Division and Bauer was LAPD SWAT. The two men shook hands. Driscoll was shorter than Jack, but nearly twice as wide, a black fireplug with a cheesy mustache. He clasped Harry’s outstretched hand.
“You been good?” Driscoll said, standing up.
“Not bad.”
“How’s the dark side treating you?” the detective asked as he reached for a jacket that covered his shoulder rig.
Jack shrugged. There was no point in hiding his CIA status from those who knew of it, but he still couldn’t discuss much. “I’m still hoping to get promoted to Robbery-Homicide someday. How’d you know I was on this case?”
Driscoll laughed. “You were in a house that blew up, Jack. That doesn’t happen every day, even in L.A. Word gets around, you know?”
“Aaron? You okay in there?” Don banged on the door. “You’ve been in there awhile.” He waited. He pounded again when no answer came back. “Aaron?”
“Is something wrong?” Carianne, his wife, asked, coming up behind him.
“Aaron!” Don yelled. “Answer me! I’m going to break down the door.” That was the cop in him, and the father, talking at once.
His wife pointed upward. Resting atop the door frame was a little key, just a loop of wire with a straight tail. He nodded and pulled it down, then jiggled it into the bathroom doorknob. It popped open, and he shoved the door inward.
Carianne screamed. Don thought he screamed, too, but he was only aware of himself rushing forward, slamming his knees against the side of the bathtub and plunging his hands into the pink water and dragging Aaron out onto the floor.
“It’s a screwed-up case, really,” Driscoll said. Jack hunkered down in the passenger seat of Driscoll’s Acura as the detective drove up the 110 Freeway and hurtled toward the 101. “Carney’s okay with you?”
“Fine,” Jack said. “Go on.”
“The case really started with LAPD. We got a whiff that these guys had something to do with illegal importing, so we were watching them. Then along comes this Federal group. Counter Terrorist Unit? Who the fuck are they?”
Jack laughed. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe not to you, but they stole our case away. They were kind enough to keep us updated—”
“I’ve heard that before,” Jack interjected.
“We were there when CTU collared them. You saw the box, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Looked to me like some of that stuff was missing.”
“I thought so, too. They’re working on the three suspects.”
Driscoll nodded as he exited the 101 and dropped down to Sunset, heading for Carney’s hot dogs. “I hear they’re acting tough now. They’ll break down.”
“I’ll be honest, Harry, I don’t have the time. I had an informant who gave me the idea that something’s happening tomorrow night.”
Driscoll’s mental wheels spun. “Informant… the guy who blew up?”
“Yes. I need leads. Did you guys have anything else?”
“We came in behind CTU and dusted for prints. There was lots of them and not much else. They had a cleaning lady, but she’s fifty-eight and from El Salvador. The other was the mailman. We had his prints on file. He was arrested in Pakistan for some violent protests against the prime minister. Came here a few years ago, but hasn’t caused a problem since. He’s a person of interest, but we don’t consider him a suspect at this time…’course, technically none of them are our suspects.”
“None of them are my suspects, either. Mind if I question him anyway?”
“Right after a chili dog.”
Yasin sat in the lobby of the Windows Hotel in Playa del Rey. He rubbed a hand along his smooth jawline. It felt wrong to be clean-shaven. A true Muslim wore a beard, of course. But this couldn’t be helped. He was known now in this country. It had been a risk just to return.
The man he’d been waiting for entered the front doors. Clean-shaven, including a shaven scalp, dressed in jeans, blue T-shirt, and court shoes, he looked like any one of the thousands of fit, middle-aged, multicultural Angelenos that formed the image of the city. As the other man approached, Yasin smiled to himself, satisfied in the knowledge that it was America’s pluralism that would help defeat it. The United States had too many open doors, too many faces, too many acceptable modes of behavior, to keep them out. They could blend in so easily. Because Allah was great, Yasin probably could have stood in the middle of the lobby dressed as a Bedouin and no one would have given it a thought. The Americans were so arrogant, so ignorant, that they were not even aware of the masses who hated them halfway around the world.
The bald, fit man arrived at his seat. He said to Yasin, “Good to see you, Gabriel,” using Yasin’s code name.
“And you, Michael,” he replied tersely. “You seem unhappy, Michael. Is something wrong.”
A look of disdain crawled across Michael’s face. “We’re in this together, but I don’t have to pretend to like you.”
“It will be over soon. Tomorrow. Let’s talk about the C–4. I assume that what the authorities found was the extra?” Yasin asked.
Michael nodded. “And the ones in custody don’t know anything. That, plus the fact that the police are inept, means we’re both safe.”
Yasin was not comfortable with this. “Don’t underestimate them.”
Michael laughed. “The FBI let you walk out their front door.”
“They were idiots then,” Yasin agreed. “The events of 1993 took them by surprise. That was the idea, of course. But we can’t let success cloud our judgment. Look how quickly they recovered. My blind friend is in jail. So are several of the others. I was caught, and it was only the will of”—he almost said Allah aloud—“it was only good luck that I was set free. If we make mistakes, they will take advantage of them.” Yasin sat back for a minute, rubbing his bare chin again. Michael sensed a lecture. “My blind friend’s mistake,” Yasin began, “was that he put all his trust in hiding his trail. The trail cannot be entirely hidden. You cannot hide water from a Bedouin. They will find a trail. We should have left false leads. The word for it is subterfuge. You Americans call it a red herring, though I don’t know where the expression comes from.”
Michael raised an eyebrow. “You seem to have more than one.”
Yasin grinned. “I have been lately interested in the number three.”
The sirens had stopped, but Carianne was still wailing. The paramedics had shoved Don out of the room as they tried desperately to resuscitate their son. Don and Carianne had clutched at each other for a few minutes. Don, horrified, in shock, could only wonder morbidly how the bathroom had looked so clean. All the blood had spilled into the big tub of water, clouding it pink.
Mandi had come from next door, responding to the commotion, and wrapped herself around Carianne’s grief. Don had peeled himself away. It was the man in him, or the cop, he wasn’t sure which, but he felt the need to act. And he had a horrible feeling that Aaron had been trying to tell him something earlier.
Don walked away from the urgent calls and commands passing back and forth between the paramedics, and away from the ululations of his wife and neighbor. He went into Aaron’s room. There was a journal on Aaron’s desk. Don Biehn the police officer picked up the journal and began to read.
A few pages later, it was Don Biehn the father who knew that he was going to kill someone.
4. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 9 P.M. AND 10 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD
