could bring you down if you weren't careful.
I mean, what a coincidence that I wound up on this team. The ATTF is not huge, but it's big enough so that this arrangement looked just a little suspicious. Clue Number Two was that Schmuck and Putz requested me on this team for my homicide expertise. I was meaning to ask Dom Fanelli how he'd heard about this Special Contract Agent thing. I'd trust Dom with my life and I have, so he was okay on this, and I had to assume that Nick Monti was clean. Cops don't screw other cops, not even for the Federal government-especially not for the Federal government.
I looked at Kate Mayfield. It would really break my cold, hard heart if she was hooked up with Foster and Nash to do me.
She smiled at me.
I smiled back. If I was Foster or Nash and I was fishing for John Corey, I would use Kate Mayfield as bait.
Nick Monti said to me, 'This stuff takes some getting used to. And you know, about half the cops and ex-cops who sign on here leave. It's like we're all one big happy family, but the cops are like the kids who didn't go to college, live at home, do odd jobs, and always want to borrow the car.'
Kate said, 'That's not true, Nick.'
Monti laughed. 'Yeah, right.' He looked at me and said, 'We can talk about it over some brews.'
I said to all assembled, 'I'll keep an open mind,' which means, Fuck you. But you don't want to say that because you want them to keep dangling the bait. It's kind of interesting. Another reason for my bad manners was that I was missing the NYPD-The Job, as we called it-and I guess I was feeling a little sorry for myself and a little nostalgic for the old days.
I looked at Nick Monti and caught his eye. I didn't know him from The Job, but I knew he had been a detective in the Intelligence Unit, which was perfect for this kind of work. They supposedly needed me for this Palestinian homicide case and I guess other terrorist-related homicide cases, which was why I was given a contract. Actually, I think they have a contract out on me. I said to Nick, 'Do you know why Italians don't like Jehovah's Witnesses?'
'No… why?'
'Italians don't like any witnesses.'
This got a big laugh out of Nick, but the other three looked like I'd just had a brain fart. The Feds, you have to understand, are so very politically correct and anal retentive, so very fucking frightened of the Washington Thought Police. They're totally cowed by the stupid directives that come out of Washington like a steady stream of diarrhea. I mean, we've all gotten a little more sensitive and aware of our words over the years, and that's good, but the Federal types are positively paranoid about offending anybody or any group, so you get stuff like, 'Hello, Mr. Terrorist, my name is George Foster, and I'll be your arresting officer today.'
Anyway, Nick Monti said to me, 'Three demerits, Detective Corey. Ethnic slur.'
Clearly Nash, Foster, and Mayfield were somewhere between annoyed and embarrassed that they were indirectly being made fun of. It occurred to me, in a sensitive moment, that the Feds had their own issues with the NYPD, but you'd never hear a word of it from them.
Regarding Nick Monti, he was about mid-fifties, married with kids, balding, a bit of a paunch, and sort of fatherly and innocuous-looking, the kind of guy who looked like anything but an Intell man. He must have been good or the Feds wouldn't have stolen him from his NYPD job.
I perused the dossier on Mr. Asad Khalil. It appeared that the Arab gentleman moved around Western Europe a lot, and wherever he had been, some American or British person or thing had met with a misadventure-a bomb in the British Embassy in Rome, bomb in the American Cathedral in Paris, bomb in the American Lutheran Church in Frankfurt, the ax murder of an American Air Force officer outside of Lakenheath Airbase in England, and the shooting dead in Brussels of three American schoolkids whose fathers were NATO officers. This last thing struck me as particularly nasty, and I wondered what this guy's problem was.
In any case, none of the aforementioned stuff could be directly linked to this Khalil guy, so he had been put under the eye to see who he associated with, or to see if he could be caught in the act. But the alleged asshole seemed to have no known accomplices, no ties to or affiliations with anybody or anything, and no known terrorist connections, except Kiwanis and Rotary. Just kidding.
I scanned a paragraph in the dossier, written by a code-named agent in an unnamed intelligence agency. The paragraph said, 'Asad Khalil enters a country openly and legally, using his Libyan passport and posing as a tourist. The authorities are alerted, and he is watched to see who he makes contact with. Invariably, he manages to disappear and apparently leave the country undetected, as there is never any record of his departure. I highly recommend detention and interrogation the next time he arrives at a point of entry.'
I nodded. Good idea, Sherlock. That's exactly what we were going to do.
The thing that bothered me about this was that Asad Khalil didn't sound like the kind of perp who would show up at the American Embassy in Paris and give himself up when he was way ahead on points.
I read the last page of the dossier. Basically what we had here was a loner with a bad attitude toward Western Civilization, such as it is. Well, okay, we'll see what the guy is up to real soon.
I studied the color photostat from Paris. Mr. Khalil looked mean, but not ugly mean. He was the swarthily handsome type, hooked nose, slicked-back hair, and deep, dark eyes. He'd had his share of girls or boys or whatever floated his boat.
My colleagues chatted about the case at hand for a moment, and it seemed like all we were supposed to do today was take Mr. Khalil into protective custody and bring him here for a quick preliminary interrogation, a few photos, fingerprints, and all that. An asylum officer from the Immigration and Naturalization Service would do some questioning and paperwork, too. There are a lot of redundancies built into the Federal system so that if something goes wrong, there are no fewer than five hundred people passing the buck around.
After an hour or two here, we'd escort him to Federal Plaza, where, I suppose, he would be met by the appropriate people, who, along with my team, would determine the sincerity of his defection to Christendom and so forth. At some point, a day, a week, or months from now, Mr. Khalil would wind up in some CIA place outside of Washington where he'd spill his guts for a year and then get some bucks and a new identity, which, knowing the CIA, would make the poor guy look like Pat Boone. Anyway, I said to my colleagues, 'Who has blond hair, blue eyes, big tits, and lives in the South of France?'
No one seemed to know, so I told them, 'Salman Rushdie.'
Nick got a good laugh out of that and slapped his knee. 'Two more demerits.'
The other two guys smiled tightly. Kate rolled her eyes. Yeah, I was being a little over the top, but I didn't ask for this gig. Anyway, I only had one more bad joke and two more obnoxious comments left.
Kate Mayfield said, 'As you may have read in our assignment memo from Zach Weber, Asad Khalil is being escorted by Phil Hundry of the FBI, and Peter Gorman of the CIA. They took charge of Khalil in Paris, and they are flying Business Class in the dome section of the 747. Mr. Khalil may or may not be a government witness and until that's established, he's in handcuffs.'
I inquired, 'Who gets the frequent flyer miles?' Ms. Mayfield ignored me and continued, 'The two agents and Mr. Khalil will deplane first, and we will be in the jetway, at the door of the aircraft, to meet them.' She glanced at her watch, then stood and looked at the TV monitor and said, 'Still inbound, still on time. In about ten minutes we should get moving toward the gate.'
Ted Nash said, 'We certainly don't expect any trouble, but we should be alert. If anyone wanted to kill this guy, they have only a few opportunities-in the jetway, on the way back here in the van, or in transit to Manhattan. After that, Khalil disappears into the bowels of the system, and no one will see or hear from him again.'
Nick said, 'I've arranged for some Port Authority police officers and NYPD uniformed guys on the tarmac near the van, and we have a police escort to Fed Plaza.' He added, 'So if anyone tries to whack this guy, it'll be a kamikaze mission.'
'Which,' said Mr. Foster, 'is not out of the question.'
Kate said, 'We slapped a bulletproof vest on him in Paris. We've taken every precaution. Shouldn't be a problem.'
Shouldn't be. Not right here on American soil. In fact, I couldn't recall either the Feds or the NYPD ever losing a prisoner or a witness in transit, so it looked like a walk in the park. Yet, all my kidding aside, you had to handle each one of these routine assignments as though it could blow up in your face. I mean, we're talking terrorists, people with a cause, who have shown they don't give a rat's ass about getting a day older.
