. These assholes already caught me with my pants down once. It can’t hurt to have extra eyes and extra firepower around.”

Karp closed his eyes and a malapropism of one of his favorite Yankees ever, Yogi Berra, popped into his head. “It’s like deja vu all over again.”