“I ain’t got shit for you. He wouldn’t talk, and none of them other dudes would either. I can’t wait to tell Mao they wouldn’t even open the door for a black man.” His eyes drooped in defeat. “Sorry, I can’t help.”
Zehra took a deep breath. “We’ll keep working …”
BJ raised his eyes slowly to meet Zehra’s. She loved those warm looks. “I got more bad news,” he paused. “The DNA? I just heard the results from the testing of the saliva and blood on the mask. It matches our boy exactly.”
Seven
At the seven o’clock Monday morning meeting in the FBI office high in the Federal Building, Paul refused the pastries everyone else ate. The open boxes circled the conference table twice while people sheepishly took seconds. Paul watched them stretch their mouths open to cram in dripping purple Bismarcks. People ate in silence.
“Hey, Jimmy,” one of the agents called across the table. “Don’t forget that Wellness meeting this afternoon for weight control. If you go through it, you get a reduction in your co-pays in the health plan.”
Paul was anxious for his boss to speak.
After allowing for a round of tea-colored tepid government coffee, Paul’s boss, Bill Conway, cleared his throat. He had been the senior agent in charge of the Twin Cities for six years. “Folks, listen-up,” he started. “We’ve got a lot to cover. Sorry about the coffee. With the budget cuts, we had to stop the Starbucks.” He brushed crumbs off his yellow necktie and tried to smooth it over the protruding belly below.
Several of them pushed back from the table and crossed their legs to listen.
“I got off the phone with the director in Washington this morning.” Conway paused for the effect. “He called at five o’clock, his time. That’s damn early here. Now, I don’t like to get these calls ‘cause they usually mean the director’s unhappy.” His gaze bounced from one face to another. In spite of the sugar surge, most of them looked half awake.
“The director’s been getting calls from lots of big-shot politicos, including our own esteemed senators. They’re worried. And you all know how things work in government when the shit rolls downhill-in the end, we gotta shovel.”
Mavis Drews, the oldest female agent in Minneapolis, sat up. “I thought we got pleas out of three of these recruiters, Bill. What more do they want?”
Conway moved back to his edge of the table. He looked at his administrative assistant who scrambled through a pile of files. She pushed one toward him.
“Here … here we go. Yeah, we got convictions on these three.” He raised the files in the air to demonstrate. “What they’re saying, confirms our theory. These guys were recruiting for the freedom fighters in Somalia-the Shabaab, which we know has links to Al-Qaeda.” Conway had thick hair combed over his head, gray-green eyes, and a jowly face. It lent a level of seriousness to his statement.
“But they didn’t plead to that, did they, Bill?” Joe Fancher asked.
“We got one for lying to us during the investigation. But the other two pled to providing material support for terrorists. They admitted going to Yemen, then back to Somalia to handle the new recruits from the Twin Cities and then, turned them into terrorists there. They call ’em ‘born agains.’ Got eight years on this last defendant. Trouble is they’re not talking about anything else.” When he threw the files on the table, doughnut crumbs scattered. “That’s a problem. I admit we got a few loose ends.”
Drews said, “So, what does the Director want? We broke the case, arrested the suspects, and got convictions.” She looked around the long table and pumped her fist into the air tentatively. “What the hell else do those idiot politicians want?”
“No, no … he’s happy about that. Congratulated us. No, the calls are coming from Congress people and agencies about what happens now.”
Drews pressed on, “What happens?” she snorted. “What happens is we busted ’em!”
“I know, Mavis. But let’s go down the road a little ways. If these slugs were recruiting for terrorist fighters in Somalia, how much does it take for them to turn these kids loose in the U.S?” Conway had a hoarse, smoker’s voice that gave him a very Karl Malden tone. “And what about the Al-Qaeda ties. Is this a way for them to attack us?”
No one spoke for a long moment. Finally, Mavis said, “Yeah… guess you’re right. It’s the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room.”
Conway was used to spending more time behind a desk and reading histories of the Second World War, than running the streets and chasing bad guys. He looked forward to his opportunity to retire at full pension in two years.
“One of these kids who disappeared blew himself up with a bomb in Somalia,” Conway let his words hang in the air above the table. “But I got more headaches than that,” he moaned. “None of you have to deal with all the agency calls I get.”
Paul had mixed feelings toward the agent in charge. Although Conway had reluctantly taken Paul into the Minneapolis office after the mess Paul made in Milwaukee, Conway had come to like him. The phone call from the teacher a few years ago worked as well as Paul hoped it would. It had opened the case of the Somali recruiters and given Paul a chance to be assigned to the investigation, which he helped solve.
But Paul knew Conway, near the end of his career, lacked the energy to fight anymore. He seemed out of touch, telling stories of his past that weren’t exactly true. He spoke “fight,” but he really meant “don’t rock the boat.” Paul suspected they had only uncovered the tip of an iceberg. From the outside, the FBI looked in control of everything. From the inside, Paul knew they scrambled, dependent on the Somali informants to help them and telephone intercepts.
He warned Conway of his concerns, but the old guy didn’t have the energy to probe deeper.
“So, I’m getting calls from everyone even remotely tied to Homeland Security. You wouldn’t believe it. I’ve never heard of half these agencies! No wonder the government’s running in the red. Who’s paying for all these people?” He leaned back with a deep laugh.
“What’s going on?” Paul asked.
Conway looked down at his assistant again. She paged through more papers, giving him one with a long hand-written list on it. He shifted his bulk from one leg to the other. “Okay, here goes.” He glanced up over the tops of his glasses. “You ain’t gonna believe this.” Looked down again and read. “Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Coast Guard, Federal Protection Services, the Army Medical Research Institute, TRIPwire, Customs and Border Protection, Cyber Protection … and the frickin’ list goes on. I got a congresswoman in Mississippi asking me if we got a fence on the northern border with Canada!”
Laughter lapped around the table like waves on a lake shore.
“She probably doesn’t even know where Canada is,” Fancher said.
“And you all know how the agents at Immigration Customs and Enforcement have screwed us in the past,” Conway shouted. “Early on in the case, we both had informants covering the same suspect. I argued with them to butt out, that their interference could blow the suspect. They made a premature takedown that almost blew this whole case.” He looked up at the ceiling.
“Turf wars,” said Fancher. “They want the brass ring as much as we do.”
“ICE thinks they’ve got the resources, but they don’t,” Conway said. He glared at the group. “I’m sure as hell not gonna be the one to tell the Director he’s lost the case to some dumb-ass border agents. You know what he’ll do to me? So, no leaks to them, period.” He thumped the table with a thick fist.
Mavis said, “What do you want to do, Bill?”
He screwed-up his face. Sighed. “Dammit, I wish I could smoke in here. Well, for now, the plan is to hold steady. We’re making progress, and the calls from Washington are finally slowing down.”
“Yeah, yeah, I think that’s right,” said Fancher. He reached a hand out for another pastry, lifted it, and at the last moment, tore it in half.
“We’ve got the ringleaders in jail. The billions of dollars spent on computers at Homeland Security are monitoring cell calls and emails, looking for keywords. Any alerts come to me directly.”
