do believe you’re different from the others. Don’t prove me wrong. I don’t want to think about what will happen to you if I find out you’ve been playing me for a fool.”
Ali licked his lips. He looked down. “There is one thing,” he said, the shame of betrayal evident in his voice. “Steve picked us up from the freighter in a station wagon. He drove us to the safe house. I saw the license plate number of his car when he drove off.”
“Do you remember the number?” Alan asked as if it was of no importance.
Ali repeated the number from memory. Alan wrote it down.
Half an hour later, Alan stood up.
“We’ve been talking for a while, and you must be tired. We’ll wrap this up. You’ll be returned to your cell while we check on the information you gave us. If it checks out, you’ll be transferred to much better accommodations.”
The moment he was alone, Alan pulled out his cell phone and dialed Harold Johnson.
“We may have caught a break, Harold. Ali Bashar has a knack for remembering numbers, and he memorized the license plate of a Volvo station wagon that was driven by the American who called himself Steve.”
“I’ll get someone on this right away,” Johnson said as soon as he wrote down the number.
Alan hung up. He was exhausted, but he allowed himself a tired smile. He was an expert on breaking men, and he had succeeded once again without spilling a drop of blood. The story about 9/11 and the screams Ali had heard were psychological ploys to unnerve his subjects. The screams had been duped from horror movies, and Alan’s wife and children lived in a pleasant suburb in Maryland. He wished he could be with them, but he would be bunking here tonight. In the morning, Ali would be given a polygraph examination. If he passed, Alan would milk him for more information, although he suspected that Ali had told him everything of importance.
Alan stretched. There was a room on another floor in the facility with a comfortable bed. He’d get a bite to eat before sacking out. Tomorrow he would work on the last member of the cell.
A lan was in a deep sleep when the light in his room went on and a guard told him to wake up. It took him a second to get oriented. His mouth felt gummy and everything was out of focus. He sat up and put on his glasses.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Bashar killed himself. You better come with me.”
Alan put on his pants, shirt, and shoes and took the elevator to the basement where the cells were. Another guard was posted in front of the open door to Ali’s cell. He stepped aside to let Alan in. The scene that confronted him was straight out of a slasher film. Ali was sprawled in a pool of blood, and spatter patterns resembling a Jackson Pollock painting decorated the walls and floor of the cell. There was even blood on the ceiling.
Mark Dobson, one of the doctors at the facility, was kneeling beside the body.
“The radial artery?” Alan asked. The artery was at the base of the thumb. He’d seen something like this once before.
Dobson nodded. “He chewed through both of them.”
Dobson pointed at the spatter pattern on the walls, floor, and ceiling. “He probably got light-headed from blood loss toward the end and staggered around waving his arms. It’s a shitty way to go. I figure it probably took him fifteen to twenty minutes to bleed out.”
They talked a little longer. Then Alan went upstairs to phone Harold Johnson with the news. He wasn’t going to lose any sleep over Ali’s suicide. Bashar was a terrorist and deserved to die.
Chapter Thirty-three
I mran Afridi knocked on the door of the motel room, and Mustapha Haddad opened it. Mustapha was not someone you would notice in a crowd. He was slim, of average height, and neither handsome nor ugly. Mustapha blended in and had a nonthreatening demeanor. A dangerous person would always feel that he had the advantage in a confrontation with Afridi’s enforcer. That person would be wrong. Mustapha killed without conscience and was deadly with a knife at close quarters. He was also a skilled sniper who had learned his trade in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Afridi didn’t recognize the two other men in the motel room. They were over six feet tall and thickly muscled, with the scowl worn by bouncers who guard nightclub doors. The men stood up when Mustapha ushered his boss into the room.
“You know what happened?” Afridi asked.
Mustapha nodded. “Rafik told me. The detonators malfunctioned.”
“This was not an accident. Either the man who sold the detonators to Reynolds was FBI or he was co-opted by the FBI. In either case, the FBI knew about our plan in advance. Someone betrayed us.”
“Do you know who?” Mustapha asked.
“No, but there are four people who could have. Ali Bashar was the only member of the cell who worked with the bombs.”
“I can’t see him as a spy for the Americans, Imran. I know his background. He was recruited from a remote village and was sent directly to the camp. If he had contact with the CIA, someone in his village would have noticed. After the camp, Bashar was sent to the safe house in Karachi. After that, he was on the freighter, and from there he went straight to the safe house in Maryland.”
“Someone could have gotten to him at FedEx Field while he was working,” Afridi said.
“But how would they know he was a member of our cell? If he was turned, it was because the traitor identified him.”
“An excellent point. In any event, he’s in custody and we have no way of getting to him.”
“Who else do you suspect?”
“Jessica Koshani knew that FedEx Field was our target.”
“Did she know any other important details, like the date of the operation or the identity of the person who sold Reynolds the explosives?”
“No, but her death is suspicious.”
“Wasn’t Koshani murdered by that escaped serial killer?” Mustapha asked.
“That might be what the CIA wants us to think. Koshani was in Washington to testify before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. She was staying at a house owned by Senator Carson. Koshani was blackmailing the senator to find out what the Americans knew about our plan. She phoned me on the afternoon of the day she was killed. The senator had just left after telling her that the FBI still had no idea where the attack was going to take place or when it would occur.
“It’s possible that Carson went to the CIA or FBI and confessed that Koshani was blackmailing him. After Carson left, agents could have tortured her for details of the plot and faked Clarence Little’s MO.”
“Even if she was tortured by the CIA, she couldn’t have told them enough information to get them to the person who supplied the detonators,” Mustapha pointed out.
“Someone else may have done that, and Senator Carson might know who it is.”
“It will be difficult to get to a United States senator,” Mustapha said.
“Are you telling me you can’t do it?” Afridi challenged.
“I’m saying it will be difficult, but I will find a way if it becomes necessary. Who is your last possibility?”
“Steve Reynolds. It has always seemed convenient that he was in that alley when the imam’s student was attacked. He could have been in deep cover and the attack could have been a setup to get him in contact with the imam. Also, Reynolds found the man who sold the dynamite and detonators.”
“I can question him,” Mustapha suggested.
“Question him, then kill him.”
“What if he isn’t the traitor?” Mustapha asked.
“Kill him anyway. Reynolds has outlived his usefulness.”
T he house where Reynolds was staying was a forty-five-minute ride from the motel. They were several blocks from the rental when Mustapha told the driver to slow down so he could scout the surrounding area. As they drew closer, Mustapha tensed.
