Pursuit of Honor

CHAPTER 71

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA

RAPP sat across the table from Hakim al Harbi and tried to make sense of it all. He’d seen a lot of strange stuff in the nearly two decades that he had been doing this, but this was a first. They’d flipped guys before, but always after exercising either pressure or incentive. They all broke eventually, but most of these militant types had to be threatened to within an inch of their lives before they would give any good information. There were others, not the front-line troops, but the support people, who helped purchase weapons and other supplies. The moneymen and the deal makers who traveled around the Middle East raising capital and recruiting new bodies for the cause, they could be turned with nothing more than the hint of violence on one hand and the possibility of hard cash on the other if they cooperated. That in itself told him that maybe this Hakim fellow was nothing more than a logistics guy, but then again he had freely admitted to killing American and coalition soldiers in Afghanistan.

On the flight up they’d pulled him out of the bag and given him a drug to counteract the tranquilizer. He woke up groggy, but in obvious pain and discomfort. After a brief inspection they found out that in addition to a bruised and battered face, he had at least two broken ribs and one lung on the verge of collapsing. Wicker was a trained medic. He pulled Rapp aside and told him to be careful. If the other lung collapsed the man could die. Rapp didn’t care so much if the man died, he just wanted to get the information out of him first. Until he was in better condition they would have to hold off on the rough stuff.

To Rapp’s surprise, though, al Harbi spoke openly and without any preconditions. Rapp handled the questions while Coleman observed and recorded everything that was said. By the time they landed back at Dulles, Rapp was convinced that al Harbi was either telling the truth or the greatest liar he had ever met in his life. On the advice of Wicker they pulled the jet into the hangar and closed the doors. Stuffing him back into the bag was not a good idea. When they arrived at the Quarry, Dr. Lewis was waiting for them. He gave al Harbi a sedative to help with the pain and started him on some heavy-duty antibiotics. After that was out of the way, Lewis hooked him up to a lie detector and led him through a series of questions to establish a baseline. Rapp stayed in the room and looked for any signs that al Harbi was trying to fool the machines. He didn’t notice any, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t.

Unbeknownst to Rapp, Coleman had gone into Max Johnson’s cell and asked him about his contacts in the telecommunications industry. Johnson began babbling through a list of companies and his contacts at each place. Coleman asked him, if he gave him a phone number, would he be able to tell him where the phone was located when it made a call. Johnson explained that he could tell him what tower it used to connect to the network, but that was it. Then he babbled on about some surveillance equipment he’d developed that could pinpoint the whereabouts of a phone down to the nearest foot. Coleman explained that for now he only wanted to verify the location of the one phone call. He went on to tell Johnson that his cooperation would go a long way toward convincing Rapp that he could be trusted. Johnson eagerly leaped at the chance. He told Coleman all he needed was a computer with internet access, and he’d have the info for him in less than five minutes.

True to his word, he had everything verified in only three minutes. Coleman asked him if he had a back door into customs and Johnson said yes. He had him check if al Harbi had in fact traveled under the alias of Michael Andros through New Orleans and Miami on his way to Nassau earlier in the day. He verified that information as well. Coleman told Reavers to keep an eye on Johnson while he went and talked to Mitch.

Rapp was in the middle of interrogating al Harbi with Dr. Lewis when Coleman knocked on the door and asked Rapp to step outside.

Rapp closed the door behind him and asked, “What’s up?”

“I thought you’d want to see this. That phone number . . . the one that he says belongs to Karim. I had it checked out.”

“Is Marcus back?” Rapp asked hopefully.

“No, I had Johnson do it.”

Rapp showed his surprise. “You gave him access to a computer?”

“Relax . . . I watched him.”

“Can I trust the prick?”

“He wants to live, so I think we can.” Coleman handed over the map he’d printed. “Two things. The first . . . that phone pinged this tower right here south of Branson, Missouri, and it matches the time stamp on the voicemail that was left on Hakim’s phone.”

“So at a bare minimum he wasn’t lying about where they were.”

“Correct. I also had Johnson check the ICE database. Michael Andros left New Orleans at six this morning and connected through Miami on his way to Nassau. He was traveling alone and his ticket was purchased online.”

“What about the other message?”

“What other message?” Coleman asked.

“Karim left two messages.”

“I only heard one.”

“Check the phone. There’s another one. It starts out very similar to the first. He calls him a coward . . . all that bullshit. See if Johnson can find out what tower he used when he left the second one.”

“And what do you wanna do with the FBI?”

It was the million-dollar question and the eight-hundred-pound gorilla all rolled into one. Rapp grabbed the back of his neck and squeezed while he tried to sort it out. “This isn’t going to be easy. We give them the phone numbers and they’re going to want to know where we got them.”

“There are two dead bodies in northern Arkansas, and from everything he’s been telling us,” Coleman pointed toward the cell door, “this Karim whack job probably isn’t done killing people. We have to share this information. The feds are all still up in Iowa trying to piece things together and these guys are hundreds of miles away killing grandparents and God only knows who else.”

“I know. I’ve already talked to Irene and she’s trying to figure out a way to source it.”

Coleman stepped back and shook his head.

“Scott, I don’t like it any more than you do, but come on . . . you got any better ideas? I mean we’re not exactly sitting on it. We just found most of this shit out ourselves.”

“And if we gave the feds these phone numbers they’d have them pinged in ten minutes.”

“Bullshit . . . they’d bring in the lawyers, ask for a fucking warrant, and fill out ten forms in fucking triplicate, and then and only then would they ask the phone companies for their records.”

“I don’t know.” Coleman shook his head.

“Listen . . . Irene’s on her way to the White House right now. She’ll figure it out. In the meantime, ask our new friend Max Johnson if he would please hack back into the phone company database and find out where Karim was when he left that second message. And see if there’s any other activity on the phone.”

Coleman nodded and headed back down the hallway. Rapp collected his thoughts and went back into the cell. Lewis and Hakim were talking. Rapp stood behind his chair and placed his hands on the back. They were discussing Karim’s temper. Rapp was only half listening to what Hakim was saying. At the moment he was more concerned with how they were going to bring this sordid mess out of the dark covert world and into the transparent world of law enforcement. He didn’t doubt for a minute that it had to be done. It was just a question of how. Rapp was trying to figure that out when Hakim said something that caught his attention.

“What did you just say?” Rapp asked Hakim.

“He was very proud of his men. The six that were killed in the attack on your terrorism facility.”

“No . . . just before that. You said something else.”

“He was upset with me for doubting his bravery. He was very upset with your president for calling his men cowards. He said we were going to go to Washington and show the world that your president is a liar. Show-”

“Washington?” Rapp asked. “Are you sure he said Washington?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure I believe him. I mean . . . he might send Ahmed. That was part of his original plan. To turn Ahmed loose in downtown Washington and let him kill as many people as he could before you managed to stop him.”

“Ahmed is a trained sniper?”

“Yes. And he’s very good. I saw him work in Afghanistan.”

“But he said you were all going to Washington?”

“Yes. To martyr ourselves.” Hakim shook his head. “But I do not think Karim will do it. He is too vain.”

There was a knock on the door and then it was yanked open. This time Coleman didn’t wait for Rapp to come out. “The second message was left at twelve-oh-four this afternoon. It pinged a tower just off Sixty-six and Jackson Lee.”

“Shit.” Rapp started pacing. His hand was forced. They had to bust this thing wide open. He grabbed his BlackBerry from his pocket and was about to call Kennedy when he saw Nash’s name pop up on the caller ID. Rapp thought he might be with Kennedy so he answered the call. He listened for a few seconds and then said, “Mike, slow down. Are you sure?” Rapp listened for another few beats and as he listened to Nash explain himself he felt his stomach begin to twist into knots. “We’ll be right there. Don’t do anything crazy . . . just wait for us to get there.”