Hard as Nails

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

"My Yasein was working for the CIA."

Kurtz was at the breakfast table in Arlene's kitchen. The girl named Aysha was speaking. Arlene had explained in a whisper when she'd come to the door that she told the girl the truth—mostly—explaining to her that her fiancé had been killed in a Shootout at the Civic Center, probably while trying to assassinate a parole officer. But Arlene had let Aysha think that it had been Peg O'Toole who had returned fire with deadly effect.

"How do you know he was working for the CIA?" said Kurtz.

"He wrote to me about it. Yasein wrote to me every day."

"While you were in Canada?"

"Yes. I have been in Toronto for more than two months, waiting until Yasein could bring me into the United States of America."

"What did he tell you about working for the CIA?"

The girl sipped her tea. She seemed very calm, her large, brown eyes dry, her voice steady. "What do you want to know, Mr. Kurtz?"

"Did he give you any names? Tell you who approached him about working for the CIA?"

"Yes. His controller was code-named Jericho."

"Did he give Jericho's real name?"

"No. I am sure that Yasein did not know it. He wrote me that everyone in the CIA used code names only. Yasein's code name was 'Sparrow. "

Kurtz looked at Arlene, who was on her third Marlboro. "How did Jericho first contact Yasein?"

"He came into an… how do you say the word? Room in police headquarters where people are questioned?"

"Interrogation room?"

"Yes," said Aysha in her pleasant accent. "Interrogation room. Mr. Jericho came to see Yasein in the interrogation room when Yasein was arrested as an illegal immigrant and possible terrorist." She sipped her tea and looked at Arlene. "My Yasein was not a terrorist, Mrs. DeMarco."

"I know," said Arlene and patted the girl's arm.

Kurtz rubbed his aching head and raised his coffee cup, letting the steam from the coffee touch his face. He'd wakened at five with the mother of all headaches and gotten out of the Harbor Inn before the cops showed up. An anonymous call to Erie Medical Center hadn't even told him if Rigby was alive—they'd asked him repeatedly if he was family and tried to keep him on the line; Kurtz had left the pay phone quickly.

"So Yasein was taken into the Buffalo police headquarters?" asked Kurtz. "Or the federal building?"

"It was, as you say, federal," Aysha said carefully. "He wrote that it was Homeland Security people who detained him."

"FBI?"

The pretty young woman frowned. "I think not. But my Yasein was not proud of being detained, and he did not share all details."

"But this Jericho CIA guy first talked to him while he was in detention either at the Justice Center or FBI headquarters here in Buffalo?"

"I believe, yes. Yasein did write to say that he had been terrified—they arrested him on his way home from work, four men, put a black bag over his head, and drove him to the center where he was interrogated. He wrote that it had smelled like a large building—parking garage in the basement, a… what do you call a very quick and direct lift?"

"Express elevator?" said Arlene.

"Yes, thank you. They took an express elevator from basement. My Yasein's hands were handcuffed behind him and he had black bag over his head, but he could hear. And smell. It was a tall building, at least twenty stories tall, with many offices and computers. Several men from Homeland Security questioned him for two days and two nights."

"Was Yasein kept in a holding cell?" asked Kurtz. "With other detainees or prisoners?"

"No. He wrote me that they kept him in a small room with a cot. It had a sink but no toilet He was very embarrassed that he had to… how do you say it? Urinate?"

"Yes," said Arlene.

"That he had to urinate in a sink when they came for him late on the third morning. That is when he met the CIA man. Mr. Jericho."

"But no description of this Jericho?" said Kurtz.

"No." The girl ventured a small smile. "Are CIA spies allowed then to send descriptions of their fellow agents in letters?"

Kurtz had to smile back. "I don't think CIA agents are allowed to write letters to their fiancées about any of this stuff. But who knows?"

"Indeed," said Aysha. "If your CIA is like our State Security Service in Yemen. Who does know?"

Kurtz rubbed his head again. "But it was this Mr. Jericho and the CIA who provided Yasein with the money to bring you in?"

"Yes."

"But you had to wait almost ten weeks in Canada after they flew you from Yemen to Toronto."

"Yes. I wait while Yasein earn the rest of the money to pay men to bring me across the border."

"If it was the CIA, why didn't they just bring you straight into the States?"

"That would be illegal, Yasein tell me in letter."

Kurtz looked at Arlene and resisted the urge to sigh. "But they were training Yasein to kill a parole officer," he said.

"So you tell me. Yasein never wrote about the name or nature of the… is 'operation' the right word, Mrs. DeMarco? For secret CIA plan to assassinate someone?"

"Yes," said Arlene.

"My Yasein was no killer, Mr. Kurtz. He was trained as a mechanic. Does that wound hurt you?"

"What?" said Kurtz. He'd been thinking.

"The head wound. It was not stitched correctly and has not healed properly and the bandage is all bad. May I look at it?"

"Aysha was trained as a nurse," said Arlene, rising to get more coffee and tea for them all.

Kurtz shook his head. "No, thanks. It's fine. Did Yasein say anything else about the CIA or about Jericho?"

"Just that two weeks after he agreed to work for them, they brought him to CIA headquarters, where they trained him."

"In Langley, Virginia?" said Kurtz, surprised.

"I do not know. My Yasein said it was on a… what do you call a farm for horses? Expensive horses, such as the kind they race in Derby of Kentucky?"

"Thoroughbreds? A sort of ranch?"

"Not ranch," said Aysha, frowning as she hunted for the right word. "Where they do the breeding of expensive horses?"

Kurtz had no idea what she was talking about. He drank more coffee and closed his eyes against the headache.

"Stud farm," said Arlene.

"Yes. They trained my Yasein how to fire guns and do other CIA things at stud farm in the country. Several men, all with code names, taught him over three-day Labor Day weekend. He had to pass test before being allowed to return to Buffalo and go back to work."

"How'd he get to this stud farm?" asked Kurtz. "Did he tell you in his letters?"

"Oh, yes. He said that they flew in a private CIA jet. Yasein was very impressed."

"So am I," said Kurtz.

Aysha had gone to her room while Kurtz and Arlene spoke in the small, neat living room.

"I want you to take the girl and go to Gail's place this afternoon when I leave," Kurtz said.

"Is someone after us, Joe?"

"Maybe."

"Is it the Burned Man?"

"Probably," said Kurtz. "But I have a hunch he won't show up today. But stay at Gail's tomorrow until I call or show up."

Arlene nodded. "What do you think of Aysha's whole CIA story?"

"Well, it's absurd," said Kurtz. "But it fits, in a weird sort of way."

"How so?"

He shook his head. He didn't want to tell Arlene about last night. Not yet. With luck, never. He'd read her copy of the Buffalo News, even turned on the local TV news when he'd arrived, but there was no mention of the bloodletting, fire, and mayhem in Neola the night before.

Incredible, he'd thought if they can keep that covered up. It must be the CIA or Homeland Security or some serious federal agency involved. Either that or the local authorities kept it all hushed up.

But why train an illegal Yemeni immigrant trained as a mechanic, to kill a parole officer? If the feds were covering up for the Major's drug-and-spy operation down there, why draw attention by shooting Peg O'Toole? None of it made any sense.

"None of this makes any sense," said Arlene. She batted ashes into an old beanbag ashtray.

Kurtz just sighed. He expected the front door to be kicked in with a hydraulic ram any moment and for Paul Kemper to lead a SWAT team in.

As if reading his mind again, Arlene said, "Gail will call from the hospital as soon as she hears about Detective King."

Kurtz had told her about Rigby. Arlene's sister-in-law was a pediatric nurse at Erie County, and it was the only way he was going to find out whether Rigby King was dead or alive.

"Were you going to call the ex-director today?" asked Arlene.

"Who?" Kurtz had no idea what she was talking about. His head seemed to be full of bees. I don't know why. I got a full two hours sleep.

"The ex-director of the Rochester Psychiatric Hospital," Arlene said patiently. "You asked me to get his home phone, remember? He's living in Ontario on the Lake." She handed him a slip of paper with the number on it.

"All right," said Kurtz. "Can I use your kitchen phone?"